#atmosphere like a hole in an astronaut's suit.

[goldticket]

please have you seen the movie yet i'm going insane and keep going back but also helpppp. if you've talked about it on another blog of yours i'll take that but i'm losing my mind reading reviews of people who don't seem to know even a spec of wonka lore

oh, my dear comrade... for you... i will endure it. i'll try to go see it christmas weekend.

[zoethehead]

Here's some cosmic whump for you guys;

An injured astronaut adrift in space gets sucked through a black hole and then hurtled towards a distant alien planet (story's based on the "all black holes are portals to another reality" theory)

Story below the image of the human protagonist, Derek Valdez;

Edit: link to part 2;

Derek was adrift in space, slowly losing oxygen and blood, and he was drifting closer to a black hole. He thought back to those who cared about him, about his accomplishments, and about the moments that led up to this that flashed before his eyes. He felt his injured body being dragged into the endless event horizon's abyss. He felt tears falling as his body was being pulled through the process of spaghettification. He knew that this was the end.....

Except that it wasn't.

Meanwhile, on another side of the black hole...... in the kashuvril system, an injured body was hurdled out of the black hole, and the body was slowly pulled into the atmosphere of a nearby planet, like a meteor.

The planet of Piurilia 9SF4 came into contact with the "meteor" that slowly flew towards Tefriah, the capital of the country known as Ebrua, and then to the street of khuvina boulevard. A group of onlookers saw a meteor slowly head towards a spot near them, soon crashing in front of them with a giant explosion.

One of the onlookers went near the crater, in that crater was a human, injured and unconscious with a broken helmet and tattered spacesuit that adorned their body. The group was immediately concerned;

"DAMMIT, HOSTA! CALL THE FUCKING DOCTORS!" The Rohno woman yelled to the stramlid person.

Hosta pulled out their phone and dialed the emergency services, telling them of the situation.

"Alright, we'll be there in a minute or 2, just try to staunch the bleeding and try performing cpr" the paramedic said.

"Just hurry, please!" Hosta said...

2 minutes later and the ambulance arrived, and the unconscious outlander was loaded onto the ambulance, and off the ambulance went to Serhu Fal community hospital.

The person had their suit and helmet taken off, and it revealed that the human was a man with dark brown skin and long black hair who appeared to be in his mid 20's to early 30's.

The man was rushed to the emergency surgery wing a few minutes later after being unloaded from the ambulance.

The surgeons started operating on the man; administering anesthesia, resetting broken bones, cauterizing wounds before stitching them close, bandaging injuries, bandaging wounds, applying splints, and applying a surgical drain to deal with the excess blood.

The surgery took an hour to complete, but it was a success!

The man was rushed to an empty hospital room and placed in the bed before having an IV attached and given some vaccinations to help accustom his body to the viruses on the planet.

[bedforkid]

Space Themed Kids Bedding: Blast Off to Dreamland with Stellar Designs!

Transform your child's bedroom into a captivating space-themed wonderland with a wide range of space-themed kids bedding options. From galaxy print children's bedding to astronaut motif kids bedding sets, there are endless possibilities to create a celestial paradise that will ignite your child's imagination and take them on an intergalactic adventure every night.Explore bedding sets featuring stars and planets, outer space crib bedding, rocket ship kids comforters, and celestial patterns that will transport your little one straight to the cosmos. Whether they dream of exploring the vastness of the solar system or embarking on a cosmic adventure, there is a space-themed bedding collection to suit every young space explorer.From nebula patterns and cosmic adventures to constellations and interstellar designs, the options are as limitless as the universe itself. Choose bedspreads, comforters, sheets, and pillowcases that feature their favorite celestial bodies like the moon, stars, and planets. Create a bedtime oasis with Milky Way themed bed sheets or venture into the unknown with black hole theme bedding.With space station baby crib sets, children's bedding adorned with space shuttles, and alien world toddler comforters, your child's dreams of space exploration will come alive every time they enter their room. Choose from deep space pillowcases, Saturn rings bed sets, or even a comet and asteroid bedding collection to complete the out-of-this-world look.With educational space bedding sets, kids can learn about the wonders of the universe while they sleep. Let them embark on a space mission with a children's bedspread that showcases the beauty of the cosmos. Create a starry night atmosphere with a celestial-themed toddler quilt or a lunar landing bed ensemble that will transport them to the moon and back.From a space Odyssey themed bed linens to a planetary exploration kids comforter, each piece of space-themed kids bedding adds a touch of magic and adventure to your child's room. Let their imagination take flight, and watch as they explore the depths of the universe from the comfort of their own bed.Key Takeaways: - Space-themed kids bedding offers endless design options for transforming your child's bedroom into a celestial paradise. - Choose from galaxy print children's bedding, astronaut motif kids bedding sets, and celestial patterns. - Create a captivating space-themed bedroom with bedspreads, comforters, sheets, and pillowcases featuring stars, planets, and cosmic designs. - Explore educational space bedding sets that inspire learning and a love for the universe. - Encourage your child's imagination and sense of adventure with space-themed kids bedding that brings the wonders of the cosmos to life.

Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer: The Mothership of Toy Storage

Transform your child's space-themed bedroom into an organized and cosmic wonderland with the Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer by Delta Children. This toy organizer is the ultimate storage solution for little space cadets, offering a galaxy-themed design that adds a touch of cosmic charm to any room. The toy organizer features reusable stickers for personalization, allowing your child to create their own unique space adventure. With multiple fabric bins of various sizes, this organizer provides ample storage capacity for toys, books, games, and dress-up clothing. Made with strong and sturdy wood construction, it not only keeps the room tidy but also adds a decorative element to the space-themed bedroom. Encourage your child to embrace their inner astronaut and keep their play area neat and organized with the Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer. It's the perfect addition to create a captivating and functional space-themed bedroom that will inspire your little one's imagination and love for the cosmos.Features of the Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer: - Galaxy-themed graphics: The design adds a cosmic touch to the room, enhancing the space-themed ambiance. - Reusable stickers: Personalize the organizer with your child's favorite space-themed characters and elements. - Fabric bins: Multiple bins provide extra storage space for toys, books, games, and dress-up clothing. - Strong and sturdy wood: The toy organizer is built to last, ensuring durability and stability. - Encourages tidying up: Teach your child the importance of keeping their play area organized and tidy while fostering their love for space exploration. Product Details Dimensions Weight Material Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer 28.75" x 19.25" x 26.75" 26.46 lbs Wood "The Space Adventures Design and Store Toy Organizer is a game-changer for parents who want to create an organized and captivating space-themed bedroom for their little ones. With its galaxy-themed design, sturdy construction, and ample storage capacity, it truly is the mothership of toy storage." - Parenting Magazine

Space Adventures Rocket Ship Wood Toddler Bed: Blast Off to Dreamland

Create an immersive space-themed bedroom for your little astronaut with the Space Adventures Rocket Ship Wood Toddler Bed by Delta Children. This captivating bed features a spaceship design with solar system graphics, making bedtime an exciting adventure. Crafted with strong and sturdy wood construction, this bed ensures durability and safety for your child. The attached guardrails provide added security and ease of access, allowing for a safe and smooth transition from a crib to a big-kid bed. This galactic-style bed is JPMA certified and accommodates a standard crib mattress, providing comfort and style for your little space explorer.Specifications: Design Materials Guardrails Certification Mattress Compatibility Spaceship design with solar system graphics Strong and sturdy wood construction Attached guardrails for added safety JPMA certified Accommodates a standard crib mattress Benefits of the Space Adventures Rocket Ship Wood Toddler Bed: - Provides an immersive space-themed experience for your child - Strong and sturdy wood construction ensures durability - Attached guardrails for added security and easy access - JPMA certified for safety and peace of mind - Accommodates a standard crib mattress for convenience Transform your child's bedroom into a galactic wonderland with the Space Adventures Rocket Ship Wood Toddler Bed. Let their imagination take flight as they embark on a dreamy journey to outer space every night. With its spaceship design, solar system graphics, and strong wood construction, this bed is both functional and visually stunning. Create a safe and enchanting space-themed bedroom for your little one and watch as they blast off to dreamland in style.

Wall Art: Adding a Cosmic Touch to Your Space Themed Bedroom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xxf1XZSSKUAdding wall art is a key element in creating a captivating space-themed bedroom. Universe themed wall art serves as a focal point, instantly transforming an ordinary room into a cosmic wonderland. With its galaxy-inspired designs, it brings a sense of awe and wonder to both boys' and girls' bedrooms. The best part is that it is affordable, easy to decorate with, and allows for endless creativity in designing a personalized space for your child.Universe themed wall art comes in various forms, including prints, canvases, and decals. You can choose from a wide range of stunning images featuring galaxies, nebulae, stars, and planets. These captivating visuals add depth and dimension to the room, creating a truly immersive experience. Whether you opt for a single large piece or a gallery wall arrangement, the universe-themed wall art becomes the centerpiece of the space-themed bedroom, captivating your child's imagination and sense of wonder."The universe is a captivating and mysterious place, and incorporating universe themed wall art into your child's bedroom creates a sense of awe and wonder that inspires their imagination."Another advantage of universe themed wall art is its versatility. As your child's interests and tastes evolve, you can easily update the wall art to suit their changing preferences. This flexibility allows the space-themed bedroom to grow with your child, ensuring it remains a cherished and beloved space throughout the years. It also provides an opportunity for your child to express their individuality and creativity as they curate their own unique cosmic oasis.Bring the Universe to Life with Your Choice of Wall ArtWhen selecting universe themed wall art, consider the overall aesthetic of the room and the desired atmosphere you wish to create. Determine whether you want a bold and vibrant display or a more serene and subtle representation of the cosmos. You can also mix and match different types of wall art to create a dynamic and visually engaging arrangement. Experiment with different sizes, textures, and color palettes to find the perfect combination that brings the universe to life within your child's space-themed bedroom.Table: Top Universe Themed Wall Art Designs Design Description Price Stunning galaxy print on a high-quality canvas $49.99 Elegant constellation design in a peel-and-stick decal $19.99

Set of three art prints featuring stunning nebulae $29.99 Large wall mural depicting the solar system $79.99

Framed print showcasing iconic space exploration moments $39.99 Table: Top Universe Themed Wall Art DesignsTransform your child's space-themed bedroom into a cosmic oasis with the addition of universe themed wall art. With its captivating designs and affordable options, it allows you to create a truly immersive and awe-inspiring environment for your little space explorer. From galaxy prints to constellation decals, there are endless possibilities to bring the wonders of the universe to life on their bedroom walls.

Creating a Stellar Atmosphere with Galaxy Star Projector

Transform your child's bedroom into a mesmerizing starry sky with a galaxy star projector. These innovative devices bring the beauty of the cosmos into the comfort of your home, creating a magical and enchanting atmosphere for your little space explorer.A galaxy star projector is designed to project a realistic starry sky onto the walls and ceiling of your child's room. With multiple settings and colors to choose from, you can customize the ambiance according to your child's preferences. Whether they prefer a calming blue sky or a vibrant constellation, these projectors have the flexibility to create the perfect mood for sleep, relaxation, or play.One of the standout features of galaxy star projectors is their Bluetooth connectivity. This allows you to connect your child's favorite music or bedtime stories to play through the projector, providing a soothing and immersive audiovisual experience. The combination of twinkling stars and familiar melodies creates a serene and comforting environment, making it an ideal sleep aid for your little one.Adjustable brightness is another key aspect of galaxy star projectors. This feature allows you to control the intensity of the projected stars, ensuring that the room is neither too bright nor too dim. By finding the perfect balance, you can create a calming and cozy atmosphere that promotes relaxation and a peaceful sleep for your child.Overall, a galaxy star projector is a wonderful addition to a space-themed bedroom. It not only enhances the ambiance but also stimulates your child's imagination, fostering a sense of wonder and curiosity about the universe. With its mesmerizing starry sky, multiple settings, Bluetooth connectivity, sleep aid capabilities, and adjustable brightness, a galaxy star projector brings the magic of the cosmos right into your child's room.

Encouraging Learning and Exploration with a Solar System Model

Enhance your child's understanding of the solar system with an inflatable solar system model. This educational tool provides a three-dimensional demonstration of the nine planets, the moon, and the sun, allowing your child to explore and learn about each celestial body in a hands-on and interactive way. The inflatable structure brings the wonders of the universe right into your child's bedroom, sparking their curiosity and encouraging a love for learning through play.The solar system model is a visually engaging and detailed representation of the planets, moon, and sun. Each component is labeled and color-coded, making it easy for your child to identify and distinguish between the different celestial bodies. This immersive learning experience fosters a deeper understanding of the rotation, revolution, and orbit of each planet, allowing your child to comprehend complex astronomical concepts in a fun and accessible manner."By combining education and play, the inflatable solar system model provides a unique opportunity for children to explore the wonders of the universe while developing their cognitive and motor skills," says Dr. Emily Carter, an expert in early childhood education.Table: Comparison of the Nine Planets in the Solar System Planet Diameter Distance from the Sun Number of Moons Mercury 4,879 km 57.9 million km 0 Venus 12,104 km 108.2 million km 0 Earth 12,742 km 149.6 million km 1 Mars 6,779 km 227.9 million km 2 Jupiter 139,820 km 778.3 million km 79 Saturn 116,460 km 1.43 billion km 82 Uranus 50,724 km 2.88 billion km 27 Neptune 49,244 km 4.5 billion km 14 Pluto 2,376 km 5.91 billion km 5 By engaging with the inflatable solar system model, your child will develop a deeper appreciation for the vastness and complexity of our universe. As they play and explore, they will build a solid foundation of knowledge about the solar system and ignite their curiosity about the mysteries that lie beyond. Learning and play come together in a harmonious blend, empowering your child to embark on their own cosmic journey of discovery.References: - "The Benefits of Hands-On Learning for Children." Earlychildhoodeducationzone.com. - "How to Teach Solar System for Children." By Dr. Emily Carter. Playfullearning.net.

Bringing the Night Sky Indoors with Glow in the Dark Stars

Create a mesmerizing and realistic night sky in your child's space-themed bedroom with glow in the dark stars. These enchanting wall and ceiling decorations effortlessly transform any ordinary room into a celestial wonderland. The easy application process makes it a breeze to create a breathtaking cosmic experience for your little space explorer.The glow in the dark stars provide a long-lasting glow that illuminates the room, creating a soothing and magical atmosphere even after the lights are turned off. Your child will be captivated as they gaze upon the realistic night sky above them, sparking their imagination and sense of wonder.These sensory decorations not only add a visually stunning element to the space-themed bedroom but also offer a tactile experience. Your child can have fun arranging and rearranging the stars, creating their own constellations and exploring the vastness of the universe right from the comfort of their own room.With their easy application and long-lasting glow, glow in the dark stars are the perfect wall and ceiling decorations to enhance the ambiance of your child's space-themed bedroom. Let their dreams take flight as they drift off to sleep under the mesmerizing glow of the night sky.

Enhancing the Ambiance with Space-Themed Decorative Accessories

Complete the ambiance of your child's space-themed bedroom with various space-themed decorative accessories. An NASA alarm clock with light-up features adds a touch of fun and practicality to their bedtime routine. A large peel-and-stick rocket wall decal instantly transforms an ordinary wall into a window to outer space. A rocket toy play fort creates an immersive play area and reading nook. Outer space comforter sets, bed linens with astronaut and galaxy motifs, and moon rugs all contribute to the overall theme and comfort of the room. A real working telescope by the window invites stargazing and exploration of the night sky. And a constellation chart provides an educational and beautiful visual representation of the celestial bodies. These space-themed decorative accessories add the perfect finishing touches to a truly stellar space-themed bedroom."The rocket-themed play fort is the perfect addition to any space-themed bedroom. It provides a dedicated area for imaginative play and offers a cozy space for reading and relaxation. The large peel-and-stick rocket wall decal instantly transforms a blank wall into a captivating window to outer space, allowing children to feel as if they are truly embarking on a cosmic adventure."Creating a space-themed bedroom is all about the details, and the inclusion of outer space comforter sets and bed linens with astronaut and galaxy motifs adds a touch of whimsy and comfort. These bedding options not only enhance the overall theme of the room but also provide a cozy and inviting space for your little one to rest and recharge. The addition of a moon rug adds texture and visual interest to the floor, completing the immersive space experience. Read the full article

[worldrankmusic]

As humans, we have always been fascinated by the mysteries of outer space. The vastness and sheer beauty of the universe often leave us awe-struck. Music has always been a way to convey emotions and feelings that are hard to put into words. When these two come together, the result is a truly magical experience. Music inspired by space can take listeners on a journey through the cosmos, evoking images of stars, galaxies, and black holes. Here is a guide to some of the best space music tracks. 1. Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss - The iconic opening theme from Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey is a powerful and haunting piece that sets the scene for the entire film. Its use of brass instruments creates a strong sense of awe and majesty, as if we are witnessing something truly extraordinary. 2. Starman by David Bowie - A classic from the Thin White Duke himself, Starman is a beautiful and uplifting song about space travel and the wonder of the universe. With its soaring chorus and Bowie's distinctive vocals, it's impossible not to feel a sense of joy and optimism. 3. Space Oddity by David Bowie - Another Bowie classic, Space Oddity tells the story of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut who embarks on a space mission that goes horribly wrong. With its dreamy, melancholic melody and haunting lyrics, it's a perfect anthem for anyone who's ever gazed up at the stars and wondered what lies beyond. 4. Interstellar Theme by Hans Zimmer - The soundtrack to Christopher Nolan's epic sci-fi movie Interstellar is a masterpiece of orchestral music. The main theme, composed by Hans Zimmer, is a haunting and powerful piece that captures the sense of wonder and awe that the movie conveys. 5. Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber - Originally written for a string quartet, Adagio for Strings is a poignant and emotional piece that has been used in various space-related media, such as the documentary movie The Farthest. Its sweeping, mournful melody is perfect for capturing the majesty and loneliness of space. 6. Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst - Part of Holst's famous orchestral suite The Planets, Mars, the Bringer of War is a dramatic and intense piece that portrays the violence and aggression of the planet Mars. Its repetitive, pounding rhythm and dramatic crescendos make it a thrilling listening experience. 7. Contact by Daft Punk - The French electronic duo's soundtrack for the movie Tron: Legacy is a futuristic and atmospheric work that perfectly captures the sense of being in a computerized world. Contact, the album's closing track, is a soaring and epic piece that sounds like it was created in a distant galaxy. Listening to space music can be a transformative experience. It can help us appreciate the beauty of the universe and remind us of our own place in it. Whether you're looking for something haunting and melancholic or uplifting and joyous, there's a space music track out there that's right for you. So put on some headphones, close your eyes, and blast off to the stars. Out of this World: A Guide to the Best Space Music Tracks

[sugar-splenda]

Taylor, turning the lights on their bedroom:

Me sitting on the bed: Do you ever wonder why the greens where in that moon in the first place? How did they manage to get so many ships down without anyone noticing? Was it an international cover up or did no one seriously noticed something was going on? Is this an Infinite IKEA situation where the greens pull people from different universes or are they just playing with time itself? The time pulse was definitively something interesting, I wonder how it works. It truly made the peak disappear and then reappear after some seconds. I wonder what would have happened if we put objects or people where the peak would be when it comes back. I have some theories, one the peak is actually just changing places like Arika does with Warp and Weft. If this is correct, then the person could possibly be changing places to where the peak was when it comes back, but the other alternative is being encased by the peak or merged, I'm not sure which one would be best for a painless death. My other theory relies on time travel being a thing and I really don't like time travel but what if the peak was artificial and the greens took it from another time in the moon's history? again, I prefer to think the peak is somehow warping to another place, perhaps even to another universe? You weren't near the entrance of the peak for us to know for sure, sadly. But anyway what is up with the chinese writing on the walls? I wonder what happened to the astronaut suits the hosts wore, because they must be somewhere. The body can decay and be consumed by the greens but there has to be evidence of the bodies in the first place, and If i am not mistaken the material they use is not too ecofriendly. Oh and talking about ecologic things, why did that moon have a breathable atmosphere? from my understanding, it must have bacteria that realizes the conversion of whatever compound is in the air and transform it into something similar enough to earth to not have lethal consequences. Oh god did you get checked, please tell me you went through all types of medical checks we don't know what is the impact of the experiences you had in your body you could be developing a cancer from all that radiation in the black hole (yeah tunguskite was absorbing it but do you know how much radiation those things produce) and we are not even going to start on the PTSD you could have.

