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Maia

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  1. I can't really judge myself, but people on reddit offered some pretty compelling arguments for why that wouldn't be the case. Laws of conservation of energy and such. Naturally, the positioning would be off, but they'd need to wait only a couple of years for the planets to be properly aligned again. They'd have to dismantle and replace Helios, though, and also the heist should have raised huge security concerns. As it happened, the plotters weren't actually terrorists, but bringing the asteroid into Earth orbit, as well as success of the heist might have inspired some to actually try to crash it on their less favourite part of the world or use the threat of doing so as blackmail. It would be more plausible if these secondary considerations ultimately prevented further attempts to move it, IMHO. How long are we going to hide spoilers for the finale? In any case, I didn't like how they tarnished Dani this season, so that we wouldn't completely lose sympathy for the heisters. Not that I think that she is perfect and without flaws, but they had her behave in out of character ways and presented the whole worker struggle in a frankly bizarre light, so that there would be some kind of equivalency between her and Ed's actions.
  2. So, Dani, Ed and Margo all have huge death flags - but who will actually bite it? I suspect that while Ed makes the most sense as the oldest, because he has been treated as the main character throughout the series, the show-runners were afraid to drop him, so it is going to be one or both of the women. Also, it would subvert expectations to deny him the final blaze of glory which he craves. Margo spent so much time staring at windows this season, that I expect a defenestration in her future. After she helps to deflect the asteroid to Mars while keeping Aleida out of it somehow. Dani, I dunno. They kinda tarnished her character a bit in the last few episodes and she is not on the Ranger, so while there are overwhelmingly strong death omens around her, I am not sure how it might happen. In a subversion vs Ed _she_ should be the one to getting that blaze of glory that she doesn't want, but the means elude me. I do think that either the whole asteroid or parts of it are going to impact on Mars, so maybe there is going to be a quake that damages the base? In fact, Dev may be secretly planning to crash the asteroid, since it might still be removed from Mars orbit in a couple of years otherwise. How most of the important characters involved in the heist are going to avoid prison and remain relevant in the future is a puzzle, though.
  3. I liked this episode. Nice catharsis 3.5 seasons and 30 timeline years in the making. I have checked on reddit and it was definitely Svetlana's own file. Not sure what it's significance was. I think that this theory about Danny's ultimate fate may be plausible. Not sure why Ed was blaming Poole, though - wasn't _he_ the one who came up with the exile to the capsule? And Danny certainly would have been a danger to the rest of the crew, if allowed to return. OTOH, he may have been burning some extra calories, out there in the cold. I really enjoyed Baldwin finally getting called out on his BS, but I fear that they'll let him off the hook and have him save the day and go out in the blaze of glory, proving him "right". He is also pretty likely to engage in even more open sabotage now. Shouldn't they have regular medical checks of the pilots, though? Was he bribing the doc for the last couple of years? Kelly taking a sick kid into the dangers of space seems fairly dumb, but I guess that they are destined to become the first permanent Mars colonists or something. I continue to be confused by the astro/kosmonaut vs grunt divide, with the base maintenance supervisor suddenly manning the controls of an asteroid-capture space craft and Sam being back on the mission as an EVA specialist. Is it actually government employées vs Helios? If so, why are there Soviets among the latter? Other watchers say that her name was on the memorial to the victims of the bombing, though I didn't notice it myself. Aleida and Bill seem to know that she has been a traitor, as does CIA, presumably. But Aleida also appears to believe that she is dead. I wonder if they really physically meet eventually or if Aleida recognizes Margot's style in engineering documentation, or maybe sees her handwriting. I suspect that Margot is going to betray the Soviets in order to save the asteroid mission and will get killed for it.
  4. They are a bit trapped between trying to keep things recognizeable and relateable and with what the consequences of all the changes _should_ have been. Yes, maybe oligarchs, maybe statistics were somewhat massaged, but given the unprecedented level of cooperation with the West and much cheaper energy, things should have looked different. Like, there should have been all the western cars and consumer products around that did appear in late 80-ies and early 90-ies, which iRL were far from prosperous Yep. In this season so far, really, not just this episode. Though, thankfully, the conflicts themselves are more interesting than the Stephens boys- related ones in the previous one. I don't see why they needed to make Vasiliy a relative of somebody important - surely Svetlana's open opposition to the new regime + deadly assault on someone who was an ardent supporter of the same would have been more than enough. It would have fit the "grunts vs elites" narrative much better, too. Oh, Svetlana is totally getting grabbed by the USSR. Though I have to say that I have little sympathy with her - she was supposed to be a highly trained professional operating in a deadly environment and she is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. She'll probably get executed, though. I somehow thought that it was her file on the table - but if it was somebody else's, then that's indeed a hint. Is the new head of Roskosmos Sergei's ex-wife? I remember that when he had been first introduced, he was supposedly married, but later it never came up again. Pretty sure that she would have done it anyway - his other pal was worried too. But yea, more feelings...
