Write what you would've done had you been the pilot of the EDS in the short story "Cold Equations".
In other words, I've been handed the lives of seven people and it's my decision whether or not I take one, or every single one of their lives - myself included.
My thought process is simple; would I rather feel guilt of killing one person or the same one person along with six others? Of course the latter would bare the most weight on my conscience, although with seven lives ended I also would be dead, therefore making feeling guilt impossible. However, this is still a really hard decision given the circumstances. The one who must die in order for the most lives to be saved in the end, is just an innocent, young girl with plans on visiting her older brother. Sure she knew there were consequences, but she severely underestimated them, as space does not abide by most of the rules on Earth.
Being a fellow Earthling myself, stepping inside her shoes makes this decision even harder for me. Had I missed my brother/sister and my only means of visiting him/her would be to lock myself away in a hidden compartment aboard a small ship I might do it. Especially if the opportunity presented itself, and I had to seize the moment, perhaps this being my only chance for a couple of years! I'd like to assume that the geniuses who came up with the whole space travel scenario would have done a couple extra calculations to grant room for extra fuel.
This is what would've been rolling through my mind because I'm sure the survival of the pilot as well as the contents would be paramount. Perhaps the scientific space travel place could shell out a couple extra bucks to ensure NOTHING goes wrong with the transport of the goods or in this case a serum for a deadly virus. There's always the worst case scenario, what if the EDS pilot hit a rogue asteroid on the way to Woden and took them off-course by about 50 lightyears? TOO BAD! You only had enough fuel (and a little tiny bit extra) to make sure you made it to your destination had your flight been flawless.
With all these jumbled, almost incoherent rambling thoughts stabbing the walls of my brain, I'm still faced with a hopeless girl in front of me that has to die. I know what I have to do, to ensure the safety of the pioneer crew on Woden, she has to be jettisoned. As much as I don't want to do it, I'll have to live with it the decision to fulfill my duty as the carrier of the fever serum.
Reasonable account.
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