#Sampson: (cuz everyone on this ship is some kinda demon jfc I swear)

[phantomrose96]

The part about 938 seconds that really stands out to me is that, when Mendoza mentions that Sampson’s culture died out last year… he doesn’t specify ‘in frame’ year. That’s pretty consistent over the rest of it, in frame vs out of frame, but that mention… even though he then goes on to talk about the years since Sampson woke up, it makes it seem like his culture dying is incredibly recent. Like, recent enough that Sampson being an ambassador isn’t intentional, it’s just that… he’s the only one left, by coincidence.

i also really like Sampson’s last line— “I didn’t see a single soul that night”. With this job, I don’t think he’s lying.

(938 Seconds Per Second)

Yup. See here's the thing - there's even more to it.

Mendoza spends nearly the entire narration intentionally specifying In Frame or not. It's his way to keep himself grounded and aware, and to never view In Frame time the same as the time of the whole rest of the universe. By being constantly aware, he'll never slip into the trap of thinking anything outside the ship is connected linearly with him. It's to avoid any nostalgia, any grief, any instinctual human response that assumes all time happens together, or any feeling like you are part of their world or they are part of yours.

Like, Mendoza even specifies that it's 3am (In Frame) when sarcastically noting Carson may have gone for a spontaneous 3am (In Frame) scrub down. Because again, that's a concept set by the ship they're on and its frame, not the planet.

So, having said that, the first time the death of Sampson's people is specified is during Mendoza and Carson's argument about the stolen tome

“I’m trying to educate myself. This is all that’s left of that poor poor culture that died 1,000 years ago.”  (Last year, In Frame.) 

Mendoza does the mental specification. The culture's been dead 1,000 years their time, and they died last year In Frame.

Then, at the very end, when Mendoza is considering taking off with Carson and stealing what remains of Sampson's culture, there's this narration:

Sampson left while his culture was still bleeding. It died overnight, sometime last year, and had been dead a few good years before Sampson even woke up. I’ve never quite seen him recover.  

Mendoza kind of... slips up, a little bit, here. "It died overnight, sometime last year". No... It died ~1,000 years ago. The Ship experienced about 1 In Frame year since then. These are separate. In Mendoza's usual style of talking about time, he'd have said something like "They died 1,000 years ago, which was last year In Frame."

Instead, you're right, Mendoza forgets to specify In Frame. Mendoza muddies the two together. And really what he's doing is he's describing when the culture died in Sampson's frame... It died last year to Sampson. Its death is fresh and new and painful to Sampson, the sole remnant of his people. In this moment Mendoza is failing to keep In Frame time separate from rest frame time because he's thinking about how it impacted Sampson. And Sampson, unlike Mendoza, is bad at keeping the times separate.

This is, of course, the scene where Mendoza silently makes the decision to abandon Carson outside the ship. Mendoza chooses Sampson over Carson here. And this is one of the hints, the way he breaks from his usual thinking and deviates, just slightly, to empathize with Sampson instead

#938sps #Sampson: ‘I didn’t see a soul’ #Sampson: (cuz everyone on this ship is some kinda demon jfc I swear)