That's just Quickman, though. Unless we're just not concerning ourselves with the other robots.
Well, I was primarily discussing Quick, but as I've said I don't find the other robots to be particularly lucid in this issue either, something is wrong with them. And if we look at the panel where Quick's speech goes "If we resist, you've got to take us down. You already took our weapons, so it'd be a slaughter, If we get reprogrammed, we stop being us." Magnet, Gemini and Top are behind him looking serious at the viewer in a way that suggests when Quick says "us" he is speaking on behalf of all of them and implying they agree with him to some extent about not wanting to change themselves to be productive. Therefore those three and the other 4 angry birds could also be under similar faulty reprogramming, keeping Light's success rate at that firm 50%. Why the MM3s would say they are impractical or "too specialized", after Dr Light specifically told them "I had a hand in designing eight of you, before Albert stole the blueprints. You have an industrial function built into you" is probably the most obtuse thing. Did they think he meant some other eight? Have their brains been damaged? The other explanation is they agree with Quick and also feel they are bad guys at heart and can never belong. But I've been giving that knitting nerd Needle Man a lot of thought and maybe he feels so guilty about the way he badmouthed Wily in the past that now Wily's gone he just can't live with the guilt. But that would be putting words into his mouth, since he says nothing at all the whole issue. What a waste that he's giving Shadow that suspicious glance at first but we don't get a clue about what he's thinking.
They are in the process of rebuilding and reprogramming them. Key part: the use of present tense. They haven't finished. They've disabled their weapons and are now giving them a choice.
But Mega Man's was statement is past tense. "We disabled your weapon systems in case Dr. Wily's programming wasn't fully purged." The purge is the primary objective, and turning off weapons is for in case it didn't work, and both are already in place. And given how Quick acts, it didn't work. They were right to disable weapons. Rock then suggests another reprogramming because it's clear that first one didn't get the job done, just as they had feared (which was why he was armored in the first place, according to Rock). I think that is what Roll means with her present tense. The reprogramming should have continued as necessary until they are all happy productive robots. But Dr. Light meets a little resistance and gives up on them instead, and that is what I find out of character for Tom.
Setting that aside, your interpretation of events paints Light in a way that we know isn't intended. We know what motivates Light. We know his future (the comics follow a set plot and go right into the X series). He's not going to suddenly shift into a manipulative, incompetent, hypocrite. He's a nieve person who genuinely thinks robots should be able to make their own decisions.
Back in Time Keeps Slipping, Light and Rock are in a car and Light is explaining to Rock what will happen to Wily in prison. He compares robot programming to the laws human beings in society must follow. Rock assumes then that human criminals have bad or erroneous programming and asks if they can be reprogrammed. Dr. Light says that no, humans can't be reprogrammed. (Debatable since humans can be brainwashed and propagandized in their own ways, but this is about how Light sees it). Rock says that's a shame, but Light says it's great that humans have free will and it allows us to dream and innovate and conceptualize greater things for us to achieve. Rock asks if he has free will. Light says he does not, because it while they are capable of a wide range of human-like emotions and decision-making abilities, they are all ruled by their coding. This has been Light's stance from the get-go in this comic. He needs to create X to achieve that kind of robot that can choose right and wrong by itself. The robot is only good if they are programmed to be good. They can be "reprogrammed and misused", they are intelligent tools but still just tools who aren't responsible for their decisions because someone had to program their brain algorithms with some morality for them to be good. And that is why he says his robots were not responsible for what they did in MM1. And that is why these Wily robots get a second chance. Being programmed bad wasn't their fault, and that criminal programming can be corrected simply enough with reprogramming. Light is so committed to the mindset that 'bad programming = not responsible' that he even accepts that Wily was brainwashed under the mind control of Ra Moon (which also may contradict what he says about you can't reprogram people, but maybe extraterrestrial technology is a forgone exception) to excuse Wily's evil behavior--though he seems to agree that the indomitable will of the human spirit is what allowed Wily to return to normal afterward. And now Light changes his mind halfway through this issue and accepts their refusal to be productive civil robots as a decision they are capable of making on their own. Unless he flipped a switch and turned them into reploids, they are no more responsible for their internal thoughts now than they were before, at least by his own stated logic. Now personally, I think Dr. Light does not have human behavior completely figured out because robots change themselves just by learning and responding to their environment and even reploids can be stripped of free will as humans can through torture or straight-up lobotomies, but those are nowhere near as reliable as robot reprogramming and he might even meant "shouldn't be reprogrammed" more than "can't be reprogrammed", but those are the words he uses.
