Pilot

'Pilot' is the third main character of Romantically Apocalyptic. He is also one of the four original main characters, the others being Captain, Sniper, andEngineer. Out of all three, Pilot is the most mentally unstable, subject to surreal fantasy and daydreams. It was revealed in a diary entry that he was once a fighter pilot.

The color associated with Pilot is green

Personality

Other than aircraft and flying, Pilot's obsessions include tormenting Sniper and serving Captain. He often hallucinates, viewing himself in a terse dogfight high in the air when in fact flying around a toy plane he discovered.

He is infatuated with Captain, and believes that Sniper wants to steal Captain from him. Pilot often devises ridiculous schemes to get rid of Sniper, including a plot to feed him to a whale.

It is assumed that Pilot is European or possibly American, but there are no known facts about it. He found the name "SG Christophorus Hatchenson" on the inside fold of his jacket but it is unknown if this is in fact his real name as Pilot doesn't remember it. It could really just be a jacket he found somewhere. However, it is also seen here that these two avatars of the Biomass call him "Mr. Hatchenson" while he was captured.

Pilot has tried to create a "Church of Captain", and tied Sniper to a couch because he wouldn't join.

Snippy states in one of his journals that Pilot was once in the army, although he would probably be discharged due to his mental instability. Pilot also writes that he once had a "Blue Tiara", a headband civilians wore to access ANNET, but his is broken. It still seems to get a weak signal from the ANNET and Pilot has referred to it as "A ticket to a one-way trip without a return policy". It is possible that Pilot's mental state is a direct result of him breaking his neural interface before ANNET was able to fully take over his mind, when she went berserk. Anyway loosing the connection to the ANNET has proven to result in mental damage on several test subjects before, and it is possible that Pilot was one of them.

Equipment

In all of his appearances, the Pilot wears a leather jacket, a vest, and a gas mask with a tube running to an unseen location beneath his coat. His goggles are green, and green is the color associated with him. He has wielded a sharpened Katana to chop off the limbs of the monster known as "Cancer".

Pilot is also known to have a stuffed toy puffin friend called Mr.Kittyhawk. Mr.Kittyhawk has proven to be a traitor though, as he sold out Pilot's location to the alien monster Cancer - or that's at least how Pilot saw the situation.

A tag on his jacket says SG Christophorus Hatchenson

SG could be the wrong abbreviation of "Sergeant"

SG could also mean Star of Gallantry, a military decoration awarded to members of the Australian Defense force or other persons who have shown acts of great heroism or conspicuous gallantry in circumstances of great peril during action. Pilot's rank would not matter, as the SG can be awarded to any personnel.

If this is correct, it means Pilot could be Australian and has done something extremely heroic and brave in his past.

Appearence

A recent illustration has shown that pilot might be blonde, but this picture seems to be the work of a RA fan and not drawn as pilots real appearance.

Skills

Aside from his presumed flying skills, Pilot has been shown to have the ability to jump ridiculously high and far. He displayed this ability in his attempt to rescue Sniper from the clutches of Cancer. In addition, he is skilled with a sword and was able to cut off a few of Cancer's tentacles before being captured and trapped with Sniper. Snippy thinks that Pilot attained these skills while in the army.

Role in the Story

Pilot's role in the main storyline is supposedly that he was a jet fighter pilot who dropped atomic bombs on the ANNET based off of Engineer's orders, based off of a diary entry.

This might perhaps contribute to understanding some of his mental instability a bit more; assuming he was relatively sane while in the army. Pilot mentions in the diary entry that the "one million voices of Eureka still sing in my cranium. They ask me to stop... I know that they are all just dust now, and what has been done cannot be retracted." This referes to the fact that while wearing ANNET's headband or being in the range of one of her transmitter towers during his mission at Eureka, Pilot was actually able to perfectly hear the people he bombarded.

The top panel in comic 62 might also refer to his discharge from the army and his interactions with Captain, as he is holding either a picture of captain or he is video-chatting with him. One picture refers to him possibly being arrested and later escaping his pursuers.