It's no wonder Out happened when you really think about it. Nastya doesn't like organic life because it's complicated, it can break, sometimes it's even unfixable.
Nastya is in love with Aurora, and in saying that she is saying "you are not organic life, I can deal with you because you are metal and algorithm and predictable" - we can see this in bedtime story when she says she'll tweak Aurora's story creation algorithm
screenshot from A Bedtime Story
Aurora is not inorganic. She is not ai. She is a space moon made of flesh and blood and teeth and bone. She is not an ai. She is a body that was taken and stripped of autonomy, of the right to self identify, of the right to think- to be imperfect and organic.
The metal is a veneer that hides how messy and traumatized and unfixable she is. From the outside she is a starship. From the inside she can still bleed.
And this makes them fundamentally incompatible. But yet, they are in love.
And really, it's no wonder Nastya fell in love with Aurora. Let's take a look at Nastya's home planet, or at least home society:
"Terminals were scattered across the planet. There was one on every street corner, one beneath every lamppost and one in every commune block."
"The midwife-machine performs a series of programmed manœuvres to quieten [the baby]. It cradles it and hums at several pitches until it finds one that seems most soothing. Mechanical arms stroke the baby’s flesh even as others start the process of implanting augmented reality interfaces into its nervous system."
"The Czar an atrophied frame, never present in the real world and worn to dust by the chemical compounds that kept his brain alive so it could live forever in a perfect virtual paradise. The Rabotnik a copy, a mind preserved unchanging in the instant before its death and placed in an everlasting metal frame."
(Cyberian Demons)
Its safe to say the world Nastya was born into, from the very minute she was born, was ridden with technology. She has augmented reality interfaces inplanted into her from birth. It would stand to reason that being taken from this society, wherein technology is everywhere, inside and out, would stand for a bit of a shock.
Aurora too had been augmented by the Cyberia.
While it is stated that the last time Nastya had used the ports themselves was directly before her death — "The last time she had used the ports, her tutor had ripped them out of her as the rebels stormed the palace" — Aurora is laced with Cyberian technology. I'd imagine she has something of a 'bluetooth wireless connection' with Aurora, rather than the physical data transfer of files between the ports and Nastya, it may as well be similar enough.
Imagine being Nastya, going from Cyberia, wherein there is augmented reality contantly, transplanted onto a ship with metal blood, a jonny, and a vampire. To Aurora, where the only bits of augmented reality run through Aurora.
Of course she'd fall in love with her. Aurora is familiarity. Aurora isn't organic. Aurora isn't human.
And of course when the undeniable part of aurora that is organic, that is a flesh moon plated in metal with her brain hooked to machines, when so much has broken and been replaced, when, presumably, aurora is less of an algorithm, nastya leaves with the brand cyberia left on her.
Because Aurora healing, becoming more of herself and less of a starship, is messy, and organic, and human.
‘Think how long she’s been flying you around. Think how many bullet holes you’ve punched through her and how many atmospheres you’ve dropped her through. Think how many alterations and improvements we’ve made, Tim to her guns and Ashes to her storage and Brian to her engines and the Toy Soldier to who knows what. How much do you think is left of her after all she’s brought you through?’ Nastya held up the ancient, battered piece of hull plating. Just visible under the grime and scars of particles of space junk was a fragment of the Aurora’s original logo and serial number. Jonny honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a version that hadn’t been painted by the Mechanisms themselves.
‘So she’s free, now.’ Nastya gestured around at the spaceship they were standing in. ‘This Aurora can take you where you want to go. I’m going to take my Aurora somewhere else.’
Aurora was ship of theseus'd. Aurora was improved. Aurora was no longer cyberian. (both literally, and metaphorically)
