#also doc was not emotionless per say before the incident but was more logical about dealing with it all

[chirrups]

Im so not a writer but i will do my very damndest to make at all coherent. The general premise is Doc, a human-made android on-board the Hermitcraft Space Ship™, is assigned by Xisuma to write the “yearly” (loosely, because time in space gets tricky to say the least) personal report that is kept in the ship’s digital archive as proof of purpose which forces him to confront his feelings about his own purpose and what it means to be sentient (and to be loved). Quick warning that below is A LOT of rambling from me.

Some silly little worldbuilding notes:

Hermitcraft Space Ship™ (HCSS) is a voyager-class starship especially designed as a Seed-Ship (better name pending) which works with various civilizations to make barren planets habitable for trade, outpost, and port use. This work varies from simply making the atmosphere breathable to actually terraforming and creating new life from scratch. Needless to say this job is VERY important that requires a highly skilled set of crew and also a shit ton of permits reviewed by most collaborative space society which is where the reports come in to make sure the Hermits aren’t like being grossly unethical or something.

Humans in this au are EXTREMELY rare due to a large-scale extinction event right when they went interplanetary (which was their own damn fault let’s be really honest). At this point in time, there are more human-made machines like Doc than there are living, breathing humans in space as humanity sent their AI out to interact with the new-found aliens in order to prevent “human losses”. This results in Doc basically being made in the image of beings he has never really met or interacted with but is programmed to intrinsically understand better than his Hermitcraft companions. (Note: I do know about Doc creacher lore btw, but subverting it and making him the only human connection is so much fun ngl)

Universal translators DO exist in this au and are neurologically based. They are pre-programmed to translate both spoken word and body language (as body language and cultural queues are not something that is universal) directly into the host’s equivalent of a brain. However, the translators don’t do well with contradiction and plenty of more complicated emotions and gestures (especially culture-specific ones) get lost or confused as it’s like blasting heavy metal into someone’s ear while talking to them and expecting them to understand what’s being said. Most aliens do overcome this using the finer skills of social species interaction but Doc has some difficulty as a machine-based intelligence makes what are essentially guesses at what the fuck the point is of some of his crew’s behaviors.

At the moment, the au is missing a lot of the middle and bridging scenes but it opens up with Xisuma (captain) first assigning Doc (head of R&D, both life-science and engineering sub departments) to create the annual report for the archives as responsibility for this is traded around the various Head of Departments on a semi-regular basis.

At first Doc just keeps well-organized reports of the ship’s daily going and his coworkers' various little shenanigans but HCSS gets raided by bandits as they are on their way to their newest project (season 10). It’s kind of a regular thing being this far out in distant space but the chaos, Doc gets beaten pretty badly and it forces/disrupts a circuit in his electronics which enables him to actually FEEL emotions as inaccuracies in his operation beyond just passively understanding that this is a thing biological creatures do.

Prior to this, Doc understood and reacted to emotions from his crew and is rather protective of the hermits to begin with but this error is actually generating sensation and illogical responses from him which is a novel (and a little frightening) experience. From there his report becomes less of a data report and more of a personal journal (something Xisuma seems more amused about than anything else).

Again, LOTS of middle scenes are not finished but here is an outline for a few that stick out as done enough to be shared

Doc, who is non-biological, has the longest awake shifts of anyone and frequently pulls long hours to work on his project (a planet cracker blue-print he is calling World Eater to mine barren worlds of their resources for the hermit’s various projects). Doc finishes his World Eater and presents it to the Hermits and gets his first strong taste of feeling which is god-like hubris that messes with his plan so much that he bursts into villainous laughter instead of moving to point C much to his crew’s amusement.

Ren is a frequent of Doc’s creative sessions as Ren took some shifts in management and has some time to kill in the hours where less of the crew is active. They hang out a lot talking about who knows what and Ren really seems to spend a lot of it leaning on Doc or laying belly-up around on the ground which Doc’s translator tells him is Ren’s form of affection and trust. Doc has feelings about this. Doc does not know what to do with these feelings.

The buttercups are a frequent pest in his workshop as Grian and Scar are both tropical species with ingrained cultural and biological drives to be curious (and Mumbo is just dragged along). This leads to frustration and amusement in equal parts for Doc and in leaning on the god-like hubris Doc from earlier realizes that chasing out the pests is actually kind of fun which creates a feedback loop to where Doc is actually distracted from focusing leading to more space for shenanigans (an also extremely irritating when his carefully planned cell cultures get contaminated making him start them all over again)

Mumbo, who is under Doc’s department and is a cuckoo-bird like arthropod alien race is undergoing a molt from his protective mimic form into his true form in preparation to take on another species in appearance. This would be easy but Mumbo’s old form was that of a human and the loss of that familiar appearance makes Doc a little mournful for things that never were and it disrupts his progress back a whole day. 

Doc is a shepherd to much of the R&D department who hold plenty of irregular habits even in respect to their races. He spends a lot of time really awkwardly setting reminders for the department to assume “normal biological activities for efficiency’s sake” but recently has found out that the task is actively unpleasant to him but it's one he's just gotta do. In one notable moment, the R&D department bands together to help him fix three of his four arms when they malfunction simultaneously as a side effect of the damaged electronics as human technology at this point is not widely understood and Doc's complexity means he was the best person around to fix himself but obviously can't now. During the process there is some kind of warmth building under Doc’s chest plate. Maybe his coolant isn’t working, who really knows right?

A larger scene where everyone gets ready to make it to season 10, complete with the hustle and bustle to get everything ready for terraforming and the sheer joy every Hermit takes in making something new. This takes lots of careful management from the Heads of Department and plenty of synchronization of circadian cycles, projects and so much more. It ends up being a moment for Doc where he “stands in the sun” and takes in just what a wonder he and the rest of the Hermits really are for it all. It completes with some sort of flashback to season 9 where the Hermits leave their marks as “signatures” of their work which is a set of hand-prints from them all in a cave that will stand the tests of time.

I am not getting into ALL of the lore because it is literally just me going on and on about cohabitation in space but essentially the crew all have different atmosphere, nutrition, and circadian rhythm requirements which leads to everyone taking shifts to keep the ship running and A LOT of ecosystem-specific services to meet everyone’s needs. In addition, there is competition between departments and some listed are ship maintenance headed by Pearl, architecture headed by a rotating cast of hermits, terraforming headed by Bdubs, R&D headed by Doc and co-headed by Cleo and Zedaph, and management which is headed by Xisuma. Departments are not set in stone and frequently Hermits will “cross into” other departments for a project or two (for example Mumbo is R&D who is now taking some extra jobs in architecture for the hell of it). Also Doc observes a lot of varying Hermit season 9 shenanigans in the background like Tango’s creation of his new Decked Out game in the simulation room, Ren’s rise (and fall) to managerial power, and finally Joel and Skizz’s introductions and inclusion into the crew among other things.

Honestly, I love this au but I don't have Doc's character voice down enough to ever write this out fic style without some major rubber ducking and bouncing back from a doc-main so this is the closest I will get I think.

ive got such a mighty spacehermits au boiling in the background rn but 90% of it is speculative biology and the other 10% is doc's god complex i'll be real