So he either decided now that he was wrong all along or he's being hypocritical of his own viewpoint that the personal responsibility of robot choices lies with the robot's programmer. That the robot's human boss is responsible for the robot seems to be how the law regards it as well, and that could be due in part to Light's influence as a trusted expert on the field. Those in charge trust in Light with such matters. And if Light changed his mind that these robots already have the free will to make moral decisions for themselves, then the X-factor has already been achieved and X is just an upgrade with worrying cranked to 11 (and maybe that's true, as this has always been an issue for interpreting what the difference between reploids and classic robots is).
And again with the "evil programming" ... the robots aren't presented as intrinsically evil. Some of them are very happy to be "bad guys" and weapons, but that doesn't make them evil.
When Quick says he's a "bad guy", Light directly responds "Not necessarily. Robots are neither good nor evil. They do what their operators program them to do." So Light seems fine with using bad and evil as synonyms. It is evil to want to do bad over good. And "taking down Dr. Light's golden boy" is a bad thing to do. I think he can be considered evil without meaning he's the ultimate evil in the universe. Just angry minion evil. But again, he insists that he's a bad guy built to destroy and a weapon and all this and he likes it that way. This padawan is under the influence of the dark side.
Maybe (that's not how I saw it; it seemed like a fancy way of showing Quick recognized MM as a Light robot)
The "SYSTEM BOOT" clued me in that it was a system boot screen. It shows his little sprite and everything, it seems like an internal diagnostic. And Wily's logo is there looking greyed out. There were no Wily robots in his field of vision so the L logo was representing Mega Man why was Wily's logo there? It also appears before his cognition is on and his vision starts processing, so what would be the meaning of this bizarre radar? And his sprite is there, like an internal system check. And we know Quick wasn't cognizant or self-aware at the time because otherwise he would have known his weapon system was disabled. And when his vision is fully online he has that broken up sprite of Rock on the side when he's scanning Mega Man, and the L is not even there, so... I think we can safely say you were mistaken.
the idea that Light reprogrammed the robots in order to argue with them and then agreed to turn them off is absurd.
I agree, so I wish Ian hadn't done that, but that is what Mega Man said. And honestly, having just as many Wily bots change their spots so readily is equally dubious in its own way if these robots aren't responsible for their own ethical decisions as Light maintained at all times before. I guess nobody, not even Light, knows where the line is drawn.
Also, one point in this conversation does make you wonder: connection between robot's 'soul' and his 'body'. I always assumed that in Megaman you simply can't put Cutman's brain into Gutsman body, but there is no good explanation why is that.
Yeah, if you design an IC chip that is to optimally interface with and operate a certain specific body type, then switch that body for another differently specialized one without converting the IC chip accordingly to the new infrastructure, makes sense you will risk getting some errors or being unable to function at all. At the very least, they'd probably be clumsy and disoriented for a good while. Ariga made the excuse that Rock, Roll, and Cut Man's bodies were designed very similar to each other so their minds could be downloaded into each other's chips with less risk. And it might even be psychologically traumatic to be in a different body, if the robot mind is capable of experiencing such emotion. But that might depend on the situation and the robot.
Heck, Doc Robot explicitly DOES take IC Chips and puts them in another body with the only instability coming from having eight personalities at once.
The Doc Robot body was designed to allow different types of IC chips for testing purposes so he's not the best example of what's normally possible.
The Mega Man 9 robots were never offered an upgrade: they went past their expiration date so they went in the trash. The whole point was the law was unfair.
The Mega Man 9 robots were totally fine with being scrapped though. Wily asked if they weren't upset about it, and they respond like it's the most natural thing in the world. It is what happens after a robot has lead a full and productive life. Wily asks if they aren't angry that humans build them and use them and then throw them away, and they don't even know how to respond because the concept of being angry about being born with a purpose and fulfilling that goal and going off to rest seems so completely alien to their viewpoint. They respect the rules the humans have set forth and if one of those rules says they can only operate for so long before they need to recycle themselves to make room for other robots, they are happy just to serve for the time they have. The only thing that Wily can say to get them to come with him is when he insists they can still be useful to humanity if he works on them. Only the idea that they have more to give can entice them, because being helpful and selfless and filled with purpose is their highest aim of all. Mega Man to Quick Man, "You can't mean that !" "You're letting yourselves go to waste!" What Quick Man proposes in shutting himself down is against the nature of honest robots to want to be useful and to serve. But so is being told you have a purpose and then denying it. Not behaving as proper robots at all by that estimation. But of course, it isn't their fault they are programmed to think like that. Except when it is and we need to respect it just because Light suddenly says so.
Then you have robots like Quick Man, whose entire identity and personality were wrapped around being weapons. Quick Man would want to be a weapon even without Wily forcing him, and so when offered a choice (as Light wants to, even though he knows robots don't have full free will he still wants to treat them as people as much as he can) he doesn't even want another chance.
There's no point in asking a robot what it wants if he can just reprogram the robot to want to do what is desired. The only point would be to run a test to ensure that the reprogramming was completely finished and achieved the desired result.
