Project Hail Mary – Cosmic Entity AU
An AU created by @thesuiteddoggolover and myself, that includes our OCs, Christy and Astra!
Below are artworks of the two out of their three forms—the third one that we didn't draw, which is essentially a cluster of stars and dust that blends in with space. The left is their semi-human form, where their incorporeal being is converted into a human shape, and the right is their fully human form, with remaining traces of their cosmic traits.
Underneath those are the details of the AU, described through the story of how they came to be and Project Hail Mary's plot!
(Top two artworks of Astra done by me, and the bottom two artworks of Christy done by @thesuiteddoggolover 💚💜)
Long before the beginning of civilization, a star light-years away began to collapse, creating a bright, supernova explosion that spread across the vastness of space. Alongside the remnant of a neutron star, two celestial bodies of cosmic dust emerged from the massive explosion, creating hundreds to thousands of new stars within them.
This supernova formed two constellations within the night sky. They were fainter than the others, far enough away to where one had to squint to see their dim light, but prominent amongst the other constellations due to the sheer amount of stars that lined them, making their shapes distinct and unique.
As the years flew by and humans began to populate the Earth's surface, they took notice of this strange phenomenon regarding the two constellations. One shaped like a deer, the other shaped like a snow leopard—an unlikely pair that seemed to shift ever so slightly every one hundred years. It was as if they were dancing around one another, from a distance so far, it took years for the light to catch up with the people who were viewing it.
Not only that, but with every century that passed, they appeared to move closer together. Their stories had been shared throughout the eras of human civilization, of a prey and predator in the sky, forming a bond that preceded all ideas of compatibility between differing species. It has since stood for a symbol of peace and love, an indication of harmony that can be reached when people come together, regardless of their differences.
Ever since, the two constellations had been named after their respective animals—Panthera Uncia and Odocoileus Virginianus. It had become a tradition for people to experience the once-in-a-lifetime shift of the two constellations, to celebrate this strange phenomenon that stood as a symbol of hope for a more harmonious future for humanity.
During the 21st century, humanity began to experience a concerning problem. A red streak of infrared light began to stretch across the space between Sol and Venus, which was soon named the Petrova Line after Dr. Irina Petrova, the one who discovered it. There were dots along this line, ones that appeared to be slowly dimming the sun.
It was discovered by Dr. Ryland Grace that these "space dots" were alien microbe – called Astrophage – that grew on the surface of the sun by feeding off of its thermal energy. If a solution isn't found to stop the dimming of the sun, the Earth's global temperature could drop 10 to 15 degrees Celsius over the next thirty years, causing a mass extinction of humanity.
With their only option being to travel to Tau Ceti, a star that exists 11.9 light-years away from Earth, a crew is sent off in the Hail Mary to examine why this one star remains unaffected by the Astrophage spreading from star to star. It's a long journey, one that the crew will spend most of in comas, and only one will wake up from.
Upon arrival to the star, Grace ends up meeting an alien space rock, who he names Rocky due to his appearance. The two work together to grab a sample from the Petrova Line that connects from the star, Tau Ceti, to its closest planet, Tau Ceti-E. From that, they theorize that since there was extraterrestrial microbe alongside the Astrophage in the sample, there was more than likely life in the planet's atmosphere. Since that's where the Astrophage goes to breed, that's where a predator would be found to combat the spread.
When they prepare to collect samples from the planet – now named Adrian – things go awry in the process. While Grace is tethered to the ship and trying to bring back the sample collector, the ship is starting to tear apart from the low altitude. By the time he makes it back inside the ship, they're too low within Adrian's atmosphere, making it nearly impossible to drag the ship up from the planet's gravity as it continues to plummet.
Admist their panic of trying to steer the ship away, an unknown force suddenly jerks them upwards, sending them back into orbit. There wasn't any time to dwell on how it happened, for the ship was left spinning around due to a leak in the fuel tanks. Grace managed to eject one of the damaged tanks, before the force sent him crashing into the control panel and pinned him there. All he could hear was Rocky's distressed calls as the world faded in and out around him, feeling a burning sensation on his skin and catching a glimpse of Armando before everything finally went black.
When he awoke, there was a dark trail of soot from what he could only assume were crumbled remains of Rocky's carapace. Grace found him barely conscious in his xenonite tunnel, waiting for him to wake up so he could watch him sleep, with his last message through the translator being, "Save Earth. Save Erid."
With the chaos that unfolded, Grace barely had time to even process how they managed to get out of Adrian's atmosphere. He was busy trying to make a heat lamp for Rocky's dome, when a high pitched frequency pierced his ears. Immediately he had to stop whatever he was doing to shield his ears from the sound, one that would've been enough to overwhelm Rocky's senses had he been awake. It didn't last long, but it left his ears ringing for a solid minute afterwards as he tried to figure out what that even was in his disoriented state.
After a couple minutes passed, with him trying to identify where that noise came from, a lower frequency followed. It was only then did he recognize how familiar they sounded, similar to NASA's recordings of the frequencies that occurred from various celestial bodies in space. He swore that if one of those frequencies could somehow sound confused, this was that—that concussion was really getting to him, wasn't it?
