>I have to admit, Vahlen has never struck me as outright villainous,
>just a little too eager to see where her research takes her. In the context of X-Com, sure. In the context of X-Com in the context of UF (double context score!) if anyone in X-Com were going to be the bad seed, it would be Doctor Warcrimes. Without Vahlen being a loyal servant of the state without much of a moral compass, my hypothetical is a lot less interesting, at least to me.
(Also, goddamit, did I get her name wrong? Shit. I did.)
>The comparison to Halsey is apt, as she's not so
>much evil as she is convinced that what she's doing is right, the
>consequences be damned.
I'd like to note that I always saw Halsey as pretty damn evil. The SPARTAN-II program wasn't developed to fight the Covenant; it was developed in order to keep Earth's bootheel on the neck of the colony worlds. The fact that it ended up saving everyone was a happy coincidence; absent the Covenant showing up, John-117 spends his career killing other humans in dubious, deniable circumstances.
Really, the UNSC is... not a nice government, and the people who work for it aren't nice people.
-Merc
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