The Expanse #2: Caliban's Thread - [spoilers for book only up to latest tv show episode]

[boojam]

11 hours ago, Wethers said:

I think it was very good, maybe the 3rd or 4th best episode of the season behind e5 (the best), e4 and perhaps e2.

I completely agree about the big beltalowda being the highlight.  That scene at the end with him, Naomi and the refugees was fantastic.

Quite a departure (continued) with Errinwright (sp?) and it will be interesting to see where they take that with him threatening Mao directly to force Mao to choose to sell the Caliban technology to Earth.  In the books, 

I

Have to say Errinwritht's actions did not undercut my expectations. I could see the set up from last week's episode to the beginning of this one. If the plot had gone in a different direction I would have been surprised. Still a good story, have not read the books but the implication now seems dead set on a war between Mars and the Earth, which if had been avoided would have demanded a more imaginative narrative.

 

[Relic]

Much better episode than the recent ones. Loved Bobbie eating those cucumber sandwiches. 

Holden's resting bitch face has been getting to me as well.  I blamed the actor but after this episode it was clear that the writing is partially to blame. 

[boojam]

19 hours ago, Relic said:

Much better episode than the recent ones. Loved Bobbie eating those cucumber sandwiches. 

Holden's resting bitch face has been getting to me as well.  I blamed the actor but after this episode it was clear that the writing is partially to blame. 

Can't quite figure out the lack of dimensionality to  Holden's character either. Have seen Steven Strait in other dramas he seems to have range enough. So seems to be the teleplay framing and (I guess?) director's instructions. It is kind of anoying.

 

 

[karaddin]

Personally I don't have an issue with it. Its different to the book version yes, but book version had a period of time to recover from Eros before we got to this point. Show Holden hasn't had time to process and he's acting out of pure trauma. He's not trying to bed a hard ass, he's not simply angry - he's mind numblingly terrified and its making him ruthless, single minded and stupid. Naomi isnt splitting from Holden, she's acting out her own trauma of survivors guilt. Amos is always living out his own childhood trauma...the only one of the four that isn't at the moment is Alex.

@Wethers - they had Holden tell us why the threat worked, Earth and Mars are in a tense stand off. They don't trust that the WS is simply a refugee ship like it claims and each side can think its working for the other. Holden/The Rocinante are possibly the only ship in the system that they are absolutely certain is not with the other side, so when he "claims" the WS they let it go

Side note regarding firepower - I'm not 100% on this and I don't think its been explicitly stated in either the book or the show, but I don't think standard torpedoes are nuclear or that all ships necessarily still have them. The Canterbury is explicitly killed by a nuke and that comment was noteworthy. The Roci uses a nuke to kill the Anubis/the asteroid its attached to. But there are plenty of other occasions of torpedoes flying around and I don't think they're all nukes. The Roci is small, but its not a standard ship in that it was the bail out ship for the Donnager - the Martian flagship - so it being abnormally well armed fits on that front. If this is correct then it may be reasonable to theorise that the Roci can take a decent amount with them even though it will definitely die. I thought that's what it was hinting at with Holdens "you know what we're capable of" line.

[boojam]

One thing of note about The Expanse, last episode this week, but 13 episodes for season 2, despite some limitations, this is an expensive show , so that many episodes is unusual.

GoT , still don't know the total take, seems to make a lot market wise, yet still limited the narrative time for the story, when seems many elements seem too rushed. An attribute that has been around since the beginning.

[Wethers]

19 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

@Wethers - they had Holden tell us why the threat worked, Earth and Mars are in a tense stand off. They don't trust that the WS is simply a refugee ship like it claims and each side can think its working for the other. Holden/The Rocinante are possibly the only ship in the system that they are absolutely certain is not with the other side, so when he "claims" the WS they let it go

 

Possibly.  I don't get the feeling the Mars and Earth trust the Roci.  In the books it's an active shooting war above Ganymede and as the Roci is departing, they shoot torpedoes at the Roci which Alex has to use a close skim around another Jovian moon to avoid.  Also in the books, on the way in, Alex describes his approach as never being the #1 threat on any other ship's list of threats, implying that if he charted the wrong course, he very easily could have become the #1 threat and been shot at.

