Chapter Text
#general-chat
Ava Jenkins: In high school I used to babysit my mom’s friend’s kid sometimes and I did not like that 11 year old.
Ava Jenkins: I could tell she thought I was a loser.
Ava Jenkins: She thought she was better than me just because she cared about fashion and had her first crush on a boy and whatever.
Ava Jenkins: I understand now that I was a deeply insecure 17 year old but the grudge remains.
Ava Jenkins: Anyways I just saw on facebook that she had a daughter and named her Adrian. Which is just kind of funny to me specifically.
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Hi, Earth!
Gosh, I hope you can pick this signal up. It took Rocky and I weeks to fix and calibrate the radio transmitter. You won’t be able to get an answer to me until years from now, so I’m just gonna operate like you’re listening. Get ready to hear from me a lot, because as much as I love the one guy I have here to talk to, he doesn’t always appreciate my jokes. You know, cultural context and stuff.
First thing’s first, though—I should give my forwarding address: 40 Eridani A b, or as I’ve started calling it, Erid. That’s where we’re headed, and while I don’t know for sure if I’ll be alive by the time you reply, I’ve been told loads of good things about Eridian hospitality and how they’ll do everything they can to take care of the new savior of their planet. Well, co-savior, obviously.
Otherwise, we’re doing pretty good right now. It’s been a couple months Hail Mary time, so a little longer than that on Earth. This should reach you not long after the Beetles do. Hope the taumoeba got there in good shape! They’re edible, by the way, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you have other options.
Rocky and I have been showing each other fundamental works of our planets’ cultures. Or, well, I’m showing, Rocky is describing. Eridian art seems so cool; I can’t wait to see it in real life someday! Their equivalent of paintings are either etchings in soft metal plates or brushstrokes with a thick, textured ink, and they have different artistic movements, just like on Earth. Before the rise of mass production, they were doing their equivalent of photorealism. Audiorealism, I guess. But then, just like with the invention of the camera, Eridians started making art in other ways. Sculpture especially has really flourished. Rocky said there’s an experimental piece he and Adrian visited once that’s just a big rod of high-contrast xenonite that goes up so high you can’t sense it with your passive echolocation anymore. I think that’s beautiful.
So far, I’ve shown him Who’s On First. He didn’t get it.
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SETI Picks Up Signal Allegedly From Ryland Grace
The former xenobiology scholar and middle school science teacher sent into space three decades ago is apparently headed to ‘Erid’, the planetary home of his alien friend from Tau Ceti.
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guy @justaguy
i don’t want people to take this the wrong way but ryland grace is like that great aunt who you thought was already dead but keeps ending up in the hospital and miraculously surviving
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#general-chat
abbydabby: HE’S STILL ALIVE?!
Meg Offerson: As of approximately 13 years ago, yeah
Meg Offerson: Though it’s been less time for him, because of relativity
Meg Offerson: Probably something like 4 years for the trip, then if he can survive on that planet, another 3 years. Crazy stuff.
abbydabby: He’s still alive.
abbydabby: Idk why I’m crying right now
abbydabby: We better get another message
Meg Offerson: Well, it might be a while, because his time is moving faster than ours.
abbydabby: Yeah, yeah. Relativity. I get it.
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So, Xenon’s A Solid Now?
What do we know so far about xenonite, the strange Eridian building material made out of the noble gas xenon? Not much!
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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: A Favor
Who do I talk to about borrowing a radio transmitter? I need a signal strong enough to reach 40 Eridani.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: Re: A Favor
I’m on it.
Mindy Park
Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. NASA.
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#general-chat
Harrison L: Okay, icebreaker question: If you could show an alien one movie to represent Earth, what would it be?
Beau: Disney’s Aladdin. Fun story, banger songs, and stars Robin Williams, my ideal representative of humanity. Plus, a warning about class inequality and racism (I would explain the racism)
Harrison L: Wow, that was really quick. You just pulled that one out.
