pulpofiction said: oh my god i never even thought about that fffuuckk
And it's more than heavily implied that Jaegers can gain sentience, especially in the novel- like, they have a LINK to their pilot even sans being in the Conn-Pod (documented Jaegers being able to MOVE ON THEIR OWN AND FIND THEIR PILOTS WHEN SEPARATED AND IN DANGER), so even if Jaegers have their own personalities, I think they also adopt traits from their pilots as well, so, uh, that might be another factor as to why people w/ mental illnesses (even if controlled by medication) might not be able to pilot. It sucks, but it makes sense.
spookyfeels said: even if you’re not using it to jaeger i don’t see why they don’t use drift tech to do SCIENCE, can you imagine how much quicker collaborative efforts would go if people were drifting with their science partners? …wait that happened already
Maybe if the Drift connection had a certain limitation factor on it so you're still sharing thoughts, but won't be 'connected' to each other's brains completely...? IDK, you're functioning as the right and left hemisphere in the piloting sense and if one of you has a chemical imbalance in the way your brain functions, then that could cause unexpected issues.
On the flip side, there's no reason why other positions at Shatterdome wouldn't be open for people, provided they stay on their meds and check in with their shrinks on a regular basis. I mean, Newt arugably has some issues and is referred to as 'unbalanced' in his novella file (I'll have to check the book and art book again) but Stacker still finds his research invaluable. And IDK if that was taken into consideration when they had Hermann and Newt drift w/ the kaiju brain, so there's no telling what could be ok or not...