Quote

Side note regarding firepower - I'm not 100% on this and I don't think its been explicitly stated in either the book or the show, but I don't think standard torpedoes are nuclear or that all ships necessarily still have them. The Canterbury is explicitly killed by a nuke and that comment was noteworthy. The Roci uses a nuke to kill the Anubis/the asteroid its attached to. But there are plenty of other occasions of torpedoes flying around and I don't think they'reO all nukes. The Roci is small, but its not a standard ship in that it was the bail out ship for the Donnager - the Martian flagship - so it being abnormally well armed fits on that front. If this is correct then it may be reasonable to theorise that the Roci can take a decent amount with them even though it will definitely die. I thought that's what it was hinting at with Holdens "you know what we're capable of" line.

From the books, I'm not sure we've seen a torpedo that is not nuclear unless...

Spoiler

...it is explicitly disarmed as at the end of the 3-on-1 battle with the Roci when Holden disarms the final torpedoes Bobbie sends towards the fleeing Pella.

Every direct hit from a torpedo is considered to be lights out for the ship that is hit.  So in my mind, certainly the MCRN fleet has nuclear torpedoes, not to mention PDCs and rail guns.  The Roci at this point is a standard MCRN "corvette-class" frigate with torpedoes and PDCs and no rail gun.  A very tough little ship but...

The Roci by itself would not stand a chance of either surviving or doing any damage against the MCRN fleet with capital ships like destroyers, cruisers and battleships (like the Donnager) that is paying attention to it.  This is easily shown in the Caliban's War book when...

Spoiler

... Avasarala is on board the Roci and asks Holden what his plan is when being chased by 6 Earth/UN destroyers and he basically says WTF?  Die in an expanding cloud of super-heated plasma!  That's my plan he says bitterly.  He says maybe against 1 destroyer they could have gotten a lucky shot in, but against 6 no way.  And these are Earth/UN destroyers he's talking about in the books, which are less advanced than the 4 MCRN destroyers and 2 even more powerful fast cruisers that are in turn tailing the 6 Earth/UN destroyers (in the book).

Furthermore the analysis after the above battle discusses how fleets tactically combine PDCs defensively in a wide defensive screen so the sum is greater than the parts in terms of shooting down torpedoes aimed at any of the fleet.  The key moment in that battle was when the Earth/UN destroyers "turn their back" on the Roci and Bobbie is able to get a torpedo in, and the one missing/disabled Earth/UN destroyer creates enough of a hole in the Earth/UN PDC defensive screen that the MCRN destroyers and cruisers are able to break through and win the battle.

The PDC screen tactic is why I keep mentioning the rail gun since rail gun rounds are too fast for PDCs to shoot down so that could have been the great equalizer and be a credible threat for mutual assured destruction.  But the Roci has no rail gun at this point and, again as described in relation to the Caliban's War battle, Alex and Bobbie play "I spy" with the Earth/UN destroyers and talk about a keel-mounted rail gun since they are a class above frigates.  So the Roci has torpedoes as its main offensive weapon, and torpedoes from 1 ship can certainly be neutralized by a concerted screen of PDCs from a fleet that is paying attention to it.  Meanwhile the Roci itself can't defend itself from torpedo and rail gun fire coming from all sides.

So again, I am fairly certain that, at least book-wise, a single frigate, even a state-of-the-art one (for now) like the Roci would be no serious threat against an entire fleet if that fleet were focused on the Roci.

Of course the show is the show and can substitute whatever reality it wants.  Maybe it's what you said earlier about somehow trusting that the Roci is 3rd party.  Perhaps combined with the MCRN fleet being too busy watching for attacks by the Earth/UN to be willing to turn their full attention on the Roci.

[Calibandar]

For season 2, which episodes would you guys say have had the best space battles, confrontations?

I found season 1 slow but the CGI impresses me a lot and I'd like to see more of it. Saw a clip of the Nauvoo approaching Eros, looked very good.

[Wethers]

Quote

For season 2, which episodes would you guys say have had the best space battles, confrontations?

I found season 1 slow but the CGI impresses me a lot and I'd like to see more of it. Saw a clip of the Nauvoo approaching Eros, looked very good.

