Posted on: 05/04/26 07:25PM
Absolutely. Literally nothing but the threat of death and the difficulty in acquiring it could stop me from eating 5 lbs of weapons grade Uranium if I so wished.
I wouldn't. But I absolutely could.
In fact, not to get too philosophical, I don't view the act of suicide as a cowardly or selfish act, but the ultimate act of free will. Theres a conversation between the AI Black-Box (BB) and Admiral Margaret Parangosky about the donor of BB's AI matrix (essentially his brain, AIs in Halo are made from the scans of a human brain, the process destroys the tissue so naturally the donor cannot be alive for the process,) in the Halo book Mortal Dictata that I like that sums up my views pretty succinctly.
P: Do you want to know where you originated, BB?
BB: No, thank you, I made sure I couldn't, I believe I had a good reason at the time.
P: You might find it gratifying on some levels.
BB: I'll take a look one day. When I know my days are numbered. When I know rampancy is imminent. I'm going to ask Admiral Osman to do the decent thing and help me terminate myself when that day comes.
BB: Do you think that cowardly, Ma'am? Suicide, I mean.
P: No. Suicide can be many things. Desperate, Sensible. Noble. Tragic. Even the ultimate exercise of free will. But cowardly? No, I really don't believe it ever is. An Organism's primary instinct is to stay alive at any cost. That goes beyond a conscious drive. It's embedded in every involuntary mechanism and chemical reaction in the body. To override that, whatever the reason, we take a fully conscious act of responsibility, possibly the only real one we can ever make.
BB: Gosh, you make it sound rather splendid in its own way, Messy, but noble.
P: Not at all. But... look, BB, you're curious by your very nature. Part of you knows why you don't want to look at your own files. If you ever do though, just remember this. Your donor did the right thing. Just as I'm sure you do the right thing, BB
Yes. I am a goddamn nerd.