i hope you guys are ready for my driftcells phm au because i have a lot to say. this is a doozy so buckle up
SO we begin!! imagine if you will that the ick in hld is some insanostyle mutation of the astrophage. my evidance? iunno, theyre both red, whatever. but a bunch of people (including Guardian) assume that if they can get rid of the astrophage, Judgement will go away too and they can stop fighting the battles on the ground which don't really seem to be helping the larger problem anyway.
Guardian is in a conference call with others talking about how to solve the petrova problem and Drifter overhears and is like "o i have an idea" and is recruited.
eventually they come to the same conclusion as in phm, which is sacrificing a few folks to go take a gander and see what's going on with the only star that isn't dying and Drifter is going because he's the best for the job, but it's less because he's a specialist or a professional and more so that very few people are well enough to make the journey to the star. Guardian wanted to go but they got too sick, so Drifter takes their place.
the health shop guy and the swordsmith go too. health shop guy because they're the closest they have to a biologist, the swordsmith because they're the closest they have to a mechanic, and drifter's going because he's a great improvisor and very good at problem solving, so he's the captain of the mission.
Drifter has been prepared to die for others for his whole life, so he's ready and willing to go. Guardian feels terrible about ever recruiting him.
MEANWHILE on the island (does the island in dead cells have a name??) the sun dying is fucking up the Time Keeper's timeloop. She didnt notice and bobby had to bring it up because IT DOES NOTICE when things around the island start
so she and the collector go about trying to learn more in the observatory
bobby who did not know they were talking in the passage between the hotk fight and the observatory, is "recruited" (put back in jail) because now that it knows that the npcs do more than show up and fight the time keeper's loop is even more fucked up. so they cant let bobby go and die or kill someone they might need because the Time Keeper cant rewind time anymore.
i kinda imagine that dead cells exists in a kind of pocket dimension that is usually fine to be left alone, but now that the astrophage is fucking everything up on a cosmic level, the TK's loop doesnt reach that far outside and it's fucking everything up. idk man
bobby cant die so it is, unfortunately, kinda their best option? the TK has to stay to stabalize the loop if/when the mission succeeds, the collector has to keep trying to find a cure for the malaise, the tailor and his daughter are wholly unqualified, the servants and the queen wont listen to anything the collector says, and everyone else is completely out of their mind with malaise. Bobby doesn't need to eat, or breathe, and only really needs a structurally sound dead body to get anything done.
so they shoot that blob into space with a couple of bodies in those liquid tubes that are all over the observatory and sunken shores (?)
off they go!! to tau ceti or its equivalent!!!
auughhh uhh. ... i will have more, i will have more. im very excited
