In Tom Godwin’s short story, “The Cold Equation” the author uses imagery to show how even when you know something is not morally right you can be pressured into it.

In the beginning of “The Cold Equation” there is a young EDS pilot who was on a normal flight transporting supplies to a group on another planet when he found out he was not alone in his EDS. He gathered his blaster and prepared himself to find a man in the closet and he was gonna follow strict protocol and send him out of the EDS into space to die. However, all those plans went out the window when he opened the door and there was a young teenage girl in that closet. He contacted his HQ when and explained the situation, HQ gave him a break and decided to let her live for a while longer. The …show more content…
The brother and her talk for a little while when her brother goes out of range and they can’t talk anymore. She then decides that is all that she needs and she goes into the discharge chamber and gets sent out to space to die. When she is gone he is left in the ship after just killing a girl.

From the beginning Godwin was displaying examples of how people are pressured into doing things that they know aren’t morally right. The first time they show this was when, the EDS pilot had to take the life of another living being. When explaining the thoughts running through the EDS pilot's head before he confronted the person on the EDS with him the author states, “There could be no alternative—but it required a few moments of conditioning for even an EDS pilot to prepare himself to walk across the room and coldly,