  5. I am not really sure why, if USSR was prosperous and powerful through space exploration/cooperation, people would want to go back? It seems to be more of a comment on RL situation and history than anything that makes sense in this alternative time-line. They also play fast and loose with the whole "grunts vs elites" thing - a nephew of a party bonze now counts as a grunt? Really? And he was working for Helios, despite his ultra-nationalism and their not-so-great-pay, too? It already didn't make sense with Samantha and late Parks(?), who had to be highly qualified and rare specialists to participate in the EVA part of the very important asteroid capture mission, but they just keep piling the absurdity up. Margot's narrative was pretty good, though. And thankfully there was finally some push-back against Ed. Hopefully, Dani also replaces him as a pilot for the second attempt at capture - he really shouldn't have been doing it in the first place at his age.
  6. As chance would have it, I am currently almost finished with listening to "Dune: Messiah", the second book in the series. I do think that it is interesting, but it tries very hard to seem more profound and complex than it is and feels somewhat bloated as a result. It also became clear to me that I don't remember the "Dune" novel as well as I thought I did, so maybe these criticisms apply there too? IIRC, more happens there, but it is also more than 2 times longer, so perhaps it is similarly ponderous? Of course, it introduces all the worldbuilding, so maybe not. I do think that "Messiah" is still a worthwhile listen, though and intend to go on to "Children of Dune" after refreshing the first book in my memory. I was a bit shocked by the... commonalities between WoT and this book, though. Jordan always denied having read Dune, but I just can't believe it.
  7. Well, I liked these 2 episodes, they are very much elevated by the absence of the Stephens brothers! Speaking of Danny, it was strongly hinted that he didn't survive his solitary confinement on Mars. I am not sure why they claim that Parks and that woman belong(ed) to the lowly maintainance grunts, though. Surely work that they did on the asteroid was very prestigious and required highly qualified people? That's why Kuznetsov was also involved. Looks like they are going to do the fall of USSR after all, though with much better economy in this alternate timeline it doesn't make that much sense. I disliked Margot's survival and defection in the previous season, but she works pretty as well as "fish out of water" viewpoint here.
  8. Well, if she had returned earlier, it would have mattered and could have sparked off a very much needed plotline of the overthrow of the strength hierarchy among the AS. If Sanderson had chosen to make her, rather than Cadsuane the post-TG Amyrlin there could have still been a hint towards that happening... But nope. It presumably also affected her life-span and slowly depleting her power was a means for the Finn to make her suffer. Without an angreal her return would have been even more lacklustre, if possible, because she'd have had even less to contribute. But the weird similarity between the fates of Moiraine and Siuan - both de-powered and matched with crusty old men, Morgase's ex-lovers, likely stems from them having been initially conceived as a single character - a female Merlin, not Gandalf and then split. Yes, that was very underwhelming. "Remnant of the remnant will he save and they shall live"? Pfft, vast majority lives. I know that Rand somehow surviving was established early with the prophecies, cryptic utterances of the Finn, etc, but for me it felt like cheating, and even more so that none of the 3 superboys died. If not Rand or Mat, who had to stay around because of the Seanchan, then it should have been Perrin. Much as I love Lan, he should have died too. Funny how sheathing the sword is never actually terminal. And Cadsuane?! She should have been toast. Don't start me on the Seanchan, who haven't even been seriously strained by the Last Battle. Or the fact that the Shadow didn't attack everywhere to make people want to rush back and fill them with despair. Sadly, the ridiculous survival rates among the main cast can't be blamed on Sanderson, since it was Jordan's intention. The 3 boys all being his self-insert really screwed up the ending of the story he envisioned, IMHO. But he was also considering to have Egwene burn out while being pregnant with Gawyn's child and subsequently marry Galad, so it doesn't seem like he intended to kill anyone important. IIRC the few deaths that happened were all from Sanderson. Re: Uno, I am not a fan of him being a Hero of the Horn, though I understand that they wanted to demonstrate how it all works, but in the books we were told that not all lives the Heroes lived had to be extraordinary. P.S. Frankly, in the show I doubt that they can have Moiraine return in such a way that it doesn't feel cheap. There just aren't enough episodes. Besides, she has already been de-powered, going back there would feel repetitive.
