So, following a superior's request to engage, and saving the lifes of some thousands of people at the cost of an AI controlled ship of doubtful procedence is... out of roleplay?
no i am saying that you are limiting your mind to that single option which is in my opinion not the best solution. you could have roleplayed to try to fix the issue aboard the Hoshinokatana (i believe the ships name is)
and by the way from what i know the ship has a crew and a captain who supervises the ship. (and why they didn't step in fazes me but that is not what is being discussed here)
so your argument of saving a lot of lives is kinda moot, apparently you shot down some too.
Always thought Captain Picard from the Enterprise and Janeway from Voyager should have triggered the firebutton more often, but the RP story still kept the fans without the colored lights in space;)
Maybe not destroying just shooting a bit shields, then continuing with kind of:
*retrying antivirus*
or
*trying to adapt to unknown virus*
or
*scanning frequencies for useful data about unknown virus*
could have triggered more RP response in a wanted way.
After all this i would say: Next time make a plan for the unaware of your RPing to help getting the wanted outcome.
Found any (and you might find many) mistakes? Keep them, or send me a PM with correction to help me to improve my english!