A l'entrada del temps clar

Jun Kumaori (Junkuma)

"chasing its tail too much"

A Yellow, Green, and Pink Striped Silk Taffeta Robe a l'Anglaise, Early 1770s

OH NO NO NO, YOU GET A DELUGE OF SKINKINESS!!!

Peter’s Banded Skink (Scincopus fasciatus), family Scincidae, Morocco

photograph via: Amphibians & Reptiles of Morocco

Müller’s Forest Skink (Sphenomorphus muelleri), family Scincidae, found in Indonesia

photographs by Roots, Scoots, & Scales

Mainland She Oak Skink (Cyclodomorphus michaeli), mother with pups, family Scincidae, eastern Australia

photograph by Ken Griffiths

Northern Blue-tongued Skink (Tiliqua scincoides intermedia), defensive display, family Scincidae, Cape York, QLD, Australia

photographs by Brother-Nature

Fire Skink (Mochlus fernandi), family Scincidae, found in West Africa

* Also known by the scientific name Riopa fernandi.

Photograph by Miniformat65

Yellow-belly Three-toed Skink (Saiphos equalis), family Scincidae, found in eastern Australia

The only species in this genus.

Coastal populations reproduce by laying eggs (oviparity), and mountain populations reproduce through live birth (viviparity).

photograph by Rebecca Pyles

Three Toed Earless Skink (Hemiergis decresiensis), family Scincidae, found in SE Australia

Viviparous (live bearing).

photograph by Rob Valentic

African Red-sided Skink (Trachylepis perrotetii), family Scincidae, found in central Africa

photograph by Dick Bartlett

Rainbow Skink (Mabuya margaritifera), family Scincidae, Langano, Ethiopia

Photograph by Volker Sthamer

McCoy’s Elf Skink aka Highlands Forest Skink (Anepischetosia maccoyi), family Scincidae, Australia

photograph by @skinkmania__

Great Desert Skink aka Kintore’s Skink (Liopholis kintorei), family Scincidae, Kata Tjuta Nat Park, NT, Australia

These lizards live cooperatively in underground burrow systems, with siblings and offspring, as well as with unrelated individuals and pairs.

photograph by Gary Stephenson

Prairie Skink (Plestiodon septentrionalis), male, family Scincidae, Kansas, USA

Like, black patches starting to build up on skin type dirty. Dude hasn't showered in several weeks.

I know Simon just got back from prison, but that aside, the standard level of grime on people must fucking suck. The COI folk were certainly cleaner than him. It must be pretty bad in a scarcity crisis like this.

But, aside from being freshly banged-up, I actually don't see any major scars (that line looks like an impact with the wall/hot pipe. We know the Iron Lung's walls were hot enough to boil condensation drops).

Since we know about how effective the Butcher was... yeah that checks out. I seriously doubt he's been overpowered often, considering literally everyone else is in some kind of calorie deficit (supposedly), and Simon is massive. Any time I try to explain that, it doesn't point to anything good:

Simon either stole enough food to stave off withering away in jail (which means he was playing dirty in there... I don't put that past him)

The COI was genuinely feeding him (I don't buy it)

He was eating good on Eden (equally as frightening to think about), and didn't spend much time in COI custody before getting put in the Iron Lung

Paraphrasing Markiplier, he wanted Simon to have a "rugged survivor build", hence getting into the best shape of his life for the role.

That also implies Simon was lowkey in the best shape of his life for this expedition (or possibly Filament's Battle). Dude was absolutely hogging the gym in prison. I laugh at the thought of Simon walking in there and everyone else getting up to leave immediately because they don't want to deal with his erratic bullshit LOL

Mining on rogue asteroids

Carrying cargo around

Cleaning fuel tanks and other systems

Repair work in dangerous area

Etc.

That always made much more sense to me than keeping a guy in a cell for months or years (depending on your timeline of choice) without using the ressources they were "investing" in him by way of space, air, water and food.

So, a la Jean Valjean (Simon Valsimon?... he did worse than steal some bread tho 😅) He got buff working those jobs eagerly because he wanted to make amends. And there might have been a additional food as a reward system based on results to explain that he was able to maintain his muscle mass even through starvation times.

