If I had a pound for every time Noah Masur voiced a character that worked with explosive devices, and was gay for his boss, and watched fireworks with said boss, who had a connection to a Unit 214, who met at least one character voiced by zach velenti and had at least one of these characters make him a drink, who worked as part of a trio, who was written by gabriel urbina, I'd have £2, which isnt a lot but damn guys.
Can’t stop thinking about my tags on this post I reblogged earlier because I’m in the PITS with red valley rn and I need to relisten to both time:bombs and wolf 359 soon. I want to be so annoying about this. More below the cut
So the plot is loosely looking like
Return to Earth (identity change soon after)
Recovery period (physical, mental; pre-rejoining society)
Rejoin society (under falsified identities, background building of Mark Midland and Tatiana Sobrero, taking jobs; Lovelace as Sobrero tracks down Jacobi (Midland), they make an agreement)
At the same time, dismantling Goddard (slowly; it forces the two to be patient, makes them wait for the right moment)
Goddard falls (the main branch; they spend a few years hunting down associated groups but unable to find all; the few stragglers of Goddard made out like a bandit with some Black Archives files)
But that’s just on the Lovelace-Jacobi end of it pre-worldwide cryofuckery. It’s maybe early 2020 at this point? 2020-2023 at most I think because redval s3 picks up in 2024. Yeah.
So my thoughts about red valley and its significance here comes from the connection that Goddard has to Overhead; old and outdated, yes, but nothing truly goes to waste in Goddard. The cryopods used on their space missions were very advanced for their time but not nearly as good as Overhead’s were; specifically on the cryo-protectant side. They weren’t concerned with super long term periods of sleep like Overhead was, rather maybe a couple decades at most. They already practically perfected the space travel side of it, which was where a LOT of Goddard’s funding was funneled into, not leaving a lot of room for cryo to squeeze in, and therefore significantly cut down on the time required to be in hypersleep if at all depending on the mission. But the fact remains that at Goddard’s height, their cryotech wasn’t nearly as developed as it was during Overhead’s height, allowing Overhead to be the Big Guns for many years in the cryonic preservation industry. Goddard was beat out in that department further by other companies as well, left in their little corner of their slowly dying world until it all went to shit due to two people with an incomprehensibly large grudge.
They were never able to get far in mainstream development, having failed financially over time, and their cryo department alongside some other tertiary departments were left in the dust by their host company. So now, while they were significantly cut off from funding and resources, they also didn’t quite have all the limits upon them anymore that they had under Goddard. (I think they also tried to headhunt Pam at one point but Overhead got to her first.) This allowed them a lot of freedom to really think outside the brick basement, and resulted in some. Unconventionalities. Thus, the shoot-off developers of Goddard’s cryopods from the mid to late 2010s became central in the illegal ins-and-outs of US cryo manufacturing. Not formally illegal, but very heavily frowned upon, especially after the Aloha Eternity attacks and protests and awareness campaigns popped up all around the world.
How I imagine Jacobi and Lovelace becoming involved again with this stuff is a little fuzzy but I’ll try to explain the best I can
So after dismantling Goddard, I think they’d go their separate ways but keep a burner for contact with each other—a just-in-case kind of thing. I think everyone after the Hephaestus would go their separate ways honestly. Minkowski and Eiffel would be in routine contact with each other for a couple years but it eventually died out. Hera would be confiscated by the US government (and it is unknown what had come of her in the end until the 2060s). They all grew apart and moved on in the best way they could, and the brief stint Jacobi and Lovelace carried out together post-t:b was kind of the end of any of the remaining crew’s big interactions with each other. It would be a while until any of them got involved again in any big events, having had enough of it with the Hephaestus and Goddard; but something always has to drag them back in.
