Discussing the pilots (Spoilers)

[Austellus]

Now that I've played as all three and seen the three endings, I'm trying to put together my ideas on the pilots. They're only brief and I don't doubt I'll have completely new opinions once I replay all of them with a better starting position, but discussion is fun!

(Spoilers also apply to WKtD)

Pluto is who I played as first. One of the most persistent impressions I formed was comparing her to Jupiter from WKtD - the perfect one who's bad at thinking of herself. Also noted the strong contrast with Luna-Terra: Europa talks about how LT's weaknesses being as important as her strengths, while Pluto talks about not being allowed to be anything but perfect. It's hard to tell how much of Pluto is a front, she seems less impossibly self-confident when nobody is around, but I don't for a second doubt she loves everyone just as much as she says she does.

Luna-Terra was next for me. Harder to say what I think of her and what she wants, which is probably not helped by the fact I'm not sure she knows either. She definitely doesn't love herself, that's for sure. More than anything she seems to love it when she actually loses, she's fed up of being unstoppable. After getting the Pluto/Jupiter comparison in my head I automatically assigned the others, and LT got to be Venus more or less for being blonde, though I'm pretty sure there's more definite connection in them both being trans. At least I think LT is, there's off-hand mentions of "my old body" and most tellingly in the flashback to their days as children, Pluto mentions "your dead name".

Saturn was the final one I played as, and it was odd, not least because a lot of stuff that was only inferred and deduced on other routes - the existential threat etc. - is spelled out on hers. Saturn's motives are the clearest because she simply doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ and screams them loud and clear. She's such a clear fit to Neptune: The system is ♥♥♥♥♥♥, and ♥♥♥♥ you for acting like it's not hurting you. I loved Saturn so much. Her backstory with Iapetus is uncomfortable and reads horribly real.

Like I said, any and all of these impressions will probably shift with replaying and talking and other perspectives from those who can better connect with them (I'm a cis dude, albeit bi), and I'd love to hear those. This is a game that's worthy of talking about.

[Austellus]

Started Pluto's route again, and noting yes: Every single time someone calls her perfect or otherwise insinuates it, she gets upset. Quite badly. She's genuine in her love of everything, but it wasn't her choice to be the one who can deliver them from Earth's gravity.

"That was the worst part. She wished so much they would give up. It was so hard. She just wanted to be the mess she really was, and they wouldn't let her."

Oh, and the line "You didn't let Earth's gravity shape your body" to Luna-T which cements that theory to me.

[rodnoron]

Pluto was also the one who i played first (and relate to to an almost uncomfortable degree! ha ha, whoops!) and she seems to also bear a huge burden of guilt for her past. which is... kind of hilarious since it seems like she didn't really ever do anything THAT bad (ha ha, whoops) but being pushed from such a young age to become the sum of the hopes of the surrogate mother she had in Dr. Nix seems to have driven her to regard her past, imperfect self as something shameful and distressing, even though it doesn't even seem like she did anything more than just be a normal, if abandoned, kid bad then (whoops!!!!)

It's telling, and really rad, that in the oxygen ocean the game uses the crayon drawings for past-Saturn but past-Pluto is rendered about as realistically as her ingame pilot portrait. it's not until her ending when her girlfriends FORCE her to actually be selfish for once that you see her rendered in a childish way, and not like a child... as rendered by an adult.

oh and for what it's worth aevee bee confirmed the theories about LT and Pluto being trans were "not false positives" on twitter, so!

[rodnoron]

Oh, and... i really liked how all the day zero intro sequences during initial ship-self bootup offer a really... telling insight into each pilot's personality in such deep ways, from Pluto's meditative mantras bleeding into her OS core, to LT's extremely poor attempts to convince anyone that she's actually coping, to Saturn being just the worst, the absolute PITS