Also bet he was kept mostly in solitary when not on duty 'cause of the controversial nature of his crimes, which would explain that he was left generally unscathed.

x-rays are generated from a filament (the first time I heard filament station I was like ??? why name a station after that???) where electrons leave the filament, accelerate across the tube, strike a target and release x-ray photons which leave the x-ray tube as an x-ray beam in the direction the camera is pointing. Whilst there is some 'scatter' radiation that goes off in random directions, including backwards, most of it is focussed in the direction of the beam.

X-ray radiation follows what's called the 'inverse square law', whereby as the distance from the tube doubles, the intensity of the x-ray beam drops by a factor of 4. This means that for medical x-rays, if we go to a ward to take a mobile x-ray, we normally consider a distance of over 2 meters away from the tube to be sufficient for a bystander to receive essentially no radiation. Of course the x-rays Simon was using have much higher exposure factors and greater intensity that medical x-rays (where we have to adhere to ALARP - keep the dose As Low As Reasonably Practicable) but the inverse square law still applies.

X-rays are also attenuated (weakened basically) by interactions with the electrons in whatever medium they travel through, with lead typically being used for radiation shielding bc its high atomic number means there are lots of electrons in lead to increase the chance of interaction between the x-ray photons and the lead electrons.

All this to say, Simon was probably not being as irradiated by the camera as people think; the camera was on the outside of the hull, so there was a little distance between him and the source of the radiation, and the hull and walls of the sub are obviously made of metal, so even if the COI didn't bother installing proper lead or lead equivalent shielding (which they probably didn't...) the metal would offer some degree of protection. The camera was also pointing away from Simon, so he wouldn't have been in the path of the beam and would have been receiving mostly scatter radiation rather than the full blast that Jack received.

The sort of radiation produced by x-ray generators also doesn't linger / build up in objects or surroundings, otherwise hospitals would constantly have to throw everything in x-ray rooms away! Places like Chernobyl are radioactive because nuclear power plants use radioactive isotopes - those things emit their own radiation and hang about forever. Devices like x-ray machines and CT scanners don't actually contain anything innately radioactive in them; they just generate x-rays when a current is run across the tungsten filament. If Simon isn't actively pressing the button to take an image, there is 0 radiation occurring.

However! Whilst a metal sub wouldn't necessarily become irradiated with the amount of x-rays that Simon took, the blood ocean is a far more interesting case! Cells are at their most vulnerable to radiation during mitosis when they're dividing, which means that stem cells (which frequently divide) are very vulnerable to radiation! If we take the blood ocean to be a big biomass which can adapt from its inert state to do things like smoosh researchers together into an eel or meld with a submarine and adapt it to a living thing (maybe like totipotent stem cells having the potential to become anything?), then it was probably Not Enjoying getting blasted by radiation very much. Or maybe it was the total opposite; x-ray beams contain a lot of energy, perhaps the blood ocean is unaffected by the damaging nature of ionising radiation bc of its unknowable nature and it was feeding from the energy of the x-ray photons??

anyway, sorry for rambling, tl;dr neither Simon nor the SM-13 were probably as irradiated as you might think, but radiation could potentially have an effect on the blood ocean?

I really love reading your ideas and analyses, just wanted to contribute something of my own :)

I already came to this conclusion a little while ago but there are some others who might need to see it come from the horse's mouth.

Thanks, Anonymous Radiographer!

I also noticed that all the SM-13 terminal photos are .dcm files. Those are DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine), which are bundled with a bunch of metadata, like parameters, equipment settings, in a higher dynamic range than usual. Absolutely crazy attention to detail!

I think this is one of my favorite bits of characterization in the movie, and such a good way to track Simon's progress throughout.

image-heavy below

Something something Simon would also navigate this way in space. He seems incredibly methodical. Possibly spurred on by being nervous, which is an interesting character trait to have. So, I'll put that in my notes:

Simon treats a stressful situation like something to be surgically precise over, and Simon knows the basics of navigation immediately. There's no "learning how to drive/nav" sequence, he just does it.

He touches the map with the tip of his fingers, careful and light. He caresses the chair after hitting it roughly, as if to apologize. He begs a voice to just please talk to him a bit more. He asks for forgiveness from the people who imposed him and sent in that ocean. After everything, he carefully wraps the black box and pleads to his mother to keep it safe.

Even in this horrible situation, even after everything, the first opportunity he gets to shed the mask, he shows kindness to the very thing that is to become his tomb.