Taylor: wha- how did you get my address? Are you wearing my stuff?

[starklyscifi]

All The Wants Pass You By

Blake Gray had never been so glad to be outside in his life. An irrational feeling, of course, with the faceplate of his helmet between him and the lifeless atmosphere. It was no different from standing inside the windowless habitation unit.

The dark, dusty moon rocks looked the same on the hi-def monitor.

“It’s a delight to be outside, right?��� Ryn’s voice crackled over the radio.

Blake couldn’t help the smile breaking over his face. From this angle, he could see the rays of sun breaking over the curve of the moon—a speed bump on their path to the stars filling the sky.

“Enough gawking, we’ve got a job to do,” Richard said, bounding past the two of them. “Get a move on.”

Blake winked at Ryn, who smirked and took off towards the mining rig. The industrial monstrosity looked like a replica of the same strip mining rigs that used to litter the desert back on Earth. Nevada had gotten prettier, the dark of the Moon uglier. And he had a job, so a fair enough trade off.

Probably.

“Coffee’s brewing you all, get a move on y’all,” came Rachel’s rich Southern accent, floating through the radio from the safety of the habitat. Rachel had to be the only astronaut to hate spacewalks.

Although, he reminded himself, gripping the bars of the rig and pulling himself up, he was not an astronaut. For a moment, at the top of the ladder, he floated. Pure and weightless. And then his mag boots connected to the surface of the rig, and he was pulled back to gravity with a thunk.

A miner.

“Blake, get up here.”

No, worse than that.

“Found the problem,” Richard said, standing to the side of the main control panel. If he hadn’t been in a bulky spacesuit, his arms would have been crossed.

Blake sighed, pulling a wrench carefully from the bag strapped to his suit, the one floating on an invisible breeze.

“Careful,” Ryn breathed over his shoulder.

“Thought I’d poke a hole in my suit and cause some drama,” Blake retorted. “Life’s been a little dull.”

“Dull is a luxury.”

Blake glanced at Richard, but Ryn’s headlamp was shining off his faceplate.

The main control panel for the rig had shut itself down two hours because of a catastrophic failure, though it declined to specify. So suit up and tramp all the way out here it was. Blake fiddle with the settings after pulling the panel cover off and nearly losing a bolt to the one third gravity.

“Don’t—”

He never heard the explosion, but he felt it rumble through his body, rattle through his bones.

There was a rush of stars circling past his sight. A thud when his back hit the deck, and the sudden inability to breathe.

There was a cool breeze on his skin. And an alarm slowly bled into his conscious.

Blake struggled to sit up, pain exploding across his ribs. The panel was still sparking, whatever short that had caused the initial failure continued to make its presence known.

And not another soul in sight. He groaned, the flying leap through the thin atmosphere must have knocked out the AI sensor on his helmet. He struggled to pull the tiny roll of duct tape from a pocket on his sleeve. The temporary patch slipped as soon as he got up, sending the alarm squawking again about the lack of oxygen. He clumsily slapped more tape to the rip, and the alarm became a dull warning.

Blake made it back into the habitation module, just barely. His vision was blurring, and he had trouble making out the rocks in front of him.

It was several hours before he got around to alerting mission command back on the ground. He lost a chunk of time curled up on the floor after peeling off his spacesuit. He knew the rig damage was going to go on his performance evaluation and he didn’t want to contact mission control if it was something that by some miracle he could fix it himself.

It wasn’t.

A ding from the kitchen alerted him that his coffee was ready. He poured himself a cup and sealed himself for the upcoming conversation. He missed Rachel’s soothing Southern drawl—even if she was a simulation meant only to help keep him sane on the dark side of the moon and the accent was fake.

Her coffee tasted better too.

He rubbed his eyes, setting the mug to the side of the computer, and initiated a call to mission control.

They were not, as he imagined, happy to hear about the rig malfunction.

“And you still don’t know what caused it?”

“No, ma’am, the panel blew before I could get a good look.”

“Is any other equipment damage?”

Blake hesitated. “My main suit, I’ll have to make do with the spare.”

He was fairly certain the spare didn’t fit him, but he’d figure something out.

“Anything else?”

“Uh, damage to the AI sensor.”

The usual pause.

“Our systems show you still green.”

“No, the normalcy filter.”

Another pause, this one longer than the time it took for his message to relay the millions of miles back to Earth.

“Ok, we’ll get diagnostics on it, but if it was catastrophic failure to the sensor, you’ll need a brand new one.”

The silence pressed in, bring back that feeling of claustrophobia in the suit he thought he’d gotten over. The moon was as welcoming as it had been the day he’s been plunked on the surface and handed a user manual for the rig.

“When can I get a replacement?”

There was no answer.

Only his reflection staring back at him from a dark screen.

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[lokigodofaces]

Okay people, time to talk about how Asgard makes no sense at all!

(I'm no astrophysicist or anything of the like, I just find all of that fascinating and therefore take the time to learn more about it. I can't go into the math or anything but I know the concepts of things).

Today we're talking about how gravity is so unbelievably inconsistent on Asgard and makes no sense!

Before we begin, let me define gravity. I know, you learned about it a million times in school, but there are things we forget about it. Gravity is a force that attracts objects with mass to each other. For example, the Earth has mass and therefore has a gravitational field pulling you to the core. You also have mass and have a gravitational field and are pulling the Earth towards you. But the Earth is much more massive than you, making your gravitational field basically negligible. Everything with mass has a gravitational field, and those interact with nearby objects. For example, there are gravitational interactions between you and the phone/computer/tablet you are reading this on.

The more mass something has, the stronger the gravitational field. That is why we stay on the surface, and why planets stay in orbit, and why black holes "suck" ("suck" is not a very good word to describe the process, but oh well) different objects in, and why galaxies hold together.

The center of gravity is created by two gravitational fields interacting. With you and the Earth, the center of gravity is almost exactly the exact center of the Earth. Not quite, but extremely close, because of how much more massive the Earth is. While objects with more similar mass have the center of gravity closer to the middle. For example, Charon, Pluto's moon, is about half the size or so of Pluto. The center of gravity between them is actually above the surface of Pluto. It's closer to Pluto than Charon, but their mass is so similar that they're actually both orbiting around a point in space.

Now that we have that out of the way, here we go under the cut because this is a massive post.

1) The planet's form makes absolutely no sense

Look at this!

What even is this? Asgard is a disk with an iceberg-esque part at the bottom and some land mass on the top. Which is problematic.

For one, gravity causes things to become spherical. Things, such as yourself, with lower mass don't have the gravity to become a sphere. This is why asteroids and some moons can have funky shapes.

Here are some asteroids. Ceres is the biggest asteroid and a dwarf planet, and it is almost spherical as you can see. The rest are a little funky. They don't have the mass, and therefore gravitational force, to be spherical.

Life evolves to live in the conditions it is in. We can't see ultraviolet light because our atmosphere blocks most of it. So why would we need that ability? Why would people that could see UV have a higher chance of surviving to reproduce? This is why we aren't ridiculously strong. We evolved to be able to work with what was needed. Which means we are suited for Earth's gravity. If it weren't for other factors like the suits, astronauts would be able to jump much higher on the moon because it is tiny compared to Earth, and our strength overcompensates.

If Asgard has low gravity, then it would make sense Asgardians would evolve for a low gravity environment. Which means they wouldn't become super strong. If anything, they could have serious spinal problems on Earth because of our gravity, assuming they didn't immediately collapse. And, um, that is not the case in Marvel. The opposite is true.

2) Inconsistent gravity is confusing

So, gravity is what keeps us on the ground, right? Well, that doesn't always seem to be the case on Asgard.

Not to mention the water constantly spilling off (also not astronomy related but where is that water coming from? And why does that water just disappear?).

Even if Loki was about as far as he could be from the center of gravity while being on the planet, even if Asgard has extremely low gravity and they showed it to us, this would still make no sense. Gravity should be strong enough to keep him on the planet.

And if it wasn't? Should've not been strong enough everywhere else on the planet. No one should be able to stay on the planet. It shouldn't be strong enough to have an atmosphere.

While with its shape Asgard would have unequal gravity, it shouldn't be this unequal. And, if gravity were weak enough for Loki to fall off, it should've been weak enough that he would've floated off rather than fallen off. Same with Thor. And Odin. And Heimdall. And literally everyone else to ever be on the bifrost. No one should be able to stand on the bifrost, everyone should float off into orbit. But that clearly doesn't happen because Asgard's gravity makes no sense.

3) 2+ nearby wormholes

There are at least two nearby natural wormholes.

We have a wormhole taking you from Asgard to Sanctuary and a wormhole taking you from Sakaar to Asgard. I am not including the bifrost, because while Selvig and Jane called it an Einstein-Rosen bridge (sciency way of saying wormhole), the bifrost is artificial, and not naturally occurring. Right now I am focusing on the naturally occurring wormholes. Also, we don't know if these are two way wormholes are blackhole whitehole pairs. Basically, the theory is that some wormholes could allow travel from both ends, kind of like the Nether Portal in Minecraft, and others are a one way ticket, with a blackhole on one end and whitehole (ejects mass instead of taking mass in) on the other. We've only seen these work one way, so they could be partially whiteholes.

So there are a few problems with all of this.

Blackholes distort light.

The top image is from Hubble. Do you see the circular-ness the photo is focused on? That is from a blackhole distorting light. The second is an illustration and not from Hubble so it's less reliable, but this is a more noticeable example. Basically, light has particles called photons, and blackholes absorb mass.

As you can see in the gif, stuff orbits around blackholes and slowly gets closer and closer to the event horizon. Once you get past the event horizon, there is no turning back. Light can't escape, which is why these are blackholes. Photons are distorted like this, which means that the light produced by nearby stars and reflected by nearby celestial objects is distorted, making them look off.

In other words, Asgard's light should be...interesting.

Another thing, Asgard should be orbiting around one of these blackholes to die eventually. Unless there's a bigger one, I would guess the Sakaarian wormhole if it were two way. If not, it'd orbit around the Sanctuary wormhole.

Having two next to each other would do crazy things to Asgard's gravity. The Sanctuary one would constantly be pulling Asgard towards it, and if the Sakaarian wasn't a whitehole, it would constantly be pulling Asgard and the Sanctuary wormhole towards it.

This is something I don't know as much about, but if the Sakaarian wormhole is a whitehole on Asgard's end, I would not be surprised if there were consequences. Lots of mass being ejected into the nearby space might have consequences, though this mass might be coming in subatomic forms and not be too harmful.

(Also Sakaar should've been torn apart by the wormhole leading to Asgard and possibly others. I'm just saying. This is an Asgard post but we gotta agree that Sakaar is also messed up).

Except that none of this is true apparently.

4) There is no way Loki should've survived.

When Loki fell into the wormhole he had two options: die a quick death or die a very quick death. Wormholes are awesome. Awesome in the biblical sense of the world. Which means they are utterly terrifying.

Quick Death: Loki should have been spaghettified (and also Asgard...and the Asgardians...but I'll let that slide since apparently Asgard has secret amazing gravity). Spaghettification happens as you get closer to a singularity and let me tell you, it is absolutely terrifying. It is my greatest irrational fear (irrational in that it will never happen to me). Basically the gravity of blackholes (and by extent wormholes) literally tears molecules apart. It starts with stretching the person/object out to make them long and thin, like spaghetti. A person would die during this first stage because our organs cannot handle this. And soon the body/object would fall apart on an atomic level.

Very Quick Death: Upon passing the event horizon (point of no return), Loki would go through a massive wall of fire, burning him to death and he would be spaghetiffied almost instantly.

So...yeah...how is he not dead?

5) Even if Loki could survive, he shouldn't have made it to Sanctuary

There are theories on how to make viable wormholes. I don't remember exactly how, but there are theories on how to allow someone to pass without being spaghetiffied or burnt to a crisp. But then there's the problem of it being impossible to reach the other side.

Basically the "pathway" between the two ends of a wormhole is infinitely small. In other words, Loki couldn't fit through it, and would therefore die. There are theories on how to counteract that problem, but the odds of a wormhole naturally forming like this are low. So, Loki should've died even if he got past the singularity on the way to Sanctuary.

6) Also there's the bifrost.

The bifrost is artificial. The problems about travelling through wormholes (spagettification, fire wall, infinitely small tunnel, etc) aren't there because Asgard built it as a way of travel. And since it was repaired by the Tesseract in between Avengers and Dark World, it might be a product of the Tesseract anyway.

With artificial devices explained by fictional science/technology/magic, I'm not as picky. It's science I don't understand because that's not science from this universe. But I do have questions about the bifrost. I don't fully understand how it could've destroyed Jotunheim. My thought was that it absorbed Jotunheim like a blackhole, but we don't see debris coming over to Asgard. How is it turned on and off? What consequences were there when it was destroyed? Is gravity all of the sudden strange when it turns on? I do like that it looks like people are pulled into the bifrost when it turns on, makes it more wormholey. But how did Hela knock Thor and Loki out of the bifrost?

I tend to forgive all of that because it's a fictional device. Just like how I forgive the gravity/blackhole bomb things the dark elves had. Those are clearly artificial and since we have theories on how those are possible I let it slide (though I find it interesting how the blackholes evaporate (that's the term for the death of a blackhole)). I actually headcanon the dark elves used gravitonium to create these devices. Gravitonium is an element introduced in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that has interesting gravitational abilities. It is 100% fictional, so I let a lot of it slide. But gravitonium is supposed to be a heavy element, meaning it wasn't created in the solar system, it was created by a supernova, so it has to exist elsewhere in the universe. Why not on Svartalfheim? But that's just me (there are actually lots of connections between TDW and AoS, specifically connections between Loki and AoS). But fictional devices are that: fictional. Whereas blackholes and wormholes are very real. Blackholes are confirmed to exist, and wormholes are theoretical with lots of evidence (Einstein created a list of formulas describing how the universe works, and wormholes work in these formulas. But that doesn't mean wormholes exist currently, have existed in the past, or ever will exist, we just know they're theoretically possible.). So I can be more picky about those.

Of course, I can watch these movies and still be entertained. I love these movies. But I'm a nerd that has to overanalyze everything and I specifically like space, and thus this post was born because Asgard makes no sense.

[365days365movies]

May 6, 2021: The Martian (2015) (Recap: Part Two)

Man, this movie’s pretty great so far.

It’s holding up to what I remember from the book, which I also really enjoyed. I highly recommend the audiobook, by the way. 100% you should check that out.

Anyway, back to it! Here’s Part One for you!

Recap (2/2)

The airlock EXPLODES due to a hole and decompression. Not only is his suit kinda fucked, but the farm in the Hab is ruined. All of the crops die, cutting down his time to 606 days, long before a mission will reach them with supplies. Time is now far shorter than it should be. But despite this, NASA and JPL get together to get a probe to Mark sooner rather than later.

Mark manages to fix the Hab, but he’s now pretty fucked indeed. It’s also considerably expensive and dangerous to launch a new probe. But Teddy decides to forego safety inspections for it in order to expediate the process. Which is not a good idea, but still what they’re doing. And amidst all of that, we meet Rich Purnell (Donald Glover), an astrodynamicist that works at JPL, who comes up with a breakthrough. I’m sure we’ll get back to him later.

I hope it’s good, because the rocket launch goes QUITE poorly, as the probe, called Iris, explodes in mid-air, destroying hope for support to Mark. And this means, well...Mark’s done. He’s basically resigned himself to death on the desolate red planet. He writes a letter to Lewis about this, asking him to go to his parents after he dies, and give them a very heartfelt goodbye message. It’s heartbreaking.

Now, we go to China, where scientists for the China National Space Administration Zhu Tao (Chen Shu) and Guo Ming (Eddy Ko) secretly plot to get booster rockets to the Americans in order to help them make another probe in order to Mark.

Rich, meanwhile, makes his way to Kapoor and proposes a plan to save Mark: by getting the Hermes BACK to Mars. The Hermes is the pick-up ship that the Ares III crew is currently on, heading back to Mars. Rich suggests using Earth’s gravity to essentially slingshot the ship BACK to Mars to pick-up Mark. However, Teddy completely rejects the idea, as it poses considerable risk to the Ares III astronauts. And Mitch is PISSED. And right after, the instructions are somehow leaked to the crew, putting the decision in their hands. And they agree to do it, unanimously and without question, despite the technical mutiny as well as the extra time in space.

It’s pretty obvious that it’s Mitch who leaked the plans and caused this, leading to Teddy firing him AFTER this dangerous mission is completed. The plan set in motion, the two separate teams work on two separate planets in order to plan this maneuver successfully. The astronauts on Hermes tell their families of their extended stay in space, and the Iris is planned for launch and interception with the ship. And all of that is a rousing success. And now...now for the hard part.

After over a year on Mars, Mark’s been through a hell of a lot of shit. Now visibly thinner and sporting a beard, Watney gets into the Rover to make his way to the Schiaparelli crater, where he’ll use the Ares IV mission launcher to meet up with the Hermes in space. He notes that, as Mars is legally international waters and he’s stealing a ship outside of express legal orders, making him a space pirate. Which is badass, and I love it so much. Mark AKA Captain Blondebeard, takes the 90-day journey to the crater.

