okay yes savior grace and savior rocky and eridians being religious and awe-inspired and everything but!
there are undoubtedly many religions on erid, they are intelligent beings, which means they would have been looking for answers about what created their world as they understood it. that's why their elevator would have been created, right? people seeking answers and for the first time in their history, they looked up.
now what if, when they discovered their sun and solar system, there were religious eridians who thought it was offensive to observe what was hidden from them. they don't have the ability to see light. so seeing the source of light from beyond their world would be borderline blasphemous.
then the astrophage comes and they all go "yeah, see? divine punishment. and now we're ALL going to die because you pulled the curtain back and went where we weren't supposed to" then the crew of the blip-a leaves. and for a long time it looks like they're never coming back. and of course they aren't, they're trespassing in realms they were never supposed to touch.
decades after, one surviving crew member returns. and with him is a creature from beyond their world that can hear light. and his name is mercy, because their god(s) are going to spare them this time, but this creature can see the energy that your brains use, he breathes flammable gas, he towers above you (if i remember right, in the book grace complains that the eridian airlock is too small for him to fit through, so they're all roughly rocky's size, even if rocky is slightly small for his species). And it turns out that outside of their world is a poison that rips people apart from the inside out, and their sun emits this, and not only do the astrophage eat it, but this new creature does as well (uvb light between 280-315 nanometers is how we synthesize vitamin d).
like yeah, eridians who love grace because he saved them. but like, eridians who hate him and see him as divine judgement, sent there to observe.
the story about how he was cast out by humans becomes a lucifer like tale about being thrown out of his realm and onto erid to cast judgement on them.
and there's this big religious schism because of grace and some people refuse to even consider sending their children to learn from him because they're so scared.
idk spitballin here. just. religious and cultural diversity on erid.