But I want to ask you all, is that how you saw Quick Man in the comic? Forget this issue. Look at every one before it.
When we meet Quick he is following orders to bait Mega Man and retreat. He definitely wanted to beat Mega Man then, and even the other Wily robots make allusions to how Quick will be disappointed if Mega Man falls before Quick can fight him. But Quick also knows that Wily's plan is geared towards converting Mega Man, not towards Quick being the actual victor. Still Quick is just so confident that he doesn't think he can lose. He wants to prove himself and he is characteristically impatient. He is so eager for his turn that he helps rush Mega Man along to the different robot lairs and even finishes Flash Man before Mega Man can, tosses his opponent an E-Can, and challenges him to a test of speed before they even fight. And when Mega Man keeps up with him, Quick is pleased! Then he spends the remainder of the battle running around trying to prove he's the fastest instead of actually trying to harm Mega Man. What I take from all that is yes, he is following Wily's orders because he has to, but even then he doesn't necessarily agree with them. He believes in himself, and is very proud of his skills and speed. In fact, right there he put his desire for the thrill of the race before his desire to destroy Mega Man so he is also the kind of guy who revels in competition and he enjoys a strong challenge. He'd rather be the quickest than act as a weapon, that's what I see in that fight. In the Amazon he gets a second life and there he demonstrates he's not against showing off his speed at other non-combative tasks too, like searching the temple ruins for Wily. And when Shadow betrays them, Quick saves Mega Man from Shadow's attack. He accepts Mega Man's repairs, though he states he doesn't understand why Mega would help him after all he had done to him. Mega Man extends to him forgiveness, compassion, and trust, but he avoids rubbing it in Quick's face or insist that Quick Man owes him a debt for it, he just calls them even. I thought Quick saw then and there that they may be rivals but they don't need to be enemies. A mutual respect for one another was blossoming.
When Mega Man and Quick Man are fighting Ra Moon's forces side by side there is this great panel where they are protecting each others' backs and Quick and Rock bump fists/arms intentionally so Rock can scan him and use Quick Boomerangs again and in that moment Quick Man is looking directly at Rock and smiling. Like he enjoys fighting on the same side. Like they make a good team. Like if things were different, they would both be great allies and happy to rely on each other. Rivals without hatred, who can push each other farther and bring out the best in each other. that is who I thought Quick was in the comic. Quick still wanted a rematch, yes. He still wants to test himself against Mega Man and yes he would enjoy the fighting, but with Doc Robot's failure and the entire plan being one that Quick hated as much if not more than any of them, the time seemed right for these two to finally be on common ground. It was what Doc Robot was asking for in many voices. Mega Man would carry out their wishes.
Then #49. Quick wakes up, tries to battle Rock straight off, acts confused, remembers little to nothing about how the Doc Robot incident ended as though he doesn't remember that Rock saved the IC chips and that their bodies were sealed away intact and that they had asked Rock to revive them. He insults Rock repeatedly, acts freaked out about the notion of reprogramming when none of the others react to the news with such fear or hostility, he gets into an angry argument, makes Rock cry and then sneers with a gleeful smugness as the tears stream down Rock's face, and makes the ultimate declaration through action that he would essentially rather die than fight on the same side as him. Where did
any of that come from?
Those moments they shared, all the character development, it added up to nothing. Less than nothing, because it treats them like those moments never happened at all. It all meant absolutely nothing. Quick's only purpose is to battle Rock and nothing else, it is all that makes his personality. No love of racing. No delight in showing off that speed. No irritation at waiting. No thrill in physical competition. No respect for one's rival. None of those traits that I saw in him. Just pure destruction, that's all Quick wants and acts like it's all he ever wanted. To thwart and discredit Mega Man at every turn. Give him boomerangs or give him death. I have no problem saying I don't like this characterization of Quick, but I liked all those moments before this and I feel like this isn't even the same character here. It's a shocker downer ending to be a shocker downer ending, not because things were building up to this moment from the very beginning and when it happens you say "of course! It could only have happened this way. It was there all along."
That's what I felt with Break Man's battle in #46. It had been building and building and we saw what Break Man was feeling and what Mega Man was feeling and they released all that pent up anger, all the confusion, all that emotion, and through battle finally understood each other for the first time. Rock saw the hurt and the betrayal Blues had felt at being replaced. Blues saw that Rock had only the best intentions and never wanted to cause Blues pain, because he loved him the instant he learned about him. Respect. Development. Change. That felt complete, and leads into why Blues chooses to save his brother and let the Light family know it was him. Even if he's not ready to come back, and even if he never will be, they showed each other their true feelings and it can never be the same. Blues knows he was on the wrong side, and it was causing everyone more hurt. He just needs some time to himself. A new chapter has begun. And if they return to the status quo in or after Worlds Unite I will be even more irate than I am about these pessimistic ignorant suicidal robots.