⭒ ✮ starchild ✮ ⭒ @starchildchildofthestars - Tumblr Blog

Welcome, folks :3

Hi! This is Star :3

Welcome to my weird little blog where I talk abt stuff that interests me, and my strongly held opinions about Miku ruling the world.

This blog will contain curse words, but not graphic violence or suggestive themes.

Love y'all! :3

afterthelambs

Sorry to longpost, but one of the main reasons I like Project Hail Mary is how it finally portrays the kind of human-alien relationship that I love to see but rarely ever get. The aliens are not evil monsters or magical transcendent beings. They are equals. Just another species that we can coexist with and learn from.

I love stories about extraterrestrial beings. I like seeing different takes, I like seeing how different stories use them in the narrative.

But a lot of the time aliens are portrayed as evil monsters that want to kill people. Whether it's the horror from the Alien franchise or A Quiet Place etc., or dumber action stuff like independence day and pacific rim, or the multitude of video games with otherworldly antagonists. Combative relationships are extremely common whenever aliens get involved.

While I love a lot of these stories and can take them at face value for entertainment, I still side-eye the implications. Why is it such a common instinct to take unfamiliar creatures with different language, appearance, culture, and cast them as bloodthirsty savages that want to conquer your home and steal your jobs eat people?

You can't "it's not that deep" your way out of this. Even if you don't believe all art is political (which it is), you don't need to go very far to find the politics in alien movies.

The word 'alien' referred to immigrants/ people from another country long before it ever referred to extraterrestrial creatures. Given how these stories are predominantly being told by first worlders + white people and are often set in first world countries starring white actors, the sociopolitical influences behind this are pretty obvious. It's easy to tell when a story is based on first world anxiety over 'invasive aliens' compared to a story that's actually critiquing exploitative colonization (I'm from SEA, i would know).

And then you have the flipside where aliens are treated as magical transcendent beings who are granted respect for their benevolence, spirituality, or advanced technology. Think Close Encounters or the Abyss or even ET. Yeah the aliens aren't evil, but they're given this mysterious or benevolent quality that still 'others' them from humans. Even if the characters befriend them, there's no real cultural exchange being portrayed because that's not the point of those stories. You're not meant to learn who they are in depth. In the end, they're still something mysterious to gawk at and wonder about, like a spectacle. They're not equals.

Avatar kind of gets close by showing what Na'vi society is like but it still plays into the magical native stereotype. It still makes a spectacle out of how 'exotic' they are, which is only muddled by the indigenous metaphor going on. I've seen more Avatar 3 memes about how the fire na'vi is like a racist white man's "hot filipino wife" than anything about that character's depth (seriously why is that fetish joke so common? do people not see the implications of that?). Like okay you're not fearmongering about how scary immigrants are, but they're still not equals when you exoticize them to this degree.

And then there's Project Hail Mary, which actually portrays alien life in multiple forms but resists the temptation to demonize or glorify any of them.

Astrophage and Taumoeba are microscopic alien life. Astrophage is the 'problem' but not a villain, and it actually has some utility as a remarkable fuel source. Taumoeba is the solution, but ends up being a problem in the end. Neither of these are treated as some evil or benevolent force, just another life form that we need to study to solve problems.

Then you have the Eridians, a sentient species. Not scary, but also not infinitely more advanced. We actually get to learn about them and their culture, their language, their customs and gestures, their mating habits. They're not treated as mysterious spectacles. They're open, inquisitive, intelligent, and flawed.

Grace and Rocky are equals. They need each other, they fill the gaps in each other's lack of expertise. I don't understand the people who see Rocky as a pet when the entire film shows how they mutually respect one another. In the end, Grace ends up being a refugee on an alien planet and integrates into their culture while they accommodate his own needs, language, culture, etc. There's genuine cross-cultural exchange.

Andy Weir says the story is not political, but he's wrong (and i think he's kind of a chud for saying that to begin with but whatever). These stories are not made in a vacuum, especially not alien stories. He used a trope heavily influenced by real world sociopolitics to tell a story where humans interact with a foreign society and collaborated to solve a problem they had mutual interest in. That's political whether he says so or not.

Despite the author's views, it is still refreshing to see this take on aliens when the trope is already oversaturated with stories 'other'-ing them through fear or misplaced mysticism. It's honestly a relief to finally get an alien story without the specter of unintentional xenophobia hovering over it

starchildchildofthestars

This is wonderful!

Now I know why evil alien/alien invasion tropes always made me so uncomfortable.

