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@afincf-tirwer
I can’t help myself, every time Grace goes: wow that was the tensest/worst/most miserable moment of my life, I think: oh buddy boy, you have no idea
Anyways, all I really do now is make project Hail Mary memes, I will never stop doing this.
Today on Afin is sad about Project Hail Mary again, thoughts about sacrifice and doing what’s right, but also how pragmatism comes up again and again in the book.
A scene that I was sad that the movie didn’t include was the discussion with Grace and Stratt about the medically induced comas, and how Grace punctuated his point with: science and morality both give the same answer here and you know it.
Because that idea of science and morality having the same answer comes up again after DuBois and Shapiro both die, and it’s either Grace, who holds a doctorate in microbiology, or someone who has an undergraduate in chemistry with a minor in biology, to replace them.
While what Stratt did is undeniably fucked up, there is no valid justification to prioritise the life of one man, over seven billion lives. Science and morality give the same answer here as they did during the coma discussion, and it’s interesting to me how despite his appeal to emotions, his visceral desire to live, Grace frequently comes to the pragmatic decision, not the emotional one.
He does it during the coma discussion, he does it when Rocky saves him after they go fishing, he does it after the Taumoeba escape, and he does it once he finds Rocky as well.
Of course the fishing moment was before he remembers how desperate he was not to die but the others aren’t. Despite 3/4 of those moments being directly linked to his own survival, he chooses pragmatism over his own life.
And this leads me into what I think is my absolute favourite moment in the book, the mirroring of what Grace thinks to himself when debating whether or not to turn the Hail Mary around, and what Yao says to him when it’s clear that Grace does not want to board the Hail Mary.
Yao: I urge you to say yes, billions of lives are at stake. Our lives matter little, in the face of such suffering.
Grace: But then, Rocky dies. And more importantly, Rocky’s people die. Billions of them.
I love thinking about these two quotes together, I love them side by side so much, because the change in Grace is beautifully highlighted by thinking about them in tandem.
Because I don’t think the weight of what was at stake had really sunk in when Grace was still on Earth, when he was begging Stratt not to do this to him, when he spoke to her in his cell, I honestly don’t think the impact of his refusal had really registered for him.
Despite knowing, on paper, about it all, his fear, his desire for survival, it made it all secondary. He says it himself “human suffering is abstract” and yeah, he’s thinking about his kids, but he does the same thing, he centres himself, and by doing that, his brain makes the impact of “what if the Hail Mary fails” into an abstract concept he can file away and not think about.
Protecting himself from his cowardice. (Please note, I don’t think it’s wrong that Grace was a coward, I actually really like it, but he undeniably is preventing himself from thinking about the consequences of his refusal.)
But, after everything that he goes through, by the end of his mission to find out what’s happening at Tau Ceti, logic and morality have the same answer, going to find the Blip-A and take Rocky home.
And what I think is funny, is that when he’s moving Rocky back to his environment, he voices this thought, “Yeah he’s a good guy and he saved my life, but this isn’t about us. He’s got a planet to save, why risk his whole mission for me.”
It’s so reminiscent of Stratt accepting that she will likely be the world’s whipping boy once the Hail Mary launches. Her peace, her freedom, her life, mean nothing in the face of the total destruction astrophage will wreak. Each individual isn’t as important as the mission itself, as the planets they’re trying to save.
Grace even highlights it again once he finds Rocky and upon Rocky learning that going to Erid spells Grace’s doom, says: then you go home, you go home now, I wait here, Erid maybe send another ship someday
Grace: that’s ridiculous, do you really want to bet your species on that guess?
A pause and then “no.”
Because in the end, the emotional aspect of it, the weight of Grace’s life, doesn’t come close to balancing the weight of the billions of lives on Erid.
But wait! You might say, what about Rocky choosing to risk his life for Grace after they go fishing? His last words are: save Earth, save Erid, he seems very convinced he’s going to die now. Why would he do that?
Because Grace is a science human. It’s an emotional choice, but it’s backed by pragmatism. Rocky, by this point, has spent 42 years in the Tau Ceti system, having no luck in solving the astrophage crisis. He can’t even get a sample of astrophage until Grace shows up because it’s not his field.
