Agent Rouka's Blog

And then it hit me. Astrophage is functionally Space Yeast that eats radiation instead of sugar 😭.

Final day of Eva Stratt week! Had a hard time deciding what to do for this one with completely free rein. Thought about what I hadn't explored with her yet and it was her childhood.

I Love the idea of Eva who's an outdoors girl, and adores being in nature. So here she is enjoying a little moment of childhood joy!

However he came back to her and demanded to be able to keep working with the astrophage because, “I’m still a microbiologist who spent his career working up theoretical models for alien life. I’m a useful resource with a skill set almost no one else has.” (He was correct about both the Goldilocks zone and the panspermia event) He affirmed that it was not his ego talking, but his care for his students and the world they would grow up in. He wanted to keep the world from falling into a nightmare.

Then he found out the astrophage life cycle and Stratt took him to the vat. Remember, Stratt was basically kidnapping people who could be of any help. Lokken, Reddel are great examples. Breeding astrophage was crucial for the mission as they would use it for fuel. At that point, Grace had set himself apart from others yet again, securing his place in the project. He was one of the very first people she sought out. He was there the whole way through the project. The years it took. His general knowledge of science and experience teaching also helped him communicate with people of different knowledge levels and specialty areas, making him a great asset to have around (hence bringing him with her many places).

No one knew the primary and secondary science specialists would be gone by the time launch came around. Grace was a last last ditch effort. DuBois would have been on that ship. And if not him, then Shapiro. I think Stratt knew that Grace wouldn’t want to go on the mission, so she kept it from him that he was the tertiary. She never imagined that he’d actually need to take the others’ places, but she’s Stratt, so she prepared just in case. She didn’t want to send him. It most definitely hurt her to do it. But at that point he was the best option. No one else could come close to what he had before they had to leave. So she did what she had to do to secure the fate of the world.

I think Eva most definitely developed emotional attachments to the other people on the project. She didn’t allow herself to show it though. She couldn’t let anything get in the way of saving the world. And she knew after it was all said and done, after the ship was launched, she would be hauled off to prison and it would hurt even more to lose her friends. So she remained ‘heartless’ and ‘unattached’ to save people from the pain.

Eva loved the world so much that she put herself at the forefront of every thing that needed to be done. From the very beginning she knew what she would have to do, who she would have to be to get this done, and she dove in headfirst anyway, because she would do anything she could to save the world. And that’s why she was chosen. She knew she would end up hated by the world and thrown in prison as soon as her untouchability was gone, but she was still willing. She still wanted to.

Had Ryland Grace been female, she would have been played by Emily Blunt, I swear