[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Alardem]

Yes to both. The logic is indisputably flawed, and I don't have a problem while we consider Mandus to be totally irrational. But the narrative doesn't set it up that way.

The narrative sets up the Machine to be a sacrificial device. It in itself is too limited to destroy the world - only murder enough people and gather enough workers to fulfill an ill-defined apocalyptic ritual that involves the detonation of its nuclear reactor. It's important to stress this point: all this murder paves the path for a supernatural cataclysm, rather than be the actual agent of destruction. Mandus, the Engineer and the Machine itself are all conduits for some greater evil.

An analogy to Mandus' motivation would be the use of religious ideology to wipe out an undesirable class, as was/is the case in Rwanda and Sudan. Or, alternately, using the ideology of "purging" to justify the murder of the intelligentsia as the communists gleefully did.

I think it's similar to the reason why people flipped out over the logic (or lack thereof) of the Reapers in Mass Effect 3. It makes perfect sense to consider their motivation irrational because, after all, they were villains and utterly broken AI - yet somehow the fact that they didn't have a reasonable explanation for their inexcusable evil is something many people complained about.

EDIT: Another parallel would be the nuclear bombings of Japan. To this day, many people are under the impression that utterly mortifying the Japanese public with atomic slaughter ("a child's shadow burnt into the brickwork") was preferable to a far bloodier alternative of actually invading the country. Simply put, they say it was a lesser evil that avoided a far greater death toll. I somehow doubt the writer intended this, but I can't help but link the Machine's goal of nuking London to that of Fat Man and Little Boy.