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. âAnd that?â
Itâs 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.
âAh,â Grace says.
âThat,â Rocky says.
âThatâs. Um.â Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. âThatâs the sacrifice wheel.â
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. âWe think we misunderstood Savior Graceâs word,â they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. âExplain (question, polite)?â
âDidnât misunderstand,â says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. âThat is sacrifice wheel.â
âSo. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten⊠anxious about each otherâs well-being,â Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. âAnd, 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 weâd do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.â
âGrace 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,â Rocky says.
âWhich made sense.â
âDid not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldnât be fair to make you do it againââ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. âSo sacrifice wheel was compromise.â
âYeah,â 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 stopsâpointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. âRocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, thatâs who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldnât waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, itâs 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.â
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, âNow that we are back and we donât need sacrifice wheel anymore⊠I have confession to make. About the wheel.â
âWhat about the wheel?â
Rocky doesnât 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.
âRocky!â
âI weighted the wheel,â Rocky admits.
âRocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made itââ
âNever was necessary so doesnât matter anymore!â
âBut you WOULD have!â
âAnd you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!â
âI would not! I would have done fine!â
(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 donât)
Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.
Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.
All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.
After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.
It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of yearsâfar longer than settlers have been in Canadaâand made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotÄn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.
And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racismâlike Kashechewanâbecause it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.
The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.
Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.
ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.
Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.
*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.
If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.
"A sign installed in the largest wildfire burn Iâve ever seen, along the BC/YK border. Borrowing the aesthetics of BC Recreation Site signs, once again pointing to the overlaps of outdoor recreation, resource extraction, and the consequences of the climate crisis. Most recreation sites in BC exist along previously built logging and mining roads.
âForced into a great and difficult transformationâ was a line I heard in a lecture on Buddhist philosophy I was listening to on my drive up north. But it became another mantra I thought about while living in a place thatâs been utterly transformed by resource extraction over the past century, and as I thought about the burnt landscapes I drove through."
functionally suicidal character saying âI would die for youâ to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me heâd sell hot dogs for me, I wouldnât feel very moved now would I
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