Skyward Chapters 7-9 Discussion

[Chaos]

Hey all, Skyward chapters 7-9 is up: https://www.getunderlined.com/read/excerpt-reveal-start-reading-skyward-by-brandon-sanderson/ 

That link has all the chapters if you missed them last Wednesday.  

Discuss what happened in them here!

[kikikakakuku]

Somehow I don't see why they would send people who can barely fly. If they are that desperate, then they are doomed anyway. Pretty exciting anyway lol. Can't wait for the next one.

[DoneTheMath]

The end of the last chapter feels like a test.  Possibly a chance to might eject too quickly under pressure, or something along those lines.  All baseless speculation, but the timing and situation seems a little too convenient.

Spoiler season reminds continues to remind me that I am not a patient person. 

[Lady Radagu]

I hope this is just a test, of courage, or calm under pressure. I'm worried that it's real.

Given the statistics for those who make it through flight school, sending up a cadet squad on their first day sounds like a death sentence. I'm worried that this is happening because if Spensa, and trying to figure out if Admiral Ironsides is so desperate to solve her Spensa problem that she's willing to sacrifice a whole flight of cadets, including the son of the great Jeshua Weight and two or three other celebrity kids, just so she no longer has to worry about the monumental problem that is The Coward's daughter.

[Govir]

4 hours ago, kikikakakuku said:

Somehow I don't see why they would send people who can barely fly. If they are that desperate, then they are doomed anyway. Pretty exciting anyway lol. Can't wait for the next one.

It's possible they just want presence. I'm not sure how the Krell fights normally go, but I could see wanting to have ships up in the air. The enemy won't know they are cadets in those ships, and could view them as a reserve (i.e. it's a bluff by the Humans).

I agree with you that it's a terrible idea though. Either one person is going to get shot down (hopefully not Rig), or one (or more) people will be too antsy and try to engage.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Radagu said:

the monumental problem that is The Coward's daughter.

Them's fighting words!

[ZenBossanova]

All this assumes that they actually let her in the air. I could easily see the Admiral holding her back at the last moment. 

Classroom is one thing, but the Admiral really didn't want her in the air at all. If she does go up, it will probably be the last time in one of their fighters. 

[Overlord Jebus]

See, we know Spensa and the ship she found need to end up together and the ship needs to be repaired.

My guess? She's going to get shot down and, being Spensa, she will refuse to eject (And be a "coward" as her classmates said) and do an emergency landing near the site of the ship she found. Using the parts from her crashed ship, she'll fix up the ship she found.

Also, Rig McAffrey? You're going to reference a book about people learning to ride dragons whilst regularly fighting an enemy that comes from the sky where the dragons/riders can teleport using psychic powers? Really, Brandon?

Wait, if this ends up being in the DE world, has Brandon just written a sci fi more sci-fi version of Dragonriders of Pern?

[MitchBade]

I think it's a nice nod to Pern. If I recall correctly in that world people had come to the planet on spaceships anyways.

[avaunt]

I wonder what the odds are there was a good reason for her dad turning away from the fight. It seems like the obvious answer, almost to the point of cliche. I love these preview chapters, but its always an effort of frustration. I'm not patient enough to read it a couple chapters at a time.

[Govir]

16 hours ago, avaunt said:

It seems like the obvious answer, almost to the point of cliche.

I for sure think there's a reason he turned from the fight.

My gut theory is that the father had some sort of "spidey-sense" that was leading him to something, and he was attempting to follow it...but it happened to be the opposite way of the battle.

I'm also not sure of the pilot configuration: Mongrel was his partner, but were they in the same ship? I feel like they were in separate ships, but it seems like Mongrel was grounded (but not ostracized) around the same time. As if he played a part in his partner's running, but didn't get as harsh a penalty.

New theory (literally just thought of it): Mongrel was the one who shot down the father, and Mongrel was falling the letter of the procedures. And now he refuses to fly in combat (not sure he actually is doing that at all) because he doesn't believe in the letter of the procedures anymore.

[Lady Radagu]

Yes, at this point, the plot twist would be if it did turn out that her father had a completely unprecedented bout of cowardice and tried to run away. Meanwhile, I have three pet theories.

1) He wasn't running away, he was running to. Chaser had always wanted to make a break for the stars, and something happened during the battle that presented him with an actual opportunity to break through the shield to reach them. I'm not wild about this, because it still requires him to purposefully ditch his fellow pilots in the middle of the battle, and represents a conscious choice to abandon his famiy in pursuit of a whim, even if said whim represents a lifelong dream.

 

2) He, too, had a sentient ship. It woke up for the first time in however long smack in the middle of the battle. Despite what the builders intended, said ship was more of a lover than a fighter, took one look at its surroundings, and high tailed it out of there, overriding any manual control that Chaser had, as well as his coms. This is not super likely, because Spensa's ship is a unique relic, whereas her father presumably had one of their own freshly built ships, but maybe it contained some critical parts which were salvaged from an older ship.

 

3) If Chaser was flying away from the battle, then his teammates had to make the concious decision to stop shooting at the Krell long enough to chase after him and shoot him down, rather than waiting to arrest and deal with him later. I guess it's possible that they were concerned he would escalate from Coward to Full Traitor and start shooting at them, but baring that, that seems to me to be really bad strategy. So maybe something else happened, and he was shot down as a cover up. Maybe all of the other pilots took an oath of secrecy, for the good of their fledgling nation. Maybe the real reason they didn't want Spensa in flight school was because she would be sufficiently motivated to uncover what really went down. Maybe I really just need this book already so I can quit spending all if my time coming up with wild theories!

 

[Alejo_arg]

As Cobbs said the almirant cant middle with his classroom becouse its benith her position as almirant. Im guessing the formation is real and its the almirant way of taking spin out of the academy. In her mind she isnt a coward but a PR nightmare, so the only way is getting her killed, and what better way to do that than in the first day of the academy?

 

I've been serching that web for a timestamp, any idea when they release next chapters?

 

ps: Sorry for my bad english

[kmosiman]

That could work except as far as we've seen so far the Fighters are more valuable than the Pilots. She'd have to engineer a way to have a trainee killed without damaging the ship. Cobbs didn't exactly confirm it, but there's probably some truth to the rumor that if a Pilot bails out they are permanently grounded.