Beau: What can I say. I’ve thought about it before.
abbydabby: Oooh this is hard
inez: 12 Angry Men. Easy.
abbydabby: The original Star Wars probably isn’t an actually good answer
Harrison L: Sure it is!
abbydabby: I mean I really want to say Empire Strikes Back but that wouldn’t make much sense without the first one
Meg Offerson: Lol, imagine starting a movie you’ve never heard of before and you’re just on Hoth. Why is there a big llama creature. Why is there ice everywhere. What is going on.
Beau: That’s basically the experience of the generation below us
Beau: Minus the llama creature
abbydabby: LOL
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Hi, Earth!
We’re leaving most of our taumoeba farms alone, you know, so we don’t accidentally destroy Erid’s only hope for survival, but I’ve decided to use one for my own little experiments, just for fun. That’s right—I’ve started doing science for fun again, not for existential terror. That’s a, um… What did my kids used to say? Recession indicator? It’s the opposite of a recession indicator, I think.
I can’t do any breeding with just one farm, so I’m just changing up the concentrations of gasses at levels I already know they tolerate for a few generations, then comparing the samples from each. No conclusive results yet, but it seems like they multiply quicker with more oxygen. So, take that as you will. You might know more about taumoeba than me and Rocky by now, since you’ve had the whole world working on it for, what? About a year? Heck, you’ve probably got it to Venus by now. I sure hope you have.
I’ve been showing Rocky old black and white movies, because he can’t see color anyway, so it’s like he’s not missing as much! His favorite so far has been His Girl Friday; I think more because there’s so much dialogue being thrown around than the actual story or jokes, but it is really fun, so I can’t blame him. He told me about an Eridian show—sort of like a podcast, or a radio play—where they have two main characters who are constantly speaking over each other. Because Eridians can actually differentiate and understand two people talking at the same time, they can do cool things where the notes in the words clash or harmonize to emphasize meaning and stuff. I don’t know exactly, you’ve got an engineer and a scientist trying to explain alien art to each other. Don’t expect too much from us.
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Second Charite Probe Thalia Launched By Roscosmos, Will Send Atmospheric Data Back From Venus
The probe was sent with its own hefty load of taumoeba packets, as well as equipment to measure all sorts of data to inform scientists of the conditions on Venus—most crucially, whether or not the astrophage population is waning.
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Eridian Phonetic Notation: A Simplified Guide
Michael Chiang | Subscribe to RSS
This past week, my colleagues and I published an article in the Journal of Phonetics titled A Semi-Comprehensive Script For The Transcription Of Eridian Phonology, describing the system we developed for turning the complex sounds of Eridian speech into symbols that can be written down and understood by other linguists. This blog will be less comprehensive than our paper, but hopefully more comprehensible for those without an academic linguistics background—or even those with one, because Eridian is an emerging specialty, and many in the field still know little about it. I’m hoping I can do a little here to bridge that gap.
If you’d like a more auditory experience (very Eridian of you), you can also listen to my interview with Greta and Laura of the amazing Linguistic Excitement Podcast.
Humans make sounds by moving air across our vocal chords and using our mouth and tongue to modify the sounds. If you’ve never thought about it, I challenge you to say some words out loud right now and pay attention to how your mouth moves as you make them. You need lips to pop for that bilabial plosive (also known as the “p” sound) and a soft palate to raise to make an open vowel (“oh” and “ah”). Our physiology determines the way we speak.
For Eridians, it’s the same; their physiology is just very different. Eridians have a vocal tract they blow air across, similar to a human’s, but no mouth to modify the sounds into consonants and vowels. This means that a single Eridian vocal tract can only produce a handful of phonemes, or the smallest unit of sound that can differentiate meaning, by playing different notes, much like a brass instrument. Luckily, they have five such vocal tracts to voice multiple notes at the same time. They speak in chords.
While many researchers have been using the musical scale to depict the notes and chords of Eridian speech, my colleagues and I found this approach insufficient, because it conflates the Eridian language with music—which has its own deeply established scholarship and theoretical framework for interpretation—as opposed to speech. And because frankly, I can’t read music. All the notes on that staff look the same to me. We need a system that describes the sounds for a musical dud like me.
