How bad IS Mal?
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Friday, July 2, 2010 14:37
VIEWED: 6160
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So here's a hypothetical situation/ethical dilemma.
Mal is walking through some dusty town somewhere. He's looking for Kaylee and Inara, who went for a stroll a few hours ago and haven't come back yet.
He comes across a group of slavers, and the captured slaves, kept in chains. Mal, being awesome, happens to overcome the odds and knock out all the guards in a fight.
He starts putting the guards in the convenient slave chains so he can go look for Kaylee and Inara, and so the slavers won't chase after him. The ones that are still conscious start talking to him, pleading actually.
It turns out that this is a very big ring, with scary bosses elsewhere, and all the slavers here are small fry. What's more, many of the guards are former slaves themselves, kept in line with threats against their families and an overseer, a real nasty piece of work. The guards are unarmed, most of them are unconscious, and the ones that aren't have basically surrendered.
The slavers may or may not have information about Inara and Kaylee, but mostly they're just an obstacle for him at this point.
Does Mal:
A) Force himself to calm his worries about Inara and Kaylee (and righteous anger towards slavers) down long enough to coach the guards on some lies (EDIT: or strategies) they can use to save their families
B) Shoot the overseer, and leave the slightly more innocent guards to sort out the problem with the big bosses and the threats against their families themselves
C) Shoot all the guards in the face, so they can't be identified and their threatened families will be spared
D) Not care at all, he's too concerned about Kaylee and Inara for any niceties.
Some of you may have seen a similar version I was asking in e-mail, I was getting such interesting answers that I decided to expand the discussion to the community at large.
Answer A,B,C or D, please, but if you come up with another option, I'd love to hear it, and might even add it on here.
EDIT: I assume he frees the slaves. I suppose he might not, but the choice about what to do with the guards seems to have a wider range of options and therefore is the most interesting for discussion.
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B) Shoot the overseer
If he found Inara and Kaylee with some time to spare, he might come back and give them some form of help, either coaching them in what to say, or doing something nuts like going after the whole slave ring. Seems like he goes after things a whole lot bigger than himself a lot.
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How he finds Inara in Kaylee, if they're okay or not would also probably have some bearing on what he does to them.
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D his crew comes first. Once he finds Inara and Kaylee then he can consider whether or not to help anyone else.
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B. Shoot the Overseer.
"Hey, we all got problems, and I just solved one of yours, so if you can't be helpin me solve one of mine, you can be on your merry..."
-F
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Quote:What Frem said. (tm)
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
B. Shoot the Overseer.
"Hey, we all got problems, and I just solved one of yours, so if you can't be helpin me solve one of mine, you can be on your merry..."
-F
The laughing Chrisisall
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Ah-
Darn. My masterful social experiment is in tatters. I suppose I should have expected as much from you and Frem, Chris.
I should explain.
After I distributed this question among a small sample size, trying to resolve a roadblock I'd encountered with some of my other projects, I noticed an interesting division in the answers I had gotten. Like any good scientist, I had to investigate further.
But, no, categorization has failed. I will not be able to control your minds. :( I suppose I will have to continue work on the Happy Cupcake Gun instead to fully explore the potentials that have been disrupted.
In the meantime, I'm still very interested to see what everyone thinks! It's a fun ethical dilemma, with one of my (our?) favourite characters.
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Side note: I have had CAFFEINE!
It is delicious.
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Quote:Frem & I are Independents, M'lady.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I will not be able to control your minds.
No MKULTRA here.
The laughing Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ah-
Darn. My masterful social experiment is in tatters. I suppose I should have expected as much from you and Frem, Chris.
Indeed - there's things you should keep far, far away from social and behavioral experiments.
Children, cats, faeries, anarchists...
It's like dropping a chunk of lithium into your hydrogen dioxide.
-MadScienceFrem
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