Firstly, when was Ratchet supposed to physically overpower and restrain Pharma? Pharma's escalates things first by freeing Sonic and Boom to attack everyone, the first one who grabs a gun to hold them at gunpoint, and makes his escape by shooting the life support machine before anyone can do anything to disarm him. In the chaos, Ratchet has Fort Max--the strongest of them--go after Pharma while the medics stabilized the life support patients. They're situation is even worse than initially thought. They've been betrayed, patient lives are on the line, the DJD might come after them, and it's made worse when Fort Max is unable to follow Pharma, their best chance at finding a cure.
Ratchet goes after Pharma, unarmed, and says he wants to talk. He doesn't start off by interrogating Pharma. He says "I'm unarmed" "I'm here as a friend to talk sense into you". Pharma's the one who launches into a Villain monologue. He's mentally unwell yes, but he's being smug and gloating about it, zero remorse, zero regrets. Ratchet keeps him talking in order to keep Pharma distracted and hopefully reveal the cure. Because once again Ratchet's at a physical disadvantage, unarmed, hands failing, and body rusting away. Ratchet can't even use the gun he grabs gun away from Pharma in his condition. Meanwhile, Pharma keeps the physical advantage with his built in weapons system.
Secondly, Empurata was the Cybertronian Senate dismembering political dissidents as a warning. Pharma's situation is different. He was clinging to the edge and as Ratchet observed, he was going to fall off soon. Ratchet can't pull up Pharma for two reasons. The practical reason is that one arm of Ratchet's arms already rusted off. The other reason is that he's focusing his energy on maintaining his holo-avatar to hold onto the cure Pharma dropped. Pharma tries to shoot and kill Ratchet and would've succeeded were it not for Drift. Drift, I must emphasize here, doesn't cut off Pharma's hands to punish him or to replace Ratchet's, he does it to save Ratchet's life. Ratchet's reaction to this isn't "neat new hands", it's to check on the collapsed Drift.
What happens in between then and when we see Ratchet isn't shown. Instead, Delphi ends with a dark joke at Pharma's expense (as well as the deleted scene with the whole haunted hands bit). I've read better fanfic over Ratchet grappling over the decision to keep Pharma's hands. And yet, despite Cybertronians clearly having ethical organ donation and placing importance on bodily autonomy, no one cares. We can only can guess they brushed aside any ethical dilemmas because of the desperation of Delphi and as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. First Aid, Ambulon, and the sick at Delphi needed Ratchet to have a working pair of hands more than respecting Pharma. They didn't just need help with patients, they needed to synthesize more of the cure, all while in quarantining close to DJD territory. In essence, a one-armed medic was a liability they couldn't afford. It wasn't the ethical thing to do but the pragmatic one, the same thought process Pharma had when he himself desecrated bodies for T-Cogs.
In summary, the actions Ratchet took at Delphi were all to save the lives of those infected with the Rust plague even though it meant opposing an old friend and respected colleague. Pharma wasn't in a good place mentally and definitely factored into him doubling down on his actions and refusal to hand over the cure. If their positions were reversed, I doubt Pharma would've handled it better. He would be horrified but put the needs of the many over the needs of the few (again, similar thought process to his initial deal with Tarn)
On a separate topic, a Pharma redemption arc would be dependent on two things. One would be time, which again, they didn't have on Delphi with all but three Autobots rusting away and dying as time passed. Another thing, Pharma would have to be receptive to change, which if he had time, could've happened but not guaranteed. As for how Ratchet would handle it, that's a mixed bag. Ratchet isn't perfect, he isn't good with emotions, or can handle mental health issues, nor is he full of unconditional forgiveness like Rung but he is willing to give a second chance to those who are remorseful over their actions and put in the work to make up for what they've done (like Drift and Megatron). However the major difference between Pharma and the ex-decepticons who have a bigger kill count than him? Ratchet didn't know them, they were strangers first, their actions weren't a betrayal as personal and deep the way Pharma's was. Even if Pharma improved, that doesn't mean they would be able resume their friendship. Realistically, they would keep a polite distance
Okay, so I'm going to dignify this debate with screenshots.
However before that I get into the meat of things I would like to ask what your idea of deescalation is, if your excuse for a medical professional to escalate a situation further is someone else "escalating it first", or that Ratchet was unarmed and overpowered, because the definition of deescalation is:
In issue #5 Page 7, panel 1, I would argue that Ratchet had a perfect chance to deescalate the situation, as Pharma kept talking, however instead Ratchet did this:
Instead of asking Pharma to put down the gun or attempt to sit him down on any of the previously shown medical berths he asks Pharma to show him his alt mode, and in issue #5 page 7 panels 2 and 3, after Pharma refuses Ratchet does this:
And then if we're talking about monologuing, Ratchet does the expose on telling his theory while holding Pharma at gunpoint for the rest of issue #5 page 7.
And then in issue #5 page 8 panel 1, instead of trying to, once again de-escalate the situation, Ratchet instead points out that Pharma can't kill four people with one blaster, directly leading to Pharma getting the bright idea of shooting the life support.
Also if I might add, in issue #4 page 24, panel 1, Pharma is seen to have been thrown very hard into the wall by Sonic and Boom coming in,
and only seen to be attempting to get up in issue #5, page 5, panels 1 and 2
So no, in between the time of Sonic and Boom being released, and Pharma shooting the life support systems, Ratchet was not only actively armed and had Pharma at gunpoint, Pharma was possibly, most likely concussed to some degree, with Fortress Maximus already within arms reach of Pharma. But he actively spent precious time monologuing and escalating the situation to explain his theory to both Ambulon and First Aid, which Pharma confirmed was correct, directly leading to Pharma shooting the life support systems and running away.
Also, to point out the reason for Ratchet rusting away- once again, #5 pg 9, panel 3. Ratchet already knew the risks of transforming which would kickstart the dormant plague, yet transformed anyway to give someone a full systems boost, even before Fortress Maximus told Ratchet that he lost Pharma, which was #5 pg 9, panel 4.
Also on the subject of hands, it was already pre established in #3 pg 26, panel 1, and #4 pg 7, panel 3 that the Lost Light not only had the materials to make an entire set of hands and arms, but that Ratchet actively was refusing to get replacements even though there was an opportunity to do so because he considered his hands to be "irreplaceable".
So there was quite literally no reason other than ideological and personal reasons to take Pharma's hands for himself both in the narrative sense and in-universe logic.
Okay so I'm going to have to reblog this to continue because Tumblr won't let me embed more images.
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
prguitarman
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
