shtolts

(stars mean christmas)

So in PRU we see Hermann manhandling some Kaiju parts, taking on Newt’s role in studying the Kaiju biology. What the hell is our brilliant mathematician doing, diving into Kaiju guts, you ask?

Well, after you’ve spent your adult life in the service of saving the world, and then you accomplish said saving, you end up with more free time than you know what to do with. PPDC life post war is nowhere near as intensive as it was when the Breach was open. When Newt leaves for Shao, Hermann realizes most of his life for the last five years has revolved around the Kaiju and around Newt, and with both gone, he’s lonely and aimless.

Now, the drift also leaves echoes of your drift partner, and some say it alters your personality just a bit, adding some of your drift partner’s traits. So, Hermann no longer finds Kaiju biology repulsive. In fact, he’s begun to see exactly why Newt found them so fascinating. Knowing that they’re manufactured organisms, and that somehow, some sort of foreign mathematics allowed the Precursors to code organic life only adds to his interest. And this, along with his newfound free time, leads him to decide that he might as well get started on catching up to Newt’s 6 PhDs. He attains a degree in biology, xenobiology specifically, and studies the Kaiju as Newt once had. Not only does he come to feel like a more well-rounded person, Newt being the preeminent Kaiju biologist means that Hermann is studying material in graduate school that Newt helped to write and discover. He reads Newt’s studies and scholarly articles, his lengthy, esoteric blog posts about the exact makeup of each Kaiju’s anatomy, watches him give lectures on YouTube about the possibilities of what unlocking the Kaiju design codes could mean for human health: regrowing limbs, repairing vital organs, or growing new ones to eliminate the need for transplants and waiting lists.

Hermann learns from Newt, learns to appreciate his passion, no longer seeing it as someone showing off, but someone wanting to teach and find the joy and awe in knowledge itself. Hermann absorbs everything he can that Newt has ever put on the internet, and even prods the man himself. Newt spends ten straight minutes on the phone laughing hysterically when Hermann tells him about his new academic pursuit, but he always answers any question Hermann puts to him, a little kinder than before, with less sarcasm, more encouragement. He comes to Hermann’s graduation, and they get drunk like old times and make out on Hermann’s couch, and Hermann thinks this is the moment that Newt comes back to him, comes back where he belongs, with Hermann.

But Newt is already unconsciously working on the codes that will bring down the world, because the hivemind infection is slowly growing stronger. So Newt leaves again, and their correspondence begins drifting off. Fewer phone calls and emails, shorter conversations, Newt never seems to have time for Hermann anymore. So Hermann looks to the past, clings to Newt’s old writings and articles and lectures, because that’s the Newt he remembers loving, not the one who is cold, distant, and aloof.

Hermann finds the ghost of Newton Geiszler with his arms buried deep in a Kaiju’s ribcage. He sees Newt in the curvature of linear regressions in his research papers. He spies Newt in every petri dish, microscope slide and vial of acidic Kaiju spit. And in finding him here, Hermann finds a little peace.