#no one looks at the lone satellite in the vastness of space & says 'yes that i love. not the stars the piece of metal forgotten and falling'

[the-sea-speaks]

.

[comicaurora]

What other mythological creatures would be fun in space? If the answer is "most of them?", Then limit the scope of the question to what becomes *more* fun in space?

Still "most of them," unfortunately.

Deep in the bowels of a derelict, drifting hulk, so battered with cosmic rays and space debris all sign of its original function have eroded away, something that could have been human roams the labyrinthine halls. Who knows what terrible crime or tragedy spawned it? It is huge, and hungry, and terribly, terribly alone. All anyone knows is that the drifting hulk that screams to the void in a hundred looping distress calls is to be avoided at all costs, for the maze is deadly and its lone prisoner even deadlier.

An enchanting woman knocks on the porthole with a broad smile, hair flowing in beautiful curls and mouth moving soundlessly in the boiling vacuum. She seems unaware of the inch-thick tempered plasteel, or perhaps unaware of its necessity for the mortal and the fragile within. As she stares unblinking, whispers begin to crackle over the ship radio, half-parseable snatches in many voices - surnames, stardates, coordinates. The knowledge is so, so tempting.

The astronaut is standing just outside the airlock. The sun is starting to sink behind the lunar horizon, cutting razor-sharp shadows across the silvery dust. He's been standing, patiently, for over four hours. The crew in the lander are huddled as far away from the door as possible, unconacipusly avoiding the astronaut's cold and vacant bunk. They had buried him, after all, three rotations ago, the special kind of dead you only get after decompression-induced exsanguination. And yet here he stands, looking better than ever, a healthy blush in his cheeks clearly visible without that bulky reflective helmet in the way. His eyes catch the setting sun strangely, almost red.

Space is an ocean, they say; the analogy is imperfect, and yet persistent in its poetry. The seafarers of old coasted along the surface of a vast and unknowable deep and called it sailing, and the spacefarers of the new frontier do the same. They speed between the stars or cut through wormhole gates for the occasional shortcut, skimming the three-dimensional surface of the vast four-dimensional space that wormholes can only tentatively pierce, and they are satisfied. But there are strange shadows in the stars, twisting and slow - distortions that ripple out from the hyperdepth and mostly pass without incident, barring the sensitive instruments left screaming in their wake. Nobody has ever seen the four-dimensional leviathans that cast these three-dimensional shadows. At least, nobody who's come back.

They call it a dragon because it flies and it's the scariest thing they've ever seen. It doesn't do it justice. If anything, trying to give it a familiar name only highlights its horrible uncategorizability. It flies, yes - or at least it undulates through atmosphere, seemingly irrelevant to its own mass. It has a golden hoard and breathes poison and fire, or rather the nuclear furnace that boils in its sinuous belly vomits out great gouts of poison fire that leaves stone and flesh as glassy slag and metals fused into radioactive gold. The land all around its lair is blackened and sick, a vile caldera of strange-colored swampland and twisted, fungal trees. In the absolute terror and devastation of its wake, the colonists fall back on old, bad superstitions and offer it a girl…

The sorcerer took out his heart long ago, they say. This is true, but inadequate. His true body is shattered in closely guarded pieces to protect himself from a total death; the form he presents is only a projection of his will onto and through the nanite colony his machinations spawned, a body crafted by the immortal mind and will of one who sacrificed everything to be deathless. His heart is concealed in a small life support capsule in a long-forgotten laboratory in a satellite orbiting the moon of a quarantined colony world; his nervous system wires itself through the vast, organic computer that has taken the place of the planet's core. Backups of backups of backups, redundancies laced through every stolen system. He knows there was a purpose to this, once; a goal to all this sacrifice beyond a simple extension of life. He will never remember who he wanted this for. To be truly deathless, one cannot have a heart.

It's retroviral, they think. No other form of infection could've rewired her cells this fundamentally. It's irreversible without gene therapy, but at least she isn't deteriorating, they say. At least she's holding together while they look for a treatment. She can feel it, though, no matter what the medic says; sub-cellular or not, she can feel it boiling under her skin, sharpening her teeth, burning out from the site of the bite on her arm. And she can feel, with absolute certainty, the planet's two satellites slowly shifting into opposition with the sun, right through the windowless walls of the quarantine pod. She doesn't know what she'll become when the moons are full, but she doesn't speak her suspicions. A part of her - perhaps even a part that's always been there - is very, very eager to find out.

