Literature / Thebe and the Angry Red Eye

Hopkins' illustration of Thomas smiling at Oscar — a very rare sight, since the events of this story don't give Thomas much to smile about.

"To be fair, the reason we crashed had nothing to do with the engineers at the company, Mallory our pilot, Captain Hawthorne, or any other member of the crew.
It was the Giant."

—Thomas explains it all

Thebe and the Angry Red Eye is an acclaimed Novella by David Hopkins, the Furry Fandom writer and artist best known for creating Jack. It was first published in chapters on Hopkins' page at Fur Affinity in 2014; in 2015, it also appeared in The Furry Future, a compilation of Science Fiction stories curated by the late Fred Patten that feature anthro animals.

In a future where furries have replaced humans, the Hildebrand Corporation initiates an ambitious plan to send a starship called the Hildebrand One on a ten-year expedition to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, in search of extraterrestrial life. A crew of seven is chosen, and their voyage goes well until the ship actually reaches the Gas Giant, where it is damaged by an unpredictable radiation surge. This causes a series of disasters that culminates with the ship crashing on another Jovian moon, Thebe. By the time it's all over, most of the characters are dead; the only survivors are a feline crew member named Thomas and a tomato plant called Oscar. Most of the story is about Thomas trying to cope with his terrible loneliness and learning that Living Is More than Surviving, which leads him to a decision that results in one final moment of discovery, transcendence and healing.

Because of the story's Anachronic Order and Foregone Conclusion, many important plot points are not hidden by spoilers. You Have Been Warned.

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Thebe and the Angry Red Tropes:

