@acidtygr Yeah Sam is definitely a scientist. She could theoretically drift with Chloe or Damien if it was absolutely necessary, but she’s much more valuable behind the scenes. She and Mark hang out while their friends are off fighting aliens. They joke that they’re probably drift compatible, but neither of them is well-suited to piloting, so they just wait out the tense missions by watching Doctor Who and eating takeout and cracking nerdy jokes.  Sam and Chloe definitely still get together for wine nights after long missions.
Chloe has a hard time piloting in general. Drifting is the easy part, but she’s a lover, not a fighter. What gets her through shifts is knowing her partner needs her, hence why she has an easier time piloting with Frank. He can’t drift with anyone else (after he was part of an early experiment to create a squad who could all drift with each other and he lost several partners mid-drift) and he shouldn’t even be piloting tbh, but they desperately need pilots. So Chloe is able to fight kaiju super effectively because Frank needs her—not so much because she wants to be fighting kaiju. Frank provides the fighting knowledge and military experience for the both of them.
Caleb and Adam are in the equivalent of the jaeger ROTC in high school. They’ve never fought a kaiju or even piloted a real suit, but they’ve done simulations. Adam complains about the military industrial complex, but his parents thought he needed extracurriculars for his resume. Also, it totally beats having to take PE.
After the falling out with Ellie, Joan took a desk job for a while to provide psych evals and care for fellow pilots. But it’s all hands on deck now, so she’s back, reluctantly piloting with Damien (and doing a damn good job of it, if she says so herself).
@thelaurenshippen Mark took all those super cool jaeger pictures that are on the front of TIME Magazine and the recruitment posters for the Army, but he’s most famous for his candid shots of the pilots getting ready, joking around, mourning in the locker rooms, etc. His best-known work is called “My Sister, My Hero,” although he definitely didn’t give it that sappy name. His original caption was, “My big sister after a long day kicking alien butt. Nice hair, sis!”
It was a shot of Joan in her Drivesuit coming down the lift, so the camera is looking up to her (for once, because she’s like five foot tall and has to stand on a box inside the jaeger to see out of the windshield). Her helmet is tucked under her arm and her hair is wet from the conductive gel, so it’s straggling around the sides of her face. But she still somehow looks very dignified and heroic. She’s clearly exhausted, but she’s smiling down at the camera with genuine affection and just a touch of feigned sisterly annoyance.
(The photo won a Pulitzer, but Mark went missing in a kaiju attack on San Francisco right after receiving the news. Joan accepted the award for him.)
