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[Folly]

You are a superhero.

A feud between supervillains has resulted in your arch-nemesis being suspended in a cage that is slowly being lowered into a vat of molten lava. On the opposite side of town, a bus full of schoolchildren is slowly rolling down a hill with a deadly cliffside at the bottom. You are midway between the two situations, and only have time to save one of them.

Obviously you're going to save the kids. But, being the hero you are, you do the noble thing and call the supervillain to inform him of the situation and let him know he's going to die. The supervillain then tells you that you should save him, and he will use his smart-phone to hack into the bus's onboard computer system and save the children. Nobody has to die.

Now, several things are more than a little bit suspicious about this proposal. Do busses even have onboard computers with wireless access and the capacity to take control of the vehicle? You don't think they do...and even if they do, could a smart-phone actually be used to perform such an outlandish hack in a matter of minutes? On the other hand, this supervillain is the mad genius type, and you've seen him pull off exactly this kind of shit before. On the other other hand, this guy is also pure evil, and he would definitely lie about something like this to save his own skin. And even if he can save the children, he might let them die just for teh lulz. On the other other other hand, your superhero code says that if there is even a slim chance to save everybody, you have to go for it. On the other other other other hand, that same code has gotten a ton of other superheroes killed, and dead heroes can't save anybody.

Anyway, you have to choose, save the kids or try to save everybody? What do you do?

[Egan_BW]

Do the classic superhero thing and Take The Third Option.

[ChairmanPoo]

Hmmm
How about "try saving the villain, but if he's lying become DR-Man"?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Reelya]

It's time to pick some talents! Assume they're cumulative.

Myself I'd pick ones I lack, since they impress me more.

drawing, music, and writing => drawing

computer programming, tax law, and interior design => interior design

cooking, sewing, and woodwork => woodwork

video gaming, board gaming, and card gaming => card gaming

tennis, football, and water polo => tennis

So in this hypothetical other life I'm a cabinet maker, artist and decorator who plays tennis on Saturdays and has a poker night one night per week. Livin' la vida loca.

[FallacyofUrist]