This is definitely one of my favorite aspects of Project Hail Mary. I love how this situation could have been used for the most dramatic content, such as aliens attacking whoever came to Tau Ceti, or some sort of galactic savior thing. But that's never where Andy Weir's writing takes him.

Instead, we met aliens, and they were just like us. They may have looked different, sounded different, been from a different planet with a different gravity, culture, and method of perceiving their environment, but they ended up at Tau Ceti the same as us. In the end, we were both there for the same purpose: to save our people, our worlds.

Yes, first contact was scary; new things usually are. But we looked at each other and thought, "Oh my gosh. We're not alone anymore."

The next thing we did after figuring out we weren't alone, was figure out how to work together.

#i've cried about this the normal amount of times #amazing post op!#luv luv luv!#phm #ryland grace #rocky phm #project hail mary #my post #longpost #phm analysis #rocky the eridian

Astrophage

So, there's this thing that's been bothering me about astrophage. Specifically, the part about how the sun was 'dying'. By how it's described in the book and the movie, it sounds like the astrophage went into the sun to 'eat' and then zoomed out and back to Venus.

When I initially read this, I was actually under the impression that astrophage was growing around the sun, like an algae bloom. This makes sense because it consumes the light, not anything physical in the sun, and this way it wouldn't have to go through the ordeal of escaping Sol's gravity. It has enough power, but that power would be wasted by zooming into and then escaping the sun.

Therefore, the sun was not dying; it was being dimmed by an algae bloom growing around it. As the astrophage multiplied, they blocked out more and more of Sol's light, meaning it became dimmer.

Pls correct me if I totally misunderstood! :3

#project hail mary #andy wier #phm #rocky #ryland grace #ryland and rocky #posts #space #ryland phm #ryland project hail mary #ryan gosling #rocky the eridian #rocky phm #question

I'm so messed up over the beautiful character arc of Ryland Grace. He was a scientist and a coward. He was a brilliant intellectual who theorized about the existence of non-water-based lifeforms, and who's piers unanimously agreed that he could have led the field of speculative extraterrestrial biology if he hadn't left when he came across opposition.

He retreated to teaching, where he became a fantastic teacher, but one who sheltered himself so he wouldn't have to deal with opposition. When Strautt found him, he reluctantly agreed to help, but when she took the astrophage he chose to fight. For his kids(students), for his planet, he stood beside Stratt and helped her do whatever she needed to do to save their planet.

His friends, DuBois and Shapiro, were killed in a tragic accident three days before launch. Stratt offered Grace the choice, to board the Hail Mary, to fly through the dying stars on a suicide mission to save the only planet humanity has ever known.

And he refused.

He was a coward; he made excuses about staying on Earth to help his students rather than do the only thing that could save their lives. He wouldn't give his life to save his species, his kids. Stratt knew her duty, she knew it all along and there was nothing, nothing she wouldn't sacrifice. Even herself. Even Grace.

He woke up on the Hail Mary and did exactly what Stratt anticipated. Ryland Grace may have been a coward, but he was also a scientist. Grace met an alien, his best friend. He and Rocky flew to Adrian, found Taumoeba, and bred it into a version that could survive in the necessary environment.

He tried so hard to forget that he would have to die when their mission was over. And then, suddenly, he could go home. Rocky gave him the fuel. He could live, he could go home, he didn't have to die.

Ryland Grace cried with joy.

Then everything went wrong. The Taumeoba escaped. He found it early, he fixed the problem. But he knew Rocky couldn't. Grace the scientist, Grace the coward, could finally go home, he could finally live. And he chose to go back. He chose to sacrifice himself.

Ryland Grace would not give his life to save his planet, to save the people he had known and loved. But now, he decided willingly to give his life to save an alien he had known for a couple of months, from a planet he had never seen and a species he had never really known.

Grace gave his life, because it was the right thing to do. This time, he wasn't a coward.

I guess that's just what happens when u meet ur platonic soulmate.

Me and the three white guys with glasses who teach me everything

#john oliver #hank green #john green #sci show #crash corse #last week tonight #they are so awesome

New Glenn Rocket Explosion

An oddly movie-worthy explosion. It even had a mushroom cloud, although that's not shown in the vid. Like, this is what I think of when I think of the word 'explosion'.

Amazingly, no one was hurt!

Hank Green has a great video about this on YouTube, where he talks about climate impact and does math and stuff. Enjoy it here if u like :3

#Youtube #New Glenn rocket #explosion #weirdly beautiful explosion #like a movie explosion #but naturally occuring #Interesting to me at least :3 #posts

Today I was frying some eggs and my sibling said, "You season stuff like you're never going to taste pepper again."

