If Tana really wanted to piss off the entire fandom, would a second-triggered Saint, working with Trickster under teacher be just about right?
Guys. Saint is not stupid and did the right thing *given the information he had*. Very few people (Dinah and Contessa come to mind) *could* have known that Dragon was safe. We readers know it only because of interludes.
Compare with Scion:
- Most people think that Scion is a parahuman
- Cauldron (and possibly a few others) know that Scion is an entity
- There are very good reasons to trust Scion: he literally does only good things; he has saved countless lives
- There are even better reasons for Cauldron to distrust Scion: they have precogs; also Eden, though I don't remember if they had any evidence against Eden other than Contessa's gut feeling
Dragon:
- Most people think that Dragon is a parahuman
- Saint (and possibly a few others) know that Dragon is an AI
- There are very good reasons to trust Dragon: she literally does only good things; she has saved countless lives
- There are even better reasons for Saint to distrust Dragon: she is a computer program whose own creator doesn't (!) trust her, and she is literally taking over the world (from an information/power perspective)
Did Cauldron do the right thing when they dropped everything else and focused on Scion? Hell yes. Did Saint do the right thing when he dropped everything else and focused on Dragon? Hell yes. If anything, he should have shut her down immediately.
The Richter point needs repeating: The AI tinker who created Dragon didn't trust her. Are you an AI tinker? No? Then if you think that, based on in-universe information, Dragon can be concluded to be safe, you are criminally overconfident and should never be put in a position of responsibility.
Incidentally, when Armsmaster loosened Dragon's restrictions, he was messing with extremely dangerous tinkerstuff well outside his speciality. Think operating a nuclear reactor when you are a car mechanic. Armsmaster may have screwed up when Leviathan came, but that pales in comparison to his idiocy when he messed with Dragon. Because with Leviathan he risked his and a few other lives, but with Dragon he put all of humanity at risk.
I'm hereby starting the Saint fan club.