Ship Engineer ‘Rocky’ of the B.L.I.P.-A knows that he’s going to die in Tau Ceti, he's known since the day he joined the taskforce as their chief mathematician and engineer.
So when an alien astrophage-powered craft comes into view, his only hope is that this is the Hail Mary that he has been praying for his entire life.
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PHM 'Species Swap’ AU. Human Rocky, Eridian Grace.
Ship Engineer ‘Rocky’ of the B.L.I.P.-A knows that he’s going to die in Tau Ceti, he's known since the day he joined the taskforce as their chief mathematician and engineer.
So when an alien astrophage-powered craft comes into view, his only hope is that this is the Hail Mary that he has been praying for his entire life.
-
PHM 'Species Swap’ AU. Human Rocky, Eridian Grace.
Erdian OC! This is Starcher; they're an oncologist on a planet where literally only one person on it can even get cancer. Minor charter in my fic 'Malignant' on AO3.
It’s July of 1969 and the entirety of the USA seemed to have space fever. That is, however, aside from James T Kirk, a very recent military school dropout who’s come back to his hometown to try and sort himself back out. When he encounters a wounded alien who’s crash-landed in the middle of a neighbouring farm, it’s a race against the clock, the US government, and the alien’s rapidly deteriorating health, to try and bring him back home.
Oh, and also their growing feelings for each other, but that’s quite low on their shared priority list among the chaos of everything else.
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A story told in part by two people who really should be doing something better with their time than hosting a conspiracy-based podcast episode on Kirk’s mysterious, possibly alien-related, disappearance.
The newest chapter of this 60′s Spirk first contact au is up! I finally did some actual art for it.
Yo, love your fic, but I’ve noticed your reflections and comments on it get a lil frustrated when considering how erid might have figured certain thibgs out “without knowing about radiation”
I’m fresh off of a reread, and as far as I can tell, they do know about radiation (light/photons with wavelengths) and had been using them for a while. The camera and texture pad Rocky uses to see graces stuff was not a new invention, just preexisting scientific tools calibrated to graces visible wavelengths.
The radiation they specifically did not know about was interstellar hydrogen particles/rogue protons, because erids magnetosphere shielded a lot of their orbit, so even their early orbital spaceflight from the elevators never encountered it.
They know about photons. Makes the whole Petrova thing way easier to grasp.
Yeah maybe? I’m going to have to revises it all at a later date and fix it all up. I’m not a very scientific person and these things are really tricky @_@ I’m probably just using the word ‘radiation’ wrong
The Solarian from chapter 2 of 'Forgive me, Saint Christopher, for the boy will drown' on A03.
[...]
The robot finally makes it to the divider wall. It observes some of the hexes like it did walls of the tunnel, taking its time to carefully study each one each one. If it can see me, it doesn’t seem to be all that interested. I wave while standing in front of the sensor, and it still doesn’t react.
It finally comes to one of the larger hexes at around the middle of the wall. It pauses, and keeps the sensor in place in front of it. Whatever it’s doing, it’s important enough to it as it keeps the rest of its body as still and as close as it can without touching the wall. It moved one of the upper arms up in front of its sensor, pressed something on the forearm a few times, observed the tunnel once more-
And then it died.
The internal whirring of the robot suddenly stops, and the whole thing slumps forward, both sets of arms limp to the sides. There is some movement in the fingers of the upper arms, but it’s nearly impossible to hear. A second passed, then another, and then something began to crunch.
It took every iota of strength in me not to scream as the robot's back split open. The largest part of its carapace cracked along a - seam? That’s a seam!
Why would a robot have a seam? Oh no.
A new, smaller thing climbs out. Crawls out, really. It’s like watching someone moult way too early.
Someone. Oh my gosh this is an alien space suit. A suit. For space. It’s not a robot at all! It might never have been! The aliens have been going outside of their ship this entire time! How!? How could it hear my ship, let alone hear and catch the containers that we passed back and forth? How did it do so without any external equipment? Was it all inside of the orb at the top? Other other machinery that I couldn’t identify?
More importantly, why would you do that? Why would you even invent this sort of thing?
The internal structu- the alien - was the same general shape as the robo- suit. I can barely think I’m so terrified.
Its body is contained and is a solid shape with roughly the same body plan as the suit. The main body is full of cavities and wiring all around a weak endoskeleton. A small, pump-like organ loud enough for me to see without concentrating increased in output as the alien finally finished moulting. It steps into the tunnel with a huff.
On either side of this pump sat two semi-transparent…. Organs? It could be a set of filters or digestive organs (maybe it was some kind of filter feeder? The calorie requirement would be insane). They’re sponge-like, and seem to expand and contract independently from the rest of the body. Everything was rhythmic, but not harmonious.
The alien could almost be described as an animal, but it was wrong in too many ways. Its carapace was taller than it was wide, and was vertically symmetrical, at least on the ‘‘fore’ side that was facing me. It seemed to be flexible, at least on the joins and gaps between the rigid support structure.
It used its two, slightly longer, lower arms to stand on the ground as best it could in the lack of gravity, the two arms on the top floating freely out on either side. If it stood properly on all four, it would still be taller than any Eridian. The ‘lower’ hands did, in fact, have fingers, but they seem to be too small to hold onto anything even if they weren't covered like they are now.
A fleshy protrusion sat on top of the carapace, right where the top orb of the suit was placed. It didn’t look like a fifth arm - no fingers - but it was hard to tell what else it could be for. The internal endoskeleton of this protrusion was again symmetrical, but full of holes of varying sizes. The largest of these holes was connected by an organic pipe (?) to the filter organs. As the filters expanded and contracted, so did the hole.
Oh! It was a vent! At least I think it is. Atmosphere came in from the front vent and cycled through the filter sponges inside of the body with help of the pump. It was hard to tell what of the pumps were exclusively for ventilation, but that must have been part of the core function.
Already close to freezing and in a near-vacuum, the alien must have been exhausted if it needed to vent as much as it was. It made a few sounds as it vented, pushing the excess hot air out.
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