In the original framing of the second scene, Shirley's run from Los Santos to Edwards, she and Senior Airman Randall had a bit more of a conversation early on. Shirley's grumbling about the stupidity of the Air Force prompted Randall to risk asking her why she had abandoned a promising career as a senior test officer, widely assumed to be earmarked for a general's stars, to abruptly retire in 1958.

I decided fairly early on to lose that scene, as the pacing was all wrong for it, and the read I was getting on the mood in the car was not of one in which Randall would be so bold as that—he's very young and would, I decided, be too intimidated by her legendariness and her dudgeon to ask such a question of her. The tenor of the response it would have elicited would probably have precluded the mild thaw in their interaction toward the end of the scene, too, which I thought was needed to show that, even with whatever her issues with the Air Force are and some other stuff on her mind, Shirley's still a generous sort who won't rake an innocent party over the coals too badly.

Unfortunately, all of that does mean we didn't get to see her answer, which would have explained a few things and, most importantly, ticked the coveted "character says the name of the movie in the movie" box:

"I was on the front lines for most of Liberion's part of the war. Early '42 to the middle of '47, five and a half years. In all that time, my outfit had zero losses. Not one.

"In the 18 months I commanded 1124th Test, in peacetime, you know how many witches we buried? Fourteen. Higher, faster, farther, they said, but the brass pushed us to go too high, too fast, too far, too soon, and it wasn't them dying for it. That is why I got out.

"So don't talk to me about my 'promising career', son. Some things aren't worth it."

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.