M'tendere dying before they finish their battery feels like another part of that question of 'Is a thing still good if it doesn't function? Is it still worthwhile if it doesn't do anything?' to me. Because what we're left with is, to M'tendere's logic, an involuntarily aborted redemption arc. They say how they feel they must balance out the things they've done wrong in order to be forgiven--that they effectively have to do enough good to even the scales on the harm they've caused. And because of that, their solution to this is on just as grand a scale as the wrongs they've committed--they built weapons that killed vast numbers of people, and now they're looking to create a battery to help a similarly immense amount.
What does it say, then, that they were never able to complete their project? That they had the drive, the desire, the intention to do good, that they strove to the best of their ability to bring this good thing into the world and simply weren't afforded enough time? Would M'tendere view themself as in moral debt still? Do their earlier actions still stand alone to define who they were because they weren't able to make the equivalent positive impact? Or is it enough that they tried? That they kept living and moving forward and trying to be a good person, trying to help others, even if the impact of what they did is either as of yet unknown or not to the scale they'd desired?
Is something only valuable if it's useful? Is a person only good if the positive actions they take bear fruit?
