"For Want of a Nail" is a 2010 science fiction short story by Mary Robinette Kowal.
On a generation ship, attempts to repair an artificial intelligence lead to the revelation of a tragic secret.
[2] Tangent Online called it "a true tragedy, where all of the characters being true to themselves and the needs of their environment are forced into awful situations and must see them through" and "meticulously, scrupulously horrifying".
[3] In 2008, Kowal attended a fiction-writing workshop where she was tasked with writing a short story on site.
Dean Wesley Smith, one of the workshop's hosts, found that story dull; however, Sheila Williams, who was the guest instructor, praised that story's opening scene.