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

[Astromech]

It wasn't the most exciting season finale and really dragged out the conflict on board the Rocinante and Mao's pleasure yacht imo, but left enough questions to be answered next season, mostly the Arboghast and Venus. I loved the shot of the "caliban" getting torched.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

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

About 2/3rds though some of the three plots were a bit behind.

In particular:

Spoiler

The Avasarala/Bobbie story is pretty close to being done (they head to Io next), the Roci story is also almost done (again, Io), but the Venus storyline is far behind by comparison. We've also not gotten anything like the Earth civil war fight that might happen, though there's time. 

 

[Steinman]

I loved this finale - good tempo and just the right amount of resolution, but with some light cliffhangers. Even though I've read the books I was at the edge of my seat when they showed Proti in the cargo bay. If I'm going to nitpick I thought it was weird how slow the monster got through the hull with the shown apparent ease that he was breaking and bending metal, and I'd have liked a little bit more of Bobbie in the power armour.

[The Mother of The Others]

I don't like the pace of their learning curve but have decided to stay and enjoy whatever they offer up.   To me that vacuum soldier was a starting point that they then didn't do anything interesting with conceptually.  Shooting and healing is fun, of course, just a bit basic.  The crew banter is gooder than other sci fi.   Bobbie and electrician was the highlight.    Creepy twist from the guy running earth now.   

[Wethers]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

About 2/3rds though some of the three plots were a bit behind.

In particular:

  Hide contents

The Avasarala/Bobbie story is pretty close to being done (they head to Io next), the Roci story is also almost done (again, Io), but the Venus storyline is far behind by comparison. We've also not gotten anything like the Earth civil war fight that might happen, though there's time. 

 

Spoiler

With respect to "The Avasarala/Bobbie story is pretty close to being done (they head to Io next), the Roci story is also almost done (again, Io)," I don't quite agree.  There's a significant segment left before Io in the books.  Ava and Bobbie take Julie's old racing pinnace, the Razorback, from Mao's Yacht to the Roci.

There, all of these characters put out a press release Mao and the shadow government on Earth and find themselves chased by 6 Earth/UN destroyers from dispatched from the Jovian system (presumably by Admiral Nguyen).  The MCRN is suspicious and dispatches 6 ships of their own, 4 destroyers and 2 fast cruisers after the 6 Earth/UN ships.

The Roci crew and Ava/Bobbie discuss options, none of them good (including trying to send 2 people off on the Razorback).  Things look bleak.  Ava asks what the plans of the famous James Holden are and he counters by saying his plan is to die in an expanding cloud of super-heated plasma.  No way out.

Finally Bobbie realizes that their best option is to slow down just enough so the MCRN ships get within range of the Earth/UN ships just around the time the Earth/UN ships catch up with the Roci.  Ava sends a message the the MCRN ships that she is the legitimate government of earth and is being chased by a rogue faction of the Earth/UN military.  The words "fucking save me" are uttered, giving the gleeful MCRN fleet permission to attack Earth/UN ships without consequences.  the MCRN fleet, slightly more advanced and with the 2 cruisers to boot, along with backside help from the Roci (with Bobbie as gunner), are able to overcome the Earth/UN fleet.

It's only at that point that, after some repairs and re-arming, they all head to Io where the remainder of Nguyen's rogue Earth/UN fleet is guarding the base where they are creating the protomolecule hybrids.

 

[SpaceChampion]

Afterbuzz TV finale review with guests Wes Chatham (Amos) and Cas Anvar (Alex).

 

[boojam]

On 4/20/2017 at 11:11 PM, Triskan said:

Damn, I thought we had a few more.

I am amazed they have 13 episodes , GoT has always gotten only 10 and now less. There was a time on TV when there would a season in the fall and one in the spring! It could be 30 or 40 episodes! I wonder if they will keep doing 13?

Season 2 was better than season 1 which was good.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, boojam said:

I am amazed they have 13 episodes , GoT has always gotten only 10 and now less. There was a time on TV when there would a season in the fall and one in the spring! It could be 30 or 40 episodes! I wonder if they will keep doing 13?

Season 2 was better than season 1 which was good.

I believe season 3 will be 13 episodes.

[boojam]

Watching again I could not hear the first time:

"Till the rains fall hard on Olympus Mon's who are we?"

