You know what they shoulda left Yao saying “I won’t have anyone on my crew who doesn’t want to be there” in the movie. I think it’s integral to the themes. Yknow, there’s always someone in your corner when you least expect it. People are willing to defend those they know relatively little. Love is a powerful force etc etc
Like having dictator of the world tell u ur fucking going to space whether u like it or not is scary and then thinking god fucking Christ no one will even protest this bc they too must all think I’m a coward is even scarier but no. One guy did protest it. Stratt even directly addressed that the amnesia wasn’t even just for graces sake but to prevent Yao and Ilyukhina’s anger at that act from disrupting the mission. Okay bye
You know what would be funny? If among the entire pirated earth media, stratt included everything the petrova taskforce has. Including communications. Anything and everything the taskforce had.
You know people were emailing or posting on forum for taskforce about the project + general life things.
But mainly I want there to be photos, videos and written form of life.
Ok I just want eridians to find the gossip.
There are so many about grace, just imagine the eridians finding out about grace being second in command, and everything about that. But the gossip of him and stratt having something going on and there are pictures, edits, and probably even some of him taking a nap near her as there is a meeting going on.
Someone even posted the karaoke scene in the movie.
I just really want them to find life of grace before erid and just have them realize that grace is loved by earth.
Also grace seeing his team and crew, not just their last impressions
- inhabitants of the vat have taken to affectionately calling themselves the vatlings, with Eva as their benevolent dictator and head of their unofficial government on board the ship
- after some weeks of boarding the ship, time quickly becomes lost on everybody so they revert to basing everything around the position of the sun/moon/stars
- this quickly led to an ongoing joke of the vat being a pirate ship with Stratt as the Captain
- and quickly spiraled into the whole ship, save for one Captain and her lapdog, dressing up in pirate costumes one April fool's day (of course Ilyukhina bought extra costumes for those two but the best she managed to put on them was a hat and eyepatch)
- she did get Stratt a real sword though, no one knows how she managed to procure it but Eva proudly brandishes it in her office
- sickness is rare but not impossible on the ship, if one person is down, it is inevitable that everyone goes down (except Stratt and her primary crew, who she drags onto a private jet to wait out whatever disease to run its course)
- if she so much as hears one cough from any of them, she kicks them off and sends them back to the vat (Grace only survives since years of teaching around living petri dishes has strengthened his immune system, while Stratt is always the last one standing, but her cursed sleep and eating schedule ends up being her downfall)
- the multicultural makeup of the ship has led to factions forming among vatlings of similar origins, and mock wars are declared nearly every week that always devolve into petty pranks
- peace treaties too, each with more ridiculous articles than the last, such as renaming little russia to little america after a cold war reenactment between members of ROSCOSMOS and NASA (which did not last longer than a week thanks to Komorov)
- Grace refuses to pick any side during these wars but ends up helping anyway, including stacking neon party wigs on Dubois (with help from Shapiro and Ilyukhina) after he nodded off during another last minute team meeting, or convincing Leclerc that no it's not snowing that's just frozen rain
- they rarely attempt to prank Stratt, once Ilyukhina convinced Grace to try the same prank they did on Dubois on her, but the best they managed was one green wig and a blurry picture when she passed out after three days of irregular sleep (one eye shot open and that was enough to send the pair scampering from her office)
- Ilyukhina often defects for no reason other than to stir drama, while Yáo pretends to not care but is willing to broker information to anyone for the right price (a pack of cigarettes and an hour of their PTO)
- being the dictator director, Eva does not step in during these wars, so long as work is completed by the end of the night (she understands how stir crazy living on a boat can be)
- the mess hall has a rotating schedule to represent the different cultures on board the ship which inevitably means everyone complaining once its time for English-based meals (no one wants to eat mushy peas or beans on toast, but an argument breaks out on whether chicken tikka masala belongs to England or India)
- the Olympics causes a return to nationalism among the vatlings and is the only time Stratt is seen repping her country's flag
- speaking of, the vatlings held a mock Olympics (the Vatlympics) themselves with increasingly strange competitions based not on country/heritage but on respective roles on the ship
-Stratt catches wind of this and forms her own team made of the best in each crew simply termed the Leads (did not last long, Ilyukhina quickly retermed them the Strattlings)
- she tried getting the astronauts to join her team but they chose to stick together led by Yáo who surprisingly became quite competitive
- events included but were not limited to swimming laps around the Vat, running along its length (suprising to no one Redell wins), bowling using discarded equipment and a mannequin head that no one knew where it came from (Grace has shockingly good aim), a spelling bee amongst the science factions (despite being the lead astrophage researcher, spelling is not his forte), extreme hide and seek (won by Shapiro and Dubois who of course knew all the best hidden places), and cultural dance forms (it was impossible to select a clear winner but Lokken did surprise everyone by performing a hallingkast)
