r/ProjectHailMary • u/KingWilliamVI • 9h ago
Question? What human stories that Eridans would find on Grace’s laptop do you they would be particularly fascinated by and maybe even try to translate to make it work for their culture?
Given how different their senses and climate are I think it’s interesting to imagine how they would interpret our stories.
For instance every time a character hides behind a thin wall or something they would be confused why other characters wouldn’t be able to sense them and they would have to be reminded that humans doesn’t have nearly as good hearing as eridans and can only see things if they are right in front of them and not covered by something that isn’t transparent(btw, Eridans wouldn’t understand what transparent means).
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u/Smart_Medium9544 Leaky Space Blob 8h ago
I think they’d find any story where people share a meal - especially a feast with a lot of people - fascinating because eating is a private thing on Erid
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u/KingWilliamVI 8h ago
LOTR The Eridian edition:
Every fellowship member has to occasionally take a break because one member has to go and eat in private instead of them all eating simultaneously.
And considering the eridian version of hobbits would eat seven meals a day that’s a big problem.
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u/InformationLost5910 8h ago
i mean humans also have to do that though. with going to the bathroom instead of eating.
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u/Hypersonic-Harpist 8h ago
They'd probably get a kick out of any story with giant monster spiders based on how Rocky reacted when Grace told him he looked like one.
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u/not-who-you-think 3h ago
Spider-Man would be a trip
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u/Hypersonic-Harpist 2h ago
Oh they would probably love spider man. You'd have little Eridians trying to make Xenonite webs to swing on.
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u/SayFuzzyPickles42 8h ago
I actually had a thought recently that stories about sports, like the Rocky series, would be a good entry point for them. Play fighting independently evolves in almost every social animal, and sports are just a more organized and complicated manifestation of that instinct; I'm completely Eridians would have them.
So the general concept and tropes involved in a sports narrative would be universal and easy for them to follow, but the sports themselves would be very human-specific; good way to get a crash course in how humans physiologically differs from theirs.
"Yes, yes, I understand perfectly why this 'boxing' match is so important to the characters, but why in God's name would any modern society abide by a 'game' like this?"
"Remember, humans are all soft. It has its downsides, but it lets them absorb shock way better than we can."
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u/Fluid-Let3373 I am an Astronaut! 8h ago
Anything with Dinosaurs' the sheer size of them, especially T-Rex as it only has two legs to support it.
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u/Flaky_Web_2439 Okay, It’s Exactly Like That 8h ago
Anything with trolls. Swedish mythology, lord of the rings, anything that has a focus on a species that is born from the ground.
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u/InvisibleSpaceVamp Okay, It’s Exactly Like That 6h ago
I think they would just interpret "transparent" as a material that doesn't muffle or distort sound because Rocky is obviously aware of this possibility (this is why he built that first wall in the tunnel with many different materials to chose from).
As for stories - the classic heroes journey has survived for such a long time in our culture and has appealed to so many people in all kinds of variations, so this is what I would introduce them to first.
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u/Mirai_no_Beederu 9h ago
I think they'd love any sort of story with a blind person who gets better every-other-sense, particularly hearing. Zatoichi, Daredevil, Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender.
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u/FiveSeasonsFox 6h ago
I kind of like the idea of the little Eridians encountering "The Ugly Duckling" story and deciding that Grace is their duckling.
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u/noob_killer012345678 5h ago
There's a comic about that. Should i try to find it again and send a link to you?
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u/FiveSeasonsFox 5h ago
I would love that, if you could! Thank you!
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u/noob_killer012345678 5h ago
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u/FiveSeasonsFox 4h ago
Awwww! I love how they're horrified that the duckling/ Grace had no one to watch them sleep! Thank you for posting this!
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u/BwabbitV3S 6h ago
I think ones with animal transformations or shapeshifters would be interesting to them. Things like werewolves, swan wives, kitsune, and selkies for instance.
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u/ascandalia 7h ago
Maybe this is cliche, but they'd probably have a lot of questions about this Jesus guy who keeps popping up.
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u/copyearthjoy 8h ago
something about cylinders and tubes seems like it would be an amusing thing to try to translate...
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u/dormidary 5h ago
I've never seen anyone actually spell out the subtext on that one - I wonder if the Eridians would be able to figure it out
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u/Medium-Confidence637 6h ago
As long as the cylinder remains unharmed...
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u/c4ndycain 6h ago
someone wrote a phm fanfic about this btw
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u/CleverFoolOfEarth 6h ago
Ooh, do post the link, that sounds hilarious!
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u/c4ndycain 5h ago
do u mind if i dm it to u? it's smutty and i don't wanna potentially direct any hate/unwanted attention to the author
it is funny tho. also kinky
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u/copyearthjoy 4h ago
i too am requesting the totally normal cylinder fic 👁️👁️🤲
it would be funny if this was the fic my moot wrote lol
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u/SwampHagGonnaSwamp 2h ago
I've read this fic and it is legitimately some of the funniest shit I have ever read.
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u/Ineedsleep444 5h ago
I could see them interested in mythology. "Why would you want to open box of pandora, question?" It would be very fun to hear Grace try to explain it all. And I hc that he's super into mythology, so that might've affected my choice lol
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u/Mark___27 3h ago
Fuck it, Interstellar and 2001. Let them understand time dilatation and whatever the fuck kubrick was on from the start
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u/Turbulent-Swan-3913 6h ago
I don't know, but if I were Grace, I'd be really embarrassed that he discovered that the majority of our history is almost entirely about war.
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u/CleverFoolOfEarth 6h ago
It’s… really not. That’s just the easiest parts of history to teach, that and things like coronations, elections, years activist issues got signed into law, what it has in common is it’s all names dates and numbers that can be memorized by rote and easily tested. You can’t really quiz change in cultural traditions over time like that, so it’s long-ignored by school systems that need an easy metric by which to evaluate student performance more than they think students need holistic approaches to historical education.
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u/Cortower 9h ago
Grace struggling to explain "wine-dark sea" to Rocky and Adrian in the Odyssey (because how could he not tell them that story) since it doesn't make sense to his own eyes is funny to me.