  9. Said stash being Turak's extensive collection of curiosities, which has been name-dropped previously. The first redstone frame could be part of it, even, if they chose to include it. Which is why I hope that they have the guts to let Moiraine and Lanfear die for good if they implement the ter'angrial dive. IMHO, their returns didn't actually amount to much in the series and were ultimately disappointing - let Moiraine's sacrifice and achievement stand! And yes, I know that she is a main character in the show - but it is still possible to kill one when it makes sense in the post-GoT era. In fact, I wish that more main characters had died in WoT so that the dangers felt real. Ishy, OTOH, should be an exception. It was genuinely frightening when tDO's ability to bring back FS was revealed in the books - and while it was ultimately a waste for everyone else, it worked beautifully for Ishy/Moridin.
  10. Where to begin? First of all, there are just complete ass-pulls when people other than Rand just channel whatever complex weaves "instinctively". Like Nynaeve randomly whipping out balefire or Avi Travelling. Or when people come up with "impossible" channeling applications right, left and center. Which are first explained by the 3rd Age channelers ignorance and hide-boundness, but then this also extends to the AoLers. It is clear that for all the pretense that channeling was a science back in AoL, no understanding of theory is needed to come up with new discoveries. Just instinct, grit, and other euphemisms for arbitrariness. But the greatest culprit is, of course, the difference between female and male channeling. For 8 books we have been told how fundamentally different their weaves were, to the extent that even thinking about how the other gender did certain things makes channelers uneasy ... and then it turned out that it is actually trivial for people in a link to weave the opposite half of OP. In fact, they learned it far quicker than channeling with their native power! Gates that are done so differently between men and women? A piece of cake to make one in a mixed link, using both halves of OP. Etc. And to be clear, I am talking about channelers other than Rand here. Travelling - introduced as a lost Talent, then turned into something that anybody strong enough could learn and some people could do instinctively(!), but required the user to spend some time familiarising themselves with their starting point, then that people too weak to use it normally could still learn and use it with links and angreals, then they didn't even need to "learn the ground" to Travel within their line of sight, then Travelling to a spot let you automatically "know ground" and immediately open another Gate, then people too weak to use it could still learn the weave and teach it to others. So having lost practically all it's initial limitations how could this skill so useful for survival have ever become "lost", huh? It is similar with the a'dam - in TGH Egwene and other damane are the ones required to embrace saidar and actually channel - hence brutal "training", so that they would obey immediately and without question. But in KoD (or CoT?) when Tuon briefly collared the 3 AS she didn't need their cooperation to either make them embace saidar or weave, she did it all herself. Oh, and BTW, Egwene in TGH was able to channel independantly a little even with the collar on, when sul'dam wasn't wearing the bracelet. But wasn't it a very silly scene in the book? Why did Ishy, and AoL channeler with TP at his fingertips duel Rand with a _staff_?
  11. My understanding is that if an AS swore to herself not to do something and then was driven to attempt to do it by torture, it would kill her unless her torturers relented. Like what happened when the BA hunters tried to force a Salidar mole to say something that she knew to be a lie. When the AS swore to serve Rand, they were clearly forced to follow through, even though the wording left them loopholes for personal interpretation what it entailed, exactly. If one wanted to bind herself with an airtight oath, though, she could do it, IMHO.
  12. Yes, having Maigan, or at least an extra with similar enough hair-cut to make us think that it was her, on the tower was a completely unforced mistake. Yes, they kinda shot themselves in the foot by having Lan bring up this unnecessary argument about innocents. A lot of "but what about civil contractors on the Death Star?" energy there. Moiraine had every reason to think that Seanchan were an army of Darkfriends, seeing how they were led by a Forsaken, and should have been free to nuke them on that premise. I guess that she has a loophole of still being confident that there were Darkfriends on these ships, particularly among the leadership and can justify her attack as being aimed at them? Regarding your arguments about channeling rules or the use of a'dam being consistent in the books, though, this is absolutely not the case. Jordan was pretty much constantly whipping out whatever he wanted for his current plots, pre-established rules be damned. In no way was WoT magic system "hard", though it pretended to be such. I always thought that it should have been possible to circumvent some of the a'dam's cohersive function through mental discipline. The Flame and the Void removes all emotion and blocks physical sensation even when used by a non-channeler, right? There was no reason why women couldn't learn it, except for RJ's view that men and women were different species and his general propensity to have female channelers get perfectly enslaved. IIRC, there are at least 3 different ways he made it happen in the books. Maybe that's what happened in this scene - Egwene made her mind empty, convinced herself that the collar was not a weapon and was able to put it on Renna. Then, once they both were collared and wore respective bracelets, they seemed to be on a level playing field vs each other and Egwene was able to overcome compulsion of her a'dam and hurt Renna directly. Frankly, with the way Renna's and Seta's plots went nowhere in the books, nothing was lost when they were both just killed in the show. Egwene would have totally killed Renna in TGH, had Nynaeve not stopped her, for fairly spurious reasons. P.S. Forgot to mention something that has been bothering me for a long time - shouldn't the AS have been able to employ their First Oath to prevent being used by Seanchan and even to commit suicide? Any oath an AS makes is binding, so if they swore not to channel while collared, not to share any information, not to break, etc, as long as the wording was airtight nothing could have overcome it, right? Never made sense to me that it didn't occur to any of them. Here is to hoping that in the show it does. P.S.S. My brother, who is not a reader, loved this season and even the finale. He was lukewarm on the first one.
