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Babylon's Ashes: The Expanse Book 6 (Spoilers)


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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How could 15 colonies corrodinate an attack on Medina?  They'd have to route their communications through Medina to corrodinate the attack, wouldn't they?

Coyo... did you even read the book?????  :lol: 

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2 hours ago, mormont said:

That was the plot point, yes. The Free Navy reach this conclusion and start interrogating people to find the mole.

I completely missed this.  My excuse is that I was eager to get back to the other characters.  Must have skimmed that chapter.  Sa sa?

 

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I completely missed this.  My excuse is that I was eager to get back to the other characters.  Must have skimmed that chapter.  Sa sa?

 

Yes, it was one of those POV's that I wondered why it was there.

In some ways, it almost seems like they have managed to succumb to the dreaded POV bloat that we saw GRRM falling victim to as the series has progressed.

Leviathan Wakes told an entire solar system spanning story with exactly two POV's.  Other books managed to expand that out to 4 or so pretty effectively.  Many of the POV's here really didn't feel necessary. 

What was the point of the viewpoints from Medina?  Didn't we get at least two different ones?  And the entire point was to show us that the rail guns were in place and dangerous.  And that the rogue Martians were helping them out.

Prax's viewpoint was fun and I did enjoy the confession they didn't understand as well, but I'm not sure what value that had in the story. 

I enjoyed those other POV's; but in the end, I think the story probably could have been tightened up by giving us fewer.

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5 minutes ago, Rhom said:

What was the point of the viewpoints from Medina?  Didn't we get at least two different ones?  And the entire point was to show us that the rail guns were in place and dangerous.  And that the rogue Martians were helping them out.

Prax's viewpoint was fun and I did enjoy the confession they didn't understand as well, but I'm not sure what value that had in the story. 

I enjoyed those other POV's; but in the end, I think the story probably could have been tightened up by giving us fewer.

Yeah, I could've done without the Medina POV's as well. I thought Prax's POV was essential though. He's like the everyman who really has no political stake, yet still feels compelled to buck the system that is in control of his everyday existence. I thought his POV was singular and crucial.

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3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I could've done without the Medina POV's as well. I thought Prax's POV was essential though. He's like the everyman who really has no political stake, yet still feels compelled to buck the system that is in control of his everyday existence. I thought his POV was singular and crucial.

This is what makes me think the 15 colony coordinated attack hasn't a payoff in the next book. Otherwise the Medina POVs and most of that plot line doesn't have much of a point and no real resolution at all. 

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Re: BA feeling like the conclusion to NG rather than a self contained story, I'm pretty sure I've seen Dan and Ty state that it's comprised of a series of duologies of a sort, however the ones so far have been much more self contained for each pair.

LW & CW - The discovery and activation of the protomolecule and the risks of it being used as a weapon directly whether as bioweapon or protomolecule monsters, culminates in the revelation of what the purpose of the protomolecule actually is and the opening of the gates.

AG & CB - With the wormhole to the slow zone active its about humanity gaining access to the gate network and entering a new age of exploration and expansion through the thousands of systems now available. Culminates in the realisation that Mars is a dead planet orbiting and the Belt is on very short borrowed time, which triggers the next part of the story.

NG & BA - In the face of their impending death, factions from Mars and the Belt decide to use each other - the Belt to take Earth with them, the Martians as a smoke screen to establish their own new colony following a major mutiny. Culminates in the Sol system stabilising for now, but with its role as the sole established home of humanity at an end and mass migration to the colony worlds to follow and a rival power rising with jumped up tech level in the splinter Martian colony.

PR & ?? & ?? - Suspect it will be a trilogy to close the series out since its 9 books, Martian colony comes back through the gate, development of the colony worlds continues at breakneck pace as humanity spreads out enormously. Possibly alien species comes back into play. No idea what else beyond these broad beats.

