Reach, For The Stars
May. 21st, 2026 04:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_writes_stuffTitle: Reach, For The Stars
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Keferon's Bloody Mary AU
Characters: Longarm Prime, Shockwave, Blurr (not onscreen but incoming)
Word Count: 1,222
Rating: E for Everybody
Pairing(s): None, but pre-Shockwave/Blurr
Warnings: The stars are going out, and that will eventually kill, uh, everything. Also, I know nothing about Iron Lung or Project Hail Mary that I could not glean from the double-handful of tumblrs I have bookmarked, and I did not research either property for this. And it may show.
Author's Notes: AU links at the end, it doesn't have its own tag yet.
REGARDLESS, I said to myself, I said, "But how does Blurr get there? What weird pseudoscience shoved him back in time?" and then Keferon added Longarm and I went "!!!! YES" and did some Bullshit.
Warnings for 'if the stars go out we all die' I guess, and for the fact that I have only the barest 'I follow a few tumblrs via bookmarks' notion of how Project Hail Mary actually works. Or Iron Lung. I am keeping every damn thing vague, someone tell me what we're stealing from which canon and how it works, I'm giving an alien weird abilities because it... it really sort of. Listen if they're all three there, if it's Shockwave and Blurr and Longarm? Then they should all three be connected, right? Longarm isn't just Shockwave's adorable cuddly-looking alien roommate who keeps producing fish-like things out of nowhere so he can eat without depleting Shockwave's stores.
Summary: Take one AU that doesn't, at the moment, even have its own tag yet. Throw in one question (but how did Blurr get there?), invoke my name, and you get a ficlet I guess?
Or, the ship with the technology to save the stars-- and thus, the universe-- is adrift, because its pilot lost an arm, and the controls require two hands. The alien sent to help him has two arms... but his species never evolved eyes, so he's not as much help as he wants to be.
But when your murky-water-swimming, cave-and-burrow-dwelling evolution gave your species the ability to stretch out alien senses and locate more esoteric qualities than 'edible' or 'inedible,' and the literal fate of the universe is on the line...
Longarm Prime decides to find out just how far he can reach.
His name was not Longarm, not really, and he gave up explaining his rank to Shockwave a while ago. Shockwave has called translation issues normal, and tried to explain nicknames, use-names, private names. Shockwave's name was one of these. Longarm knew what a shockwave is-- of course he did. How could a people like his, who spent so much time in the water, hunting in the water, not have a word for that? But their word for it didn't sound like Shockwave, and Shockwave was only Shockwave's name because much of Shockwave's species struggled to pronounce Schcheglov. As Shockwave struggled to pronounce a name and title meaning, roughly, 'first-ranked one of the greatest reach.'
They were not the same-- they could not be the same, they were from different planets and different stars. Shockwave's use-name was the sound of his patronymic, Longarm's use-name was rooted in half a rough meaning.
But they were on the same mission.
Their stars were different, but made of the same stuff. Their stars were failing. All the stars would fail.
They reached, Longarm's people, for a solution. It took-- much. Much to find Shockwave, who had what it takes to save their star, to save his star. It took much to discover that Shockwave needed help, and so Longarm volunteered to help him.
Longarm's reach was great, his mind very sharp, his senses keen, his thinking flexible. He was a scholar's scholar, ever and always learning and teaching. Whatever was needed, he was sure, his people were sure, that Longarm could help provide it, when they reached to send Longarm to Shockwave's side.
It was, unfortunately, impossible to discover with only their reach what kind of help Shockwave needed. Even the greatest reach could only catch what it was already looking for.
There had been an accident.
Shockwave could not make himself a new arm, and his ship's mechanisms required two arms to pilot.
Longarm, of course, had two arms, and a very fine tail if he needed a third, and his feet were reasonably dexterous, as well.
But Longarm's evolution was one of murky waters and dark caves, of locating prey by scent and taste and vibration, of the senses that would one day allow for reach.
Shockwave's evolution was one of open grasslands, foraging for fruit, hunting small creatures by slight movements and pattern recognition. Photoreception-- what Shockwave called sight, a form of perception based on certain wavelengths of (mostly harmless) radiation-- was his primary sense, if not his strongest.
Shockwave could not pilot his savior-ship because it needed him to have two arms, two hands.
Longarm, whose entire reason for coming to Shockwave was to help him, could not pilot the savior-ship because he couldn't see.
It had taken a number of language-lessons, a lot of time, to truly understand that Longarm couldn't fix the problem himself, at which point he had accidentally taught Shockwave what a full monologue of profanity sounded like, in Longarm's own native language.
They tried anyway.
