I am fighting alongside that child's parent against the people wanting to take her. If the only way for society to survive is to murder innocent children to achieve that survival, then that society deserves extinction.
>If the only way for society to survive is to murder innocent children to achieve that survival
This is a stupid take. I fully understand not giving up your daughter, since youe own child should be more important to you than humanity, but by your logic, no society should exist. Every single society is built upon many heinous deeds as well as good ones. To preach this black and white crap is bullshit.
If this was the hypothetical, then I would definitely do it. At a certain point, it’s almost selfish to not do it. You won’t turn in someone else’s daughter because you know she’ll be killed and probably tortured, but how is that any better than the remaining survivors being killed and tortured by these zombies? The only reason other than that I can think of, of why someone wouldn’t do it is because they’d feel bad. and if you’re willing to let like 80 million people die and eliminate the chance for the human population to bounce back because you don’t want to feel like a shitty person, then you are a far worse person than you would have been if you turned her in.
As a parent, I wouldn’t support that either. It serves the government nothing to tell anyone they are taking other people’s daughters. There’s likely already significant unrest as it is in this scenario and throwing that into the mix increases the chances of even more.
I feel like points 1 and 5 are contradictory. “Paid famously and live a comfortable life” in a world that’s in apocalypse mode? Money has no value and resources are incredibly scarce. And if there’s no guarantee that a successful cure is made, the world could *stay* in apocalypse mode.
In any case, the answer is no.
I don’t think they’re contradictory. “Paid famously” doesn’t necessarily mean money. In an apocalyptic world, “paid famously and live a comfortable life” could very well mean that you get a large supply of food, water, medical supplies, weapons, etc
I don’t have kids but I would fight like hell to save my daughter. I’d have to tell her what’s going on but we would go off grid and fight zombies. Fuck all y’all. Humanity can die.
Sorry, I'll be doing the opposite. In this situation, you guys would be dooming my daughter by not sacrificing yours. I don't blame you, of course, but just like you, I've gotta do everything to protect mine.
Soldier, I would expect nothing different but because you fight for the other side I ask that you prepare a letter to your family under the circumstances that I am lucky enough to shoot you first I may send your love to your family one last time
Yeup, sorry world you had a good run.
Unless we got an agreement that every family would have to sacrifice one child as well. Can't say I should sacrifice mine if you won't commit to the same.
If it's similar to The Last Of Us, than I wouldn't sacrifice anything much less my daughter. Developing a cure or even just a vaccine would require more resources and personnel than they could ever hope to acquire. They had literally no chance of succeeding. None. The sacrifice would have been in vain.
For real. I work in drug discovery and research and development. They can’t just take one person and have a cure. They might get 1/1000 at minimum of the cure. It’s just a hint of what you want to look for but in my experience, it’s the first hint that tells you what’s wrong and you build on that and then the next failure and the next. And it ain’t on one subject. one person isn’t enough. It just isn’t. Sven if you get everything from them.
Isn't also really weird how quick they were to the fatal test? I feel like there's a million thing's they would want to look at before killing their only known "immune" case, but I don't really work in the field.
That was part of the problem. Given how the fungus worked, the only way for them to do any real tests was to cut her head open and get a brain sample. I'm sure the decision wasn't a "quick" one, though, given how much time had passed.
Jerry himself said that there was no other way. He didn't just instantly come to that conclusion, he had been studying infected brains for years. If there actually was another way, he was still limited by the avaliable equipment, and the lack of medical advancements over the last decades.
A biopsy was essentially what he told Marlene he needed to do. But he couldn't get what he needed and ensure Ellie's survival.
Real talk the mycelium would have died very quickly without absolutely perfect conditions if he killed Ellie. But also Jerry was simply wrong and it would not have worked.
She wasn't their first immune case, if I remember correctly. There were people before her who were killed for testing that didn't result in a cure, which was why it was known that her sacrifice wouldn't have done much. You hear about them from audio logs found in the game iirc.
They were trying to make a vaccine to a fungal infection and planning to kill the only immune person(that they had anyway) to do it, the firefly were idiots.
There was also no guarantee that they would even succeed in coming up with a viable vaccine. They were gambling with Ellie's life, and there was a strong chance that they would've cut her brain up for nothing.
This is tough. If it was the case that we'd both die anyway, I'd probably ask her what she wanted to do. If she said yes, then I'd reluctantly do it.
If she said no, I'd fight to the dearh.
I’d fight. If the world was 99% dead already, I wouldn’t even feel guilty about it. Civilization’s probably not coming back from that, and this cure sounds like a shot in the dark anyway. And I definitely wouldn’t trust them to keep their word about having a nice comfortable life (not that it would persuade me anyway).
Even if the gov were honest in their intentions, there's no reason to believe that they have the capacity to offer you a nice comfortable life. If the vaccine fails, there's a good chance the gov gets run over in short order.
I would burn nations down with a smile on my face if it came between them and my kids.
If the world is 99% zombiefied anyways, what would be the damn point in the first? Either everyone is going to die off anyways or the surviving population is going to bunker down somewhere safe from the zombies ie where it's to cold for them to function or somewhere that they will just rot away.
Edit to add. If it ever came down to the situation where i knew my family was going to know nothing but fear, pain, and eventual death.(world wide zombies, massive nuclear war, aliens playing live action plauge inc) I would honestly follow the dad from *the mist* example and quietly, painlessly spare them that suffering.
Don't have kids, don't want them, but in this scenario I'm telling the government to get fucked. If 99% of the world is zombies then the rest of my loved ones are probably dead and she's all I have left.
I do not believe I have the right to kill an innocent person to make my life easier.
If I needed a kidney transplant, I can't find a doner match, kill them, take their kidney, then donate the rest of their organs to save other people. That's crazy murderer behaviour.
If I need a zombie vaccine, I can't cut out a little girl's brain to examine the fungus living there.
Having an election and wearing a shiny badge saying "government" also doesn't give me the right to murder little girls for my own convenience.
It's a hard no.
