FIREFLY UNIVERSE

How bad IS Mal?

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Friday, July 2, 2010 04:37
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Monday, May 24, 2010 7:43 AM

BYTEMITE


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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Monday, May 24, 2010 7:54 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.


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.

[/sig]

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Monday, May 24, 2010 8:09 AM

BYTEMITE


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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Monday, May 24, 2010 8:35 AM

ZEEK


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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Monday, May 24, 2010 11:49 AM

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

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Monday, May 24, 2010 1:12 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

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

What Frem said. (tm)


The laughing Chrisisall


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Monday, May 24, 2010 1:47 PM

BYTEMITE


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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Monday, May 24, 2010 1:50 PM

BYTEMITE


Side note: I have had CAFFEINE!

It is delicious.

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Monday, May 24, 2010 2:34 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
I will not be able to control your minds.

Frem & I are Independents, M'lady.

No MKULTRA here.


The laughing Chrisisall


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Monday, May 24, 2010 3:42 PM

FREMDFIRMA


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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Monday, May 24, 2010 3:48 PM

BYTEMITE


In short, "it go boom," yes.

Have to flex that muscle now and then. In all honesty, this was relatively benign, as much as it shames me to say.

I was going to exploit what I saw as the most likely response break-down and see if I could CONVINCE people I was reading their minds. Reading minds, controlling them, what's the difference? It's all them doing what you EXPECT them to do. I've had lots of fun with that before. Mostly involving the acquisition of lots of sweets and candy.

Have a cupcake?

~MadScienceByte

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Monday, May 24, 2010 11:44 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Yes, cupcake good!

Although, admittedly I was "experimenting" on this end too, to see if by adding a comment that supported "B" which honestly sounded like it came right out of the captains mouth (a combination of celebrity endorsement and bandwagon trickery) would load the survey in that direction like a curve ball.

And you spotted it, right away, although you were polite enough to not actually call it like that, and so you tossed in the towel, and now I feel a bit guilty...

But not much, cause it *does* work in practice, just not with someone who has thought patterns so concurrent to yours - it wasn't even intentional that I drove it off the rails so much as force of habit, in all honesty.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThirtyXanatosPileup

Ooops.

-Frem

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Tuesday, May 25, 2010 3:44 AM

BYTEMITE


That's all right. By that point, the experiment was out of control, as the survey was already preloaded to B.

It IS kinda what I figured Mal would do as well, you know. But I outsmarted myself, and you and Chris playing spanner in the works, eh, well. The outcome was inevitable, I guess.

If the cupcake makes you start seeing or hearing anything odd, let me know right away, okay?



...Uh oh. THAT'S not good.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2010 9:40 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Ha, pastry and sweets are like, my Kryptonite, and believe me, it's unlikely to compare to the incident at a gathering in Oklahoma...

See, someone brought brownies, and they were very, VERY good brownies, and went especially well with the homebrewed wine I was knockin back, nice stuff, bit of a kick to it...

Only no one thought to tell me those were "special" brownies, till I'd put away like eight of them, on top of the boozing.

Thus leading the meme (which stuck, oddly) that I prettymuch turn into Hinaichigo around sweets.



From your caffiene reaction I presume you prolly get the same effect off cappucino.

-Frem
(and yes, I actually do that chair-rocking thing, shaddap)

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010 6:49 AM

KRELLEK


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
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.



that is an interesting question, shoot the overseer, and ask if the slaves and the maybe more or less guards that is caught between a rock and hard place, if they have seen to young women, one with dark hair and the other sstrawberryblonde? he might get a positive answer, could be they where taken too, perhaps taken to another group or simply laying unconcioua in the same group

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010 7:28 AM

BYTEMITE


I really ought to come up with more of these, they're fun. :)

Definitely some more about Mal, but even maybe about the other crew, just in regards to how they solve problems. Everyone is probably going to imagine how they'd respond to a situation just a little bit differently.

Jayne's might be particularly fun. I'm already laughing imagining what might pose an "ethical dilemma" for him. It really wouldn't involve ethics as we know it in any sense of the word.

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Friday, July 2, 2010 12:58 AM

KRELLEK


what about one for River, or perhaps Simon

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Friday, July 2, 2010 1:12 AM

AGENTROUKA


I say D.


Too many uncertainties, otherwise. They might be lying. He would have to shoot unarmed, unthreatening people at very close range. It would mean meddling and he likes to avoid that. Plus, he's just a cold bastard.

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Friday, July 2, 2010 4:37 AM

BYTEMITE


Hmm, that's a good reason. And there's no knowing if "slavers who may have Inara and Kaylee" might set him off enough that he won't listen to anything they say.

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