Hoo boy. Episode 2 has waaaay more bonus material than episode 1, and it’s only going to get more extreme from here. I’m pretty sure I actually spent more time on this stuff than I did on the actual missions. Not only are there more characters, everyone gets one more scene than they did in episode 1! I have no choice but to split this across two posts.
Firstly, trust values become more important this episode. At 100, 200, and 250 battle trust, characters will give you the opportunity to upgrade their personal weapon by burning some vendor trash or weapon component. This is actually a worthwhile investment; personal weapons start crappy, but they have the unique advantage of getting lower health costs as they become more powerful. I think most of them eventually drop to the standard 3 AP cost, too. This makes them pretty useful in a pinch, especially in the endgame. At higher levels you’ll also get a free status effect attached, but status effects are pretty worthless in this game so eh.
And at 100, 200, and 250 personal trust, crewmates will give you gifts. Shockingly, the items are preset instead of getting chewed up and spit out by the random number god. They range in usefulness, but are generally nice bonuses. Not this one, though; it’s just a status effect module that gives weapons a 20% chance of ignoring resistances. I’ll just use a different weapon, thanks.
Onto character development.
She asks what I think.
“It does make sense…”
“They’d just get in our way.”
“I don’t like being…watched.”
Hm. I picked the first option here, but maybe the third would have been pretty appropriate. Typelog is pretty creepy, and I don’t trust that they can use their technology responsibly. I guess I’m just too polite. Marie agrees that it does make sense for the Inquiry to work with a pillar of society, but she’s still nervous that they’ll get too controlling. She then segues into talking about the superhub and how she can use it to find her family. She wonders if they’re looking for her too. I choose to be encouraging and say they must be, which she appreciates.
Marie: “Just to get Typelog functional enough to know that they’re all right… that’ll make the entire project worth it to me. I know that sounds selfish, but, you have no idea how… uh, never mind.”
Hm, she is pretty hyperfocused on this now, when she used to consider it an idle thought in previous episodes. Is it questionable for the woman to have family as her defining characteristic? I’m not sure in this case.
Next:
She wonders if the Shine awakened anything in me like it did for everyone else. Seems like a pretty stupid question; Ros has no memory of her past, so she has no way of knowing if there was a difference. I just shrug and say I dunno. She muses some more about how weird amnesia must be for me, then wonders how I’m not emotionally suppressed if I didn’t see the Shine.
“Assuming I was ever suppressed.”
“Did I rough anybody up?”
“The outside is more fun anyway.”
Uhh…? Only one of these responses makes any logical sense in the context of this conversation. It also seems like a pretty obvious counterpoint, since the suppression seems like something you have to purposefully induce. If Ros is normal but never experienced anything that would break suppression, the logical assumption to make is that she was never suppressed.
Marie: “We had to be. Space is terrifying. It was a matter of trusting ourselves to function, really.”
Then why do you idiots hate living on planets so much?
I would also point to this as further evidence for my theory that suppression was something imposed externally. If it was a natural mental outgrowth of being in a post-scarcity society, she would never phrase it like this. Emotions were purposefully eliminated as a factor, possibly before the “breach” even took place. That implies chemical suppression to me, not Zen.
Next:
She can’t find any trace of her family. So, the one overarching plot point that Typelog could provide is a dead end. Why so much filler. I offer to help her keep looking, which she appreciates but declines, pointing out that I have way more important things to worry about. Nah, this is way more interesting than doing boring jobs for Typelog.
Marie: “I’ve dragged you aside to whine about this so many times now. It helps, though. So, uh, thanks.”
So the overemotional woman is apologizing for being such a burden. Ehh.
“Looks like I can count on you for more than just combat tactics. I hope the feeling’s mutual, Ros.”
This is sweet, though.
That’s all for Marie. Rami is researching ancient history, before the exodus from Earth. He ominously wonders what made them flee in the first place: “They couldn’ta had the systems we got to keep us safe, so unless life was even worse on the Surface…” Except the Typelog history article said they invented the emitter before then. What other systems would they need?
