I think ending your life when you could use those bullets against an enemy is shameful. (sorry) They’ve just boarded your ship, murdered your crew and you’re going to just give in and end it, so you don’t suffer the same fate?

Cowardly. Sorry, but that’s just my opinion.

Take me hostage. Do what you will to me. However, you know what? every minute I have my eyes open, every smell that fills my nostrils, every device they use, I will remember. Considering the code of conduct, I’m sure a rescue mission would be planned eventually. If not, I will have died knowing that I served my country, world or universe up until my last breaths.

Bring it on. I’m not going down without a fight.

Bah. Thinking about this, I’m not even sure if I would take out Burns now. What makes me play God in this? What if he wanted to fulfill the same sense of duty. Shooting him and taking his life is making that decision for him. While my compassionate and loyal side would want to spare him that burden and pain, I would have to say the fighter side would hope Burns was not a coward either and assumed the risks of being captured when he took on being a Captain of a ship.

Bah. It’s complicated.

One of my favorite passages in the Dune novels was in the very beginning for Frank Herbert’s original. Young Paul Atreides was being tested with a device called the “Gom Jabbar.” Put in it most simple terms, the Gom Jabbar was a poisoned needle placed against the skin of his neck. He was required to endure the most intense pain of his lifetime without flinching or dodging it. If he tried to pull away, if he cried out, the needle would pierce his flesh and kill him instantly.

When he passed the test, he was told that the test was designed to seperate humans from animals. An animal will chew off a leg to escape a trap, while a true human will lay in wait, enduring the pain, and wait for an opportunity to remove a threat to its kind.

I think you know where I’m going with this. Collins is the “true human,” at least according to Herbert’s definition, and O’Leary would take the “easy way out” just as Samuels did.

Personally, I would have done just as Samuels did. The thought of being vivisected (or even being given a South-Park style anal probe) would be a bit much.

and to answer your question…I would take out the captian and aim all my remaining rounds at the necks of the attackers, Maybe saving that last round for the glass of the bridge, depressurizing the ship.

If I witnessed the whole crew of my ship get slaughtered by some alien race, and I was possibly the last one alive besides the one they are carrying…I would have done the same thing. Shot the captive and then shot myself. Is it cowardice…possibly, but that’s not how I look at it: If we (humans) ran into a live alien, whether its here on Earth or up in the stars, what would be one of the 1st things done?

Capture it, study it, and possibly kill it and discect it. We would try to find out as much information as we could with a live alien…its just that simple. Now if they think like us…well, they would do the same thing…so would I want to the be the test subject of the alien race…NOPE! I would not allow any other human to be that test subject either.

Now, if there was a way to blow up the ship w/ a self destruct button…I would have hit that before I shot myself so I might get some kind of payback and maybe take a few of them with me. It might be the “cowardly” thing to do, but if I am going up against some kind of alien that we have no knowledge of, and I have no idea how much knowledge they have of us…I am not gonna allow myself to be that rat in a cage.

….thats just me….

If you were in Samuels position, what would you do? Would you allow yourself to be captured? Would you try to gain intelligence on the enemy in the hopes that you would be rescued and debriefed? Would you go down fighting, forcing them to kill you?  Would you take the “easy” way out and off yourself to avoid a fate possibly worse than death?

The next chapter will explore this question in conversation between Collins and O’Leary. They will have different perspectives, but this is a way for me to frame the debate for the reader to consider that same question.

I welcome any discussion below.