 

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

On 4/1/2017 at 0:27 PM, boojam said:

I may be too optimistic but I foresee that in a hundred years all the nations of the Earth will have attained a high level of economic and technological existence. Right now every 'advanced' nation on the Earth has a declining birth rate , makes economic sense. I can see the population growing a little more , then it will decline.

The world population rate has been slowing , and that means everybody, for the last 75 years. Projections at the current rate are no more than 10 billion in 100 years.

In any case , on the show, there was the implication that the underclasses , while not living in luxury , at all, would not die of sickness or starve to death! That seems out of whack.  That seemed the indication in an exchange in a recent episode.

If it is really as easy to colonize the Moon and Mars , as the show has it, in 200 years, I could see a few billion if not more going off-planet. I like the time scale here , 200 years is a good number, I would make it 300 to 400 to hedge bets about the viability of the set up.

That situation could easily reverse itself in the future if some conditions change, though. For example, presumably one of the big reasons for the low birth rates in the developed world right now is that child rearing takes up too time when both parents have to work. Hence why developed countries with more generous maternity/paternity leave policies and access to kindergartens and so on, have higher birth rates than those that don't. 

In a future where the majority of people don't even have any jobs to go to, that might not be much of an issue anymore. 

What I found more unrealistic in the show was rather the very primitive conditions that the Belters seemed to work in. A lot of the stuff they do looks like the kinds of 20th century industrial jobs that are already being replaced by robots in our societies, nevermind how things will look like 250 (?) years from now. If automation has eliminated most jobs on Earth, which seems to be the case, I wonder why the same thing hasn't happened to the Belt? 

Anyway, I really liked the show, and it does feel a lot more realistic overall than most Science Fiction series. Are the books worth reading as well? 

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

That situation could easily reverse itself in the future if some conditions change, though. For example, presumably one of the big reasons for the low birth rates in the developed world right now is that child rearing takes up too time when both parents have to work. Hence why developed countries with more generous maternity/paternity leave policies and access to kindergartens and so on, have higher birth rates than those that don't. 

In a future where the majority of people don't even have any jobs to go to, that might not be much of an issue anymore. 

What I found more unrealistic in the show was rather the very primitive conditions that the Belters seemed to work in. A lot of the stuff they do looks like the kinds of 20th century industrial jobs that are already being replaced by robots in our societies, nevermind how things will look like 250 (?) years from now. If automation has eliminated most jobs on Earth, which seems to be the case, I wonder why the same thing hasn't happened to the Belt? 

Anyway, I really liked the show, and it does feel a lot more realistic overall than most Science Fiction series. Are the books worth reading as well? 

Short answer, yes.

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

What I found more unrealistic in the show was rather the very primitive conditions that the Belters seemed to work in. A lot of the stuff they do looks like the kinds of 20th century industrial jobs that are already being replaced by robots in our societies, nevermind how things will look like 250 (?) years from now. If automation has eliminated most jobs on Earth, which seems to be the case, I wonder why the same thing hasn't happened to the Belt? 

I kind of felt the same way, but my suspicion is that simply there are too many complex things going on for any one robot to fix, and robots are expensive. So you see a ton of AI in ships, in natural language processing, in trajectory and combat, but you don't see a lot of robotics in things like fixing specific items because so much is jerry-rigged. It's easy to have a robot do something that it knows exactly how to do with the right supplies; it's hard for a robot to ascertain that this specific combination of duct tape, welding material and plant life will be exactly right to fix things for the next 2 hours.

My suspicion is that there should have been more robots to do more vacuum-related tasks, but otherwise it's not that bad.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

25 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I kind of felt the same way, but my suspicion is that simply there are too many complex things going on for any one robot to fix, and robots are expensive. So you see a ton of AI in ships, in natural language processing, in trajectory and combat, but you don't see a lot of robotics in things like fixing specific items because so much is jerry-rigged. It's easy to have a robot do something that it knows exactly how to do with the right supplies; it's hard for a robot to ascertain that this specific combination of duct tape, welding material and plant life will be exactly right to fix things for the next 2 hours.

My suspicion is that there should have been more robots to do more vacuum-related tasks, but otherwise it's not that bad.

On top of all that, you have a "Company Store" sort of economy going on with the Belters wherein I would have to guess that it is more economically lucrative for Earth Corps to just keep that model in place.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I kind of felt the same way, but my suspicion is that simply there are too many complex things going on for any one robot to fix, and robots are expensive. So you see a ton of AI in ships, in natural language processing, in trajectory and combat, but you don't see a lot of robotics in things like fixing specific items because so much is jerry-rigged. It's easy to have a robot do something that it knows exactly how to do with the right supplies; it's hard for a robot to ascertain that this specific combination of duct tape, welding material and plant life will be exactly right to fix things for the next 2 hours.