On Earth, we now face a different issue: how to get Mark onto the Hermes from Mars. The Hermes can’t enter Mars’ orbit and still get back home. Which means that Mark’s gonna have to meet them in the ship (called the MAV) above Mars’ orbit. However, to do that, they need to strip the MAV of parts to make it faster, and this includes the controls, and the entire front of the ship. Yeah. Terrible option, but the only one they have. And so, despite Mark’s understandable hesitation, they move forward with the plan to strip the ship and remove all of its parts.

The Hermes crew also prepares, as the plan is to essentially catch Watney in mid-orbit. And on Earth, the entire world is watching as the day arrives. It’s a big moment, and a scary one at that. Before the leaves, Watney shaves, and he boards the ship. As the MAV launches into orbit, with nothing between Watney and space but a canvas tarp, Watney begins to cry in fear and happiness for leaving the planet. But in the launch, the tarp flies off, and while the ship launches into space, Watney passes out in the process, due to the increased Gs. But the Hermes is too far away to grab him, leading to Commander Lewis to use boosters to get to the MAV, at some risk.

Intercept distance is fixed, but the speed is now a problem. Lewis now makes a MASSIVE risk: purposefully breach the ship to create enough explosive decompression to launch the ship in the right direction to get them better aligned and lessen the problem of velocity. This will also allow Beck to use a tether to grab Mark on the outside. Despite this being an ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE idea, Vogel makes a bomb to cause the decompression. As Beck sets it, Johanssen kisses his helmet, which is cute.

But it’s still not enough, and they won’t be close enough to grab Mark at this velocity. Lewis gets in her own suit, and replaces Beck so as not to lose another crew member. The bomb blows, an the propulsion of the escaping internal atmosphere pushes the ship to get to the right speed to get to Mark. Lewis is hooked up to a tether, and propels down towards the AV. But STILL, it isn’t close enough! So, Mark breaches his suit in his hands, and uses the escaping atmosphere to blast himself forward like Iron Man. And despite a near miss...

It works! IT FUCKING WORKS! And I knew it would, but GODDAMN!!! This is a beautiful reunion! I and the world celebrate Mark’s rescue, and it’s genuinely tearjerking for me. My God, this is fantastic. After 560 days...Mark is finally going home. And from there, on Earth five years later, a now-recovered Mark teaches astronaut candidates about how to survive in space, were they ever to wind up in the same situation that he’s in. And let’s be honest, he’s uniquely qualified for this position. The Ares V mission is about to launch, with Martinez on board. The Chinese scientists, also working with NASA officially now, watch on.

Lewis and Vogel watch on with their families; Johanssen and Beck watch as Johanssen gives birth to their first child together; Teddy, Vincent, Annie, and Mindy watch on from NASA, as Bruce and Rich (working with them now) also celebrate the successful launch at JPL. And Watney...Watney’s alive.

...This movie got snubbed, huh?

I’ll look into what it lost against...in the Review! See you there!

[highkey-lowkey-as-hell]

Watt martian au? Tell me more

!!!!! okay SO

so it was very very important to me that the finale squad be the ares 3 crew because i just needed that to be a thing so

lewis - cairo

martinez - reese

vogel - annleigh

beck - kate

johanssen - eva

watney - mattie

so mattie is, unfortunately, the one who gets stranded on mars

and then for the other four

mitch henderson - riley

venkat kapoor - chess

annie montrose - farrah

mindy park - clark

SO

cairo is the commander of the ares 3 mission, and she's also the geologist

reese pilots the mdv (how they get from the hermes down to mars), the mav (how they get from mars back to the hermes), and i think the hermes (which is the ship that takes them to and from mars, it's really big and expensive so there's only one that's used for the entire ares program)

annleigh is the chemist and astrodynamicist

eva is the computer expert

kate is the flight surgeon and eva specialist (eva stands for extra-vehicular activity, or anything done outside of an earth atmosphere)

mattie is the botanist and engineer

riley is the head of astronaut corps

chess is the manager of the entire ares program

farrah is in charge of nasa's pr

clark works in satellite imaging and he's the one who figures out that mattie is alive

(also they refer to the astronauts with their last names because nasa so technically i should be saying adekoya, roberts, o'daniel, sanchez, dalton, and wheeler, but no♥️)

the mission i think was around 200 days to mars, and then reese piloted the mdv down to the surface, where all their stuff for the mission was there in advance. in the first few days, they set up the hab (base of operations, where they live, etc), the solar panels, and checked out the mav - the ship that was sent in advance and would bring them back to hermes

on sol (mars days are called sols and they're about forty minutes longer than earth days) 6, the mission was hit with a huge sandstorm - the mission was designed to withstand up to 150 km per hour winds, and the storm was 175 km per hour, so yeah, that was very very BAD. the problem wasn't whether the hab would pop - the problem was that the mav couldn't stand up to that much wind for that long. so houston gave the order to abort and they all suited up and went out in the storm to try and get to the mav. halfway there, mattie was struck by debris (the satellite dish) and the antenna went right through her bio-monitor, showing all her vitals as 0. cairo refused to stop looking, but the mav began to tip and she had to get back, and they left for the hermes, believing mattie to be dead.

SURPRISE!! mattie is not, in fact, dead!

the antenna also ripped a hole in her, but the angle at which she landed and also the blood created a weak seal, so her suit was okay. she stayed passed out while the co2 filters were expended, the suit backfilled with nitrogen, and then eventually the oxygen alarm went off because the suit had to backfill with pure oxygen, and the concentration was about 85% which is very bad. she got up, got back to the hab, fixed her wound, and began to figure out what the fuck to do.

the primary comm system was in the satellite dish, which, as mentioned, definitely wasn't functional. the secondary and tertiary comm systems were in the mav, which the rest of the crew took up to the hermes, so clearly those were gone too, so mattie has no way to get in contact with earth or hermes. and in the case of an abort, hermes would only stay in orbit for 24 hours, so by the time mattie could fix the satellite, they'd be long gone.

the surface mission was only for 31 sols, but for redundancy, nasa sent 56 sols worth of food. since they got 6 sols into their mission, mattie has 50 sols of food for 6 people. since she's only one person, she has 300 sols of food, which if she rationed it, would stretch to 400 sols. except she has four years before ares 4 is supposed to launch, and 400 sols of food won't reach there. but!

the surface mission was during thanksgiving, so nasa's psychologists were like "hey, maybe they should cook a meal together for bonding" and so mattie has twelve non freeze dried potatoes. and! she's a BOTANIST! and because of that, she has some stuff for plant experiments - some earth soil! the only problem with mars soil is that it doesn't have the bacteria that is needed for plants, but mattie can mix her soil with mars soil in the hab and have enough to farm a bunch of potatoes. potatoes plus vitamins can help stretch her food supply!

so she grows potatoes. except water is a problem. so she figures she can make water using liquid oxygen, and then gets hydrogen from leftover hydrazine fuel, by running the hydrazine over an iridium catalyst and separating the nitrogen and hydrogen, and then burning the hydrogen and oxygen to make water. except she miscalculated and accidentally filled the hab with hydrogen and made a bomb. so she burned the hydrogen off little by little, forgot to calculate the oxygen she was breathing, blew herself up, and then tried again and eventually fixed her hydrogen problem. so after a lot of effort, she had a way to make water for the potatoes.

the whole time, she's been bored as hell because she left her own entertainment usb stick on the hermes, to focus on the mission, but now she's super bored, so she rifles through the other crewmembers' stuff and finds medical journals in kate's stuff (nerd), nothing in reese's stuff, annleigh's stuff is in german, agatha christie novels in eva's stuff, and disco music and 70s tv in cairo's stuff. so she's losing her mind listening to SO MUCH DISCO.

back on earth, chess is begging the director of nasa, teddy sanders, for some satellite time to take pictures of the ares 3 site, because she figures that since they aborted so early, there's still almost an entire mission up there and she might be able to get funding for an ares 6 mission, she just needs pictures of what the site looks like and the damage from the storm. teddy keeps denying the request because nasa is a public domain organization and has to release all the photos they take within 24 hours, and teddy doesn't want astronaut wheeler's body on the front page of every newspaper in america. eventually, chess convinces him to give her the satellite time, and clark is assigned to take her pictures. when he does, he notices that the solar panels are clean, one of the rovers has been moved, the mdv has been disassembled (mattie needed the hydrazine), and he can't find mattie's body. so he calls chess and they realize shit, mattie is alive. farrah, being the pr manager, is tasked with telling the world that mattie wheeler is alive, which is a disaster, and they work on getting in contact with mattie. riley says "shit, we have to tell the crew" but teddy and chess veto it, because the crew still has ten months of space travel ahead of them, and they need to focus on their mission. riley is pissed, but there's nothing she can do.

in the meantime, mattie figures that in four years, she needs to be at the schiaparelli crater, where ares 4 will land, which is really far away from acidalia planetia, where ares 3 is. so she needs to drive like 3400 kilometers to schiaparelli. as a test, she modifies the rover and spends three weeks driving 1500 kilometers to the site of pathfinder, a 1996 probe that nasa lost contact with in 1997. she gets pathfinder, brings it back to the hab, gets it working, and nasa realizes what she's doing and sets up the old pathfinder computers. mattie hacks the rover, and BAM, she can talk to nasa!

since she has her potatoes, that stretches her food supply a bunch, which gives nasa time to hopefully build a probe to send her supplies to help her last until ares 4 arrives. now that there's a viable rescue plan, riley is cleared to tell the crew.

back on the hermes, eva just got the data dump and she's dispatching personal emails to everyone's laptops when she notices a video file for all of them, and cairo calls the whole crew to come watch. it's riley, saying that mattie is alive and they're going to try to rescue her. mattie stresses that it wasn't the crew's fault every time it comes up. annleigh, reese, kate, and eva are all thrilled that mattie is alive, but cairo is devastated that they left her behind.

mattie has been using airlock 1 every time she leaves the hab, just because that's the one she uses, but the constant use has put a lot of wear and tear on the seams and one day, it's too much and as she's in the airlock, the hab pops, blasting her about 100 meters away, still in the airlock. her faceplate gets cracked, and after 24 hours in the airlock, she manages to fix it, but it's super leaky and it'll only last 4 minutes. so she rolls the airlock back to the hab, goes back in, manages to have just enough time to grab reese's suit's helmet and patch kit, and then escapes to the rover. she gets back in contact with nasa, says she's okay, and fixes the hab, but being exposed to mars's atmosphere killed all her crops, shortening her food supply significantly. so the probe nasa is going to send needs to be a whole lot faster.

nasa builds iris in about 46 days, but they have to cancel inspections to save some time, and the launch fails, and they don't have another booster, so mattie is totally fucked.

nasa's psychologists have mattie write emails to each member of her crew, just in case she doesn't make it, which is becoming more and more likely. the emails (summarized):

to reese: if i die, you need to be the one to talk to my parents. they'll wanna hear about mars. it won't be easy, i know, but i'm asking you to do it, because you're my best friend.

to eva: you're a nerd. seriously, i had to do so much computer stuff to connect pathfinder to the rover and how the hell can you stand it oh my god, you're such a nerd.

to annleigh: chemistry is boring, i hate it. also you are a chemist with a base on mars, you're some sort of mad scientist supervillain.

to kate: okay so i don't have to follow mission rules anymore so: dude... you gotta tell eva how you feel or you'll regret it.

to cairo: it wasn't your fault, okay? you did the right thing, you saved everybody else. don't blame yourself. also why the FUCK do you like disco so goddamn much???????

so it turns out that china actually has a booster that isn't public knowledge, so if nasa could build another probe, china could supply the booster. they agree to it, in exchange that the ares 5 crew will have a chinese astronaut. an astrodynamicist named rich purnell realizes that it would be so much more likely to succeed if they sent the hermes back to mars, so he plots a course that could have china's booster, the taiyang shen, resupply the hermes, and then the hermes would go back to mars, do a flyby, and mattie would meet them in space using the ares 4 mav. the problem is there's only one booster, so they can either build iris 2, which has a high chance of killing one person, or do the rich purnell maneuver, which has a low chance of killing six people. teddy decides to go with iris 2, but riley is furious and disagrees and secretly sends the ares 3 crew the instructions for the rich purnell maneuver.

on the ship, annleigh has a personal email from her family that has a jpeg attachment she can't get open, so she goes and finds eva, who realizes it isn't a jpeg, it's a plain ascii file. annleigh recognizes it as a maneuver for the hermes and explains it to the whole crew. cairo says that if they were to do this, which is something that nasa expressly rejected, it would be mutiny, so it isn't her decision to make. they all have to unanimously agree. obviously, all of them immediately agree to go back and save mattie.

riley gets in trouble with teddy for sending the maneuver, but she has no regrets.

nasa tells mattie the plan for the flyby, and she's cool with it - after all, she already had a plan to drive to schiaparelli eventually.

nasa launches the taiyang shen, and it goes perfectly, resupplying the hermes as expected.

back on mars, mattie is modifying the rovers for the trip to schiaparelli. part of this involves drilling a hole in the roof of rover 1, so that she can fit the life support machines she needs in it during the trip. she accidentally leans the drill against a table, and accidentally sends 9000 milliamps through pathfinder's system, which is designed for 100 milliamps, and totally fries it so she can't talk to nasa anymore, which is bad. she decides to proceed with the plan as intended, and once she gets to the ares 4 mav, she'll be able to talk to nasa again.

back on the hermes, reese complains that the cooling system by her room isn't working, and it's basically trying to cook her every night. mattie's room next to hers has the exact same problem. so she's been sleeping in airlock 2, but that's very dangerous for very obvious reasons. so cairo says "okay, you can sleep in kate's room, and kate can sleep with eva." kate apparently took mattie's email to heart, and they've been trying to be subtle, but it's a pretty small ship and everyone knows they're together. cairo says she doesn't care, since this is already a pretty crazy mission, as long as it doesn't mess with their duties.

back on mars, mattie begins her 100 sol drive to schiaparelli. the problem: there's a dust storm, and her rover is powered by solar panels. it's not as violent as the one that forced them to abort the mission, it's just a huge cloud of dust she can get stuck in. but she manages to figure out how to get around the storm and continues on her merry way to the schiaparelli crater.

when she reaches schiaparelli and begins to descend into the crater, her rover hits a soft spot on the ramp and flips over. she's fine, and it doesn't take too long to fix, so eventually she continues on.

and now she has reached schiaparelli!!!! she gets back in contact with nasa through the mav, and nasa lets the hermes and mav talk directly - not a call, just emails back and forth, but they get to have a conversation and the hermes is so close to earth at this point that they're only a couple light-seconds away, so there's barely any delay.

problem: normally, the hermes would orbit mars for 31 sols and then the mav would bring the crew to low mars orbit and dock with the hermes, but the flyby won't let the hermes go into orbit, so mattie has to basically gut the mav to make it light enough to get up into space entirely. part of that involves removing the entire front of the ship, and the control panels, so mattie won't control the ship - reese will pilot it remotely. everything is good to go, and they're ready for launch.

the day of the rescue comes, and because mars and earth are 12 light-minutes apart, if the ares crew asked a question, it would take 24 minutes to get a response, so they're entirely on their own with no help from nasa. the plan is for reese to fly the ship, eva sysops the ascent, and kate literally has to go out in space, catch the mav, and bring mattie back while annleigh is their backup. reese launches the ship, and mattie had to cover the hole with hab canvas, which rips in the ascent and throws mattie off course. they're 68 kilometers apart, which is way too far. they use the attitude adjusters to get closer to the mav, but then they're going 42 meters per second, which is way too fast. to slow down,,,,, cairo has annleigh build a bomb and they blow a hole in the vehicular airlock, which helps them slow down enough that kate can catch mattie.

kate goes out, gets mattie out of the ship, and annleigh reels them in. cairo reports six crew safely aboard, and there's worldwide celebration.

kate brings mattie back to the medbay and bandages her ribs, and it ends with mattie sitting in the medbay, sore, exhausted, starving, vision blurry from acceleration sickness, and so goddamn happy that she's going to live. she reflects a bit on how many people came together to save her life, and how that's basic human nature, and she's just really glad to be on her way back to earth.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

We Deserve a Soft Landing, Love

Genre: wlw sci-fi

Words: 4.6k

Summary: An astronaut on the International Space Station gets a transmission from a girl on a dying ship.

They talk as the radiation increases.

Content Warning: death

2036

Astronauts really weren’t supposed to be alone. Not at the space station, it wasn’t made to run that way, three permanent residence were assigned at all times, and they were rarely alone.

But mistakes happen. A gash the size of her forearm down his side, perfectly round red droplets hanging in the air like ping-pong balls in suspended animation. A face as ashen as the grave and yelling. They never yelled.

Sarah Reyes was chosen for her composed personality, composed in theory, less so in practice. She watched her coworker burst open and heard NASA ringing in her ear: what do you even do with a dead body in space?

But he wasn’t gone yet.

They pressed a template they never had before: cрочный спуск, the Soyuz computer sprang to life, emergency.

NASA kept ringing in her ears. Some young women named Janet was talking to her now and she was talking back.

Rod wasn’t going to make the journey if he went back alone. His eyes were barely open and red blooming droplets still swam around the room like liquid party balloons, Sarah never liked the word helpless.

She looked to Nikolai and told him to ‘get the fuck down there,’ someone needed to take the CRV shuttle down with him. Nikolai’s heavy-lidded eyes studied her, he pursed his lips, and she said it once more in Russian and then again in English.

They secured Rod’s bandage a second time, his fever-warm face a distant star on the horizon. She grabbed onto his hand and told them ‘to get the fuck down there.’

They pressed cрочный спуск, the shuttle launched down with Kazakhstan readying down below, God, they had to be ready.

And she was alone.

Astronauts were not supposed to be alone.

The quiet was just as engulfing as the urgency had been before. Janet had apparently gone to take a break and they were on the sun side of the planet. Sarah started counting. It would take them 3.5 minutes to get back to earth. It would take three days for a shuttle to come back to the station. It would take three hours for the shuttle to be attached to the docking port.

It would take some undisclosed amount of time for them to sort out the politics down below. Astronaut’s don’t just burst open. And Sarah was alone.

She continued as normal, there was nothing else to do, she had at the very least three days to herself, and there was cleaning to do. Maintenance, communication. It turned into four days.

She was talking to a young man named Ted on the telecom now and she was sort of starting to hate young men named Ted. Politics were messier than space and no one was even set up to relieve her yet. NASA was in some sort of limbo and Russia wasn’t talking. Sarah was alone.

It was the sixth day when the shuttle finally launched, a crew of three, Sarah had already forgotten their names, but she would have months to memorize them anyway.

She had turned off the intercom for that day, but didn’t notice the static until later when it started echoing off the hallways like a ghost. Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts, though. No self-respecting scientist believed in ghosts.

They were on the planet side of the sun, dark, alone, dumping heat back into the square hallways through the vents.

Sarah heard the first hush of static in her sleep, strapped down and frowning deeply as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt like she was getting tinnitus. For a moment she refused to wake up, she had to keep to her schedule, or else what the fuck else was she going to have up there.

