Hmmmm....the cap ship question. If you're doing the right thing, but a bunch of innocent people following orders get in your way, what should you do?
Wow...I guess I could see the moral dilemma there. Ideally, killing innocent people should be avoided at all costs. But the Lexington is kind of like Kilrah on a smaller scale from my point of view. Given the situation and the timing, was there really a choice?
Blair, Maniac, Eisen, Catscratch, and whoever else defected were essentially traitors. They left and joined the other side. And it was outside most peoples' knowledge that there was a third party instigating the whole clash between the two sides. So there you are, forced to defect with your friends and comrades to learn more about what's going on...and then you're not even given the chance to explain yourself - you're fired on without necessarily any provocation and you're left with a choice - to fire back and kill innocent people, or to be killed yourself, erasing from anyone's knowledge all you learned and knew up to that point, and eventually resulting in a full-scale war where people following orders on both sides are killed far more regularly. Kilrah was the same kind of deal only on a much larger scale.
It's a difficult thing to weigh...but ultimately, it boils down to Spock's philosophy of the good of the many outweighing the good of the few or the one. In my mind, that's a recurring theme throughout all of Wing Commander...they show you all these characters that you start to like or love, and then they're killed off making the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. And then there are the people doing nothing that you never hear about, but still suffer their own tragedies because of your decisions.
There's basically a bunch of good and bad guys on both sides in conflicts...and then just a lot of people who don't know any better trapped somewhere in-between the two extremes.
Unfortunately in war (for a reference for this post and all my posts, let's consider any situation where at least two warriors with the ability to defend themselves are thrown into a conflict instigated by one physically attacking the other "war"), there's always casualties and collateral damage caught in-between the two clashing sides. True victory in war comes through minimizing those casualties and collateral damage on both sides. Unfortunately in the case of WC3 and WC4 especially, you wound up killing a lot of people who didn't deserve to die...they were simply killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And granted, there's no honor in killing the innocent people (most of us didn't destroy Kilrah because we were going after a litter of 5-day-old cubs)...it should be avoided at all costs, I'm sure we'll all agree. But it needs to be seen from the point of view of the individual situation too. If Blair didn't destroy Kilrah, who's to say ten or a hundred time that planet's population wouldn't have been killed if he didn't drop the Temblor Bomb? In the case of the destruction of the Lexington...who's to say if she was successful in stopping Blair just how many more people would have paid the price when the war between the Border Worlds and Confed was declared by the Assembly?
But that's all speculation too, isn't it? Who's to say the Assembly would have gone along with a war between the UBW and Confed even if Blair hadn't succeeded? Who's to say the war wouldn't have ended if Kilrah wasn't destroyed?
There's another light to see things in, though...if the positions were switched...if it was you onboard the Lexington and the individual members of her crew defecting and flying against you and following orders, would they have thought twice? If the Kilrathi had a superweapon or a doomsday bomb pointed at Earth, would they have thought twice? And considering what we know about these individuals (the Kilrathi Emperor, Paulsen, Seether, etc.)...would the universe be better off and safer without you and instead under their watch?
In war, lots of people are killed...many perhaps for all the wrong reasons at the time. But in some of those cases, one has to wonder if they asked the right questions and made the right decisions leading up to that disaster. If most of the crew of the Lexington were innocent and they were ordered to engage defecting ships, and word had spread that their previous captain, the Hero of the Confederation, and some rather distinguished pilots were among the defectors (even if that wasn't explained to you, wouldn't you be able to figure out who was unaccounted for just by looking around?)...wouldn't you SERIOUSLY question the order to shoot them down? Hell, there should be a mutiny just to buy the time needed to figure out if it made sense or not. Of course doing so would likely make you a traitor as well...but still, shouldn't you at least try?
Blair was sent out to bring back Eisen and Marshall (at least in the game)...but before he opened fire, he thought it through, knew it was the wrong decision, and went along with them. He only later destroyed the Lexington when she gave them no other choice.
It's one of those tough decisions that's hard to make, but I still think you'd have to make anyway. Those people onboard the Lexington would probably be dead no matter what choice they made, and you're stuck having your life and the knowledge you possess that could prevent a war in one hand and the lives of your former crewmates and their ignorance in the other...it's a tough call to make, but if I was such an ignorant crewmate, I'd forgive any of you guys for offing me for the greater good.
There, how's that?
As for Prophecy...I still don't see it as that unique a situation - at least from the point-of-view as a fighter pilot on the frontlines. The Nephilim don't give you any explanation, nor do they demonstrate the desire to do so. All you know is when you encounter them, they fire at you just like the Kilrathi in WC1-3. It's not really even a moral question at that point. It's a simple matter of self-defense. For whatever reason, they seek you and your teammates' destruction, and so you're forced to counter-attack with maximum force. Until evidence arises to support the fact that the Nephilim aren't all like-minded, you're forced to make judgement calls at the spur of the moment. There's no crewmates you served with on those enemy ships...and you can't guarantee there's even one Nephilim onboard who has his/her reservations about firing on you. It's an easy enemy to fight because you don't feel a close attachment to any of them. One part of WC3 was difficult because of Hobbes' defection. Of all the Kilrathi we ever fought, have we ever felt worse flying against any other as much as Hobbes? For me, it was just sickening because he was my buddy for half the game and WC2 before that...