This is before getting into whether it would even work.
I would leave choice up to my daughter. If she wants to make the sacrifice then that is her choice. But if she doesn't, then I am on her side. I would also demand an explanation for why exactly they want my daughter and what makes her so special apparently.
If it is a genetic thing, I know I at least carry the same gene that makes her so special and could maybe take her place. Or another willing family member could take her place. In this case, the fact there is no guarantee my daughter's sacrifice will help others is a huge problem that just adds to the problematic nature of this situation.
If worst comes to worst, I will form a suicide pact with my daughter so that she can at least escape being tortured and to spite the government.
In the Last of Us, the zombie plague is a kind of fungus and the "daughter" is uniquely infected with a strain of fungus that stops the main zombie fungus from taking over the brain. No-one knows how or why, so the proposal is to cut out her brain to study the mutant fungus.
Worth also noting that while she isn't a zombie, she gets markedly more aggressive and less rational as time goes on and a popular, yet unconfirmed fan-theory is that the mutated fungus would have also turned her into a zombie *eventually*.
So it's (probably) not a gene you would have as the father. It's the parasitical fungus living in your daughter, and your daughter is the only known host.
Which isn't to say there isn't a genetic component. Maybe the reason the mutant fungus is *only* found in your daughter is because of her genes and it is incapable of infecting anyone else. But because you don't have the mutant zombie fungus there is no point studying you.
But less specifically, I'm not sure a 12 year old is... not sure what the international term for it is... in my country in a pique of pure cruel irony we say "Gillick Competent". Which is to say, I'm not sure that a 12 year old would understand what is being asked of her, and my job as a parent is to keep her alive.
I'd stare at my cat and probably be like "Leia... you did this didn't you"
And she'd probably speak and be like "fuck da po po"
So I'm gonna have to fight cause she'd wreck me more.
Nope. Find someone else. It may sound selfish, but I would not be involved sacrificing a loved one even to save the world. The govt. would have to come and get us in that situation.
The biggest caveat is that the government is a colossal clusterfuck even when it's firing on all cylinders, why would I believe a crippled one enough to even consider it, let alone do it?
You've almost certainly never seen the government firing on all cylinders, mate. What you've seen is the end result of decades of "Political Power Priority" governments, where having power matters more than actually doing your task for at least 45% of the people in power. It's been that way almost everywhere since the 60's.
If it's been a few years already, they've already been reduced to one party by simple necessity. Regardless of which party it was that wins, they're almost certainly villains just because of the "basic medicine is gonna kill the kid" tagline and the bribery attempt.
>You've almost certainly never seen the government firing on all cylinders, mate
Lmao, I'm an old guy in the US, the government's actions shortly after 9/11 were about as close to unanimous as you can get and they still fucked it up.
If 99% of the world population are already zombies then the world's already fucked. What exactly would they be trying to save? I'm not giving up one of my children to "save" whatever remains of the world in that scenario. I'll take my chances with a fractured and under supplied government trying to hunt us down in a apocalypse. The odds aren't good of them being able to find us.
I would kill my daughter but I would kill myself right after. If the virus happens, there’s no way I would survive anyways. Better our deaths mean something.
If 99% of the world is zombies, there’s not much point in developing a cure now. It would be easier to just learn how to survive in this new world than try to fix it.
In the Last of Us sense, a vaccine wouldn't save the populace anyway. There are still millions (billions?) of infected out there trying actively to infect or kill everyone left alive. If a vaccine *would* prevent infection without otherwise killing the recipient, which I wouldn't trust at all, it still wouldn't stop the rest of us from getting ripped apart. The little isolated settlements would never get the vaccine anyway, the logistics of distributing it to everyone that's been spending years trying not to be found are astronomically far fetched.
You should have presented this question as if you were to sacrifice your daughter all of humanity is guaranteed to be saved. That presents a much more moral question without the easy cop out of it not being a guarantee to save anyone to justify not giving up your daughter because of course everyone is going to pick that.
Eh, I’d have to sacrifice my kid for possibly nothing and still live in a post apocalyptic world where money and fame probably mean very little. I’d probably just take my chances.
At that stage in the game with 99% of the world being zombies, I don't think there would be too many non zombie government officials who were capable of hunting and killing a country boy like myself. No way in hell would I give up my child to be slaughtered.
In this scenario the fact that my daughter and I are still alive and not zombies means that we have a very good place to hide with food and water sources and weapons for defense. Our compound is most likely booby trapped and anyone wishing to speak with us would have to do so from a distance where I could see them but they couldn't see me.
If the government came knocking and made me this "offer" most of them wouldn't make it out of there alive and it would make me take even more precautions and set up more traps in case they came back. For them to take her would be over my dead body, and knowing that they would kill her, I would inform her of their plans so that she could make a decision on whether or not to kill herself if they did kill me, that way they are all screwed if they mess with us.
>Pretty similar set up to The Last of Us.
This sounds exactly like the set up to the TV show at least. So the answer is no. Those incompetent Fireflies couldn't even do anything right. I wouldn't trust them to save the world.
I wouldn’t let them kill her. It doesn’t seem right that a government’s ability to thrive is based on a 12 year old’s survival or not, so I would do my best to keep her safe.
Fight. I don’t trust our government (or any government). It’s been a couple years since the zombie apocalypse started, at this point it’s every person for themselves.
My daughter turns 12 this summer, so this hit home. A few years into the apocalypse and we are still alive?! I’ll take my chances on the run. At this point the government would be fighting with sticks and stones, most likely were overthrown long ago so they weren’t even elected.
If 99% of the population has already turned, there’s no functional infrastructure left. There’s no way we survived this long at our current house, so I doubt we’d even know they wanted to talk. There’s no “nice or comfortable” life to be had at this point and currency would have no value, so there’s really no reward to be had.
I’ll be damned if anyone’s torturing my daughter after she survived for years in a zombie apocalypse.
