Tale of Two Chucks

A Tale of Two Chucks: Chuck Darling and Chuck Hansen. 
==Divergences==
(From "Chuckles is Wash" (2014/10/17))
In the AU where the Chuck-Chuck Drift fries Chuckles instead of Kirra, would Pietr be her Drift partner until the end or would he still get replaced with Herc? 
Or rather, for what reason did the brass swap in Herc in the AN!'verse? RAF poster boy? Morale--families stick together, the unstoppable father-son team? 
Let's start with (2): Why do The Suits replace Pietr with Herc?
All of the other Australian Jaegers have Australian pilot teams (except for Parata, the token Kiwi), even /Triton's original pair (who raised their heads this morning and revealed they were female submariners from the Australian navy). Pietr's not an Aussie.
The Suits start getting nervous about putting a 16-year-old kid in charge of a multi-billion dollar piece of military hardware. They're equally nervous about putting a guy who cannot hear or speak in the command position.
The war is dragging on and public interest and support are waning. The Suits want some kind of PR boost. What better than a new pair of pilots who happen to check the father-son, veteran-rookie, /and second-chance boxes, /and add a story of overcoming tragedy to achieve victory?
The assault on the Breach is coming up and The Suits really, really /really want it to go right. /Triton's already been picked as the point Jaeger and /Striker as the backup. They're worried about putting a pair of rookies on their /first /deployment, no less, on such an important mission and giving them such an important responsibility. (/Vulcan's already been ruled out for the mission because its armor is unsuited to deep water operation [meaning it can't replace /Triton] and they're worried about what Jackson will do if something goes wrong [if /Vulcan's the backup]; he's unpredictable and often insubordinate when other Rangers are in trouble or hurt, which is so /not what they need in this situation. Logan's just ... Logan.)
The Suits (or at least some of them) realize how valuable Pietr is as the ultimate Spare.
His presence as a roving Spare can be used as a stick to keep other Spares in line ('play nice or we'll bring in Vos to replace you').
It's cheaper to keep one Spare and ship him around than support a corps of Spares and budgets are starting to become an issue.
The Suits (or at least some of them) realize how valuable Pietr is as a research subject.
If Lightcap can figure out how to induce Drift Compatibility, finding replacement pilots will be much easier, providing a similar stick to 5.1 above for the full-time Rangers.
It may be possible to license the Drift Compatibility creation tech, raising money for the program, too.
Now for (1): Do Wash and Pietr stay co-pilots in the other AU?
We still have the issue of Pietr not being an Aussie.
Now we have Wash in command and she's of a more acceptable age to The Suits.
The PR boost won't be /quite as good, but you do have an Indigenous pilot and a white pilot. Which, of course, you also get with Wash-Herc.
The same applies here.
-6. Pietr's still a valuable asset elsewhere and Wash has proven in the past to be Drift Compatible with other Rangers (the triplets, for example).
So, the Wash-Pietr co-pilot AU needs to balance out those concerns, then make a call on if they stay together or not. I'm not sure what happens.
*pulls points towards self, drops into percolator*
In the AU where the Chuck-Chuck Drift fries Chuckles instead of Kirra, would Pietr be her Drift partner until the end or would he still get replaced with Herc? 
While Wash's dad /was white, I don't think she and Herc look enough (if at all) alike such that PR could pass them off as a father-daughter team. 
They can always claim she takes after her mother. But then they have to deal with the PR fallout from Herc apparently having a daughter out of wedlock.
It might not be wedlock, though. Wash's parents /were married (if only by common law) and then they died. PR might 'tweak' the police report to say Dad and Child were brought by police to Wirriri's house. Not a whole lot of money, so Herc joins the military, crashes with Scott and Jammy raises Child Siqi why are you putting so much detail into this? Scott dates Angela, Scott's an ass, Herc's an ass, Angela's parents demand a marriage. Herc came back for Child #1 but she and Jammy'd disappeared off the face of the earth (as Jammy was wont to do). Tada!
Although we do have a Hansen for whom that's not entirely unexpected... Uncle-Niece team? (Can't think about mentioning Scott claiming Wash as 'his Chuck' and telling Herc at every opportunity that 'his Chuck' is better than Herc's (cue Wash, "appreciate the sentiment," *steps out from under arm* "but, uh, no thanks.")
Category:Tale of Two Chucks
Category:Meta
Category:Chuck D
Category:Chuck H
Category:UAs
Category:Pietr
Category:Herc
Category:Chuck D (meta)
Category:Chuck H (meta)
Category:Pietr (meta)
Category:Herc (meta)
Category:Darling family
Category:Darling family (meta)
Category:Hansen family
Category:Hansen family (meta)
Category:Skeleton Key (meta)
Category:Skeleton Key