And now that I think about it on a grand scale, this relates strongly to the Lexington and Kilrah situation on a personal level. At least within the scope of the game storylines, Blair doesn't feel a very close attachment to anyone on the Lexington or on Kilrah. Those he feels closest to are with him against both...and their lives depend on his ability to pull that trigger.
In only a few cases...Spirit's last mission in WC2 primarily...do we feel a level of helplessness, not really sure how we ourselves would act in that situation or as a caring wingman. Had her Sabre not been sabotaged, I wonder how she would have dealt with her love being on the station....do you think she still would've flown into it, destroying it and her love with it? Maybe so...
Now to make things more interesting...what if Angel was onboard the Lexington or alive on Kilrah during that last mission...I think that would've posed an even greater moral dilemma...but even then, I think you have a responsibility to the greater good, don't you? And I think a person who loves you just for being you would understand that...I think Angel would've understood that given these situations. It's just something that has to be done that you can't trust anyone else to pull off.
Of course, this is probably a weaker argument than above...makes it seem like you should care only about yourself, your ideals, and the people you're closest to and to hell with the rest. But in some sad way, isn't that human nature? Don't we only tend to care most about those we feel the closest connections to? Isn't our duty and responsibility to them above all others on a personal level? And as such, don't we feel it to be our duty and responsibility to protect them no matter the consequences?
That's the way I've always pictured Wing Commander and that's why damn few games have ever come close because in other games, you don't care anywhere near as much about the characters themselves. Wing Commander wasn't just a combat simulator where you're just killing needlessly until the end credits...it's a story about friendship, camaraderie, love, victory, tragedy, death, and life. And it's also about tremendous loss, a feeling of helplessness, and being against the ropes time and time again...only to stand your ground just a breath longer because of hope - a hope that often times turns the tide at that crucial moment when everything else around you goes down in flames. Wing Commander wasn't about just blindly following orders...it was about taking a stand for what you believe, who you trust, who you fight for, and who you'd be willing to die for.
And I think that's at least part of the reason most of us can still feel like we made the right decision at the end of the day after destroying Kilrah, destroying the Lexington, killing all those humans, Kilrathi, and Nephilim...we knew what we did was right because there was still a happy ending, many of our friends and comrades were still with us, and we continued watching the stars as we always have, waiting for the next threat to challenge us and force us to rise to the occasion once more. In a way, that's kind of ironic...that doesn't seem to apply only to the characters in Wing Commander, but to members of its fan community as well all these years later.
But the reason you can't regret these decisions is because of where all these events eventually lead you. The characters we feel closest to in Wing Commander are guardians of peace who are frequently thrown into situations where they don't get to enjoy a lasting peace. It is the ultimate duty and responsibility to safeguard civilization as the characters in Wing Commander do..."the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" holds a lot of unfortunate truth to it. But at least for me, therein lies the justification for all the roads you take...for if in the end, you are still the person you choose to be on your own and you still maintain that vigil, they were the right choices, and you could never have trusted anyone else to make them and to take your place in that vigil - not the crew of the Lexington, not the children of Kilrah, no one. That's the power of the solitary position - you can only ever trust yourself to make what you would call the "right" decisions. That's why the destruction of Kilrah and the Lexington were unfortunate, but still nevertheless "right"....because you're still alive and still held in a positive enough light in every race's eyes. The fact that not every Kilrathi wants you dead means the destruction of Kilrah was not a big mistake. The fact that not every human wants you dead means the destruction of the Lexington was not the most evil act. It only means you did what had to be done to ensure the safety and survival of everyone...and the fact that Confed, UBW, and the Kilrathi are still around means you must've done something right, in my mind...
- FireFalcon ~};^
[edit] To Edfilho: Good points in your reply...I suffered a little bit of a disconnect regarding the whole shooting down of Japanese airlines, though. I mean, we didn't do that doing WW2 (on purpose, at least), did we? A better analogy might be that we're not still nuking Japan.
[edit] To McGraff: Interesting comment on the Mantu. I was under the impression that there was a mutual intermission in the war between the Mantu and the Kilrathi. Were the Mantu fighting enemies elsewhere at the time? Also, I'm almost inclined to wager a guess that if this is the case, the Mantu weren't fighting the Nephilim. If it's true the Mantu and the Kilrathi were fairly evenly matched technology-wise, I imagine the Mantu would've been little or no match against the Nephilim (a race the Confederation can barely repel with fighters that seem like a HUGE step up from what the Kilrathi seem to be stuck with), though you could argue this. But in addition, the Nephilim seem to be more the race that appears without prior notice, do what they want, then leave without a trail. I would wonder if that would mean the threat would exist for such a small fraction of time that the Mantu wouldn't necessarily even have the chance to recognize the fact that they're at war (didn't Prophecy only last like a couple of weeks, though I suppose events lasted beyond this period of time) - either the Nephilim would have already done their poking around and be gone, or would have arrived in full force and eradicated the Mantu. But as with nearly everything here...the only man who could perhaps most definitively tell you if it's indeed possible would be LOAF.
