a collection of things

Duck Team! They’re attempting to make a heart…success is debatable…

++ Lil bonus of Kenna watching them be the fail losers I know and love them to be <3

"If it's any consolation, you will be hailed as a hero"

Stratt was a historian. She wasn't just pirating for the sake of entertainment for the astronauts, she was doing a full historical backup of the planet. Who knows how much knowledge and communications ability, how much art and culture and history, how much niche knowledge of how to make specific pieces of modern technology or modern medicines, was lost as the wars for resources isolated everyone, as the death tolls led to the deaths of specialized trade workers and scientists, as the power grids failing across the planet (or cut off, potentially) led to all the cloud servers going dark. Stratt was facing methods of combating extinction and she did her best to ensure that if/when the Hail Mary worked, it would send back not just the hope of the future in the solution to the astrophage, but the restoration of history and culture and knowledge.

Ryland Grace has made it all the way to his bike with Eva Stratt at his heels, so her trusted security team has correctly assessed it's time to move in the cars, and Carl is approaching off-screen.

Grace comes out of the little "I don't know why that makes me such a nut!" rant, and there Carl is, stepping up into frame exactly next to Stratt. Tall, broad, unimpressed, unmistakably a force to be reckoned with, unmistakably a trusted professional.

But also a nameless goon at this point. An extension of the threat Stratt seems to represent to Grace. A depersonalized tool.

Grace clocks the cars, his presence, the unfolding situation, instantly and incredulously. And he does something clever, something he always does, which is to call attention to the absurdity of the unspoken threat by trying to force the situation into a normal mold.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Turning Eva's nameless goon into a person with agency. Trying to force a relationship that hinders coercion.

Ideally, this would force them all to acknowledge how abnormal they are acting and retreat a little to keep up the appearance of normality. Or admit to what they are doing by refusing. Either way, the ball shifts out of Ryland's court into theirs.

Neither happens, though.

Carl sees exactly what he's trying to do with that and interrupts him mid-question. "Carl." And then keeps staring at him the same way as before. One word, and we already know so much about him.

He is not a nameless goon. He is an individual named Carl.

And he fully supports what is happening there. Because nothing is normal and it's stupid to pretend that what is happening isn't happening.

So yes, while he bonds with Grace over silliness and is the astrophage-coparent and instigator of Carl's Hypothesis... he is also entirely introduced to us as the man who will wish Grace the best of success on the mission while he's being sedated on the ground. Because Carl has a personal opinion about what is at stake.

"Sun's really dying, isn't it?"

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> opens my email

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> launches a software

How it's going