“Ya know, Marie was there. She claims she don’t remember it, but she turned out… well, normal.”
What is that supposed to mean? I guess he’s saying that she managed to adapt to the changes since then?
“We’re basically all that’s left. All of us. Kinda humblin’, huh? So where do we go from here?”
All that’s left of what? Humanity? Well, obviously. Talk sense, Rami. I answer his question optimistically, saying we can continue striving to be better. He likes this, though he says he thinks society already reached perfection before the Shine. O…kay, but we’re still working on getting back to that point. Keep your head in the game, man.
Next:
So… the thing you need to function normally, the thing that doesn’t matter because emitters are hax and remove the need for breathing, two problems that still exist in space but even worse, and one thing that is actually better on planets than in THE FREAKING VOID. SPACE IS A VACUUM THERE ARE NO RAW MATERIALS WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING.
“I don’t think they make planet-sized craft, so, how’re you supposed to control all that?”
With emitters, which as we’ve established are magic? I really don’t get why the game is so fixated on this. It’s an interesting idea and fits well with the transcendence theme, but every time the story attempts to justify it it just ends up tripping over itself more and more. Space stations are just so much effort for so little payoff, while planets have a lot of important stuff (like gravity, seriously we need that) already in place. We’re evolved to live on planets, that’s always going to be a more suitable environment for us barring major alterations to our physiology. If it weren’t for emitters making all physiological concerns a nonissue, I could maybe see people favoring an environment they have total control over — it’s probably easier to make your own atmosphere than to detoxify a poisonous one, for instance. Even still… space stations require you to build everything from the ground up. That’s just so much work. The only thing I think could really justify this is if frequent travel was necessary, since it’s much harder to move planets on command than it is to move a spaceship.
I can respond. One of the options is “magic”, which I would like to use as cheeky shorthand for “emitters”, but instead I go with “Obviously they did it somehow.” Rami misses my point and just mopes about how it must have been terrible and it’s no wonder people got away as soon as they could.
“There’s no good in Surface life. We got away from it for a reason… even if I can’t remember what it was.”
Did no one write it down? That seems like a pretty important thing you’d want to remember! Especially since I’m pretty sure the reason is “We screwed up this one planet but we’d like another one please.”
Rami uses this to transition awkwardly into how machines are awesome. I agree.
Rami: “H-hey, Boss… do you think… machines feel things now too? I mean, we do now, since the Shine…”
Oh my god are we really doing this?
Yes, we are. Rami waxes philosophical about what is “life”, really, and how the robots technically tick the boxes (change over time, response to stimuli, metabolism, reproduction) so they’re totally alive and maybe they have feelings!!!
So, this is a common debate in science fiction and robotics. My stance is a very firm no, we will never accidentally make robots sapient. You could say this is related to the planet life/space life debate too: in an AI, you need to create everything from scratch. Nothing can appear that you do not allow for or purposefully create. In order for a robot to feel emotions — sadness, pain, whatever — someone would have to purposefully program in that possibility. If you don’t — and I don’t know why anyone would other than to prove that they could — then they do not. It’s as simple as that. I think there might be some room for debate when it comes to AIs that can modify themselves and thus evolve possibilities the programmers didn’t plan on, but that’s clearly beyond what we see here — the MOD units serve a simple, singular purpose, so I don’t see why they would be given the capacity for significant adaptation in the first place.
Rami: “Those MODs would sacrifice themselves all the time, just to keep us unharmed. What’d they ever get out of it, though? Did they feel good about it? Was it ‘fun’? Does it ‘hurt’?”
So my answer to this is: no. Even if they can spontaneously evolve new functions and they had some reason to develop some kind of analogue to emotional behavior, it wouldn’t be anything like what we know. They don’t have brains with chemicals, the most this would amount to is a line of code saying “do this more” or “avoid this”. I imagine it would be, at most, something like how in video games the screen will flash red or whatever to show your character is being hurt. That doesn’t make you feel anything directly, it’s just a dispassionate notification that a thing has occurred.
