major_west | 122 - WHOA THERE finally addressing some flood issues

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122 - WHOA THERE finally addressing some flood issues

I've been here for nearly two years now, and while others may have seen results, I have not. It's become clear to me that no matter what course I'd have taken, the end result would have been the same: they live. My men and I die. Perhaps, if I had been a better man-- by whatever metric you wardens measure it by-- I'd have had no second chance at all. My death would have brought peace, a darkness, whatever it is those who do not end up on the Barge receive... and nothing more.

In light of that, I must admit that I've even less reason to repent. I'm quite attached to consciousness, to simply being and feeling alive, even if it's in death here.

Survival is all that matters.

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But surely it would have been better dying knowing you had done the right thing, knowing you had taken, in the inevitability of death, the most moral action you could have. It may have been futile, but doing the immoral act would have been equally as futile.

I don't quite see the attraction in wanting to survive, having such actions on your conscience.

There was no "right thing" in that situation. Had I done what would have likely averted my status as an Inmate, I'd have betrayed the very people who were relying upon me.

It's better than being dead.

Moral issues aren't always clear cut. All decisions come at a cost, sure enough, but who that cost comes to and how large it is surely must be taken into account. Even if it ends in the same result, acting in the best of your moral intention is better than knowing something is wrong and carrying on regardless. It always is.

Is it? Is it really?

Having retained memories of the road not taken, thanks to that flood, I fail to see any real difference. Perhaps my conscience was clearer, but I was a traitor with a death wish.

You're essentially questioning my present existence. Yes, this is preferable to death.

But isn't a clearer conscience, and perhaps, ultimate death, far more preferable than spending an eternity looking at the wrong you have committed? You will eventually be called upon and judged by what you have done, permanently. Does that not concern you?

No. I have found things here that I never dreamt I could have back home.

Not particularly. There may well be nothing at all beyond the Barge.

Have you not, equally, suffered things here which you never could have back home? Does your conscience, at least, not trouble you constantly? Do you suffer no guilt for what you did? I do not believe you don't.

There is not nothing beyond here. Far from it. In the end of it all, you will be judged by your actions, and by your repentance for those actions. I wouldn't waste the chance to do so, if you know those actions were wrong.

You don't even know what I did. Perhaps I suffer no guilt at all, most days.

The only judgement I have ever faced was my arrival here. If this is the worst the universe has to offer, I'll accept it.

No, but you acknowledge that you could have been a better man. Which means you must see some wrong in whatever you did. Which means you must feel some guilt, surely.

This is not the worst the universe has to offer, I am very sure of that. Neither is it the best.

I would've seen some wrong with the alternative, too. It means nothing.

Oh, it absolutely isn't the best. But I don't put in any stock in the vague possibility of a 'heaven' or a 'hell.'

There's wrong in a lot of things. But if you can see that wrong, in whatever you did, then you must also live with the guilt. Is living with that guilt better than dying knowing you acted in the most moral way the circumstances allowed?

That doesn't bar you from making yourself a better man. It'd help, but it doesn't stop you.

Yes. Perhaps, if I had acted differently and my men had lived, I would happily go back and make efforts to right my wrongs. But I see now that no matter what I'd done, they were marked for death.

But my point is, even when it was futile, you could have been a better man, surely. Because there would have been nothing to lose from it, and nothing to gain from doing wrong. Surely, when you're faced with a situation where death is an inevitablity, it's better to act morally than to damn all sense of right or wrong, and if you haven't done so, it does not make repenting worthless simply because the end would not have been different.

Everything I'd done was for them, not for me. It does make the act worthless when I find that even repenting, even doing the opposite, would have STILL brought their deaths.

A fair point, I don't deny it. It's sickening to know that there's nothing you can do to prevent deaths, one way or another, it is. But repentance is not about how the situation may have turned out, in the end, it's not about going back, and doing over again. Because we don't get foreknowledge of what happens, how things are going to end. We make moral decisions blindly, most of the time; we may be able to guess, we may be able to try and work it out, but generally, they're not made knowing the result of them. It's about the fact that you made decisions which were clearly morally questionable, without knowing the result of any of the other possibilities.

When you have to shoot your countrymen the moment you suspect them of infection, there isn't any room left for morally sound decisions.

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122 - WHOA THERE finally addressing some flood issues

sooooorry west, you get mr martyr.

Morgan will want to shake your hand later, Howie. Thank you :|

:c

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howie's trying to do this without going 'oh, but heaven, you silly thing.' - he fails.

but but but West's an atheist :C

this is why he resists... but dammit, he just can't help it.

BILLY > NOT RAPING GIRLS, SORRY

...nice equation there,

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