Just finished my first playthrough of the game, can't wait to see more. Currently going back through to determine both good and bad playthroughs for the attainment of all of the scenes. Having a bit of a moral dilemma with the Hive mission on whether to allow Mantis to stay or take her back to base. What do you think is the morally virtuous option?
It's a values question. Which morality is more important? Individualism or collective structure?
Taking her back to the base is the moral(she keeps her identity/individualism) and longterm strategic option, leaving there is immoral(her identity is subordinate to the hive queen) option but probably short term strategically necessary option. The hive is about as trust worthy as the decayed, less consistent in actions, and probably can quickly grow to unmanageable levels if given a steady supply of food.
It's a great question... Personally I am on the Hive path but I fear that
ksatnod makes the correct analysis.
About the morality, it's tricky.
Pr0GamerJohnny 's argument is valid but at the same time an outsider can also question the morality of another collective.
For example, if somebody flees from an oppressive regime, which does have a strong moral base, just one that your country doesn't agree with (nice example: Iranian fleeing to France) do you send him back to be with his collective?
Or, is your own collective the most important one? In my opinion, in this case that is what comes first as morally correct.
In this case, while the Mutants have no problems with Mantis and do get somewhat weaker with her loss, Zeta has the objective of getting strong strategic alliances against the Decayed. None of the other factions is the perfect ally, all are potentially dangerous. But the Hive does certainly present the strongest long-term danger. At the same time they are also the most powerful ally against the Decayed. The ideal scenario would be that Hive and Decayed destroy each other and Zeta just has to mop up whatever remains from either, including turning on the Hive eventually. Which is also morally questionable but also probably the correct thing to do if you put Zetan interests first.
But at the moment, we are still lacking information about the Hive and how the conflict with the Decayed will develop. We will need to see...
Another, completely unrelated, point: aesthetically, the Hive scenes are one of the most impressive ones I've ever seen in any adult VN.