The static breathed again, and her thoughts broke off and on in starts. Finally, she sat up, after all, they don’t know what to do with dead bodies in space. She ripped her sleeping mask off and cocked her head to the side.

Ssshhhhhh

She squirmed out of her restraints and floated to the side of the room, “It’s probably just Yulia messing with the frequencies planet side,” She muttered to herself mostly just to hear the sound her own raw voice in the dark, “Just Yulia…”

She pulled herself up and out and floated over to the communication bay while passing the wide yawning emptiness of the station. It could technically suit ten people, the size of a five-person house, but apparently, earth was still arguing. Two more days.

Sssshhhhhhh

She sighed and followed the noise; she really wasn’t in the mood for any system malfunctions. She tapped on the screen of the newly installed video chat. It sprang to life with the headquarters of NASA asking who she would like to get a hold of today.

Sarah blinked. But no one had been hailing her.

Sssshhhhhh

She looked around and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. None of the devices in the room were lighting up or winking at her. None of them were making any sounds at all. She scratched the back of her hand and accepted the fact that the noise really wasn’t coming from the central communication room.

Sarah turned around in meaningless circles and then left a message to the NASA night crew that there was a possible technical issue on the ISS. Two days before any crew was set to land, Sarah groaned, and it was just her.

She took deep breaths and pushed herself off toward what she could only assume was the source.

Ssssshhhh

She cringed as she crossed the "unity" room into the Russian side of the station, empty as a ghost town and twice as unnerving. But Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts.

Ssssshh-he-sssshh–ll-ssh-o

“Ah!” She clutched at her heart as something, a voice something, echoed off the halls. She took a deep rasping breath and turned in every which direction.

Ssh, hello? It came again.

Sarah’s mouth hung open and she found herself outside of a room that had been used as an old communication hub. It was a relic from a time back when they had separate ones instead of a “bubble of trust” in the center of the station.

Sarah cocked her head to the side and stared. One of the old radios that was attached to the wall and ingrained in the system was making a soft but distinct buzz. It was grey and had a panel of buttons and a microphone attached to a round speaker. Most of the old pre-2025 devices had been removed or repurposed but this one was intact and felt like she was reaching backward in time itself.

She frowned at it and she knew she should go report this. Houston would want to know one of the 2000 models was acting up.

Shhh-h–ssss

Sarah reached forward and her finger hovered in midair over the panel and her eyes glued to the intercom. There was something, a voice-something, bubbling underneath the static.

And, of course, she did believe in aliens.

Sarah pressed down on a feedback button and wet her lips, she leaned down toward the speaker, “Is someone there?”

She held her breath and watched the blinking red light of the transmitter in the dark center of the room. It had been repurposed several years ago to be another storage room.

She blinked, waited a full minute, and suddenly felt a little silly-- she should really be sleeping right now. Or reporting it. She watched the flickering red light and counted.

60 seconds, 180 seconds, 3 minutes, Sarah was about to take her finger off the feedback button when something responded back with clear articulation.

“Oh, thank God,” Sarah’s mouth fell open. It was a woman. She quickly bent over to reply, but the voice kept going, “Can you hear me? Is someone there? I am Lotte De Vos of the Argus, Landing Mission One, ESA. Can you hear me?”

Sarah gasped, “Oh my god--”

Lotte kept speaking quickly, “We have been pushed out off route and…Can anyone hear me?”

“Yes!” Sarah returned as soon as she found her voice again, perhaps yelling into the speaker a little too loudly, “We thought, I, are you safe? We thought the Argus was lost, what’s your status?”

Sarah did the math in her head, it would take four to five minutes for radio waves to transmit between Earth’s orbit and the Argus. The Jupiter moon’s mission.

“I can’t see our location, but I think I am stranded near the atmosphere of Jupiter, repeat I can see the troposphere…I don’t know where I am.”

“Argus,” Sarah rushed to speak, hoping they could balance out their conversation, “I am Sarah Reyes of the International Space Station, NASA, I can hear you loud and clear. What’s your status?”

She waited. Counting, 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, God, she needed to tell someone about this. But she heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“ISS?” Sarah exhaled as the woman responded, “Thank God, okay, this is Lotte De Vos, reporting again from the Argus. The…the life support system is sustaining itself it looks like but none of the ram’s are responding, I think we’re disconnected from the rockets.”

“Miss De Vos,” Sarah hunched over, “What is the status of the crew? How much oxygen do you have left? What…what happened?” She remembered reading about the Argus a week ago. About the radio silence on the other end of one of the most ambitious human-manned missions into their solar system.

One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four.

“I,” She heard the other astronaut falter, “I have the full amount of oxygen left that we carried with us for the return journey.” She paused and a hitch of static filled the air, “The crew is incapacitated.” The voice said flatly and without inflection, “We were hit with an unexpected projectile and pulled into Jupiter’s orbit, we didn’t calculate the full effect of the mass of the planet on our ship it seems,” She chuckled and it was one of the most surprising sounds Sarah had ever heard, “I guess we are still making scientific discoveries.”

“Do you have your satellite? Where is your telecom? We can--”

The delay continued to confuse their conversation, “--it’s acting like a black hole, we tried to fix the rockets to propel us back to the base on Io but there wasn’t enough power, everyone else,” The young women took a deep shaking breath, “They tried to get back to it without the ship. Some of our jets were still working for the suits.”

“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered.

“It didn’t work.”

Sarah waited, making sure Lotte was finished and the full four to five minutes had passed so Lotte could get Sarah’s message.

She heard another laugh on the other side, “We really need a better system than this. How about we say ‘over’ when we’re done talking?” Sarah’s shoulder’s tensed. The woman sounded so young. “Anyway, to answer your question, our telecom was damaged when the projectile thrust us off course, I just recently jury-rigged this device in order to be picked up on low frequencies.” Sarah nodded and Lotte took an audible breath, “Over.”

Sarah pressed her forehead up against the cool metal of the side-paneling; she cleared her throat, “Lotte,” she said quietly, “Do you need me to contact anyone?” It had taken that crew six years to get to Jupiter’s moons. “Over.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut.

She heard the next notes like a deflating balloon, “So you’ve figured it out too?” She said with a controlled tremor to her voice, “Well… I have a few people I would like to message if you could write it down. Over."

Sarah floated to the side of the makeshift storage room and found a pen and paper. She wrote down the woman’s mother’s name, her college professor’s email, and her ex-lover’s phone number.

“Do you want me too,” Sarah cringed, “uh, write down messages for them? For me to say to them. Over.”

She waited, she heard a sigh when the four minutes passed, “Just tell my mom I love her. That sort of thing. Tell the professor I wouldn’t be here without her, I mean, not here, in space, in a bad way, shit, actually don’t tell her that. Tell her that her intro classes are still making freshman wet themselves and I love it.” Sarah laughed.

“And the last one?” Sarah asked as she waited for Lotte to come back to her.

Lotte gave a snort, “Flip her off for me. Maybe subtly infer she’s been skipping arm day and is looking a little noodly. That would make my night. Over.”

Sarah chuckled deeply and it was hard for her to take it all in, she should be writing more down. She should be writing it all down. “You know,” Thoughts ran through Sarah’s head like a speeding stop-and-go traffic jam, “Are the rockets really not working? Because a simple continued jury-rig of the thrusters back to the navigation might, hmm, help.”

The response took longer than usual, “Don’t do this me.” Came the hushed reply, “I’ve tried, Sarah, don’t you think I’ve tried? Whoever you are, from wherever. Don’t do it.”

“Sarah Reyes.” She repeated slowly, blinking into the dark. “I’m from Minneapolis.”

Lotte hummed, “Oh…I’m from Belgium. Ghent. Nice to meet you.”

Sarah’s insides felt like they were turning all over the place, “I’ve been to Belgium, it’s very beautiful.”

“Not underwater yet?” The other girl joked, slightly off time due to the time lapse.

“They’re trying their best,” Sarah said with a sniff, “And they never invented a statute called ‘the Twinkie Law,’ so they did better than my city.”

She heard a strange groan from the other end of the line which made Sarah sit up straight, “I would honestly give anything right now for a twinkie. Anything.”

Sarah ended up laughing, “Alright, top ten food goos and then worst goos, go.”

Lotte made a choking sound, “Nooo, Sarah Reyes, all I want right now is some ripe cherries, a medium rare steak, fuck it, a rare steak, and ten twinkie’s, one for every finger. No goo.”

Sarah was snickering, “Well I want a nice hamburger and maybe a salad with ranch dressing. Kleenexes. Running water.” She smiled to herself, “And a proper toilet.”

The silver sound of a laugh came back from the other end, “Wrong answer! The whole reason I went to space was for suction toilets.”

“Oh no, no, no, come. On.” She said emphatically.

“What we all really need is at least one beer each.” Sarah snorted and Lotte bemoaned, “A margarita, two loggers, some vodka, good vodka, the kind the Russians would give to their moms.” Lotte lamented and Sarah shook her head.

“Why did you go to space then?” She asked fondly to the other end, “It’s the last dry county in humanities jurisdiction Dutch girl.”

Lotte huffed another laugh on the other end, “We’re getting personal now? Well, you first, why are you in space hurtling above the earth developing poor bone mass?”

Sarah let herself float up a little higher and used the next minute to think about her answer, she leaned toward the speaker, “Height.”

The five minutes passed and all that came back was a confused, “What?”

“I gain two and a half inches every time I come up here. Eventually, I figure I’ll hit five feet.”

A loud guffaw came back, “Taller! Of course, but what is that in human measurements?”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “Old habits. 6.3 centimeters and 1.5 meters, happy?”

“Woof,” Lotte barked back cheerily, “They really do bring them in smaller each year. Over.”

Sarah exhaled dramatically, “Back to you then Miss Lotte. How tall are you? And, I don’t know, what’s your favorite, hmm, tea?”

Two minutes, three, four.

“Tea? Boring. Do you know how close Jupiter’s atmosphere is to me right now? Ask me about my childhood nightmares and favorite sex position.” Sarah opened her mouth to respond with a dismissive sniff, but Lotte added quietly at the end, “…it’s mint by the way. Peppermint.”

Sarah smiled and she squeezed her eyes shut for a full minute, “Well, my childhood nightmare was Santa having literal claws and strangling me.” Sarah said good-humoredly as she drummed her fingers on her leg and counted the seconds.

“Is that your favorite position as well?”

“Lotte,” She said with a warning tone and considered turning back around toward the communication hub. The next five minutes left her contemplating if it was a crank call-- Houston did have some annoying interns.

“Strangling is perfectly natural, no need to be ashamed. I did it to my barbie dolls and everything.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “They really do send them up crazier each year.”

Lotte laughed and it was a strained sound with a tin undertone. Sarah pursed her lips together, “Sarah?” Lotte said, barely audible over the static this time.

“Yeah?” She waited.

“Can you see earth?”

Sarah’s shoulders slumped over and she nodded meaninglessly before taking her finger off the feedback button and floating back over to the observatory. Two hours had passed.

She looked out over a deep brown storm cloud over China, a few glowing tendrils of cities and roads, and the textured darkness of the earth side of the sun. She went back to the transmitter, “We’re over the Bahama’s. It’s blue right now, very, very blue.”

She heard the softest of sounds over the radio, “My haul is made of titanium.” Lotte said carefully, “But I’m not sure if the radio waves will be disturbed by the planet’s magnetic field.”

“Oh.” Sarah said back, squeezing her eyes shut, knowing Lotte was still talking.

“And then the radiation will begin anyway,” Lotte made something that was almost a laugh, “remember those numbers okay? Tell my mom. You know. Tell my teacher I wasn’t going to make it without her, but not in this way. And tell Karen to, you know, fuck off.”

“Wait,” Sarah said breathlessly.

“I’m about to be sucked into the atmosphere, wait a little for me, k? We can see if this mess of a radio might hold up. Just wait a little. Then go tell the world I went out fighting. Fighting aliens or a space octopus, tell them that there are definitely space octopuses and the Argus went down swinging.”

“Okay,” Sarah rasped, holding the button down until the tip of her finger bleached white. “Okay!” She racked her brain for what to say, what eulogy’s people ended with or final lasting sentiments that maybe meant something, “I’ll eat some twinkies for you. Ten. One for each finger.”

Sarah waited. Two minutes. Three minutes. Five. Sarah was shaking, this isn’t what she expected when she woke up that morning. The station orbited into the sun side of the planet. What was she even going to tell Houston? How do you start that report?

Sarah rubbed her stinging eyes, “I’ll put them on my fingers too. Eat them in some Dutch coffee shop and kick your ex in the shins.” She pushed her palms into her eye sockets, “Oh God, oh my God.”

Numbness ran up and down her legs and she floated away from the feedback button. She was still glad she didn’t believe in ghosts-- she really didn’t need this one.

She turned back to exit the room and float to somewhere far away and cold and curl up for a little bit.

Shhh–What’s up loser?!

Sarah jumped and turned around instantaneously, “Lotte?!” She jammed her finger on the transmission button.

“Can you hear me? I can’t see out my window right now, but the magnetism might not be messing with my radio as much as I thought. More discoveries for science, yay. Have them name a cockroach after me or something. Unless, of course, you can’t hear me and this is just, you know, the death chasm I’m speaking into--”

“I can hear you!” Sarah yelled as her finger cramped on the switch, the red light flared like a fog horn. “I can hear you, it’s still working!” She didn’t know why she was excited; this girl was entering into one of the most radioactive places in the solar system, Sarah kept her eyes on the speaker.

A tired exhale answered, “You waited after all.”

Sarah bit her lip, “Yeah. I waited.”

The four minutes felt excruciating, “I figure I have around forty-five minutes… Anyway, if you’re curious, it is incredibly hot. If I didn’t have any decency left I would be naked right now.”

Sarah sniffed, “No one can see you, you know. And I imagine it’s burning up.”

The next transmission was garbled, but she could still make it out, “Dying in the void of space is one thing, dying in the void of space butt-naked is another.”

Sarah couldn’t get herself to laugh this time, but she tried, “Well, I’ll tell everyone you were wearing a full suit of armor. Pearls. Evening gloves. The octopus didn’t stand a chance.”

Lotte made a soft sound, “That’s really all I ask, heels too, I miss heels. I felt tall, like one of those small dogs on top of tables? Or the fact you enjoy getting 5 centimeters taller in space?”

Sarah made an exasperated noise, “I don’t suppose you mock all the people you share last words with.”

Lotte gave a soft chuckle, “Just you darling.” A long pause followed and Sarah didn’t move to fill it; Lotte took her time with another slow hissing breath, “Tell me about something.”

Sarah blinked, “I have a collection of coins from the Ottoman empire.”

“Okay,” Lotte sounded faint, “Who was your first crush? Besides 16th century Sultans or something I mean. What was your first book? What's your favorite kiss? Come on,” Lotte snickered weakly, “I’m dying here.”

Sarah’s skin felt too tight, itching in the dark, “My crush was Martina Rodriquez. Fifth grade, she punched me in the face once after I told her that her that her nose was crooked. I learned to read when I was three so I don’t really remember the books, accelerated learning and all that. I learned to speak in full sentences when I was six. My first kiss was,” Sarah sighed, “Don’t laugh okay? In my college’s chemistry lab, age 23.” She said all of it quickly with pained breaths, time was measured in fours and fives.

A laugh came back from the other side of the universe anyway, “Chemistry lab? God, you’re the one giving astronauts a nerdy name.”

“Hey!”

“And it’s cute. You sound cute. I’m sure you’re very smart too, can probably name way too many numbers of pi.” She could, “I guess I was like that too…Why I’m up here.” Lotte trailed off.

“Why are you up here?” Seven minutes passed.

“I saw Cassiopeia one night… my grandpa told me they hung her upside down in the night sky to punish her. I fell in love,” Sarah clenched her jaw tight, “I guess you could say that’s how it happened. Love or whatever.”

“Lotte--” Sarah put her face next to the speaker.

“You know, I always thought this is what I wanted to do.” Lotte was faltering, “And it is.” She repeated with a slight hysteria and frantic-edge to her words, “I think it was always what I wanted to do. Always.” There came a pause and Sarah heard a strangled retching noise on the other side.

“Lotte!” She yelled into the intercom, “Lotte, are alright?”

It took a very long time before she got a response and then she was back to waiting, “Yeah,” A voice finally said hoarsely, “Just…puking. You know, when you get to see food goo all over again? That feeling.” Lotte sounded like she was trying to laugh, “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was this first kiss?” Lotte asked quietly before sniffing, “Was she cuter than me? I hope not… And then, what’s, what’s your favorite tea?”

Sarah squeezed her free hand closed, balling it up into a painful fist and digging her nails in, “No. She was a PhD. student and thought that Potato Poots was a good pet name. She…” Sarah snorted, “Wasn’t cuter than you, promise. My, my, favorite tea is Black tea. I used to drink it with my aunts.”

Two minutes. Three minutes. Six.

“Potato Poots? Take that back, that is a wonderful pet name and now I’m going to date this girl that was your first kiss,” Sarah chuckled, “Black tea is a good choice. The closest one to coffee. My brother owns a coffee shop,” Lotte was talking quickly now, “Visit him too. Tell him…I’m sorry. I’m sorry we fought so much, God, for everything.”

“Yes, yes, I mean--”

“Tell all of them I loved them. Dammit, even Karen, tell her to get her shit together. None of this…none of anything else. Nothing else matters.”

Sarah sighed and her entire body was shaking, “I can do that, yes. Lotte, we won’t forget.”

“That I died naked in the void of space?” Lotte returned back after seven minutes, “Because that’s a thing now.”

“Naked, fighting an octopus, right?” Sarah said with her face straining into a smile.

“Yeah.” Lotte was panting on the other end now, but her voice came through. “Who was your first love, Sarah?”

Sarah felt her mouth go dry, she hadn’t drunk anything in hours. Houston would be furious. “I’ve never been in love.” She whispered back, “I just wanted to do…this.” She flinched at the wording.

Lotte took eight minutes to respond, “Yeah?” She said breathlessly, “Well. Do that for me, k? Being in love is nice. It’s like this, except no one is riding into the next layer of Jupiter’s helium.”

Sarah gave a weak smile, “It’s like this?”

“It’s like this.” Wheezing, “Go do that for me.”

“How’re you feeling?” Sarah tried to get her to keep talking and Lotte told her that she threw up again. Sarah could hear audible strained audible breathing through the speaker, she was gasping.

“We weren’t really over the Bahama’s, were we?”

Sarah frowned and she looked toward where the window would be, “It was dark out, yeah. But the cities were bright. Like stars, we always liked stars, right? People like us.”

“People like us collect Ottoman coins and cover their hands in Twinkies Sarah.”

She smiled, “Good. I hear that’s what being in love is like.”

Lotte coughed, a deep gurgling sound that filled the air, “Sounds dumb.”

“It is.”

