Detailed Zach Croft Character Analysis

Zach has always been a risk-taker. From a very young age, he is willing to get himself into situations that others would ordinarily avoid, such as being the first to jump off a lakeside cliff at ten years old. As the Chapter 1 flashback depicting this scene makes clear, Zach's careless attitude towards risk often leads others to go out on a limb as well.

However, Zach is not entirely without fear. When he and his father, Quinton Croft, are on the dropship taking them to the surface of Mars for the first time, Zach worries about what his new life will look like. To quell his concerns, Quinton explains in a surefire way that "it's the right thing to do" (Ch. 2). Quinton's constant optimism in the face of the adversity imprints on Zach in a meaningful way, as beyond this point he typically takes risks only when he believes it is in the best interest of others.

Even the more cavalier risks he takes—going into the crater after the processing plant is hit, stealing the Gateway to return to Mars, and flying head-on into a global electrical storm in the atmosphere of Alpha Cen—are justified by this same 'right thing to do' mentality.

Unfortunately, Zach's risky behavior gets him—and others—into trouble on more than one occasion. When he and Ryker bring irogen back from the mines as children, they nearly infect Prescott with the Red Plague (by this point, Erik has already exposed the colony, so any additional stress put on the pandemic by Zach and Ryker is most likely negligible). When Zach commandeers the Gateway and pulls it away from Earth's orbit, he knows that if he can't make it back before the final flare hits (or at all), he will leave humanity with nowhere to dock in space. This, of course, becomes a reality; upon returning from his rogue mission to Mars, Zach finds the remainder of the known human race starving to death in a StarSet cruise ship. It is only by sheer luck that the Gateway arrives when it does. In the final example of Zach's recklessness, the decision to fly the dropships through Alpha Cen's planet-wide electrical storm results in two of the three transports being struck by lightning and subsequently blown up.

Zach isn't a perfect person. But he never once acts out of selfishness. Everything he does is to ensure the survival of humanity and those around him.

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