What if human astronauts visit Erid one day and are doing diplomatic things and whatnot and they learn Ryland Grace is sstill alive and is in a terrarium. One of the astronauts jokingly says “you’re not experimenting on him are you” and the Eridians freeze cause yeah, they totally are. They experiment on him all the time. They’re experimenting on him right now in fact. They read about deep sea diving and are now testing the effects of replacing certain gases in Graces atmosphere. Right now they’re testing helium.
They send someone to stop the experiment but Grace refuses cause they’re so far in already and well that would just ruin the data.
The new humans think this is hilarious and insist on joining the experiment as Grace excitedly yaps about all the cool stuff he’s learned about aliens but he’s still got that high pitched helium voice.
Generally speaking, a humans idea of "experimenting" on someone has a lot a negative connotations because of movies and comic books and all that. You imagine scenes like the ones from Suicide Squad 2 and The Human Centipede, whereas Eridian culture might not care so much for edgy, body horror, nihilistic types of media. There minds likely wouldn't even go there.
So when the other astronauts arrive and are like "you're not experimenting on him are you?" The Eridians are like "????" "Of course we are??"
What a momentary scare that would be to the other humans. Then they learn that these "experiments" are just Grace getting tickled and being given Helium and Sulfur hexafluoride filled balloons n' stuff. All completely consentual and endearing.













