I'm thinking about price again my dudes. like I honestly don't think he was a bad guy or that he had bad intentions. he—like everyone else involved in project freelancer—choose to wholeheartedly believe in the director, and he genuinely thought that an out of the box/unconventional solution like project freelancer could've been the key to winning the war.

I also think that he did genuinely want the best for the freelancers, and that his psychological experiments were not intended to result in the outcomes that they did. I don't think price wanted to see /his/ freelancer agents that he personally hand-picked fail—or continually be put into positions that would result in failure, but, unfortunately, he was at the mercy of the director's whims and a fundamentally broken system as much as the agent's themselves were.

when I look at the way he interacts with wash in recovery one and s6, I don't see someone who is doing what he is solely due to underlying ulterior motives. like don't get me wrong, price didn't trust wash, and the extensive therapy sessions did have hidden agendas, but I think he really did want to see wash up and running again, and he does express some level of remorse over the whole epsilon incident along with south betraying wash and shooting him in the back. but again, unfortunately for price, he's dealing with a man who already had an inherent dislike of people poking around inside his head, who also doesn't want to beat around the bush and deal with all of price's bullshit therapy jargon because he's fine, so just give him a gun and tell him where to shoot.

at the end of s6, price wanted to negotiate with wash and meta, but unfortunately (for the umpteenth time), he was dealing with 3 people who were far past the point of negotiating and already had their minds made up. wash was prepared to die if it meant the destruction of freelancer and the meta, the meta was prepared to do anything he was asked if it would lead him to the alpha, and the director was prepared to continue using his agent's to carry out his personal agenda and eliminate those who got in his way.

then price gets sent to jail, left to rot by the man who he trusted. some years pass and he hears about how a group of colorful soldiers brought the director to justice, and then the prison transport ship he's called home gets hijacked by some mercenaries, and finding himself free (relatively speaking) for the first time in a very long time, he decides he's not taking any chances.

sharkface was doomed to die—price made sure to direct his single focused rage and desire for revenge towards agent carolina, for she had always been an empathetic and deeply caring woman even if she wasn't the best at showing it, and her competitive nature was an easy and obvious exploit. unfortunately for sharkface though, with all of his attention on carolina, that meant that agent washington would fall off his radar, and he would have no problem delivering the finishing blow that carolina herself couldn't—wash is a pragmatic man first and foremost, and he has no qualms about killing people if they pose a danger to himself and those close to him, and unlike carolina he only let's his emotions get the better of him in the field when he can logically justify his actions to himself as being unrelated to his feelings.

locus is a man who has been irreparably scarred by the great war along with so many others, and he has no sense of identity outside of being a soldier. his interest (and subsequent disappointment and anger) over agent washington not accepting him as a fellow soldier is very telling. price wonders what locus would think if he told him that agent washington had been court-martialed and demoted prior to being recruited for freelancer for disobeying orders and attacking his CO.

when locus has a sudden interest in the meta, he decides to take the opportunity to sow the seeds of doubt and open locus' eyes to the truth of his partnership with felix, and how the other man wants locus to stay a broken, mindless soldier when he does not need to be one. after all, price is and always will be a counselor, and while he thoroughly failed at his job in the past due to things that were both in and out of his control, here he sees a chance to do some good and make amends on his own terms.