A colony was here once, a long, long time ago. Terraformed and everything, but those were the early days, before they realized you needed a magnetosphere to keep all that air and water from being wicked away by the solar wind. The loss was so gradual it didn't make sense until over a century later, and there wasn't anything they could do for them long-term - wrong kind of core for a polarization op. They did evac, of course, but the priority was low - and it was centuries deep into social development. Everybody on that world had been born there, and some of them didn't want to leave. Way I hear it, some of them insisted on staying - strongly and violently - and the folks in charge eventually got tired of losing troops in a dessicating backwater that was gonna solve itself in less than a century, so they just fudged the paperwork and washed their hands of the whole thing. It's near airless now - stopped being a viable colony world nigh on thirty years back when the last of the ice vanished. But that's not why we steer clear. We don't land there because the locals didn't have the decency to die right, and it can be damn unsettling to catch their shadows sneaking across the sand. They're drawn to ships, you know? Poor bastards still think they can leave.

[alukardtheabysswalker]

Sasha: Dead or Alive?

So I know I’m not a big figure of TMA theories, not even close, but I’d like to put my thoughts in one place and if you feel like reading a bit of narrative analysis of a very well written series then please, suit yourself. And of course, Spoilers ahead.

So, Sasha. With all that’s been happening in this season one gets the feeling that not only is her memory that is getting a lot of narrative attention but also her position. Now, I’m aware and even participated in theories regarding the possibility of characters in our story coming and going, knowingly or not, in and out of different universes and I’m sure that will have it’s own narrative pay off. But I want to focus a bit more on what we have right here and now. So I’m going to name all the points I think the story and narrative has given us thus far to believe our dear Almost Archivist could be either dead or alive. Bear in mind I am not that good at checking the many little details and much of this could be more gut feeling than precise data, but I’m listening to the podcast for the third time now and I feel like I have enough points to make a statement(pun very much intended) on the case. But if you want to provide more evidence feel free to do so! I am very much inviting discourse on the matter. Without further adieu, let's get to the point/s.

Alive:

Sasha’s initial role was a bit more heavy in the story. However given that her VA couldn’t keep working due to her own schedule they resorted to giving said role to Tim. You can see this change in narrative in the fact that Tim’s VA had to adapt a bit. Not only is he a producer of the show but now a very important character who was originally going to be the first tragic Death of the series, and now has to adapt his acting to a character that is scarred by the events that haunt him. Which he did marvelously btw. And with the tape presented in the second episode of this season you can see how they're adjusting the narrative to fit his tragic past and Sasha’s importance to the Archive. Hell when I was listening to S1 ending I was convinced Tim or Martin were going to be the victims of the attack. Narratively it all pointed to Sasha being the powerhose of the group. Which made it all the more hurtful when she was taken.

Speaking of said tape, in there she talks about how who you are is what you do and what you show to other people. She specially mentions Masks. Which if you paid attention to MAG 165 is kind of the whole theme. Faces being changed and with that memories, people, personalities. Maybe, as it’s been pointed out, she was not killed but was robbed of her face and she’s been wondering about, without even knowing who she is.

And on THAT regard we can look at what Not!Sasha said. She took her life. If you were to take this at face value (again, pun intended) it would mean literally killing her. But let’s think about that for a second. What the Not!Them does is take the lives of the people they attack. They put themselves in their place and change enough of R E A L I TY to fit themselves in. Photographs, memories, clothes, everything adapts to them, save for a few things, enough to make someone paranoid and afraid of them. Even Gertrude herself mentions how it is that they always seem to miss someone but I think it is rather the point that they do. If no one is aware of this supernatural identity theft then who is left to scare? Going back to our original point, what if Not!Them doesn’t kill their victims but instead take their lives? As in, everything else except killing them. There is also this proposal that every entity or at least many of them have their own dimension or pocket dimension. The Lonely has its misty shore, The Vast literally just casts you into an endless sky or the void of space, The Spiral has The Distortion trapping people inside of their halls, you get it. This leads to our next point.

