Why don't they just build smaller Jaegers?

Question

In Pacific Rim they need two pilots because the mental load of piloting a skyscraper sized Jaeger is too much for one person. But why don't they just make smaller Jaegers and double team the Kaiju? You don't need to depend on these quirky unreliable duos and can instead employ actually trained disciplined soldiers.

Answer 1

Why does our current military build tanks which require more than one person to operate? Wouldn't more, smaller tanks be more effective? It's because the calculations indicate that a three or four-person crew will be more effective, in part because each can focus on their own responsibilities in a complex battlefield as opposed to each one worrying about each individual aspect of operations.

Will this equation change as technology advances? Undoubtedly. But that is the technology level where we are now. I expect the situation with the Jagers is similar- less to do with the actual size than the number of operations and responsibilities required to be juggled in mind all at once.

And the smaller= more effective in force only goes so far. There's a reason why the military also still has a multi-person crew manning an entrenched m60 rather than giving each person a pistol; in the right circumstances, it acts as a force multiplier to be greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak.

In other words: a smaller Jager does not substantially reduce the mental load on a pilot. The pilot must still track location, balance, weapon aiming, movement, limb coordination, etc. it may well be in in their future, many of these techs can be automated, but until that time it requires a team to reduce the mental strain. And if you need a team of two, and the number of pilots is limited, you would probably prefer to build a size that can go toe-to-toe rather than an intricate coordinated dance of a fight (in which you may end up harming your allies).

Answer 2

In the prequel comic "Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero" - (from now on "TYZ"), this is actually addressed, to an extent.

The problem isn't the size of the Jaeger - after all, they aren't telekinetically moving it with their mind. It's the complexity of controlling it via the neural link.

This is why:

• Pentacost was able to control a single arm built early on as a prototype (TYZ page 46)
• Yet, the first test pilot (Captain Casey) had a seizure - as per Dr. Lightcap, "his motor cortex can't handle it"
• Also, the second test pilot for the demo (D'Onofrio) had a seizure when he tried to control the weapons (though he could move the Jaeger by himself). The technobabble term used was "Neural cascade" and "Neural load is too high". (TYZ pages 57-59)
• The conclusion was "The tech was too much for just one mind. It needed Two pilots". (TYZ page 60)

TL;DR: with the PONS neural link technology they had, controlling a Jaeger by one pilot wouldn't work even if it was smaller - it was a function of technology and complexity.

Answer 3

As of Pacific Rim Uprising we know that this would have been possible and that there is significantly more leeway in the two linked humans required to control a Jaeger 'rule' than is suggested in the first movie.

The first example of this is Amara's Jaeger Scrapper. It is very small by Jaeger terms with the wiki giving its height as just over 12 metres and weight as 278 tons. However, she is entirely able to control it on her own without any apparent ill effects.

Secondly, we have the Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids introduced later in the film. While it isn't made clear exactly how they work they don't seem to have dual operators unless these are sharing the same 'body'. If humanity had been able to understand and reverse-engineer the technology there would have been nothing stopping them from creating similar hybrid Jaegers.

As to why they didn't pursue this option, it could be that bigger Jaegers were more efficient kaiju fighters, able to operate quicker and with easier logistics over long distances or could mount heavier weaponry. Also, the human commanders don't always make the best decisions as shown by the anti-Kaiju wall project.

Answer 4

Several reasons, I suspect. But these two are 'real life' (well, sort of) but might not fit in the Jaeger world.

1) The first would be, little guys just don't have the "cool" factor movie makers with $100 million budgets are looking for. Sort of like how Star Trek kept coming up with bigger and fancier Enterprises, then went backwards when writers say, why do we have flying cities? We don't need them to promote a plot. But the movies still went for "big" in Darkness. So in the end, it gets kiddies (and the young at heart) excited and has a 'wow' factor.

2) But, what about raptors from Jurassic Park? Smaller. Meaner. Viciously Fast. Nothing wrong with the concept. As said, how will this play in the movie maker imaginations? A gang of raptor mini-jaegers could be an impressive back-up team, or a story line all by themselves. The concept of "smaller but effective" works very well in big mining operations around the world. Sure the trucks and diggers are huge, but after a point, it seems to make more sense to make more of what works, instead of just bigger. The biggest thing is, as has been learned, when the Big One breaks, you have a problem. When one of the small ones breaks, just roll out another one. This takes us back to the money people. Little guys just don't stir the imagination, in the movies... they think.