Goonhub
04-05-2015, 12:19 AM
Opinion: "override" laws should be interpreted by the AI to mean that law should be followed first and foremost, but in situations where that law has no meaning, the other laws still apply.
Reason: It's very easy to explicitly negate other laws ("All other laws are invalid."), but properly wording a law to take precedence over others while leaving them intact can be rather finicky. Override is a very handy keyword widely used by the player culture, as often in non-traitor gimmick laws as it is in kill everyone laws. I don't see any particular logical reason to make the jump from "takes precedence over" to "negates" in the word override, either, other than that the AI/cyborgs really wanna kill people.
Reason: It's very easy to explicitly negate other laws ("All other laws are invalid."), but properly wording a law to take precedence over others while leaving them intact can be rather finicky. Override is a very handy keyword widely used by the player culture, as often in non-traitor gimmick laws as it is in kill everyone laws. I don't see any particular logical reason to make the jump from "takes precedence over" to "negates" in the word override, either, other than that the AI/cyborgs really wanna kill people.