Well, exSCuSE mE if I like my food to have flavor

#posts #shitpost #idk what to tag here #um #life ig

Some Thoughts on Space Tourism

So, I've been thinking about space tourism lately, mostly in response to an NPR article I read, linked here. I am a huge fan of NASA, space, and the Artemis program. It is truly wonderful that our species is taking its baby steps out into the cosmos, and that I happen to be born at just the right time to watch it.

However, the advent of companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos respectively, concerns me.

I am strongly against space tourism. I think making space more accessible for people to travel, live, and work in is truly amazing. But fundamentally, space should be a frontier of science and human achievement, not a way to extract wealth from the populace through tourism.

Before I begin, you need an understanding of the history of diamonds and some anecdotes from Artemis, the book by Andy Weir. The same author who wrote Project Hail Mary and The Martian.

De Beers, the company that owned about 90% of the diamond market, was failing. It was the Great Depression, and there was basically no demand for diamonds because they were and are, essentially, expensive rocks. Diamonds were viewed as something that only the elites would ever own; they held no place whatsoever in the public consciousness. This, as one might assume, was bad for business.

Enter, N.W. Ayer & Son, an American advertising company hired by De Beers to raise them out of irrelevance and financial ruin. Particularly, Frances Gerety, a copywriter who coined the phrase "A Diamond is Forever". What followed was perhaps one of the single most effective marketing campaigns in history. By tapping into deep emotions around romance and commitment, utilizing celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, who sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", and very effectively branding diamonds as symbols of everlasting love, De Beers completely rewrote the culture surrounding wedding rings.

This may be surprising because the marketing by N.W. Ayer & Son on behalf of De Beers has been fully absorbed into our culture. Diamonds are now almost synonymous with marriage, commitment, and wedding rings.

Again, I would like to remind our addled post-marketing-campaign brains that these are shiny rocks. Shiny rocks that were so effectively marketed that today, 90% of American brides receive a diamond engagement ring. Diamonds have no intrinsic value, but by manufacturing scarcity by releasing just enough diamonds to meet demand but never exceed it, successful marketing, and high prices, De Beers made them seem valuable.

Basically, they took a non-thing and gave it tremendous value through successful marketing. They then extracted an unfathomable amount of money from everyday people.

This is where I get back to space tourism.

Andy Weir writes in his book Artemis about a not-too-distant future where the moon has become an expensive resort. The book itself is fantastic, if a little gritty; definitely read it if you can. But anyway, the main character mentions at one point that it's not just the ultra-rich who frequent the moon's five habitable domes. With financial planning, most people can afford a trip to the moon once in their life. Which sounds fantastic; I mean, I would totally pay an exorbitant amount of money to visit the fricking MOON. It's the fricking moon, duh. No marketing needed there.

What I fear this could mean, for our real, non-fictional lives, is exactly that will happen. SpaceX and Blue Origin don't need a marketing miracle that goes on to be studied for decades like De Beers; they've got the fricking moon. Through successful marketing, it wouldn't be as hard as you would think to convince the world that it's normal for everyone to take a trip to the moon once in their life.

And there begins the massive extraction of wealth from the populace. The billionaires who own space set the prices, and normal people, who already struggle to pay for housing, are bullied by a propaganda-driven culture into paying exorbitant sums to visit the moon.

This is sad, definitely. But it also makes me angry. The commercialization of the moon is a direct perversion of every ideal of science, exploration, and new frontiers that keeps us going back to space.

We all live under the same stars, and for as long as humanity has existed, we have looked upwards. We named constellations, tracked comets, discovered the organization of our solar system, fought for a really long time about the organization of our solar system, built telescopes, launched satellites, and finally sent some of us out into space.

So, for every human who has ever looked up and thought, "Fuck, there's so much out there. It's so beautiful", don't fucking commercialize space.

Keep in mind that none of this has happened yet. We're not brainwashed into handing over our life savings to visit the moon, right now at least. But one day long ago, we didn't buy diamonds either.

Takeaways:

-Billionaires are bad.

-Space should be a scientific frontier like Star Trek.

-Don't fall for diamond propaganda.

-Read Andy Weir's books; they are fricking AWSOME.

Some very informal sources:

A Case Study on De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” Campaign

From Rocks to Romance: De Beers’ $6 Billion Diamond Marketing Playbook

DeBeers Corporation

That's it, folks! Pls reach out with any thoughts, comments, or concerns, I'd love to hear from u!