This strange carrousel that appears as the Nightmare of many people fearing The Stranger gave us three very interesting bits of information to chew on: One, it shows what many people have theorized would be The Stranger’s or at least Not!Them's dimension. People who do not know who they are and are desperately trying to find out, even stealing other peoples faces, memories, names...their lives. Two, not only that but the creature that is controlling this IS Not!Them, Martin even calls them “It’s Goddess”, and mentions how it must have full control over it. Third, Jon rode one of these a few years ago. No this is not important to our conversation (I think) but I WILL chew on it because I love this adorable man and I wish I was as brave as him to get on a carousel at my age (25) because I’d love it. Anyway, going back to our second bit of info: Not!Them is dead. In a delicious moment of revenge Jon destroyed them and Martin asks what would happen to this place without them? Well, maybe the people that were inside were freed, at least for a moment, maybe with enough time to remember or search for who they were?

This all could mean that not only is Sasha alive, granted having been in a horrifying Nightmare for YEARS now but it may also mean that she is also finally free. There’s still the theory of other universes and I like to play with it because not only would resolve some stuff that looks to be narratively incoherent(tho nothing definitive there) but it would also explain a lot regarding Jon’s shifting memories of the events of the series. Again I am not that versed in this topic to bring it into question.

Finally it would seem that the story is focusing a lot on Sasha as an important entity(yes, still intended) not just as a deceased character with a potential role but as one that still can and will bring change to the story.

So, we seem to have a lot of reasons given to us by the story and how it is being told to believe that yes, Sasha is alive and important to the story. And here comes the dreaded buts/s.

Dead:

The most important fact that I want to point out in this regard is that The Magnus Archives takes death very seriously. Not only death in the real world, brought by cruel beings and people, supernatural creatures and evil systems that send people to die and be killed by the interest of others. But as probably many of you know the writers and producers of the show want death to be important, to have weight in the story. Both Jon and Alex have said so in QAs and you can tell just by listening to the show. When a character dies, they stay dead. Death is final and even people that “cheat death” must pay a high price, usually living miserable “lives” killing other people or regretting their so called luck in avoiding their final destination. Death makes every character aware of the danger they are in and when it is granted so easily it is shown as the result of corrupted, sadistic people and monsters (cough police cough acab cough). Therefore, bringing back a character from the dead would feel cheap, it would take the weight out of the story. That is not to say they haven’t faked deaths before, Trevor is a good example, and you have an Avatar of The End very much alive-ish after having a Satellite dropped on him (Man I love this podcast) but the key difference, to me at least, is that Sasha was The First. The important character that we were sure either wouldn’t die because of plot armor or the aforementioned narrative importance she was given. But no, everybody can die, and that makes everyone afraid and wary of their actions.

It would also make Not!Them less scary, less imposing which would rob them of their position as a horrifying monster. We either knew or suspected that they had killed and surely replaced Sasha, now we feared for what might happen to the rest of the team. In the end, they were not only very much dangerous but also yes, they killed Sasha in a gruesome way, now maybe even do the same to Jon. You could argue that being trapped in that hellscape of The Stranger is an equally fearsome destiny, but at this point we´ve seen Jon disregard said dangers and literally rescue TWO people from TWO different nightmarish dimensions. Yes it is stated as the almost miracle that it is and it is important to show Jon’s improvement and growth but it also robs them of their weight. Not completely of course, but as long as Jon is around they aren’t that scary anymore, and given that he is our protagonist well, he is always around. There is also that beautiful scene in which he gets a very much earned revenge. If Sasha was not dead then it kind of loses its value.

Now I am going to cheat a little bit because here I am going to take our previous points and turn them on their heads inserting an “Alive” point here. You could argue that of course it still has value. They don’t know that Sasha is alive and technically neither do we, killing Sasha or not this monster definitely tortured our crew and this is a well earned punishment. Plus it is very well written and presented. You could even make a point that, with the death of Not!Sasha comes the revival of Actual!Sasha. And getting this far after so many real deaths it could even make sense to have one narrative rebirth of a character that was robbed of her chance of glory. Which can fit in this established narrative of:”She could have been The Archivist! The Protagonist”.

