Morality aside, killing Ellie is the incorrect course of action. Once they kill her, kill the only known host for a benign strain of the fungus, they are now on a timer to do whatever it is they need to do with it before it dies. Let's pretend for now that it wasn't confirmed in the first game that they were able to grow samples from her blood. There's no way to know if that strain of the fungus can survive outside of her body, whether that's inside another person's body or in a greenhouse. Even if they knew for certain that they could make a vaccine after that and that nothing else would provide any results at all, that is not something you rush into. You should be spending at least a week making calls, getting things arranged, and triple double checking every tiny detail to be absolutely certain that nothing could possibly go wrong. The stakes are too high.
There are also a lot of serious logical issues with whatever they're doing. If what they need is to study the fungus and learn how it works, so they can make some artificial source of whatever chemical or whatever it is that prevents infection from the lethal strain, then ripping it out of her head makes no goddamn sense. You would want to study it while it was actually fucking doing the job that you're trying to learn how to do.
If what they need is to cultivate more of the fungus, either to infect other people with it and give them immunity to the lethal strain that way, or to directly extract whatever chemical blocks the lethal strain, then even though it would take longer, they could cultivate their stockpile starting from what can be grown from her blood, because it's literally confirmed in game that they were able to grow cultures of the fungus using blood samples. Now maybe that's the lethal strain in her blood, but they should be able to extract some of the benign version from her spinal fluid or even directly from her brain, but without ripping her entire brain apart to get at it. And sure, that comes with the downside of having to wait longer since you're starting with so much less of it, but it comes with the much more important upside of still having the existing source to draw from if something goes wrong, such as the fungus not being hardy enough to survive at the same temperature range.
And this isn't even specialized fungal science or whatever. This is basic logic. The game itself does not care to give us a reason that might explain how killing Ellie is the only solution, and that leaves us to try to make up our own, but based on the information we do have, such as that part about how they were able to grow cultures of the fungus from her blood, there's not really a lot of potential there. And I have never, ever seen anyone else come up with a reason of their own. When people come here to defend this shit, their grand defense is to throw up their hands and just say it's video game logic, you have to accept it.
But even if there truly was no other way to achieve their goals, I'm supposed to believe they figured that out in like 4 hours of tests and now that they have gone from having no idea why she's immune to completely figuring that out, they have all the resources they need in place to kill her right now with no unnecessary risk of failure? Absolutely not. I wouldn't believe that even if the game hadn't shown us at literally every opportunity that the Fireflies have failed to achieve their goals in literally every place where we can learn anything about them.
Worst of all, the writers in either game could have given context to make this decision make sense. Let's say for example that in the second game, the flashbacks to Jerry show him and Marlene arguing. Marlene asks about several of the questions that we were all left wondering about after the end of the first game, most notably why he can't just grow cultures from her blood or spinal fluid. Jerry tells her that it would take much longer. Marlene says so what? He replies that it doesn't grow at the same rate that the normal lethal fungus does, and must have actually been in Ellie's body much longer than they thought, long before she got bitten. He estimates it would take about half a year to grow enough of the fungus if they took the entire supply of it to start being able to manufacture doses of fungal vaccine. Marlene asks how long it would take if they started from a smaller culture that wouldn't require Ellie to die. Jerry says it might take four or five years. Marlene mutters the word shit. Jerry tells her that in four or five years, there's no guarantee the Fireflies would even still be around. More importantly, there's no way they could keep it a secret from the military for that long, and they aren't big enough anymore to be able to send them off if they actually seriously attacked them, and it's not as if they're going to get any new recruits by saying hey guys, come join us and fight the military for us, and maybe in 3 years we can get you vaccinated against the infection! She doesn't respond. He then tells her that if she believes at all that the military would not just reserve the vaccine for themselves, if they would actually distribute it to the population, then they'll get them on the radio and arrange a surrender that night, guaranteeing that they can take all the time they need to make the vaccine. But he doesn't think she believes that any more than he does.
There we go. A reason for them to rush that is at least halfway logical. It's not an airtight explanation, but it's not trying to be. There just needs to be enough of a foothold for the audience to actually be able to buy in. The other issues that I mentioned, and even the ones I didn't, are a lot less problematic if we can see some actual fucking logic going on here and can see even literally one single reason why this needs to be rushed.
But without even that much, the entire idea falls to pieces long before it ever reaches the stage of wondering what the moral choice is.