I think Season 2 Episode 2 probably had the best space battle, between the Roci and (in the series) the Protogen stealth ship guarding Thoth station, with the Roci also trying to protect the Guy Molinari and the breaching pods with belters from Tycho.  (In the books, it's 2 smaller ships guarding Thoth).

Not necessarily realistic, as it shows the ships gliding past each other firing PDCs when in reality they would zoom past each other faster than an eyeblink, and it also shows the Roci hiding inside the Thoth ring station, which seems dubious in that situation.  It also shows Holden letting a coffee cup (not bulb) float next to him just before being set straight by Amos on securing it, a mistake even Holden would not have made in the books.  But still a satisfying battle, and it shows what happens to people (Amos) on ships who have to get off the crash couch to fix something while the ship is maneuvering.

Not a battle, but the launch of the Nauvoo and its approach to Eros in Episodes 3-4 (I think) is also amazing, if again somewhat unrealistic in the time/speed/distance area.  It's possible that making these things too realistic just wouldn't be great TV, and the above things were all, IMO, great TV.

Also, @karaddin, since above we were going back and forth on the Roci and WS's escape from Ganymede in the face of the combined fleet, on a separate note, I remember you were interested in mythological references within The Expanse.  In some other thread we had discussed Julie/Persephone, which works better in the books where Eros is much more "hellish" with carcasses dragging themselves around the black muck, whereas in the show it has an almost dreamlike/undersea quality.

Anyway, here's another one for you:

Spoiler

In book 3, Bull is clearly meant to be at least partly symbolic of David (of the Isrealites).  Anna makes a reference in her prayer circle of combined servicemen and women about the incredible sacrifices that soldiers make on behalf of us civilians, and of course with what happens to Bull, he makes huge sacrifices, losing the lower half of his body and then his life in defense of a cause where he was set up for failure from the start by his leader.

But more specifically, look at Bull's last stand.  He uses a grenade (slingshot) to surprise and take out a much more physically threatening enemy, one that is wearing... wait for it... a Martian Goliath-model powered armor suit.

 

 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I just started the 1st season because I wanted to get ahead bookwise. Very good adaption so far. Where did everyone get that the protomoleceule monsters are called Caliban's? Its bugging me because they're not referenced as such in the books. 

[Dr. Pepper]

I don't think there is any one place where the monsters are called calibans.  But when the title of the book is called "Caliban's War", it's an easy jump to start calling the protomolecule monsters calibans, if only for expediency.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Right I got the reference, it made sense. I was just wondering if it was made clear by some means...

[Dr. Pepper]

Well, made clear based on the title of the book...

[Starkess]

In the book they are not called Calibans (Caliban in the title is an allusion). In the show, the weapons test is explicitly called "Project Caliban" (as seen on the tablet from the Martian chaplain dude).

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Starkess said:

In the book they are not called Calibans (Caliban in the title is an allusion). In the show, the weapons test is explicitly called "Project Caliban" (as seen on the tablet from the Martian chaplain dude).

Yeah, this is where it came from in the show. The book name is a pretty clear reference imo - Caliban is from The Tempest and is the monstrous son of a witch, commits monstrous acts with a desire to turn the island into one populated by Calibans and is enslaved by Prospero by magic that will torment him if he is not obedient. It also fits pretty clearly why they'd choose to call them that in universe on the show.

@Wethers - First off fantastic catch on bull, thanks for pointing it out! On the torpedo front I also took it as a single hit is pretty much lights out for any ship but I just didn't think it took a nuclear warhead to do that - the MOAB the US just dropped in Afghanistan would more than manage the job of taking out any ship from a single hit. I'm far from certain on this front though, I'm just speculating on when they have explicitly dropped the term "nuke" and when they haven't - regardless of whether they are nuclear or not there is pretty clearly a clear difference between the tactical torpedoes and the strategic warheads on the UN long range missile fleet that I assume are closer to planet killers than ship killers.

Your point about the battle and the PDC screen in the books is a good one, but I will note that Holden was talking survival there not simply taking some out as they die in a massive fireball. This was only the secondary point anyway, it wouldn't have stopped them firing if they wanted to. I didn't mean they "trust" Holden, I mean that he is seen as a reckless and dangerous third party who is definitely not affiliated with either Mars or Earth. That particular stand off in the show was all about those two being at each others throats, so I can see the certainty its a third party as being enough for them to not start an all out shooting war. The other thing to bear in mind is that once that breaks out, with the Roci promising to open fire on everyone then that's almost certainly going to turn into shooting at each other as well.