  13. I am pretty sure that Demandred will be fused with another FS and his name won't be used. Even readers found the similarity of Darmoded - Demandred confusing back in the day. Additionally, he, Sammael and Bel'al have practically the same motivation for turning - namely jealousy of LTT.
  14. So, I really liked this season on the whole, most new material included, but I feel that they fumbled the finale a bit. It was OK, but could have been better. What got me was that she pushed the arrow through without breaking off the fletching, nor did she wrap up the wound. This made her look totally incompetent as a conventional healer too. I am OK with the block being a real hindrance to her, though. I liked Perrin's set-up with the Whitecloaks... except for how Valda suddenly forgot that he wanted to kill him, once Bornhald dispatched Hopper. Or for how his own men stopped Dain from attacking Perrin for killing his father, when they could have made a Seanchan attack separate them instead. This felt pretty clumsy to me. There was generally a lot of awkward staging for action scenes, IMHO, and of course I understand the challenges, but I feel that with a few small changes, like the one I mention above, they could have felt less cheesy. I think that Fain still may be involved with Perrin's TR plot in the next season, Dain just has a much better motivation than in the books. Nothing speaks against Callandor being in Rhuidean instead and getting merged with the male sa'angreal of Choedan Kal. They clearly made it so that Mat doesn't have to return to the White Tower for healing, so I am not sure why Egwene would. Nynaeve and Elayne might, or they could go to Caemlyn to warn Morgase and tangle with the BA and FS there. It seems that Mat doesn't need to visit Rhuidean for his memories now, so maybe he escorts them? Since the fight against Gawyn and Galad was teased by the showrunner, though personally I don't care about it. I wonder if they are going to expressly connect the dagger with the Finn - IIRC there was a lot of speculation that Mordeth visited them and that whatever power he got from them contributed to the formation of Mashadar. I didn't like either, but the last one is particularly egregious. Why are we supposed to be afraid of the FS if she could do that and she isn't even the most powerful 3rd Ager? Couldn't she have disrupted Rand's shield instead? For the record, I am perfectly OK with Rand Indiana Jonesing Turok. Or with him needing help. Just not like this. Ishy's "death" was very anti-climactic too. It is not final, of course, or at least it shouldn't be - if the FS could have been properly killed with OP in the show canon, AoLers wouldn't have bothered sealing them. I thought that Egwene used Maigan's a'dam on Renna? At least, the dead woman had the same hair. But yea, if so there was a lot of the Third Oath breaking going on between that and Moiraine. I really hated that they decided to purposefully deny Moiraine a loophole of believing that Seanchan are an army of Darkfriends, which she had every reason to do. Just why? We already knew that she is prepared to be ruthless in the service of her mission, no need to reiterate it again, and break established show worldbuilding. I am OK with changing things for the show if necessary/convenient, but it has to be consistent. OTOH, it made sense to me that sul'dam and damane didn't stop shielding Rand, even as Moiraine attacked their ship - they are conditioned to obey orders onto death. Of course, Seanchan should have had many more damane after finding several in that village alone. I guess that poor Ryma got shipped out before any of this happened? It is a smoke screen, they sent boys with smoke censers ahead of the charge - you can briefly see them through the mist. But another stupid thing was how Perrin with armed Aiel in tow just openely entered through the gates.
  15. If they want to include it in some form, they might just send Egwene through the apprentice ter'angreal in Rhuidean, along with Moiraine and Avi. It would have even more gravitas. Also, IIRC in the books they were falling out of love - if their relationship was supposed to be that - even before her test. In the show, Egwene has mentally buried Rand, and he needs to keep her at arm's length because of Lanfear. Frankly, the girls returning to the Tower just to leave again immediately didn't work that well even in the books. In the show they already have the rings for their impersonation and if season 3 is mainly TSR, then Egwene needs to be in the Waste.
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