Oh yeah, overthinking plotlines and story consequences has been a hobby of mine since I watched Lost way back when and started getting into writing. And as much as people may dislike #54, it is ripe with a ton of juicy plot details you can glean from examining it a bit closer. Heck, my theory on The One spawned my ideas for a potentially five or six book fanfic.
Slightly off the topic of this thread, but I genuinely really liked the ending, though I recognize all the flaws of it. I think there's so many opportunities to expand on in fic
because the last book was so rushed and ambiguous. I feel similarly to a lot of books in the series that left several concepts and characters so up in the air. Like Arbat's fate, Samilin's motives, what happened to Illim and Mr. Tidwell and all the other Yeerks involved in the YPM after the war, etc. That's why I made this topic!
Anyway, I've seen a lot of fics come up with different and creative ideas on what the One even is and I think it's really cool to see what people think when left to their own devices. I'm excited for more updates of your fic, by the way!
Everyone that left aboard The Rachel is facing severe consequences if they go back to Earth. Most likely years of prison, but who knows. Maybe Marco, Jake and Tobias might get off a bit easier being the heroes who saved Earth and all. Jeanne and Santorelli, however, could easily be executed for treason. They went AWOL from their duties with their respective governments once they were in possession of highly advanced tech that was only allowed to them as a joint cooperation agreement from the Andalites, and then hijacked a shuttle and an advanced warship that both technically belonged to the Andalite fleet. That looks bad. Like, REALLY bad.
These are all fantastic points, and very interesting!
Maybe Jake, Tobias, and Marco would probably get slaps on the wrists and a lot of social media outrage backing them up in order to sway any trial. But in the case of the others, I cannot imagine how they'd escape from that sort of punishment unless the people in charge swept it all under the rug, stating that they're presumed dead, and they end up recruited into a secret force of some sort. The only thing going for Ash is that if he were to slip away from being caught when they land, assuming he morphed using the Frolis Maneuver instead of becoming some random guy's doppelganger, he'd be pretty unrecognizable and could probably blend in to human life. I guess that still probably stinks, but maybe it's better than being dead?
Well, maybe they don't all necessarily
have to go back to Earth?
You guys are making the ending even more of a downer than I thought it was, and I don't like it! :'(
Hey, the books set it up like this in the first place, honest!