 

ETA: Generally on the mythology stuff I think there are a lot of more straight forward nods in terms of the name - Phoebe was associated with prophecy so the selection of that moon for the protomolecule is a nod to being a herald of the future. There are bits and pieces of many of the other places that all can serve to make them fitting for the role they serve in the story, but most aren't as clear as the titles themselves. I can't even remember where that conversation was taking place, or what it was about - I just remember some amazing analysis from Happy Ent (I think) about Troy being destroyed by an earthquake and Poseidon was the god of both earthquakes and horses. I forget how that related to the book that was being discussed though.

[Wethers]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Phoebe was associated with prophecy so the selection of that moon for the protomolecule is a nod to being a herald of the future.

Interesting point.  I think the authors also picked Phoebe for scientific reasons.

Unlike most moons, Phoebe is retrograde.  It revolves around Saturn in the opposite direction of the planet's rotation and the revolution of Saturn's other major moons.  Its orbit is much further out than Saturn's other major moons and also very eccentric.  It even may be made of different material - it's albedo is far lower than most of Saturn's other moons.

If I understand correctly, this makes it much more likely that it is a "captured" object rather than one that, like the majority of moons, was formed when the planets were formed (the latter tend to revolve in the same direction as the planet's rotation and be a bit closer in with a less eccentric orbit).

Now there are other such moons in the solar system that are likely captured objects - e.g. Triton which is Neptune's largest moon.  But still, Phoebe's nature makes it a great candidate for a moderately hard science fiction book series like the Expanse to suggest that it came from outside the solar system and that there is something ... unusual ... about it!

[Corvinus85]

That was a pretty good season finale. I thought it was quite well paced, as it jumped from one area to another, each with its own great tension. Even Holden was much better this episode than in previous episodes. I liked the breaking of the Arboghast. And did anyone else recognize Adam from MythBusters in those scenes?

Too bad that

Spoiler

Miller didn't appear. Considering that he appears to Holden due to a left over protomolecule sample of the monster on the Roci, and how they paralleled the monster's final moments with what was happening on Venus, I was sure that the very last scene was going to be Miller "We need to talk"

 

[Kalbear]

I thought it was a really strong finale, and yeah - I remarked during it how Holden being sad and hurt and beaten up is way better than angsty Holden. 

In particular, this ep had a lot more good, crisp character interactions in a single bit. Avasarala and Cotyar's awesomeness, Bobbie talking with the electrician and the Oops scene, everyone hitting Holden in the leg and pretty much every scene with Amos. The dialog and acting was really fluid and fun, and reminded me of some of my favorite Joss Whedon eps. 

Really pretty to look at, too. I could watch shots of Jupiter all day. The Arboghast's disassembly was perfect, too. And they even kept in the EM pulse when the Caliban died!

It ended pretty much where I thought it would as well, and we'll get the 2nd half of Caliban's War next season as well as hopefully some of Abbadon's gate.

[boojam]

I am really impressed with this show. As I have said I have been reading the prose form is this kind of science fiction since the early 1950s and this seems the first time, as TV drama, I seen a close to full realization of the source material I am so familiar with.

I am not discounting Star Trek , which got there first, Roddenberry too was a knowable fan of the prose form.

But have never seen space-opera-SF-on-a-chipped-plate , just as it came off the page , and that page, or pages have been around since 1938. 

Been telling people for years that there is a body of science fiction stories that the TV visual media has never touched, glad someone finally did it.

 

[Mladen]

Overall, a very strong season. For a show, that has its own limitations with regard to money, network, marketing, it is doing really well. I liked the resolutions across the board, and I am really looking forward to seeing what comes next. That Venus shot was amazing and I have to say that Holden didn't suck as he used to. I would have preferred that Avasarala's storyline moved a bit faster or just further, but that's just about that. Now, we move to Season 3  

[SpaceChampion]

Anyone remember how far into Caliban's War this ended on?  I'd guess half-way?