My options for responding to this are:
“It is their purpose.”
“What do we know about pain?”
“They’d probably rebel if so.”
For some reason I picked the first one, even though the third one is the only one that doesn’t make Ros sound like a robot herself. That’s another good point: if they haven’t displayed any behavior that’s consistent with the hypothesis, there’s no reason to assume it’s true and every reason to assume it isn’t.
Rami: “Purpose… and we created them, didn’t we? So, maybe we have a purpose too, then?”
What… how… why… Neither of those sentences have anything to do with each other! Why is the doctor talking like a creationist???
“Thanks, Boss. It’s the kind of thing we never get a chance to stop and consider, isn’t it?”
Maybe because you’re way overthinking this and there’s no actual need to stop and consider it??? Ugh, he’s acting like the worst kind of philosophy student. We have way more important things to be worrying about than wishy-washy thought scenarios!
Unfortunately, Mr. Rational isn’t any more rational. He informs me that he deletes memories he deems irrelevant because he’s an idiot who cares more about maintaining order in something that’s supposed to be an infinite repository of your entire life than actually using it for its intended purpose. I think the point of this is to provide an explanation for why he can’t learn more about Blacky yet, but the attempt at justifying this creates more absurdities than it solves. Why would he do this? Why would anyone do this? It shouldn’t even be an option, Typelog should lock these things! People could potentially erase their entire identities doing this! (To make matters worse, when we do learn what’s up with The Black One we will discover that Tezkhra’s memories wouldn’t have helped in the first place, so this is unnecessary.) Anyway, he worries that Blacky is from one of these deleted memories, and hopes that Typelog still has some record of them in another superhub. He wants to know what I think. I tell him he has to know the truth, so he should do whatever he needs to.
Tezkhra: “Even if such would cause unintended consequences? Perhaps you do not know me well, Ouranos.”
DELETING YOUR MEMORIES HAS ALREADY CAUSED UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. THERE IS A CRAZY GUY TRYING TO KILL YOU, HOW IS LEARNING MORE ABOUT THAT A BAD THING. Gah. What kind of “unintended consequences” would even occur? He gained nothing from deleting the memories in the first place, so he’ll lose nothing by regaining them. Sometimes I really don’t understand what this game is trying to say.
He’s discovered that there’s something weird about his Typelog recordings: they’re picking up more sensory information than normal. Hmm. So does he have a sixth sense? That is actually plausible… Nngh I can’t wait until we get to episode 3 so I can actually talk about this.
He asks me what I think. Unfortunately the responses aren’t very good — I can only dismiss him or fawn over how interesting he is. He doesn’t appreciate the latter, because he wants to know why he’s so interesting.
Tezkhra: “As our memory banks grow, however, we are forced to ‘fill in the gaps’ in our minds to make room.”
What… does that even mean?
“We have seen what happens to minds that are allowed to erode. Do you recall Purity Point’s inhabitants? I was careful and selective in what I maintained, for my own efficiency. Was that a mistake?”
What does Purity Point have to do with any of this? They went insane because they couldn’t store their memories in the first place. The Typelog databanks appear to have effectively infinite capacity, so more memories in there shouldn’t affect anything. Tez is talking as if archived memories also have some effect on the mind, but they clearly don’t. There’s no need to maintain them.
“Ouranos… you are the only one who knows of my missing pieces. So, do not let me shatter completely.”
And, like Marie, he also gets weirdly shippy with me at the end.
Next:
He’s finally broken down and scanned his Typelog records for information, but I… thought he already did that? This feels out of place. He didn’t find anything, obviously, but he wants to try again when they find more superhubs. I can say something:
“You changed your mind?”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Just don’t forget your duties.”