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On 12/30/2016 at 2:53 PM, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I could've done without the Medina POV's as well. I thought Prax's POV was essential though. He's like the everyman who really has no political stake, yet still feels compelled to buck the system that is in control of his everyday existence. I thought his POV was singular and crucial.

I am thinking DA wrote this POV, the last installment with the "confession" was  sublime in its simplicity, i have reread it twice and am moved each time, saying so much with so little. shades of LPQ.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Done with it. Not as happy as with the previous books (which I thought were great.)

Plot question and universe question.

1. Am I supposed to have figured some conspiracy at Medina out? Somebody at the station has helped coördinating an attack from 15 different colony worlds. Duarte’s people have investigated. What was the result of that investigation (for the attentive reader)? There must be a lot of plot on the other side of the ring gates that we aren’t privy to: Behind the Laconia gate, Duarte’s faction builds crazy alien technology, and (until recently) kept some control on the Sol system through his collaboration with Inaros. Sol seems pretty ignorant of most of what is going on, and does very little to react to the looming threat. So how come 15 other systems have sufficient data about Duarte that they are able to pool their (probably very limited, clinging-to-survival-on-a-tiny-thread) resources and commit to a 15-ship attack on Medina? This attack must constitute an enormous investment, far higher than Sol’s attack on the Free Navy in BA. (The 15 systems have very few ships, very few people, and live in ecosystems far more hostile than post-rock Earth.) So how come the 15 systems are willing to risk this? What do they know about Duarte that Earth doesn’t? And how did they coördinate? Who is the mole?

2. True of false: Any movement of any ship in Sol is known to the entire system, provided it uses the Epstein drive. There is no secret space travel using the Epstein, because its incredible energy release announces its presence at light speed all over the system, and there are a bunch of various observatories that constantly synchronise their observations. Basically, every school child in the Solar system has access to a dynamic map of all ships (or rather, all turned-on Epstein drives) in the system—position and vector, so you can predict fairly well where many ships will be in a few weeks. Moreover, ships have “drive signatures,” so you can look up the ship in a shared database of drive signatures. Of course, the drive can be slightly changed, giving your ship a “fresh” signature (which is then updated as soon as you dock somewhere and get identified). If you fly on chemical propulsion, without the Epstein, you stand a far better chance of not being detected, because it needs far better sensors to pick you up (say, the heat radiated by your propulsion, of just your bodies), or the light absorbed by the hull. In the extreme, you are as “invisible” as a rock. Stealth technology allows you to become difficult-to-detect even for various radar-like “ping” sensors.

Ways to kill stuff: (A) Accelerate non-explosive mass and point it in the right direction. Very hard to detect, very high kinetic energy. ( B ) Disengage your ship from the station. Use manoeuvring thrusters to turn aft towards the station. Turn on the Epstein. Station is now molten metal and ceramics.

The first attack we have orbital defences against (though I don’t know how effective they can be. Better not go into the scale of the problem of defending against, say, having thrown the asteriod belt against Mars). The second attack (we see this happen in the tv show, when the Rocinante should slag Tycho Station in S1E4, last scene, but magically nothing happens) is mentioned as a military tactic in BA, but how is this generally defended against? I assume every station has PDC and torpedo locks on a leaving ship, and as soon as the Epstein fires up (which we can claim takes half an hour to become effective), the ship is shot. I think that would work.

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5 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

 

2. True of false: Any movement of any ship in Sol is known to the entire system, provided it uses the Epstein drive. There is no secret space travel using the Epstein, because its incredible energy release announces its presence at light speed all over the system, and there are a bunch of various observatories that constantly synchronise their observations. Basically, every school child in the Solar system has access to a dynamic map of all ships (or rather, all turned-on Epstein drives) in the system—position and vector, so you can predict fairly well where many ships will be in a few weeks. Moreover, ships have “drive signatures,” so you can look up the ship in a shared database of drive signatures. Of course, the drive can be slightly changed, giving your ship a “fresh” signature (which is then updated as soon as you dock somewhere and get identified). If you fly on chemical propulsion, without the Epstein, you stand a far better chance of not being detected, because it needs far better sensors to pick you up (say, the heat radiated by your propulsion, of just your bodies), or the light absorbed by the hull. In the extreme, you are as “invisible” as a rock. Stealth technology allows you to become difficult-to-detect even for various radar-like “ping” sensors.