In their article Five-Part Harmony: Eridian Physiology And Acoustics, Meyer and Patel describe Eridian speech as “not five disconnected notes played arbitrarily like an out-of-sync quintet, but an interlocking network of mechanical processes that determine which pitches are able to be played with others, rarely using all five vocal tracts for a single sound.” They go on to state, in fact, that most Eridian phonemes use only three of the five available vocal tracts. This means our notation requires a way to easily denote at least three simultaneous notes.
While Eridian does not use our exact twelve tone system, its phonemic units are similar enough to be correlated with the notes we use like “C” and “B flat”. However, we want a single symbol to be able to represent each of the twelve tones—no extra “sharp” or “flat" symbol. So, our notes go like this: A, H (A♯/B♭), B, C, J (C♯/D♭), D, K (D♯/E♭), E, F, M (F♯/G♭), G, P (G♯/A♭). A little confusing for the music-readers among you, but it’ll be worth it when we start putting multi-note chords together.
Let’s start simple and work our way up. The first person singular pronoun (“I” or “me”) in Eridian is A flat, or H. The second person plural pronoun (“you” or more specifically “y’all”) is G. The word for “love” is two notes played at the same time: GK. The word for “planet” or “world” is two “syllables” of chords, which we denote with a dash: HD-DEM. The word created for “Earth” by Dr. Grace and Rocky in their linguistic exchange, is a compound: G-HD-DEM. Your planet.
So, if we wanted to say “I love Earth”, we would write it like this: H GK G-HD-DEM. You can hear what that sounds like here, first with notes on a MIDI keyboard, then from clips of Rocky the Eridian himself.
Thus concludes my first post on EPN. Let me know if you know if you want another post diving into the more fiddly parts of the script, because Eridian has a lot going on that I didn’t even touch on here. I’ll probably write it whether you comment or not, but it always feels nice to know that someone cares.
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#general-chat
Harrison L: Oh man, is anyone else looking at the pictures from the second Charite probe?
Meg Offerson: Me! I am soooo obsessed with Petrovascope photography. I could look at it all day.
Harrison L: Right?!
Harrison L: God, I hope the taumoeba are working
abbydabby: It’d be cool to get summer back
Meg Offerson: What’s that? Never heard of it, lol.
Regina S: It’s kind of like when you put the heat on in your house, but outside
Meg Offerson: That sounds too good to be true.
abbydabby: When the sun comes back, we should have a party
Harrison L: In real life?!
abbydabby: Yeah. A beach party.
speedoflight: bet.
Meg Offerson: Define “sun comes back”.
abbydabby: Ummm idk. Half-way to pre-petrova?
Harrison L: That won’t be for a good few years, even if everything goes perfectly
abbydabby: Gives us all time to plan :)
Harrison L: Okay then. Beach party at +6.8*F with Abby as head of the planning committee.
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Hi, Earth!
I miss plants. I miss trees. The big screen room on the ship can put up some pictures but the green isn’t the same, you know? Well, I hope you know, because I worry I’m starting to forget.
You know what I really miss? Avocado. I’d kill for an avocado right now. I used to skimp on guacamole because it cost a dollar extra, can you believe that? If only I knew my true fate would lie somewhere far away from the chains of capitalism, I would’ve spent more on Chipotle when I had the chance.
Um, this isn’t an ad. I don’t condone any evil stuff Chipotle has done, if they’re still around. I don’t think I’m in a position to condone anything happening on Earth these days, considering I don’t know what the heck is going on back there.
Last night, I convinced Rocky to sing an Eridian song for me. He’s been so self-conscious about not being a good singer but I had to remind him that I literally wouldn’t know. And I’m so glad, because it was really incredible. I wish I could describe it, but I can’t. I couldn’t even try. I think that’ll be something special, just for me. At least for now. Sorry to tease you, but I need to tell someone. I don’t have texts, I just have SETI.
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ian @iantheman
ryland grace you are so not special for missing avocado. we don’t have that shit on earth anymore either. dpmo
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NASA and International Partners Optimistic After Thalia Sends Back First Batch Of Data From Venus
“It’s too early to say whether it will last long-term, but we’re seeing a definite dip in the Venusian astrophage population,” says Gavin Washington, US-based project lead for Charite’s data analysis division. “With two or three more weeks of data from Thalia, we’ll have a much better picture of what’s going on. But as of now, we are very hopeful.”
