solbin phm au in my head is like.
albin as this washed up ex-academic drifting aimlessly through his late twenties. used to have big dreams of making a name for himself, but eventually got chewed up and spit out by the system. now too tired and beaten down to want to do something meaningful again. outside of his students, has no real roots or lasting relationships in his life. retreating back to his sad bachelor pad every night w a half eaten box of mothership manameals. thru a strange twist of fate somehow gets looped into a top-secret government project to save the world. and hell. i mean sure i guess thats whats happening now ok.
i think option 1) stratt gets replaced by ma goblin. pragmatic but caring leader who genuinely just wants to try and get as many people to survive as possible. tough and cold and understands that the world cant be saved without sacrifice. looks rlly badass and cool the whole time. genuinely pained to have to murder albin, someone shes grown close to over months of working closely alongside, but she has to do it. option 2) paetina is stratt and like omgggggg if the world explodes Who will my alexandrite chatbots advertise to. anyway shit looks like the two scientists died, someone knock out that other guy so we can ship him to space. i think his name was alvin? anyway brb using my dictator powers to put a new data centre in the living woods
anyway. cut to albin waking up in a cold empty spaceship w two other dead bodies. also hes buff now ????????????? he doesnt remember a lot but by Gods he doesnt think he had that before. eventually pieces together whats happening and. i mean well sad that hes going to die alone and never loved by anyone but gee at least hes a hero who sacrificed himself for the world. voluntarily even! :-) yayy yippeeee
also like in the book he throws up in his space suit ☝️ . pivotal to mention.
really the main problem w this whole thing is that when he tries to go on the hull of the ship something goes wrong ... either the suit malfunctions or something went wrong in the cryosleep... maybe albin literally breaks his leg. for some reason or another, albin physically cannot leave the ship. which is like . kind of bad. given he needs to do that, to actly collect any samples for study. so . oopsie!
lowkey kind of a problem which gets put on hold so briefly because wow holy shit aliens are real! and they are .... shaped like frog people ...?
(.......for the sake of this au . we literally CANNOT think about how the 2 ships physically make contact. we simply cant think about it. i love sol but im sorry he is NOTTTTTTT smart enough to build a vaccuum sealed xenonite tube. 😔. its just not possible)
anyway um. but albie meeting a weird lil alien guy that speaks in ribbits who he names frog pal.......... #MEETCUTE!!
(sols backstory in this is that he was basically the 'muscle' of his team. the guy that cld be sent to do manual labour, inside and outside the ship. sol basically being his teams built in spare- hes subjected to the worst dangers of space so that the brightest minds of his home dont have to and it doesnt compromise the mission if he dies. sooo RIP when all his team members die off for mysterious reasons and the only one left is a dumb frog with 8 intelligence!! its not good! )
sols been floating in space a little sad and lonely for like forty years until an alien popped into his orbit. that is conveniently crazy smart and hyper advanced and friendly. sol is moving into that guys ship IMMMEDIATELY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! < he wonnnnt be clingy trust trust trust. btw did you know its typical for ppl in my planet to watch each other when were asleep. also when were awake and when were eating and when were reading and when were playing minesweeper on the toilet. yeah. for cultural sensitivity reasons i think we need to be max five ft apart at all times haha yayyy <3
anyway ... cue albie and sol getting to be little 'save the world' buddies .... albie doing his science inside the ship while sol collects samples on the outside. working together making chains. almost dying trying to save each other from being crushed by gravity/burned alive by human atmosphere, etc etc etc. sol getting to feel useful and albin for the first time in his life, feeling hes being seen, and feeling like he matters to someone. someone who is curious about him and kind to him and cares about him as a person. sol putting his faith into albin, the same way the world has, but its different this time ...
(also albin mentioning this is technically a suicide mission and sol immediately freaking out that simply CANNOT happen. frog w a normal level of survivors guilt and he simply CANNOT let another teammate die on him. you need fuel have my fuel take my fuel!!!! whats another few years to save your life if you die im going to kms)
anyway as per og after some minor near death experiences they figure out the astrophage and the taumobea . they fixed the problem and they saved their planets!!!! they can go home.... at this point albin has remembered how exactly he got up into space in the first place. considers telling sol but. maybe hes grown too attatched to the version of himself that sol sees him as, who's brave, who's smart, a hero who sacrificed everything for his home. a better man than albin ever could be. albin knows now hes a pathetic coward, but maybe frog pal can hold onto a memory of albin thats better than the real thing. sol n albie lil tearful goodbye and they both go back homebound...
albie alone again without his freak little codependent roommate and feeling lonelier than hes ever been. but i mean overall its fine. everything is literally fiiiiiiiine 👍. and then its bad again. taumeoba infecting the ship and albin can save his own ship but sol cant. albin is faced w the choice of going home, and living out the rest of his life as the saviour of the world, or dying to save his friend. and its not even really a choice at all. frog pal and boy wizard save stars :D
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