Save the kids. For sure. Things are only going to get nasty if we free the nemesis. Odds are he'll escape somehow anyways.
~~~
There's a plague going around. A rather nasty plague. It's spread so rapidly that basically every human on the planet has it now. There are those guys hanging out in Antartica, but who cares about them anyways?

Well apparently those folks are really good at science and have cooked up a cure to the plague. Several cures to the plague, actually. The main reason being that they can't seem to iron out the rather extreme side effects of each version.

Thanks to their efforts, you can get your hands on one of the cures pretty easy. The question is... which one will you choose? Or will you refrain from choosing a cure and suffer through weeks of pain and suffering and a 70% chance of death/30% chance of survival?

Spoiler: The Cures (click to show/hide)

The Death Cure: Amplifies the user's immune system to extreme levels. This changes your odds to 40% chance of death, 60% chance of survival. On the other hand, your experience will get much more painful.

The Brain Cure: A potent toxin that kills the plague easily, changing your odds to 20% chance of death and 80% chance of survival. On the other hand, it's also something of a neurotoxin. If you do survive, your mind is coming out differently. 60% chance of mild changes, 30% chance of severe changes, 10% of permanent coma. The Brain Cure works much faster than the Death Cure.

The Coma Cure: Similar to the Death Cure, but works differently, placing you into a state of suspended animation while your immune system kills the plague. Changes your odds to 5% chance of death, 95% of survival, but leaves you in the state of suspended animation for several years while your body works.

The Furry Cure: Because apparently the plague doesn't work very well on animals. By using gene therapy techniques, the Furry Cure can meld your genome with that of an animal and make you incompatible with the plague, changing your odds to 10% chance of death and 90% of survival. On the other hand, the "side effects" are going to be permanent(and probably effect your kids as well if you're unlucky).

The Untested Cure: The scientists came up with one more cure. They haven't tested it yet, though... ??% chance of death, ?? chance of survival. Unknown side effects.

Spoiler: The Untested Cure, open only if you choose the Untested Cure from the Cures spoiler (click to show/hide)

The NanoSwarm Cure: It's a swarm of nanobots that quickly and easily deals with the plague. 99% chance of survival, 01% of death. On the other hand, the nanobots stick around afterwards. The scientists who made them theorize that another intense immune response will send the nanobots into overdrive, killing the next immune attacker... and you with it. It's only a matter of time before you die.

[Loud Whispers]

There's a plague going around. A rather nasty plague. It's spread so rapidly that basically every human on the planet has it now. There are those guys hanging out in Madagascar, but who cares about them anyways?

ftfy

Coma cure would have to be the one. Fairly straightforward, highest chance of survival while several years is an acceptable tradeoff compared to death
The death cure is a high second. Continual pain of the kind which leaves you unable to sleep, nor wake, eventually reduces you to a state of pain induced delirium - the pain doesn't go away, but you're not able to process it fully. The devil is in the details though, boosted immune system sounds great if it means you gain serious immunity to future infections, but I'm worried the ambiguity could also mean a high risk of autoimmune diseases and allergies which would make life unbearable.
Furry cure can be #1 or #3 depending on what the side effects will manifest as. If all your kids had the intelligence of a squirrel or a rare genetic disease afterwards for example, it'd be considerably more worrying than if they were simply born with webbed toes. Too open to know.
Brain cure... 52% of serious effects ranging from severe brain damage to death. No thanks.
Untested cure: All things considered, bretty good. All things are temporary, but doesn't hold a candle to coma & death cure

[Dunamisdeos]

Coma cure. Trade a few years of your life for the rest of your life, and the continued existence of humanity. Done deal.

[ChairmanPoo]

Do we get superpowers with the furry cure? Can we choose the animal/being we are spliced with?

[Loud Whispers]

Do we get superpowers with the furry cure? Can we choose the animal/being we are spliced with?

If you could pick and choose and have kangaroo legs, eagle vision, dog hearing and all that stuff that'd be pretty baller, but I'm imagining in this grimdark world you wouldn't be getting anime-tier animal splicing, you'd be getting serious congenital defects caused by the mismatch of gene expressions of humans with distant genetic relatives. Less elephant men and more elephant man

[Dunamisdeos]

Do we get superpowers with the furry cure? Can we choose the animal/being we are spliced with?

If you could pick and choose and have kangaroo legs, eagle vision, dog hearing and all that stuff that'd be pretty baller, but I'm imagining in this grimdark world you wouldn't be getting anime-tier animal splicing, you'd be getting serious congenital defects caused by the mismatch of gene expressions of humans with distant genetic relatives. Less elephant men and more elephant man

KHAJIIT HAS WARES TO SELL.

[Loud Whispers]

KHAJIIT HAS WARES TO SELL.

Skyrim belongs to the lusty argonian maids

[FallacyofUrist]

Do we get superpowers with the furry cure? Can we choose the animal/being we are spliced with?

No control over the splicing, though it will tend to be mammalian.

The Furry Cure won't effect your brain(the blood-brain barrier is a thing) but everything else is fair game. You might get super senses or whatever, but on the other hand, good luck using your smartphone with paws.

[Loud Whispers]

No control over the splicing, though it will tend to be mammalian.

The Furry Cure won't effect your brain(the blood-brain barrier is a thing) but everything else is fair game. You might get super senses or whatever, but on the other hand, good luck using your smartphone with paws.

Is that it? You sacrifice modern convenience of smartphones and other idle bullshit in exchange for actual powers? Yeah boi gimme dat otter lung capacity and sheit. Also don't pretend you're not worldbuilding a post-apocalyptic setting in which humanity has died out and been replaced by various tribes of hybrid human-animal chimeras

I see what you're up to

[ChairmanPoo]

No control over the splicing, though it will tend to be mammalian.

The Furry Cure won't effect your brain(the blood-brain barrier is a thing) but everything else is fair game. You might get super senses or whatever, but on the other hand, good luck using your smartphone with paws.

Is that it? You sacrifice modern convenience of smartphones and other idle bullshit in exchange for actual powers? Yeah boi gimme dat otter lung capacity and sheit. Also don't pretend you're not worldbuilding a post-apocalyptic setting in which humanity has died out and been replaced by various tribes of hybrid human-animal chimeras

I see what you're up to

Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

[FallacyofUrist]

But we all have a beast within, no matter what the good doctor thinks.
~~~
I dunno. I'd miss having hands.