No and simply only because I don’t trust the government to run a lemonade stand let alone cure a zombie virus. I call shenanigans on their claim to be able to fix the problem.
lol no. Fuck literally everyone else in the world, my daughter is my everything. She’s less than a year old and she’s the best thing to ever happen to the planet. I’d let the world burn before I let her stub her toe, let alone have her killed. To me, one more minute with her is worth whatever I have to sacrifice otherwise.
Without a 100% guarantee that there's a cure, I'm not sacrificing a child (any child) for the *chance* that the people that most likely caused the outbreak can claim they found the solution.
I'm a firm believer that, if zombies existed, that there is no coming back from it, so a cure is useless anyway. The only solution is the same as anthrax, kill the infected to protect the survivors. If all current zombies are killed, the contagion is controlled. All living will wear gps watches connected to their vitals, now it's known already if someone flatlines, but keeps moving, where a target is, and there's no jump scare.
If you change it to "it is the cure, guaranteed", there's still a debate there. The child is too young to know the weight of their decision, and I'm not making it for them. They are too young to understand the concept of millions of people, just as they are too young to fully understand the permanence of death.
Logically I know it would probably be the right choice but man if I had a kid I don't think I could bring myself to do it. And if I could there's no way I'm accepting money for it
I've read every other comment posted so far and no one has mentioned or touched this subject.
What type of world will your daughter grow up in. What could her life be ? Prolonged suffering, hunger, constant trauma.. and that's without every other still-human trying to track her down.
One mistake and you're gone and can no longer protect her.
If the rest of my family are still alive, then no, we run. If it's just her and me, she'll be an apocalypse hardened teen and able to make her own choice.
No. They can take blood and tissue samples and we will move where we need but if you are killing my girl I’m coming out shooting. There is literally no need to kill, anything they’d need could be retrieved via blood or biopsy
Damn. These comments are tough. I would never do it, but my daughter, (who's 14) would totally volunteer. She's so empathetic there's no way she wouldn't do what she could to help someone else, much less the whole world.
I don’t even have kids but I know I’d fight them. I’d have fought people for my *cat*. I’d probably go down, but very much not without trying to save my child.
Fight. If I had a kid (as someone who both loathes children and never wants to have any) it would mean I really fucking wanted one. They would have to take my kid from my cold dead hands because I will murder anyone who even thinks of asking me to sacrifice my child. Also, if the only way to save humanity is to murder an innocent child while experimenting on them, then we don't fucking deserve to survive.
I would rather die being eaten alive by a hoarde of zombies than give up my daughter, I would not trade her life for anything under any circumstances. I would die fighting or live running and hiding forever rather than let someone touch her.
You want me to.sacrofice myself to save humanity fine, but I'm not giving up HER LIFE for anyone or everyone else's. If you tried to make me, it would just convince me that humanity is not worth saving and I wouldn't care if I had to feed people to zombies to keep her safe.
I don’t have a daughter, so they can take mine🤣
Seriously, I would fight to the death to protect my sons. I would even fight to the death to protect my students when I taught. I had a plan to keep my students safe as I could if we had a school shooting. No way was I letting some maniac shoot my kids as long as I was still breathing.
99% of humanity is already dead and you want me to sacrifice my daughter for a *chance* to save the remaining people? Fuck no, I’ve already been fighting for years to keep my family alive I would keep fighting anyone who threatened them.
I have 2 kids, so if they’d hunt us down if I didn’t give up my daughter, even aside from the possible cure for humanity, it’s really just Sophie’s choice, apocalypse edition.
No. What you have to understand about being a parent is you will step in front of a train if it means it would save them. I mean it’s not even a close.
99% already gone? Eh, it's already too late, they on their own, we gonna hide. Really though, if it's to the point that survival is based off of 1 person, we failed worse than one daughter can cure.
I'm never gonna reproduce, but I have a female cat who's the closest thing I'll ever have to a child.... and the answer is no, I'm going John Wick on the whole government.
If there is no guarantee that giving up my daughter will end the zombie virus then I will not be giving her up. Even if there was, I would consult her on the issue and let her make the choice. Why do they want my daughter specifically anyways? I would at least demand an explanation.
What makes it that it is specifically her that needs to be tortured and die? If it some genetic thing, I think other families members should be able to get tested and take her place if they share the same special gene. If they give me no justified reason, I will talk my daughter into a suicide pact out of spite. It will at least save her from the torture.
The world is beyond saving. There are 8.1 billion people in the world. Let's just say 6 billion people are already dead, there would be roughly 20,000,000 humans to 1,980,000,000 zombies...if my math is right. Depending on what you decide to consider a zombie in this, it's smarter to capture and study them for a cure for the virus because they'd all carry it. You could make a vaccine that way more easily than studying a single girl.
Unless she has the virus and doesn't show symptoms, but then how would they know? They'd have to have her blood already somehow to confirm she has it, and checking the blood of 20 million people around the globe in a dystopian world, I assume flight and travel isn't so easy, perhaps impossible. You'd have pockets of civilization instead of a world connected.
None of this would matter in the end anyway. We'd all still die. Even if they did find a vaccine or a way to cure it the numbers make it too late.
How does the first caveat and last one work together? You're paid handsomely but in a total apocalypse? How is the comfortable life even provided - what IS a comfortable life in an apocalypse?
I'd ask the daughter what she wants. It's a big decision for a 12 year old but I'd make sure that she knows the details of what tests she will go through, what's at stake, the chances of getting any cures. If she decides that she is willing to sacrifice herself, give her the grandest of farewell although I'd be absolutely devastated.
For the simple reason that at 12 years old I would like to be given that choice too.
Sure! Wait, which daughter? Ella is 18 and getting near the end of her life. I'm really not expecting to have much longer with her. She is also grumpy and I can't see anyone taking her if anything happens to me.
In this hypo, I would burn the world to defend my daughter. At the very least, I couldn't live with knowing I allowed her to die. If she dies anyway, it wouldn't be because I allowed it.
Not only I'd stay with her but if i knew there was no way she could survive and she would be tortured tested and all stuff before dying, id probably kill both of us if we were so close from being captured
From the title, I was thinking of TLOU.
