That's the question, isn't it? Why fight, if you can't win? Why win if you can't live with yourself?

Really, it's the same as anywhere else; they don't want to die. People are hoary-minded, emotional things, full of contradictions. A machine, a logical being, might step off the pillar every time, and make the arenas much shorter than they otherwise would be. People?

It was the hope that did it. That one faint glimmer of hope. Well that, and the silent looming threat of going through the rest of your life as an Avox.

But Shepard didn't say any of that, just tipped her drink at Natasha and watched her reaction.