My suspicion is that there should have been more robots to do more vacuum-related tasks, but otherwise it's not that bad.

Hmm, I guess. But considering that they have had the tech to automate away most tasks on Earth, I don't really see why that wouldn't also work for the asteroid-cities. The spaceships and mining stations themselves I can sort of understand, but Ceres has like, what, a couple million people? Should it really be that much different than a city on Earth for most of its inhabitants? 

But nah, it's not that much of an issue in the grand scheme of things, you're right. 

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

On top of all that, you have a "Company Store" sort of economy going on with the Belters wherein I would have to guess that it is more economically lucrative for Earth Corps to just keep that model in place.

Oh, I have no trouble at all in believing that the Belters could be economically oppressed, and have most of the surplus they produce be sucked away to bank accounts on Earth or Mars. I was more talking about that they seem to use pretty primitive and ineffective production technology compared to the rest of human civilization. You'd think their overlords in the inner rings would be interested in getting as much value out of them as possible, after all. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Oh, I have no trouble at all in believing that the Belters could be economically oppressed, and have most of the surplus they produce be sucked away to bank accounts on Earth or Mars. I was more talking about that they seem to use pretty primitive and ineffective production technology compared to the rest of human civilization. You'd think their overlords in the inner rings would be interested in getting as much value out of them as possible, after all. 

I just mean in the grand economic scheme of things, you can sell water, air, food and living space to your oppressed workforce. To robots, not so much.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Hmm, I guess. But considering that they have had the tech to automate away most tasks on Earth, I don't really see why that wouldn't also work for the asteroid-cities. The spaceships and mining stations themselves I can sort of understand, but Ceres has like, what, a couple million people? Should it really be that much different than a city on Earth for most of its inhabitants? 

But nah, it's not that much of an issue in the grand scheme of things, you're right. 

It's hugely different, because the Belt doesn't have the kind of supplies and supply chain Earth has. On Earth they literally have warehouses full of virtually any item you might need, and if something happens they have time to replace it. In the Belt, they don't; things can go south, fast, and they don't have the ability to store tons of things on a regular basis. And again, Earth has life support built-in. The Belt doesn't. That kind of large-scale failure just doesn't happen on Earth.

As a result, faster, weirder decisions need to be made in the Belt, and that results in a lot of jerry-rigged shit. 

Another issue is that the Belt just doesn't have the population density either.

[Dr. Pepper]

On top of several good reasons already provided, I would imagine that it's necessary for the mental health and survival of colonies in the Belt for inhabitants to be as productive as possible.  It's an incredibly harsh existence.  Having large swaths of the population, especially in the 15-25 age bracket, just sort of chilling and hanging around with no purpose and nothing real to do doesn't seem like a good idea.  

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Mmh. That reminds me though, why would people even move to the Belt? It appears that everyone gets free NEETbux on Earth, so why would people choose to do poorly paid manual labor out in the Asteroid fields? Are living standards for those jobless individuals on Earth even lower than they are for Belters? 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

25 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Mmh. That reminds me though, why would people even move to the Belt? It appears that everyone gets free NEETbux on Earth, so why would people choose to do poorly paid manual labor out in the Asteroid fields? Are living standards for those jobless individuals on Earth even lower than they are for Belters? 

Not sure what the initial reason for migrating was exactly, but you're now talking about generations of folks who have lived on the float, who likely couldn't even function in a gravity well without expensive meds. Plus, I would have to believe that it would be expensive to relocate and it's not even clear that those folks would qualify for Basic, seeing as how they aren't Earthers. I doubt that moving would be economically viable for the vast majority of Belters who seem to be living a hard-scrabble, subsistence sort of existence.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

34 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Not sure what the initial reason for migrating was exactly, but you're now talking about generations of folks who have lived on the float, who likely couldn't even function in a gravity well without expensive meds. Plus, I would have to believe that it would be expensive to relocate and it's not even clear that those folks would qualify for Basic, seeing as how they aren't Earthers. I doubt that moving would be economically viable for the vast majority of Belters who seem to be living a hard-scrabble, subsistence sort of existence.

Ahh, right. I had forgotten about the time frames involved. Most Belters aren't recent arrivals, and maybe they didn't always have basic income back on Earth. Makes sense.