#yes galen is apparently the franklin expedition in this

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

AU ask: the Rogue One crew in a doomed (or not) nineteenth-century Arctic exploration story...

oh my god???? YOUR MIND! no joke, can someone write this, please?

Bodhi as the scientist kicking the whole thing off (Bodhi must always be The Catalyst this is a rule)

Jyn as a geologist - her parents set heaven and hell in motion to send her to university. Geology was her mother's special interest, too, and they used to spend a lot of time together with Jyn's books.

Also, her father was a scientist and the one to originally plan this mission. He went to Lord Krennic (House of Lords) for government funding, the mission got infinitely more dangerous because they added some kind of land claim for the Crown to it.

Bodhi fell ill at the last moment - he was Galen's best student and supposed to go on the expedition - and Galen's crew disappeared into the Arctic, never to be seen again.

Bodhi and Jyn are half wanting to complete his work, half trying to find out what happened to him

Cassian as the captain, obviously. He resents this whole idea from the get-go, but he needs the money and he secretly thinks these green idiots need all the help they can get. Also, this could prove that Lord Krennic and Lord Tarkin are corrupt and sent Galen Erso to his death to further their own means, and Cpt. Andor may or may not be part of a group who has been trying to prove this and other machinations like it for probably a decade...

Melshi as first mate, Chirrut as one of the sailors (I feel strongly about this), Baze as the ship's cook, Kay as the ship physician (we're going a little Master and Commander on this now)

Cassian and Co. are initially very apprehensive about Jyn and Bodhi - a bourgeoise young lady and a university student who never goes outside, they won't last the week! - but it turns out that - Jyn spent a lot of time after her father's disappearance with "uncle" Saw, a US Navy captain always sailing *dangerously* close to, uh, piracy - Bodhi is trying his best and his best is actually very helpful - he also turns out to be a very talented navigator in his own right

things get *grim*. I could never do this fic justice because I know nothing about ships, geography, the navy, or the Arctic, but there must be storms on the high seas, the ship getting stuck in the ice, some undercurrent of political intrigue (please note here that I have no idea when to set this and therefore can't give examples. Maybe mid- to late 1800s. I feel strongly about it NOT being the 1830s simply because that fashion is Not It for this scenario)

several crew members have to die tbh, maybe main crew members

at least one of the extended crew was paid off by Krennic, actively trying to sabotage the mission (so they don't find out what happened to Galen)

at some point, I want them to be Doomed and all the long-time sailors completely giving in to their fate, only to have Science and Modern Thinking by Jyn and Bodhi save the day (it's a very old trope but it's period-appropriate!)