And here comes the but: What if this is not about Sasha but instead Other!Sasha? Remember when I said I wasn’t going to take into consideration theories regarding parallel universes? Well I might have lied a little bit. You see, from the moment Jon played Gertrude’s tape regarding her successor I began to have this thought:”This is a theme of what ifs, of potential possibilities and different timelines”. Now, I have to say again that I’m not an expert on this topic, this is more of an analysis of what I think or feel I’m seeing the narrative of this season is heading towards. Maybe there is an alternative reality, with a different crew. One that might sound like our dear Archival Buddies but are actually very much different. On the surface, their masks if you will, they are our Sasha, our Tim, our Martin, but once we get to know them, to know about them, they are different people. There is this theory that the house cleaner that got trapped by the house on Hilltop Road is an alternative version of the nurse that worked close to said house. She mentions how her friends are different, how they almost don’t recognize her. But I mean, they didn’t reject her, they even helped her and recommended her that she make a statement at The Magnus Institute. What if there is another Sasha, but not quite the one we’d want. And even if Sasha was alive, if we disregarded all of this, what kind of person would she be after everything that's happened to her?

I’m not sure I can give you a conclusion here. We are after all barely in episode five of this 40 episode season and this might all be proven wrong next chapter, or the next, or all 35 that come after that, but I’ve seen many people talking about how they are completely sure that Sasha is definitely alive and kicking, and while I agree in many points I also have seen a lot of evidence, especially when it comes to the narrative, that would point to the contrary. It honestly crushes my heart to think that we have more than thirty weeks of content ahead of us and many people will keep the hope that this amazing character is still alive but would end up having said hopes utterly crushed by the end of it. But I can also see where you’re all coming from and can see why you would think that way, so I wanted to present what evidence and conjectures of my own I had on the topic. If you’ve gotten this far I want to thank you for joining me in this attempt at a presentation or...expose? Feel free to add any other points that you think or believe would favor one end or the other and I hope you had a good time while reading this. Love you all <3

[soundwavereporting]

title: the moth and the robot

fandom(s): Transformers IDW1, Godzilla Heisei series

characters: Cosmos (the robot), Mothra (the moth)

summary: set directly after the 1992 Godzilla vs Mothra movie. Intent on keeping her promise, Mothra heads to space to stop a planet-destroying comet.

notes: totally unbeta’d, feedback is always appreciated.

Yesterday, she had made her first friend in half a century.

Today, that friend was dead. Alone, she hurtled through space, lacking even the fairies. They had been left on her island to guard her egg--at some point between the airfield and now, she had resigned herself to the notion that she was destined to be alone.

Which was fine.

It wasn’t like she was lonely; the fairies were good company when they were around. Once he had seen the sense in working together, even Battra had accepted her offer of a tentative alliance to defeat a stronger enemy. Privately, she wondered if he had been lonelier than her, truly lacking any kin besides the planet itself. She wondered if anyone would have ever been able to understand him.

So, she was happy enough being alone.

Battra had not told her the exact location of the Gorath comet. He had not lived long enough to know how to navigate the stars and currents the way she had, but she could feel its presence, tingling in the back of her mind like a headache. And she could hear something else; a soft static just behind her eyes.

She suspected it was nothing more than a satellite. The humans had started sending them up into space some time ago, though she had not thought they would be so far from the earth. She made a mental note to ask her fairies to ask the humans about the satellites once she got back.

Ah.

There—slightly larger than she had expected, green and round—was the satellite. Mothra tucked in her wings as she approached, landing softly on the satellite. It smelled like alien metal. Beneath its core components, she could feel its circuitry humming, felt the engine pulse under her feet.

The satellite made an offended sputter. It jerked away from her, metamorphosing in a whirl of green and white and silver, until it had evolved completely, becoming a strange, two-legged creature with a blue eye screen that matched her own eyes, gawking up at her.

