: You know what's kind of weird? On some level, I sympathize with Del Rio.
: Scary robot monsters are scary, especially when they can teleport behind
: your front lines and kill you directly. Or teleport into Engineering and
: kill everybody. Or teleport into some dark corner of Infinity and start
: shooting up vital machinery.

: You've gotta get out of here, man! And who is telling you different? Well, on
: the left you have a tempermental AI that is clearly in the early stages of
: rampancy. On the right, you have an aging supersoldier who hasn't checked
: in for four years, and has had said AI jacked into his head since he
: landed on Requiem.

Had they done it the scene more morally ambiguous, I think that would've been better. I'm reminded of Halo 3's meeting aboard the Shadow of Intent with Lord Hood, Miranda, Chief, and Halfjaw. It's only a three minute scene, but it manages to depict a gray conflict much better. Vadum wants total destruction. Lord Hood wants to prepare and fight. Miranda and Chief want to take a chance on Cortana's message. And even though they end up disagreeing with Hood and leaving without him, he's not vilified for it, just out of his depth.

Perhaps Del Rio could've had good reason to view Chief as delusional. Maybe Chief could've tried showing him video of the Librarian from his helmet cam only for it to show him talking to seemingly nothing. Maybe the Infinity's damage could've been shown to be more drastic. But neither was done, and Del Rio was shoved out of the plot as soon as he wasn't necessary anymore.