Grace was mumbling to himself, rushing throughout the ship trying to find the source as he automatically assumed it had to be another maintenance error due to the damage the ship sustained. The varying pitches continued, fainter this time around so it didn't make his ears bleed, but it sounded like it was coming from every direction. One moment he'd hear it at one end of the ship, then the other it was suddenly coming from the opposite end, like an echo that kept moving all around him.
By that point, Grace was throughly confused and had since abandoned his previous task. Eventually the frequencies came to abrupt halt and he was left standing in the middle of the ship, eyes darting everywhere as if the source would magically reveal itself. Technically it did, just not in the way he would've ever expected.
When a voice sounded right next to his ear, he couldn't stop the scream that tore from his throat as he scattered away from that area on instinct. He didn't know how to describe what he'd heard. The voice was disembodied, nothing more than an echo similar to the frequencies, without a distinguishable gender or accent to it—like all human voices in existence combined into one.
Turns out those celestial bodies of dust and stars that created the two most popular constellations on Earth, were literal living beings. Well, more like a concept of a being, an entity that took the form of a nebula after their creation from the collapse of a star.
Grace was fairly certain he was going crazy at first and experiencing voices in his head, especially since Rocky wasn't awake to inform him whether or not he could hear them, too. Their – yes, they clarified there was two of them – vague explanation of how they came to be and that they've been asleep for thousands of years was unfathomable to his tiny human brain.
As skeptical as he was, he played into it, asking random questions that popped into his mind. How could they communicate with him? Apparently all languages were nothing more than specific frequencies to them, allowing them to easily tune into them, which meant they could speak Eridian if they wanted to as well. Why were they asleep for thousands of years and why did they suddenly wake up? Not much to do in the emptiness of space – fair enough – and they awoke from the disturbance of the Hail Mary entering the nearby planet.
Supposedly, during the supernova that caused their creation, the elements throughout them were used to create the very solar system revolving around Tau Ceti—thus leading to the microbiome that formed on Adrian. Unknowingly, these two celestial beings had created the very source of life that would be able save all of humanity and Eridians from the Astrophage eating their suns.
After that conversation, he was certain he was going insane and his brain was somehow making this all up. Except it definitely wasn't, because one moment he was talking with an disembodied voice and claiming this was all a hallucination from his concussion, and the next there was a bright flash he had to shield his eyes from.
The voices were closer now, but he couldn't even look at what was speaking without risking damage to his eyesight, similar to staring directly at the sun. They claimed that they had shifted to a more human form based on the ship's database, but clearly not to the furthest extent, considering he couldn't even take a peek at them without burning his eyeballs.
It took a moment – a very long, confusing moment filled with mumbling – but eventually they found a human form that Grace could look at—only for a split second before he realized they were completely naked. So that was a fun experience, thinking he's losing his mind then seeing two women appear in front of him with no clothes on. Even better that they didn't seem to grasp the concept of clothes, so he had to practically plead with them while explaining the reason behind it, all while his face was on fire.
Eventually they materialized some clothes over their bodies – how they could just do that, he had no clue – and he was finally able to observe the two entities, now in a form he could visualize. If his mind was making this all up, then at least it chose two very pretty woman to create... That sounded far more pathetic than he intended it to.
While observing them, he could see where their incorporeal forms struggled to shift into a human body. Their hair had splashes of various colors in it, along with their limbs and body, matching the patterns one would see from those colorful renditions of galaxies or nebula. One of them had swirls of light and stars, and – what looked to him like – white tattoos or markings along her skin, while the other had them in the form of gold freckles, that of which connected to create small constellations in certain places. Their irises looked like they held entire galaxies within them, and he could see the faintest trail of something following behind them, like their forms were expelling the extra energy they couldn't compact into their new form, into star dust.
In short, they were ethereal and unlike anything he'd ever seen. He couldn't even begin to comprehend what they looked like beforehand, both when he couldn't view them and outside the ship. It also didn't take long for them to convince him they were real, seeing as he could physically touch them. That said, he might have freaked out a bit after that discovery and came a little too close to passing out.
Once he'd calmed down, the first thing he had to do was give them names. Apparently they didn't understand the concept of one, nor did he feel like trying to pronounce the names of their constellations over and over again. So, he randomly chose—Astra due to her star-like freckles and constellations, and Christy, short for Chrysalis because her flower markings reminded him of a butterfly.
Two things he learned right away—one, they tended to float around instead of walk, and two, they were extremely curious about literally everything. While he was working on finishing up the heat lamp, they kept asking questions about anything and everything on board the ship. He never thought he'd have to explain what a pen was to a celestial being, but here he was.
They could also materialize their bodies into any state of matter and phase through objects, which he discovered from them taking his heat lamp inside of Rocky's xenonite dome. That way it would actually help warm him up, seeing as Grace couldn't touch his atmosphere and the exterior of the xenonite would block heat transmission from the outside.
So until Rocky wakes up, he was stuck with two odd, cosmic beings he had no clue how to handle. He thought Rocky had been the most insane thing he'd experienced, but the universe had went the extra mile to prove him wrong.
Not that he was complaining. It'd give him something new to study in-between working on the Taumoeba and waiting for his alien friend to heal.