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snow angel @beccaxo
is it weird that i kinda ship the astronaut guy with his alien
rain @malegayz
i mean, they’ve definitely explored each other’s bodies. they wouldn’t be very good scientists if they didn’t.
#literacygirlie @rosesofgold
oh my god do you guys know about the knock-off ryland/rocky romance novel that just got published? it’s hysterical. google love is blind by christine lancaster
rain @malegayz
THEY MADE ROCKY A HUMANOID WOMAN????? this is the worst thing i’ve ever seen
#literacygirlie @rosesofgold
but rain!!! the tropes!!!! they’re enemies to lovers somehow!!!!
rain @malegayz
ohhh she uses touch to see. of course. and they overcome their atmospheric differences with the power of wanting to have sex really bad. i’m shooting myself into space. goodbye cruel world. i’ll see you at tau ceti.
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Hi, Earth.
I’ve been avoiding it until now, but I finally gave in and looked through the digital copies of my school’s yearbooks on the Hail Mary computer. I just keep thinking about how all you guys, all my students… it’s been 14 years back on Earth. You’re adults now. By the time this reaches you, you’ll be older than I was when I… when I left.
I wish I could see your faces now. I wish I could see how you’ve grown. Being a teacher, all you want is to know that you’ve made a positive impact on your kids, and I hope that saving the world is a good enough substitute for not being there. That—that’s not a humblebrag; I really do feel sometimes like I’ve left something unfinished.
I know it’s a little late, but I did get your email about getting accepted to UCLA, Inez. It really touched me that you thought of me, I just had a lot going on at the time and I’m terrible at email. Or, I was back when I had it. Abby, Trang, Priya, Charlie, Regina, Jamison, both Madisons, all three Sarahs, everyone else from the last eighth grade class I ever taught—I hope you’re doing well, too.
Jeez. It’s hard to say this stuff.
I—I don’t know. Maybe that’s enough for today. I should sleep.
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#general-chat
inez: Oh my god.
trang: the whole world knowing that inez got into ucla but not that she’s an accomplished doctor and stuff is so funny i can’t lie
inez: I’ve kinda been crying on and off all afternoon and I’ve already gotten two emails from journalists. It’s insane.
trang: i’ve also gotten some emails. that’s why i finally dug up this server. i had to see what was going on now that we’re famous
Beau: Well aren’t you two sooo special. Not all of us can count on being name dropped in an intergalactic radio message to have something fun for our dating app profiles
inez: God. I am too old to be on dating apps.
Beau: How can that be true?! You just started college!!!
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More Eridian Resources, Question?
The Linguistic Excitement Podcast | Free Post
After our episode on Eridian with Michael Chiang a few months ago, we’ve gotten loads of requests for more resources on the Eridian language. Here’s a list we’ve compiled, in no particular order:
Amaze Amaze Amaze: Emphatic Reduplication in Eridian
Quick Study’s fantastic Youtube series on the basics of Eridian speech
Chiang’s blog series on Eridian Phonetic Notation (EPN)
Does Eridian Use Music Theory? by music Youtuber Eve Elbow
What We Talk About When We Talk About “Eridian”: The Small Sample Size Problem And Linguistic Study
The Ryland Grace Retrospective: A Once-In-A-Lifetime Amateur Field Linguistics Case Study
The Xenolinguistic Society’s Eridian Word Of The Day
Let us know if there’s anything we should add!
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Em
[7:02] congrats on ucla
Inez (ex)
[7:07] Fuck you.
[7:08] 20 years and this is how you want to start a conversation?
Em
[7:12] sorry
[7:13] look, the whole news cycle for the past year has made it hard not to think about you
Inez (ex)
[7:15] I guess I should be flattered.
[7:16] You don’t have to make it about me. You were in his class too.
Em
[7:17] i didn’t make a discord server about it
[7:17] but anyways
[7:18] do you wanna get a coffee sometime?
Inez (ex)
[7:20] …In Houston?
