This could be retconed a million ways- but as it stands Keralis really couldn't be in space for months while uploading videos very much not in space as of a few weeks ago. So how do you feel about the kinda angsty theory I have that Tango got knocked out pretty early in flight and is currently dreaming a version of events where 1: his friends are there to support him 2: he has a cool spaceship fight with grumbot 3: he is ultimately successful. If I could guess how this would culminate would be with Tango waking up back on Hermitcraft after emergency landing post moon big plots actual resolution. Triumphantly shouting that he saved the day, only for Holsten to remark "what do you mean you idiot I did all the work." (Referring to the emergency landing) Only for Tango to assume Holsten is just being a jerk and go on believing that he saved everyone.
Ok. Ok ok ok. I'm going to do my best to give that idea due credit because it's extremely good and honestly possibly pretty close to what might be happening, but by pointing out the Keralis thing you've also enabled me to finally talk about the thing I've been thinking ever since the episode -
My personal take on it being:
That's Not Keralis
I have seen nobody talk about this so far. But the one thing I was thinking throughout that entire interaction between Tango and "Keralis" was just...this is off. Wrong with a capital W. When Tango first walks up to the shop and Keralis does the little Pass 'n' Gas jingle, I could have sworn that same clip got directly replayed after Tango walked though the door instead of Keralis just singing it again. And then all through that conversation, Keralis's responses just seemed to Not Quite Line Up, in different ways than just the actual information given.
He answered questions too quickly. He talked for too long after Tango started talking. At times the audio layered over each other in such a disjointed way that I was having trouble focusing, and I've never gotten that from a Tango epsiode before, or from any of the Hermits for that matter. These people are professionals: they have literal years of practice in how to order their speech and wait their turn to build out a good entertainment experience. It stuck out to me at first for that reason, and I wondered why Keralis was being so oblivious to the flow of conversation, but then as things went on it started to get downright unnerving. As in, pause-the-video-and-reload-it-for-a-sanity-check, no-way-in-hell-is-this-just-lag unnerving.
Something about the way it all came together, the way the conversation deteriorated over time, the way neither of them ever acknowledged it...it was almost like "Keralis" was just repeating lines. Stitching together collections of gathered words and phrases into hack-job new meanings, like too-long bones shoved into a hollow, floppy skin. Like someone - or something - making itself into a collage of Keralis out of salvaged and stolen scraps of personality.
Okay, maybe it's a little bit of a reach. Maybe I'm extrapolating too much. But you're right: he couldn't have been there that long. He couldn't have been there that long, and Tango co-owns Pass 'n' Gas, and wouldn't he know if they had a space location? Keralis claimed to be "making bank out here". Pass 'n' Gas profits are split. Why did Tango never see a cut?
But he didn't question it. He looked right into these eyes
And he didn't question a thing.
I'm not saying there's a mildly hypnotic alien scamming people and pretending to be Keralis in a fake Pass 'n' Gas in space. But I'm certainly not saying there isn't one.
