I didn't do a great job of explaining it, but the last mission is to destroy the buildings that make the dimension gates possible. It is more or less a mission to blow up the bridge you came in on.
The way we are playing it here, the gates can only last a minute after they are destroyed. If the gates can only last a minute, everyone will need to GTFO as soon as the building is disabled. Once they are out, they will need a crack pilot to get them through the gate before it collapses.
There is a chance some of the crafts won't make it through. Anyone on those crafts won't survive the LP.
Nathan, if he is to stay pilot, will fly the highest ranking people in. That craft will have the best chance to make it out. If you 4, the highest ranking, decide to let him fight on the ground and he dies, your craft will have the lowest chance to make it out.
In the end (tomorrow) I'll right the update as normal, up until the point the building is destroyed. Then, instead of a final "week in review" I right the final "interlude", all though that is completely the wrong word... I guess it will have to be an epilogue. In that epilogue everyone gets to find out what happens in the seconds after victory.
All of this will be more-or-less for RP purposes. Lots of people are better at humor in LPs than I am, I don't mind my LPs being a little dark.
In the game, if I remember correctly, as soon as you win the last mission you get a great little cutscene of an aircraft exiting the gate at the last second. If only it were that easy. Also, again I haven't won in a long time, I believe you are kicked right out to the title screen. You can't continue even if you want to. The LP is over at that point, with a few RP/story bits to make us all sleep soundly at night. As a side note, I will have to pause the mission just before victory to get the final stats.
On the subject of Nathan:
A few updates ago, I named a random rookie "Nathan Davis" and set him to train. Storyline wise I like to pretend Anja trained him up and helped him practice up until the point she died. Not long after her death the air war was won and Nathan felt like dead weight. When Eucherer died unexpectedly it furthered his resolve. The war doesn't need pilots any more, it needs soldiers.
But lets face it, this is naive. Pilots are exactly what we need. We have tons of bad ass agents, we have very few great pilots. On the other hand, can you tell someone who was so instrumental to our victory that their only job is to help us retreat?
I don't know. You tell me.
In case you don't know, these stats are average at best.
One last thing: If you ask (and state his or her name), I'll post a screenshot of your units stats.