Sarah could hear her fading out, “Lotte? Lotte how’re you--”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck--” A sob shook the speaker.

“Lotte.”

“FUCK, I don’t want to die.”

“Wait, wait, no, it’s going to be okay.”

“Quick, tell me something nice to say, something good, God, GOD, I wish I had been good. I wish had been better.”

“Wait! Wait, no.”

“Sarah,” She could hear the crying now, the sickly wet tremor in her voice, “Sarah I can’t see anything. It’s so hot, oh my god, I can’t do this, SARAH-”

Sarah screamed back into the mic, “I’m here! I’m here! Wait!”

No sound came back from the other side, Sarah’s eyes went wide, and she counted up to a thousand. She couldn’t feel her teeth.

“One thousand and four, one thousand and five, Lotte? Lotte De Vos, can you hear me?” Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Sarah curled up into herself and pulled on her hair, her other finger still on the transmission button and the room bathed in the one red light, “Lotte," She blared, "Lotte!” It was a wretched, animalistic scream, but it wasn’t for the radio, it wasn’t for her.

She wished she believed in ghosts.

-----------------

Sarah Reyes went back to earth within the fortnight. She told them she wasn't feeling well. She told them about the Argus. They told her to take some time off, she told them she wasn't coming back.

Sarah went to Belgium, she gave a very nice older woman a hug, she got a lifetime’s promise of free coffee, and she looked at painting after painting done by people she realized were now dead. She smiled at the nice young woman across the street that sold flowers and she didn't say hi, but she did wave this time. It was a place to start. Lotte would have wanted something like that.

FIN

Hey! All my hours were cut at my job bc of coronavirus, if you enjoyed my writing please, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or becoming a patron I could really use the help!

[nalgenewhore]

A rogue storm had her presumed dead and stranded on the red planet. Left on her own, astronaut Aelin Galathynius has four years to make it to the next drop-site, some two thousand miles. Armed with her smarts and dwindling supplies, Aelin attempts to survive on an inhospitable planet, when the nearest help is only millions of miles away.

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

“Commander, Rukhin probe approaching.”

“Copy that, Major. Ready for docking.”

Elide had her headset on and was in the rec room, wearing Lorcan’s hoodie and a pair of his sweats,  anxiously watching out the window as he guided the probe into the docking station, tethered to the outside of the ship in his extravehicular - EVA - suit.

Everyone else was on the flight deck, but she wasn’t needed there. As she fiddled with her ring, her brows knitting together, she listened to Lorcan, “Probe has docked. Looking good, Major.”

“Roger that, Commander.” Fenrys’ voice was cool and smooth – this was really where he thrived. “And… docking is complete. Nice work everyone.”

There were a few quiet cheers and Elide let out a long breath, smiling softly and waving at Lorcan as he caught her gaze and bowed as best as he could in outer space. She giggled and pressed her hand to the glass, “We got it, guys.” Elide kept her eyes on him and she could make out two dimples on his cheeks - a smile just for her. 

Fenrys let loose a howl and soon, they were all joining in, their frayed nerves soothed by the success.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin was sitting on top of the modified rover-wagon. It looked like a Blackbeak caravan made of billion-dollar equipment. Her eyes found the teeny tiny camera in her helmet and she addressed it, speaking thoughtfully. “It’s now day four-sixty-one.” She nodded to the hill a few kilometres away, “The FAV’s just over that hill. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on my drive. Well, it was either that or panic about the decaying radioactive battery riding shotgun so…”

She trailed off, looking at the red sand hills. “There’s this treaty that says that no country can lay claim on any land that’s not on Earth. TNSB owns the hab, and these rovers. But the second I step out of either one, there’s this other treaty that states if you aren’t in any country’s territory, maritime land applies. Which means that Farnor is international waters.”

She hopped down, eyes roving over the load vehicles that carried all that was keeping her alive. The oxygenator, the atmosphere regulator, the water reclaimer, and hundreds of frozen cooked potatoes were all squared away. Aelin had never been this organized; Elide would be proud. “Now, I’m travelling from the Anascaul crater to Mistward.

“I’ve crossed international waters to commandeer a vehicle and no one explicitly gave me permission to do so, so technically, that makes me a pirate.”

A wicked grin split her face in two, “A space pirate.”

Eventually, the rover had charged and Aelin was back in the driver’s seat, steadily making her way over the last three kilometres. It was a weird feeling.

Everywhere she went, she was the first. Billions of years and now… Aelin. The only person who had ever been alone on a planet. She didn’t like to think of it too much, it caused her heart to grow with an ache she couldn’t place and winded her under the knowledge that she could very well never make it off the face of this earth. 

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Sartaq?”

The rocket scientist looked up at Gavriel, slightly grainy through the video call, “Oh, Gavriel. Hi.”

“Hi,” Gavriel answered him slowly, apprehensive. “Is everything alright?”

Sartaq and Manon, from her perch on the edge of his desk, exchanged a wary look before Sartaq answered, “We just want to start this off by saying you won’t like it.”

Gavriel really, really didn’t want to know. “…what is it? Manon?”

The white-haired woman looked uneasy and unnerved, “Well, thing is…” she trailed off as Luca popped into the frame, scaring Gavriel halfway to an early grave.

“Oh, hey, man! What’s popping?”

“Hello, Luca, how are you?” 

“I’m great, my guy, this RPL lab is pretty dope and I got to see my dads so that’s pretty sick – thanks for flying me out and everything.”

“Luca. The plan?” Manon prompted him, her exasperation clear. Gavriel was sure the only reason Luca was still alive was that Manon had found a new pet in him, as if that terrifying snake of hers – Abraxos – wasn’t enough.

“Right! Ok, so first things first, the FAV won’t have enough speed to zoom up to The Lani, you heard?” Sartaq, ever peaceful Sartaq, looked ready to strangle the boy. “Shit needs to be, like, a lot lighter. Five tonnes, to be exact.”

“You can do that?”

“‘T’s really not that complicado, I swear.” The astrodynamicist turned to the model of the FAV and began pulling things out, carelessly tossing them to the side. “We can get rid of five chairs, cause it’s just… Manon, what’s that chick’s name again?” He really didn’t mean any offence by it, he had a bad memory for names. It took him six months to remember Vaughan’s name and stop referring to him as ‘boss man’.

Manon just sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Aelin, Luca. Her name is Aelin.”

“Ooh, that do be kinda sick though,” was Luca’s response. “I can dig that.” He returned to the task at hand, “Then, the FAV is designed for five-hundred grams of Farnorian soil and rock samples, obviously, we won’t have that so we’re already speeding.”

Manon gave Gavriel a long-suffering look as Luca continued, “Then, we ditch life support, Aelin can just be in her heavy-duty suit-“

“EVA, Luca, we told you it’s EVA.”

“Whatever, she can be in it and we don’t need life support.”

Gavriel frowned, “How’s she going to fly the rocket if she’s in her EVA?”

“She won’t, Marama will remotely control it,” Manon told him bluntly.

“We’ve never had a remotely controlled manned ship before.” Luca’s face fell slightly and Gavriel hastily added, “but I’m excited for the opportunities… it presents.”

The boy’s face lit up again and he smiled, “Word, I feel you. This means we can get rid of the control panels and all that other stuff like telemetry, comms-“

“What. Remotely controlled with- with no backups?”

Manon nodded, “Yeah, we haven’t even got to the bad stuff.” Gavriel’s face paled and she turned to Luca, urging him on, “Go on, tell him.”

“We kinda… have to remove the nose airlock and the windows and the hull.”

The mission director choked, slamming his knee into the underside of his desk, “You want to send her into space without the front of her ship?” He addressed his words to Sartaq.

“The nose alone is four hundred grams.”

Gavriel stood up, spreading his arms, “You’re sending her into space without the front of her ship! A hole!”

“Mmm, not a hole, she can cover it with hab tarp.” Gavriel just hung his head in his hands as Sartaq continued, shooing Luca to the side, “The hull is really there to keep the air out, but Farnor’s atmosphere is so thin, she really won’t need that much streamlining.”

“You’re sending her into space under a tarp, Sartaq.”

“Yes.”

“There aren't any other options, are there?”

“Nope.”

“Who wants to tell her?”

Manon shook her head, “That’s all you, Gav.”

Gavriel scowled, accusing her, “I thought you were Flight and Crew Director, Ms. Blackbeak.”

She just shrugged, “Best get to it. Aelin’s not a patient woman.”

+*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin was staring out the front window of the rover with a blank look as she ate her daily portion of rations. “I know what they’re doing. I know what they’re doing. They keep telling me that I’ll ‘travel faster than any person in the history of space’, like it’s a good thing, like it’ll distract me from the fucking LUNACY OF THEIR IDEA!”

She thought hard, “They’re sending me into space in a gods-damned convertible. Actually, it’s worse, because my controls are in Fenrys Marama’s hands. Fucking idiot didn’t even have enough sense to knock up his girl after what was originally a nineteen-month mission.”

Scowling at the dash, Aelin added, “By the way, when describing things like speed and velocity, physicists don’t use the word ‘fast’, ok? They’re just saying it in the hopes that I’ll like how it sounds. ‘Fastest person in space travel’. Well, you know what?”

Aelin drank from her water bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “I do like it. I like it a lot, actually.”

With a heavy sigh, she shook her head and threw her hands up, “Alright, let’s do this.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin dropped the wrench on the floor of the hollowed-out FAV, an entertained gleam in her eyes. “Ok, that was really fun.” She looked up at the sky through the hole in the FAV, where the nose had once been, as if she would be able to spot The Lani, “I’m coming, guys. Wait for me, ok?”

Exhausted, Aelin carefully made her way down the hatch and hopped to the ground, walking slowly over to her caravan, ready for one last night.

+*+*+*+*+*+* 

The crew had been tense all day, jittery for the rescue. It had finally arrived and they were all in the flight deck as Lorcan read off the plans once more, “Faliq, you’ll SysOp the ascent, Marama – piloting The Lani. Lochan and Whitethorn, I want you at the airlock before she’s even begun countdown, got it?”

“Got it – I want her in the med bay immediately after intercept, she’ll probably be unconscious and may have internal bleeding.” There were so many other things she would need to be checked out for and Rowan had it all set up, every scenario planned out – even surgery.

Lorcan continued, “When we reach intercept, it’s on Whitethorn to get her. If anything, anything goes wrong, Lochan, you’re going out after them.”

“Copy that, Commander.”

“Alright. We ready?”

The only response was, “Yes, sir.”

“Roger that, crew. Let’s go get our girl, huh?” Big smiles were on everyone’s face as Fenrys and Lorcan let loose military whoops.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Manon slipped into the locked Mission Control, sliding into her seat beside Asterin and kissing her cousin’s brow as they prayed quickly. She snapped on her headset and reached for Asterin’s hand, holding tightly as she calmed herself and began flight, “Lani, this is Flight. You are good to go.”

Nesryn’s voice crackled through the comms, “Copy that, Flight. Lani is commencing de-acceleration… Engine alignment is perfect, fuel pressure green.”

The room let out a pent-up breath and Nesryn continued with her assessment, “Communications five by five…”

Lorcan spoke to Aelin, “About two minutes away, G-Money. How you feeling?” Everyone laughed at the nickname; it was beyond soothing for the stranded astronaut.

Her voice was broken and tight, “It’s good to hear your voice, Commander. Ready to get up to you guys.” Words failed her and she swallowed before continuing, “Thank you for coming back for me; I miss you.”

The crew chuckled tearfully and Lorcan answered her, “We miss you too, Ace. Remember, you’re facing twelve G’s, it’s ok if you pass out, yeah? You’re in Marama’s hands now.”

“Tell that dipshit no barrel-rolls.”

Lorcan’s laughter barked across the radios, “Scout’s honour. CAPCOM…”

Nesryn’s voice was filled with laughter, “Go.”

“Remote control…”

“Go,” said Fenrys.

“Recovery…”

Elide and Rowan answered simultaneously, “Go.”

And finally, “Pilot…”

“Go already, you bastard.”

“Copy that, Galathynius. Flight, this is Lani actual, we are go for launch and will proceed on schedule.” 

“Roger that, Lani. This is Flight, Mission control is a go, commencing in t-minus ten seconds,” Manon replied, utterly unashamed of the tears flowing down her cheeks. She reached over and turned on the timer controller, the countdown commencing.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Lorcan was overseeing the flight deck as they listened to the timer controller. “Marama?”

“Main engines start.”

“Copy. Faliq?”

“Clamps releasing… SysOps is a go.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin tensed in anticipation as the timer counted down and the crew began the plan. “See you in a few, Commander.”

The rocket blasted off and she was slammed back into her acceleration seat. The wind was knocked out of her, she couldn’t even gasp as the FAV launched with incredible force. The ship shook violently and she fought to remain conscious, her eyes fluttering shut.

The canvas ripped free of the hull and the comms picked up again, the crew’s words falling on deaf ears, Aelin was lost on them. “Velocity is seven-forty-one metres per second. Altitude one-three-five-oh…”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Lorcan shook his head, eyes flying over the screens, “That’s too low. Marama?”

“I know,” his voice tight as he struggled, “it’s fighting me—”

“Velocity eight-fifty, altitude one-eight-four three—”

Lorcan spoke into the radio, not daring to tear his eyes from the computer, “Galathynius? Galathynius do you copy?”

There was no answer and Nesryn said, “She’s still well below target.”

“How far?”

“Working on it… main shutdown in 3…2…1… Shutdown.”

Fenrys was fighting the controls, “Back to automatic guidance. Confirm shutdown.”

“Galathynius, do you read?”

Rowan’s voice came to life, “She just pulled twelve G’s on ascent, she’s probably passed out. Give her a few minutes, Flight Deck.”

“Copy that, Whitethorn.” Lorcan turned to Nesryn, “Faliq, what’s happening?”

The dark-haired woman took a moment to respond, “Intercept velocity will be eleven metres per second – Whitethorn?”

“I can make it work,” Rowan confirmed, determined.

“Roger, distance at intercept will be—” Nesryn went pale, feeling sick to her stomach. “We’ll be fifty-seven kilometres apart.”

Silence fell over the radios.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Rowan said, “did you say fifty-seven kilometres? Kilometres?”

“Gods save her…” Fenrys whispered, a horrified look twisting his face.

Lorcan’s voice brought everyone back, “Keep it together. Work the problem. We got any power in the FAV?”

“Negative, Commander. Ditched the boosters to make launch weight.”

“Then we go to her. Faliq, time to intercept?”

“Thirty-eight minutes, seventeen seconds.”

“What happens if we point all our thrusters in the same direction,” he asked. “Marama?”

Fenrys did calculations in his head, tilting his chin up as he took in the remaining fuel levels. “Depends on how much fuel we want to save for course adjustments on the flight home.”

“And you need how much?”

“Mmm, I can get by on twenty percent of what we have left.”

“Faliq?”

Nesryn was already working on it and answered Lorcan quickly, “Using seventy-five point five of what’s left, I can completely close the altitude gap—”

“Do it.”

“Hang on, the intercept velocity will be forty-two metres per second.”

It was too fast, Rowan wouldn’t be able to grab her. Lorcan would deal with that in thirty-nine minutes, then. “We’ll figure it out. Marama, burn the jets.”

The ship lurched as Fenrys followed commands and the jets burned, boosting them forward.

A small voice was heard over the radio and Lorcan caught the last part of it, “…fuck you, Farnor.”

“Galathynius?!”

“Affir… affirmative, Commander.”

“Status.”

“Ch… chest hurts. Breathing hurts,” it was her ribs. Aelin had been flung around the FAV during her ascent. “How, how are you?”

Of course, Aelin was still worried about them. “We’re good, Pilot. Working to get to you. There was a complication during launch.”

Her voice was so weak, it broke Lorcan’s heart. “Yeah, the… canvas didn’t… didn’t hold.”

“That checks out, Galathynius.”

“…bad is it?” The radios were weaving in and out.

“Intercept range is perfect. We’re working on intercept velocity, there’s a problem.”

“How big?”

“Forty-two metres big.” Aelin didn’t respond and Nesryn checked the comms, indicating they were still good to go. “Aelin?”

“You know,” she began, as if they were having a casual conversation, “I watched all the Marvel movies you brought. My favourite’s Iron Man, are you surprised? I could find something sharp in here and pierced my EVA’s glove, as a thruster. The source is on my arm, so I can direct.”

Lorcan blinked a few times, not sure he’d heard her correctly, “Um, I don’t see you having any control over that – you’d be eyeballing and using a barely-controlled thrust vector.”

“All good points but consider this: I would get to fly around like Iron Man.”

Fenrys just shook his and laughed quietly, “We should’ve left her on Farnor.”

“Um, you did leave me on Farnor and Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man.”

“Ace, just shut up for a second, Hellas.” Lorcan looked at the far wall, “Maybe it’s not the worst idea.”

Fenrys shot him a look, incredulous, “You know, it actually is. The worst idea possible.” The rest of the crew chorused their agreement – it was ludicrous.

“No, not her idea, but using atmosphere as thrust.” Lorcan’s eyes widened, “Elide, El, El, El.”

“Yes?”

“No, not actually you, Nes, pull up El’s station.”

“It’s up – what do you need?”

Lorcan crossed his arms and leaned against the control desk, “I need to know what would happen if we blew the VAL.”

“…the vehicular airlock?”

He shrugged, “Yeah, it’d give us a good kick.”

“And blow off the nose of our ship. And all the air would leave. We need air, Lorcan,” Elide reminded him, “to not die.” He’s a mechanical engineer, for gods’ sakes. Shouldn’t he know this? Elide thought.

“Seal the bridge and reactor room. Everything else becomes a vacuum.”

“It would get intercept velocity down to thirteen metres per second,” Nesryn said, seeing the logic of his idea.

“How do we open the airlock doors, though? We can’t control them remotely and if anyone’s near them when it blows…”

“Lochan?”

“Yes?”

“Take off your spacesuit.”

“…why.”

“I need you to build a bomb.”

Aelin’s voice cut in before Elide could reply, “Wait, bomb? You’re exploding things…without me?”

They ignored her as Elide asked, “Come again, L?”

“You’re a chemist and a fucking weirdo – no offence, babe – can you make a bomb with what we have onboard?”

“None taken,” she quipped, “I’m obligated to tell you that setting off an explosive device on a spacecraft is a terrible, terrible idea.”

“Copy. Can you do it?”

Elide thought for a few seconds, “Yeah, I can do it.”

“Good, get going. Faliq, meet Lochan in the rec room and transport the bomb to Whitethorn – I want you to meet Faliq at airlock and attach the bomb to the inner door of airlock one Then, make your way back to airlock two along the hull, copy?”

“Copy.”

“Perranth, be advised: we are going to deliberately breach the VAL to produce thrust.”

