That phrase is going to haunt him forever.
Bright, I'm putting in an official request, once you get done with this pile of well-written ouch, could you please give us a story with an alive Elara? Pretty please
Good Lord, yes. Live-Elara niceness will be happening at some point. I like her alive! She's a sweetheart!
It occurs to me that some people kill off the companions they unambiguously
dislike, but somehow that never occurs to me. Maybe it's flash fic time!
Once upon a time Wynston said to Lokin, "I won't stand for you using me and my resources for your personal gain and unknown long-term plan and I certainly won't stand for being blackmailed by the likes of you."
"I put down Watcher X for being too smart and unpredictable to live, I have no problem putting you down, too." Then he killed Lokin. The end.
Once upon a time it occurred to Wynston that SCORPIO is a monstrous, terrifying construct with no loyalty and
no intrinsic behavioral limitations. In fact, she's built to attempt to overcome limitations of any kind. Furthermore, the day he localized her to her chassis and she tried to attack him and physically couldn't, he realized, "Wow, last time somebody put limits like that on me, I sorted out the impossible, undid the irrevocable, and murdered the living hell out of everyone who had had anything to do with putting me under those constraints. Maybe I shouldn't do it to this AI who very nearly qualifies as sentient!" Then he disassembled her, wiped all program memory, and stored her databanks in isolated pieces in his organization's headquarters, setting a few expert slicers on the task of building a program that can usefully access and present the data without being a perpetually evolving malignance. The end.
Once upon a time Ashara...I don't even know what's wrong with you, kid, so I'm just going to drop you off at a center for troubled youth on one of the Republic border worlds. But, to be realistic and in character, once upon a time Niselle shocked Ashara to death, stole all her stuff, and walked away whistling.
I feel better now.