None of these are very good options — I thought he had already resolved to do this, so I don’t see how he changed his mind, and the third would discourage him, which I definitely don’t want to do. In response, he just strawmans at me about how he is so very logical and did not feel anything.
Tezkhra: “Should my past manifest as a threat, I should know it.”
That sure is different from your attitude in episode 1, Mr. Logical. But alright fine, this is an actually logical motivation, so I’ll accept it.
“Before you ask, I have no intention of being overwhelmed by what I may discover. There are those who would fall victim to emotional response. I, meanwhile, remain suppressed.”
Alright, here we go, explicit confirmation that he is suppressed. On the previous bonus post, DarkStarRises raised the possibility that I was interpreting suppression wrong and that it is a state of mind that can be eroded in a gradual transition, meaning that Tezkhra is simply in denial here. This theory does actually fit his behavior quite well, though there is a piece of evidence in episode 3 that muddles things quite a bit. Given that his grandstanding about how he never falls victim to emotions is patently false given his freakout in the main plot, I do suspect that we are supposed to see him as an unreliable narrator on this. I suppose that, in my first playthrough, I may have been too trusting and took his words at face value, so that perception of events is what stuck in my mind. I believe one of the biggest problems here is that Tezkhra is the only confirmed example of suppression we have, and a sample size of one is hardly reliable. We don’t know if this pattern of behavior is the standard way suppression is supposed to work or not.
I tell him he’s going to crack like everyone else eventually.
Tezkhra: “Logically, yes, but if an event like the Shine did not fault me, then what else could do so?”
Well, that’s obviously tempting fate. Remember this.
He sneers at me and wants to know why I’m bothering to chat up the crew. I tell him I just want to get to know people better, which he likes. It seems he took Marie’s advice last episode to heart, because he points out that personal respect is an important aspect of my job now.
He segues into wondering about how Ivoronus wanted him to “grow”. He finds this incongruous with pre-Shine life, where everyone was just a cog in an unchanging machine. He wonders if his growth will outpace Ros’ in the end, and starts rambling about the concept of self-worth. I get the opportunity to encourage him:
“You either got it or you don’t!”
“You’re worth it if you can fight.”
“Prove yourself.”
Geez, what is with all the combat junkie options? I’d expect those to require higher aggression to appear. Of the remaining options, the first option is philosophically abhorrent to me, which only leaves the third. He likes this.
Mahk: “I am a weapon artisan. I am not some… ponderer. Why must you muddle my thoughts, Ouranos? … … …do visit me again soon.”
Aw, someone’s being tsundere.
Next:
He’s wondering about Ivoronus again, specifically if he was suppressed. Supposedly everyone was, but Mahk feels his charisma couldn’t have come from an emotionless drone.
My options are:
“It was a side effect.”
“He established himself that way.”
“You’re his slaves.”
So either I can be a dick or I have to choose between two robotic-sounding, nonsensical options. I pick the second option, which is apparently meant to be calling him a manipulative charlatan, so I reload and pick the first. Mahk helpfully informs me that I meant a side effect of the Shine, which, okay, that makes more sense. If everyone else got personality quirks after the suppression break, it’s reasonable to assume the same of Ivoronus.
Then there’s an awkward segue into their business model. Mahk muses that weaponry is an oddly specific commodity to monopolize. Not… really? Weapons can be a pretty broad category, actually. And there is definitely a lot of benefit to monopolizing something so powerful. Mahk then goes on to wonder why Ivoronus places more focus on craft than fighting — despite all his firepower, he has no interest in conquering. But in that case, Mahk is confused why he was sent away to be a fighter pilot for the Inquiry. He has an existential crisis and tells me to go away for now.
Next:
“Doctor Ransend told me about your biological nature. How this ‘protein’ lets you see beyond time.”
WHY ARE THERE SCARE QUOTES. Does the superior Sikohlon education not include basic biochemistry? Surely it’d be useful to know for their chemical weapons?
He asks me what I plan to do if I succeed in my goals and become the most powerful force in the galaxy, then immediately backpedals for some reason and instead asks what our purpose is.