Before Mission Control could answer, Aelin piped up, “Commander, I can’t let you do this. You see, I’m selfish – all the memorials back home should be about me. I don’t need any of you losers ruining my rep.” She panted, “Call it off.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, if you want us to call it off, then I guess we have to- oh wait... wait a minute. Yep. I’m looking at my shoulder patch and it turns out I’m Commander. So shut up.”

“Fu...fucking smart ass.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Nesryn entered the rec room, spying Elide where she was pouring a bag of sugar into a beaker. “Bomb?”

“Yup.” Elide couldn’t speak much, she was pretty busy at the moment. She still managed to tell Nesryn about her project, “In a pure oxygen environment, it’ll release sixteen point seven million Joules for every kilo of sugar used. Eight times stronger than a stick of dynamite.”

“Neith above, you terrify me.”

Elide grinned evilly, looking like a mad scientist as she poured pure oxygen into the beaker and screwed the cap on, doing something with stripped copper wires. “She’s ready.” Elide carefully passed the bomb over to Nesryn, “Run this to the lighting panel, ok?”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

The bomb was set and everything was in place. They braced for the thrust as an explosion rocked the ship, sending them backwards.

As the ship stabilized, Fenrys, Nesryn, Elide, and Lorcan, scrambled back to their spots and Fenrys swore, “It’s still too far, three-hundred metres?”

“Oh, great,” Aelin commented, “I’ll just wave at you as I fly by.”

“Bridge seal is holding, Commander, first inspections reads minimal damage.”

“Copy that, Whitethorn, where are you?”

“I’m in airlock two, Commander, in the MMU and going for intercept on your command.” Rowan would have to go after her in the Manned Maneuvering Unit - MMU for short.

“Roger that, go recovery.” They were still too far, “Faliq, what’s our-“

“Lorcan. I’m doing it,” Aelin said, her voice hard. Before anyone knew what was happening, there came a hissing sound and Aelin soared through the FAV’s nose, one arm stretched towards them and the other behind her like Iron Man. She struggled to keep upright and kicked her legs.

“Shit, Faliq, current velocity?” They were all of the edges of their seats.

“Calculating… twelve metres per second… seven metres per second… five point two… three point one,” her heart was in her throat as she watched the rescue.

“Distance to target?”

“Ten metres.” 

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Rowan’s heart cracked as the distance was told, he could reach her, he could get to her. The tether was long enough.

She looked to him, those brilliant eyes of hers grounding him. Rowan angled the controls to her, jerking back in the MMU when the tether pulled taut. What, no no no. It was caught, it had to be caught, he was sure of it. “Fuck, fuck,” Elide was on her way to the airlock but she wouldn’t be able to help. She was still too far. “The tether, it’s caught on something - it’s caught.” 

He saw it in Aelin’s eyes as she heard him and she smiled at him. He hated the smile, soft and accepting. It was her goodbye. 

“It’s ok, Ro,” she said, acceptance in her words, “let me go.”

“No. No,” he shouted the word over and over, not believing it. “Aelin, no, you can’t do this-“

“It’s ok, Rowan. Let me go.”

“I’m not letting you go – we didn’t get any time-“ his breath hitched as tears grew in his chest, “I love you, you can’t let go.”

There was nothing anyone could do. Aelin had made up her mind.

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: hehe sowwy bubs 🥺👉👈

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[crayonurchin]

There’s an influential moment in Embers’ life that set him on a passionate, determined path towards his career in space engineering 

Ember’s always been obsessed with outer space, right from a little kid when he watched Wall-E. If it had stars, spacemen or aliens, he ate it right up. One of his favourite games was playing ‘moon landing’, which consisted of putting a plastic bowl on his head and having his Baba hold him under the arms so he could ‘space walk’ all over the bed, floor and tables. Baba also provided sound effects. It added to the atmosphere.

Leading to his 8th birthday, Solo mentioned they likely couldn’t do much, as they were low of funds. Ember was sad, but ultimately used to it by this point.

Come birthday day, one very loud awakening via party horn revealed SURPRISE, WE’RE GOING TO THE PLANETARIUM LIL DUDE!!! And you can get any one thing from the gift shop as your gift!

One hearty breakfast of birthday cake later, the two are at the Planetarium, where there’s a midday tour for kids and parents going on! Solo managed to let the guide know it’s Ember’s 8th birthday, and she makes sure he’s at the front, and it’s a whole 2 hours of nerdy, spacey, alien fun!

By the end of the tour, just before they head to the gift shop (where Solo KNOWS they sell kids astronaut costumes and has saved up just enough to buy it) Solo grabs the guide to thank her for helping them out in treating Ember.

It’s at that point they see him looking at a huge wall sized picture of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in their space suits, with the crew of the first moon landing all standing, smiling at the camera. But Ember has this dark, sad look on his face. Concerned, Solo goes over to see if he’s feeling okay.

“None of them are in wheelchairs.”

Solo blinks, unsure of how to respond to that. Before they think of anything, the tears start dripping down Embers face as his expression crumples.

“I’m never gonna be a spaceman, Baba...”

Panicking slightly, Solo tries to think of how to distract Ember or change his mind, and as they do, the tour guide comes over and kneels down to Embers’ level.

“Hey, that’s just a few people in that picture, birthday boy. Truth is, most astronauts ARE able-bodied, because there’s a lot in a spaceship that needs body work. But you know who ELSE got to go into space?”

She takes out her phone and gets up pictures of Houston, ground patrol, and various employees of Nasa in 1969

“All of these people got to go to space, because they’re the reason we can even GO into space. These are engineers, scientists, physicists, incredibly smart people who figured out how we can put our tiny, fragile bodies into metal boxes and throw them into outer space. They used maths to figure out gravity, radiation, black holes, and back then their computers were so old they couldn’t even run PacMan! But they STILL got the first humans on the moon, and they did right here on Earth!  Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be so advanced, we could make spaceships that let wheelchairs move on the moon. But right now, we need people to make those changes possible- we need the astronauts on Earth. People like you, Birthday Boy.”

Ember was utterly mesmerised by her, and smiled when she smiled. Solo was IMMENSELY perplexed by what just happened, but was just relieved Ember seemed to have cheered up. He wheeled himself back to his Baba so they could go to the gift shop. Solo started over to the costumes, but Ember called them back, instead holding up two items, GIGANTIC puppy eyes.

“Baba, please please PLEASE can I get two things instead of one?”

He was holding a Nasa stamped calculator and a Nasa stamped pen and book set.

Solo, who’d worked A LOT of overtime to afford the costume, tried a couple times to convince him that “errrr well wouldn’t you rather the suuuuper cool fancy spaceman suit buddy?” but changed their tune quick when they saw just how badly Ember wanted these cheap things. Deciding ‘screw it, now we can buy ice cream on the walk home’, Ember left the planetarium in silence, head down at his lap, writing his times tables in the book with the calculator helping him out.

He stopped ONLY to take licks of his giant scoop of strawberry ice-cream.

[spaceexp]

Nine Reasons We’re Grateful to Live on Earth

NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) logo. April 21, 2020 Earth can sometimes feel like the last place you’d want to be. Indeed, a number of explorers have devised inventive ways to move civilization off this planet.

Image above: Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA shared this sunrise panorama taken from his vantage point aboard the International Space Station, writing, "Morning over the Atlantic...this one will hang on my wall." Image Credit: NASA. It’s no surprise: The promise of a better life in the mysterious beyond can be seductive. But the fact is the more we learn about out there the more we realize how special it is here. The first astronauts to look from space back at Earth, a “pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known,” as scientist Carl Sagan once wrote, saw a beautiful, delicate world that is perfectly suited to the bounty of life it supports. “When I looked up and saw the Earth coming up on this very stark, beat up lunar horizon, an Earth that was the only color that we could see, a very fragile looking Earth, a very delicate looking Earth, I was immediately almost overcome by the thought that here we came all this way to the Moon, and yet the most significant thing we’re seeing is our own home planet, the Earth,” said William Anders, a crew member on Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to the Moon.   On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, we reflect on nine reasons Earth is the best place to live:

Image above: This mosaic was assembled in 2018 from dozens of images taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity rover. In the image, you're looking uphill at Mount Sharp, which is in the middle of Gale Crater on Mars. The scene has been white-balanced so the colors of the rock materials resemble how they would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. 1. We can take deep, cleansing breaths Known as the Red Planet because of the rust particles in its soil that give it a reddish hue, Mars has always fascinated the human mind. What would it be like to live on this not-so-distant world, many have wondered? One day, astronauts will find out. But we know already that living there would require some major adjustments. No longer would we be able to take long, deep breaths of nitrogen- and oxygen-rich air while a gentle spring breeze grazes the skin. Without a spacesuit providing essential life support, humans would have to inhale carbon dioxide, a toxic gas we typically exhale as a waste product. On top of that, the thin Martian atmosphere (100 times thinner than Earth’s) and lack of a global magnetic field would leave us vulnerable to harmful radiation that damages cells and DNA; the low gravity (38% of Earth’s) would weaken our bones. Besides the hardships our bodies would endure, it would simply be less fun to live on Mars. Summer trips to the beach? Forget them. On Mars, there’s plenty of sand, but not a single swimming hole, much less a lake or ocean, and the average temperature is around minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 63 degrees Celsius). Even the hardiest humans would find the Martian climate to be a drag. —Staci Tiedeken, planetary science outreach coordinator, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Animation above: This animated gif was made using images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which saw this X-class solar flare on Sept. 6, 2017. X-class flares are the strongest of all rating classes, releasing the energy equivalent of a billion hydrogen bombs. Animation Credits: NASA/GSFC/SDO. 2. There’s solid ground to stand on Earth has grassy fields, rugged mountains and icy glaciers. But to live on the Sun, we’d have to kiss all solid ground goodbye. The Sun is a giant ball of plasma, or super-heated gas. If you tried to stand on the Sun’s visible surface, called the photosphere, you’d fall right through, about 205,000 miles (330,000 kilometers) until you reached a layer of plasma so compressed, it’s as thick as water. But you wouldn’t float, because you’d be crushed by the pressure there: 4.5 million times stronger than the deepest point in the ocean. Get ready for a quick descent, too. The Sun’s gravity is 28 times stronger than Earth’s. Thus, a 170-pound (77-kilogram) adult on Earth would weigh an extra 4,590 pounds (2,245 kilograms) at the Sun. That would feel like wearing an SUV on your back! If a person managed to hover in the photosphere, though, it might get a little warm. The temperature there is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 Celsius), about five to 10 times hotter than lava — yet, not nearly the hottest temperature on the Sun. Don’t worry, though, there would be a break of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,600 degrees Celsius) if you stumbled on a sunspot, which is a “cool” region formed by intense magnetic fields. These conditions would have even the most intrepid adventurers longing for the comforts of home. —Miles Hatfield, science writer, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Mysterious Planet

Video above: By studying Venus, scientists could learn a great deal more about exoplanets, as well as the past, present and possible future of our own planet. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. 3. The seasons go round and round Since the beginning of recorded history, people have tracked and celebrated nature’s transition from the desolate days of winter, to the brilliant radiance of spring, to the endless days of summer, and so on. Seasons come from a planet’s tilt on its axis (Earth’s is 23.5 degrees), which tips each hemisphere either toward or away from the heat of the Sun throughout the year. Venus, barely tilted on its axis, has no seasons, though there are hints that it may have once looked and behaved much like Earth, including having oceans covering its rocky surface. But these days, our neighboring planet has an atmosphere so thick (55 times denser than Earth’s) it helps keep Venus at a searing 900 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius) year round — that’s hotter than the hottest home oven. This oppressive atmosphere also blots out the sky, making it impossible to stargaze from the surface. But Venus isn’t all bad. Despite the low quality of life, there is one benefit of living there: The Venusian year (225 Earth days) is shorter than its day (243 Earth days). That means you can celebrate your birthday every day on Venus! —Lonnie Shekhtman, science writer, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Massive Black Hole Shreds Passing Star

Video above: This artist’s rendering illustrates a star getting shredded by a black hole. When a star wanders too close to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip the star apart. In these events, called “tidal disruptions,” some of the stellar debris is flung outward at high speed while the rest falls toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last for a few years. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer, and ESA/NASA’s XMM-Newton collected different pieces of this astronomical puzzle in a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-14li, which was found in an optical search by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in November 2014. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. 4. Its gravity doesn’t turn us into noodles Capturing the imaginations of scientists and sci-fi writers alike, black holes are extremely compact objects that do not let any light escape. The surface of a black hole is an area called the “event horizon,” a boundary beyond which nothing can ever return. Even if we were fortunate enough to have a spaceship that could travel to a relatively nearby black hole, its gravity is so strong that approaching too close would stretch and compress the spacecraft and everyone inside it into a noodle shape — a fate scientists call “spaghettification.” Making matters even weirder, time ticks by more slowly around a black hole. To someone watching from far away as a spaceship fell into the event horizon, the vehicle would appear to slow down more the closer it got — and never quite get there. Fortunately, there are no known black holes in the vicinity of Earth or anywhere in the solar system, so we’re safe for now. And we’re lucky that Earth has just the right amount of gravity — enough so we don’t go flying away, but not so much that we can’t stand up and run around. If you still think traveling to a black hole would be a good idea, check out this black hole safety video. —Elizabeth Landau, writer, NASA Headquarters.

Image above: An image of Jupiter. Image Credits: NASA/JPLCaltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill. 5. We can enjoy a pleasant breeze Jupiter’s breathtaking swirls of colorful cloud bands might make this planet an appealing vacation destination … for skydivers. They’d need to bring along their own oxygen, since Jupiter’s atmosphere is made mostly of hydrogen and helium (same as our Sun), with clouds of mostly ammonia. Descending through Jupiter’s clouds is for the most extreme thrill seekers. Given the planet’s strong gravity and super-fast rotation on its axis compared to Earth (10 hours vs. 24 hours), a skydiver would tumble 2.5 times faster than they would on Earth, while getting knocked around by winds raging between 270 and 425 miles per hour (430 to 680 kilometers per hour). Jupiter’s winds make Earth’s highest category hurricane feel like a breeze, and its lightning strikes are up to 1,000 times more powerful than ours. Even if a skydiver does make it through the hundreds of miles, or kilometers, of atmosphere, plus crushing air pressure and extreme heat, it’s not clear they’ll reach a solid surface. Scientist don’t know yet whether Jupiter, a giant planet that can fit 1,300 Earths inside of it, has a solid core. Having solid ground to stand is starting to sound like a luxury. —Staci Tiedeken, planetary science outreach coordinator, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Image above: Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system, is seen in this 1997 image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Image Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. 6. It’s a sparkling globe of blue, white and green In places where ocean tides are highest on Earth, the difference between low and high tide is about 50 feet (15 meters). Compare that to Io. This moon of Jupiter is caught in a tug-of-war between the planet’s massive gravity and the pulling of two neighboring moons, Europa and Ganymede. These forces cause Io's surface to regularly bulge up and down by as much as 330 feet (100 meters) — and we’re talking about rock, not water. All this motion has consequences: Io’s interior is very hot, making this moon the most volcanically active world in the solar system. Io, which from space looks like a moldy cheese pizza, has hundreds of volcanoes. Some erupt lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometers) high. Between all the lava, a thin sulfur dioxide atmosphere and intense radiation from nearby Jupiter, Io doesn’t offer much of a beach vacation for humans. —Bill Dunford, writer and web producer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image above: This artist's concept of a lake at the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan illustrates raised rims and rampart-like features, such as those seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft around the moon's Winnipeg Lacus. Image Credits: Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. 7. It’s got clear skies, sunny days and water we can swim in If there is one place in the universe we know of that could compete with Earth as a home for humans, Titan is it. This satellite of Saturn is the second largest moon in our solar system after Ganymede. Titan is in some ways the most similar world to ours that we have found. Its thick atmosphere would remind us of home, though the air pressure there is slightly higher than Earth's. The atmosphere would defend humans against harmful radiation. Like Earth, Titan also has clouds, rain, lakes and rivers, and even a subsurface ocean of salty water. Even the moon’s terrain and landscape look eerily similar to some parts of Earth. While Titan sounds promising, it has major flaws. Chief among them is oxygen — there isn’t any in the atmosphere. And those lovely rivers and lakes? They’re made of liquid methane. So don’t pack your bathing suit just yet; our bodies are denser than the methane, so they’d sink like boulders. Another thing you’d miss on Titan is seeing the Sun above your head, dazzling against an azure sky. Not only is Titan much farther from the Sun than is Earth, its hazy atmosphere dims the sunlight, making daytime appear like twilight on Earth. —Lonnie Shekhtman, science writer, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Image above: Made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s, this processed color view is one of the best images Earthlings have of Jupiter’s moon Europa. This little moon may be the best place in our solar system to look for life beyond Earth.Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI  Institute. 8. Dry land exists! And the entire world isn’t smothered beneath miles of ice Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of the best places to search for life beyond Earth. It may harbor more liquid water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Just picture yourself standing on a warm, sandy beach, admiring the sunlight glimmering on an ocean that reaches from horizon to horizon. And then prepare to be disappointed. Europa’s ocean is global. It has no beach. No shore. Only ocean, all the way around. Sunlight doesn’t glimmer on the water and there are no waves because Europa’s ocean is hidden beneath miles — perhaps tens of miles — of ice that encases the entire moon. Europa is also tidally locked, meaning if a person stood on its Jupiter-facing side (like our Moon, one hemisphere always faces its parent planet), the solar system’s largest planet would loom overhead and never set. A sublime setting for a romantic stroll? No. Europa has a practically nonexistent atmosphere and brutally cold temperatures ranging from about minus 210 to minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 134 to minus 223 degrees Celsius). A spacesuit might help with the temperature and pressure, but it can’t protect against those pesky atomic particles captured in Jupiter’s magnetic field, endlessly lashing Europa with such energy that they can blast apart molecules and ionize atoms. Europa’s ionizing radiation would damage or destroy cells in the human body, leading to radiation sickness. —Jay R. Thompson, writer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image above: Kepler-7b (right), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (left), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. The cloud map was produced using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes. Image Credits: NASA/JPL. 9. Cream puff clouds that come and go With more than 4,000 planets discovered so far outside our solar system, called “exoplanets,” we don’t know of any that offers the comforts of Earthly living — and many would be downright nightmares. Take Kepler-7b, for example, a gas giant with roughly the same density as foam board. That means it could actually float in a bathtub (fun fact: so could Saturn). Like other exoplanets called “hot Jupiters,” this one is really close to its star — a “year,” one orbit, takes just five Earth days. One side always faces the star, just like one side of the Moon always faces Earth. That means it’s always hot and light on one half of this planet; on the other, night never ends. If you’re bummed out by cloudy days on Earth, consider that one side of Kepler-7b always has thick, unmoving clouds, and those clouds may even be made of evaporated rock and iron. And at more than 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (1,356 Celsius), Kepler-7b would be a real roaster to visit, especially on the dayside. It’s amazing to learn about how different exoplanets can be from Earth, but we’re glad we don’t live on Kepler-7b. —Kristen Walbolt, digital and social media producer/strategist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Wanderers - A short film by Erik Wernquist

Wanderers

Film above: Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available. Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds - and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there. As some may notice I have borrowed ideas and concepts from science fiction authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, just to name a few. And visually, I of course owe many tips of my hat to painter Chesley Bonestell - the legendary master of space art. More directly, with kind permission from Ann Druyan I have also borrowed the voice of astronomer and author Carl Sagan to narrate the film. The audio I used are excerpts from his own reading of his book 'Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space' (1994, Random House) - needless to say, a huge inspiration for this film. Film Credits: VISUALS BY - Erik Wernquist - erik@erikwernquist.com MUSIC BY - Cristian Sandquist - cristiansandquist@mac.com WRITTEN AND NARRATED BY - Carl Sagan - from his book 'Pale Blue Dot' http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/boo..., courtesy of Ann Druyan, copyright by Democritus Properties, LLC, with all rights reserved COLOR GRADE BY - Caj Müller/Beckholmen Film - caj@beckholmenfilm.se LIVE ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY BY - Mikael Hall/Vidiotism - mikael@vidiotism.com LIVE ACTION PERFORMANCE BY - Anna Nerman, Camilla Hammarström, Hanna Mellin VOCALIST - Nina Fylkegård - nina@ladystardust.se THANK YOU - Johan Persson, Calle Herdenberg, Micke Lindgren, Satrio J. Studt, Tomas Axelsson, Christian Lundqvist, Micke Lindell, Sigfrid Söderberg, Fredrik Strage, Johan Antoni, Henrik Johansson, Michael Uvnäs, Hanna Mellin THIS FILM WAS MADE WITH USE OF PHOTOS AND TEXTURES FROM: NASA/JPL, NASA/CICLOPS, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, ESA, John Van Vliet, Björn Jonsson (and many others, of which I unfortunately do not know the names). Related links: Solar System: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/index.html Exoplanets: https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-search-for-life Universe: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/index.html Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/home/index.html Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Film (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Svetlana Shekhtman/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

[babeyvenus]

Revival(BNHA OC)

Chapter 4: Something Bad's About To Happen

Keeping herself hidden from her villainous father, and studying to be a hero for the sake of her and her deceased mother, Sunako Homura pushes her way through countless challenges in her highschool years. Will she lose it all, or lose herself?

