#i hope some stuff remains unanswered tbh. it helps with the alien flavor of things

[rowanthefierce]

Ok, one more Scavengers Reign post before I sleep. This one's about how the narrative(s) unfold(s) and pacing. Under a cut because spoilers for everything up to ep 9 ("the mountain")

One thing I am very much enjoying about this show so far is how we get more and new information about Vesta and our survivors pre-crash.

Not everything is shown or revealed to us right away. And while yes, duh, that's par for the course for this sort of story / narrative, SR balances its present and past really well. Specifically, I love how it tells us about the alien ecosystems that the characters interact with.

Take how we meet the 'mimic pods' (someone lmk if there's a different fandom-preferred name for 'em) in ep5. Something's clearly not 'right' between the creepy graveyard of wildlife + Sam getting attacked, and then in ep6's cold open, we see how they more or less reproduce and keep spreading. How widely have these things spread? Is this cycle of mimicry and devastation the only way they propagate?

Same thing with the 'heart-asite' (again lmk if there's a better name). It's introduced in ep7, explored more in ep8, and then in ep9, we get some backstory. But how was John infected initially? And where did he and the woman (I don't know her name, oops) come from? How long had they been surviving on Vesta?

Personally, I enjoy see something come up, have it explained a little later on, and then watch the characters struggle to understand it. Something something dramatic irony.

As seen above, I have so many questions about the flora and fauna, the different biomes, everything...but I am fully aware that the show is going to answer things on its own terms at its own pace, and I don't expect stuff to be spelled out for me on its first appearance.

Vesta is full of mysteries. It is inherently foreign and nigh-indecipherable to outsiders (humans). But it's clearly brimming with things that have survived, even thrived, in a very hostile landscape, and I like that we get little bits of it at a time instead of big expository explainers that clearly show how everything works and how all the pieces fit together. It reminds me a lot of Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation / Area X trilogy, another one of my favorite pieces of media (at least the books).

Would love to know if anyone else has any thoughts on this. Hopefully this whole ramble makes sense! Stoked for the final trio of episodes this week.