darja

- Was eventually trialed by governments of the world as a scapegoat and sent to prison

- She somehow BROKE out of said prison and currently commandeers a rogue paramilitary faction of Project Hail Mary loyalists who believe in her over world governments, who presumably are still hunting her down

- She currently is on the run and staying mobile on an ice breaker ship like some kind of james bond villain base (but you know, good) while STILL working on project hail mary the whole time

- Her rogue loyalist faction controlled enough resources they could go to space and collect the beetles Grace had sent. Alternatively, it was the world government that collected the beetles, and Stratt had a whole ass heist movie to steal them, which is why she had the little xenonite figure at the end of the movie. Either ways she was running circles around them.

Karakuri puppet

Are there more??? I need to know, please send recs

I wanna see the unbridled joy on the faces of human schoolchildren who get to meet the first Eridians who come to visit Earth. I wanna see the Eridian ambassadors insisting to the humans that they get a chance to meet their schoolchildren, because they themselves were schoolchildren when a human teacher came to their planet and inspired them to become astronauts.

I wanna see humans getting permission to set up a small embassy somewhere in the Eridani System, possibly even giving a very elderly Grace a chance to see humans again. I wanna see how surprised the humans are that he doesnt want to come home to Earth, but also see them quickly realize just how amazing it is to live, study and teach on an alien world.

I wanna see Humans & Eridians joining forces and creating a massive space program with the goal of inoculating every star in the Milky Way that has been infected with the astrophage. I want to hear them say "the fact that there are three Systems with life this close to each other implies that the whole Galaxy is likely teeming with life- probably even whole civilizations. And none of them deserve to go through what we went through. Screw any ideas about a 'prime directive.' We CAN help, and we WILL help. Lets spend the next 1000 generations saving the galaxy, together."

I wanna see more of this world, generations after these two planets were saved by a pair of alien scientists who became best friends, and who each risked everything to make absolutely certain that the other's world was just as safe as their own. I wanna see these two great peoples coming out of this horrible generational trauma, coming together to celebrate the life that they all get to live with their newly-found cosmic neighbors.