Just An Little Alien Creature

So like she gets the recordings and realizes Yao and Ilyukina are dead before he wakes up so he’s got no pilot, no engineer, and no memories.

And then you also have to remember that the EXISTENCE of these recordings and the fact they were accompanied by the Taumoeba means that an amnesticized Grace somehow managed to save earth without a pilot or engineer and shoddy memory that only vaguely gives him enough to work with as he works.

It lurks in the depths…

Grace sends this off as a "fuck you" to Stratt and unintentionally eases 40+ years of crippling guilt.

(40+ factoring in the Hail Mary mission, then the time it would take to get back to Erid and the time it would take for the message to get to Earth. Probably closer to 50+ actually).

Narratively, you have a major character death followed directly by the introduction of a new character that joins the party. Everyone's already devastated enough by the loss of the first character and the circumstances of that loss that they either instinctively don't trust Verso or are flat out too torn apart to give a true shit about him beyond what he can help them accomplish in the short term.

Game-wise, you have a player who has already invested hours in one character, who is presented more or less as the main/player character for the first act of the story. Not only does the cutscene whallop you in the usual ways (the music, the acting, all 10/10), it also compounds the emotionality by immediately replacing that character with another, similar-but-not-quite-right character that a lot of players also instinctively don't like or trust.

"You're telling me you're killing my loveable character and immediately swapping him out for another one that inherits a very similar play style, role in the party, who uses the same weapons? One who even looks a bit like the old one? You expect me to be okay with the bait and switch and continue on as normal?

No way! Fuck this guy! This imposter!"

Imposter. That's the word that keeps coming up over and over when I see clips of people playing the transition between finishing act I and starting act II. "You're not Gustave. You could never be him. How dare you stand where he stood. Fuck you."

I said these words aloud! To myself! Through my tears and my grief, just like so many other players did. And you know what I realized after the reveal at the end of act II?

The writers made the player feel how painted Verso feels about himself. That he's an imposter. A fraud. Not fit to take the place of the one that died: not Gustave, not the real Verso. Only worth as much as his utility: to the party, who wants revenge and the end of the gommage; to the player, who wants to beat the game; to Aline, who wants to stem the bleeding wound of her grief by any means necessary.

Random Au idea; Miraculously, the Blip-A crew survive, but at the cost of their travel time, making it so they arrive at Tau Ceti around the same time as the Hail Mary. (Don't think too hard about it)

Grace now gets regularly hassled by many Eridians, all of whom can hold multiple conversations at once, unlike him.

“Grace, I need your signature.”

Grace looked up from his work in his closet of an office. Stratt closed the door behind her.

“An autograph? I’m flattered.”

She pushed the work off his already disheveled desk and set a single paper on top. It kind of looked like his degree, it kind of looked like-

“A marriage license? Well, now I’m really flattered.”

“For legal reasons. Just sign.” Stratt muttered.

“Are you serious?”

Of course she was serious. She only was serious. But she seemed…uncomfortable? The feeling looked strange on her. Eyes dart between the paper and him. Arms crossed over her chest as if hugging herself. It was definitely a new look. They were in new territory.

“I’m not the marrying type.” said Grace. “And I think I forgot to propose.”

Stratt breathed in deeply. Steeling herself.

“Grace,” Her hands were fidgeting with the cuff of her sleeve. “What I’m doing here is illegal. I’ve broken alot of rules to give the crew a chance to save us. But once the mission begins…the world order will need to go back to how it was.”

Grace listened intently trying to make eye contact with her glassy gaze. He hadn’t thought to much about the legality of it all. After all, that was her job.

“I will be put on trial. I will be found guilty. I will serve the rest of my life behind bars. That is my cost.” Stratt continued, “You, the team, will all be fine. But-”

She pushed the license closer to Grace.

“Spouses don’t testify in court.”

Finally she looked at him. She wasn’t telling him to sign. If that was the case she probably would’ve just forged his signature. Hell, she probably has a whole team just for that purpose. She was asking him.

His choice. Just between the two of them.

“We don’t have to sleep together, right?”

Her eyes went big. “God Grace! No! Just sign the damn paper!” she huffed.

He smiled. And put his name under hers.

Husband and wife.

Well, more like “Most powerful person in the world” and “Some guy she kept around.” But still. Till death do they part.

Not that I don't like touch starved Grace yearning for connection, I'm just basing this on when Rocky first came onto the Hail Mary. Like imagine Simon just following him around, not wanting to be alone now that he's around another person who's kind to him again (after being in prison for however long and, you know, being sent to die in a blood ocean) and meanwhile Grace is like hey, I'm glad you're not panicking anymore but can you let me work please. Just has to deal with the same shit all over again after Rocky's entrance but this time it's weird in a new and original way because this guy is human.

Also idk maybe Simon not just being around him but being kind of touchy as well, like using touch as a way to remind himself that this is actually real and Grace doesn't mind necessarily but after being isolated for so long (and not being super social even when he was around other humans) with the only other person around being unable to physically touch him it would probably be a lot.

For instance Grace desperately wants Rocky to be able to experience color so as not to think so many motionless sights are boring. To reveal the hidden beauty afforded by human sight. So he starts working on a higher definition version of Rocky’s flat image to textured surface visualizer. He devises to use micro-textures to stand in for color, interviewing Eridians to come up with pleasing patterns to simulate colors based on the emotional associations those patterns evoke, like synesthesia in humans. For instance how red is “warm/passionate/exciting” blue is “calm/cold/deep” and so on. Gathering enough patterns to make a beginner palette and then finding ways to interpolate and blend between them to come up with enough colors to fill the entire spectrum. It takes several tries and misses but when Grace gets it nailed down and the Eridians can “see” they are THRILLED by it. The whole world takes on hidden depths. They would all immediately want to know what colors they are. They would probably extrapolate off the existing microtextures to start coming up with new “colors” all their own. Adding patterns to see in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. Incorporate them into fashion and entertainment media. Have a field day with the new way of experiencing the world.

Meanwhile Rocky is stricken by Grace having such a narrow pinhole view of the world compared to what his echolocation awareness affords. Grace can’t feel the expanse of everything. Or see the tiny microfine details. Grace’s sense of sound and of his surroundings is so FLAT. So Rocky brainstorms to find some way to express the volume of it all and arrives at Haptics to let touch make up the difference. Before Grace knows it he’s got pads strapped to his chest, his shoulders, arms, head, back of the neck, belly, groin, all the places. Wherever he has sensitive clusters of nerve endings that will help him feel the topography of the noise against his skin. The first time Grace gets the full effect of it it’s like WAY too much and he has to quickly escape and convince Rocky to dial it back majorly before he can go again. It takes some time to work up to, but when he manages, Grace marvels at how different soundscapes FEEL different ways, some perceived more across his back or his scalp or in his chest and others better distributed across the whole of him in ways that elicit anxiety or calm. Neutrality. Intensity. Joy or sorrow.