Psychon Destroys Eagle 1

Intro

Details

• Eagle 1 is captured after an aerial survey of a planet later found to be named Psychon.
• Mentor, who is responsible for the capture, claims the Eagle is damaged. It could be true, or it could be a ruse to capture more Alphans. The latter factor is certainly present true, but curiously does not exclude the former possibility (actual damage).
• Later, the remaining Alphan and Psychon survivors on Psychon all boarded Eagle 4 and escaped Psychon's destruction on that. There were a few minutes in which one of Alan or Bill could have had a chance (off screen) to try saving Eagle 1, but by the time John appears with Maya, everyone (including Helena too) is aboard Eagle 4 only.
• There had been two Alphan pilots escaping the pits first (Alan and Bill), and apparently several minutes in which to try starting Eagle 1. Perhaps this was attempted "off screen" to no success -- there is no way of knowing.
• Remote control seems highly unlikely in this case. Command Center (CC) was out of contact with the Alphans the whole time they were on Psychon (except once via Mentor's systems). CC would have had no reason to repeatedly try contacting Eagle 1's remote systems. Besides, Eagle 1 was seen on the floor of the volcano just before Eagle 4 started attempting to launch, and the volcano is exploding underneath the latter as it rises.

Speculation

• So perhaps Mentor told the truth in this case, that the Eagle (1) was damaged earlier, or perhaps "unseen situations" led to Eagle 1 being ignored.

Conclusions

• The evidence, though not conclusive, seems so close to it that the Editor has decided to consider this a verifiable loss.