Ethical Dilemmas, Thursday, (Per 1)

[deathsmajesty]

After one week in the Danger Shop and one off for a trip abroad, class was once again being held in the conversatory in the creepy mansion in the woods. In addition to the regular selection of beverages, there was a selection of various delicious handpies, each platter accompanied by a discreet list of ingredients, so nobody would have to worry about allergens or dietary restrictions.

"Good morning--" a stretch, considering how early it was and how much Liliana could still be sleeping, "--and welcome back to class." Anyone who expected Liliana to apologize for canceling class while she flitted off to Argentina to get engaged was in for a very long wait. "Today, we're discussing another short story, this one called The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin. It is, in fact, very short, and I highly recommend that people read it, either before the discussion, or on your own time; I've enough copies to pass out. But, as a summary, a pilot in a tiny Emergency Dispatch Ship is making his way to a planet on the frontier of space. He is carrying six vials of a serum for an outpost that is located there; the people in that outpost have all contracted a disease that is invariably fatal if one doesn't have the proper medication, and their supply of said medication had been destroyed by a tornado.

"All EDS pilots know Paragraph L, Section 8, of the Interstellar Regulations: Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery. For them to function as they do, EDS ships are designed to be small and everything onboard is carefully weighed, measured, and calculated to ensure that the pilot of the ship has exactly enough fuel to reach their destination safely; again, these are emergency pilots, they are sent out when it is literally the matter of life and death. And when they are sent out, they are almost always alone in that part of space; the nearest ship with any capacity to help is light-years away. The grim reality of Paragraph L, Section 8 is that any stowaway will vastly throw off those calculations; their weight is unexpected and unaccounted for, and the pilot must remove them from the ship as soon as possible to ensure they can continue to their destination and the people in need there.

"The pilot of this ship is aware of this rule when he gets a notification that there is someone onboard his ship. He goes to confront the stowaway, and discovers, rather than a grown man he expected, trying to escape some crime or head off to make a fortune, a young woman. Almost a girl, really. Eighteen, fresh-faced, and innocent, Marilyn heard that this ship was going to the same planet her brother is on and snuck onboard to surprise him with a visit. She is, of course, apologetic for sneaking onboard and promises to be a model prisoner, and assures him that she will pay whatever fine she accrues and will make herself useful on top of that, but that it's been years since she'd seen him, and she missed him so much--"

Liliana's voice caught in her throat briefly, and she paused to take a sip of her tea. The perils of talking so much, surely. "The problem is, Marilyn is from Earth - safe, prosperous, and abundant Earth. She doesn't know about Paragraph L, Section 8. She doesn't know that her slight form - she's only 5'3, only 110 pounds, is the difference between the medicine getting to the planet safely and saving the lives of the men in that colony, and the ship running out of fuel during the deceleration process, and crashing into the unforgiving ground, killing her, the pilot, and the men waiting for the medicine. She thought she was doing something harmless, and then she learns that it is a mistake that she will have to pay for with her life.

"The pilot isn't heartless. He tries to see if there's another ship around, radios back to have the computers calculate how long he can keep her onboard and alive with the amount of fuel he has, tries to find a way to make it work. But the numbers don't lie and the laws of the universe are not easily broken. There is not enough fuel to support another hundred and ten pounds of weight and still make the landing."

Liliana looked around the class, violet eyes dark and fathomless. "So here is your cold equation, darlings. You are the pilot. You have medicine for 6 dying men. You are the only ship in the area, there is no chance of a last minute rescue. There is a girl standing in front of you, telling you that she's very sorry, that she just wanted to see her brother, and your ship's computer is informing you that you will reach the point of no return in just a few minutes. What do you do?"

Comments

Sign In #5

[deathsmajesty]

With an OOC/AU icon

Re: Sign In #5

[suitably_heroic]

Atton Jack Rand

During the Lecture

[deathsmajesty]

Listen, read the story for yourself, eat, notice an interestingly placed bit of new jewelry, wonder why you signed up for this class, ask questions, whatever!