It chirped and chattered angrily. Mothra frowned, straining her ears as she tried to make sense of the little alien’s language. It was a little alien, wasn’t it? Surely the humans were not so advanced that they had learned to design mechanical beings such as this—surely they had some generations to learn and grow before repeating the mistakes of the Elias. If the humans could make little robots intelligent enough to travel so far, to chirp angrily at her, surely their technology was not so far from reaching the point where they would desire to control the earth’s climate.

Perhaps, Mothra realized despairingly, her friend had not been wrong to act so quickly.

“—¸.•..>?” The alien gestured to her with one hand, then to the vast expanse of space around them all.

Mothra blinked. It hadn’t run, nor had it tried to attack her.

She backed up, far enough to easily dodge the alien if needed, close enough that she didn’t think the little alien would think too badly of her.

“Mothra,” she said. “My name is Mothra.”

“Mothra!” The robot tapped his chest. “Thank Primus the translator picked up your language. You understand me?”

Mothra’s eyes had gone wide in awe. Fascinating. The alien—now, she was sure it was an alien—could understand her! “I understand you.”

The robot’s eye screen flashed. “Hi, uh, Mothra. I’m Cosmos.”

Mothra’s antennae twitched. An appropriate name. Were his species named after their functions? Mothra supposed she had named herself. Or perhaps the Elias had. It had been so long, she could no longer remember.

“It’s nice to meet you, Cosmos,” Mothra said. Now that she was paying closer attention, she could hear it: what she had believed to be the satellites’ circuitry humming was Cosmos’s voice, quiet and constant against the silence of space. “I believed I was alone.”

“Oh!” Cosmos tilted his head, eyes watching Mothra with an expression she wanted to label as curious. “I’m usually by myself out here. I mean, not totally alone, but, you know: lonely.”

Curious, Mothra tapped Cosmos’s arm with one leg. She could practically taste it, sharp and sour at the back of her throat. Wishing desperately for something out of reach.

She wondered if Cosmos could sense her loneliness.

“So.”

They had been floating in silence for perhaps a minute. Mothra was used to the silence, but apparently, Cosmos was not.

“I’ve never seen a ‘Mothra’ before,” Cosmos asked. “Are you just…out here for fun? For recon?”

“I made a promise,” Mothra said. “To a friend. There’s a comet—an asteroid, I think—that’s going to hit the planet we live on. I promised I would stop it.”

Cosmos nodded. “I’ve surveyed this quadrant for the last cycle looking for artificial weaponry, but I did collect data on a medium-sized comet that’s scheduled to enter the SOL-84 system within the next half-cycle.”

Cosmos pointed somewhere to his right. “I guess I can’t upload the exact coordinates into your processor, can I?”

“No.” Mothra blinked. “But I can sense its presence, just as I heard you.”

“Huh.” Cosmos dropped his hand and crossed his arms, looking away from Mothra. Then: “D’you need…help, stopping it?”

She hadn’t even considered asking. Surely Cosmos had his own missions to complete, his own promises to uphold, but if he was offering…

“Alright,” Mothra said. After all, Battra hadn’t told her how he planned to stop the thing. “Thank you.”

“I’m technically not supposed to have this,” Cosmos was saying. “But my boss, uh, well, I’m not sure where he got it, or who developed it, but it works!”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

Cosmos shrugged. “It’ll get the job done. We haven’t been able to study black holes in too much detail, but I think it’s safe to say that your comet won’t cause you any more trouble. Press the big button. Second from the left.”

Mothra tapped the button. It flashed yellow and she looked up, studying the deactivated sensor net.

She and Cosmos had spent the better part of a day planting tiny metal circles the size of Cosmos’s hand around an asteroid belt. According to Cosmos, once the comet entered the sensor’s range, a highly experimental (yet safe) black hole would be created. Once it had consumed the Gorath comet, Cosmos would activate another highly experimental (yet safe) device to render the black hole harmless.

Mother knew little of human (or robot) technology, and all of the more technical words Cosmos had used to explain had failed to translate into her language. From what little she understood, Cosmos planned to disrupt the inner workings of the black hole, destabilizing something in its orbit in order to dissipate its energy.

“After this,” Cosmos said, “Are you going back to earth?”