Shockwave was a patient teacher, and between them, they could make the ship limp to the course they wanted, but not with the speed or precision that might be achieved by a being with their photoreceptors attached to their nervous system.
Longarm briefly considered building some sort of neurological linking device to manage exactly that, but discarded the notion; he was not at all certain that would lead to anything more useful than two dead scientists, and they had time to think of other, less desperate solutions.
They had some time.
Because their timeline, truly, was doomed if the savior-ship stayed adrift. If it couldn't save stars.
Planets, worlds, peoples, would be swallowed. Some might evacuate, survive a few generations more, but even they would be doomed without stellar radiation to sustain life. It could be spoofed, of course, but without worlds, they would be without raw materials, metal and stone. Without ecosystems in all their intricacies, they would be without edible things, plants and animals.
They needed a pilot.
No.
No, they did not need a pilot.
They needed a person.
Humaniform, like Shockwave.
All limbs in good working condition.
Clear eyes with excellent photoreception; good sight.
Quick, nimble, with good reflexes.
With the mental capacity to learn to pilot.
But also--
Also--
He had volunteered for this. Shockwave had volunteered for this. There was no way to find a volunteer for this from where Longarm was.
So first...
First he needed a person to save.
Someone who would understand the enormity of their task, who would not regret not being able to go home, after.
There was an easy place to reach to, for such a person, Longarm thought. For such a human.
So he went to the recording device and left Shockwave a message.
"I soon very tired. Very sleep. I very hard wake! I wake fine want food later later. Shockwave not freak out."
And Longarm reached.
Longarm reached forward.
(Into a doomed timeline. If the savior-ship failed, everything was doomed.)
The biggest catch, the furthest reach, he had attempted alone. This was no mere mouthful of fish, not even a perfect courting gift. This-- this was a hunt for more-than-prey. Prey, food, could save a life or two, for a little while. This catch, this reach, could save everyone everywhere... if Longarm were successful.
Human or at least humaniform. Suitable for Shockwave's atmosphere.
Clear-sighted.
Good reflexes.
Limbs intact.
Helpful.
Willing to learn.
Teachable.
Doomed.
Who could accept never going back.
(Kind? Likeable? Clever? A potential friend? These were sub-wants, tertiary qualities, potentialities that did not matter, that Longarm could not afford to reach for. He kept them tucked low in his throat, nice if he could get them but not necessary.)
Somewhere, somewhere in the murk of everything, of a dying future, was the prize he sought, not the prey but the prize. The key. The intact person who could learn the skills and use Shockwave's knowledge.
Longarm's reach found a box, careening through the blackest skies.
By the most technical of technicalities, it might be called a ship.
Within was--
Within--
Shockwave had been clear his health was a carefully-kept thing, so far from his ecosystem, his star, and this-- this was a human, alive, and proof that yes, living organisms needed ecosystems, this was a wiry thing, not good eating but not so stress-poisoned as to be inedible. But-- whole, intact, adequate salvage to pin all his hopes on, all everyone's hopes on, even if the human was packed in a grim little box for some reason.
Longarm folded his reach around the box and drew it-- not to him. Not to him. To the savior-ship, to outside. Shockwave could explain things, probably, to a human. Shockwave was soft and small and not at all intimidating, and Longarm--
Well, it would scare a human, Longarm was sure, to be trapped in a tiny box in a room with him in full torpor from overreach. Longarm was very charming, yes, but he was most charming when he was conscious, and humans were small even next to someone as slim as Longarm was. Shockwave would make a much better first impression, as a conspecific, and Longarm would meet their future pilot later.
Longarm had enough time to coil himself into a comfortable, defensible heap before slipping under.
END NOTES:THE AU SO FAR--
What if Shockblurr instead of Jazz/Prowl? | Post-Apocalyptic Blurr | Sharing | What do you mean there is no catch? | I'm an inspiration! | The mark of a really good AU
How does reaching work? Please note I am bullshitting and I want it to feel like Weird Alien Stuff and not like a superpower, but.
So there's supposed to be this thing about how dolphins and whales perceive the ocean through sound that bounces back, like, everything? Like a sonogram kinda? (Echolocation, or is that just bats? No I'm not looking this up, I'm running on vibes here and it's only sort of important.) I remember reading somewhere (Bogleech?) that this negatively affects dolphins' ability to imagine things they can't perceive somehow, and something something mirror test something. Then Keferon goes and says Longarm has no eyes, navigates through scent and vibration, like a snake, and I went, "!!!" and assumed evolution in murky (but not pitch-black, he's got colors) conditions. And then I went, "Okay, but-- why wouldn't Longarm also be some sort of scientist? Engineer? Not an alien buddy found by accident but someone also wanting and qualified to help?"