Re: During the Lecture

[even_bigger_teeth]

As the dilemma for the week was being presented, Luma's gaze steadily shifted from the handpies she was nibbling on toward her sister, growing increasingly more intense and pointed as more details were revealed, and Eleanor, without having to look at Luma, knew exactly why that look was currently being burned into her, and she shrunk back into where she sat, the pallor on her face making her look a little green around the edges as she braced herself for what her sister might have to say about this one.

Question #1: What Do You Do?

[deathsmajesty]

"So here is your cold equation, darlings. You are the pilot. You have medicine for 6 dying men. You are the only ship in the area, there is no chance of a last minute rescue. There is a girl standing in front of you, telling you that she's very sorry, that she just wanted to see her brother, and your ship's computer is informing you that you will reach the point of no return in just a few minutes. What do you do?"

"Before suggesting increasingly outlandish things in order to circumvent the scenario, I suggest you read the story," Liliana said in a long-suffering voice. "It would also be lovely if people remembered how I said not to do that in the first class, but..."

Do-gooders gonna do-good.

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[suitably_heroic]

"Jettison her," Jack said, leaning back in his chair. "She's dead either way. Everything else is sentimenality."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[even_bigger_teeth]

"Rules are rules," Luma said, with that lofty sort of indifference as she lifted her chin. "It seems rather foolish to have a craft whose entire mission could be thrown off so completely my a measly one hundred and ten pounds, but I'm not an engineer, I can't speak on how difficult it would be to actually work in a little bit of buffer space. But the fact is that the girl did something foolish out of her own selfish needs that put the lives of others in danger."

Her eyes shifted back to Eleanor pointedly.

"Whether she realized it or not. She has to face the consequences of her actions."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor's eyes were lingering almost pleadingly on Luma for a moment before she offered up her own answer.

"She has to go," she said quietly. "It's...unfortunate, but it's necessary. Sometimes, we make big mistakes for what we think are very good reasons, but they're still mistakes, and..." She drew in a small breath. "Good intentions alone doesn't make them right."

And even if she wasn't hungry, she had a bite of the food that had been untouched in her hands, because doing so was the best way to ensure she didn't then just look straight back to Luma.

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[mustbeawitch]

"Obviously he's no choice but to 'jettison' the girl," Lydia said. "I have only the most bare understanding of how any of this science-y nonsense works, but she's put his life in danger as well as the people he's bringing the medicine to, and if the only way to save himself is to get rid of her, then she has to go."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[imafuturist]

Oh sure, ask the engineer this.

"The damage is already done," Tony said like it was just obvious. "For them to even have that rule if they're so tight on fuel, they must expect to lose a lot of ships and a lot of people to the smallest variations in travel."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[thatwaslucky]

This was definitely a case where Jakku logic was winning out over Jedi considerations.

"I wouldn't feel good about it, but the girl would have to go," Rey said. "That's too many people to sacrifice for one person who made a selfish decision, whether she was informed or not."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[sith_happened]

The space-faring folks knew the physics, and that made this less about ethics and more about cold, hard, immutable facts.

"She has to go," Anakin said quietly. "She can't land. The choices are her or me and six others."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[heroic_jawline]

"You can't save everyone every single time," Steve said, looking conflicted. "Were we on a timer for the delivery of the vaccine? If we turn the ship around and send a different one, are the people on the ground dead or just languishing?"

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"Space is a bitch." Illyana said slowly. "Literally, the coldest bitch possible."

"I agree with Stark that the science behind these ships is terrible. There's running lean, and then there's not accounting for any variation. But with the way this is written, she's dead either way."

"I'm not sure, exactly, how 'jettisoning' her isn't going to either put me or my supplies at risk, or throw off the weight even more when she -- and everything that isn't nailed down -- gets sucked out an airlock or risks rupturing the hull. But I assume that they provide the pilots with an emergency-out pill, in case of catastrophe, so they don't die suffering." Illyana shrugged one shoulder. "Tell her to take a seat, have some bad coffee, and take a breath before we figure it out."

