> normal and expected crew rotation, they just kicked a few people off the mission so that there would be open seats

That’s neither normal nor expected!

Go back to the age of exploration. A crew’s ship strands them on an island. Another ship was due to come anyway in 6 weeks, and the crew have enough food to last them that interval. They use witches to tell the coming crew of their problems, and that ship agrees to lighten its load to make room for the stranded.

This is a rescue! It’s an easy rescue. But so was, like, pulling my puppy out of the neighbor’s pool when it went under the cover.