Chaser

[sin165]

Spensa doesn't believe that her father was a coward.

Do you think she may be right?

Did he really flee or did something else happen?

 

Crazy(?) theory:

Assuming Skyward is in the same universe as Defending Elysium, could Chaser have been mind swapped? (Like Denise in DE)

[MitchBade he/him]

I think there is definitely more to the story, I doubt Chaser was fleeing due to cowardice. However, there's been some context clues suggesting that the setting is actually the world of Firstborn, despite there being no aliens in the story. I'm not sure either way as I'm not quite familiar with Defending Elysium.

[junior]

The flaw with the story about Chaser's fate isn't the cowardice, imo.  It's how his fellow pilots supposedly reacted to his cowardice.  We're told that his fellow pilots shot him down because of his cowardice.

 

We're also told that fighters are *extremely* valuable - enough so that many view it better for a pilot to ride their fighter down instead of ejecting in the hope that the pilot can crash land it in a repairable state.

 

So the official story is that Chaser turned and fled during a battle against enormous odds.  And instead of waiting for him to land and dealing with him on the ground, his fellow pilots shot down his extremely valuable fighter because of his apparent cowardice.  I'm seeing an apparent contradiction here.

[Alejo_arg]

Probably he found out the truth about something important and someone from the top said shoot it down hes running away. Just a couple of hrs to find out.

 

[Stark he/him]

I have not finished yet, SO I don't know the ending.  But knowing Defending Elysium, and how it is a brain thing for FTL, and that they assume he had the 'defect' that allows it...  I don't think that Chaser deserted and was shot down.  I think in the high-stress environment, he accidentally FTL jumped away from the fight, and they had to make up a story to explain his disappearance.

 

And Ironsides decided he could be a black sheep.

 

I'm not married to this theory.  But I'm also not finished with the book.  So we'll see where it ends up.

[RShara she/her]

Brandon manages to surprise us all again!