This Decentralized Community Project session may be used with family, friends, existing small groups, colleagues over lunch, pop-up book or movie discussion groups, and self-organizing Decentralized Community Project groups. Not in a group? Consider sharing the session via social media or email and asking if others would like to organize a pop-up group to discuss.
We are sharing examples of sessions using different kinds of content anchors. This is an example of a session inspired by an upcoming movie.
Prepared by the Decentralized Community Project launch team. If you adapt this session, please add “Adapted by [Your Name]”
Welcome, everyone. We’re participating in the Decentralized Community Project, a self-organizing effort to promote meaningful connection and conversation. This session is inspired by Project Hail Mary, a novel by Andy Weir, now a major motion picture. You don’t need to have read the book or seen the movie to take part. The details shared in this session have already been shared in the movie trailers. It’s a story that speaks to something universal: what it takes to connect with someone profoundly different from ourselves.
Each person introduces themselves if it's a new group. For existing groups, each person is invited to share a brief personal check-in. How are they? What’s the latest? For ongoing groups, a regular check-in builds community as you get to know what’s happening in people’s lives outside of the group.
In Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, humanity faces extinction. One lone astronaut, Ryland Grace, wakes up in deep space with no memory, only to discover he’s on a last-ditch mission to save Earth. But the real turning point in the story isn’t just a scientific breakthrough. It’s a relationship — a friendship — that defies all odds.
Grace encounters an alien named Rocky, a being unlike anything he’s ever imagined. They share no language, no biology, no culture. And yet... they begin to communicate. The mission to save humanity rests on the success of this alien relationship.
At the heart of this story is a timeless question: how do we learn to trust what we don’t understand? Rocky and Grace are radically different. They look different. They think differently. They live in different atmospheres.
In many ways, this isn’t just a story about space. It’s a mirror for the challenges we face here on Earth. We live in a world filled with “otherness” across cultures, generations, beliefs, and now new forms of artificial intelligence.
Whether we’re encountering a different species, a new technology, or just someone who sees the world another way, we face the same challenge: Can we listen? Can we build trust and common ground over time? Can we imagine relationships that begin in alienness and end in friendship?
We don’t need to be astronauts to wrestle with this. Every day we have opportunities to meet someone — or something — unfamiliar. We can choose to value curiosity, understanding, and shared goals over the discomfort of the unknown.
1. How do you stay open when facing the unfamiliar, be it people, ideas, or technology?
2. When have you connected deeply with someone very different from you? If something comes to mind, consider sharing the story.
3. What might Project Hail Mary’s story of alien friendship powered by a life-saving mission teach us about cooperation in our world?
4. What helps you build trust when there’s no shared background or language?
This session, including these reflection questions, is designed to serve as a springboard for a great discussion. We want participants to bring in other ideas, experiences, stories, and related content. The goal is meaningful connection and conversation.
Before sharing, give the group a couple of minutes to reflect on the questions and, if interested, write down some notes. It is easier to listen if your ideas are captured. When ready, give each a chance to share their initial thoughts. Keep it relatively brief. This is like fuel for the larger discussion.
Open the floor for free-flowing dialogue. Let ideas emerge, stories unfold, and insights surface. Revisit the reflection questions if the conversation drifts off topic. If the group has energy around other topics, take note and consider dedicating a group session to those topics. See session writing resources below.
About 20 minutes before the session ends, invite final thoughts. For those who have been primarily listening, ask them if they would like to share.
Invite each person to share one thing they appreciated or are taking with them from the session
Thank you for sharing your stories, insights, and imaginations. Just like Grace and Rocky, we grow when we reach across distance.
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