Listening to Andy Weir talk about eridians is so funny because fans are always talking about Rocky and Adrian as these “soft” adorable aliens but Weir won’t ever let us forget that their species are apex predators on their planet. Not like humans who became apex predators by inventing weapons, but natural top of the foodchain like lions or polar bears. So far I haven’t found an interview where Weir explains who ate eridians in the ancient past that caused them to watch over each other while they slept; another predator species or rivaling eridians.
Grace is joking around with a selectively violent creature that can rip his soft squishy body apart in an instant!
But it’s also a lot of fun to hear Weir talk about all the stuff he wants to include in a possible sequel, like the fact that eridians can have several conversations at once even with the same eridian. He imagine Rocky and Adrian bickering in one conversation while having a nice conversation at the same time that slowly turns into a fight and all of a sudden they’re yelling at each other in two conversations about different things.
He also says they have terrible spacial memory because they can see everything around them all the time thanks to their echo location so to them it’s crazy that humans can only see in one direction but still remember what’s behind them and even what the last room they were in looks like. Apparently eridians mostly just remember that the room exists and that it has the computer in it but if you asked them where the computer is placed in the room they’ll struggle to give a precise answer.
And Rocky got scared when Grace hugged him because eridians don’t have a concept of expressing affection with physical touch. To them it’s only neutral or violent because thanks to their hard shell they can’t really feel much. They only use it to move each other around or to break through their prey’s shell to get to the soft insides. So in their inter-species friendship only Grace would feel any desire to touch Rocky. It makes it very cute that Rocky joins in on Grace’s hugging ritual. It’s purely for Grace’s sake.
I feel like grace was in such a rush to turn that ship around and hightail it back to rocky that he was indiscriminate about what data he sent back. just shoved it all into the beetle probes, just to realize ‘ok so 20% of that data is scientific breakthroughs to save the world……..80% me and rocky’s movie reviews. and I def forgot to delete the fifteen minute long dance off. hm.’
If Project Hail Mary taught us anything it's that forced romance subplots have ruined movies. Too many stories about guys sacrificing themselves to save girls and not enough movies about guys sacrificing themselves to save their cool rock alien friend.
(i had a bad day bc last night my insta and fb accounts were randomly flagged and disabled, and the appeal protocol is literally just me giving them more personal data (phone number, email, and a video selfie) and it felt so violating and stressful, bc if it didn't work, i'd have been permanently locked out. also, i performed in an aerial hammock + silks showcase saturday night that almost went *very* badly for me, and then turned out okay, so trust, I felt the entire emotional spectrum)
these scenes in the PHM movie are heart-wrenching, and rylan gosling did a fantastic job
Do you think that, if the ship wasn't always recording at all times, when Stratt got those videos twenty years later, it slowly dawned on her that it was only Grace in recordings?
Do you think she felt a pitching, gut-wrenching horror when she realized that he was alone?
Do you think she thought back to that day that she forced him to go, soothing herself with the reminder that he at least wouldn't be alone, and realized that, no, she not only sent him to his death but she sent him utterly alone with two corpses?
Do you think that she remembered the fact that Grace had always been forcibly alone: ostracized from his communities, humiliated into silence, and realized she was only compounding on that?
Do you think that, upon hearing about Rocky for the first time, she felt a wash of relief rather than wonder or awe or surprise?
Do you think that, upon seeing Rocky in the ship for the first time, she felt pure joy not at the fact that she was looking at an alien but knowing that Grace wasn't alone anymore?
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
janainaart
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
romaincrisis