I think Lovelace got involved again first. It happens barely weeks after the US president of the time had announced their plans to be launched to the moon for extended hypersleep, and something about that made something itch in her head. All the best scientists from Goddard had dispersed into other parts of the world by then, but Lovelace kept routine tabs on them as well as monitored for any potential “threats” (Pam was on that list for a while until her disappearance from the US and eventual resurfacing under Overhead’s employment and the making-big of the Aloha Eternity). There were some very capable people out there but not capable enough to sustain the plans that the president had in stores. So the options were either A) the US government is actively partnering with Overhead or B) the US government purchased patents from Overhead like Goddard did as well as purchasing the contracts of a few low-level cryo-developers from other companies developing hypersleep technologies. And yet, there was still a gap somehow. Something else, smarter than any human the US government had in its arsenal—something that wasn’t human at all. Hera had to be connected somehow to this, there wasn’t any other feasible explanation out there.
Lovelace pulled whatever strings she still had (old friends from her military days, some Goddard folk she strong-armed into coughing up what they had) and eventually got involved with a fledgling cryoterrorist group who took inspiration after the UK’s actions under Aubrey Wood. And somehow, through scrappy disorder and a lot of homemade firewall breakers, they got access into the plans for both the shuttle planned to send up the US governments’ highest as well as the return rocket planned to retrieve them in the future. They were too late on the shuttle, but the rocket was still in their grasps. But the one thing they were lacking was the manpower to effectively put something like that out of commissions. The little group Lovelace had fallen in with were all geniuses, but only of one nature; they were all, for the most part, techies. Ask them to break into databases, sure, devise an entirely multi-layered encrypted communication network, easy, build wireless worldwide-connected devices to host said communication network, give them a couple months and some old walkies and you’re golden—but ask them to hold a gun? Plant and detonate a bomb? Forget it. The right heart doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have the stomach. Lovelace did though.
She wasn’t ever officially a “leader” per se, but because of her connections and conduct, she was respected and a valuable asset, and she knew people. And thus, Jacobi got dragged in once more. At first, he refused; he wanted to live out whatever life he had left in relative solace, having left New York after the semi-collapse of the government and therefore not receiving any funding or salary through his job, taking what he had stored up and high-tailing it over the US border into Canada and settling in some nowhere town where he was left alone for the most part. But as soon as Lovelace relayed her suspicions of the former Goddard branches being somehow involved in the US side of cryonic preservation, he agreed—not in full, but he’d help. With his expertise and careful, patient planning (as well as the recruitment of some former colleagues as well as some new faces) they successfully terminated the awaiting rocket and wiped any and all blueprints, notes, and essentially kidnapping what scientists and engineers who worked on it that weren’t lucky enough to also go off-world alongside others.
I think the US side of anti-cryotech would be quieter than the UK side but also more radical in some ways. More apt to eliminate any threats off the bat. There was no “Bryony Halbech” comeback for them. Whatever scientists didn’t align themselves with the counter movement were either taken prisoner or outright killed depending on who got their hands onto them first. At some point, both Lovelace and Jacobi got time in cryonic prison as well, which only spurred on the more radical sentiments further in some ways.
And you’re probably wondering about Eiffel and Minkowski. I think Eiffel would have died. Some unnamed medical condition to him in the 2030s and he passed with his daughter holding his hand, having reconciled and reunited to the best of their abilities due to the lack of memories that Eiffel was left with. Minkowski disappeared after falling out of contact with Eiffel, but is later revealed that she had been one of the first prisoners under the US government cryonic penitentiary system and had been in stasis for a long, long time.
Those are my ideas for now I think. Other than those I think the one other idea I have that is largely insignificant as of now is that before Aubrey and Hester got back together, Lovelace and Aubrey had a brief fling with each other for whatever reason because. I have fun in my mind temple. Thanks for reading please ask me questions if you have any
daniel jacobi keeps getting into workplace relationships and Really needs to stop. Warren Kepler ... Doug Eiffel ... Simon Teller and Radio Bob polycule ... buddy be normal. date Outside the friend group