 

I'II think you can turn on an epstien briefly and avoid detection I'd you are far enough off the elliptic; most of the ship monitoring seems to be focused there.  The problem is that even after killing your Epstein and going on the float tie vector is already established so the amount of space to be scanned for you makes it likely you'll be picked duo as soon as the drive kicks in again.  I imagine flying on chemical propulsion can mitigate this to a degree, but requires a lot of time and resources to move you off the Epstein vector.  

 

Essentially, I agree that using the Epstein almoat guarantees your position and vector being known to the entire system.  The stealth options seem limited in scope and effect (if you kill the drive your general vector is still known, if you fly teakettle your heat signature is increased compared to being on the float).  

I guess a secondary shuttle launched with mechanical force alone while the main vessel is on an arcing burn that floats for awhile on the 'escape pod' vector before going under chemical propulsion would have a pretty good shot at getting into an undetected position, but time would be the disadvantage. 

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Something like that. To “disappear,” you shut off your Epstein and then make a lot of small course corrections over a long time using other means (use your rail gun to shoot stuff away from you, chemical propulsion, etc.) Of course, if I try to track you, and point a lot of sensors on your ship, I’ll be able to follow you pretty well (hell, I could do that using an optical telescope, apparently) because of heat dissipation. But, given a few weeks, I can probably disappear, especially in the Belt, where I can “slingshot”—very small course corrections would change my vector a lot. 

Still, being a pirate pretty much sucks in such a world.  

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On 1/21/2017 at 0:51 AM, Kalbear said:

Remember that there exist stealth ships which can effectively hide their drive and their systems.

Really? I thought that there were stealth ships in the sense that they're hard to spot when they're drifting, but I didn't think there was a way to hide an active drive. If I understand how the drive works, it shouldn't be possible.

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32 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Really? I thought that there were stealth ships in the sense that they're hard to spot when they're drifting, but I didn't think there was a way to hide an active drive. If I understand how the drive works, it shouldn't be possible.

The "paint" that Filip and his squad of Free Navy belters stole from the Martians at the start of the prior book is part of that. It was some sort of radar reflector that allowed some of the meteors that the Free Navy threw at the Earth to get by their defensive net. It was also used to paint ships. 

 

/But yeah, I think you are correct in that it can only mask you if you are "on the drift".

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On 21/01/2017 at 6:51 AM, Kalbear said:

Remember that there exist stealth ships which can effectively hide their drive and their systems.

I asked myself exactly that question, which is why I started to obsess about it. As far as I can tell, there is no way to do what you describe. You can disguise your drive (presumably by making mechanical alterations or changing mixtures of chemicals) in order to make the signature anonymous. But you cannot hide the signature itself. At least I cannot find any indication of that in the books. (I’ve looked for the word “stealth” in most of them and read the passages around that word.)

I’m not even convinced you can use chemical propulsion, because how would you hide the heat? Of course, a rocket thruster would be much less detectable than an Epstein (which announces your presence to the entire solar system.) But if I’m following your ship using telescopes or other sensors I will see you turn on your thruster, unless you are behind a moon. 

A better way to change course is to shoot things away from you using a rail gun. That does not produce heat (?) and moves you away from the projectile.

Martian stealth technology (at the time of Leviathan Wakes) is able to hide asteroids or even the heat dissipation from space ships on the float. (For instance by having incredibly good insulation, painting it black, absorbing various pinging technologies such as LADAR, etc. All very useful.)

Of course, we have no idea what Duarte’s people are able to do. Finding a new propulsion technology would be a winning move.