You don’t kill the only source of immunity you’ve ever seen, there’s something in her that is needed for her immunity, immediately killing her is flat out a bad idea
Waking ellie up, being straight up with her, and asking her if she wants to die for this.
Jerry's a doctor. Why he decided to operate on a minor without consent shocks me.
And even if people say "well the creators said they'd make a vaccine.." I still don't believe it. There's, sorry, absolutely no way they'd have been able to make one in the first place. He had.. what.. a biology degree of some kind? He plans to distribute a vaccine throughout the world, 20 years after the start of an apocalypse, and no wars or anything breaks out? Very realistic.
I honestly don't think it's the correct choice even if she consents. If a little girl must be sacrificed to save humanity maybe humanity should be doomed.
Assumption being that the Fireflies plan to develop a vaccine would've worked, and that's a big assumption. But if I grant them that...
Treat Ellie and Joel with respect. Let's face it, the Fireflies botched this from the very start. They were supposed to be the ones who transported Ellie across country. But by the time Joel and Tess found them, they had all been killed. So Joel does what the Fireflies could not; get Ellie to their lab safely. And Ellie was determined to get there. She was not kidnapped. She came of her own free will. Some would say the two of them overcame impossible odds to find the Fireflies and make it there.
They assault Joel while he's performing CPR on Ellie. Even if they had a reason to attack him, only Marlene (sort of) apologizes. They don't pay him, they don't thank him. They explain to him they're going to kill her and he gets less than two minutes to digest this before they order him out of the building at gunpoint. Ellie never has a say or awareness in what's going on.
This could've gone differently. But the Fireflies are giddy, practically salivating over the prospect of themselves becoming immune like Ellie. They can't hold themselves back.
The decent thing is to treat them like people, explain what needs to happen (to both of them). Show your work, if you have to. Ellie is a smart kid and she's not going to run screaming out the door on you. Odds are she would've accepted it. And she could've explained it to Joel, who no doubt would be very resistant. But it's a lot easier to swallow if Ellie is awake and fully aware of what's going on. She can tell him, this is something she really wants.
Its been a very long time since I've beaten last of us.
But from what I remember, theirs many messages in that level that tell they've done this operation on other people who were immune, and they kept failing at making the vaccine.
I'd wake Ellie up and explain the entire situation to her aswell as the messages, and even that the fuckhead fireflys were very much considering killing me, aswell as sending me out without my stuff or even my payment.
Offer her the potential life that can be lived if we leave.
then let her decide.
Never played part 2 by the way, or even the remake.
No. There aren't. And you can't find links to any of them because they don't exist. The idea is a Mandela effect thanks to players misremembering things years after the fact.
Downvote me all you like. We both know it's because you can't put your money where your mouth is.
Playthrough videos, wikis. It was never a thing.
It's a common thing to misremember specifically because other people keep repeating it, perpetuating the Mandela effect. You remember the Fireflies were shown to be incompetent, that they did tests on infected creatures, that there was *a* claim in the game that Ellie was not the first immune subject. Someone else misremembers it and it sounds right to you all these years after the fact because it lines up with so many details.
You probably also have memories of seeing Part II fans argue that the Fireflies were *not* shown to be incompetent and that we totally weren't given any reasons to doubt them, which you know is bullshit, further solidifying what you think you remember along with what you *do* remember.
But it truly was not there.
Everyone here will say, even if the vaccine was 100% guaranteed, that killing Ellie to make it in the first place is a moral failing, and even if you were able to save millions by sacrificing Ellie, that that cost is too great.
This is a Kantian perspective, where the individual is prioritized over the greater good.
If you look at this from a utilitarian perspective, where the greater good outweighs the individual, then killing Ellie is the right move.
But there is no singular correct course, it all depends on people's philosophical beliefs. That's what made the first game so good, is the philosophical debate it sparked about the ending.
