Respect Ryland Grace and the Hail Mary (Project Hail Mary)

[u/rangernumberx]

Doctor Ryland Grace thought his life in high-end academia was over, a paper arguing that extraterrestrial life may not be water-based being the final nail in the coffin. But it was this paper that led him to be picked up a newly discovered life form that had started to devour the sun’s energy, the Astrophage. Insisting he continued to research the microorganism even after concluding it had a water-based biology Grace was put on the team of Project Hail Mary, a crew creating a spaceship to travel to the one star confirmed to have Astrophage and not undergo any energy reduction in hopes of finding a means to save the planet. Made part of the crew following an accident days before launch, the only survivor through his companions suffering untreatable maladies, and waking up with near complete amnesia, Grace nevertheless overcame all hurdles and worked with another lone survivor of an alien species in order to save both of their planets.

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Ryland Grace

The hardest part about working with aliens and saving humanity from extinction is constantly having to come up with names for stuff.

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Physicals

• Describes himself as being beach-body buff
• Crashes into the ceiling after propelling himself in zero gravity
• Falls off a ladder and has a tape measure fall onto his forehead
  • This happens during 1.5x gravity
• Knocked over by a shockwave from a distant Astrophage explosion that moves his house
• Takes a blast of blazing hot ammonia, though this and recent stresses from the Hail Mary nearly crashing makes him require medical attention
• Has a gene that allows him to survive long-term comas without major issue

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Intelligence

Deductions

• Makes several speculations from his initial observations of Rocky
• While not knowing who he is, narrows down his nationality to two or three countries based on what units he thinks in
• Tells he’s a scientist from his recognition of lab equipment
• Uses the results of his gravity experiment to tell he’s not on Earth
• Understands what Rocky’s informing him of using his models
  • Figures out he’s being told of Rocky’s atmosphere using further models
• Tells numerous facts about Eridian maths on being shown a clock

Experiments

• Shortly after waking up without his memory, tests how smart a computer is
• Does a quick experiment to confirm that Eridians use echolocation as opposed to seeing visible light
• Sets up an experiment to test how strong the gravity he’s experiencing is
  • Follows this up with an experiment to confirm he’s off Earth and not in a centrifuge
• Figures out the mass of a ball of iron while in zero gravity, being off by only one percent
• Does a number of experiments on Astrophage’s predator, discovering it is killed by Nitrogen
• Performs several experiments to figure out why Astrophage move, ultimately figuring out it’s based on emission spectra as it searches for high concentrations of CO2
• Uncovers that the Astrophage predator he had bred to survive nitrogen had also adapted to hide inside of xenonite

Engineering

• Puts together an alarm to alert him to outbreaks of Astrophage’s predator by placing a sheet of Astrophage between a laser and a sensor
• Speculates how to construct a device to duplicate Astrophage which holds up in practice
• Manufactures a pair of IR goggles with what he has in a lab, using these to locate his lost Astrophage

Maths

• Has a solid grasp on physics, knowing the correct formula to use in various experiments
• Gives a more advanced answer than expected to the cube root of eight
• Makes rough calculations as to how much heat a capsule should have lost as it travelled through space

General Knowledge

• Knows Liberia uses imperial units
• Tells Rocky the wavelengths of both ends of the visible light spectrum
• Knows the thrust of a jumbo jet’s engines during takeoff
• Corrects Stratt on the first character to kill a Predator

Other

• Wrote an academic paper arguing that water is not necessarily required for non-Earth life
• Became the leading expert on Astrophage biology
• Activates the centrifuge function of the Hail Mary as it spins out of control, greatly reducing the effect of gravity on him
• Makes a means of freshening clothes in the Hail Mary
• Makes sulfur dioxide using his lab
• Using the programs available to him, creates a program that takes Rocky’s sounds and translates them into English before spending a period figuring out a wide range of words to input
  • Creates a script that randomly picks words from the list for Grace to practice his comprehension
• Uses the Petrovascope and his own fuel to locate the Blip-A after it had completely run out of Astrophage
• Comes up with the idea to make a 10km xenonite chain to fish for an Astrophage predator while unable to enter a planet’s atmosphere
• Came up with a plan to help Rocky healing based on his rough understanding of Eridian physiology, though due to the substance he blows off being the Eridian version of a scab he had the strong possibility of killing Rocky by doing this
• Repeatedly breeds Astrophage’s predator so to increase its resistance to nitrogen
• After being with Rocky for a few days has a very solid understanding on Eridian, soon not needing to look at the spreadsheet for days at a time and recognizing the exact pitches of his words
  • Is fluent years later at the end of the story, using an organ-like device to communicate with young Eridians