"There's no reason for her to die scared, or knowing it's coming. I can jettison the body after she's dead."

Re: Question #1: What Do You Do?

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I..." Jon looked horrible. He hated this. "I suppose...I suppose she has to...I have to put her out. Or...or we're both going to die anyway, along with all the other people. Maybe...maybe if I explain it her, she'll understand. I hope."

He was also thinking of about five different ways around this, but it wasn't part of this question.

Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[deathsmajesty]

"In the story, the pilot manages to emotionally prepare himself to jettison a man on his way to the closet where the stowaway is hiding," Liliana continued. "He is completely taken aback when he discovers it's a teenage girl. His whole demeanor changes, and so does that of command when he calls to inform them that he has a stowaway. Clearly, he weighs the life of a teen girl differently than he does a grown man. How about you? How would this scenario change for you if it were a grown man there. Easier? Remains the same? What about other demographics? An elderly woman? A young boy? More importantly than how your decision making process might change, why does it change? What does that say about you? About your society? Do you like what it says?"

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[suitably_heroic]

Jack shrugged. "It always sucks when they're young. Lost potential," he said. "But life doesn't often give you a soft landing."

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[even_bigger_teeth]

"I think it's absurd," Luma said with a sniff and a toss of her hair, "that the fact that it's a teenage girl changes it so much for the pilot. No matter who it is, they did something brash and selfish that put the lives of others in danger, and that's that."

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[what_big_teeth]

"I can understand," Eleanor offered, still rather reserved and quiet, but with a little more to it, a little more compassion and firmness, "why the pilot wouldn't want that weighing on his conscious, even if it meant the people he was meant to help were helped. A grown man really would know better, so it would be a situation where he could comprehend the risks. But someone younger, maybe more inexperienced, who didn't know any better, that's still different. No, it doesn't change the horribleness of the situation, but it does feel....more difficult, when you know the person didn't really even understand what they were doing..."

Not that she had any idea what that was like! But she did realize that her words were maybe a bit less for the class as a whole and more for someone specifically, someone she was still fighting to not actually look at right now.

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[mustbeawitch]

"If it were an actual child who couldn't understand what they were doing was wrong, it would feel different," Lydia said. "But this girl is old enough to know it was wrong, she just didn't care. She thought the penalty would be mild, as I'm sure everything else in her life had been up until that point, and she was wrong." Lydia sympathized immensely, but she wasn't going to eject herself into space about it, so the girl had to go.

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[thatwaslucky]

"I agree with Lydia," Rey said. "Someone innocent who doesn't realize there will be consequences is different, but I don't think it could change the decision if we'd all die anyway."

Re: Question #2: Examining Our Inner Beliefs

[sith_happened]

"I think the only thing that would change how I felt was if it was my relative," Anakin said. "It's harder to maintain clarity when you're emotionally tangled already."

Question #3: Okay, Fine. How Would You Fix It

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana had reserved the last ten minutes of class for you to all talk about the brilliant idea you have to save the girl and win the day.

She is mostly not paying attention, but you do you, darlings. There are also gold star stickers available for when you're done.

Re: Question #3: Okay, Fine. How Would You Fix It

[suitably_heroic]

Jack had absolutely no interest in gaming this by trying to be a hero, but...

"I am very good at making sure everyone walks away from a crash landing." Beat. "Almost everyone. Anyway, I'm Force sensitive, it's like cheating."

Talk to Liliana

[deathsmajesty]

But not if you're going to tell her how you've finagled a happily ever after with a wad of gum and a can-do attitude, please. Keep that corralled in the proper OCD.

OOC

[deathsmajesty]

Made myself cry with this stupid story. UGH. There's also a Twilight Zone episode about it.

I can't find an online text of Don Saker's The Cold Solution, but there is Aimee Ogden's The Cold Calculations, where the setup is similar, but it points to the flaw at the heart of the original story.

Which is all I'll say about this right now, because otherwise I will rant forever.