Thoughtfully, Mothra tapped her fingers against the metal controls. She hadn’t considered going anywhere but Earth, but the robot’s tone made it seem like there was another option. She could stay with him, perhaps. For a time. Yet, the seal she had placed on Godzilla would not last for long. She had a year—perhaps two—before he awakened. And when he did, Mothra was unsure if she would be able to stop him by herself.

“Yes.” Mothra turned to look at Cosmos. She couldn’t tell what the robot was thinking—without spending more time around him, it was nearly impossible to pick up any but the most urgent of his thoughts. Nor could she understand his body language: he had no discernible eyes, simply that shining blue plate of on his head. He didn’t even have wings. The robot watched impassively as she found her voice, and spoke:

“I am sworn to protect my planet,” Mothra said. “And I must return. However, I would welcome the help if you wanted to come with me.”

Cosmos had been slouching on an asteroid, but as she spoke, he straightened, as though he were startled.

“You’d want—you just met me!” Cosmos said. “What if I were a Decep—a bad guy, out to destroy your organic species?”

“There’s only one of me,” Mothra said, ignoring Cosmos’s half-uttered apology. “Besides, if you wanted to kill me, surely you would have done so already?”

“I guess.” Cosmos shrugged. “I mean, I’d love to. It sounds much nicer than staying in space all the time. Are there other people where you live?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Cosmos checked one of the screens on his wrist and turned in the direction of the comet’s approach. “And you were the only person they sent to stop this thing?”

“I was the only one who could do it.” Mothra frowned. “The only one alive, at least.”

Which was true. Though he could fly far faster than her, she doubted even Rodan would have the strength to travel this far with no air. Plus, if Rodan died in this airless, frigid place, he would never come back. Mothra would.

“Oh.” Cosmos looked back at her. “I know what you mean. I’ve been one of the few spacefaring bots who survived this long into the war, so I’m always posted out here. I mean, not here, specifically. Wherever Prowl or Skids need me.”

“What strange names you robots have.”

Cosmos snorted. “You’re literally a giant moth.”

“Fair point.” Just a few hours ago, it had been little more than annoyance—helpful, even, as she navigated the stars—but now, pressure in her head was reaching a crescendo. If the comet did not enter the asteroid belt soon, she would need to retreat before it got any more painful.

“Will you be alright?” Cosmos asked abruptly. “Going back to the earth alone?”

Mothra was quiet as she considered his words, scratching at the scales on her neck as she thought. She hadn’t taken the time to properly clean herself after the fight, and her fluff was still covered in the ash and debris of Godzilla’s radioactive breath. At least she hadn’t gotten any blood on her, Mothra thought morbidly.

Yes, she had realized in the last few hours: she was lonely, had been lonely for some time, and acquiring and losing a friend in the span of a few minutes had only forced her to realize that. Had that been why she had asked Cosmos to return to earth with her?

“I—“ The pressure in her head spiked, and Mothra looked up to see the comet, once little more than a speck on the horizon, now looming above them. “I think we’d better move back.”

“Agreed.”

Together, they flew to the furthest tip of the asteroids, as far from the comet as they could get before Cosmos lost the signal.

“You ready?”

Mothra nodded.

Cosmos pressed the button.

The light was strong enough that Mothra had to look away, and the blast that followed had her huddling beside Cosmos as rock and ash pelted their bodies.

It hadn't made a sound.

When Mothra looked up, there was no sign of the comet—hardly any sign of the asteroids themselves. What little remained floated aimlessly; some of the rocks had been split open, revealing shimmering crystals and dark obsidian. It was a beautiful sight, and Mothra wished Battra was here to see it.

“Thank you,” Mothra said. “I don’t know how I would have done it on my own.”

“Hey, anytime.”

Mothra imagined Cosmos was smiling. He had to have a mouth, didn’t he?  

“You know,” Cosmos said. “I know you’ve gotta go, but if you’re ever in the quadrant…”

Mothra moved to bump her head against Cosmos’s forehead. Among her species, it would be considered a fond gesture—one of respect and solidarity. But Cosmos leapt back, emitting a harsh, staticky yelp.

“Sorry!”

“Oh! No, no, it’s okay.” Cosmos hesitated, then patted Mothra’s forehead awkwardly. “Caught me by surprise is all.”