Story Genre: Fluff, Angst, Romance, Family/Comfort

Tags/Trigger Warnings: Gore/Blood, Suicidal attempts, Alcohol, Language, Panic Attacks

_______________________________________________

Everyone was silent, but looked at me with wide eyes.

"I KNEW IT! I knew you had to be something!", the smaller boy yelled, pointing at me.

"Something....?", I asked, sweatdropping.

"You're a girl....?", Kaminari asked surprised.

"Why are you wearing the male uniform?", Midoriya asked.

"Because, I've learned to hate skirts and dresses and frilly, unnecessary things like that.", I explain.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with what you like. If you don't like skirts and dresses, trust me, I don't either, but it's nothing wrong with that.", Jirou said.

I gave her a small smile. "Thanks."

"Well, why did you come dressing up as a guy in the first place...?", Kirishima asked.

I sighed, rubbing behind my neck. “Its...confidential. Let’s just say, I have Daddy Issues.”

I looked at everyone and some of them looked concerned, some of them even looked shocked.

Everyone got up at the sound of the lunch bell and Mina gave me a look as if to tell me, 'we'll talk about this later.'

I started to follow the rest of the girls until I got pulled back by Bakugou.

"Somehow you cease to surprise me so far.", he says with a glare.

"Should I take that as a bad thing?", I ask.

"Damn straight.", he says, letting me go and walks out.

I sighed and left for the cafeteria too.

As I got something from the vending machine, I thought back to everyone's faces.

I didn't mean to make them feel down... What a good way to start the year…

Right about the time I was gonna go see Mina, the alarm went off and panic rang out in the cafeteria.

What now....?

I headed out toward the exit, which led me to be practically drowning in a crowd of panicked teenagers.

It wasn’t long before I found myself partially pinned against a wall and being jerked around.

Right before I was gonna explode on someone's ass for thrashing me, I felt someone grab my arm and pull me hard through the crowd to a less dense area.

"You okay?", a familiar redhead asks.

He blocked me against the wall in a protective gesture, grunting every time someone bumped into him.

"Do you know what's going on?", I asked throughout all the yelling.

"It's just the press! Someone must've gotten in!", he yells.

I nodded. No wonder.

Iida somehow managed to get everyone to calm down and stop moving.

"Its over with....", I say. Kirishima backs away with a smile. "Yeah. Have you eaten yet?"

I shrug. "Just a bit before all the commotion." That made him frown a little. "Well a bit won't do. Gotta eat before training. Let's go.", he says, leading me to the cafeteria.

After the commotion with the press, I started to get a bad feeling...

"Hey, Kirishima....", I say walking behind him.

"Yeah?", he answered, looking back at me.

"What if it was actually a real villain using the press as a cover-up to get in...?"

He rubbed behind his neck. "Nah, I don't think they'd let us walk around if that happened."

"I guess so. I just got this weird feeling something's gonna happen.", I say. "Well don't jinx it", he jokes.

A few days later, we were assigned to go to USJ for a training exercise.

"Line up accordingly to your class seats. Fill them up in an orderly fashion." Iida waved in a weird way.

"Dude, chill.", I say. This class rep role is really serious to him...

He turned to the inside of the bus, much to his disappointment. "No...! It's that type!"

We all looked inside the bus and snickered at his disappointment. The front part of the bus had seats on both sides of it facing each other like two sofas.

I sat next to Kaminari as everyone else followed through.

I tuned in and out as Mina, Tsuyu, Kirishima, and Midoriya started talking about their quirks.

"I generally say what's on my mind, though... Midoriya," Tsuyu announces, making us all look at her.

"Your quirk reminds me of All Might.", she says and he flinches. Huh...now that I think about it...

"Now, hold on Tsu.", Kirishima says. "All Might doesn't get hurt by his quirk."

"Yeah, that's right.", Midoriya says.

"You got a flashy quirk, Midoriya. Mine on the other hand," Kirishima raises his arm and hardens it. "Not so much."

"Aw, don't say that Kiri. It's plenty useful. I like it because it makes you seem unbreakable!", I say with a smile.

He gives me a wide sharp tooth grin. Guess he's over the issue from yesterday.

"Now if you wanna talk flashy,", he points toward Bakugou and Todoroki. "Those guys are the best bet.", he turns to me. "I've yet to see your full quirk, Homura."

I looked out the window. "And it's gonna stay that way."

"Aw, c'mon! I wanna see how you work it.", he muses.

"Yeah!", Kaminari cheers on the side of me.

I shook my head fast. "Nope!"

"Well Bakugou could never be popular, not with that temper of his.", Tsuyu chimes in.

"What the fuck!? I'll kick your ass!", Bakugou yells.

"See?", she says pointing and making me laugh.

"Well, it makes sense. We just met you and we can already tell you got the personality of burned trash filled with sewage.", Kaminari says.

"Oh wow.", I snickered.

"Fuck you! I'm gonna make your life a living hell, you little shit!!", Bakugou yells, scaring Jirou.

"Bakugou, calm down!", I say laughing.

"I'll give you something to laugh at, you Spawn!", he threatens.

We all laughed until the bus came to a stop.

We stopped right in front of the USJ as Aizawa-sensei started to speak.

"This is a different part of training. Rescue.", he looked at all of us. "It's nothing serious compared to real natural disasters, just scenarios of what could happen. Uh, 13 explain."

Uraraka and Midoriya gasp in astonishment. "13....!"

The short astronaut suit came walking up to us. "Hey, you guys! 14, 15, 18, 19....21! Okay! So, welcome USJ!"

"In our super powered society, the use of quirks are heavily restricted and monitored. It may seem that our system is a stable one, but we must never forget that it takes only one wrong move and someone's dead.", he says.

With that, he led us inside.

"Holy crap, this is like an amusement park!", Kirishima exclaimed.

"As you may know, my power is Black Hole. I can suck up anything and it turns into dust.", 13 explains. "Just like your quirks, they do not exist to hurt people."

I grimaced. "Don't worry about it, Sunako.", I hear Tomohiro say, turning my head to see him by my side. “You’ve been quiet for a while.”, I say, making him chuckle.

"With that being said, be careful and have fun!"

Aizawa-sensei looked at us. "Alright, go in there and-"

I shivered. I got a bad feeling....

"Uh...is this part of the practice....?", Kirishima asks looking down, making everyone do the same.

"Villains...!", 13 yelled. I looked down to see multiple portals opening, giving a passageway to let them in.

I saw Aizawa pull out his goggles and put them over his head.

"Aizawa-sensei, you're gonna attack!? What about your quirk limit!?", Midoriya asks.

"A hero always has more than one trick up their sleeve. Huddle up and stay back! 13, protect the kids!", Aizawa yells, putting on his goggles and launches into action.

I looked down at a certain figure who stayed by the purple portal. He had hands all over him and even on his face.

"What's his problem....?", I whispered. "They're here for something. Keep your guard up.", Tomohiro says.

"We, the Villains Alliance, have only come for one person. The symbol of peace.", the blue haired figure said. "I wonder if he'll come if we just....kill these kids..."

"These guys are idiots...", I said.

Aizawa jumped to the villains and fought like they weren't nothing.

"We gotta go!!", Kaminari yelled.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that."

I got a shiver again as a black purple mist appeared in front of us.

I knew something was gonna happen...

"I am Kurogiri...I apologize for the short notice. We took it upon ourselves to enter UA, the base of heroes."

We all stare up at the mist hearing the voice. "Was Mr. All Might not able to attend...?"

It moved and sighed. "That aside, this is my role.", I looked up to see Kirishima and Bakugou rushing toward the mist and attacked it.

"Bet you didn't expect us to do you in before you got the chance!", Kirishima exclaims.

"To be expected. The hero world's golden eggs."

"Run you two!", 13 shouts as the mist expanded and surrounded us.

I got pushed back and lit my hand on fire to see. What did we get ourselves into...!?

"Demon Brat!!", I heard Bakugou's voice and saw him reaching for me. I reached for him but ended up transporting somewhere.

I woke up in front of the Ruins Zone to hear chuckles behind me.

"Fresh meat....", countless villains muttered.

My eyebrow twitched in annoyance. I bared my fangs, changing my form into an Oni.

"If anyone's meat, it's you idiots. I'll give you a 5 second head start to leave before I kick your asses.", I snarled, my knees wobbling as I stood.

Some of them back up but they still stay.

"Brave motherfuckers, aren't you? Fine.", I say, smirking but it quickly falls into a glare, the atmosphere grew tense. "That was your mistake."

I stomped the ground making large layers of platforms rise and fall on to them. Thank god, we were around an area where I could use dirt.

I stalked toward the rest, they backed away in fear. "Aw, don't run now...we're just getting started."

They all paled and ran away. "Punks.", I slipped out of the form, turning back. I looked around for any of my classmates nearby but no one was.

"I gotta find someone....", I muttered. Then I hear rumbles and blasts from above and I sweatdropped.

"That's gotta be Bakugou.", I say and fly up the stairs.

"SAY GOODBYE!!", I ducked out of the way of a villain being thrown my way and looked at Bakugou and Kirishima panting heavily with many villains surrounded around their feet.

"You guys okay?", I asked, walking toward them.

"Homura!", Kirishima notices me with a smile, knocking a goon out.

"You don't have a single scratch on you, Demon Brat.", Bakugou says.

"They all ran.", I say, shrugging and touching his arm, letting the heat on my hand heal his scratches and did the same for Kirishima.

"Your power's amazing, Homura. It doesn't even burn.", Kirishima grins widely, making me smile.

"Thanks.", I say, looking around at all the goons.

"We gotta have a plan to get out of here.", Kirishima says.

"You idiots can do whatever you want, I'm going after that warpy bastard.", Bakugou says, walking away.

"Huh...!? Our attacks didn't do nothing against that guy!", Kirishima says.

"And you're going alone? I think you're the only idiot here, Bakagou.", I say.

He looked over his shoulder to glare at me. "What was that...?"

"I said you're an idiot. Do I need to say it a little slower? If you go by yourself, you'll get yourself killed.", I say.

"That's the thing!", he says turning to me. "That bastard was their way in and out. So, I'm taking him down first before anything."

I felt someone's presence behind him and felt off. "Uh..."

Before I could say anything, he sent a blast downwards and revealed a knocked out enemy.

"If they're sending in weak shits like this, there's no way we can lose.", he says.

He looks so calm... "He's reliable despite being a little shit." , Tatsuo says in approval.

"So, that's what you meant. Also, when'd you become so calm and rational....? Usually you're all," Kirishima made an impression of Bakugou. "Die! Die! Die!!"

"I'm always calm and rational, you shitty haired punk!!", Bakugou yelled.

"There he is.", I say smiling.

"Both of you, fuck off!", Bakugou says.

"Okay, so, what you're saying is you believe in our classmates. That's good thinking, and that's thinking like a man, Bakugou. I'm with you.", Kirishima says excitedly.

I sigh and smile. "I guess I am too. I just hope you know what you're doing, please."

I looked outside to the rest of the USJ area to see a big creature holding a bloody Aizawa down.

I tensed and gasped softly as Kirishima put his hand on my shoulder. "You okay...?"

I just pointed down to the sight. "These sick sonuvabitches are gonna die....!", I hear Tatsuo growl.

They widened their eyes and backed away from the window.

I backed away and walked out the area and back to the middle of USJ.

"You got a plan...?", Bakugou asked.

I turned to him. "Just do what you normally do."

He just grinned widely, but that expression dropped as soon as we looked up to the entrance. And in the entrance stood All Might. He's... frowning? "Have no fear. Because I am here."

"I had a bad feeling in my stomach while I rested, but to think it was this bad....", he says coming down the stairs.

"I heard from young Iida that there were villains. But, it's all right now. Because I am here."

He rips off his tie and it flutters to the ground.

He came toward the fallen Aizawa and picked him up, carrying Midoriya, Tsuyu and Mineta away from the villains.

After ordering them to get Aizawa, All Might attacks the creature, doing a German suplex on it.

I saw how bad All Might was getting hurt and how Midoriya was rushing towards him.

"Get ready to fly.", I say to the two in front of me.

"Uh, what?"

I stomped the ground, launching them both toward the fight but they went in different ways.

I saw Midoriya reaching for the blue haired villain, but missed as Bakugou got in his way.

"Get the hell out of my way, Deku!!"

Bakugou attacked Kurogiri when Kirishima missed.

"Damn you!!", the hand villain exclaimed and I glared at him.

"I almost had him!", Kirishima yells after missing the villain.

I saw that part of that creature's body was covered in ice and I looked to my right seeing Todoroki.

"Fancy seeing you here.", I say.

"Likewise," he replied and looked toward the villain. "I heard about you bastards' plan and each of your roles. Also a scheme to kill All Might. The symbol of peace won't go down as easy as you fools."

"You guys made a big mistake.", I say smiling.

"Let's just kill them!", Tatsuo says. Let's not do that.

That being said, All Might pried himself out of the creature's hold and dashed away.

"You pinned down our revolving door..."

"This prick was never that sharp! That metal clasp you got on your body, you used to get all misty and shit just got sealed, you sneaky fuck!" Bakugou exclaims with a grin.

"That attack was never dangerous, was it? You just used that as a decoy to hide the real body!"

Kurogiri moves a little but stops as Bakugou uses small explosions on him.

"Don't you move!", Bakugou chuckles glaring down at Kurogiri. "You move so much as a twitch and I'll blow your ass up so bad that they'll be piecing you back together for weeks."

"Not very heroic, bro.", Kirishima grinned nervously.

"You've got us cornered....I have to hand it to these kids nowadays. At this point, the Villains Alliance will be a laughing stock.", the villain turns to the broken creature.

"Nomu, take care of Explosion Boy for me...."

I widened my eyes as Nomu regenerates its own body and goes after Bakugou.

"Bakugou!!", I yell, running towards it but I ended up right next to Bakugou who was also on the ground.

"You're okay...wait, how'd you get here?", I asked.

"I don't fuckin' know.", he says still on the ground, probably in shock.

I look back to see All Might had taken a hit from Nomu.

"Are you crazy...? Have you no mercy...? These are children.", All Might says.

"Mercy....?", the hand villain looks over to us and points at Midoriya. "That plain looking boy almost killed me but I need to give mercy!? Who gets to decide what's right or wrong...? Society! And that's what irritates me. You're the symbol of peace....? You gotta be kidding me. You're just the same. You’re only here for your kicks."

"That's enough.", I say.

"It's a 6 vs. 3.", Todoroki says.

"No! You all need to leave.", All Might says.

"No can do, All Might. Can't be heroes if we just left you here.", I say.

"Yeah and you're bleeding!", Midoriya said.

"If I hadn't froze that monster, you would've most likely died.", Todoroki interjected.

"It's fine.", All Might insisted.

"Fine, let's settle this! Nomu, you go after All Might. I've got the children.", the hand villain says running towards us.

I started walking toward the hand villain but Bakugou pulled me back.

Dammit, Bakugou!

My eyes illuminated a bright scarlet color and I shot a fiery blast toward the villain.

"Dammit, Brat!!", Bakugou shouted at me avoiding the heat.

"You're the boss, right?", I ask looking at the villain. "I'll just take you down first!!", I yell running towards him, feeling myself change into a form of an Oni.

I sent a roundhouse kick toward the hand villain's face, making it collide with the hand on his face. He fell to the ground and touched my leg.

I yelled in pain after seeing the aftermath of what remained of my leg.

My pant leg torn and my calf broken and bleeding out.

I got knocked over by the sudden blast of air because of how hard All Might and Nomu were fighting.

I pulled two metal rods from the ground and threw it at the villain but missed due to All Might's fighting.

With all this air and wind going everywhere, there's no telling where my blasts could go....

"Plus....ULTRA!!!", All Might yells, finally getting rid of Nomu.

"Alright!!", I exclaimed but felt a burning sensation on my shoulder and hip.

"I told you to keep your guard up!", Tomohiro yells in my head.

I saw that the villain had his hands on me and my skin broken, leaving muscle showing. I felt an overwhelming feeling of numbness as I fell to the ground.

"You bastard!!!", I heard Bakugou's voice and gunshots before passing out from the numbing pain.

I woke up to loud, slow beeping and looked around to see that I was in a different area.

I'm in the hospital....? No... Its the nurse's office...

I looked over to my right to see Kirishima asleep in two chairs, slumped over.

"You're finally awake.", I see Tomohiro walk over to my bed.

"Yeah....", I say, startling Recovery Girl.

"You're awake."

"How long have I been out...?"

I sounded so hoarse, it hurt to even try to talk.

"6 hours. Your wounds closed up quickly." she said.

I nodded and looked over to see the sleeping duo.