Em
[7:22] i’m living in dc these days but sure, if you’re in the area! lol
[7:23] i was thinking i could probably find some excuse to expense a flight to afrc or jpl sometime soon
[7:23] you’re still in la, aren’t you?
Inez (ex)
[7:29] I am.
[7:30] That seems like a bad idea, though.
Em
[7:31] lol, you would say that
[7:31] i’ll let you know when i’m in la and you can turn me down then, ok?
Inez (ex)
[7:34] Fine.
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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: Hi!
Hi Abby,
Sorry if this is weird, but this is Kaely Hart—you were my counselor at math camp like 20 years ago. When Dr. Grace was shouting out his last class in that message a few days ago, I was pretty sure the Abby he mentioned was you because you told me he’d been your teacher, and it just felt like a sign that I should reach out.
I was a really shy kid, especially in new environments, and you encouraging me to sit with the other kids at lunch and including me in conversations really meant a lot when I was nine. Without you, I don’t know if I would’ve gone back the next year, which is where I met someone who became and still is one of my best friends.
And now I’m a high school math teacher! We’ve been doing lots of trigonometry problems based around the distances between Earth, Tau Ceti, and 40 Eridani, haha.
Anyways, sorry again if this is weird! I hope you’re doing well!
Kaely
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#general-chat
abbydabby: 1 Image
abbydabby: Omg??????
inez: Awww, that’s so sweet!
abbydabby: It’s like… a cycle of teaching??? I’m emotional
trang: lmao, camp counselor abby going around bragging to her nerdy little campers about how her old science teacher is dying in space
abbydabby: LIKE YOU HAVE ANY ROOM TO TALK
trang: but i’ve never gone to math camp soooo
abbydabby: I love that you haven’t changed at all since we were children, Trang
trang: i will take that as the sincere compliment i’m sure it was :)
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Following Further Positive Thalia Results, Charite Program Announces Second Phase Of Astrophage Control Effort
The multi-national space program alliance has begun work on a more permanent “taumoeba farm” satellite to orbit Venus’s outer atmosphere and release more taumoeba into the ecosystem, as well as monitor microbe levels for further adjustment and study.
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Em
[5:48] Attached: 1 Image
[5:49] lax sucks btw
[5:49] coffee?
Inez (ex)
[5:55] Where?
Em
[5:56] how about that place we used to meet in undergrad? kerckoff?
Inez (ex)
[5:58] That’s a trek for me now. There’s a Starbucks by my apartment. I’ll send you the address.
Em
[5:59] works for me
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#literacygirlie @rosesofgold
it’s crazy that we’re gonna get the sun back in real life before winds of winter is finished
snow angel @beccaxo
but hey, at least they’re remaking the show!
#literacygirlie @rosesofgold
don’t remind me
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Inez García
[4:21] I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Harrison Laszlo
[6:08] Um. Good morning, I guess. What happened? Are you okay?
Inez García
[7:13] Oh, oops. I texted that and went to sleep again.
[7:14] Do you remember Ema? My ex-girlfriend? From college?
Harrison Laszlo
[7:16] Yes, why?
Inez García
[7:20] Well, she’s in my bed right now.
[7:21] Because we hooked up last night.
Harrison Laszlo
[7:21] Jesus Christ
[7:22] Is she still… married? And everything? Or?
Inez García
[7:23] As far as I know, yeah.
Harrison Laszlo
[7:25] Damn.
[7:25] Good for you.
Inez García
[7:26] No! Not good for me! Bad for me! This is a bad thing to do!
Harrison Laszlo
[7:29] Look, if Mr. Grace is out there sleeping with an alien…
Inez García
[7:30] Oh god, not this again.
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Hi, Earth…
I’ve got a bone to pick with you. Okay. Because I found Ilyukhina’s extra stash of vodka and I said I was gonna ration it but I’m doing a really bad job.
I’m running out of food, okay? I’ve got two years left of vitamins and minerals, and then I’m out. I’m out of vitamins. What the heck am I supposed to do without vitamins?! You couldn’t have put a few extra bottles somewhere on board?! Some of those Flintstone guys that feel like you’re biting into fruity chalk? Ugh.
