One of my go-to obsessions when I get into some new media is the physical environments the characters are in, especially if I start writing about them. I just gotta know how the settings are laid out. It's a need.
Project Hail Mary is no exception. During one of my recent writing projects, I realized I didn't really have a full picture of Grace's biodome situation on Erid. Based on the snippets we're shown in the 'epilogue' scene, it's a little challenging to get a sense of the space's geography.
So what does Grace's artificial environment actually look like? How big is it? How it is laid out! Inquiring minds (me) want to know!
Although there's technically no way to 100% know, because movie magic and all that, we can get a pretty good idea of what's going on based on what we're shown in frame and some speculation.
Keep reading for a full breakdown!
Initial Observations
My first impressions of the space were based loosely on the way the epilogue is shot. I assumed the space looked something like this:
Grace and Rocky walk down from the house to the beach, and then up the beach away from the arch formation. This scene geography is maintained until we cut to Grace standing on the beach in front of his classroom. I had assumed these shots were continuous, and Grace had walked up the beach from his house directly to the classroom.
However, upon closer analysis, this actually appears to be a discontinuous cut. Rocky is no longer present (or at least not shown) during this final scene with Grace and his Eridian students, and if we take a closer look at the backgrounds of each shot, it becomes apparent that these shots don't share geography at all. What to do?
Breaking Down the Shots
I started by making a storyboard of the epilogue to break everything down (big kudos to @aroace-ryland-grace's Project Hail Mary library! It was super helpful!).
There's four main shots that provide a lot of information about the biodome's layout.
Shot 9: Pan of Rocky and Grace walking on beach
Shot 9 shows where Grace's house is in reference to the arch formation.
Shot 8: Descending through biodome ceiling
In Shot 8, the camera descends through the ceiling of the biodome, giving us a wide shot down the length of the beach. In the distance, we can see some faint blocky outlines indicating xenonite barriers. Helpfully, we can also see a very tiny Grace and Rocky walking, which, when combined with Shot 9, means that this is showing a view down the beach away from Grace's house and the arch formation.
Shot 24: Wideshot of classroom and surrounding beach
The widest view we get of the classroom is in Shot 24. There's still no visual connection to any of the shots we've seen featuring the arch or the house, but behind the classroom is a very distinctive rock formation that may come in handy later.
Shot 21: Rotation from Grace's feet; Grace picks up sand, walks away from water
Shot 21 faces away from Grace's classroom, giving us another view of the landscape. This isn't the same view we got in Shot 8, nor is it facing back towards the arch formation like I had initially assumed it must. The classroom has to be in another area, but there isn't enough information from the shots alone to fully reconstruct the space.
Now we have to turn from what's explicitly shown to what the real Earth location used for shooting looks like if we want to keep going.
Returning to Earth
The scenes on Erid were shot at the on-Earth location of Durdle Door, which is the arch formation we can see throughout the epilogue. I recreated ten shots in a Google Earth project file to try and piece together what we know so far.
Grace's house is very obviously located next to Durdle Door, which made it relatively easy to place.
Durdle Door is part of a larger promontory at the end of an isthmus. A wider angle facing the coast shows the full formation.
But wait! What's on the other side of that isthmus?
It's Shot 24!
Now we know where Grace's house and classroom are in reference to each other. This gives us the necessary geography to stich together what we know based on Shots 8 and 21.
Shot 8 gives us a view to the west of Durdle Door, all the way down to a set of rock formations called Butter Rock and Bat's Head.
Shot 21 gives us a view east towards another promontory called Dungy Head.
Bat's Head and Dungy Head provide the outer bounds for the length of Grace's enclosure on either side of Durdle Door. We also get some sense of how far out in the water the barriers are from Shots 19 and 24.
Shot 19: Rocky sits next to Grace
Speculation Time!
Based on this information, we can approximate some outer bounds for Grace's biodome:
Dimensions:
Total Area (enclosed by yellow perimeter): 1.96 km2
Land Area (highlighted in green): 0.91 km2
Biodome Length (purple): 2.5 km
Biodome Width (blue): 0.91 km
Grace's dome is pretty big! The width here might be a little generous, but based on what we can see, Grace has a couple kilometers of the Dorset National Landscape recreated for him to live in. That's a pretty sweet deal, honestly. Much better than his living situation in the book.
The setup of his house and classroom on the isthmus is also pretty logical. Their proximity is much closer than I had assumed. There's likely a tunnel within the isthmus that leads to the classroom, and possibly some other areas Grace and the Eridians can access for face-to-carapace interaction. As Grace gets older, there's even the potential for constructing an elevator straight down from his house to the classroom level instead of making him climb all those stairs. Very accessible!
I'm very pleased that not only is everything in those shots part of the real landscape (though they've obviously added VFX to get rid of the grass), but that the arrangement of Grace's home seems to be well-thought out. It would've been very easy to CGI the whole landscape. But it's not! It's Earth! Grace gets to have his very own little slice of home, with some Eridian touches.
I can't help but think that he and Rocky must have gone through so many landscapes in the Don't Go Crazy Room on the roadtrip to Erid until they found one Grace really, really loved.
The Eridians even made the rocks brightly colored! They're all red and teal, trying to capture some of the vividness of grass in their human's terrarium. They really do love Rocky's leaky space blob, they put so much care into his home.
I come here to play dolls and I choose again and again to do it in public and it feels very special to have so many of you tell me that you love the story I am playing out.
I am here to deliver a story that will ask a question. I am here to make perverse morally ambiguous homoerotic freak art of those rocks, and whether that comforts or disturbs you, I'm glad to know my art has made you feel something.
I got to know the creativity of so many of you while working on this. The stories told through your character designs are all incredibly beautiful and I consider myself lucky being a part of such a vibrantly creative fandom branch. I love you all.