- they hold a funeral for Antarctica headed by Leclerc (he's bawling the entire time), Ilyukhina almost poured one out but quickly remembered the newfound Prohibition enforced on the vat
- an illegal speakeasy is formed by the chemists when Stratt limits alcohol usage only for galas and the monthly team bonding events, they take orders from the crew teams until one suspicious request for mead shows up (little known fact, Eva has a sweet tooth)
- a makeshift Eurovision is held (including non-euro crew members), Eva almost considered joining but started getting a sore throat after endless meetings that always ended in her yelling at greedy capitalists trying to profit off the end of the world
- Lokken and Grace's beef is so well known amongst the vatlings that a silent system is formed to alert if one gets within 10 feet of each other (fails every time, those two can rarely hold a civil conversation, Grace likes to think himself a calm man but Lokken knows the exact buttons to press)
- (eg. During the Vatlympics in a particularly heated staring contest between team bio-engineer and team Leads Strattlings, Lokken and Grace had the misfortune of being paired, Lokken only won when she whispered independent evolution, causing Grace to yell about panspermia)
- the vatlings are loyal to their benevolent dictator and fiercely defend her against criticism from the press
Has anyone thought yet about how Ilyukhina and Yao would have reacted to Grace waking up to no memories if they’d lived. Or meeting Rocky. Or the fishing or any of the things they had to do as a part of the mission.
Okay but the linguistic shenanigans that must inevitably have ensued on board the Hail Mary if Yáo and Ilyukhina had survived as well.
They keep English as their lingua franca since they all speak it and are used to it at this point, but that doesn’t stop parts of other languages from getting mixed in. Rocky borrows bits and pieces of everybody’s grammar. He asks for a word for something and no one can come up with an equivalent until Yáo offers up a Mandarin word and they just all roll with it. Rocky notices Yáo and Grace aren’t prone to cursing so he gets Ilyukhina to teach him some handy phrases and the two of them swear loudly in Russian whenever something goes wrong.
They focus their vocab-sharing sessions on English for practical reasons but in their spare time Yáo and Ilyukhina teach Rocky bits of their own languages and use them to jokingly gossip in front of Grace, who can pick out his name but not much else (and who starts trying to teach himself and Rocky to speak Klingon using the pirated files on the laptop just to get back at them).
They adopt each other’s vocabulary. They argue over translations. They create so many weird pidgins. They talk and they laugh and they share and even out here in the depths of space they keep pieces of their home cultures alive in their mingled voices.
so the project hail mary ground team probably had communication with the ship for a little bit before it traveled out of range, right?
i’m talking video feed, microphone, and remote access to the care robot.
stratt watched the ISS crew assist yao and ilyukhina and a sedated grace prepare for their induced coma. she heard ilyukhina make a joke about waking up the most well rested she’s ever been in her life. she watched yao shake hands with the crew captain and thank them for their help. she watched the fate of humanity drift off to sleep, watched as the ISS crew wrote “good luck!” on the sleep pods, watched the hail mary detach from the ISS.
stratt checked the feeds almost obsessively. she would pull up the cameras and tap into the microphone, even though she saw no movement and heard no sound. she scrolled through health reports that she couldn’t understand. it became part of her routine. despite all her bravado, all her efforts to remain distant and detached, these people had become her friends.
and she had betrayed them all, in some way. grace most of all, yes, she had forced him on a mission he didn’t want to go on, had signed his life away to the stars for the sake of a dying star and a suffering planet, but she had also betrayed yao and ilyukhina, sending them on a mission without knowing that grace had said no. a lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.
once the ship had cleared the requisite distance from the ISS and any satellites, the astrophage engines kicked on. the speed increased and with it the distance, which eventually led to delays in communication with the ship. the reports began to slow, delayed by a few hours, then days, then weeks. the video feed became glitchy before going dark. the mic feedback was nothing but static.
the hail mary became a ghost — something that was there but could not be seen or reached.
but perhaps most haunting of all was the last report ground control was able to receive:
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.
I know there's a popular headcanon that Grace's crew died because of feeding tubes malfunction (based on the paperwork Grace was doing right before the explosion), but — in the book he specifically says that even after the accident he kept dealing with that same paperwork on minor Hail Mary issues, so I doubt that feeding tube problem was left unaddressed. May I offer instead:
Grace was put into coma by the people who cared about him. They (especially Yáo being Yáo) probably double-triple-quadruple checked everything. They watched him sleep for those first few days — I doubt they went into coma immediately after leaving Earth's orbit. They probably talked to him, assuring him that he'll be okay.
