“Don’t push it!” A pause, the figure in the shadows’ thumb loomed over the detonator. It was silent for a moment. That silence was broken by a very simple question.
“Well, why not?” They turned around to see their friend, a reformist like him who was trying to change the regime for the better. The only difference, they didn’t lose hope.
“If you do that, everything will fall! The country will be a headless chicken being piloted by our stomach and liver if you do that. With the press of a button, you’ll be killing the heads of state, the heads of military, everyone!”
“Is that a bad thing?” They both knew how much blood and death the empire was built on.
“You idiot, do you think you’re saving the people? Do you think the current regime is bad? The chaos that will follow when we fall will be a thousand times worse. Factionalism will tear apart the country, foreign powers will begin to eat us up if civil wars don't do it for us! More will starve, even more will die because of the wars you'll be causing! If you detonate the bomb, the streets will be paved in blood.”
“But they already are.” The blood of peasants marching for bread. The blood of dissidents. The blood of people killed in the pursuit of dissidents. The blood of people who belonged to a different faith. The blood of peoples deemed a 'threat to the national unity.' So much blood, all of it shed in the name of empire.
“Please, I know it’s bad. We can fix it! We can change it for the better! No more famines, no more secret police. Just, please, don’t do this.” They were pleading now. They never liked bloodshed, but they thought that violent revolution was a poor idea, given how that was how the regime came to be in the first place. But they saw the consequences of pressing the button as potential, not certainty. There was one certainty, however.
“Tell me this, can you guarantee that we both won’t just end up in the gutters like those before us? Can you tell me with certainty that the empire will even change at all?”
“....” The silence was telling.
“The time for slow change has come and gone. Every second we try to fight the system inside the system is another second the system continues to victimize those we fight for. No more, my friend. Change will come one way or another.” And this was just one way. "And if this change only brings about another empire, may there be another one of me who will give this cursed place another chance at saving itself."
He pushed the button, and with that, the world was changed. Whether it was condemned or saved by that action, only time would tell.
Even if one side was primarily represented in prose, both have points. It's merely a matter of personal stance.