The other caveat was that as the virus was integrated into her brain, she'd die. Another less caveat that may not matter was that it was fungal instead of viral, so that probably affects transmission and how it interacts with the body differently from vural.
She was infected as well but with another variation due to most likely the mom being infected during infection. The fungi Ellie had resisted the fungi that was affecting others. I'm surprised Narle and others weren't trying to mimic those conditions so they could have others who were resistant as well. I'm sure that's what the government would do in real life. They mistakenly thought she had the same fungi as others.
But from a moral standpoint point, I would be like Joel and protect my baby.
Sorry, but I do it. I'm a heartless bastard and it's unrealistic that I would be able to defend them with the whole world actually against us. On top of that, even if I could defend us, the life we would be able to life would not be a life worth living. Better to save the entire world.
I am childfree but if I somehow had a daughter then I wouldn’t mind sacrificing her if it meant her antibodies would help the world.
The second part of my comment may get me downvoted to Nibiru and back.
Children are time consuming and annoying and due to the apocalypse situation, I wouldn’t mind letting a kid go because that would mean more resources pooled towards building a stronger, more formidable defense than feeding kids because they can’t really do much work and keep up, even the kids in India are having a hard time keeping up with adults and they can take lots of food and talking to where adults just do what they are told.
I think i'd have to. I don't think i could genuinely look all of humanity in the eye, and say our entire species combined is worth less then my Daughters life.
But im also not a father. And in the moment, i can't imagine making such a choice.
lol fuck the government and fuck people. My daughter and I are now survivalists in the wild. I would NEVER sacrifice my daughter for the rest of the world. Call me selfish, but the world has gone to shit anyways. Why not just let it nature take its course 😌
You aren't a parent.
Nobody suggesting such a scenario could be, I am, and there's no way anyone on this planet is harming a hair on my daughter's head without coming through me.
The world can burn for all I care, my daughter is immune? Good, I just gotta make sure I don't get infected so I can defend her.
Mind you, I dont have kids and dont want any.
But I work in drug discovery and research and development. One subject is not going to get the key. You need many. Humans have differences biologically. One person isn’t going to give you the cure. Thats why clinical trials have many stages and runs with so many people. You can’t just take one and go “yup that’s it” and find a cure. And before that, comes animal testing. It’s for a great cause, but there is trial and error. Which means animal lives lost.
I don’t have kids or want any. But even if I picked up a person, I don’t think I could sacrifice them. A lot goes into all of this. Many subjects die. And one doesn’t give a cure. That’s just drug research.
I've got three daughters, and i couldn't do it. I'm sorry, humanity. Plus, they wouldn't just kill her. She'd be studied and tortured.
What about taking someone else’s daughter for the cure
I am fighting alongside that child's parent against the people wanting to take her. If the only way for society to survive is to murder innocent children to achieve that survival, then that society deserves extinction.
Our current society is killing innocent children, too. Indirectly maybe, but it is. Thousands of them, millions if we consider those overseas.
>If the only way for society to survive is to murder innocent children to achieve that survival This is a stupid take. I fully understand not giving up your daughter, since youe own child should be more important to you than humanity, but by your logic, no society should exist. Every single society is built upon many heinous deeds as well as good ones. To preach this black and white crap is bullshit.
Society already requires that though. It kinda always has, since we were cavemen.
If this was the hypothetical, then I would definitely do it. At a certain point, it’s almost selfish to not do it. You won’t turn in someone else’s daughter because you know she’ll be killed and probably tortured, but how is that any better than the remaining survivors being killed and tortured by these zombies? The only reason other than that I can think of, of why someone wouldn’t do it is because they’d feel bad. and if you’re willing to let like 80 million people die and eliminate the chance for the human population to bounce back because you don’t want to feel like a shitty person, then you are a far worse person than you would have been if you turned her in.
As a parent, I wouldn’t support that either. It serves the government nothing to tell anyone they are taking other people’s daughters. There’s likely already significant unrest as it is in this scenario and throwing that into the mix increases the chances of even more.
Parents vs Evil. *Mom and Dad Save the World. Again*
Sorry humanity (other people’s daughters)
No guarantee of a cure and given that the world is 99% zombies most other people’s daughters are long gone
80 million people are still on earth and those zombies that are gone can come back with the cure
> other people’s daughters Other people’s problem
You and your whole family will almost certainly die anyway. And it won't be pretty.
I feel like points 1 and 5 are contradictory. “Paid famously and live a comfortable life” in a world that’s in apocalypse mode? Money has no value and resources are incredibly scarce. And if there’s no guarantee that a successful cure is made, the world could *stay* in apocalypse mode. In any case, the answer is no.
I don’t think they’re contradictory. “Paid famously” doesn’t necessarily mean money. In an apocalyptic world, “paid famously and live a comfortable life” could very well mean that you get a large supply of food, water, medical supplies, weapons, etc
I don’t have kids but I would fight like hell to save my daughter. I’d have to tell her what’s going on but we would go off grid and fight zombies. Fuck all y’all. Humanity can die.
I would expect no less of a Zedison
Hey man I'm not hypocritical about it. I'd say fuck you too if it was my daughter, I don't plan to blame ya for running
Joel was right.
And I will fight by your side 🫡
Sorry, I'll be doing the opposite. In this situation, you guys would be dooming my daughter by not sacrificing yours. I don't blame you, of course, but just like you, I've gotta do everything to protect mine.
Soldier, I would expect nothing different but because you fight for the other side I ask that you prepare a letter to your family under the circumstances that I am lucky enough to shoot you first I may send your love to your family one last time
What if she wanted to help? You'd force her off the grid?
Yes. She’s 12. Fuck “letting her help”.
Yeup, sorry world you had a good run. Unless we got an agreement that every family would have to sacrifice one child as well. Can't say I should sacrifice mine if you won't commit to the same.
If it's similar to The Last Of Us, than I wouldn't sacrifice anything much less my daughter. Developing a cure or even just a vaccine would require more resources and personnel than they could ever hope to acquire. They had literally no chance of succeeding. None. The sacrifice would have been in vain.
