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and then thinking about all the people who call her cold or uncaring or clinical about what she has to do to save earth. eva stratt, who had silly t-shirts and vodka and favorite meals stored in the Hail Mary and treated with the same level of importance as the finely tuned equipment and the centrifuge the entire planet relies on for salvation.

and then thinking about eva stratt nodding and saying, “yeah, I’m pretty awful. that’s why i’m in charge” with a neutral expression and even believing it. as if crafting the most beautiful coffin and homage to her soon-to-be dead friends won’t haunt her always.

thinking about eva stratt being the first person on the “eva stratt is a monster” train, welcoming ryland grace aboard and knowing she believed in him more than anyone else.

Both sent men off to their deaths, bearing the weight of responsibility in the face of extinction. Both had to make the hard call and take the blame, fully willing to do so if it meant saving humanity.

Where Simon and Ryland branch off in their similarities based on the state of crisis of their respective worlds, the exact same analysis can be made for Stratt and Ava. Stratt comes from a world that has not yet been hit by doom, but is fast approaching it enough that action must be taken to preserve what humanity currently has (that being a relatively peaceful, functional society). Meanwhile, Ava's world has already been ravaged by its mass extinction event. It's a world that most would not consider worth living in or attempting to preserve, and Ava's job isn't just to try and save what little there is left of humanity (that again many in the Iron Lung universe don't even consider worth saving), but to try and a find a way out from those conditions. Eva works to save a home worth fighting for, Ava tries to claw her way out of the hellhole she's in. Both are tasked with ensuring the survival of humanity.

The greatest difference, and really the only difference that matters, is that Ava lives in a dystopia and got to make the easier choice. Sentence a convict, a murderer, scum, to his doom to save humanity under conditions in which doing so is more than understandable. Stratt's world can still be salvaged, if she plays her cards right. But she has do be the first to cross the line, and she has to sacrifice a good man who she knows deserves better, one she's perhaps even come to care for. Ava didn't even know Simon's name; she didn't have the luxury of sympathy.

If Simon and Ryland are the victims of their worlds' chaos, survivors but small parts of something greater that they should be willing to sacrifice themselves to serve while being forced to do just that, then Stratt and Ava are the hands that push them towards their fates. The men desperate to live who ran from responsibility, and the women who wore responsibility like a chain, wrapping those chains around the throats of cowards and sending them to their graves to protect the needs of the many. The guilt, the desperate justifications holding just enough truth to it to keep going, and being in the unique position of knowing the weight of a crown that any sane person would avoid; that is the story of Ava and Eva Stratt.

Now it's Stratt's turn to deal with a person from iron lung universe and all the trauma that comes with it. She was prepared to save the world in any way possible, not to deal with this random woman, who is covered in blood, randomly appearing from nowhere

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Part 2:

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Stratt was a historian. She wasn't just pirating for the sake of entertainment for the astronauts, she was doing a full historical backup of the planet. Who knows how much knowledge and communications ability, how much art and culture and history, how much niche knowledge of how to make specific pieces of modern technology or modern medicines, was lost as the wars for resources isolated everyone, as the death tolls led to the deaths of specialized trade workers and scientists, as the power grids failing across the planet (or cut off, potentially) led to all the cloud servers going dark. Stratt was facing methods of combating extinction and she did her best to ensure that if/when the Hail Mary worked, it would send back not just the hope of the future in the solution to the astrophage, but the restoration of history and culture and knowledge.

The two work as equals in the Taskforce hierarchy and have allowed themselves to become even closer (whether that's romantic, platonic or a secret third thing) bc of the change in circumstances. They spend more time apart than they'd like, but there are too many moving parts that require a lot of managing. They do still debrief and check in at least once a day.

The systems and safeguards they put in place have direct and quantifiable influence on the preservation of Earth as they wait for the beetles.

happy pride! remember that being a transgender is everything but fiction. there are so many real historical figures from every century about whose transgender identities we aren't even aware of

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

They see electricity, the same electricity of your brain. If something is not charged they can't see anything at all, and a room of non-conductive objects would be a complete sensory deprecation chamber. They can see a little bit, but they are nearly blind and only use it to notice sudden changes. If you flash a light at them they scream. Instead they just bring a device that generates a charge everywhere they go. They claim their whole planet is charged, but you have doubts

This apparently allows them to see secrets of the universe. They knew about the big bang through out their entire history, because they can apparently just see the beginning of the universe. They find it beautiful, but not all that interesting. You are jealous

Despite being in space, they have not yet discovered steel or had the industrial revolution. It's basically still alchemists and philosophers, but the alchemy and philosophy works and got them to space. You are no longer jealous

They rely on the temperature being way below 40 degrees Fahrenheit so all the fat stays solid and frozen, and die if it's warm. They consider you burning

They get all their energy from air, like eating, to the point they cannot hold their breath at all. They get other things from food, but refuse to prepare it aside from digestion. They just plop it in basically untouched

They age in dog years, dying a few months after turning 9, and only reach adulthood at age 4. That's an absurd amount of time to spend as a child. The one you met is apparently 5 and considers himself a mature adult. The tantrums say otherwise. Yes, he also has arcane knowledge naturally. You are more surprised they live this long considering everything else about them

They have 4 genders and assigned you one, maybe randomly. Kind of rude, apparently very complex, but they have no idea how to explain it. You aren't asking