Just before EOS' announcement, with no tasks that could be completed and little else to do but wait and rest, John reviewed the events of the day and was chilled by it.
He'd heard about seeing the desire to kill in someone's eyes. He'd even seen flickers of it, most notably in Kyrano's eyes when the news had reached them about the Zero-X. He'd lacked the full context at that time, but knowing what they did about The Hood's relation to Kyrano now explained what he'd seen then.
Today he'd seen it again in the eyes of the assailants who had lured him here and John simultaneously cursed himself for endangering Alan by bringing him along and thanked the stars that he had- the outcome would have been far, far different if he'd been alone. The conviction he'd seen in the eyes of the attackers, the willingness, no, the desire to cross that line… it had frightened him, driving him to desperately put into play skills reluctantly learned to defend his brother and himself.
Humans don't normally want to kill other humans, he knew this and had quantifiable data to back it up. A vaguely recalled study that had cropped up in conversation back in his university days estimated that only 15% of soldiers in WW 1 would fire at the enemy, the rest fired too high, not wanting to kill even though they were at war. The Christmas Truce was more evidence of humanity's instinct to not kill if they could avoid it. Heck, the 'humans will pack bond with anything' memes existed for a reason, his own bond with EOS was proof of that.
That someone, several someones, could overcome that natural reluctance to set up and plan such a meticulous trap… well, The Hood and his minions were the last people to do something like that, and even then it had been remote and hands-off: a 'put you in danger and leave you to your fate' situation, not hands on and in person like today.
John already knew that he would fight in self defence and in defence of his family, today was the most recent example to prove it, and he had a list of non-lethal disabling moves that he practiced regularly. But the harder question was would you intentionally kill in self defence?
He knew Scott and Gordon could, would and had in a section of their lives kept carefully partitioned away and not up for casual discussions. The same for their father, who had been in the Air Force during 2040. It was not a far stretch to see Kayo making that same call. He estimated Virgil would if pushed far enough. Alan… he didn't want to ask that question of the youngest, he was still innocent.
As for himself… the decision not to had crystallised into clarity at the last moment in the case of EOS, when his hand hovered over the big red button that would have purged his station's computers and he'd hesitated to do so. Even as she'd tried to crush him he'd heard the fear, sadness and loneliness and he'd responded to the pain felt by an infant intelligence who was scared and hurting, like a wounded animal lashing out at every hand and unable to tell friend from foe.
But to be pitted against an adult intelligence who knew full well the consequences, who sought to kill him and his family… he didn't know the answer to that question.
Then EOS made her announcement and drew him out of his musings, the question left unanswered for now.