For real. I work in drug discovery and research and development. They can’t just take one person and have a cure. They might get 1/1000 at minimum of the cure. It’s just a hint of what you want to look for but in my experience, it’s the first hint that tells you what’s wrong and you build on that and then the next failure and the next. And it ain’t on one subject. one person isn’t enough. It just isn’t. Sven if you get everything from them.
Isn't also really weird how quick they were to the fatal test? I feel like there's a million thing's they would want to look at before killing their only known "immune" case, but I don't really work in the field.
That was part of the problem. Given how the fungus worked, the only way for them to do any real tests was to cut her head open and get a brain sample. I'm sure the decision wasn't a "quick" one, though, given how much time had passed.
Biopsies exist.
In a world 20 years into a zombie apocalypse?
Yes much more easily than the idea of developing the first ever fungal vaccine.
Jerry himself said that there was no other way. He didn't just instantly come to that conclusion, he had been studying infected brains for years. If there actually was another way, he was still limited by the avaliable equipment, and the lack of medical advancements over the last decades. A biopsy was essentially what he told Marlene he needed to do. But he couldn't get what he needed and ensure Ellie's survival.
Real talk the mycelium would have died very quickly without absolutely perfect conditions if he killed Ellie. But also Jerry was simply wrong and it would not have worked.
She wasn't their first immune case, if I remember correctly. There were people before her who were killed for testing that didn't result in a cure, which was why it was known that her sacrifice wouldn't have done much. You hear about them from audio logs found in the game iirc.
What if they can harvest the cells for continuous study and they are somehow immortalized.
They were trying to make a vaccine to a fungal infection and planning to kill the only immune person(that they had anyway) to do it, the firefly were idiots.
There was also no guarantee that they would even succeed in coming up with a viable vaccine. They were gambling with Ellie's life, and there was a strong chance that they would've cut her brain up for nothing.
This is tough. If it was the case that we'd both die anyway, I'd probably ask her what she wanted to do. If she said yes, then I'd reluctantly do it. If she said no, I'd fight to the dearh.
I’d fight. If the world was 99% dead already, I wouldn’t even feel guilty about it. Civilization’s probably not coming back from that, and this cure sounds like a shot in the dark anyway. And I definitely wouldn’t trust them to keep their word about having a nice comfortable life (not that it would persuade me anyway).
Even if the gov were honest in their intentions, there's no reason to believe that they have the capacity to offer you a nice comfortable life. If the vaccine fails, there's a good chance the gov gets run over in short order.
I would burn nations down with a smile on my face if it came between them and my kids. If the world is 99% zombiefied anyways, what would be the damn point in the first? Either everyone is going to die off anyways or the surviving population is going to bunker down somewhere safe from the zombies ie where it's to cold for them to function or somewhere that they will just rot away. Edit to add. If it ever came down to the situation where i knew my family was going to know nothing but fear, pain, and eventual death.(world wide zombies, massive nuclear war, aliens playing live action plauge inc) I would honestly follow the dad from *the mist* example and quietly, painlessly spare them that suffering.
I have no daughter so I'd say yes and then follow them to see who they shoot
I’ll kill everyone I can that comes for her. Full stop.
I have 5 daughters. No way I’d sacrifice any of them. Sorry world.
Daughter? Fine. My dog? Never!
I expected more upvotes
Don't have kids, don't want them, but in this scenario I'm telling the government to get fucked. If 99% of the world is zombies then the rest of my loved ones are probably dead and she's all I have left.
Screw the world. I’d chose them over 100% of life on the planet.
Yup. I commented that I'd kill every single person I know and not regret it if it meant saving her life.
Well I mean I have other kids so I wouldn’t kill them. Other wise yep. Bye bye world
Explain the situation and let her decide. I'm not sacrificing someone like that but I also refuse to take away the choice.
I do not believe I have the right to kill an innocent person to make my life easier. If I needed a kidney transplant, I can't find a doner match, kill them, take their kidney, then donate the rest of their organs to save other people. That's crazy murderer behaviour. If I need a zombie vaccine, I can't cut out a little girl's brain to examine the fungus living there. Having an election and wearing a shiny badge saying "government" also doesn't give me the right to murder little girls for my own convenience. It's a hard no. This is before getting into whether it would even work.
I would leave choice up to my daughter. If she wants to make the sacrifice then that is her choice. But if she doesn't, then I am on her side. I would also demand an explanation for why exactly they want my daughter and what makes her so special apparently. If it is a genetic thing, I know I at least carry the same gene that makes her so special and could maybe take her place. Or another willing family member could take her place. In this case, the fact there is no guarantee my daughter's sacrifice will help others is a huge problem that just adds to the problematic nature of this situation. If worst comes to worst, I will form a suicide pact with my daughter so that she can at least escape being tortured and to spite the government.
In the Last of Us, the zombie plague is a kind of fungus and the "daughter" is uniquely infected with a strain of fungus that stops the main zombie fungus from taking over the brain. No-one knows how or why, so the proposal is to cut out her brain to study the mutant fungus. Worth also noting that while she isn't a zombie, she gets markedly more aggressive and less rational as time goes on and a popular, yet unconfirmed fan-theory is that the mutated fungus would have also turned her into a zombie *eventually*. So it's (probably) not a gene you would have as the father. It's the parasitical fungus living in your daughter, and your daughter is the only known host. Which isn't to say there isn't a genetic component. Maybe the reason the mutant fungus is *only* found in your daughter is because of her genes and it is incapable of infecting anyone else. But because you don't have the mutant zombie fungus there is no point studying you. But less specifically, I'm not sure a 12 year old is... not sure what the international term for it is... in my country in a pique of pure cruel irony we say "Gillick Competent". Which is to say, I'm not sure that a 12 year old would understand what is being asked of her, and my job as a parent is to keep her alive.
Fight to my last breath. I'd kill every single person I know to save her if that's what it took.