"He carried you in here.", the elder woman said, pointing to a sleeping Kirishima.

"Really...?", I asked.

As expected of Kirishima to do that, but why...?

That was kinda hard to believe. "The boy's... chivalrous...", Tatsuo says, appearing at my side.

Just then, the said boy stirred and woke up.

Kirishima jumps awake and looks at me. "How're you feeling!?"

"Like I've been walking in a desert for hours. I'm dying.", I hoarse.

Recovery Girl brings me water and I sit up to down it dry.

"What about you? Is All Might okay? Is everyone okay?", I asked.

"Everyone's doing fine. Well, Midoriya still has to let his legs heal and Aizawa-sensei... he's still healing too but everyone's fine.", Kirishima says.

"Good...", I rasp, staring up at the ceiling.

He frowned a bit in worry. "Do you think you can move?"

I winced and looked at my hip that had a small scar on it.

Still sensitive... "That villain wasn't any ordinary villain.", Tatsuo says.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry I worried you."

You guys too, I should've been more careful.

"Don't worry about it.", Tomohiro says as Tatsuo grunts in agreement.

"No biggie. Just get better so we can train again!", Kirishima says with a sharp tooth smile.

I smiled back at him and got out of the bed, wincing again and gripping on to the bed sheets.

"My leg...my shoulder and hip hurts. Great.", I mutter.

"Hm...", Kirishima hums. He turns around, crouching in front of my feet. "Get on."

"Kirishima-"

"No complaints. It wouldn't be very manly of me if I let you walk home hurt, so get on.", he says.

I sighed and got on his back, careful to not hurt his back.

I held on tight as he got me right and took my bag, carrying it under me as he walked me out of the nurse's office, getting me home.

_______________________________________________

A/N: plenty of dumb mistakes were made, oh well¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Taglist: @xartisticmdx @dakotacecily @moonfairy-h @weird-dere @afuckingunicornn @dee-madwriter

[justfandomwritings]

Urban Legends (Part Two - Chris Beck)

Pairing: Chris Beck x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: none really apply yet. it’s a sad chapter, but it’s not graphic, I don’t think it will make anyone cry, and there’s no depictions of depression.

Summary: (Y/n) Watney was something of an urban legend at NASA. Commander of the Ares I mission, (Y/n) was the first human to set foot on another planet. She heard names like Neil Armstrong and smirked. She was on her way to being the most famous astronaut in history, and she was determined to bring her brother along for the ride. She recommended Mark to Vincent Kapoor. She helped him get on the Ares III mission to Mars.

Her brother was stuck on Mars because of her, and she was determined to bring him home. 

After all, if he was the first human to die on another planet that would thoroughly steal her thunder; and she couldn’t have that.

Notes: Chris not in this chapter, but coming up soon. This follows the timeline of the movie

Previously On... Part One

Intriguingly, most urban legends about aliens do not feature NASA.

People don’t really care that much about whether aliens are roaming around the rest of the universe or even their own galaxy. Perhaps selfishly, humans are only really interested in other intelligent species when the story features Earth.

When they hear rumors of a suspicious aircraft flying around the canyon. When someone claims to have seen a crash site out in the fields. When the town drunk says a flying saucer took him away in the night. When the government is a little too secretive about what’s going on behind the closed doors of a military installation.

That’s when people pay attention. When they think their picture perfect, cookie cutter lives might be affected. Whether that affect is better or worse, or simply more interesting.

To be fair, often times people only pay attention to the claims in passing. Rarely if ever, do people actually deem an alien abduction story credible. Even videos of suspicious lights circling overhead are usually written off as photoshop. Still, they take the time to listen, and that’s more thought than the average man or woman ever really gives to the rest of space. 

When people hear about suspicious UFOs, whether obviously fiction, easily explainable, or somewhat plausible, people immediately direct their eye to the Air Force. 

NASA is way up there in the great unknown, so when a flying object is inside the Earth’s atmosphere, when people can see it with their own eyes, they turn to the military for answers and explanations. Even if the explanation they’re hoping for is “Yep, Martians are real,” they’ll still question the nearest MAJCOM of the USAF during his next press conference before they ask the Director of NASA. 

Even when there wasn’t a story to cover, even when it was just curiosity, no one in their right mind ever asked the Director of NASA if aliens were real. For fear, obviously, of sounding like a complete and utter idiot.

Unless, that person was (Y/n) Watney. 

“Please, for the love of God, tell me you’re saying aliens.” (Y/n) whispered under her breath. 

“I wish we were,” Vincent sighed.

(Y/n) knew what they were really saying. It just wasn't something she wanted to hear, wasn't something she was willing to consider.

(Y/n) had been to Mars. She knew there was no such thing as Martians, or at least, she was pretty sure. At this point, she would be willing to consider anything, and it seemed there were only two possibilities. 1) Little green men burrowing out of holes no one had previously noticed in the surface of the red planet and parading around the camp, or 2) The Worst.

The alternative to aliens was such a crushing prospect that her mind simply refused to accept it. Even though it was the only plausible explanation.

“This,” the nameless Sat Com lifted her control and scrolled back through to the first image, “is the state in which Commander Lewis’s report confirms she left the camp. This picture is from just before the storm that caused the evacuation.”

The woman’s thumb rolled over the arrow to pull up the next in the sequence. “This is the most recent photo we have of the Ares III sight.”

It was plain as day. The solar panels had been cleaned. Mars’s harsh winds could have easily accomplished that. But the rover. The monstrous white blob on the surface of the planet had visibly shifted several hundred feet from one side of the HAB to the other, and no wind could move that. 

“So you’re telling me…” (Y/n) trailed off. She couldn’t speak the thought into existence. If she spoke it, she couldn’t take it back.

Teddy Sanders reached over the high back of the conference room chair to rest a hand on (Y/n)’s tensed shoulders. “We have to release the photos within the next sixteen hours. We’ll be releasing a confirmatory statement with them. It will be all over the news, but we thought you would want to know first. That you would want to...” Teddy found himself cut off. 

“How long have you known?” (Y/n)’s voice was low, almost dangerous as it spat out the words with a venom. 

“Mindy was the one to find it on the 3 A.M. shift.”

So the unfortunate Sat Com had a name. (Y/n) wondered, somewhere so far in the depths of her mind in a part of her brain that still hadn’t registered what was going on, if Mindy had actually been the one to piece this together or if she’d just drawn the short straw in telling the higher ups.

“She called in an emergency alert to the three of us the moment she noticed the discrepancy between the logs and the images. Since then, we’ve been prepping for the public outcry. You were the first person we brought in.” For a PR person, Annie Montrose truly failed at choosing her words.

“That ‘discrepancy’,” (Y/n) spat, “is my brother.” Shoving away from the table, there was a grunt as her chair ran over the foot of Director Sanders hovering behind her. “And you left him on Mars.” 

(Y/n) was fuming as she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her so hard she heard a picture, on the wall inside, shatter as it hit the ground.

(Y/n)’s fury lasted about as long as it took her to walk to the end of the hall. It was as if the picture had held all her rage, and the moment she heard it fall her anger went with it.

Mitch Henderson found her, thirty minutes later, on his way to receive the news himself. Being late to the meeting had seemed less important than helping the poor woman down the hall and into a proper seat. 

Mitch held (Y/n)’s shaking frame to his chest and let her cough out incoherent phrases until she finally managed to mumble enough for him to piece things together. 

“Mark.” Hiccup.

“Not.” Sobbing.

“Suit broke.” More sobbing.

“Rover.” Breathless gasp.

“Moved.” 

“Oh,” Mitch caught on. “Oh good God no.”

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“Sweetpea,” Her mother’s voice sounded weepy on the other end of the phone, but that was to be expected. 

“Ma,” (Y/n)’s voice broke as she spoke into the receiver.

There was a shuffle and some sniffling. Her father cut in. “(Y/n), I thought you said you were coming to stay for a while. I thought NASA gave you time off to be here.” Her parents’ desperate plea wasn’t lost on (Y/n). Their son was never coming home; they at least wanted their daughter back. 

Her parents had always thought if one of them wasn’t going to come back it was going to be (Y/n). It wasn’t just that she went first. It was how much she loved the work. 

She was consumed by it. Consumed by space so whole-heartedly that her parents wouldn’t have been surprised if she opened the hatch and let the blackness swallow her whole, simply to be the first human to touch the nothingness.

(Y/n) took extensive notes, updated daily diaries, sent emails constantly, detailing every aspect of her time in space. Everything was an adventure to her. Even the tedious task of putting on her suit was a marvel that filled her with utter glee. Her parents were in the loop on all that was happening, and she explained the goings on every step of the way.

By the time the more relaxed Mark launched, Mars seemed a bit old hat. They were proud of him, of course. He was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of his field. He was boasted and bragged about to anyone who would listen. But he had a freedom and trust (Y/n) never had.

Mark didn’t need to explain space flight because (Y/n) had already given them a thorough summary. Life, analyses, reports, training, (Y/n) had done it all before. They knew Mark to tell them if anything changed, and they were comforted by the fact that he would remain level-headed about the experience. Certainly, he wouldn’t squeal when he stepped on the surface of his second planet. 

Their parents knew what to expect, knew what he was doing, and because nothing happened to (Y/n), they were sure he would be okay. 

How wrong they were. When (Y/n) landed at the airport in a small private plane chartered by NASA, they knew something was up. When she collapsed into her father’s arms and sobbed, they figured it was big. And when Mark’s name had finally choked out of her lips, they put the pieces together. 

This would be worse. (Y/n) was sure of it. 

They were still grieving. They’d had a funeral, figuratively buried their son. They were waiting for her to join them in their sorrow and healing. And now she was going to have to tell them she wasn’t coming. And she was going to have to tell them why.

She would be the one to tell her parents that their pain wasn’t over, that it would be prolonged for several slow, torturous months. That their son’s death wasn’t going to be swift. 

“Pops, I can’t come home.” (Y/n) croaked out through a throat cracked and sore from days of crying. “I have some news.”

“I don’t think we can take much more news from NASA.” Her father heaved a sigh that spoke volumes to how much he was trying to hold it together for the rest of his family. 

“Pops, get Ma back on the phone with you.” (Y/n) instructed. She was braced for impact. She needed to get it out before she broke down. 

“Donna!” (Y/n) heard her father shout.

Her mom must have run from the phone when she handed it off to her dad. It made sense. Not once in her life had she ever called (Y/n) Sweetpea. Terms of endearment were well assigned in the Watney household. Her parents were always Ma and Pops, but they called each other Darling and Honey when they were feeling romantic. (Y/n) was always, without fail, Princess. And Mark, despite his many objections, had always been Sweetpea. 

Even knowing where he was, her mom was holding onto some desolate hope that Mark was alive, that Mark could call. 

In a way, Ma was right, but that was even worse news. 

“I’m sorry, Princess,” Her mother rejoined the call with a hiccup. “I’m just…”

“It’s fine, Ma.” (Y/n) didn’t think she could bear hearing anything about how they were doing before she got this out and ruined whatever small peace the memorial service had given them. “I need to tell you both something.”

“What is it?” Her father asked, far too close to the speaker.

“I know neither of you have read the report about how...” She tried to think of a better way to say it. “On what happened,” she settled. “And I know you don’t want to know, but I’m going to have to explain a small part of it to you.”

“(Y/n), we don’t…”

(Y/n) cut off her father’s objections with a volume that bordered on shouting. “You do. You need to know, whether it’s nice or not. And it needs to come from me. This is important, Pops.”

Her parents quieted then. None of the Watneys really had a temper. They were all ‘long fuse’ type people, but clearly (Y/n)’s had been burning for far too long. 

“Mark was hit by a piece of debris which NASA believes broke off of an antenna.” (Y/n) took in a deep breath. She needed to remain calm, or at the very least her voice did. “Vital signs in the space suits are transmitted to a received on the arm of the team doctor, who read that Mark didn’t show any signs of life.”

It was her father’s tears that interrupted her this time. She couldn’t see them, but (Y/n) knew they were there when he spoke. “Why are you telling us this, (Y/n)? We don’t want to know.”

“Because Pops, something’s… come up.” She didn’t know a better way to say it than that. “Imagery of the Ares III site seems to show signs of activity and maintenance that were not performed by the crew on the day of their departure.” 

Silence. Utter silence. 

“What…” Mom.

“Are you…” Dad.

“That…” Mom.

“Are you….” Dad.

“What does that even mean?” Her mom finally got out the question they were both trying to say.

“The only logical theory is that when the antenna broke off, it somehow managed to break Mark’s vital monitor either by piercing his suit without actually breaking the seal or by having a direct impact that broke both his communication and vitals monitor, or possibly both.” Another deep breath. “Whatever the case, there are signs of movement at the HAB since the crews departure…” 

Finally she got to her point. She spoke the thought into existence, “Mark’s alive. And he’s alone on Mars.”

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Next Time On..... Part Three

Taglist:

Forever Taglist:

@maybe-a-fangurl / @libbymouse / @geeksareunique / @deathbyarabbit​ / @spilltheearlgrey​

Series Taglist:

@multifandombabelover​ / @cutiepiemimi13​ / @captainscanadian​ / @harishaanne​ / @andtheytoldustotellyouhello​

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 190

Can Black Holes Cause an Apocalypse?

The world may not have ended on December 21, 2012, but that does not mean it won’t end at all. So what will be the force that will disperse this robust system of ours, rendering all forces including gravity obsolete, and forcing the sun and planets out of their orbits?

The universe contains billions of heavenly systems that travel interdependently in a perfect and harmonious fashion. What could be the obvious cause or force that could disrupt this great arrangement, deorbit the stars and planets, and make every other force ineffective including gravity? If we ponder upon the verses of the Holy Qur’an, “When the sun is folded up (and darkened). And when the stars fall (losing their luster)” (At-Takwir, 81:1−2), “And when the heaven is torn away (with all the truths becoming manifest)” (At-Takwir, 81:11) with our current cosmological advances, will Black holes be the cause that will likely destroy the Sun and even devour the light of stars so that they are unable to function?

Black holes are considered to have the potential to cause a universal apocalypse. It seems plausible that with such gravitational power of Black holes, mountains would be casted away, and magma displacement via volcanic eruptions could lead to major earthquakes. There are a couple of recent geologic studies pointing out the possibility that the gravity of the sun and moon play a role in development of earthquakes. The 7-8 meter rise in seas and 35-40 cm rise in land caused by lunar and solar eclipses are considered to be a possible factor among many factors that triggers an earthquake. Earthquakes of 12-15 Richter scale magnitude can occur because of the gravitational force of Black holes. The biggest earthquake ever recorded was of 9.2 magnitude; such that if it happens again, it can lead to a major catastrophe in a very short time.

Let’s not forget that we are residing on a globe filled with fire in its center. Gases that make up the atmosphere are held only with help of planetary gravity. One of the forces that will boil all the waters away and let all the gases escape the planet could be Black hole gravitation. The air in our atmosphere and resulting “air pressure” can be destroyed by Black hole gravity. Oceans would start boiling violently and then might evaporate off the planet. In this case, living things would suffer severe structural damages since all life forms are composed mostly of water (~70%). That is why astronauts wear a special space suit filled with air made up of normal atmospheric pressure when they leave the atmosphere. We should also keep in mind that trillions of heavenly bodies (asteroids, meteors, and comets) located in the two asteroid belts (Orion and Kuiper) may be freed from their gravitational control by the vacuum impact of the Black hole, causing colossal cosmic collisions.

The disruption of gravitational balance

There is a sensitive relationship between the elements of the universe, such as electromagnetic, nuclear forces and an apocalypse may result from a disruption of these.

According to the general relativity theory, the time-space plane can be rolled or wrinkled up like a paper. The gravitational force of black holes can cause the displacement of stars which are interconnected through weak web of attractions. As if a piece of net takes a specific shape when loaded with heavy objects, the web of space-time, also known as the cosmos, could be distorted and even torn apart by black holes with their infinite mass “sitting” in it. This is a characteristic of black holes. A possible explanation for this might be that via elimination of common physical laws, the black hole region could become the gateway to metaphysical dimensions. Cosmos of space and time is described as strong-built, fracture-free in the Qur’an; “You do not see any fault or incongruity in the creation of the all Merciful. Look yet again: can you see any rifts?” (Al-Mulk, 67:3). However, in verses about the apocalypse, cosmic fractures that will occur is constantly repeated; “Day will come, land to be transformed into another, skies to be converted into others” (Ibrahim, 14:48)”On the day when the earth is changed into another earth, and the heavens (also)” (Abraham, 14:48), ”And the sky split asunder, and so, on that day it will be most frail” (Al-Haqqah, 69:16), and “The sky will cleft open thereby” (Al-Muzzammil, 73:18). We can conclude from these verses that new heavens would be created from these “fractures.”

The way that doomsday will actually take place is in the knowledge and control of Our Creator who executes these acts and maintains the order of the universe. Approaches and conclusions made with current physical and cosmic sciences will enable a better understanding of the verses related to doomsday.

The Sun rising in the West and the apocalypse

Can a comet or a planet change the direction of the earth’s rotation by colliding with it? Can the earth change direction and start to rotate from East to West instead of West to East? A catastrophic event like this may cause colossal destruction and end the lives of many organisms. As a matter of fact, a comet impact in recent years was detected to slow down the rotational speed of planet Jupiter.

Venus is a mysterious planet on many levels. For example it rotates in the opposite direction compared to other planets. Sun rises in the West on Jupiter. Dense rock and dust layers of Venusian atmosphere is theorized to be formed as a result of a collision, and because of this collision, it is thought to have started spinning in the opposite direction. A day in Venus is longer than a year. In other words Venus revolves around the Sun faster than it rotates around itself.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi explains the sun rising in the West rather metaphorically as follows:

“While God knows best, the Qur’an, which is in effect the intellect of the earth, will disappear from its head at the end of time and, as a result, the earth will go mad. With Divine leave, it will collide with another planet and its rotation will be reversed. Through Divine Will, its journey from west to east will be reversed from east to west, and the sun will start to rise in the west. Truly, if the gravity of the Qur’an, which is the firm rope of God that binds the earth to the sun and the ground to the Divine Supreme Throne, is broken, the tether holding the earth will come unfastened. The earth will consequently become dizzy and deranged: on account of the reversal of its usual motion, the sun will rise in the west. Through its collision with another planet, Doomsday will begin at the Divine command.” (The Rays, p. 365)

Whichever way the earth comes to an end, even if the universe is not destroyed by an external destructive event, an apocalypse is foretold as something that will eventually happen with some mind-blowing descriptions in the Qur’an. What science speaks of black holes and other astrophysical possibilities in the universe seems to confirm these descriptions:

When the sun is folded up, and when the stars fall, and when the mountains are set moving. (At-Takwir, 81:1-3)

When heaven is cleft open, and when the stars fall in disorder and are scattered, and when the seas burst forth. (At-Taqwir, 81:1-3)