And you know what? I’ve been doing a good job keeping quiet about some stuff. I’m not gonna say what… what really happened, because I’m a teacher, not a… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! I’m watching Rocky sleep right now, by the way. He’s gonna be sooo mad at me when he wakes up. He’s the one who told me to ration the vodka.
Wow, okay. I’m dizzy. Woah. Maybe I’ll take a nap t—[Message abruptly ends]
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Strange ‘Drunk Dial’ Message From Hail Mary Baffles World Leaders And Scientists
The “loneliest man in space” drinks away his troubles as he laments his dwindling resources and makes reference to self-censorship of unspecified dubious actions, likely by the Petrova Task Force. Dr. Ryland Grace left Earth before the Project Hail Mary records were publicly released, so most likely he’s referring to one of the many now widely known controversies therein.
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astrophage can melt steel beams @P0573R
if i was drunk and the only call i could make was to “the entire planet” i would embarrass myself way more than that
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Um. Hi, Earth.
Sorry about that.
Things… got away from me. It won’t happen again. Okay, well, it could happen exactly one more time, because that’s how much vodka I have left. But Rocky called me stupid a bunch of times and then made me pinky swear to do better so that’s probably it.
Oh yeah, I taught him about pinky swears! He doesn’t have a pinky, though, so it’s more just like an index finger swear—but it’s binding all the same.
Anyways, um… Let’s all just agree to forget that ever happened. Cool? Cool. Okay, I’m gonna go lie down, because this hangover is killing me.
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Em
[10:34] sorry i left in such a rush btw
[10:34] i really did have work stuff at jpl
[10:35] you would not believe what kind of legal bullshit comes up when you’re building rockets with like 30 other countries
[10:36] i thought i’d get to see you again before my flight out but there was a last-minute video call scheduled for super early yesterday morning so i had to actually use my hotel reservation that night. gross
Inez (work)
[11:02] That’s fine. I don’t think we should see each other again.
Em
[11:04] aw you didn’t have fun? it felt like you were having fun
Inez (work)
[11:09] What is wrong with you?
[11:09] I don’t get it.
[11:10] Did you forget to mention that you’re getting a divorce or something? Or that you have an open marriage?
Em
[11:11] i distinctly remember you not asking anything about my wife when i was in your apartment, lmfao
[11:12] and no to both
Inez (work)
[11:14] Jesus.
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The Cult Of Ryland Grace: Why Does Generation Beta Feel So Close To A Man 12 Light Years Away?
Crystal Carroway | The New York Times
“The world my parents grew up in doesn’t exist anymore,” says 17-year-old Aruba Williams, co-founder of the instagram account Saving Grace, a popular page for memes, edits, and other content regarding Dr. Ryland Grace of the Hail Mary. In our video call, she wears dark eyeliner and a #SAVINGGRACE t-shirt. “They named me after their favorite vacation spot. I’ve seen pictures of their honeymoon, and the temperatures in that ‘tropical paradise’ these days don’t exactly match up. I might as well be living on a whole different planet than the one the media wants to pretend it still is. They think we don’t notice, but we do.”
One year ago, Williams began the account with her online friend Stefanee Nguyen. Both girls felt lost and isolated from their peers and took an interest in Grace when his first radio message was received. “At first, we just thought it would be funny to try and campaign to bring him home,” Williams told me, describing the founding of the account. “I had just watched that documentary about the guy stuck on Mars in science class and I was like well, this is basically the same thing, right?”
However, their offhand joke resonated with many young people who felt a similar kinship, and soon they had accumulated tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of thousands of likes. “We really didn’t expect anything like that. I just made a funny little graphic to share with our friends,” Nguyen told me over email. “But it’s cool to be noticed. I guess we sort of ended up like Grace. Now people are paying attention to what we say.” The duo post on the account at least once per day, oftentimes more. They don’t make all the content themselves, though, as their work has inspired many others to take up the mantle of drawing art, making memes, and editing videos about Dr. Grace, and they’re all itching to be noticed by the biggest account in the space.