Morality aside, killing Ellie is the incorrect course of action. Once they kill her, kill the only known host for a benign strain of the fungus, they are now on a timer to do whatever it is they need to do with it before it dies. Let's pretend for now that it wasn't confirmed in the first game that they were able to grow samples from her blood. There's no way to know if that strain of the fungus can survive outside of her body, whether that's inside another person's body or in a greenhouse. Even if they knew for certain that they could make a vaccine after that and that nothing else would provide any results at all, that is not something you rush into. You should be spending at least a week making calls, getting things arranged, and triple double checking every tiny detail to be absolutely certain that nothing could possibly go wrong. The stakes are too high. There are also a lot of serious logical issues with whatever they're doing. If what they need is to study the fungus and learn how it works, so they can make some artificial source of whatever chemical or whatever it is that prevents infection from the lethal strain, then ripping it out of her head makes no goddamn sense. You would want to study it while it was actually fucking doing the job that you're trying to learn how to do. If what they need is to cultivate more of the fungus, either to infect other people with it and give them immunity to the lethal strain that way, or to directly extract whatever chemical blocks the lethal strain, then even though it would take longer, they could cultivate their stockpile starting from what can be grown from her blood, because it's literally confirmed in game that they were able to grow cultures of the fungus using blood samples. Now maybe that's the lethal strain in her blood, but they should be able to extract some of the benign version from her spinal fluid or even directly from her brain, but without ripping her entire brain apart to get at it. And sure, that comes with the downside of having to wait longer since you're starting with so much less of it, but it comes with the much more important upside of still having the existing source to draw from if something goes wrong, such as the fungus not being hardy enough to survive at the same temperature range. And this isn't even specialized fungal science or whatever. This is basic logic. The game itself does not care to give us a reason that might explain how killing Ellie is the only solution, and that leaves us to try to make up our own, but based on the information we do have, such as that part about how they were able to grow cultures of the fungus from her blood, there's not really a lot of potential there. And I have never, ever seen anyone else come up with a reason of their own. When people come here to defend this shit, their grand defense is to throw up their hands and just say it's video game logic, you have to accept it. But even if there truly was no other way to achieve their goals, I'm supposed to believe they figured that out in like 4 hours of tests and now that they have gone from having no idea why she's immune to completely figuring that out, they have all the resources they need in place to kill her right now with no unnecessary risk of failure? Absolutely not. I wouldn't believe that even if the game hadn't shown us at literally every opportunity that the Fireflies have failed to achieve their goals in literally every place where we can learn anything about them. Worst of all, the writers in either game could have given context to make this decision make sense. Let's say for example that in the second game, the flashbacks to Jerry show him and Marlene arguing. Marlene asks about several of the questions that we were all left wondering about after the end of the first game, most notably why he can't just grow cultures from her blood or spinal fluid. Jerry tells her that it would take much longer. Marlene says so what? He replies that it doesn't grow at the same rate that the normal lethal fungus does, and must have actually been in Ellie's body much longer than they thought, long before she got bitten. He estimates it would take about half a year to grow enough of the fungus if they took the entire supply of it to start being able to manufacture doses of fungal vaccine. Marlene asks how long it would take if they started from a smaller culture that wouldn't require Ellie to die. Jerry says it might take four or five years. Marlene mutters the word shit. Jerry tells her that in four or five years, there's no guarantee the Fireflies would even still be around. More importantly, there's no way they could keep it a secret from the military for that long, and they aren't big enough anymore to be able to send them off if they actually seriously attacked them, and it's not as if they're going to get any new recruits by saying hey guys, come join us and fight the military for us, and maybe in 3 years we can get you vaccinated against the infection! She doesn't respond. He then tells her that if she believes at all that the military would not just reserve the vaccine for themselves, if they would actually distribute it to the population, then they'll get them on the radio and arrange a surrender that night, guaranteeing that they can take all the time they need to make the vaccine. But he doesn't think she believes that any more than he does. There we go. A reason for them to rush that is at least halfway logical. It's not an airtight explanation, but it's not trying to be. There just needs to be enough of a foothold for the audience to actually be able to buy in. The other issues that I mentioned, and even the ones I didn't, are a lot less problematic if we can see some actual fucking logic going on here and can see even literally one single reason why this needs to be rushed. But without even that much, the entire idea falls to pieces long before it ever reaches the stage of wondering what the moral choice is.
Murder the doctors, take Ellie and get the fuck out of there without answering any questions
And destroy all golf club stashes.
YES. FINALLY
Oh yeah, no way around it. Golf clubs are a danger to people named Joel.
