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Here’s the thing about the multiverse theory:
There are an infinite number of you’s, each unique. They all have different lives, make different choices. Remember when you became a jaeger pilot and Mako didn’t? There is a universe where Stacker and Herc make a different decision and you pilot together. Similarly, there is a universe where you don’t die 50 meters from the Breach. They are not always different universes.
The point is, Chuck Hansen, is that there an infinite number of you’s.
Some you’s never meet Mako Mori. Some you’s never make it past conception.
Some you’s never see a jaeger because there is no need for them.
Some things, though, some things stay the same because all of these you’s? They’re still you. And in what world, should you live that long, is Chuck Hansen not a soldier?
In this universe, the countries still have names like America, Australia and Japan. You speak English but you go by Charlie, not Chuck. In that respect, this you is a little more mature.
This world, though it looks much the same from the stars, has been at war for twelve long years. Charlie Hansen and Mako Mori enlisted together, at the ripe old age of 16 under forged papers. Charlie’s only parent, Hercules Hansen, Mako’s adoptive father, Stacker Pentecost, and their guardian, Tamsin Sevier, were not pleased when they found out. Two months later.
(Mako can forge just about anything, and anyway, Stacker and Herc have been on the front lines. There were more important things to take care of. This world’s surveillance technology hasn’t quite caught up to yours, Chuck. Tamsin had had to take recruits to a training maneuver in Osaka.)
Anyways. Charlie and Mako fly planes, and they are good. More than good, actually. They have the lightest, fastest, most fuel-efficient models out there. The secret? They modify them at any opportunity. The other pilots get drinks after work, spend Friday and Saturday nights at the clubs in town but Charlie and Mako? They take their planes apart and put them back together again. Their lieutenant, a T. Choi, no longer balks at the parts left lying around after a long weekend. Now he just winces and clutches his rosary a little tighter every time Charlie and Mako lift off.
Most nights, even if they’re still at the airfield and the only lights are 200 yards off, casting just enough light to not trip over a wrench, Mako sits Charlie up on the wings of her plane and they press up and slide against each other until the only words they have left are Charlie and Mako.
They always sound like prayers.
You haven’t messed that up, Chuck, not this time. At least.
Not yet.
Because that’s the other thing, Chuck. In every universe where you meet and grow up with Mako Mori (and it’s most universes, because there are constants in everything, even when the laws of physics turn themselves sideways), you fuck up. Sometimes it’s little, like the universe where you two get married and have three kids and you take business trips when you should be home for Christmas or a birthday.
This time, though? This time, Mako makes a decision and Charlie tells his superiors that she was out of line. Disciplinary action doesn’t sound too harsh, to Charlie, not at all.
The problem with Charlie’s assessment is that he and Mako have done all kinds of shit a hundred, a thousand times before. Charlie’s angry, though. He’s hurt and raw and wounded and not seeing clearly. He’s also prideful (and that will always be your biggest flaw, Chuck) and won’t admit that he’s wrong.
When Mako gets the news that she’s grounded for eight long months, she looks right at Charlie. They don’t speak, not directly, for ten even longer months.
Ten months is not as long as five years, but it still feels the same.
In every universe, Chuck Hansen, Raleigh Becket, should he live that long, meets Mako Mori, should she live that long, and he is smitten at first sight.
In this universe, Raleigh Becket was once eligible to be the PPDC’s poster boy. He and his brother Yancy had that swagger, that blond-haired, blue-eyed smile that just says Enlist today!. In your universe, Chuck, the Becket’s have an old-school, WWII pin-up girl on their jaeger and name her after the de Havilland plane engines. It is fitting, then, that he is an actual flyboy in this universe.
Does Yancy Becket die? In this universe, yes. It is a tragic loss, compounded by the fact that it is the Beckets’ cockiness and disobedience of direct orders from Stacker Pentecost himself. Yancy’s death is not a constant, but it is a frequent occurrence.
Raleigh Becket doesn’t quit flying, though. He and Yancy and their little sister Jazmine grew up the children of a crop-duster mother and an aerospace engineer father; all three were flying before they could drive. To quit flying is to quit breathing, for a Becket.