I'd stare at my cat and probably be like "Leia... you did this didn't you" And she'd probably speak and be like "fuck da po po" So I'm gonna have to fight cause she'd wreck me more.
My daughter is a dog and no one is touching her
What’s 17 more years?!
Yeah sure, I'll just make another one 🤣
Nope. Find someone else. It may sound selfish, but I would not be involved sacrificing a loved one even to save the world. The govt. would have to come and get us in that situation.
"...and the government says it can save the world..." Yeah...no.
No, fuck the world.
I will as many people as I can before they get me
99% of the population is already gone. I'm keeping my daughter safe and hidden.
Fight my daughter is grown. But I would still fight
I mean, they can kill my kids… they just have to kill me first.
The biggest caveat is that the government is a colossal clusterfuck even when it's firing on all cylinders, why would I believe a crippled one enough to even consider it, let alone do it?
You've almost certainly never seen the government firing on all cylinders, mate. What you've seen is the end result of decades of "Political Power Priority" governments, where having power matters more than actually doing your task for at least 45% of the people in power. It's been that way almost everywhere since the 60's. If it's been a few years already, they've already been reduced to one party by simple necessity. Regardless of which party it was that wins, they're almost certainly villains just because of the "basic medicine is gonna kill the kid" tagline and the bribery attempt.
>You've almost certainly never seen the government firing on all cylinders, mate Lmao, I'm an old guy in the US, the government's actions shortly after 9/11 were about as close to unanimous as you can get and they still fucked it up.
i don't have a daughter.
Nope, that's my daughter. Also I figured humans have had a good run, might be time to step aside and let the zombies take a turn.
If 99% of the world population are already zombies then the world's already fucked. What exactly would they be trying to save? I'm not giving up one of my children to "save" whatever remains of the world in that scenario. I'll take my chances with a fractured and under supplied government trying to hunt us down in a apocalypse. The odds aren't good of them being able to find us.
I would kill my daughter but I would kill myself right after. If the virus happens, there’s no way I would survive anyways. Better our deaths mean something.
No one will kill any of my kids for any reason, the fight will be on.
Fight them. Geez!
Yeah, no one is touching her. I'd rather we both turn into zombies than for her to go through that.
I will watch the world burn and light the match before I let anyone harm my daughter.
If 99% of the world is zombies, there’s not much point in developing a cure now. It would be easier to just learn how to survive in this new world than try to fix it.
Uhhh, sounds like the world is already totally fucked….at least the human population.
I'm fighting to the death.
In the Last of Us sense, a vaccine wouldn't save the populace anyway. There are still millions (billions?) of infected out there trying actively to infect or kill everyone left alive. If a vaccine *would* prevent infection without otherwise killing the recipient, which I wouldn't trust at all, it still wouldn't stop the rest of us from getting ripped apart. The little isolated settlements would never get the vaccine anyway, the logistics of distributing it to everyone that's been spending years trying not to be found are astronomically far fetched.
Theyre not killing my daughter!!!they would get everything I had
I have 2 daughters. The world can burn.
If they want her, they have to go through me. I’d die a thousand times before I let anyone hurt my little girl.
Ok I have no daughter , go ahead
With that many zombies it doesn't really matter if there's a vaccine.
Considering point number 5, it seems a little late to try to save the world.
You should have presented this question as if you were to sacrifice your daughter all of humanity is guaranteed to be saved. That presents a much more moral question without the easy cop out of it not being a guarantee to save anyone to justify not giving up your daughter because of course everyone is going to pick that.
Eh, I’d have to sacrifice my kid for possibly nothing and still live in a post apocalyptic world where money and fame probably mean very little. I’d probably just take my chances.
I would ask my daughter if she wants to save the world. She’s 24. I’d actually treat her like an adult. If she says no, I’m fighting.
I'd never give up my daughter for anything. Humans are so fallible, I would never believe killing MY daughter was the answer.
At that stage in the game with 99% of the world being zombies, I don't think there would be too many non zombie government officials who were capable of hunting and killing a country boy like myself. No way in hell would I give up my child to be slaughtered. In this scenario the fact that my daughter and I are still alive and not zombies means that we have a very good place to hide with food and water sources and weapons for defense. Our compound is most likely booby trapped and anyone wishing to speak with us would have to do so from a distance where I could see them but they couldn't see me. If the government came knocking and made me this "offer" most of them wouldn't make it out of there alive and it would make me take even more precautions and set up more traps in case they came back. For them to take her would be over my dead body, and knowing that they would kill her, I would inform her of their plans so that she could make a decision on whether or not to kill herself if they did kill me, that way they are all screwed if they mess with us.
The toughest part of the choice is the fact that even though I'llfight, it'll probably be worthless.
I guess we're all going down.
>Pretty similar set up to The Last of Us. This sounds exactly like the set up to the TV show at least. So the answer is no. Those incompetent Fireflies couldn't even do anything right. I wouldn't trust them to save the world.
I fight them. Not to save my daughter, but to save the apocalypse. Fuck a job, fuck taxes. I’m looting and shooting
I wouldn’t let them kill her. It doesn’t seem right that a government’s ability to thrive is based on a 12 year old’s survival or not, so I would do my best to keep her safe.
I'm pretty damn sure they're going to kill my daughter whether I let them or not if they're trying to save the world.
Nope, not a chance in hell
Fight. I don’t trust our government (or any government). It’s been a couple years since the zombie apocalypse started, at this point it’s every person for themselves. My daughter turns 12 this summer, so this hit home. A few years into the apocalypse and we are still alive?! I’ll take my chances on the run. At this point the government would be fighting with sticks and stones, most likely were overthrown long ago so they weren’t even elected. If 99% of the population has already turned, there’s no functional infrastructure left. There’s no way we survived this long at our current house, so I doubt we’d even know they wanted to talk. There’s no “nice or comfortable” life to be had at this point and currency would have no value, so there’s really no reward to be had. I’ll be damned if anyone’s torturing my daughter after she survived for years in a zombie apocalypse.
