I can’t believe it’s over and OMG that epilogue is so cute I’m gonna scream on the bus ALDIFJJAJJCJJEJF
I have a bajillion questions like does the better regen mean they get to live long enough to see a forest on Erid I really hope it does
But mostly PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can we know what happened in the politics meeting I love politics PLEASE
(I’m writing this while transporting a month old kitten that my former coworker found if u gimme politics I’ll show pics LMAO)
anything for cat pictures /lh
and yeah i'd like to think the better regen lets them live like maybe twenty extra years? something like that. not enough to rival eridians in any way shape or form and it's not THAT much more if you really think about it but then again the regen isn't THAT overpowered. mostly it'll give them like twenty extra and let them get there a lot healthier and mobile and like. not as old-looking as i imagine someone being like 110 under erid gravity would look like. they'll still probably end up using canes though not as soon as grace does in the book, and towards the end the eridians will make them their five-legged contraptions to scuttle around. and yeah they'd get to see a poplar and eucalyptus forest + their maple
space politics below!
i did mention in the epilogue that the humans agreed to gather for a meeting, and as mentioned in the other chapters this would be the equivalent of a video conference between the spaceships as they come to orbit erid. from the log entries in the game it's not explicitly stated that eden and the c.o.i are the only human factions? eden is the biggest and the c.o.i is at war with them, but i'm just going out on a limb and assuming that there's at least a couple more, obviously a lot smaller. i did also get the c.o.i's number of space stations wrong that's mb (the logs said they had three stations and i forgot the filament entry clarified that it was three not counting filament. whoops)
so the meeting is like five spaceships arriving to orbit erid, one from eden, two from the other two human factions, and one more from the c.o.i that meets up with salvager so they can have the proper representatives present. nobody but the two c.o.i ships makes direct contact, and simon and grace stay in mary in her hangar along with rocky
ok so immediately the first thing about this is that grace and simon (and rocky) are going into the meeting with completely different mindsets. rocky is going to listen in on the humans and offer erid's perspective on the feasibility of their plans and trade ideas as erid's representative. grace is going to sort of mediate in case the humans cannot behave and also to interpret for rocky if needed. but simon is going to war.
simon knows that if they want any smooth cooperation and for grace to be able to act as a mediator at all that they need to establish Dominance as soon as possible, while also retaining grace's sort of. yknow. they can't establish dominance via threatening the others, basically.
he decides that the way they're going to go about this, and he doesn't explicitly tell either grace or rocky any of this, is by demonstrating soft but irrefutable power. he has grace dress in the white crew jumpsuit, which isn't a color that still exists in that shade (that clean) anywhere in their universe, much less in a single non-patched garment. he takes one of the red jumpsuits for himself, because while grace's power has to be somewhat understated, simon needs to be a threat. bright colors don't exist anymore, and muted red and green were always eden's colors. him showing up in (relatively) bright, unblemished, clean red standing right behind grace in white is the best possible way to get them to immediately understand that while grace won't exert power, simon won't hesitate to do so if they do anything funny (guard dog behavior back at it again). he also keeps the sleeves rolled up to show off the prosthetic arm.
someone in the comments of another ask had the idea that simon should make grace a flower crown and i agree so strongly, so while unfortunately they don't actually have enough flowers for this, simon will make grace a vine crown/circlet to wear to immediately cow eden into obedience and stun everyone else. he'll also wave grace's nerves away on having to keep his glasses in place, telling him that he should wear them as he always does: carelessly. glass is so incredibly scarce and priced on their side that the sight of this man being so careless with what is essentially a priceless artifact will only further cement the idea that THEY have the resource upperhand here.
again simon tells none of the reasons behind any of these choices to either grace or rocky, so grace just humours him on the vine crown and thinks nothing of the white jumpsuit and is immediately met with double-takes and shocked expressions the second he activates mary's camera feed (let's assume it has this, it probably doesn't).
simon's plan works, the other representatives are immediately made aware that grace is the main authority here and that any feuds between them will either need to be resolved later or set aside for now if they don't want to lose the oportunity they've been given (they kind of didn't want to believe the c.o.i that a man ostensibly allied with them was behind their sudden apparent salvation). eden's folks will be particluarly shocked to not only see simon alive and healthy and with a prosthetic (unthinkable use of resources), but also to see the vine crown on grace's head. they didn't actually really believe the c.o.i when they mentioned there might be seeds up for trade, but since the situation had already been ludicrous enough they'd decided they couldn't risk the chance of there actually being seeds on the line; so seeing the plant used as an accessory is kind of giving them a heart attack.
