jaspwhispers

(Disclaimer: I haven't been able to read the book for PHM yet, so this is mainly based on movie canon, with a little bit of book stuff via fandom osmosis.)

The SM-13 is excruciatingly, brutally pragmatic, to the point it harms its own functionality. It claims to not be a 1-way trip but nothing in the design suggests that. Bare metal, rusted out, one single porthole that's dangerous at most depths and useless at all of them. The controls are unintuitive and confusing. There's no CO2 scrubbing or anything to make the air reusable. Its only means of sensing the environment or gathering data blasts radiation into the sub every time it's used. Its only means of gathering data is a primitive "claw" that requires slamming into the object of interest at full speed, endangering the craft (and its pilot) in the process.  Said means also has no means of confirming if the collection is successful. There's no reliable communication system for most of a descent's duration.

Meanwhile the Hail Mary, an open suicide mission with no obfuscation or deception as to its nature, takes exhaustive care to try and ensure the crew are as OK as possible. The interior was designed with bright, clean lights with variable settings and for a spacecraft, it's downright roomy. The crew were allowed to bring treasured mementos from their loved ones. The engineers included a room full of screens that could recreate the Earth's natural beauty, a beauty the crew knew they'd never see again. A comprehensive host of Earth art and entertainment such as books, movies, music, and games were all pirated (not even legally acquired, pirated, something else Stratt was consciously adding to her list of Things That Would Catch Up to Her) expressly for the crew. State-of-the-art medical equipment and technology was installed onboard with the knowledge it would never be retrievable. Everything on the Hail Mary was painstakingly designed to account for every contingency they could possibly think of with the time and knowledge they had. Flavorful food, more than bare nutrients, was sent with them. People from around the world made personalized tribute items for the crew to bring along, to help them remember how much they meant to the rest of humanity, how their sacrifice - even if the mission failed - would never be forgotten.

The SM-13 cuts so many corners it actively shoots itself in the foot. The Hail Mary is designed with so much care in mind for her inhabitants that it helps ensure the mission's success. In the eyes of the COI, things like treasured mementos or fancy screens wouldn't contribute to the mission...except that they do, because they help the crew stay afloat emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, which then allows them to better stay on course. The Iron Lung is so utterly miserable to be in and lacking in basic functionality that not only Simon's mission but any mission using the SM-13 was all but doomed from the start (there's barely any real mission equipment onboard - just on its own it's enough to question the overseers' expectations).

Grungy, gutted, hateful; afraid, painstaking, hoping. Both designs reveal much about their worlds. Both were born from a place of desperation, but one with far more resources at her creators' disposal. One was crafted from survivors already at each others' throats, the other "merely" eyeing it on the horizon. There's something to be said for the criticality of that difference in circumstance, how it could have affected the vessels' design, and to be sure, the level of conscientiousness in the Hail Mary's design is known to be at least somewhat about cold, calculated risk management: stressed-out humans are more likely to fail or descend into conflict. Adding a million redundancies and planning around as many angles as possible is absolutely a practical decision. Despite this, it's hard to shake the sense that one world really did care about those it was sacrificing. Sometimes caring is a privilege, but even the most optimistic timelines for the Hail Mary's mission still resulted in staggering death tolls and permanent, widescale ecological damage. Though the entire planet's resources were at Eva Stratt's disposal, time remained at a premium.

And yet they cared.

There's a powerful undercurrent of humanity all throughout Project Hail Mary; the things we live for, the things we die for, grief, hope, sacrifice, love. Iron Lung is fundamentally about a world constantly trying to prove it's too far gone, and how people respond when death has placed its signature on every inch of the universe. Project Hail Mary's themes are right in the name; it's about people that refuse to give up or abandon their hope, who choose to see - to forge in fire - a chance, even in ever-narrowing odds. It's a theme that's woven into the entire craft's design. Two apocalyptic events, two one-way trips, one world whose people decided never to forego their humanity.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

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irl, i live alone. irl, i am disabled. irl, that intersection and my lack of interest in partnering actively makes life really hard. everything is expensive. i can't always cook when i want to or have fresh ingredients, because my symptoms don't care if I want to cut up vegetables and eat something homemade before they go bad. if I have a bad flareup and getting up is not in the cards, that's it. i have what's next to me. the lack of social support for single folks, for disabled folks, for folks whose family care is inadequate or damaging... it's impactful.

I talk about how i once visited a place with an ex partner. i mention how our relationship started because i was pressured into it, and i wasn't really into the level of seriousness and 'forever' she treated it with. everyone says it's weird that i agreed if i didn't want it to be serious. i remember being 16, saying no, and a chorus of people telling me i was stupid and immature, that her family was rich, that we would be cute and to listen to them, not my heart. my heart was saying nothing.

i look at my current age and life goals. for many of my peers, dating and marriage and eventual kids are common goals. i am watching my rights erode and trying to practice good mental hygeine. my five year goal is to be alive. my next major life milestone is a nebulous desire to find a life i can tolerate living.

being aromantic significantly impacts my day to day. i want to see aro people living their lives, and doing so with joy. i want to see aro adults making it, ones like me. i want aro people to thrive. i want to live, aromantically.