Instead, Raleigh takes all of his saved-up leave (which is considerable) and travels the parts of the world that aren’t war-torn (which isn’t much). When he comes back after three months, he teaches new recruits how to fly and tests planes when they’re sent to him. He’s a good instructor and knows enough about planes to offer suggestions and give accurate descriptions of how they feel in the air, but the technical stuff?
That gets filtered down to Mako Mori, who has been working in engineering after being grounded.
She may not be piloting, but she’s still making the best planes. Now other people get to fly them, too.
It turns out, Chuck Hansen, that you’re still an asshole in this universe. Unlike you, Charlie don’t blame his father for his mother’s death but there are (many) parts of him that still resent Herc for leaving him to be raised by Tamsin Sevier with Mako Mori in Hong Kong. Mako didn’t see her father much, either, because Stacker and Herc were the best pilots and needed on the front lines. Constant moving around wasn’t good for kids, they decided, especially kids that had been through so much. So they left the kids with Tamsin, a familiar face, and came home every three weeks and spent a week being dads.
Maybe it helps that Charlie isn’t hit with waves of guilt and grief every time he straps into a Conn-Pod and Drifts with his father. Because that’s another thing that doesn’t exist here. Without jaegers, there was never a reason for Dr. Caitlin Lightcap to develop Drift technology.
What does she invent instead? Dr. Caitlin Lightcap’s constant, should she live that long, is that she always invents something completely harebrained, something that combines the best of human imagination and daring with technology that blows the mind.
This time, she creates an interface that allows pilots to control the movements of the planes with their bodies. There is still a drive suit; pilots whose planes experience severe amounts of damage still get drive suit scars. At least, until Mako fixes that little bug.
This time, there is no mind meld with another person.
Charlie Hansen gives zero fucks about Pentecost bringing back Becket from the Academy because the war is going badly and they need good pilots. There are no politicians pushing for a wall that would never work. Charlie does not blame the failure of the PPDC on mediocre pilots like Raleigh Becket because the program is still active. Foundering, but still there.
What Charlie Hansen does give a fuck about is the fact that he comes home and Raleigh Becket is standing there, in the kitchen. Mako is cooking and Raleigh is helping. They’re both laughing.
Charlie and Mako have not spoken in ten months and to see her talking to someone so openly, so warmly, someone she’s only just met lights the worst kind of fire under Charlie’s ribs.
They still live together, just in separate rooms. Why? Because there isn’t really anywhere else for either of them to live. Pilots and personnel are required to live in base housing. Mako and Chuck usually share because why the hell not? They grew up together and they’ve been sleeping together for years. Besides, moving out means admitting defeat, means losing and Mako is as prideful as Chuck. She’s just less vocal about it.
Charlie doesn’t storm through the apartment but he does make enough noise so that Mako and Raleigh know that he’s home. Raleigh calls out a friendly enough greeting and Charlie raises a hand as he continues on down to his room.
The door doesn’t slam closed, but it does snap firmly.
These are the constants that revolve around your life, no matter the universe, should you live that long, Chuck Hansen: you are a soldier and you grow up with Mako Mori. You fall in love with her, because you grow up around soldiers but think they’re knights. And knights fall in love with the heroine. You eventually fuck up that relationship.
Here are the things that are frequent occurrences in your life, Chuck: your mother dies when you are nine, you are the world’s patron saint of assholes, you never have a functional relationship with your father and you die before your 22nd birthday.
Doesn’t sound that great when it’s laid out like that, does it, Chuck? But you are a good person, at your core, and the universe looks out for you.
In many universes, you fall in love with Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori after you’ve grown up a bit. The three of you move to a farm and raise sheep if it’s Australia, goats if it’s America. A couple times, it’s Canada, and Raleigh convinces you and Mako to raise crops. Once, it’s Oklahoma and the three of you raise horses.
When the universe gives you this outcome, there are always plenty of brown-eyed children to fill the house.
Sometimes you name them after the dead and gone. Sometimes you don’t have to.