When I reached out to other fans of and content creators for Saving Grace, I received a wide variety of answers as to why they related to Dr. Grace. “It’s about acceptance of death and the unknown,” said 16-year-old Colten from Dallas. “We’re living in a more isolated world than ever before, and seeing someone whole orders of magnitude more isolated still reaching out for connection is really beautiful,” said instagram user takemetoerid, who has drawn multiple pieces of fanart for the account. “Lots of people older than me think we’re ‘saved’ now, you know?” 18-year-old Sadie told me in a private message. “But it’s hard to really feel that way, when all you’ve ever known is… this. Grace and I are both going into the unknown together. He got me through my first year of college.”
READ MORE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Film Updates @Film_Updates
‘Sending Up A Prayer: The Story of Project Hail Mary’ film adaptation has found a lead in German actress Lena Leitz.
it’s so petrover @houston_runner
isn’t she mostly known for sad movies. this will never work.
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#general-chat
Ava Jenkins: Does anybody know about this “Saving Grace” meme? My 10 year old is talking about it
Beau: It’s an instagram account
Harrison L: Yeah, I just read about it in NYT newyorktimes.com/article/the-cult-of-ryl
Ava Jenkins: Huh. Very weird.
Harrison L: Yeah, back in my day you just made a discord server for that kind of thing, lol
Beau: I’m surprised @inez hasn’t mentioned it here, what with all her working with children
Beau: Actually, where is she? She hasn’t been active in the server at all for the past week
Harrison L: I think she’s just really busy with work right now. Don’t worry about it
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Grace And Rocky’s Movie Party
List by Saving Grace
Every movie Dr. Ryland Grace has mentioned watching in his messages to Earth, in the order they’ve been mentioned. Specific comments in the notes section.
His Girl Friday (1934)
Rocky’s favorite old movie! Grace says it’s "really fun”!
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
“Honestly, I forgot how good it is. Rocky loved it too, but the end made both of us pretty sad.”
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
“I loved this one when I was a kid, and it holds up. Weird that if he was never born, his wife’s eyesight would be worse.”
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
“Okay, this one was probably a mistake.”
The Wolf of Wall Street (2014)
“I had to teach Rocky what cocaine is, so that happened. That Margot Robbie is really something.”
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Excerpts from “Sending Up A Prayer: The Story of Project Hail Mary” by Andrew Strange and Emily Vanderwheel. The book was compiled from the testimony and documents of over 50 members of the Petrova Task Force. It is the most complete history of the project from initiation to completion, and is the product of many years of intensive research into its subject. The rights have recently been acquired by MGM to produce a film adaptation of the book.
(From Chapter IV: Grand Designs) Despite the urgency and secrecy of the operation, the aircraft carrier’s isolation allowed its residents to freely share information and collaborate amongst each other. Many inventions of the Petrova era can trace their origins to the research and professional connections between scientists that began with Project Hail Mary. One engineer wrote that it felt like “a Bell Labs of the sea, the air buzzing with Nobel potential.” That engineer was Lakiera Adkins, who won the Nobel prize in physics just five years later for her work on astrophage-powered computing, along with fellow Hail Mary alumni Robert Cawley and Sofiya Belyayev.
The freedom and collaboration the project encouraged was not solely professional, however. The aircraft carrier was “like a summer camp,” because the crew had “nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.” Hook-ups between researchers were so common, in fact, that it was rumored leadership had to send for a jet to deliver extra boxes of condoms a few weeks into the second phase. It must be noted as well that the project resulted in at least two marriages and as many children.
(From Chapter VIII: Now or Never) The death of science officers Dubois and Shapiro had a chilling effect on the entire operation, when just one day before there had been bittersweet celebration and optimism. The rapidly closing launch window was non-negotiable, but so was the necessity of a mission-ready scientist. Project Hail Mary found its savior in Dr. Ryland Grace, who found himself in the position to be a perfect replacement. Stories vary on exactly how Grace agreed to step up to the task—some say he volunteered enthusiastically, but most include some amount of hesitation. “He was terrified, as anyone would be,” said director Eva Stratt, who personally convinced him to give up his life for the greater good. “It is not easy to be brave when you are alone, but Dr. Grace is not alone.” He requested to be placed in his medically-induced coma before the launch for his own safety, and that request was easily granted.
(From Chapter XI: What Comes Next?) Some see the launch of the Hail Mary as an endpoint, a reason to spend the next three decades waiting for a savior to return home. But to see the only great feat of the project as the ship launched into deep space is to miss the forest for the trees—or perhaps the trees for the forest. More than a far-off possible cure, Project Hail Mary gave us a framework for understanding the new stage our world is in, and the seeds to grow the science that will allow us to face it head-on. If the question is what must we do next, the answer is simple: Everything we possibly can.
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The Solar Wind That Makes You Cheat @au_brey
they better not cut the part of the hail mary book where it’s like “oh yeah and all those scientists? they were fucking like rabbits”
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Hi, Earth!
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the syllabary, which is a crazy oversight on my part. Rocky and I have been working on an English-Eridian syllabary, so we can translate sounds between the ways we speak, you know, for names and stuff. Because like, if Rocky tells me about a thing on Erid that’s kind of like a tree, so I decide to call it a tree, then how are we supposed to talk about the differences between Erid-trees and Earth-trees? Just makes the whole thing annoying. Because those things are not actually anything like trees—trust me.
I’m just gonna send the file we’ve been compiling; maybe it’ll be of some use to you, too.
Hm, what else… Rocky’s been teaching me about Eridian history. Well, between you and me, he’s trying to teach me about Eridian history. He talks a real big game about Eridians having perfect memory and all that jazz, but I’m starting to think it might be a teeny tiny bit of an exaggeration. Eridian memory has its limits just like my dumb little human brain; I just have a big ol’ crutch in the form of a computer containing all human knowledge. But, you know, it’s cute that he’s trying for me. There have been some wars on Erid, if you can believe it. And also some times of peace. Crazy stuff.
Oh! And because of the atmosphere density, they actually use—wait. I probably shouldn’t say anything about their weapons. I don’t want you people getting any ideas.
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Dr. Michael Chiang @tvlinguistmike
I’ve been working on this story for months… and they just tweeted it out…
The Linguistic Excitement Podcast! @lingcitepod
LOL. Have you gotten the chance to check out the syllabary yet? What are your thoughts?
Dr. Michael Chiang @tvlinguistmike
I’m looking through it right now. It’s… um… well, it’s a mess. But as I’ve said before, Dr. Grace is a very impressive linguist for not being a linguist.
Dr. Michael Chiang @tvlinguistmike
And for everyone else reading this, EPN is not actually the same thing as this syllabary, and even if it was I would think it was awesome and fascinating. We linguists need to support each other’s work (including Grace here as a linguist)
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Inez García
[3:27] She’s a hypocrite too, you know
Harrison Laszlo
[3:40] ?
Inez García
[3:46] All that talk about hating the government and whatever and then she works for the government. Like literally she’s a lawyer for Lockheed Martin. Basically.
Harrison Laszlo
[3:55] I don’t mean to pry, but when’s the last time you went on a date besides the one with she who will not be named?
Inez García
[4:01] I have a very busy job.
[4:01] A very busy AND fulfilling job.
Harrison Laszlo
[4:02] Of course.
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CNN @CNN
Final Charite probe ‘Euphrosyne’ just launched from China. Climatologists say this time next year will be noticeably warmer than now thanks to the international effort to send taumoeba to Venus.
Jeff Stormer @PartyOfOnePod
Soon, the ancient prophecy will be fulfilled and it will once again be Sunny In Philadelphia
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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: Contacting Dr. Grace
Mrs. McCloud,
I’ve heard through the grapevine that you were once one of Dr. Grace’s middle school students. I’m part of a side project, if you will, with some people working to send a radio transmission to him at 40 Eridani. Would you happen to know who we should get in touch with for the contact info of his former students, so we can get more of them involved?
Thanks so much,
Mindy Park
Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. NASA.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: Re: Contacting Dr. Grace
Ms. Park,
Funny you should ask. I know just the person.
Ema McCloud, Esq.