tommy and billy deserve to find out abt their grandpa's 60 year gay situationship/relationship/divorce. as a treat

it is specifically his lack of relationship that gives stratt the ability to whisk him away to work on the hail mary. in every aspect of his life he is seen as replaceable.

take him out of his classroom. there are other teachers. put him in a hazmat suit and see if astrophage kills him. there are other biologists. fly him to a military base to work. there's no one wondering where he is. (not even a dog.)

it's a critical part of his story that his life is perceived as lonely, as sad, and that its not a problem to uproot him, solely because there's no one waiting for him at home. stratt knows this, knows the optics of it, and knows that it makes him a better candidate than anyone else.

so little consideration is given to grace's life by anyone - he barely even considers it himself until it's too late. and that's so real, so important, because i promise you every aroace person in your life knows how it feels to be dehumanized, and seen as less-than, to be seen as disposable, because you want to live your life a different way. because every single one of us would have fought stratt tooth and nail to not go up on that ship and we all would have lost.

duality of the aroace experience

Grace wasn't sad and lonely, he was happy, he had a good life, he very much did not want to die. They have to do a looney tunes chase sequence and drug him because Grace was *very* unwilling to be the sacrificial lamb. Humanity's savior was dragged kicking and screaming into the role and called selfish for daring to be a coward, as if most of us wouldn't be.

And then he befriends Rocky, who never demands a sacrifice from him, who willingly prolongs his journey home so Grace can go back to his. Rocky has a mate back home and his species depends on his return, and still risks his life to save his squishy human friend. And Grace returns the favor.