“To get as close as possible [to perfect order]”
“To punish whatever’s responsible.”
“You’re right. It is.”
He appreciates my optimism, but decides he needs to go back to his existential angsting and waves me off.
His idle dialogue also changes after this, which is interesting.
Neff has received some mapping data from the relays, which is in “4D” apparently. I’m going to assume that was a typo and they don’t have data on time travel. He then wonders if people could fill up the whole universe if they kept reproducing. Uh, yes, obviously? But overpopulation is terrible, so why would you want that? He doesn’t like this answer, calling me a pessimist. Then he mopes about how terrible and senseless all the crime and violence is. Okay.
Next:
He’s found eyewitness records of the Shine.
“Everything we know about the Shine comes from these messages. But, they all say the same thing.”
Which is…? Game, if you’re going to have the character be an amnesiac so characters can explain everything to them, you need them to actually do the explaining.
Neff is worried about what they’ll do if the Shine happens again. That’s a valid concern: we currently know absolutely nothing about the Shine, so it’s not reasonable to assume it was a one-off event. I agree that we need a contingency plan, but what can they even do? If nobody knows how it worked, nobody knows how to protect against it. Pretty bleak.
Neff: “If only we could figure out where it started. It had to have come outta one point in space, you know?”
Uh, no? But I’ll take their word for it. They could probably analyze the propagation pattern and confirm that it couldn’t have had multiple sources.
“Of course, if it traveled at light speed, then we’re pretty screwed without a way to detect it early.”
The developer has forgotten just how big space is, I see. A single Google search informs me that the Milky Way has a radius of 50,000 lightyears. They’d have plenty of time. This is a pretty big plot hole, actually: faster-than-light travel doesn’t exist, yet none of the characters seem to act like the sheer size of the galaxy is ever an issue. Everyone can travel anywhere essentially instantaneously, and people act like the Shine happened everywhere at the same time when actually people should have had millennia to notice and react to it even if it traveled at the maximum speed possible. You also couldn’t get any messages out ahead of it, of course (unless they managed to get that quantum entanglement thing to work), but people would still notice the grid going dark and that something was up.
“It could be worse. You’re the best thing to happen to us in a long time, Ros. Even Marie thinks you’re a keeper. Keep doin’ what you do, and we’ll get this mess cleaned up for sure.”
Wow, everyone’s getting buddy-buddy with Ros all of a sudden. Does this change if you somehow manage to not get any personal trust with them? Probably not.
Next:
He’s wondering why they haven’t found any new life since the lacertians. That is indeed strange; with the sheer size of even a single galaxy, alien life is a statistical inevitability. I optimistically tell him as much, that we’ll find more life eventually. He raises the counterpoint of why they haven’t seen them yet — surely other civilizations would have developed space travel by now? I’m not sure how effective an argument that is — while it’s true the universe is very old in addition to very big, it is very, very big. For all their eons of advancement the humans still haven’t moved to other galaxies yet, and even if they started, it would take eons more for them to actually get anywhere. There could be countless other civilizations in the same boat, off in faraway galaxies. I guess he means more why there aren’t any in the Milky Way, but even interstellar travel takes a while. I think there’s room for hope.
He ends by talking about how the lacertian uplift was so great, and wonders what the first lacertian said when he saw his first human because of course only guys get to be important.
“They had no formal language.”
“‘Are you food?'”
“‘Take me with you.'”
None of these are good! The first is just being a buzzkill, the second makes no sense for Ros to say since emitters mean food no longer exists, and the third is just absurdly saccharine and optimistic. I guess I’ll pick the third one, to play to his script. He actually does agree that that’s a bit over-the-top.
And now, the new guy. He wonders what happened to his old commander; he hasn’t heard anything from them. He wonders if he’ll have to go back if they show up. I tell him that’s his decision, which gets me a PT boost but makes him flustered over how he’s dumb and can’t handle the responsibility of making decisions himself. He acknowledges that his old crew probably disliked him, because they always placed him on the front line so he’d get shot first.
“They gave me a life away from the Lessers, though. I just wanted to help out.”
Huh, that’s an interesting detail. He was living with Lessers before they found him? I’d like to know more about that. What was that like for him, and how does it compare now? Surely growing up in such an environment should make him more aggressive…? The game doesn’t seem to share my interest, though, because this gets dropped pretty quick.
He immediately gets defensive and says he’s not like a Lesser at all. Hm, I guess he had bad experiences when he was with them, then? For some reason Ros then decides to insult him; the options I’m given are all some variant of “You’re just a little [negative trait].” Well, that’s awfully dickish. Daszk just wrings his hands about how he can’t help it, but he’s happy I was willing to talk to him.
He’s moping over the fact that Tez and Mahk hate him. Hmm, it would be nice to have more multi-character interactions scenes like in episode 1 so I could harangue them for this. I act the mother hen and say “Do I need to give them a talk?”, but that makes him worry he’ll get in even more trouble. Poor guy. He says “Mister Doctor Rami” (aw, that’s adorable) is nice to him, though. Daszk wants him to find a way to cut the Lesser out of him.
My possible responses are:
“Just keep being yourself!”
“Sounds like a LOT of cutting.”
“What would you do then?”
…So, nothing actually encouraging or in favor of this idea. Isn’t that interesting. I am actually very pro-body-modification, so this idea doesn’t strike me as inherently wrong. It is true that he shouldn’t make major changes to himself due to external pressure, but if it’s something he’s intrinsically okay with, I don’t see the problem. It he sees no value in his Lesser half, then removing it would make him objectively happier; trying to force him to accept himself for who he is when that’s not actually necessary seems more cruel and narrow-minded. I think it’s pretty unfair that the game seems to assume that no players would ever support this. Give me real choices!
Next:
The decline option here is “Later, gator.” I see the developer had some fun with these.
He’s pondering what it means to be half-Lesser, and what he inherited from them. He asserts that he’s not aggressive like them, he’s just dumber, which as I said before feels like a cop-out just so the game can have a cliche Woobie figure.
“I got half of everythin’ from a Lesser, huh? But, I don’t know a whole lot about them, either…”
But… I thought he said he lived with them before getting picked up. Can the game not even remember information from the previous scene now?
My responses:
“Genetically, exactly half.”
“You’re not as exciting.”
“They’re fodder. Nothing to know.”
Ros is being weird again. The second option is just stupid and the third would crush his self-esteem even further, so I’ll just take the bland conversation filler option. He doesn’t understand what “genetically” means, so he just moves into the next topic of conversation, which is that he’s having a crisis of self-worth. He feels that if he couldn’t fly, nobody would want him, so he wants to get better so he can prove himself.
And finally, as Sorenson said last episode, I can decide what to do with Lagarto now.
“Ros Ouranos will decide your fate. What is your final argument?”
Lagarto: “So, it is a crime to challenge a self-elected authority, and to wish for power over those who oppress?”
Marie: “Well, kinda… yeah, that’s pretty much a crime, all right.”
Sorenson: “I take this project seriously. What we do is for the protection of all who have survived the Shine. We cannot allow a threat such as yourself to gain strength and cause further disorder for the people.”
Lagarto: “I have already told you! You won! I will not ever bother you again! Why won’t you listen to me?”
Here’s where this breaks down. Sorenson just said that his primary concern isn’t the danger to the Inquiry project, but that Lagarto is a danger to everyone. Whether or not he’ll trouble me personally is irrelevant. This actually sounds really weaselly, like he’s been sufficiently cowed into leaving the big man alone but is just going to find smaller targets to attack instead of actually turning over a new leaf.
Marie: “Why should we? Words are meaningless. Whoever has the bigger gun gets the loudest voice nowadays.”
