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ERID VLOG #1: Test
uploaded by lifeonerid
| 4.3M likes | 66 789 564 views | March 13, 2055 |
Description:
First vlog on Erid. Filmed sometime during 2039? Not really sure. It’s only been a few months since I got here.
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“Is this thing on?” A voice calls out from behind the camera. Waves can be heard crashing in the distance.
The footage is grainy, there seems to be a bit of a distortion. The video has no colour. The camera is set down on a flat surface and begins to focus. The video depicts what looks to be a foggy beach. A blonde man wearing a knit sweater stumbles into the frame.
“Hi,” The man starts awkwardly. He looks uncomfortably at the camera and takes a breath, “I’m Dr. Ryland Grace reporting to you from 40 Eridani A b or as I call it, Erid.”
Grace stands awkwardly, “This feels stupid.”
A friendlier voice can be heard from behind the camera, “No no, Grace is doing great.”
“Okay. So. Where to start?” Grace considers, “Let me apologize for the camera quality first. It’s only been a few months since we got here and building quality cameras isn’t really the highest priority. Rocky helped tweak one of the cameras I brought with me for labs on the Hail Mary to make it compatible, but still no colour.”
“Colour is not important anyways. Can see fine.” The voice from behind the camera reassures. Grace gives a pointed look to the speaker.
“Also this is kind of a test, I guess? Either this uploads to Earth’s internet in sixteen-ish years or I’m going to be recording video diaries that will just be aimless radio waves in space. If the transmissions work then this should hopefully be the first of a few videos. I can’t promise a consistent upload schedule though.” Grace laughs. The laugh ends in a small cough.
He continues, “I really just wanted to document my time here I guess. I kind of missed the video diaries I recorded for the Astrophage stuff. It’s closest I’m going to get to talking to another human for a long time. I mean. That’s if the sun hasn’t gotten too cold and the Taumoeba reached you guys in time. I hope it did.” The mood feels heavy. Grace takes another long breath.
Grace’s body is much skinnier now than when Earth last saw him. It’s true that you could describe Grace as frail or weak, but you could not describe the man as a husk of himself. He’s gained a few wrinkles and grey hairs, but not as many as one might expect after seventeen long years. There is a soft glow to his expressions. Smile lines are carved into his cheeks. He is happy.
“Anyways, let me introduce you all to the star of the show; who you all really came to see. Wanna come in the frame, Rocky?” Grace gestures to someone behind the camera.
A rock-like creature scampers into frame. The creature has this rough rock-like texture to it. Five limb-like appendages move quickly along the ground. Each limb is carved with intricate designs and ends with three triangular shaped fingers forming something like a claw. The carapace appears to have no visible face.
“Hello Earth! I am Rocky from Erid, it is nice to meet you!” Rocky waves one his limbs towards the camera excitedly.
“You want to tell Earth a little bit about where we are?” Grace smiles.
“We are in Grace’s dome on Erid! We just finished construction of the full structure. Dome is filled with oxygen and kept cold for Grace’s leaky space blob body. Pressure adjustment too for Grace’s weak bones.”Grace shoves Rocky who doesn’t budge in the slightest. Rocky chirps in response, seemingly laughing. “Cannot swim in beach yet. Water is still too hot. Fog and sun effect still need adjustment.”
“Thanks for that very technical description from Erid’s best engineer.” Grace’s sarcasm hasn’t really changed since Earth last saw him.
“Super excited about the dome though. It’s amazing. Ammonia and scalding temperatures naturally occur in Erid’s atmosphere. The planet itself experiences a lot more gravity because it’s closer to the sun. It’s crazy how much effort eridian engineers have put into making sure I survive in an environment that really wants me dead. The dome is really beautiful too, we’re trying to go for a San-Francisco vibe, but it’s hard to describe that to someone with no eyes and has no concept of California.”
“Vibe? Need word.” Rocky asks.
“Vibe is kind of like a feeling? Like the feeling of an object or place or anything really. Things you associate with it. It’s slang; which will probably be very out of date by the time Earth sees this video.”
“Understand. Grace food has disgust vibe?” Rocky jokes.
“Don’t get me started on food with this guy. Maybe the next video could be a cooking vlog.”
Rocky nudges Grace in response, “Disgust disgust disgust.”
“What should we do for our next video? We’re not really doing anything interesting in this vlog since it’s just an introduction. Cooking is still on the table, but it probably won’t be very appetizing since we still haven’t figured out what I can really eat on Erid. Maybe a linguistic video? Rocky’s practically fluent in English after spending six years alone with me, but vocab and grammar practice may be needed.”
