Andrea

And like yeah, obviously there's more to it than that. They're a team, a Grace alone would have probably died trying to get the samples from Adrian. Or, tbh, might have never got out of his original Mental Breakdown phase and just gone fully crazy.

But from Rocky's perspective, this has to feel insane. Like we talk a lot about Grace feeling inferior to Rocky, but there's no way that Rocky wouldn't have a similar (or worse) complex about Grace.

And this isn't getting into the fact that (from Rocky's perspective) the moment he leaves Grace, everything goes to hell again. Goes to hell again because, as he later finds out, Grace bred the taumoeba in xenonite breeder tanks that Rocky designed.

Do we think he wondered, on the way back to Erid, whether things would have been fixed 46 years ago if it had been one of the Blip-A scientists who survived, and he'd just succumbed to the radiation?

Do we think Grace had to reassure him, over and over, that it was if anything Grace's fault for not foreseeing that the taumoeba would adapt to the xenonite, and that there was no way that Rocky could have designed the tanks better?

they start talking to a human and the human is like "haha yeah that's a crow!" and the alien researcher is like "you called it a 'bird' earlier, is that a different name?" and the human is like "oh a crow is just one species of bird, there's like, 10 others out there"

"On this planet?"

On Earth, the inhabitants are just. Playing and walking LITERALLY STEPPING ON CARPETS OF ORGANISMS the whole time. the aliens are like "it doesn't hurt them??? Can't you just...move them to a place where you don't have to step on them?" and the humans are like "no of course not, grasses evolved to tolerate being stepped on, and besides, more plants would grow there if we tried to move the existing ones"

Alien: I don't understand...why would you not place the solar farms in an area of the planet with no existing ecosystem?

Human: ...what?

Alien: You have rather sophisticated protective gear and have done some space exploration, surely you could establish them in an area of the planet to which life is not yet adapted?

Human: ...there isn't one.

"I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Only 25% of Earth's species have been formally described, at most."

"that's...that's most of them."

"Yes?"

"Well...I suppose the ocean trenches and abyssal plains must be difficult for you to reach...where did you have to travel for your discoveries?"

“We’ll just get a sterile soil sample for comparison.”

“From where?”

“Antarctica, surely the soils there are abiotic. Some don’t see liquid water for centuries.”

“Nope, those soils are full of life. Lichens, bacteria, archaea. We actually haven’t found a place on earth with a sterile soil.” (Unless a certain paper has gone through peer review)

“What if we dig deeper?”

“Like 2.8 km (1.7 miles) down a South African gold mine in a puddle of radioactive groundwater?”

“Yes! SURELY that is far enough that no living organism lives there.”

“…”

“SURELY.”

“So there is one guy there.”

(Desulforudis audaxviator my beloved)

“Ok.” (Cracks alien knuckles) “I will collect a sample from the BOTTOM of a ‘black smoker’ hydrothermal vents 2000 m deep in the ocean. The water there is sterile.”

“You’re probably right about the water being sterile but-“

“NO”

“-but… the rock isn’t even at the bottom, that’s where Methanopyrus was found, it can grow at a balmy 122 C (251 F). And can survive long periods at temperatures higher than that. Plenty of archaea have their most optimum grown temperatures above 100C (212 F). That’s the temperature they grow BEST at.”

“Stop.”

“We keep finding higher limits, some think it can reach to 150 C (302 F). We’re pretty sure nothing lives above 250 C (482 F) because we can’t find measurable amounts of DNA, RNA or proteins in water that hot, if that helps you feel better.”

“IT DOES NOT.”

“Sorry, life uh, finds a way.”

“Aha! We didn’t try cold. How about the coldest place in the universe, where you have reached a few fractions of a degree above absolute 0 Kelvin?” (1K = -457.87 F)

“I have bad news about quantum entangled tardigrades. They aren’t alive at the time though! That would count, right?”

“Not alive… at the time.”

“Yeah. Oh but they aren’t dead either.”

*(Screams)*

what does it mean when grace's heart beats faster? he looks it up on his portable earth thinking machine. fuck. it could mean anything. it could mean slight surprise or it could mean he's having a heart attack and actively dying.

there are so many liquids that grace's body expels, and so many that it holds. how does he know if its a good liquid or a bad liquid being expelled?? he cant tell the difference

it doesnt help that humans have a penchant for vague conversations and keeping things hidden, there is a nuance to so much of human communication that simply isnt there in eridian culture, and rocky's particular human is even more cagey about things than most