• The Aloner: This is Thomas' fate, and it affects him deeply.
• Anachronic Order: Used throughout. The story begins In Medias Res with Thomas and Oscar in the ruins of the Hildebrand One, then flashes back to show How We Got Here, then moves back and forth in time until the climax.
• Anatomy Agony: The astronauts' Gorny, spectacular deaths allow for some of this.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Carl's leg is severed when the ship crashes, although Thomas notes that exposure to vacuum would have killed him anyway.
  • Eye Scream: While Mallory is repairing a hull breach, one of the rocks from the rings of Jupiter smashes through the ship, enters her body via her right eye socket, and lands inside her brain, bouncing around like a deadly pinball and killing her instantly. As Thomas remembers how he and his shipmates prepared Mallory for burial, he reflects that "I was almost sure I could hear the stone rattle around inside her skull."
  • Facial Horror: During the crash, a panel on a bunk wall in the control room explodes and hits Dr. Slawvitz's head so hard that her face is torn off.
  • Groin Attack: A variation. Every astronaut on the Hildebrand One is obligated to have a sterilization device implanted to prevent any babies being born on the ship. When Thomas is injured during the crash landing, his penile catheter is broken into tiny pieces inside his urethra, which makes urination intensely painful.
• Artistic License – Space: So much of it that Hopkins wrote an article for Fur Affinity that acknowledges and addresses several of the story's scientific inaccuracies, some of which he left in due to Rule of Cool.
• Being Watched: Thomas imagines that the eye of Jupiter is a malevolent being that's spying on him. He's right about the watching, wrong about the malevolence.
• Benevolent Abomination: The snake alien means well. Unfortunately, it's also an Unwitting Instigator of Doom.
• Bittersweet Ending: On the one hand, all the astronauts are killed. On the other hand, Thomas makes First Contact with a friendly alien (even though no one on Earth might ever know), realizes that the sacrifices he and his friends made were not in vain, and even gets to say goodbye to his beloved wife Katie just before he dies. All this prevents the story from having a full Downer Ending, although it comes very close.
• Buried Alive: As a child, Thomas accepted a dare to let his friends do this to him. It was a terrifying experience, and he still has Past Experience Nightmares about it.
• Character Narrator: As Thomas is the Sole Survivor of Hildebrand One, the entire story is seen through his eyes... and the moment he dies is the moment the story ends.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: It starts with Dwindling Party as Captain Hawthorne dies, followed quickly by Mallory. Then Carl, Jenare, Slawvitz and Tout are all killed when the ship crashes. And Thomas finally joins them all at the end.
• Communications Officer: Besides her journalistic duties, Tout maintains the ship's contacts with Earth.
• Cool Starship: The Hildebrand One, at least until it gets trashed on Thebe.
• Companion Cube: Like Wilson the volleyball in Cast Away, Oscar the tomato plant becomes a stranded hero's only company.
• Dramatic Irony: The astronauts ' mission is to find life on Europa. They do, but it destroys them all. For further tragic irony, see the spoiler text under First Contact Faux Pas.
• Dramatic Reading: Available at David Hopkins' Fur Affinity postings of the individual chapters until he took them down.
• Dying Dream: A variation. Near the end of the story, Thomas has a vivid dream about how the astronauts' journey should have ended, with the entire team returning to Earth safely and receiving a heroes' welcome. And then, just as Thomas is about to embrace his beloved wife Katie, he wakes up...
• Easily Forgiven: Thomas doesn't blame the alien for the calamity it inadvertently caused.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: The story begins with every astronaut except Thomas dead, and he realizes his own chances of survival are slim to none. He's right.
• Face Death with Dignity: All the astronauts get to do this except Mallory, who is killed too quickly to say goodbye to anyone. However, while Jenare just barely keeps it together during his farewell message, Thomas hears him crying afterwards.
• First Contact Faux Pas: Assuming Thomas' theory is correct, hoo boy. He speculates that the snake alien sent the radioactive surge as an attempt at communication that went horribly wrong. The being's remorseful actions indicate that Thomas is probably right.
• Foregone Conclusion: From the beginning, it's clear that terrible things have already happened on the ship and are going to keep happening.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The crew of Hildebrand One comes close, being comprised of four males (Captain Hawthorne, Thomas, Carl, Jenare) and three females (Mallory, Dr. Slawvitz, Tout).
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Defied Trope. After the shipwreck, Thomas has no one to talk to except Oscar. But when Oscar seems to answer back, Thomas realizes that he's in danger of Sanity Slippage and passing the Despair Event Horizon, so he has to improve his situation as best he can.
• Happily Married: Thomas and Katie have a great relationship, which they maintain even while she's on Earth and he's in space. Seeing one last glimpse of her and getting to say goodbye helps Thomas accept his impending demise.
• Heroic BSoD: Thomas' reaction when he goes looking for his shipmates after the crash and starts finding them... dead.
  Thomas: Hydroponics was shattered, and pieces of it hung like ghosts in the air. I found frozen Carl almost immediately. I tried to move him, but at some point I broke down crying with my arms around Carl asking his corpse, "Everyone is dead, aren't they?"
• I Call It "Vera": Inverted Trope for the heroes' spaceship.
  Thomas: No one on our crew called it "Hildebrand One''. We all knew her as "The Ship".
• I Come in Peace: Thomas uses this exact phrase as he greets the alien, apparently because he can't think of anything else that fits the moment. He reflects that he "must sound like a fool".
• I Regret Nothing: The crew's attitude as they prepare for their crash landing. In particular, during her Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye, Dr. Slawvitz begs Earth society not to give up on space exploration despite the danger.
• Intrepid Reporter: Tout, a young journalist who has already worked in space several times and wins a lottery to participate in this voyage.
• Living Is More than Surviving: The story's Aesop, expressed during one of Thomas' "conversations" with Oscar.
  Thomas: Finally, I got to the heart of my depression. When we were traveling through the stars, I was doing something; I was being someone. I was being alive. After the crash, all I've been doing is surviving. Is surviving really the same as living?
  "No. We died in the crash." Oscar let that hang in the air for a time, and I considered the possibility. "We died in the crash, and we haven't been alive since because we've been concerning ourselves with merely surviving."
  To survive, it's just not enough.
• Long-Lasting Last Words: During her time on Hildebrand One, Tout corresponds with 58 different school kids. During her Final Speech, she insists on saying individual goodbyes to each one of them.
• Mature Animal Story: This is a sad story about a space disaster and its aftermath. It centers around the protagonist's mental and physical suffering. It also has plenty of Gorn. And although the narrative doesn't mention it often, all the astronauts are anthro animals.
• Meaningful Name: Hopkins has confirmed that Thomas' name is a reference to another ill-fated space traveler, David Bowie's Major Tom.
• The Medic: Dr. Slawvitz, who also plays the role of compassionate, supportive Team Mom to Captain Hawthorne's strong but kindly Team Dad.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The snake alien's probable reaction to the tragedy it has accidentally caused.
• No Antagonist: The only "villains" here are the Death Worlds of outer space and distant, lifeless planets like Jupiter and Thebe. Even the alien who accidentally starts the whole mess is just trying to say "hello".
• No Full Name Given: Nobody in this story gets a full name. Captain Hawthorne and Doctor Slawvitz are referred to by their ranks and surnames. Thomas, Mallory, Carl and Katie get only first names. As for Jenare and Tout, their names are so unusual that it's hard to tell whether they're first names or last.
• Punny Name: Possibly unintentional, but Thomas is a literal "tom cat".
• Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: After Hawthorne and Mallory die, the remaining shipmates realize they might not make it either and record a series of these for their final messages to Earth.
• Sci-Fi Horror: Characters Dropping Like Flies (and often leaving mangled corpses behind), a wrecked spaceship full of tragic memories for the hero, Sanity Slippage, a dark and brooding atmosphere... yes, this story qualifies.
• Shiny-Looking Spaceships: After the crash, Thomas remembers when the Hildebrand One was actually beautiful.
  Thomas: While the ship may not look like much now, shattered within a Thebean crater, if you could see it in its day, with the Hildebrand emblem still shiny and new on it — I tell you, it was astounding!
• Shout-Out: Although Thomas states that humanity vanished "thousands of years ago", aspects of their culture still exist.
  • Thanks to a primitive radio assembled by Carl the engineer and some Hollywood Science, Thomas can indulge in a hobby he calls "Shortwave Archaeology", listening to old shows like The Jack Benny Program and The Shadow.
  • Jenare plays video games on an Xbox.
  • When the surviving crew does their farewell messages to Earth, Jenare ends his by saying "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"
  • Thomas' first reaction to the snake alien: "What I see before me could be one of Lovecraft's signature horrors!"
  • There's also the Space Oddity reference noted in Meaningful Name.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Played with. The alien is a snake-like creature who's nearly as large as a planet, but it apparently meant no harm to Thomas and the others.
• Space Isolation Horror: After the crash, Thomas and Oscar are the only living things in a million miles.
• Sorry That I'm Dying: During her Final Speech, Dr. Slawvitz apologizes to her medical students for not being able to make their graduation, which she had promised to do.
• True Companions: The crew of Hildebrand One overcome their minor differences to bond together as friends — which makes their brutal fates all the more heartbreaking.
• Women Are Wiser: One reason Thomas loves Katie is because she's so sensible, including with economics.
  Thomas: I was happy to hear that the house was paid off and that [Katie] was doing well. And although the money she was given would last her until I got back, she kept her job and endeavoured not to go into our savings. That is so like her.
• World of Funny Animals: The astronauts are all furries, but very little is made of it. Thomas is depicted as an anthropomorphic cat in the artwork, and he mentions his whiskers, claws and tail a few times, but that's it. We never even learn the species of his crewmates.

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