“My grammar is better than yours in Eridian. You still sound robotic. Too formal.” The two trade insults.
“Yeah well, I have to use a keyboard to communicate because you guys have like 50 different tones. I wish you could’ve met Yáo. You would have liked learning Chinese a lot more than English.”
“Yes yes probably. English is weird. I heard wikipedia article for other language systems. Chinese characters.”
“You have all of human knowledge at your fingertips with the laptop and you use wikipedia to read about language systems? Not science, not history, but linguistics?” Grace laughs, “You already hated learning english spelling. I’m surprised you wanted to deep dive into the writing systems of other languages.”
“I like to listen to audio in background while I work. Laptop reads random articles to me. Is nice.” Rocky explains.
“And the other scientists and engineers don’t mind? Last time Adrian told me you got in trouble for using the laptops for personal use off-hours.” Grace eyes Rocky suspiciously.
“They have enough copies of the original laptop. They will not notice if one goes missing for a few hours.” Rocky reasons.
“Adrian will and then Adrian will rat you out to the thrum. Also, Earth is hearing your confession right now to theft. This is their first impression of you. They will think Eridians are thieves.”
“I am not a thief. I borrow.”
“You borrow very expensive equipment that you’ve been told to stop borrowing without getting the proper paperwork.” Grace turns to face the camera, “I swear it’s just this rock that has boundary issues.”
“I do not have boundary issues.” Rocky says while leaning closely against Grace. Grace looks very pointedly at Rocky.
The pair are sitting by the water watching the waves roll by. There is no sun to set but the lighting appears darker than at the start of the video.
“I can’t wait for you guys to figure out how to make sunsets properly.” Grace yawns.
“You need rest. Bedtime. End vlog now.” Rocky insists. He nudges Grace to get up.
Grace stretches his arms, “You may have a point. Okay.” He gets up and strolls towards the camera. The camera is now held at a rather unflattering angle, “Bye guys. End of vlog.” The footage cuts.
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COMMENTS
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@tinyguitar • 19 hrs ago
Is this promo for a new Project Hail Mary biopic?
| ♡ 46k likes | ➤ 967 replies |
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@avengersfan299 • 17 hrs ago
holy ai slop bro
| ♡ 32k likes | ➤ 5k replies |
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@d1mlyl1t5un • 13 hrs ago
I dont give a fuck if Ryland is alive and happy on Erid. My family can’t afford to keep us fed. My government gets richer and fatter while hospitals are still overwhelmed because of all the veterans from the war. My sister died last year of pneumonia. Let’s focus on the real issues.
| ♡ 7k likes | ➤ 876 replies |
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@rockyluvr • 3 hrs ago
omg more rocky content. idc if this is fake the puppet looks so good. the discovery of eridians is what made me want to major in aerospace engineering. pls keep posting.
| ♡ 209 likes | ➤ 3 replies |
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@azfella • 1d ago
This has to be real. Ai subscriptions cost a fortune and in this economy ain’t nobody paying that to make a Project Hail Mary video. They got the details of the Alien guy down to a T. It’s gotta be real.
| ♡ 46k likes | ➤ 1k replies |
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@nasagirl783 • 6 hrs ago
Former Project Hail Mary engineer here. I can’t speak on the credibility of the video itself but I can say that the timelime at least checks out.
Project Hail Mary was launched in late 2017. Dr. Ryland Grace would have aboard it for 12 ish years. 40 Eridani A b is around 10 lightyears away from Tau Ceti so if he figured out a way to upload a video a few months after he lands on Erid sometime in 2039 then it would take 16.3 years for the video to reach Earth in 2055.
However, the Hail Mary was definitely not supplied with enough fuel to make it to Erid on its own, let alone food.
