#penumbra meta

Some thoughts and theories based on “The Stone Unturned”:

• We have parallels between Sasha and Slick– people who knew they were going up against dangerous people and planned accordingly by making sure they had no connections or identity to exploit
• Except one unexpected connection– which instantly becomes a weakness. In Slick’s case it was Peter. In Sasha’s it’s this Child.
• Not Juno or Mick, pointedly, because she tried to kill Juno already. I think that’s either to protect the Child, or else because she’s already lost the Child and is in a death spiral.
• She’s purging databases, murdering weapons designers, killing friends, planning a big demonstration. And somehow even more frightening, she’s talking about becoming a symbol. It almost sounds like she’s planning to burn down the metaphorical house with herself still inside it.
• It could be that the Child is her own– maybe she had a kid biologically (unlikely, given that a multi- month leave of absence wouldn’t go unnoticed, especially for such a notorious workoholic), adopted them, or:
• The Child is her sister. Annie. Dead but resurrected after years on ice, like Wilco.
• Dark Matters had no problem using Annie’s loss to torment Sasha once already. It’s possible they cribbed her voice and likeness from old audio and video files… But they might have used other methods.
• Maybe Sasha learned this when she became Director. Maybe she tried to tuck the zombified corpse of her sister into her personal safe house, the way she once tried to do with Juno.
• Maybe somebody found The Child anyway and killed her all over again during an attempt to usurp Director W.
• Maybe Annie came back wrong, and Sasha did it herself to put her sister to rest at last.
• Maybe Sasha decided that nobody should have this kind of power– and it the technology can’t be put back now that it’s out there, maybe she wants to ensure that nobody can use it like this again.
• (Yes, that might also mean taking out Mick and Wilco)
• We’ve already seen Points made about making assumptions and writing people off because of them, and about missing key details of your opponent’s motivation because you weren’t willing to look close enough to understand them.
• Which is to say: Sasha isn’t in the right here, she’s burning things to the ground in the most dangerous way, but she’s not Evil or unworthy of being understood. Understanding is not the same as forgiving, which is not the same as condoning. Juno started down that road when he confronted his mother, and he’s doing it again by being willing to learn more about Nureyev through the book. He’s going to have to do it again for Sasha.