so most of the meeting would consist of grace getting the representatives to be honest and use their fucking words and have an honest open discussion on what they want, while rocky studies the humans and gives information on what erid can and cannot do for them (they were all forewarned of the eridians but all the representatives bar ava and the two other salvager crewmembers present still flinch and startle and stare whenever he speaks up). throughout all of this, simon stands in position slightly behind grace, arms crossed, expression impassive, interrupting only when grace's attempts to get them to stop arguing don't work (which is rare because he's a Teacher, but still)
despite there being a c.o.i representative from the organizers of needle, ava carries most of the conversation on their end, to the shock of the representative. she had enough time to steel herself and has been exposed to enough of grace's bullshit that she's almost no longer faced. the other representatives of the other factions are also a bit baffled that she's not taking a solid minute to process every single batshit insane revelation that comes out of grace or rocky's mouth, she's just rolling with it. she also had simon's exact same idea of immediately establishing not only the c.o.i but her particular dominance on this situation as grace's closest point of contact to them (bar simon), so she saved a slice of watermelon from the basket to purposefully eat it on camera in front of everyone. the salvager crew is unnecessarily smug about this. simon clocks what she's doing instantly and can't deny that he approves the tactic
this post is getting long enough so i'll reblog it and add more about the actual contents of the meeting,,,
grace establishes right out of the gate what the options are: a) have something massive to offer to erid so erid will consider housing them in a similar (though obviously nowhere near as grand) way as they do him and simon, b) stay put and live in their space stations and trade resources with erid, c) settle down somewhere in 40 Eridani (and trade resources w erid), d) set off into space looking for another planet to settle in, or e) head to earth
before anyone can say anything else grace will probably also add that, unless they choose to head to earth, they likely won't be able to restart another human society as they had it pre-rapture given their gene pool just isn't big enough for inbreeding not to quickly become a problem
i imagine eden, as the biggest faction of them all, will have the biggest qualms about whether the gene pool is or isn't big enough (strong chances they don't know how that works lbr), and it'll probably take some cussing out from simon to get them to understand that no, 400ish people isn't enough.
but aside from that i think they would come to a farily quick consensus that heading to earth is probably the best idea. dying out on their own or succumbing to the problems of inbreeding doesn't sound ideal to any of them, and the thought of seeing earth and mars (even if uninhabited) again is more than enough to get a little bit of light into the jaded eyes of all the representatives
so i think the meat and potatoes of the meeting would really be about what they could expect on earth, what they could trade with them, how the situation probably looks for them. probably a lot of insisting that they at least agree to a truce because it's gonna be horrible optics if the humans from the other universe do nothing but fight each other. grace might have to hold station-wide classes on relativity and how to operate mary's spindrives and there would be a lot of coordinating on how to integrate those into their spaceships so they can tow their space stations for sixteen light years/four travel years without falling apart. and also storing astrophage somewhere in there.
i think they could absolutely get eden to enter a full truce or even drop the war by just giving them seeds and establishing a sort of. let's just try not to interact more than necessary, with the c.o.i. and have the others act as mediators. they would be too gobsmacked by having actual seeds and soil that they might be too catatonic for too many months to remember why they hated the c.o.i so much. the c.o.i would still be upset with them but i think the knowedge that they're grace's closest human faction (in their eyes) might make them smug enough to be the bigger persons about it. imagine. the respect for grace from the salvager crew spreads through the c.o.i as they start teaching everyone what they learned from the man and they're like. yeah sure we'll hold a truce. its what doctor grace would want and doctor grace taught us to play nice.
adapting the ships to mary's spindrives and breeding enough astrophage for their fuel i think would take at least a couple years, so. they'd still be trading some things w erid and chilling around 40 Eridani, patching up their stations. i do think the utilitarian mindset of most of them would lead to a good chunk of the 'trade' being just letting the eridians study them more in depth. a couple of the older folks might even agree to let their bodies stay in erid for further science if they pass away before the ships are ready to start heading to earth.
(i think it would be infinitely funnier if grace never lets anyone know why he is in erid or what his relationship to earth is other than he's 'a bit of a known figure' there. imagine the chaos when they do get there and find out grace literally saved the stars. eden might start worshipping grace a little halfway through the trip and will feel validated in their views once they see that earth also seems to hold the man on a savior pedestal lol)
My favorite thing about fanfic authors is they can identify any gap in a canon timeline where characters are offscreen and exploit the ever living fuck out of it
iron lung is good because on one hand it's like "hey if there was an ocean of blood and we threw a guy down there would that be fucked up or what" but also it's about humanity and the want to survive and the need to survive and what is worth the cost of a life but it's also about the inhuman treatment of criminals and where we draw the line but it's also about simon saying "it's bigger than me" during his self sacrificial act for humanity it's also about "you deserve your freedom. i'm sorry i can't give you that." it's about oh my god i love cosmic horror it's about seeing such an incredibly beautiful and artistic and human and independent film prevail it's about everything and it's about what you are when you're left at the edge of nothing. so yeah the movie is ok
the stars are dead. it doesn't matter that simon can see them. they're just dead light fading away. simon is dead from the minute he was welded in that sub. it doesn't matter that we can see him.
Currently playing with an AU where all of the specific clans are elementally alligned
-nmj frustrated cause huaisang should be able to move mountains and open the ground his enemies walk on and instead he's growing little plants and makes swings out of vines
-jiangs being water based (duh, lotus pier) but wwx was always fascinated with a different liquid (blood) so he plays around with that (later once he loses those powers he focuses on trinkets. jc gains limited electricity powers from zidian which comes from yu ziyuan's family branch
-jins being energy, this pure, light, healing one, but we know how the jins are, so where jzx wants to use it to help people, his dad and others mostly hog it for themselves and decide who gets to live and who don't OvO (also wwx mockingly saying the jins have "bad energy")
-wens are just fire, they thing its the baptizing kind, but it's the wrathful uncontrolled kind
-lans, twin jades, one as a fresh breeze in summer, one as a cold wind on a cold night. also it could be combined with music instruments, the wind powers creating this sort of echo to make it more powerful
My favorite part of Guanyin Temple is still the part when JGY is trying to get under WWX’s skin and he’s like “Ooh, does it sting that Jiang Cheng showed up to rescue Jin Ling and not you?” and WWX is just confused and he’s like “Why the hell would Jiang Cheng care about rescuing ME?” and you watch JGY decide that he does NOT understand what’s going on there and he moves on to bothering someone whose neuroses he actually knows
annaxmalina
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
titsay
vaporwave
izzy806
germansingergirl