And then I went "but of course Longarm can't help pilot, if the controls were designed so you need two good arms, they were definitely designed for someone with standard human vision." So that's why they need Blurr.
And THEN I went, "omg that's why they NEED BLURR!" and-- why shouldn't that be Longarm's job, Longarm's decision? He's a Shockwave variant, what's a little dubiously-ethical alien superscience among friends? He's just ripping some poor extra-doomed bastard out of an already-doomed timeline to try to un-doom everyone else, it's fine. But if he can yoink a dude from the doomed future, why can't Longarm do the star fixing? Why can't his people?
So what if it's not a technological ability? What if it's something Longarm's people find as ordinary as we do... artistic talent, musical composition? Something anyone can do, but some people are really good at, and training can improve? Which meant, in my head, that Longarm's species couldn't have that lack of imagination-- they had to be able to think of things that weren't, that they had no experience with. But maybe they found that thinking of things hard enough-- of the things they really needed-- brought those things closer to them, or them closer to those things. What if the social aspect of his society was working together not to hunt (look at those claws, Longarm doesn't need that help) but to reach, to locate things like 'best shelter for offspring' or 'new hunting grounds'? So maybe it's something like teleportation, but not to something you know for sure, because it's so abstract, not like a scent you can track. The opposite of 'dolphins can't imagine things they don't know.' Which means that Longarm can be the predator he looks like while still reaching supplies in from home-- and not eating all of Shockwave's everything. Grabbing Blurr is the same as grabbing lunch, writ large. Longarm just has to make sure to include 'no reason to want to go home' in his list of qualities to reach for.
(Is it common to reach forward or back in time? No, because it's probably deeply inadvisable and exhausting... but what has Longarm got to lose? The stars are dying. If this knocks him out for a month it's worth it.)
Reaching takes effort, especially over great distances. Longarm is good at it (greatest-reach), but it still takes effort, energy. Sending Longarm to Shockwave was a group effort, a communal reaching. And Shockwave isn't far from Longarm's homeworld, I think? But getting Blurr, now, finding him and ripping him from his time and not dumping him out of his little box of air, with Longarm all on his own?
Longarm's gonna be in torpor for a while.
Shockwave would be awfully lonely... if he didn't have a new friend to rescue.
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Keferon's Bloody Mary AU
Characters: Longarm Prime, Shockwave, Blurr (not onscreen but incoming)
Word Count: 1,222
Rating: E for Everybody
Pairing(s): None, but pre-Shockwave/Blurr
Warnings: The stars are going out, and that will eventually kill, uh, everything. Also, I know nothing about Iron Lung or Project Hail Mary that I could not glean from the double-handful of tumblrs I have bookmarked, and I did not research either property for this. And it may show.
Author's Notes: AU links at the end, it doesn't have its own tag yet.
REGARDLESS, I said to myself, I said, "But how does Blurr get there? What weird pseudoscience shoved him back in time?" and then Keferon added Longarm and I went "!!!! YES" and did some Bullshit.
Warnings for 'if the stars go out we all die' I guess, and for the fact that I have only the barest 'I follow a few tumblrs via bookmarks' notion of how Project Hail Mary actually works. Or Iron Lung. I am keeping every damn thing vague, someone tell me what we're stealing from which canon and how it works, I'm giving an alien weird abilities because it... it really sort of. Listen if they're all three there, if it's Shockwave and Blurr and Longarm? Then they should all three be connected, right? Longarm isn't just Shockwave's adorable cuddly-looking alien roommate who keeps producing fish-like things out of nowhere so he can eat without depleting Shockwave's stores.
Summary: Take one AU that doesn't, at the moment, even have its own tag yet. Throw in one question (but how did Blurr get there?), invoke my name, and you get a ficlet I guess?
Or, the ship with the technology to save the stars-- and thus, the universe-- is adrift, because its pilot lost an arm, and the controls require two hands. The alien sent to help him has two arms... but his species never evolved eyes, so he's not as much help as he wants to be.
But when your murky-water-swimming, cave-and-burrow-dwelling evolution gave your species the ability to stretch out alien senses and locate more esoteric qualities than 'edible' or 'inedible,' and the literal fate of the universe is on the line...
Longarm Prime decides to find out just how far he can reach.
