Tuvix

This was essentially an IMDb forum post reply, but I decided to put that up here first, becuse I thought my ideas are just so compelling :gt; to let them go away, as forum posts sometimes do on IMDb...

Janeway had to choose between not keeping Tuvix alive and not having Tuvok and Neelix around. Essentially her obligation was to her crewmembers Tuvok and Neelix, who she felt she had to save. — Especially Tuvok, who was the only one who Janeway could talk to, because no-one else would listen unless absolutely necessary :>

Chances are that if the writers and producers were willing to have Tuvix alongside Tuvok and Neelix, then it would have been quite a bit more intersting a tv show than what dreck Voyager ended up being. I am not sure how it would have fared budget-wise, but perhaps Tuvix could have been made a regular...

My mind went into overdrive around here:

Neelix would be completely sidelined in his cooking duties much to his chagrin (loss of any culinary status and interaction with crew in the kitchen), and then to add insult to injury, Tuvix could have knocked up Kes in very quick order :9 (I wouldn't have minded that after "Warlord", which was Jennifer Lien's best episode). All that would have given Neelix two very good reasons to be extremely jealous, jealous, jealous!!1 :>

But if Tuvix were kept, then I would have done away with Harry Kim (I'd say he should have been assimilated into Species 8472) and Chakotay (assimilated by the Borg). In the process, "Voyager" could have for some time been a battlefield, and its crew desperately caught between Borg and Species 8472 fighting one another, with the poor ship disparately flying to and fro Borg space and occasionally the Fluidic space.

There should have been some reason for Voyager to be the bone of contention between the two big powers. Maybe the super-important Omega molecule (or even a collection of them) freeflying 'round the ship of its (their) own volition, with neither power being able to get it, because of its rather elusive nature...

For all that time, that would have been very taxing to Janeway, who'd end up having PTSD, making multiple mistakes and judgements of error after Chakotay's assimilation — cuz she was secretly pining for him... And the Borg Queen terrorizing Janeway by privately showing the capt'n not just the first time the Borg actually reproduce themselves (by then, Chakotay would be the sperm donor 1+n times). Because of all that, Janeway would probably end up a poor crazy woman by the end of the show. (Kate Mulgrew's chance at Emmys.)

In the end, Tuvok would have become Commander and Tuvix would have gotten some or all of Tuvok's duties (suppose Tuvok was out of commission for a short while, so Tuvix would have gotten valuable battlefield experience). Once the doctor decided Janeway was no good anymore, Tuvok would be acting captain or something. Torres would be second-in-command, Seven of Nine would do engineering.

Chances are also, that Tuvok's impending mental disease issue would have withered away, given that Tuvix was half-Vulcan and 'family' enough to help with the healing. I wonder how that would have looked like... Anyways, if that wouldn't help right away (since Tuvix is only half-Vulcan and might genetically harbour the same disease, which would perhaps emerge much later than in Tuvok), Torres would get command and Tuvok would give her progressively insane advice (which against all odds ends up working).

Tom Paris would still be the flyboy, maybe even literally after accidentally getting into a transporter accident with some flying bug. (Emmys for makeup or even sfx!)

And attrition would have allowed for some new faces (and perhaps also better actors) to emerge to the fore on the ship to replace lost senior crew. Romulans, anyone?