So what, exactly, are you fighting? In this universe, Chuck, you fight a group of people who call themselves the Kaiju. Funny, isn’t it, how the universe keeps supplying the same names? Maybe God gets bored.
Here, the Kaiju build massive machines of their own. They are all somewhere around 25 stories, though that sometimes manifests in length rather than height. They either walk across the oceans or fly. They have shielding that only gives the PPDC so many hours to prepare.
The best way to fight them? In a world without nuclear bombs, planes are still the best option (the only option, really, but people will cling to hope when there is nothing left).
But the planes this world has developed are still blocky. They lack grace and speed. There is a noticeable delay between a push of the joystick and the turn of the plane.
The solution?
Small, one-manned planes with an interface that links the pilot to the plane. It’s like wearing a suit but with wings. They are nimble enough to fly around the Kaiju’s machines and blow them to bits.
This universe’s version of jaegers (even if they don’t call them that) are not run on nuclear power and Stacker Pentecost never gets a nosebleed. He continues to pilot after Tokyo, after saving an 11 year old Mako Mori. Tamsin Sevier, though.
Tamsin Sevier crashes in the streets of Tokyo when her plane takes too much damage. She sustains enough nervous system damage that she can never pilot again.
Tamsin, with her usual iron will, says fine. The next best thing, she decides, is to raise the future pilots. She does this both literally and figuratively. At the Academy, she is both the most feared and beloved instructor. At home, she raises Charlie and Mako while their fathers are off at war.
No one is surprised when Mako and Charlie are the best pilots ever seen.
What does Mako do that gets her grounded? She makes a decision and she lives with the consequences. Mako and Charlie have gone against orders before, done things that should have gotten them court martialed. Like that time twenty miles outside of Jakarta when there were two Kaiju airships and Command told them to wait, god fucking damnit, just wait for backup, make them follow you but do not engage, do not -! and they engaged anyway. That had been a month of ground time but Mako and Chuck had had each other. Being grounded didn’t suck nearly as much when they could spend the day wrapped up in each other.
This time Mako and Charlie are stationed in Lima for a few months. The PPDC likes to rotate its pilots without much notice to try and keep the kaiju on their toes. So far, it appears to work. Charlie and Mako are lucky enough to work well together, almost like they can read each other’s minds. The PPDC always moves them within a week of each other.
So Mako and Charlie are in Lima. The Kaiju alarm goes off at 1500 hours. They take off with four other pilots at 1330. They come back with three pilots at 1600 hours.
One of the things Charlie does that you never do, Chuck? He makes friends and watches out for his fellow pilots like a grizzly bear over her cubs.
Charlie has never had to watch an electromagnetic beam catch his friends’ planes before tearing them apart. Mako has a shot. Every time. She never takes it.
Charlie doesn’t understand why and he is too far gone in grief and rage to bother to analyze what happened. He doesn’t even bother to ask.
The problem with those same electromagnetic beams is that they fry recording equipment. It’s Charlie’s word against Mako’s. Mako never denies having a shot that she didn’t take. The PPDC is hemorrhaging pilots; they see a reckless pilot that cost them pilots and while they can’t have that, they still need Mako. They need her skills and her image.
So they make an example of Mako and Charlie lets them. Practically gives them his blessing.
Those first few weeks after Mako’s grounding, Charlie doesn’t see her for weeks.
So why doesn’t Mako take the shot? She’s not stupid; she’s one of the program’s best and brightest. Her mind is especially suited to making snap decisions in high stress situations.
Mako ran point on that drop. Her ammo banks were already low before lift-off because of the charges she was carrying to sink the Kaiju. Communications were shot. Mako, all but alone in the air, made a decision. She still wakes up at night, sweating, heart racing as she watches her fellow pilots, her friends, her family ripped apart. Did she make the right choice? She had three tries. She’s still not sure.
But Charlie never bothers to ask about all that.
So now you know, Chuck. You’re still a dick because you have always known success and that fucks with a kid’s head. You still let grief cloud your judgments, still let it smolder inside you. You’re still a soldier. You even get to be a pilot.
The ending, though? Well, that’s where things get a little tricky.