His name was not Longarm, not really, and he gave up explaining his rank to Shockwave a while ago. Shockwave has called translation issues normal, and tried to explain nicknames, use-names, private names. Shockwave's name was one of these. Longarm knew what a shockwave is-- of course he did. How could a people like his, who spent so much time in the water, hunting in the water, not have a word for that? But their word for it didn't sound like Shockwave, and Shockwave was only Shockwave's name because much of Shockwave's species struggled to pronounce Schcheglov. As Shockwave struggled to pronounce a name and title meaning, roughly, 'first-ranked one of the greatest reach.'
They were not the same-- they could not be the same, they were from different planets and different stars. Shockwave's use-name was the sound of his patronymic, Longarm's use-name was rooted in half a rough meaning.
But they were on the same mission.
Their stars were different, but made of the same stuff. Their stars were failing. All the stars would fail.
They reached, Longarm's people, for a solution. It took-- much. Much to find Shockwave, who had what it takes to save their star, to save his star. It took much to discover that Shockwave needed help, and so Longarm volunteered to help him.
Longarm's reach was great, his mind very sharp, his senses keen, his thinking flexible. He was a scholar's scholar, ever and always learning and teaching. Whatever was needed, he was sure, his people were sure, that Longarm could help provide it, when they reached to send Longarm to Shockwave's side.
It was, unfortunately, impossible to discover with only their reach what kind of help Shockwave needed. Even the greatest reach could only catch what it was already looking for.
There had been an accident.
Shockwave could not make himself a new arm, and his ship's mechanisms required two arms to pilot.
Longarm, of course, had two arms, and a very fine tail if he needed a third, and his feet were reasonably dexterous, as well.
But Longarm's evolution was one of murky waters and dark caves, of locating prey by scent and taste and vibration, of the senses that would one day allow for reach.
Shockwave's evolution was one of open grasslands, foraging for fruit, hunting small creatures by slight movements and pattern recognition. Photoreception-- what Shockwave called sight, a form of perception based on certain wavelengths of (mostly harmless) radiation-- was his primary sense, if not his strongest.
Shockwave could not pilot his savior-ship because it needed him to have two arms, two hands.
Longarm, whose entire reason for coming to Shockwave was to help him, could not pilot the savior-ship because he couldn't see.
It had taken a number of language-lessons, a lot of time, to truly understand that Longarm couldn't fix the problem himself, at which point he had accidentally taught Shockwave what a full monologue of profanity sounded like, in Longarm's own native language.
They tried anyway.
Shockwave was a patient teacher, and between them, they could make the ship limp to the course they wanted, but not with the speed or precision that might be achieved by a being with their photoreceptors attached to their nervous system.
Longarm briefly considered building some sort of neurological linking device to manage exactly that, but discarded the notion; he was not at all certain that would lead to anything more useful than two dead scientists, and they had time to think of other, less desperate solutions.
They had some time.
Because their timeline, truly, was doomed if the savior-ship stayed adrift. If it couldn't save stars.
Planets, worlds, peoples, would be swallowed. Some might evacuate, survive a few generations more, but even they would be doomed without stellar radiation to sustain life. It could be spoofed, of course, but without worlds, they would be without raw materials, metal and stone. Without ecosystems in all their intricacies, they would be without edible things, plants and animals.
They needed a pilot.
No.
No, they did not need a pilot.
They needed a person.
Humaniform, like Shockwave.
All limbs in good working condition.
Clear eyes with excellent photoreception; good sight.
Quick, nimble, with good reflexes.
With the mental capacity to learn to pilot.
But also--
Also--
He had volunteered for this. Shockwave had volunteered for this. There was no way to find a volunteer for this from where Longarm was.
So first...
First he needed a person to save.
Someone who would understand the enormity of their task, who would not regret not being able to go home, after.
There was an easy place to reach to, for such a person, Longarm thought. For such a human.
So he went to the recording device and left Shockwave a message.
"I soon very tired. Very sleep. I very hard wake! I wake fine want food later later. Shockwave not freak out."
And Longarm reached.
Longarm reached forward.
(Into a doomed timeline. If the savior-ship failed, everything was doomed.)
The biggest catch, the furthest reach, he had attempted alone. This was no mere mouthful of fish, not even a perfect courting gift. This-- this was a hunt for more-than-prey. Prey, food, could save a life or two, for a little while. This catch, this reach, could save everyone everywhere... if Longarm were successful.
Human or at least humaniform. Suitable for Shockwave's atmosphere.
Clear-sighted.
Good reflexes.
Limbs intact.
Helpful.
Willing to learn.
Teachable.
Doomed.
Who could accept never going back.
(Kind? Likeable? Clever? A potential friend? These were sub-wants, tertiary qualities, potentialities that did not matter, that Longarm could not afford to reach for. He kept them tucked low in his throat, nice if he could get them but not necessary.)