And they’re on the Hail Mary, with equipment that would melt in Rocky’s atmosphere, so it’s all useless to him. And even if he could find a solution, something that is VERY unlikely considering he has no clue about human technology, Earth still dies.
Rocky knows about Grace’s beetles, he knows that Grace knows where Erid is, if he dies and Grace lives, there’s the chance of Erid getting the information they need if Grace finds a solution.
If Rocky died there, Earth and Erid have a chance.
If Grace died there, Earth is doomed.
So Rocky makes the pragmatic choice, his life, in exchange for the chance of saving billions.
I just, I get emotional about how Project Hail Mary offers a bunch of scenarios where there is only one right answer, only one way forward, even if it’s only a chance, that’s the choice you have to make.
And the characters who have these choices presented to them, make the same choice, the pragmatic decision, every time.
I just think it’s neat okay.
So I’m thinking about Project Hail Mary again, specifically that Rocky was apparently the only engineer on that ship, because if there was another, that Eridian should have been among the fuel as well, and therefore would have survived.
This suggests that the bulk of the crew must have been scientists, with specific specialised roles, and because it was always planned to be a round trip, there’s no way there wasn’t a medical specialist on the crew as well.
And because Erid hadn’t ever left orbit, and had never discovered radiation in space, when everyone started getting sick, that medical specialist would have had no idea what to do.
So now I’m emotionally devastated thinking about someone who volunteered for the mission, who went on the Blip-A knowing their one job was to care for and tend to their crew, being completely helpless when the entire crew started to die.
Because they all died fairly early into the trip because Rocky was alone when he was doing the reverse thrust manoeuvres to slow down as he approached Tau Ceti. So his crew were long dead, and I just can’t stop thinking about that one Eridian who died along with the rest of the crew, but who died knowing that they’d failed to do what they were trained to do.
Keep their crew healthy and safe.
Honestly the Blip-A crew fucking haunt me always, 22 Eridians, who volunteered for a dangerous, but not guaranteed deadly, trip, who all died and they never knew why.
Because it was so preventable, so very preventable, but they just…didn’t know what it was, so they never even stood a *chance.* They were all dead the moment they left Erid’s atmosphere, and they didn’t even know it.
AND IT FUCKING WORKED
I’m sad so behold more Project Hail Mary memes to cheer me up.
Today my favourite of these is: TIME IS TIME, because I know nothing about relativity, but uh, I too would be SEVERELY TICKED OFF to find out that time works differently when you move fast. What the fuck honestly.
Something I don’t think I’ll ever be over, is how Yao and Ilyukhina died for nothing, and yet at the same time, *didn’t.*
Because they both volunteered to board the Project Hail Mary to search for a solution to astrophage, they were both willing to die in order to give the rest of humanity a fighting chance of making it.
And they both died before ever even seeing Tau Ceti.
And it feels so unfair, because they went all that way for nothing, they died without even getting to try and save the people they were going for.
So they died for nothing.
Except they DIDN’T.
Because their deaths saved Grace, and in turn, saved Rocky and Erid. Without the surplus coma slurry, Grace wouldn’t have been able to go back and take Rocky home, and Erid would have had a much harder time with astrophage.
This isn’t particularly coherent, but I can’t stop thinking about these two people who were willing to die for their world, died before getting the chance to fight for their species survival, and yet their deaths meant the sole survivor of their crew could save both their home, and another.
There’s just something so devastating about that to me.
Y’know I’m coming back to this, probably no more coherent but I still have thoughts about it honestly.
Because the way Yao and Ilyukhina died was so unbearably tragic, and I can’t help but wonder what Grace sent back with the beetles.
If he mentioned them. If he said that they died before ever getting the chance to fulfil their mission. Or if he let Earth believe that they all died out there.
It’s easy to see Grace being hailed as a hero, astrophage, defeated, Sol back to its full luminance! Hope after 26 years of struggle and eked out survival!
But I can’t help but think about Yao and Ilyukhina, who set out to save Earth, set out to sacrifice their lives for their home, their loved ones, for the billions of lives hanging in the balance.
And they did save Earth, their loved ones, and billions of lives they never even knew existed.
