for space theme: hermetheus/hermatrix stuff!
nobody actually realized what was going on at first until it was too late - somehow on the way back from Last Life, Mumbo had caught the Nothing virus and spread it to all the hermits.
So then the few non-infected members of the crew have to take care of everyone else while they're in virtual reality pods, half-brain-uploaded to try to make the virus and its treatment survivable, and also some of them have other health concerns.
There's Impulse being a gold allay with an amethyst deficiency (so they have to work out how to get budding amethyst aboard now some has finally been found without breaking quarantine), False is a phantom and feeding her while she's in a pod is also logistically awkward, Ren lost two limbs and needs prosthetics, Mumbo's lost a whole segment of his data structure to the Nothing and keeps shapeshifting, Scar and TFC have their own respective illnesses, Doc is connected to a goddamn hivemind and the Nothing virus can spread over that so they have to filter hivemind connections through Grumbot of all people, Helsknight decided he wanted in just to mess with Wels, Xisuma's being manipulated by Evil Xisuma, and on top of THAT there is a plant growing on one of the engines for. Some reason. Why.
Renbob and the Goatfather take solace in each other and hope their respective relatives are handling things well with each other.
And also try to keep tabs on the simulation and pass messages on between people in the simulation and loved ones off it, like Impulse's very close friend Skizz (who's had a crush on him for a while). When did Mumbo get married to Martyn?? The logistics are complicated enough when people don't have secret marriages!
There's a reason Season 9 has gone on so long and part of it is just that the offworld crew do not want people to already be back on the goddamn spaceship
let them have their mostly holiday in peace
They've found out far more than they ever wanted to know about these stupid hermits. They don't know how Xisuma handles in when they're on world, and they don't care enough to find out. They managed to get them all here alive and that's what matters to them.
And now Grumbot is talking about Quantum Physics. So that's just great.
Maybe they should spend their holiday setting up an automatic communication filtering system...