A trolley is heading towards 4 people. If you pull the switch, it will be diverted towards 1 person. Also, if you slip the switch by pulling it after the front wheels have passed but before back wheels do, it will probably come to a complete halt before hitting anyone, but there is a 20% chance that you'll fuck up and kill all 5 people. There are exits to the east, north, west, and south.
To the north, you see a quaint downtown district that shows signs of recent renovation, and even more recent sudden collapse. A gastro-brewpub advertises trivia on Tuesdays. There are two bearded men sitting at an outdoor table with their beers, watching in rapt horror as the trolley speeds towards the people bound to the tracks.
Immediately to your south are the trolley tracks. On your left, the tracks diverge, leading towards the desperate, pleading faces of the track-bound.
On the other side of the tracks is an old grain silo preserved by a historical society. It looks freshly painted in white. In the distance, you see a block of slot houses all looking the same.
A woman in designer yoga pants is walking a panicked-looking husky.
On the side of the grain house is the words "OLDE MILL" in four-meter-high block letters. The original silo dates back to the late 1880s when the town was originally founded, before it was absorbed into the greater city metro. There's a memorial plaque at the base, but you can't read it because it's on the other side of the tracks, and also because the speeding tram is in the way.
You expect that they may add a new memorial plaque after today.
The emergency alarms are blaring. There are screams ahead on the track.
You find that your mother has already emptied it and lays sweating against it's metallic surface like some sort of heavily breathing walrus with questionable white stains just around her neckline.
To the north, you see a quaint downtown district that shows signs of recent renovation, and even more recent sudden collapse. A gastro-brewpub advertises trivia on Tuesdays. There are two bearded men sitting at an outdoor table with their beers, watching in rapt horror as the trolley speeds towards the people bound to the tracks.
This. On average it's the same number of deaths, but there's also the 80% chance to avoid the guilt of killing anyone. The guilt of killing 5 people is presumably not 5 times worse than the guilt of killing 1 person.
Look at the wheels to check for bogies. A train or tram without bogies will come to a stop. One with bogies will multi-track drift until the tracks get too far apart.
You see a hand-operated railroad switch consisting of a lever, a brightly painted switch signal, and a switch stand. It is connected to a pull rod on the tracks. There is also a remotely controlled switch machine nearby; it appears this manual switch was left in for redundancy. A black and white sign nearby says DO NOT TOUCH.
The train is close enough that you could reach out and touch it, but that would be dangerous.
You reach out totl touch the train. The metal siding of the train is cold and smooth, and the bright, saturated reds and blues painted along it remind you of a cartoon. There is an advertisement for a local law firm speeding past you too quickly to read.
A fifth of a second later, your ring fingertip is caught on the edge of a metal panel and sheared off.
We have 1 person, and 4 persons, since there are five total. But since there is only a 20% chance, we can consider 20% of 5 people, to be the statistical average of one persons. Meaning that statistically, on average, this should do, absolutely nothing.
You activate your dark heart, moving so fast that you perceive the train coming to a crawl, then a stop. The sky itself looks dark, the physics of relativity cracking under the strain of your newfound power. Gliding on ink-black wings erupting from each limb, you approach, meet the gaze, then execute each of the track-bound mortals, only processing what your body is doing after you pull your claw out of the chest of your fifth and final victim. By the time the train arrives -- seconds later by the timelines of the weak -- you have already left this town for gorier pastures.