List of everyone's characters below the cut, good luck.
“Isn’t 80 Eridian OCs a lot to draw?” Yes! Yes it is! Yes I am insane! Insane about the fact that kindness given should be returned multiplied!! If there’s one thing you take from my story - besides the perverse freak homoeroticism - it’s that I want there to be more kindness and compassion in this world, and by the Stars, I will do my fucking part of it.Â
ListÂ
Page 1Â
Cloudy Skies and Warden by @sunshine-in-a-bottle, Ender and Frost by @blueinkphantom, Twig by @Twiggyart6, Noodles by @noodleydoo, Vega by @hyper-spaces (thank you for always commenting on my posts, I love you đź«°đź’–), Dally by @w01fy-312, Disco by @anonmousegosqueak, Bayside by @then0rthernd0wnp0ur, Babies by anxious-ghostie-boy, Rose Gold Thorn by @weird0strawberry, Bubble and Gum by @adhd-cepheus, Jag by @boodlebog, Oxi by @blip-a-maze, Prehnite by @amylovesbeagles, Onyx I think?? By @onyx-i-think,Â
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Moss by @monoochrmatic, Sol by @clowninthestars, Cassowary by @fandom-is-my-drug, Slurpee by @velocigrippers, Banny, Vanny, Choco, and Strabby by @sunnysideupxd, Laffy & Taffy by @metriclily, Io by @matthindavick, Donut by @thinkingboutpurplethings, Vermillion by @8-bit-ch,Â
Page 3Â
Bird by @mycitynowdotjpeg, Shaker by @ipaddres, Unchuckable by @l33tsaber, Xivo by @hell-h0vnd, Loaf by @bioluminescent-bog, Astley by @razielgotsecrets, Blueberry and Hopper by @wingedjarchivist, Medusa by @divicianan, Cinnabun (get named, idiot) by @nonbeenairystuff, Comet by @peanut-with-wifi-access, Coca-Cola by @imabusinessrat (looking after a bunch of pebbles would fix them better than prison), Thirteen by knine-nights, Crumby by @hamster-princess3, Bunk by @itscthulhubitch, Moon by @rainbeauriot, Moon by @lunar-insanity
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Rabbit by @hellebores-rambling, Rodin and Shore by @th3m0thman, Nova by @pandasss404,  Moonbeam by @oakroots, Morrison, Chrys, Crysopace by @strawbebbi-daiquiri, Mango? By @kyokaizumiii, Sol by @sillylittlestoryteller, Ron Swanstone and Leslie Gneiss by @goodieprocter, Burren by @storytime-with-burren, Â
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Dusk by @hivewingcricket, Slate by @drgon-wings, Sandcastle by @undignified-sad-sandwich, Flora by @canvicantsleep, Bean by @jack-kelly-official, Tumbleweed by @lie-er-art, Pocket by @original-bookshelf, Lounge by @tauceti-tourist, Harley, Dew, and Isa by @maluskrow, Eridian by @spidersilk-559, Milk by @writer-fennec, Battie by @nerdyquestier, Ares by @ivory-lige, Â
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Rhyolite by @9tiny9bunny9baby9, Kit by @intergalakit, Nonbeliever by @phoenix-inanis, Orion by @let-gavin-free, Rodney by @quietsupporteranonymous, Dorito by @constantlysleepdeprived,Â
They didn’t submit their OCs and I don’t know if they follow me, I just like their OCs:Â
Cheeto by @problematiccheeto, Prism by @sharkfiinn, Ant by @poyopaan
Just got back from a con (absolute nightmare weekend) and my car broke from a recall part (of fucking course) so the next chapter is going to be a bit delayed.
I also want to start properly writing For When I Wake, my dimensional travel soulmate dream fic Bloodmary au, so that’s gonna be worked on too meaning Apogee Resonance might be slower as a result!
I really want to find a way to save everyone in the IL universe in my soulmates fic I’m drafting up, but I can’t seem to figure out how to?
Because Simon gets dropped in the PHM universe like halfway through, so it feels wierd to try and shoe horn everyone else being “saved” in the middle and not like as part of the climax? Idk, I’m gonna still try and find a way to work it in, it just will have to be not at the same time that Simon gets multiverse-shuffled
Idk I feel like Simon would probabky have a complicated relationship with plants and trees after everything in his past and the whole, yunno, sort of fufilling a sort of doomsday prophecy about trees?
Like you can only feed people to trees for so long before you start to think the tree wants to eat flesh, wants you to bring it bodies, bring it the sinners (or whatever it is catholic people believe about suffering? Forgive me I’m really ignorant of Christian/catholic anything).
But I also like to imagine that while he’s very hesitant and paranoid about plants in a Bloodymary scenario, like a sort of wierd animism paired with his guilt and his already existing mental issues? That eventually it really sinks in that the plants or trees or whatever is around him are things no one had to die for, that don’t crave his or anyone else’s death and it’s hard to believe but he finally does trust that?
And this does bring him a kind of bitter and angry feeling at the unfairness of it all, especially since blood actually doesn’t provide that much nutrients/nutritional value and what the fuck were we even doing this for was everything wasted was everything pointless why all the suffering how is that fair? But it also brings him a kind of peace about it all, soothing something in him that still wants to believe that there’s something kinder and softer out there, just out of his reach, but it finally is within his reach
I wish I could tag something with tags, only for like on my blog exclusively. Like not appear in the searchable main tags kinda thing? So that I can use it for categorizing without adding it to the main actual tag
Idk I think that would be really nice
Cause I don’t always want things to appear as searchable just to use for my own filing system
2087
prguitarman
amandla
pixelskylines
kianamaiart
germansingergirl
