Should Young have handled things differently?

[Corporal Obvious]

Young made the right call. They could either die on the ship or die later on the planet. The only fair thing to to is what he did. It doesn't matter what age, gender, skill set you have the results will be the same for everyone. Die now or later.

That was my take as well. Having the "right" people would have increased their chances to 60 out of 10,000 from 16 out of 10,000. They were doomed no matter what happened. The shuttle people might just live a few years longer, or not.

[The Prophet]

I don't think anyone on the ship had any of the neccessary skills to survive for decades on an uninhabited planet. Sure, soldiers are trained to survive harsh conditions, but not for decades unaided. They didn't have any agricultural tools, and I doubt any people on the Icarus Base were botanists or agriculturalists.

Really, I think Young was just trying to give hope to people, and hope that somehow the Shuttle Crew would be rescued by Earth/ Other people.

And if he had picked the 15 people, then there probably would have been an uprising. It was his (susposed) last act as leader, I doubt he wanted guilt/regret on his conscience as he was going to his death.

[StarFighter]

Young's decision to have a lottery after picking the medic and pilot made sense. Everyone knew that the "survivors" would also die. It was just a fair way to pick who got to live a little longer. Young's decision to have a lottery was good given the situation.

I'm not sure why some are saying it made him a bad leader.

[Lightning Ducj]

Given the number of people involved, they couldn't contemplate a long term human outpost. So they couldn't be thinking of the proper male/female ratio. Almost any combination would soon mostly die off in months or years, maybe a few would possibly die of old age but doubtful. This was not the end of the human race so they weren't trying to perpetuate the species. Just give a handful of people a chance to live maybe another day and *maybe* some day get rescued, but even that would be unlikely.

But Young realized what Rush did not. You can't simply choose from someone's files who is best suited to live and die. That takes more will and character than just a skill sheet and that doesn't show up on paper.

[Encoder]

I personally believe that in that situation there was never going to be an ideal group to select, and besides, ideal versus your life, most people would say screw ideal, I want to live.

The only true way to be fair was the lottery!

[Captain Obvious]

I have a feeling that we are going to see Young continue to avoid the really tough calls, leading him to lean on both Wray and Rush more, since they seem to be willing to " do what it takes" more than what "seems fair"

[Eternal Density]

Technically, the only way to be fair was not to let anyone on the shuttle

[koroush47]

As opposed to hand picking the most skilled people that give the shuttle group the best chance for survival?

I'm torn on it myself. I would lean towards hand picking the best crew to get the job done. Maybe a line in the middle, hand pick 12 and make a lottery of 5, or something along those lines.

They want to show him as a fair and good hearted person.

It was all character development.