We’ll just have to wait and see what experts say. There’s still a lot of data that hasn’t been declassified from the beetles so who knows.
| ♡ 56k likes | ➤ 2.3k replies |
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Project Hail Mary Revival? Former lead Dr. Dimitri Komorov speaks out
TSD • March 14, 2055 • 8:19 AM EST
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| [ ▹ ] 1 hr | [ + ] Playlist | [ ☰ ] Transcript |
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[ ☰ ] Transcript
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[ INTERVIEWER ] : “Thank you so much for sitting down with me today Dr. Dimitri Komorov. There has been much speculation and chaos over the last two days regarding some rumors that I’m very excited to hear your thoughts on.”[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “Of course.”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “I trust that you’ve been cleared to answer? Everything official?”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “In some capacity yes; I have been authorized to share all necessary and relevant information by The United Nations Aerospace Committee and other former Project Hail Mary authorities.”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “Right. Let’s begin then, shall we?”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “Regarding the video uploaded by ‘lifeonerid’ on Youtube two days ago, I’m sure you’re familiar, there has been much speculation on the authenticity of the footage. Some claim that it’s AI or CGI, others truly believe it to be uploaded from Dr. Ryland Grace himself. There has been much discourse on the content of the video itself as well. Can you speak on the authenticity of this video?”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “As of right now, the Hail Mary community has no official statement concerning the video’s authenticity. There is compelling evidence to suggest that it is both real and fake. We honestly cannot be sure right now. There are a lot of discussions happening within the scientific community and we are all scrambling for evidence to support our claims.”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “And in your expert opinion?”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “I would describe myself as cautiously optimistic. In my personal opinion, unaffiliated with Project Hail Mary, I believe the video to be real. It lines up with the timeline and other data we’ve received from the Hail Mary. I’m still cautious, of course. We want to spend more time analyzing the quality of the video and of the radio signal transmitted, but so far everything seems in order. Fingers crossed.”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “Will there be any documents declassified ahead of schedule? Many of us are particularly interested in the full unedited video entries that were received in the Beetles.”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “The Project Hail Mary community is working tirelessly to analyze and process many of these video entries as we speak. We are reevaluating the contents and assessing how to best address the situation. While there are currently no plans to declassify the entire contents of these video entries; we do hope to release a few more clips when we reach a verdict on the validity of the video uploaded by ‘lifeonerid’.”
[ INTERVIEWER ] : “You say that the community is working tirelessly. Is this sort of a reunion? Are there talks of a Project Hail Mary revival, possibly efforts to contact Erid?”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We definitely need to confirm the validity of the video before considering anything like that. It hasn’t really felt like a reunion since Project Hail Mary was only officially disbanded last year after the sun returned to its luminosity pre-Astrophage.”
[ DIMITRI KOMOROV ] : “Ever since we received the beetles, there has been many discussions within the scientific community to find a way to contact Erid. It’s just that there was so many more pressing issues to be dealt with first. Now that things have calmed down a bit with the implementation of the Taumoeba farms, we may be able to refocus our attention into discovering ways of contact. If this video is confirmed to be real, it could renew interest in Project Hail Mary that would allow us to acquire the necessary funding. It would be a big project; something that would require all governments to work together again on a time crunch. I don’t if we’re ready for that. But Dr. Ryland Grace was presumed dead, so if he is truly alive … I mean we can’t just leave one of our own in space like that, right? Especially not the guy who we have to thank for us not freezing to death.”
[ … Read more ]
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FROM: Dimitri Komorov ([email protected])
TO: Eva Stratt ([email protected])
SUBJECT: [ TSD interview ]
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Do you think I sold it a bit hard at the end there?
“I mean we can’t just leave one of our own in space like that, right? Especially not the guy who we have to thank for us not freezing to death”
Feels hypocritical.
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FROM: Eva Stratt ([email protected])
TO: Dimitri Komorov ([email protected])
SUBJECT: [ Re: TSD interview ]
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Maybe a little on the nose, but it’s alright. This will help bring more attention to a proper Project Hail Mary revival. It’s good publicity.
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FROM: Dimitri Komorov ([email protected])
TO: Eva Stratt ([email protected])
SUBJECT: [ Re: Re: TSD interview ]
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I still doubt one interview from an old russian guy like me is going to make headlines. Especially not enough to get the kind of attention and funding we need.
Would Grace even want us to make contact?
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FROM: Eva Stratt ([email protected])
TO: Dimitri Komorov ([email protected] )
SUBJECT: [ Re: Re: Re: TSD interview ]
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Any publicity helps right now. Don’t worry too much, you did your part. I’ll be there to release the official statement and campaign for a revival. This just gets the discussion going.
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FROM: Dimitri Komorov ([email protected])
TO: Eva Stratt ([email protected])
SUBJECT: [ Re: Re: Re: Re: TSD interview ]
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You’re in your 70s. You retired when the project disbanded last year. You sure you still got enough fight in you for that?
I see you’re ignoring the last question.
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