Ilyukhina's coma procedure was probably supervised by Yáo. He made sure that everything was in order, but — he is just one man and he is not a doctor. There was much more room for mistakes.
When Yáo went to sleep, he was alone. He had to rely on the technology completely.
this was my first ever proper con and i met so many wonderful cosplayers and fans, including an adorable middle-aged couple (both wearing 'amaze amaze amaze' shirts) who lent me the paper hat you can see in the first picture!
“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”
“My.”
“Correct. But only for names.”
“So you’re calling me…?”
Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.”
“Are there other Graces? Why do you need to specify?”
Rocky considers this, tapping his xenonite-encased claws idly against the floor.
“No other Grace,” Rocky says. “We just do this.”
“Like an honorific,” Grace guesses. “It goes before everyone’s name? Everyone you know?”
Rocky whirs in surprise. “No, no, no. Not at all.”
“Okay, then who? What makes me qualify?”
Rocky is silent for a moment.
“...Does this offend Grace?” he asks, voice lower.
Grace blinks. “No! I don’t think so. Is there a reason to be offended?”
“Good,” Rocky says, relieved. Grace is starting to recognize what Eridian relief sounds like. “No, no reason.”
“Who else do you call that?”
“You don’t have this on Earth?”
Grace considers. What for, friends? He couldn’t call Marissa “my Marissa.” That would be weird.
“I still don’t know what it means,” he settles on. “So I couldn’t tell you.”
Rocky groans in frustration. He’s a very impatient tutor. “We just say it.”
“Are you my Rocky?” Grace asks. He hits the two keys to make the my note.
“I don’t know!” Rocky says. “You decide this.”
“I decide? Who do you use it for?”
“You. Adrian. I will use it for my pebbles.”
Grace blinks. “So few?”
Rocky shifts. “I am… you do not have the word yet. Eridian who works alone often, not close to many other Eridians.”
“What, mechanical engineer?”
Rocky chitters. “Acceptable.”
“Is Adrian your only friend?”
Rocky draws back, like he’s taken offense. “I have friends. Coworkers. But different.”
So just Adrian. And him.
“This worries you,” Rocky says.
“Adrian is your mate,” Grace points out. “I’m not your mate.”
“Correct. You are not. You do not like to be a mate.”
Grace isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he ignores it.
“I’m your friend,” Grace says.
Rocky hesitates, for a second. “...Correct.”
“Like your coworkers.”
“No.”
Grace sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Okay, maybe that’s fair. It’s not like he felt about any of his coworkers like he feels about Rocky.
“Best friend,” Grace amends. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Rocky hums. “Acceptable.”
“Just acceptable? Now you are offending me. Can you just explain?”
This makes Rocky fall silent for a minute longer than usual. Grace is half-ready to apologize and to say let’s move on and to retype his own name without the superfluous my.
“The Earth ‘best friend’ is not strong enough,” Rocky says finally. “It does not translate this way.”
Grace runs his fingers through his hair, a little nervous, for some reason. “Okay.”
“It is…” Rocky pauses. He has to pause more often, now that they’re not using the translator, to simplify his language. “It means that I am not Rocky without my Grace. You are part of… of the whole. When I wake up, I think of you. When I work. When I eat. When I think I am going to die.”
Rocky speaks slowly, but it’s still a lot of Eridian for Grace to grasp all at once. Even as he works out the sentences in his head, he can feel hot tears rising in his eyes.
“It means that when you are sick, I am sick,” Rocky continues. “And it means I will take care of you, because taking care of you is taking care of myself.”
Grace bunches up his sleeve, wiping it across his face, blinking furiously.
Rocky’s voice is soft. “So Grace is part of Rocky. Grace is like a cell. You see? My Grace.”
Grace is quiet, for a moment, trying to get himself together. When he speaks, his voice is shaky.
“...Oh.”
Rocky hums, pressing his carapace gently against Grace’s arm. “You are leaking. Does this make you sad?”
Grace shakes his head, sniffing, crossing his arms across his knees and resting his chin on his sleeves. “Not at all.”
“Good, good.”
“I feel like that,” Grace mumbles. “Just like that. Just exactly—exactly like that.”
“About your old mate?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know I’m talking about you.”
Rocky hums, burrowing closer. Grace curls one arm around his carapace. That’s not enough, so he leans over, dropping his head down so his forehead presses against the xenonite.
“My Rocky,” Grace whispers in English.
“My Grace,” Rocky echoes in Eridian. Grace can recognize the note at the start. He will add it when he plays Rocky’s name.
“How long have you called me that?” Grace asks. “Must’ve been a while. I didn’t notice it change.”
“Long time,” Rocky agrees. “Long, long time.”
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