Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140815002519/@comment-10390252-20140815145012

The problem is, of course, that a robot soldier kills who and destroys what it is programmed to kill and destroy. It doesn't have 'loyalty', 'conscience' or even the ability to judge whether a target really is a threat. A human can do all of those things. Yes, a human is also capable of madness, cowardice and betrayal but it is still generally harder to get a group of human soldiers to massacre non-combatants than it is to get a group of self-propelled machine guns to do the same thing.

I'm thinking that this is going to turn out to be a totally hidden 'flaw' in Penny. No matter her orders, she is capable of making her own decisions, making moral choices and developing emotional and spiritual attachments with other intelligent beings. I think that Ironwood is going to find that, no matter how strong is her programmed imperitive to obey his orders and those of his soldiers, she will still say 'no' if told to do something morally wrong. That's a penalty of having such a good soul, I think. That's why I think she'll be an early casualty - Ironwood will destroy her because she won't obey orders - and maybe her death will the thing that breaks Ruby's 'doesn't understand death' innocence.