Yet the game just skips merrily along and acts as if personal threat really is the only important factor here, even though in the grand scheme of things it’s pretty meaningless. I already defeated him once — if he betrays me, then I’ll just do it again. Sure, he might amass more strength, but the Inquiry gets stronger over time too. And hey, maybe that’ll mean I get an actually challenging boss fight! I’ve got nothing to worry about.
But if he really does leave me alone, that’s when I have to worry — because unless he gives me his word that he’ll give up pillaging entirely, that just means he’ll hurt someone else. Someone who’s probably weaker than me and who won’t be able to handle him. Maybe someone he won’t think is interesting enough to keep alive (which is something he brought up during our first fight). I’m supposed to be the responsible authority figure, rebuilding society and helping struggling survivors; turning a dangerous criminal loose on society just so I won’t have to deal with him myself is antithetical to that.
You know, this is actually something I see a lot in media, and it really bothers me. Stories will try to explore these deep philosophical questions, but it’s always about the person making the decision, not how the choice actually affects other people. We saw this in Heaven’s Feel, where the main characters wring their hands over their deep moral conflict and whether it’s right to risk so many people for one person they know personally… meanwhile tons of people are dying every day, and they know this, but all they do is continue to hand-wring instead of trying to do something about it. The whole thing is turned into a morality play examining the angst of a few individuals, with the actual people who are affected by this getting turned into disposable window dressing to prop this up. The tangible, long-term effects of their actions are swept under the rug, and so the whole thing becomes a selfish farce.
Here we have the same thing. The game is trying to pose this deep question about mercy and forgiveness, but only inasmuch as it affects me personally. An entire dimension of this dilemma — how the world at large will be affected by my actions — simply isn’t considered. It’s a very individualist, solipsistic view where the world is nothing but a prop for one’s own philosophical development, to be discarded whenever it’s convenient. That is abhorrent.
And these are my only options: murder him or let him off scot-free, without even taking any steps to ensure he won’t be a danger in the future. I am steadfastly opposed to the death penalty, plus it seems really hypocritical to kill someone when our entire goal is to prevent death, so letting him go is the only possible option for me. But like… those aren’t the only two things we ever do with criminals. We have punishments less extreme than death — like, confiscating his weapons maybe? — as well as rehabilitation procedures intended to help genuinely repentant criminals find redemption. That is the option I would want to take here: get to know Lagarto on a personal level, understand why he chose this path, and convince him to stop hurting people. Maybe make him a member of the crew, even — we’d get to keep an eye on him that way. If we’re feeling vindictive, we could also simply keep him imprisoned until the Inquiry has grown strong enough to ensure he won’t be a problem if he acts up again.
…And that is what I’m actually going to do. I plan to hold him right up until the last minute, pardoning him just before the point of no return in episode 4. There are actually other reasons why that’s a good(ish) time to let him go, which will become apparent when we get there. But! That’s a long way off, so I’ll show you the conclusion now.
Pardoning him makes my temperament more “conservative” (as opposed to aggressive) and my behavior more “flexible” (as opposed to lawful). This makes sense; I am taking the peaceful option, and I am letting a chaotic element continue instead of eradicating it. Although, I always interpreted the lawful/flexible axis as how willing you were to obey orders, not necessarily your opinion of order vs. chaos, and Sorenson made it clear that he’s not giving Ros any orders on this. Eh, it fits well enough I guess.
Marie gets a PT boost even though she was gung-ho about killing him last episode because ERROR REASON NOT FOUND. If you execute him, Sorenson relaxes the security program and gives you the excess funds, but since PT is a finite resource and money isn’t, this is objectively the better reward.
Lagarto: “As I said, I am a man of honor! You have my word, hermanos, that I shan’t trouble you ever again.”
I can’t help but notice that he says nothing about whether he’ll ever trouble other people again. He ends by saying he won’t forget this act of mercy. Okay.
This is already a mammoth post, but I haven’t covered everything yet. Tomorrow I’ll post the rest.