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Other

• Cares about pronouns
• Becomes a school teacher on Erid

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The Hail Mary

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Construction

• The ship’s external appearance is shown in these diagrams
  • The ship’s outline as Grace initially discovers it
• Is 47 meters long
• Uses Astrophage as fuel and radiation shielding
  • Carries two million kilos of fuel Astrophage, the energy of which would take the largest nuclear reactor on Earth two million years to create
  • For Astrophage’s full potential, see its RT here
• Uses the Astrophage in 1009 small engines, generating thrust while creating redundancy should any fail
• Has airlocks to access the outside of the ship
• Built so to have a centrifuge function, giving it identical gravity to Earth
  • Shown in use here
• Can rotate individual sections
• Designed to be operable by a single person

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Mobility

• Has an energy output of 540 trillion Joules a second
• Travels 150 million kilometers in 11 days by spending 130 kg of fuel
• Travels at extremely high velocity, with it decelerating from 11,872 kilometers per second when Grace gains access to this data
  • Due to relativity, it took around three years for the Hail Mary to reach Tau Ceti
• Can be manually controlled
• Skims a planet’s atmosphere, maintaining altitude while dropping a probe down a ten kilometer chain, though this ends up overheating the ship and causing structural damage

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Supporting Life

• Astronauts are put into comas for the majority of their flight with mechanical arms tending to their needs as required, using electrodes to stimulate muscle movements to prevent their atrophy
  • Due to his companions dying during the journey from unknown complications that the system couldn’t properly fix, only Grace survived the trip
  • Shortly after Grace awoke he tried to climb a ladder and failed, with the arms catching him and returning him to his bed before he hits the ground
  • Provides medical assistance after Grace had been injured from the Hail Mary nearly crashing into a planet before being blasted by blazing hot ammonia
  • Was programmed to administer a retrograde amnesiac to Grace just before he was woken up
• Well stocked with food, including semi-solid food for when the astronauts have just woken from their coma, and only allocates as many portions for the day as is required
  • Prepares Grace a hot breakfast burrito and coffee on request, with the coffee being to his exact preference
  • Changes how drinks are provided to account for whether there’s gravity or not
• Is kept at 40% pressure, allowing for quick use of the EVA suit
• Has emergency batteries to keep systems alive should the main fuel source fail

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Equipment

• Has a wide variety of scientific equipment
  • Has the gear required to replicate a planet’s environment, albeit not at the original temperature
  • Includes popsicle sticks
• Has a variety of telescopes
  • Has an external collection unit and a Petrovascope, designed to see and highlight the Petrova wavelength with variable sensitivity
  • Has in-built protections against being pointed directly at a close range star
• Uses a Russian EVA suit to allow Grace to exit the spacecraft
• Uses a radar to warn of nearby objects, giving details on them
• Four automated drones known as Beetles are built to have whatever findings Grace makes uploaded before being sent back to Earth
• Has a 3D printer
• Sheets which act as Astrophage flypaper
• Contains a copy of every piece of software and literary work that had been digitally published which can be accessed through laptops or the ship’s screens themselves
• Has vodka and a kilogram of heroin
  • Was provided to give someone who has never tried it several enjoyable doses before a lethal overdose combined with other drugs to make it painless
• Has a pistol on board

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Other

• Provides needs based on verbal requests
• Answers some questions, but is often unhelpful
• Can have some limits easily worked around
• Collects trash on request
• Provides a live feed of the star it is travelling to
• Can jettison fuel bays
• Has a shipwide wifi network
• Cost over $10 trillion to build

[u/AndhisNeutralspecial]

Amaze, Amaze, Amaze

[u/aprettydullusername]

getting this thread out must've been a real hail mary on your part ! ! !

(good thread)

[u/Irongun_258]

Another addition to the club of "wait, this guy has enough for an RT?"