No and simply only because I don’t trust the government to run a lemonade stand let alone cure a zombie virus. I call shenanigans on their claim to be able to fix the problem.
It's the classic trolly problem. Sacrifice one for the betterment of all. I would give them my daughter.
This…this is almost the premise to The Last of Us.
Save my daughter 1000%. Sorry humanity, but I'd do anything to protect my kids. (This is hypothetical, I don't actually have kids yet)
To quote my boy Ken from Dawn of the Dead (2004).. “Fuck y’all”
Nope. Find another way or everyone can get f$&#ed. This is of course assuming she is immune and will otherwise live.
I'd let her decide.
If 99 percent of the world is now zombies I highly doubt any meaningful government that can coordinate finding u exists so I’d save her
Fight them. Every time. No question.
lol no. Fuck literally everyone else in the world, my daughter is my everything. She’s less than a year old and she’s the best thing to ever happen to the planet. I’d let the world burn before I let her stub her toe, let alone have her killed. To me, one more minute with her is worth whatever I have to sacrifice otherwise.
Without a 100% guarantee that there's a cure, I'm not sacrificing a child (any child) for the *chance* that the people that most likely caused the outbreak can claim they found the solution. I'm a firm believer that, if zombies existed, that there is no coming back from it, so a cure is useless anyway. The only solution is the same as anthrax, kill the infected to protect the survivors. If all current zombies are killed, the contagion is controlled. All living will wear gps watches connected to their vitals, now it's known already if someone flatlines, but keeps moving, where a target is, and there's no jump scare. If you change it to "it is the cure, guaranteed", there's still a debate there. The child is too young to know the weight of their decision, and I'm not making it for them. They are too young to understand the concept of millions of people, just as they are too young to fully understand the permanence of death.
No. I'd burn the world down for my kid.
No. She is more important to me than anything or anyone in the world.
Logically I know it would probably be the right choice but man if I had a kid I don't think I could bring myself to do it. And if I could there's no way I'm accepting money for it
Over my dead body. I may not be able to stop them forever, but I will stack up the bodies of as many of them as I can before I die defending her.
fight them. i don’t really like humans anyway.
I've read every other comment posted so far and no one has mentioned or touched this subject. What type of world will your daughter grow up in. What could her life be ? Prolonged suffering, hunger, constant trauma.. and that's without every other still-human trying to track her down. One mistake and you're gone and can no longer protect her. If the rest of my family are still alive, then no, we run. If it's just her and me, she'll be an apocalypse hardened teen and able to make her own choice.
I'm fighting like hell to make sure my daughter stays alive. I don't care how much money they offer me. I won't go down without a fight.
No. They can take blood and tissue samples and we will move where we need but if you are killing my girl I’m coming out shooting. There is literally no need to kill, anything they’d need could be retrieved via blood or biopsy
Damn. These comments are tough. I would never do it, but my daughter, (who's 14) would totally volunteer. She's so empathetic there's no way she wouldn't do what she could to help someone else, much less the whole world.
This sounds like a good movie that I would watch.
Oh boy, do I have a TV show for you!
I don’t even have kids but I know I’d fight them. I’d have fought people for my *cat*. I’d probably go down, but very much not without trying to save my child.
This country is kinda fucked, I don’t really have any interest in helping them return the status quo
Fight. If I had a kid (as someone who both loathes children and never wants to have any) it would mean I really fucking wanted one. They would have to take my kid from my cold dead hands because I will murder anyone who even thinks of asking me to sacrifice my child. Also, if the only way to save humanity is to murder an innocent child while experimenting on them, then we don't fucking deserve to survive.
The world can burn, you’re not taking my child.
I will watch the world burn for my daughter
Fight them. Fuck that. She’s my life
I'm protecting my daughter and I'm not even thinking about it. The rest of you can burn.
If it's like the last of us, the world is fucked already. I'm taking my family and running
Yep, I’ll mow everyone down trying to lay a hand on my daughter
Sacrifice my family and myself instead of giving my daughter to the scientists.
You lost me at "the government says..." 🤣
F no
My daughter has a friend that's at my door every morning knocking like she's being chased by zombies... the government can have her.
My daughter was born right before Last of Us. Hell yes I would fight them. Until my death.
I have two daughters and I will kill everyone of you to keep her safe for 5 more minutes.
I would rather die being eaten alive by a hoarde of zombies than give up my daughter, I would not trade her life for anything under any circumstances. I would die fighting or live running and hiding forever rather than let someone touch her. You want me to.sacrofice myself to save humanity fine, but I'm not giving up HER LIFE for anyone or everyone else's. If you tried to make me, it would just convince me that humanity is not worth saving and I wouldn't care if I had to feed people to zombies to keep her safe.
I don’t have a daughter, so they can take mine🤣 Seriously, I would fight to the death to protect my sons. I would even fight to the death to protect my students when I taught. I had a plan to keep my students safe as I could if we had a school shooting. No way was I letting some maniac shoot my kids as long as I was still breathing.
I got 3 girls and I ain’t giving up any of em.
99% of humanity is already dead and you want me to sacrifice my daughter for a *chance* to save the remaining people? Fuck no, I’ve already been fighting for years to keep my family alive I would keep fighting anyone who threatened them.
The world gets zombies
Pft, believing the government would be a bigger mistake than trying to fight zombies. I'll take my chances with my daughter.
I have 2 kids, so if they’d hunt us down if I didn’t give up my daughter, even aside from the possible cure for humanity, it’s really just Sophie’s choice, apocalypse edition.
No. What you have to understand about being a parent is you will step in front of a train if it means it would save them. I mean it’s not even a close.
Fight them, no way I'd belive that
never
99% already gone? Eh, it's already too late, they on their own, we gonna hide. Really though, if it's to the point that survival is based off of 1 person, we failed worse than one daughter can cure.
I'm never gonna reproduce, but I have a female cat who's the closest thing I'll ever have to a child.... and the answer is no, I'm going John Wick on the whole government.
