#sky ring

I did enjoy it. 

I loved the parts with Diyoza and Octavia and Hope. Are we supposed to think they’re a couple? Because I’d like to think they’re a couple. They don’t quite look platonic but they don’t quite look romantic. They look like family. More romantic than platonic. i would like them to be romantic. I think that’s a good ship. 

I liked watching Hope grow up. I liked seeing Octavia farming... like with Illian, something planted for later. 

The time warp is trippy. Things are happening slowly outside of sky ring and racing on sky ring. But they don’t notice. They think it’s slow on sky ring.

I thought sky ring was going to be like the ark. a ring ship in the sky. but it’s a planet with a ring in the sky. cute.

The part with Hope, Echo and Gabriel was all the mystery starting to come together. I like Hope. I liked her flashbacks, they helped us get to know her, and I liked how tough she is. Gabriel is a big nerd and kind of awkward. I actually haven’t disliked Echo this much since season 4 tbh. And I like Echo. 

I suppose she was in warrior mode. 

But it was nice when she hugged Hope and told her they’d get them all back, together. A nice little “together” call back... because like I always say, this show is about UNITY, everyone needs to be TOGETHER to make it work. 

And here they all are, scattered across time and space. Bellamy, Clarke and Raven and Murphy and CO, Octavia, Diyoza, Hope and Echo and Gabriel. 

They’re ALL split up. They have to come together. 

My biggest issue with the Sky Ring storyline is the lack of meaningful change and growth after 5 years together.

In 6 years in space, Echo went from an Azgeda warrior who was only about her people, who had betrayed most of the people she was on board the ship with. She went from a spy, a follower, and a warrior to... someone slightly softer, a member of spacekru, Bellamy’s girlfriend. Her people became spacekru. Her leader became Bellamy.

Maybe some of that is knowing she was exiled and had lost her king... so maybe knowing Bellamy is alive kept her from fully integrating into a new family?

But in the 5 years on Sky Ring she has even fewer people to talk to. Gabriel and Hope were also strangers comparable to spacekru at the start. The only one with a grudge is Hope... which is not much compared to how Bellamy felt about Echo at the beginning of their six years in space.

Orlando is an outsider despite none of them being close. He’s the odd one out... a position I imagine that Echo found herself in in space many times.

Yet.

I don’t feel like we’re getting any of the proper flashbacks or storytelling to show us these important connections and moments.

And when it comes down to it... they treat him like it’s been weeks when they leave him to die... oh he’s our friend but... these people are our family.

But that doesn’t make any sense. 5 years is a really long time. Those people would become your family. The same way Echo is bonded to Gabriel and Hope, she should be bonded to Orlando... and that goes for all of them.

Echo knows them just as well as she knows her spacekru family. It’s a similar amount of time and isolation.

So the pragmatism and ease with which she makes this decision to leave Orlando behind, to betray his wishes and him... that’s hard to understand.

Unless she is cold hearted. Unless this is Dark Echo... which I’m all here for by the way. I’d love to see her character just GO somewhere.

But the really terrible, cruel decision felt undercut by something... I think the willingness of Gabriel and Hope to watch and let it happen. Bc Orlando would be their family, too. Echo would be their family.

But why did Orlando not become Echo’s people the way spacekru and Bellamy did?

I know that her rationale was that she wasn’t a part of Orlando’s people. Which is fair. He still had ties to his people. He seemed generally anti-violence and peace-seeking...which isn’t Echo’s MO.

Bellamy and spacekru still had ties to their people. Something I think Echo was worried about when they landed.

Then she was the one to point out that Clarke had chosen her person... Madi... and her loyalty had shifted. Her people weren’t Bellamy’s people anymore and by extension Echo’s (although Clarke remedied this).

Maybe it does all go back to Echo didn’t have a people when she went into space, but she did still have a people when she went to Sky Ring.

Which I guess makes me wonder if Roan was still alive when Echo went into space, would she have ever let her loyalty be given to spacekru?

More parallels?

Clarke lived in isolation for six years, now Echo, who *kind of* took her place ALSO gets a nearly 6 years sentence of isolation? I mean, that’s not even the solitary of Clarke’s first year in the skybox. Sky box. Sky Ring. Two empty planets. hmm.

She would have Hope and Gabriel for company while Clarke was alone except for Madi. 

Interesting. 

Yes. But I believe they took her to Bardo BEFORE she went back to Sanctum.

So I think it should go 

O-Diyoza-Hope sky ring (ten years) --> O-Diyoza to bardo (something happens) --> O to sanctum (no memories but tattoos) --> input code in anomaly stone --> hope tags/octavia pulled through anomaly --> bellamy kidnapped to bardo --> hope-echo-gabriel sky ring (five years we’ve only gotten half that story still) --> octavia and bellamy SHOULD be on bardo but we haven’t seen it --> Clarke and kru find out their people are gone and go after them (still to see.)

So as of this moment, we have Bellamy, Octavia, Diyoza on Bardo I think with the disciples and Anders (is he with the disciples or is he a rebel? idk.) Echo, Hope and Gabriel on Sky Ring with the prisoner waiting for someone to come get him in five years but no time passing on Sanctum or Bardo. Clarke, Raven, Murphy etc on Sanctum, not knowing that Hope exists, Bellamy is kidnapped, Octavia and Echo and Gabriel are missing, but about to find out, and someone is about to tell Clarke she’s the key to stopping the last war humanity will ever know. Which is kind of a tall order.

I think she was on sky ring for 20 years. she was 5-6 when they got taken, that means she was there for about 15 years before getting off. Without O or Diyoza. She wasn’t alone because she met the prisoner who taught her to fight.

She got off... because she got to Sanctum to bring O back. Yes O must have gotten away. 

I am liking this time warp. Diyoza will not have aged while Hope will have grown up.