‘Pacific Rim’s Jaeger: Suddenly You and a Pal Can Take on Kaiju
Today, we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them with Pacific Rim’s Jaegers.
Pacific Rim embodied everything we loved about the giant monster and giant robot genres. Not to mention succeeding in being one of the most fun movies of 2013 by a long shot. It’s robots punching monsters, it was everything that every little kid wanted when they turned on their Saturday morning cartoons. But now it was made for the grown-up versions of those kids with a big budget and good effects. What more could you ask for?!
In Pacific Rim, Jaegers are a special variety of mobile-suit-style weapons created specifically for fighting the attacking Kaiju. But how do the Jaegers work? What made them especially suited to the Kaiju battle? And how were the pilots picked?
History
Within the lore of Pacific Rim, the first ever Kaiju attack happened on August 10th, 2013. The attack lasted five days until August 15th. Following a 7.1 earthquake centered on San Francisco Bay, a huge creature emerged from the bay, destroying the Golden Gate. Bridge, and continued its rampage from there.
After five days of destruction, fighting, and civilian casualties, the military resorted to nuclear missiles to take down the Kaiju. This succeeded but at a loss of the entire Bay Area which was rendered uninhabitable for centuries with a mixture of nuclear fallout and Kaiju blood. The area was renamed the ‘San Francisco Exclusion Zone’ and the world was left to figure out a better way to fight this new threat.
In 2014 Dr. Lars Gottlieb and Jasper Schoenfelt first proposed and developed the Jaeger program in Seoul. This was after the fourth Kaiju attack since August 2013. This time in Sydney, Australia.
The first Jaeger constructed was the Mark-1 Prototype, also known as Brawler Yukon. And despite being very expensive, experimental, and overloading the mind of its first test pilot, the program was green-lit. Likely because there weren’t many other non-nuclear options available.
Jaeger vs. Kaiju
Jaegers were specially designed and built to fight Kaiju. On average, they are about 76 meters or 250 feet tall. That’s about the size of a 23-story building and makes them roughly the same size as the average Kaiju.
Due to the toxic nature of Kaiju blood, Jaegers must rely on hand-to-hand or close-quarter weapons-style fighting. Things like blades or brute strength which, while destructive, would limit the spray of Kaiju blood to a smaller area. But for many Jaegers, the heat-based particle-dispersing Plasmacaster was the go-to and primary weapon against Kaijus.
To avoid combat on land and minimize damage to coastal cities, Jaegers are dispatched from their respective ‘Shatterdomes’ into the nearby harbors to fight the Kaiju off-shore. There are ten miles of clearance space between Jaeger’s ideal fighting zone and the coast. When a Kaiju bypasses the Jaeger and makes it to land, the resulting battle often causes more destruction to the affected location.
Drift Compatibility
Because of the massive size of the Jaeger, it’s impossible for these suits to have just one pilot. Usually, Jaegers are piloted by two or three pilots working in tandem. One pilot controls the right hemisphere of the suit and the other the left. But in order for these individuals to successfully work together to control the suit, they must be ‘drift compatible,’
Drift compatibility is the potential of these potential pilots to form a connection and seamlessly link their consciousness. Often pilots must share their memories, instincts, and emotions with each other. While drifting, it’s not uncommon for pilots to attempt to keep their minds clear of almost all thought, and will sometimes fall into random memories. If a pilot gets lost in one of these memories, it can translate into actions for the Jaeger which are not in sync with their copilot. Being drift-compatible helps these pilots go on these trips and as a result together, continue to control the Jaeger in tandem.
It’s shown with a few Jaeger teams that drift compatibility has a greater ratio of success with pilots who are twins or triplets.
Would you pilot a Jaeger in the world of Pacific Rim or would you move as far inland as possible? Which Jaeger is your favorite? Can you believe it’s been ten years since PacRim premiered? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