Somewhere, somewhere in the murk of everything, of a dying future, was the prize he sought, not the prey but the prize. The key. The intact person who could learn the skills and use Shockwave's knowledge.
Longarm's reach found a box, careening through the blackest skies.
By the most technical of technicalities, it might be called a ship.
Within was--
Within--
Shockwave had been clear his health was a carefully-kept thing, so far from his ecosystem, his star, and this-- this was a human, alive, and proof that yes, living organisms needed ecosystems, this was a wiry thing, not good eating but not so stress-poisoned as to be inedible. But-- whole, intact, adequate salvage to pin all his hopes on, all everyone's hopes on, even if the human was packed in a grim little box for some reason.
Longarm folded his reach around the box and drew it-- not to him. Not to him. To the savior-ship, to outside. Shockwave could explain things, probably, to a human. Shockwave was soft and small and not at all intimidating, and Longarm--
Well, it would scare a human, Longarm was sure, to be trapped in a tiny box in a room with him in full torpor from overreach. Longarm was very charming, yes, but he was most charming when he was conscious, and humans were small even next to someone as slim as Longarm was. Shockwave would make a much better first impression, as a conspecific, and Longarm would meet their future pilot later.
Longarm had enough time to coil himself into a comfortable, defensible heap before slipping under.
END NOTES:THE AU SO FAR--
What if Shockblurr instead of Jazz/Prowl? | Post-Apocalyptic Blurr | Sharing | What do you mean there is no catch? | I'm an inspiration! | The mark of a really good AU
How does reaching work? Please note I am bullshitting and I want it to feel like Weird Alien Stuff and not like a superpower, but.
So there's supposed to be this thing about how dolphins and whales perceive the ocean through sound that bounces back, like, everything? Like a sonogram kinda? (Echolocation, or is that just bats? No I'm not looking this up, I'm running on vibes here and it's only sort of important.) I remember reading somewhere (Bogleech?) that this negatively affects dolphins' ability to imagine things they can't perceive somehow, and something something mirror test something. Then Keferon goes and says Longarm has no eyes, navigates through scent and vibration, like a snake, and I went, "!!!" and assumed evolution in murky (but not pitch-black, he's got colors) conditions. And then I went, "Okay, but-- why wouldn't Longarm also be some sort of scientist? Engineer? Not an alien buddy found by accident but someone also wanting and qualified to help?"
And then I went "but of course Longarm can't help pilot, if the controls were designed so you need two good arms, they were definitely designed for someone with standard human vision." So that's why they need Blurr.
And THEN I went, "omg that's why they NEED BLURR!" and-- why shouldn't that be Longarm's job, Longarm's decision? He's a Shockwave variant, what's a little dubiously-ethical alien superscience among friends? He's just ripping some poor extra-doomed bastard out of an already-doomed timeline to try to un-doom everyone else, it's fine. But if he can yoink a dude from the doomed future, why can't Longarm do the star fixing? Why can't his people?
So what if it's not a technological ability? What if it's something Longarm's people find as ordinary as we do... artistic talent, musical composition? Something anyone can do, but some people are really good at, and training can improve? Which meant, in my head, that Longarm's species couldn't have that lack of imagination-- they had to be able to think of things that weren't, that they had no experience with. But maybe they found that thinking of things hard enough-- of the things they really needed-- brought those things closer to them, or them closer to those things. What if the social aspect of his society was working together not to hunt (look at those claws, Longarm doesn't need that help) but to reach, to locate things like 'best shelter for offspring' or 'new hunting grounds'? So maybe it's something like teleportation, but not to something you know for sure, because it's so abstract, not like a scent you can track. The opposite of 'dolphins can't imagine things they don't know.' Which means that Longarm can be the predator he looks like while still reaching supplies in from home-- and not eating all of Shockwave's everything. Grabbing Blurr is the same as grabbing lunch, writ large. Longarm just has to make sure to include 'no reason to want to go home' in his list of qualities to reach for.
(Is it common to reach forward or back in time? No, because it's probably deeply inadvisable and exhausting... but what has Longarm got to lose? The stars are dying. If this knocks him out for a month it's worth it.)
Reaching takes effort, especially over great distances. Longarm is good at it (greatest-reach), but it still takes effort, energy. Sending Longarm to Shockwave was a group effort, a communal reaching. And Shockwave isn't far from Longarm's homeworld, I think? But getting Blurr, now, finding him and ripping him from his time and not dumping him out of his little box of air, with Longarm all on his own?
Longarm's gonna be in torpor for a while.
Shockwave would be awfully lonely... if he didn't have a new friend to rescue.
