Imagine being one of the people who were involved with the Petrova taskforce. You were stolen away to live on a damn boat y'all started to call the 'Stratt's Vat' because humor was just about the only thing y'all had to cope with the everything. Finally after twenty-six long years you get called because the band is getting back together to finish the mission.
You get there and not everyone you knew back then is also there. Some people were lost in the famine and wars and disasters, as was inevitable. Some simply died of old age. But you are there, and whoever's still alive is also there, and you're going to see this damn thing to completion, damnit.
You have no idea what you'll find on the probes. Perhaps it will be a miracle. Perhaps it'd be the start of something you'll need to finish. Perhaps it'd be a single message informing you that there was fuck-all to find on Tau Ceti, actually, and the entire thing was a colossal waste of time, money and lives.
There are video logs on the hard disks. And all sorts of recordings. You find out only one of the three astronauts survived the coma, which is not good to put it mildly, but at least the guy who survived is the one who was kinda really vital for the whole thing, so there's that.
You know the guy. You've spoken with the guy. You've seen the guy survive on a diet of coffee and candy. The guy was basically the second-in-command to the whole circus on the Stratt's Vat and somehow seemed to not even be aware of it. You can't help but wonder if the guy could really pull this off.
You watch the guy struggle with an amnesia. You watch the guy meet a fucking alien. You watch the fucking alien move into the ship and the guy is not just letting it, he's actively helping build it an habitat.
You watch the guy bitch and moan about the fucking alien. You watch them bicker and stumble around the uncharted territory of a shared mission. You watch the guy stop bitching and moaning about the fucking alien. You watch them messing around and singing bloody karaoke.
You watch them risk their lives for one another.
The guy used to be friendly but reserved, back then. People were hooking up left and right, and the guy seemed confused at best and uncomfortable at worst, when facing that fact. The guy's reaction to the implication he was hooking up with his commanding officer was a resolute "Are You All Out Of Your Flippin' Minds". The guy was told one of the reasons he was going to be sent last minute on that ship was because of his lack of any significant emotional connection with anybody.
You watch the way the guy slowly starts to change, and how he acts and talks and smiles and looks at the fucking alien. The guy is staring at that thing in a way that suggest he is gunning for first place in the 'yearner of whatever fucking relativistic year it is in space' competition. The guy is looking at the fucking alien like the fucking alien has hung every single star in the cosmos.
You look around because you think you might be losing your mind. Is everyone else watching this shit? Is any of this real? What the fuck is going on? Hello??? Am I going insane???
Then the guy's last message tells you he's going back to the fucking alien, actually. Have fun with the solution I gave you to save the sun. I'm gonna go save my fucking alien, see you. Or not. Because I'm going to die to save the fucking alien, by choice.
And you sit there and you have to reckon with the fact that the power of friendship and whatever mushy shit the guy feels for the fucking alien is going to save your entire fucking planet.
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