Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
For clarity, my version of the story is one where Marlene tells Joel that the doctor can make a vaccine, but that it will kill Ellie, and Joel decides to save Ellie even if it means killing all the Fireflies in his way.
You're leaving out some very important context.

1: Ellie is taken while unconscious and doesn't wake up until after she's rescued. Ellie did not know that this is what they wanted her for. She had absolutely no say in this, the Fireflies were going to murder her. Making sacrifices for the good of others is one thing but if the person making the sacrifice isn't also the person being sacrificed then they have nomoral high ground.

2: The doctor can't make a vaccine. The Fireflies only have surgeons. Also... The infection is caused by a parasitic fungus. You can't make a vaccine for a fungus. They don't have the relevant skills or training to make a vaccine and they're trying to do the imp9ossible.

3: Ellie's immunity has nothing to do with Ellie herself. She's not special. Either she's infected with a benign version of the fungus, it has something to do with her being infected in-utero or both. In the second and third cases, her immunity can't be replicated at all unless you're willing to infect pregnant women so that their children will be immune. In the first case, killing Ellie is not only morally and ethically wrong, it's completly unessesary and the stupidest possible thing they could do.

If its the fungus, not Ellie, then you don't need to cut out her brain. You just need to figure out where in her body the fungus is and take samples. Worst case scenario you just have to do a biopsy that doesn't even touch her brain. They might even be able to filet spores out of her blood. Then you study the fungal samples, culture them, and infect lab rats to see if they develop immunity and disect them, not murder a human girl by vivisecting her brain while she's still alive. It would be in their best interest to keep Ellie alive and healthy becuase they'd need to get samples of the fungus. The fact that they jump straight to terminal vivisection of her still-living brain is proof that these people have no ****ing clue what they're doing and are in no way qualified to be doing this kind of research. They're not only violating bio-ethics, they are very clearly not proper scientists. "Don't destroy the thing you're studying" is science 101, peeps.

4: On the off chance that they did somehow manage to develop a means to infect people with Ellie's strain of the fungus or otherwise replicate her immunity... They've destroyed their source of the "vaccine" so they're only going to be able to immunize a handful of people. This will have absolutely no effect on the world at large. At best, they're saving their own skins and leaving everyone else to rot... Unless they immunize outsiders and then kill them to make more "vaccine"

5: Making people immune to the infection solves nothing. The people who are already infected can't be cured for much the same reason that Ellie is immune in the first place. And the infection isn't the primary threat. The primary threat is the mixture of man-eating infected, bandits, raiders, and cannibals living outside of settlements, corrupt/overzealous soldiers from what's left of the Government, murderous cultists, and insular extremist. Strickling speaking, the Fireflies are part of the problem. Being immune to the infection means you won't turn if you get bit. It doesn't stop you from getting bitten or eaten, nor shot, stabbed, killed, or anything else.

6: It's a fungus! Those don't adapt very fast. To "cure" it you clean the bite mark(or amputate if you're desperate) and feed people anti-fungal medications. A vaccine is a waste of time.

7: Most importantly, there are documents that establish that the Fireflies have done the exact same thing to several other immune people. It never works. They just keep murdering people and hoping that doing the same thing over and over again will eventually work.

The second they said they were going to kill Ellie to try and make a vaccine, they forfeited their right to live.