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OK, back to the mystery. 

Quote

… a broad-shouldered, squat man with dark hair and a scruff of beard. Vandercaust thought he looked familiar, but couldn’t place him.

This is the man eventually arrested for communicating with the 15-odd colony ships.

Who is this? I’m quite sure that the attentive reader should be able to recognize him, and there is an earlier Medina chapter that load a lot of information off on us. Sounds like an Earther, but that’s all I’ve got.

ETA: Oh, I see there is actually a chapter for each of the Medina characters. Jakulski, Salis, Roberts, and Vandercaust. Very lazy of me to not realise this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think we're supposed to be able to figure out everything that happened on Medina yet, and definitely not what is going on with Duarte. I'm not convinced the attack even played out as reported to the people on Medina. *Something* clearly happened, but all the information we have comes from the official story which is highly suspect. For all we know one of Duarte's people went rogue and was chased through the Lacuna gate by Duarte's people or something like that.

On the stealth ship - I think you're broadly right. Getting lost relies heavily on just how huge space is and that even the big navies have limited resources to track all objects in the solar system, along with the sheer volume of traffic. I feel like the reduced traffic with war broken out probably makes it much harder to lose yourself, but I don't think this has been explicitly stated. One of the tactics described in BA included a bunch of short burns on different vectors with gaps between them so only someone watching very very closely can tell what the final vector was, and they're going to need to watch along the calculated vector the entire time to catch any subsequent adjustments. Its all absolutely possible, but its not feasible with the tech level we're told they have.

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6 hours ago, karaddin said:

I don't think we're supposed to be able to figure out everything that happened on Medina yet, and definitely not what is going on with Duarte. I'm not convinced the attack even played out as reported to the people on Medina. *Something* clearly happened, but all the information we have comes from the official story which is highly suspect. For all we know one of Duarte's people went rogue and was chased through the Lacuna gate by Duarte's people or something like that.

Are you saying you think its possible that Duarte didn't go rogue?

I thought the POV epilogue in Nemesis Games was pretty clear that the Martian Navy had gone out on their own and Duarte was part of it.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying here.

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13 hours ago, Rhom said:

Are you saying you think its possible that Duarte didn't go rogue?

I thought the POV epilogue in Nemesis Games was pretty clear that the Martian Navy had gone out on their own and Duarte was part of it.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying here.

Yeah you are. I'm not sure which bit you're getting confused on, so I'll try clarify both -

I'm suggesting that Marco's top people on Medina may have been full of shit when saying what had actually happened regarding the supposed coordinated attack. Aside from their awareness that *something* had happened, I don't recall evidence that anything on that level had actually taken place beyond being told that that was it. Perhaps one of Duarte's ships went rogue and tried to flee back to Sol and was killed in slow space - rogue in this context could mean actually staying loyal to Mars, rather than Duarte's splinter faction (which is itself rogue) or going completely solo/pirate.

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So I know I this is the Babylon Ashes thread, but I just finished Cibola Burn and have a quick question. Are we to understand  that one copy of The Investigator/Miller died at the end or did all the copies die. Maybe I missed something, but I was confused. 

This thread inspired me to read the books and I've been loving it! Never thought I would find a science fiction series to beat The Culture, but this might be my new favorite.

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On 2/3/2017 at 7:54 PM, Lord Barger said:

So I know I this is the Babylon Ashes thread, but I just finished Cibola Burn and have a quick question. Are we to understand  that one copy of The Investigator/Miller died at the end or did all the copies die. Maybe I missed something, but I was confused. 

This thread inspired me to read the books and I've been loving it! Never thought I would find a science fiction series to beat The Culture, but this might be my new favorite.

I'm thinking all of them died, but wouldnt be surprised to find out thats wrong and there could be more contact with another Miller construct yet to come.  I imagine we get more protomoleculeand Civ that destroyed it-stuff in the next installment

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