So, do we think Stratt tells people about the Grace thing after the mission left?
Cause like, she definitely doesn't have to. Yes the guards and Carl and people are in on the secret, but they've probably been sworn to secrecy and also aren't likely to be broadcasting that they're accessories to murder.
And people liked Grace. He was a popular person on the project, he was Stratt's fun little sidekick who ended up being the only guy who could save humanity. People are going to want to believe that he was brave and he went voluntarily.
If Stratt says “Grace panicked at first but then realised he had to do it for humanity” people will likely go along with that.
Stratt won't go to jail for ordering his murder on top of all the other things she's definitely going to jail for. (Listen, regardless of whether it saved humanity, what they did to Grace is definitely murder legally.) Grace will be remembered as a hero, like she promised.
And she will watch this one act that she knows he didn't do eclipse everything he ever actually did in his life.
Who's going to really remember the fun science teacher? The guy who did experiments with stuff he bought from the hardware store? The goofy guy who kept everyone's spirits up on the aircraft carrier?
If Grace's story ends with him nobly sacrificing himself to save humanity, then everything he did up to that point is re contextualised. Stratt will watch people memorialising a man that she knows never really existed, while the real Grace and all the good he actually did is wiped from history.
Equally though, if she tells people what really happened, then everyone is definitely going to judge Grace harshly.
Like, never mind that he only had a few hours to decide, never mind that he had already voluntarily done so much for the mission, never mind that he was scared to die (never mind that Stratt can still see the look on his face when he realised that he had no choice). He's the guy who tried to put himself over all of humanity.
He was empirically the most selfish any human has ever been, even if only because no human has ever been put in a position to be that selfish before. Sure, a lot of people would probably react the same way in the same situation, but nobody's going to admit that out loud.
People are going to compare him to the other astronauts on the mission (who had months to come to terms with their decision) and he's going to look like a piece of shit.
Everyone on Earth has a personal stake in this decision. Everyone will have strong feelings about it. Grace is either going to be the martyr, the saint, the saviour of humanity, or the guy who tried to destroy them all to save his own skin.
Eva Stratt has to live with the knowledge that she killed Grace (at least the version of him that lived on Earth) more totally than she thought she could, because no matter what she does, nobody but her is going to remember him as the good but not perfect man that he really was.
