Think of New Title

- Rocky's clock ticks at the slower almost 2-Earth-second interval that is an Eridian second (yes I counted one Mississippi two Mississippi in the theater, why?).

- Yao and Grace discussing how the unit conversion error was the cause of the explosion, which feels to me like a callback to that one time we crashed a Mars lander because the US part of the team worked in imperial units and the EU part of the team worked in metric and I guess they forgot to cross-check?

- The cut from the aircraft carrier karaoke bar scene to The Moment at Adrian mediated by the lil red-suited scuba guy in the fish tank.

- As Grace is starting to say "She said I had my head in the clouds", the background scenery of the mental health bay turns to a scene of a blue sky with fluffy clouds, camera angle slightly below his head and looking up to that background.

- The bright projector bulb with dust in its beam shown quite deliberately, twice, during the "What is Project Hail Mary" presentation, evoking a star and its Petrova line cloud of astrophage.

- The way the clock-like rhythm to the music and the night-day-night-day changes to the light show the passage of time while Grace is patiently waiting for Rocky to wake up during Taumoeba.

- When Rocky joyfully shakes the filaments in his ship to show Grace how it works, reminiscent of how some spiders shake their webs.

- How both the images and the sounds of Grace's very first memories were visually and auditorially hazy and blurry and fuzzy.

- Grace has his Rocky figurine on his ship's dashboard, and Stratt has her Grace figurine on hers.

- The art behind Stratt in The Betrayal is the two ships. I have seen someone else say this, but I had trouble seeing it at first. But now I do. I'd even say it's clear the Blip-A is the one on viewer's right and the Hail Mary on viewer's left.

- Curiosity killed the cat (Cats t-shirt, cat on San Fran bridge tshirt). (Dunno if this is a thing for real, but it occurred to me so I figured I'd throw it in, because Grace canNOT resist a mysterious person or situation).

Big floopy ears

There's help by governments for people who lost their partners at war, isn't there? I imagine Adrian starkly refusing it. Their family tries to subtly help them instead when it gets too hard. They watch Adrian sleep and Adrian watches them sleep, but everyone knows they would've slept better if it was Rocky.

"Adrian just won't accept it"

"Grief affects people in different ways, we just need to give them time"

Imagine people not telling Adrian that the government was starting talks for sending another ship. Imagine the reaction. Adrian probably could've been very helpful with the new mission, but they just broke down whenever they thought of working on it because that meant they had given up on Rocky, Rocky who they had been with for nearly 150 years. Rocky who they should've been with for another 400 more.

Imagine how they felt when they got that weird radio signal from that weird ship up in orbit. At first no one would've told them, wanting to wait for confirmation for Rocky before getting that poor, heartbroken widow's hopes up. But Adrian found out anyways and they are so goddamn hopeful. Sure it's not an eridian ship. Sure the radio signal is this weird, garbled, non-eridian thing. But what if Rocky is on there.

AND HE FUCKING IS AS WELL

Can you even imagine?? How Adrian must've felt hearing their soulmates voice over the radio once more, once it's been translated to frequencies they can receive? They are dropping everything. They're gone. They're going to the space elevator site. They are demanding to be let up. Rocky is alive and Rocky is home. Nothing else matters. In that moment Adrian doesn't even give a damn if the astrophage problem has been solved. Rocky is safely home.

The microsecond that Rocky has been medically cleared off the ship, he's gone to the room where Adrian waits patiently alone, he's getting tackled. He's getting hugged harder than he ever has before. Doesn't matter is Adrian is taller or shorter than Rocky, they have half a decade of pent up sadness and love and yearning behind them. They tap his carapace, his legs, everything just to confirm it's him he's real he's here he's safe. Words fly out of their mouth, words of relief and love and joy so fast it sounds like someone playing rush e badly. Rocky is shell shocked at first and then starts replying in turn, fast and loud because Adrian is here! Adrian still loves him, still wants him! He saved Erid, he saved Adrian, they're safe again!

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond