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How To Survive The Ammonia Planet: Ryland Grace’s Top Three Erid Survival Tips
It’s been a while since we’ve broken out this format here at Buzzfeed, especially since the liquidation of most of the world’s major news outlets, which propelled us into the forefront of serious global journalism in the 2070s. But after the success of Fleur Dekker’s world-first interview with Dr Ryland Grace, we thought we’d keep up this blast from the past. Fleur recently had a chance to meet with Dr Grace again, and this time, for Beatles Day, we focused on where he’s been all these years.
If you’re looking to take a quick trip down to Erid, take a page out of Dr Grace’s book. From the mind of the planet’s only expert, here are three quick tips that any interstellar astronaut needs.
Tip Number One: Bring Snacks
It’s one of our three basic needs: food, water, and oxygen. Water and oxygen are easy enough to come by, but food is a lot more complicated, especially for an alien species.
To Eridian life, the planet Erid is teeming with easily accessible calories. In fact, Eridians consume heaps more energy to survive than humans do, so their major food sources are nutrient-dense and full of essential metals. However, if you’re planning on settling on Erid long-term, you’d better bring plenty of your own snacks. Eridian food is toxic to humans, and if the temperature doesn’t kill you, those essential metals will poison your blood.
So, how did Dr Grace survive? Ingenuity, of course. “I’d been on a diet of taumoeba shakes and meburgers for about twenty years when we arrived back at Earth,” he told Buzzfeed. Taumoeba shakes, as he named them, are a blend of taumoeba, nutrients, water, and a human-safe Eridian binding agent he calls “space xanthan.” And as the name suggests, meburgers are an artificial meat grown from samples of Dr Grace’s own cells, much like the lab-grown meat of today.
“I don’t know if it’s ethical, but after years of coma slurry, they tasted so good that I didn’t even care,” he said.
The astronaut offered to show Fleur a sample he keeps in his personal fridge, which she politely declined, but it’s an intriguing answer to one of the many questions the World Space Council has been avoiding in the year since Dr Grace’s return. Unless you’d like a taste of taumoeba shakes and meburgers (youburgers?), Dr Grace says you should make sure to plan ahead!
Tip Number Two: Don’t Go Outside… (With A Catch)
Just as Mars is the Red Planet, Erid has been affectionately dubbed the Ammonia Planet by scientists and science fiction writers alike. It boasts a surface pressure 29 times the strength of Earth’s, full of thick ammonia and other toxic gases, all heated to well over 200 degrees Celsius even at its poles. For a curious human visitor like yourself, even stepping outside could spell instant death.
“It was like being set on fire inside and out, all at the same time, while being punched in the face,” Dr Grace described his run-in with the Eridian atmosphere on the Hail Mary. The astronaut’s entire left side is mottled in burn scars from the event, and he says his vision and breathing also never recovered. That should be a warning enough to keep you safe inside.
When on Erid, Dr Grace lived inside a controlled biodome filled with oxygen. Three sturdy layers of xenonite kept the hostile atmosphere out, each one heavily reinforced. “We did catch a leak once,” he said. “Something that small would have taken weeks to actually drain the whole biodome, so it was only a minor scare. The engineers were quick to patch it, and they added another layer of xenonite on top just in case.”
One good thing did come out of the event, though. The Eridians created a human-sized mobility vessel that would allow Dr Grace to enter Erid’s regular atmosphere. It was intended as a safety precaution, but it also gave him the ability to exit the biodome at last, and he explored much of Erid during his decade and a half on the planet, including vast mountains and boiling seas.
Dr Grace’s biodome functions as a museum now, preserving Erid’s knowledge of Earth for future generations, but he’s sure that its new custodians could be persuaded to vacate if any unexpected visitors arrived.
Tip Number Three: Enrichment
We’ve all seen the videos: elephants wandering, lonely, around their enclosures; dogs barking from their backyards; or orcas swimming back and forth in their pools. When you put a wild animal in a cage, it gets bored easily. Well, that can happen to humans, too!
Long-term lunar astronauts have reported it in small doses, but on an alien planet, cabin fever is no joke. You’d better look forward to the same sights, smells, and sounds every day, because despite their best efforts, Eridian engineers never quite managed to manufacture a believable rainstorm during Dr Grace’s tenure.
“I was seriously gnawing at the bars of my cage,” Dr Grace recalls. “I used to go outside at night and pace the entire perimeter of the biodome over and over. The first time, I’d count how many steps it took. The second time, I’d count my breaths. The next few times, I’d count how many times I could sing California Gurlz before I got back where I’d started, then take the average, multiply it by the length of the song on Wikipedia, and figure out my exact walking speed for the night.”
If you don’t want to go crazy, Dr Grace recommends befriending his favourite pair of Eridians. When they realised the lack of freedom was affecting Dr Grace’s mental wellbeing, the Eridians Rocky and Adrian got to work.
Initially, they offered Dr Grace puzzle toys intended for young Eridians. If you find yourself on Erid, don’t worry! They don’t mean you any offence. From an early age, Eridians have an ability for complex tasks, rational thinking, and problem-solving far more advanced than many humans ever develop. You could spend hours unlocking the many-layered sections of a puzzle ball and never get bored.
Over the years, Rocky and Adrian got creative. Dr Grace compared the experience to being a polar bear in a zoo, “waiting for the zookeepers to toss me a puzzle crate full of fish every night when the visitors left.”
The activities moved from puzzle toys to scavenger hunts, then to thought experiments. Finally, the Eridians leaned into Dr Grace’s original profession.
“After a few years, they just let me go wild. They’d give me a weird biological phenomenon they’d already figured out decades ago, a handful of samples and dissections, some scientific journals, and access to a lab. I didn’t come out for days sometimes, trying to find the right answer. Did you know Eridian Sky Whales give birth mid-flight? These sacs of gas develop inside the foetus, and when it’s born, they keep it afloat for a few hours.”
According to Dr Grace, any intrepid adventurer with their hopes set on Erid should be prepared to keep their mind sharp. If you find yourself stuck in a biodome, look around for fish!
That’s all from Dr Ryland Grace for now. As for you, future explorers: we at Buzzfeed hope you’ll keep these tips in mind when you plan your next interstellar journey! Happy Beatles Day from the Buzzfeed team.
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27/01/2088 4:46 am
From: Olesya Lublinskaya
To: Arnold Wright
Subject: Buzzfeed Article
https://www.buzzfeed.com/fleurdekker/ryland-grace-three-erid-survival-tips
I need Ryland Grace’s media trainer in my office in Florida immediately. And can someone please take a look in his fridge. I know he’s a known bullshitter, but if he’s stolen a meburger sample, you need to be on it.
Kind regards,
Olesya Lublinskaya
Administrator, World Space Council
olublinskaya@wsc.org