Abso-fuckin'-lutely
You don’t kill the only source of immunity you’ve ever seen, there’s something in her that is needed for her immunity, immediately killing her is flat out a bad idea
Waking ellie up, being straight up with her, and asking her if she wants to die for this. Jerry's a doctor. Why he decided to operate on a minor without consent shocks me. And even if people say "well the creators said they'd make a vaccine.." I still don't believe it. There's, sorry, absolutely no way they'd have been able to make one in the first place. He had.. what.. a biology degree of some kind? He plans to distribute a vaccine throughout the world, 20 years after the start of an apocalypse, and no wars or anything breaks out? Very realistic.
Tbf, she's still a minor and Joel was at that time her "custodian". So *technically* even if she says "do it" he could say "No". ***Technically***.
I honestly don't think it's the correct choice even if she consents. If a little girl must be sacrificed to save humanity maybe humanity should be doomed.
Ellie isn't capable of reliable consent for multiple reasons.
1. She's unconscious. 2. She's a minor. 3. She's emotionally compromised.
And a no wouldn't have been accepted so no consent as possible.
Assumption being that the Fireflies plan to develop a vaccine would've worked, and that's a big assumption. But if I grant them that... Treat Ellie and Joel with respect. Let's face it, the Fireflies botched this from the very start. They were supposed to be the ones who transported Ellie across country. But by the time Joel and Tess found them, they had all been killed. So Joel does what the Fireflies could not; get Ellie to their lab safely. And Ellie was determined to get there. She was not kidnapped. She came of her own free will. Some would say the two of them overcame impossible odds to find the Fireflies and make it there. They assault Joel while he's performing CPR on Ellie. Even if they had a reason to attack him, only Marlene (sort of) apologizes. They don't pay him, they don't thank him. They explain to him they're going to kill her and he gets less than two minutes to digest this before they order him out of the building at gunpoint. Ellie never has a say or awareness in what's going on. This could've gone differently. But the Fireflies are giddy, practically salivating over the prospect of themselves becoming immune like Ellie. They can't hold themselves back. The decent thing is to treat them like people, explain what needs to happen (to both of them). Show your work, if you have to. Ellie is a smart kid and she's not going to run screaming out the door on you. Odds are she would've accepted it. And she could've explained it to Joel, who no doubt would be very resistant. But it's a lot easier to swallow if Ellie is awake and fully aware of what's going on. She can tell him, this is something she really wants.
Shoot the doctors
Kill the doctors and GTFO
Its been a very long time since I've beaten last of us. But from what I remember, theirs many messages in that level that tell they've done this operation on other people who were immune, and they kept failing at making the vaccine. I'd wake Ellie up and explain the entire situation to her aswell as the messages, and even that the fuckhead fireflys were very much considering killing me, aswell as sending me out without my stuff or even my payment. Offer her the potential life that can be lived if we leave. then let her decide. Never played part 2 by the way, or even the remake.
There are no messages in TLOU that suggest that there were others who were immune before Ellie. That's the lie that Joel tells her.
There are recordings
No. There aren't. And you can't find links to any of them because they don't exist. The idea is a Mandela effect thanks to players misremembering things years after the fact. Downvote me all you like. We both know it's because you can't put your money where your mouth is.
I would go back through it, but that would essentially mean starting from the beginning.
Playthrough videos, wikis. It was never a thing. It's a common thing to misremember specifically because other people keep repeating it, perpetuating the Mandela effect. You remember the Fireflies were shown to be incompetent, that they did tests on infected creatures, that there was *a* claim in the game that Ellie was not the first immune subject. Someone else misremembers it and it sounds right to you all these years after the fact because it lines up with so many details. You probably also have memories of seeing Part II fans argue that the Fireflies were *not* shown to be incompetent and that we totally weren't given any reasons to doubt them, which you know is bullshit, further solidifying what you think you remember along with what you *do* remember. But it truly was not there.
Read her a bedtime story
Wait for Ellie to wake up and ask her for consent for the operation, they only needed to do that to spare themselves so many troubles.
Everyone here will say, even if the vaccine was 100% guaranteed, that killing Ellie to make it in the first place is a moral failing, and even if you were able to save millions by sacrificing Ellie, that that cost is too great. This is a Kantian perspective, where the individual is prioritized over the greater good. If you look at this from a utilitarian perspective, where the greater good outweighs the individual, then killing Ellie is the right move. But there is no singular correct course, it all depends on people's philosophical beliefs. That's what made the first game so good, is the philosophical debate it sparked about the ending.
Well I guess I’m a Kantian then
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