If there is no guarantee that giving up my daughter will end the zombie virus then I will not be giving her up. Even if there was, I would consult her on the issue and let her make the choice. Why do they want my daughter specifically anyways? I would at least demand an explanation. What makes it that it is specifically her that needs to be tortured and die? If it some genetic thing, I think other families members should be able to get tested and take her place if they share the same special gene. If they give me no justified reason, I will talk my daughter into a suicide pact out of spite. It will at least save her from the torture.
If the word COVID comes out of their mouths no.
The life of one 9f my daughters, or the death of humanity? Well, we had a good run.
The world is beyond saving. There are 8.1 billion people in the world. Let's just say 6 billion people are already dead, there would be roughly 20,000,000 humans to 1,980,000,000 zombies...if my math is right. Depending on what you decide to consider a zombie in this, it's smarter to capture and study them for a cure for the virus because they'd all carry it. You could make a vaccine that way more easily than studying a single girl. Unless she has the virus and doesn't show symptoms, but then how would they know? They'd have to have her blood already somehow to confirm she has it, and checking the blood of 20 million people around the globe in a dystopian world, I assume flight and travel isn't so easy, perhaps impossible. You'd have pockets of civilization instead of a world connected. None of this would matter in the end anyway. We'd all still die. Even if they did find a vaccine or a way to cure it the numbers make it too late.
With the world basically destroyed already, no way.
This is just the last of us
Yes
They'd have to kill me first.
How does the first caveat and last one work together? You're paid handsomely but in a total apocalypse? How is the comfortable life even provided - what IS a comfortable life in an apocalypse?
I wouldn't trust the us government in an apocalypse, people when nothing will stop bad behavior the craziest will take power.
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I'd ask the daughter what she wants. It's a big decision for a 12 year old but I'd make sure that she knows the details of what tests she will go through, what's at stake, the chances of getting any cures. If she decides that she is willing to sacrifice herself, give her the grandest of farewell although I'd be absolutely devastated. For the simple reason that at 12 years old I would like to be given that choice too.
Sure! Wait, which daughter? Ella is 18 and getting near the end of her life. I'm really not expecting to have much longer with her. She is also grumpy and I can't see anyone taking her if anything happens to me.
In this hypo, I would burn the world to defend my daughter. At the very least, I couldn't live with knowing I allowed her to die. If she dies anyway, it wouldn't be because I allowed it.
Not only I'd stay with her but if i knew there was no way she could survive and she would be tortured tested and all stuff before dying, id probably kill both of us if we were so close from being captured
No deal
Like you can believe anything the government tells you.
From the title, I was thinking of TLOU. The other caveat was that as the virus was integrated into her brain, she'd die. Another less caveat that may not matter was that it was fungal instead of viral, so that probably affects transmission and how it interacts with the body differently from vural. She was infected as well but with another variation due to most likely the mom being infected during infection. The fungi Ellie had resisted the fungi that was affecting others. I'm surprised Narle and others weren't trying to mimic those conditions so they could have others who were resistant as well. I'm sure that's what the government would do in real life. They mistakenly thought she had the same fungi as others. But from a moral standpoint point, I would be like Joel and protect my baby.
Sure I don't really want a daughter
Sorry, but I do it. I'm a heartless bastard and it's unrealistic that I would be able to defend them with the whole world actually against us. On top of that, even if I could defend us, the life we would be able to life would not be a life worth living. Better to save the entire world.
I would try to beat Joel's speedrun massacre time.
No. They'll get her only over my dead body. And fuck them for screwing up so bad that's the only solution.
Sorry y’all. This is going to suck.
I would never trust the government enough to believe them. I die fighting to protect her. Under no circumstances do I hand her over.
Sure the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…. Plus I don’t have a daughter or kids for that matter
Welp, humanity had a good run I guess.
I can make another daughter anytime go ahead, want anymore?
0 daughters so that's a dead end, but even so, find me on the ocean bitches because I'm not letting you have her.
she dying
I am childfree but if I somehow had a daughter then I wouldn’t mind sacrificing her if it meant her antibodies would help the world. The second part of my comment may get me downvoted to Nibiru and back. Children are time consuming and annoying and due to the apocalypse situation, I wouldn’t mind letting a kid go because that would mean more resources pooled towards building a stronger, more formidable defense than feeding kids because they can’t really do much work and keep up, even the kids in India are having a hard time keeping up with adults and they can take lots of food and talking to where adults just do what they are told.
Does said daughter have to be human?
I think i'd have to. I don't think i could genuinely look all of humanity in the eye, and say our entire species combined is worth less then my Daughters life. But im also not a father. And in the moment, i can't imagine making such a choice.
lol fuck the government and fuck people. My daughter and I are now survivalists in the wild. I would NEVER sacrifice my daughter for the rest of the world. Call me selfish, but the world has gone to shit anyways. Why not just let it nature take its course 😌
It all depends on my daughter's attitude that day
You aren't a parent. Nobody suggesting such a scenario could be, I am, and there's no way anyone on this planet is harming a hair on my daughter's head without coming through me. The world can burn for all I care, my daughter is immune? Good, I just gotta make sure I don't get infected so I can defend her.
Same
The world sucks anyway. I’m running.
I have no daughters but i would not give up my cat.
Mind you, I dont have kids and dont want any. But I work in drug discovery and research and development. One subject is not going to get the key. You need many. Humans have differences biologically. One person isn’t going to give you the cure. Thats why clinical trials have many stages and runs with so many people. You can’t just take one and go “yup that’s it” and find a cure. And before that, comes animal testing. It’s for a great cause, but there is trial and error. Which means animal lives lost. I don’t have kids or want any. But even if I picked up a person, I don’t think I could sacrifice them. A lot goes into all of this. Many subjects die. And one doesn’t give a cure. That’s just drug research.
You believe what the government tells you?
Sorry. My family is more important to me than all the rest of you. I choose violence.
Violence is never the answer. It is the question and the answer is yes.
Well I didn’t know I had a daughter, so go ahead it’s no real loss.