Collecting the equipment took far less time than setting it up. In no time at all, Cosmos had transformed back into his strange, circular form, and Mothra had reoriented herself to face Earth.

“Thank you,” Mothra said, again. “I do hope we will meet again one day.”

“Me too.”

[berthastover]

Beam Me Up, Scotty! NASA’s Multi-Universe Social Media Triumphs To Inspire You

When it comes to social media, our standards are set pretty high up there. It takes a team of people to make us stop, click, laugh, or ponder when seeing a social media post. One could say, if you want to rule the Earthlings – you’d need a nebula sized idea to make your social media do just that. So, where can we, simple marketers, draw inspiration? In a galaxy close, close to us (as opposed to far, far away): NASA!

Why is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) so inspiring? Well, to start us off, they have no budget. You read that right, except for the salaries of the social media team, there is no flow of funds dedicated to sending any social media campaigns on a mission into the Internet-sphere. (See what I did there?)

Secondly, NASA made it their turf to educate in a manner that’s interesting to everyone. It’s interesting to see a government agency use hashtags, knowledge, appealing photos/videos, AND celebrities to reach the masses so eloquently. There are numerous organizations like the the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Roscosmos, and 65+ more agencies around the world, but for the sake of time and space – we’ll focus on the social media genius of NASA.

 Making history by making education fun

“Contact Light” – The actual first words on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin on 20 July 1969.

With an average of 1.18 billion daily active users, Facebook has a galaxy of its own. Over 430,000 of those users talk about NASA throughout the week:

  What’s amazing about NASA’s Facebook page is that it doesn’t use any special tactics, but it does keep up with different marketing trends like reactive marketing (yes, yes, 2016’s buzz word). The great thing about NASA is that it’s in the business of exploring the far, far away galaxies. This year alone NASA used galaxies, exoplanets, and space exploration to use the film industry to its advantage.

Live long and prosper

The original Star Trek series ran from 1966 to 1969 which were also critical years for NASA. We tend to think of living long and prospering in a very simple way (eat, pray, love) but NASA truly aims to take us out to the outer edge to discover what is out in the vast vacuum of space, while educating us along the way:

   NASA (ESA, astronauts, and more) made the #StarTrek50 anniversary truly special in a very simple and educational way:

Nebula class starships, right? @NASASpitzer beams up "Enterprise" nebulae image https://t.co/yK1v7tx783 #StarTrek50 pic.twitter.com/54HSBBNuhn

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) September 8, 2016

#StarTrek50 is today! @WilliamShatner, @NichelleIsUhura & @GeorgeTakei share their passion for space exploration. pic.twitter.com/vYDVctzi57

— NASA (@NASA) September 8, 2016

#Today we celebrate 50 years of @StarTrek inspiring space geeks everywhere, like the crew of STS-54. #StarTrek50 pic.twitter.com/E86cx2g13n

— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) September 8, 2016

 Can you feel the force?

Continuing our fascination with space, 1977 began the saga of the greatest film series known to every man, woman, child, and droid. Ok, I might be a bit biased about the greatness of Star Wars, but it did become a phenomenon that we continued in 2016 with the premiere of Rogue One and the filming of Episode VIII and Episode IX.

As part of reactive marketing, NASA used their platform to recognize days like Star Wars Day. NASA created special shareable images (that you can find on their website under this link) that celebrated May 4th, but also gave you some knowledge, AND connected you with different NASA astronauts or agency stations:

 That's no moon! It's @Space_Station! No, it's both. #SpotTheStation: http://t.co/MGJIkympUx #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/lSzPS60PxY

— NASA (@NASA) May 4, 2015

 Won’t be long before these Jedis are all here aboard @Space_Station in force. #MayTheFourthBeWithYou. #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/irOK02G0ju

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) May 4, 2015

 What’s more, NASA used this day and its platform to celebrate Women of NASA. In 2014, NASA delighted us in a co-op with Lucasfilms by getting R2D2 to help share a message from space:

  It was a great marketing stunt for both parties, as The Force Awakens promos started to leak that same year.

How did the NASA space experts weigh in the release of Rogue One and Episode VII: The Force Awakens?