It just, wasn’t in the way they expected. And it doesn’t seem heroic really, not in the same way as Grace and Rocky who nearly died over and over to save Earth and Erid.
But it really really gets me, that while it seems like their sacrifice meant nothing, it actually meant everything in terms of Erid’s survival.
It’s a really interesting, and to me, devastating thread running through the book, how the eventual success hinged upon luck and people making sacrifices that they always intended to, but not in the way they thought they would.
Like DuBois and the nitrogen, Yao and Ilyukhina with the coma slurry, Rocky making it to Tau Ceti without any knowledge of relativity, hell, them managing to accidentally communicate that clear Xenonite was needed for the wall, so many crucial moments hinged entirely upon LUCK and just oughhh im sad
I’ll probably go on another ramble of questionable coherency about that later ngl.
Good news, I’ve thought of something else in Project Hail Mary I don’t think I’m ever getting over.
So once they make it to Taumoeba-82.50, they celebrate, and we see that Rocky has an outfit for this occasion. He packed an outfit to celebrate the Blip-A’s success in finding a solution to astrophage.
Which means that they had the hope of saving their home when the Blip-A left Erid. Which means that it’s very likely that the rest of the crew packed their own celebration outfits too.
Grace describes that there’s gems on the outfit, roughly faceted, really big, and probably sound great to sonar.
So when Eridians celebrate, there’s probably a whole lot of noise bouncing off everyone’s gems, a giant feedback loop of joy and excitement and victory.
That’s what the Blip-A left Erid expecting to happen, a celebration of their victory over astrophage.
And what happened was a celebration of Erid’s victory over astrophage. But there was no explosion of noise reflecting back and forth off the 23 Eridians’ celebration outfits.
There was just Rocky. And silence where there should be joy.
And Grace and Rocky celebrate together, and it’s victory, it’s two planets safe! They have each other to celebrate with and it’s a well-earned moment of triumph!
But I can’t help but think about the echo of the 22 other Eridians on the Blip-A, how their celebration outfits lay unused, and there was silence where there should have been a cacophony of reflected, shared joy.
It just gets me okay, I am the leaky space blob about it.
Something I don’t think I’ll ever be over, is how Yao and Ilyukhina died for nothing, and yet at the same time, *didn’t.*
Because they both volunteered to board the Project Hail Mary to search for a solution to astrophage, they were both willing to die in order to give the rest of humanity a fighting chance of making it.
And they both died before ever even seeing Tau Ceti.
And it feels so unfair, because they went all that way for nothing, they died without even getting to try and save the people they were going for.
So they died for nothing.
Except they DIDN’T.
Because their deaths saved Grace, and in turn, saved Rocky and Erid. Without the surplus coma slurry, Grace wouldn’t have been able to go back and take Rocky home, and Erid would have had a much harder time with astrophage.
This isn’t particularly coherent, but I can’t stop thinking about these two people who were willing to die for their world, died before getting the chance to fight for their species survival, and yet their deaths meant the sole survivor of their crew could save both their home, and another.
There’s just something so devastating about that to me.
Today on: afin made more Project Hail Mary memes, Ryland Grace and Eva Stratt edition
My favourite of these is the Simpson bus driver one because the judge taking the papers and going: hot damn, she’s actually immune to prosecution, had me *wheezing*
Alternatively, the screaming child one, bc Grace actually asks Stratt why she can’t be normal which…yeah considering he’s been kidnapped like, at least three times and been a “maybe alien algae will kill humans, ah yes, shove that middle school science teacher in there, see if he explodes” guinea pig as well
Please admire my various Project Hail Mary memes, I fucking love this book, I fucking love the movie, I’m having a fantastic time listening to the audio book on loop.
My favourite of these memes is probably the train smacking into the bus because as much as it’s a devastating scene, the fact that Grace went in, ashamed, but decisive, only to be absolutely bodied by Stratt picking up her carefully written out plan to shoot him into space is, in hindsight, really fucking funny.
So I’m listening to the audiobook for what is probably the 49th time, and decided to immortalise my first thought when I first listened to this part.
Stratt just collecting herself various scientists of varying willingness to be there and completely unconcerned by the scientists who are protesting that they don’t belong there.
Go forth and gather your scientists Stratt, it’s so fucking funny.
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