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

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."

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

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana hadn't planned to pay attention to this part she had some quality brooding to do, but she couldn't help but ask, "And if you weren't Force sensitive?"

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

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, then we're back on punting her out the airlock."

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

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana actually laughed at that wording. "I will say, there are whole discussions - and takes - on the book to find ways that the equation could be solved without her death, most of which involve tossing out various things to equalize her weight."

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

[suitably_heroic]

Yeah, Jack didn't look convinced. "Any company that has fine-tuned their machines to carry exactly as much fuel as necessary will have absolutely skimped on just about any non-essential weight," he said. "Space, I'm surprised you can't punch a hole in the hull with your fist."

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

[deathsmajesty]

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could," Liliana agreed. "The enemy out here isn't the girl's naivety or even the cold grasp of physics, but whoever decided that the lives are cheaper than spaceships."

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

[mustbeawitch]

"I can't think of anything that could fix it in the moment," Lydia admitted. "I don't know anything about spacefaring craft, and my magic isn't suited for such an endeavor. But it seems rather shortsighted that there's only just enough fuel for if everything goes according to plan. Surely there should be a--reserve, or some such thing. What if there was a non-stowaway related emergency requiring adjustments to the route or some such?"

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

[deathsmajesty]

"Oh, most assuredly," Liliana agreed. "The story purports that her death is no one's fault but physics', but that ignores the human decisions that lead to that point. Not Marilyn's or Barton's, but the whole system in place."

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

[mustbeawitch]

"It seems that the system places a greater value on the cost of fuel than on human life," Lydia said. "While a stowaway is indeed acting wrongly, and a fuel allowance just in case there's a stowaway seems a bit silly, calculating the fuel such that there's no room for error and thus any stowaway must die is...well. A choice someone has made."

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

[even_bigger_teeth]

"Would it lighten the load enough, perhaps," Luma ventured loftily, "if we just cut off her arms and chucked those?"

Was she genuinely asking? Just being faceceous? Making a particular point to other people in the room who had emboldened herself into a situation where dismemberment and destruction was the only possible solution?

Who could tell?

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

[deathsmajesty]

"Legs, darling," Liliana corrected absently. "Each leg makes up roughly 17.5% of a body's weight, an arm is a mere 5%. By removing her legs, you remove nearly a third of her body weight in a single go."

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

[even_bigger_teeth]

And Luma, unable to help it, rolled her eyes.

"Legs, then," she said, and then added, with an equally absent wave of her hand, "or why not all four limbs, just to be on the safe side?"

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

[deathsmajesty]

"They'd have to," Liliana said. "It's simple math, darling. If she removed both arms and legs, that would equal slightly under fifty percent of her body mass. Though, even both ways, that's not enough to save her. So the real question is--" Liliana's smile sharpened. "Are you willing to give up yours?"

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

[mustbeawitch]

"Well, then she would die of blood loss," Lydia pointed out. "So it's rather six of one and half a dozen of the other."

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

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"I'm assuming I have not gotten very far, because the alert should have gone off much sooner," Illyana said dryly. "I can 'port someone from my ship to the somewhere I've been on the planet's surface."

"It will suck. I am going to have a blood sugar crash to rival a car accident in one of those fast car movies and I am going to hate that person for at least a week, and hate the creators of this shitty ship for the rest of my life. Possibly put them in one of these and see how they like it. But assuming I'm not farther than two planets out? I can do it."

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

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Surely there's something on the ship that weighs as much as she does," Jon said, glad to finally have the chance to say it. "A chair or something. It's ridiculous to run things so closely! If they haven't even allowed for things like human error or anything going wrong, how much do they actually care about people?"