  Spreading some smarts and giving us A New Hope that we might get to visit Tatooine or Naboo? Why not! There are also great opportunities to trend your tweets using the special emoji hashtags:

Test your knowledge. Take the quiz. Do or do not. There is no try. https://t.co/hs3o46t7W1#StarWars pic.twitter.com/5poBMQvHo1

— NASA Planetquest (@PlanetQuest) December 16, 2016

 That's no moon! Fly through our 3D playground of Star Wars-like exoplanets. (Watch out for the #DeathStar ) https://t.co/lNUe09QZX2 pic.twitter.com/kV8P8y8APP

— NASA Planetquest (@PlanetQuest) December 16, 2016

 In #StarWars, ice, ocean & desert planets are depicted, but such worlds might be more than just sci-fi: https://t.co/PnzBPKwJN4 #RogueOne pic.twitter.com/2tAywAVSKM

— NASA (@NASA) December 16, 2016

 2. Connecting us to the solar system

“I feel fine. How about you?” on how he was doing, while flying the first manned space mission.

Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961

More and more brands and businesses are creating separate Twitter or Facebook fan page accounts for specific products that they offer. It does save time when you have a question about not the whole, but a specific part of a business.

NASA took your regular separate accounts idea and made it better than we ever could. One of the best examples of that is the Mars Curiosity rover:

 You know when you're looking for the perfect gift for the curious geologists on your team? Think I nailed it. https://t.co/QL3498qDcy pic.twitter.com/VoK0768dY2

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) December 21, 2016

 Best. Road trip. Ever. Feast your eyes on the Martian landscape. https://t.co/7FCAmM1EgY #JourneytoMars pic.twitter.com/UaQvyoSOSU

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) September 9, 2016

 What’s not to love about a Mars Rover that has a personality? He shares his joy in finding new things during his “road trip”, talks about being inspired by other rovers or satellites, and when the holidays roll in and he’s sad – he gets by with the help of numerous tweeters that send him joyous and festive GIF’s to make Mars feel less lonely.

But it doesn’t stop there! Follow Juno:

 Science gets spooky! Hear the eerie sounds of #Jupiter’s auroras, as heard during my close flyby on Aug 27. #HappyHalloween pic.twitter.com/jYoCT9KJeN

— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) October 31, 2016

 Spirit, Oppy and The Oddysey:

 Couldn't do it without you. The Odyssey orbiter has relayed >90% of Spirit+Oppy's Mars data https://t.co/7rWWOMlGzv pic.twitter.com/JCYbvkpimF

— Spirit and Oppy (@MarsRovers) April 7, 2016

 Voyager:

Right on, @NASAJuno! Congrats on getting into orbit around #Jupiter. Let us know what's under those clouds. pic.twitter.com/OTu5LLQfX6

— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) July 5, 2016

 Or Cassini:

A Saturnian Snowman on Enceladus. ☃️ #merrychristmas #happyeverything https://t.co/8kS0JyRBWm pic.twitter.com/fdRWTbQdPx

— CassiniSaturn (@CassiniSaturn) December 25, 2016

 Basically, you get to meet, see in action, and even look at the ever-changing location status of stations, rovers, probes, and whoever is out there changing how we look at planets. Isn’t that neat? The best part is how personal and sometimes just plain old funny or sensitive each one of these space avengers is.

Kudos to the NASA social media team for making us have all these feelings for these metal friends. It’s like having a C3PO flying out there and tweeting at us!

 Resistance is futile

NASA has got what it takes to make it work. Not all of us have a space bound business and not all of our customers will be charmed by Jedi mind tricks (although Wickes did win the internet with “How to build a Death Star” and their INCREDIBLE social media communication team’s Facebook post responses).

However, we can all learn how to reach people by being approachable, up to date with the latest in entertainment, or even with the different special holidays like Star Wars Day or… Pancake Day! Creativity trumps big budgets – NASA proves that. Is there anything that inspires you most in NASA’s galactic social media? Maybe you’d like to see a part II of inspiring NASA social media campaigns? Let me know in the comments below!

Until next time. May the force be with you.

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The post Beam Me Up, Scotty! NASA’s Multi-Universe Social Media Triumphs To Inspire You appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.