The Expanse #3: Abaddon's Post - [spoilers for book only up to latest tv show episode]

[Corvinus85]

21 minutes ago, boojam said:

GoT still gets dinged about teleporting ravens! You know if Christopher Nolan did TV where time compression or disjointedness was part of the narrative no one would bat an eyelash....  

When a bunch of dudes stand in freezing conditions without proper shelter and supplies and wait for a rescue, which happens before hypothermia sets in, the show deserves to get dinged.

21 minutes ago, boojam said:

In 200 years one would think the technology of rail runs would be effectively  cannons that could deliver relativistic projectiles with high Lorentz factors.

Yeah, possibly. 

[boojam]

6 hours ago, Corvinus said:

When a bunch of dudes stand in freezing conditions without proper shelter and supplies and wait for a rescue, which happens before hypothermia sets in, the show deserves to get dinged.

Yeah, possibly. 

Unless Valyrians have antifreeze in their ears Dany should look like Vincent van Gogh by now!

[karaddin]

15 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I mentioned this above, but as I think about it, from a realistic perspective, I am fairly certain this is wrong. Based on what we know of rail gun tech, the gun fires a non-explosive projectile at incredible speeds; the destructiveness of this projectile is from its high kinetic energy - like a meteorite hit. So when you fire a projectile in space, no matter the speed, that has no propulsion of its own, then there should not be any light streaks with it, since there is no friction. It would have a streak if you fired into the atmosphere. So a visually dazzling scene, but unrealistic. They probably compromised on this, just like they did with having sound in space. 

I just went back to check - the light mostly comes from the railgun itself, the projectile does trail it initially but as these are in Earth orbit it might be a low enough orbit that its while they're passing through the outer atmosphere and a result of the magnetising, by the time it gets to the target its just a cold projectile. It does split yes, but the explosion isnt part of the damage - it just splinters the projectile into many small projectiles to get a larger spread of damage, the damage itself is purely kinetic energy.

In terms of the fallout from the nuke - I dont think that can have been an authorised launch with government oversight - I interpreted that as the platforms autolaunch if they get communication that any of the others have been attacked/destroyed. How much of a difference this makes afterwards remains to be seen, but they can at least argue that.

[Spaßvogel]

On 4/25/2018 at 1:48 PM, Steinman said:

Podcasts:

Afterbuzz: The Expanse is kind of flashy, and they occasionally have actor guests, but the hosts aren't especially good. Now I mostly only listen when they have a guest.

I really liked the season 2 run of Afterbuzz: The Expanse, but this season has not gotten of to a good start.  Missing the main person in the first two episodes, and the new lady hasn't quite measured up yet.  Maybe she'll get better when the main host returns.  I'm also kinda confused about their time table.  It used to be that Afterbuzz would stream the following day and now it seems they are taking three days?  Anyway, after the disastrous panel for Twin Peaks: The Return, I almost gave up on Afterbuzz, but they do tend to get the actors on fairly frequently. 

[boojam]

By the by has anyone noted that Episode 5 or Season 2 of The Expanse was not nominated for a Hugo?

This is the best SF I have seen on TV in the 21st century?

[Astromech]

Amos showing up after the confrontation  

I could've watched an entire episode of Drummer and her crew salvaging the Nauvoo.

[akh]

lmao, when Amos shows up "Shit, did I miss it?"

[Corvinus85]

7 hours ago, Astromech said:

Amos showing up after the confrontation  

I could've watched an entire episode of Drummer and her crew salvaging the Nauvoo.

I'm glad you were right that they would show the salvage operation, short as it was. It was another terrific space scene that didn't add anything substantial to the plot, but showed the creators' dedication to world building and development.

Amos's comment about missing the fight was gold, as was Avasarala's "tedious" line.

[Martini Sigil]

It was kinda cool to see Holden finally do something...lol... usually everyone around him gets to kick ass in one way or another... this time Holden got to choke a MF'er out while getting elbowed in the face....lol

[Mr. X]

19 hours ago, akh said:

lmao, when Amos shows up "Shit, did I miss it?"

That was great. Also, "I think you and I had very different childhoods." Wes Chatham continues to kill it.

6 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

It was kinda cool to see Holden finally do something...lol... usually everyone around him gets to kick ass in one way or another... this time Holden got to choke a MF'er out while getting elbowed in the face....lol

Yeah, between this and the whole attack where they took out the engines of the UN escort ship, the last two episodes have certainly driven home the point that Holden has a military background.

[Kalbear]

I really liked this one, though some of the things bugged more this ep. Like...why would there be a debris field hours after an attack? The debris would be going very, very far away from the actual attack unless it was incredibly slow. And they're slowing down that much to get stuff instead of burning for Io? That would presumably take days off of their flight time. 

There should be a jump cut of Bobbie eating things, because her expressions when she's doing it is brilliant. The cucumber sandwiches from the s2 ep were a highlight. 

[The Mother of The Others]

It looks like every captain's log will be hard next week.    But this ep had good talking!   And that's good, from your ear's perspective.   Rich tycoon evil science guy got less sketchy when he remembered that people are people and then dove right back in to shady behavior when he remembered dividends are dividends.   So that's like doing the hokey pokey and ending up where you started, like in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 with the two sisters and how their "character development" returned them to where they were in part 1, so you sort of ask, "was that anything?"   

Still, i liked the characters enough in this one to forgive a talkie talkie ep.    Sometimes, though, it'd be nice to get away from this focus on one crew.

[Caligula_K3]

14 hours ago, Triskele said:

YES

Can someone clarify for me:  Is the President of Earth and Elizabeth Mitchell's character an arc invented for the show?  I cannot remember this from the books but it's been a long time since I read them.

Anna is in Book 3 (which is as far as I've read, so I don't know what she does after that). She's also a minister in the books with a wife and child, but that's about where the similarities end. She has no association with earth politics in the books, and her antagonists are smooth-TV-preacher and crazy space captain 

Spoiler

on the mission to the gate that the protomolecule makes. She saves the lives of some of the Roci crew when Mao's daughter goes on a rampage.

In general the show has fleshed out the Earth politics much, much more than the books. Errinwright was a pretty one dimensional villain in Book 2, and the president didn't have much of a role aside from being a pawn of Errinwright/Avasarala (as far as I can remember- it's been a couple of years since I read Book 2).

The third episode was pretty good, the fourth was excellent. All in all it's been a fantastic season so far, though I hope the Roci gets to Io soon.

[Holy Sith!]

The horde of drones turning the Nauvoo as retrofitting began was very cool. Shouldn't the ship have kept turning, though, after the drone rockets stopped firing? Just a personal quibble. I like the "sound" of rockets in the vacuum of space.

I agree that Mao had a really, really short stint as a man of conscience. All it took was a transforming kid babbling in Protomoleculeese as he examined the "disassembled" bloody remains of his nurse to flip Mao back into weapon development mode. Mei is back on the hook.

I side with Amos on the issue of salvaging munitions and supplies from the remains of the Martian ships. I was surprised that he seemed to have more reverence for the deceased sailors than Meng.

Another surprise was the discovery of Zeph and Pippin among the three survivors of the disabled Martian ship, I had no idea that residents of the Quad enlisted in the Martian Navy during their time between seasons of Killjoys. 

The Belters exhibited their wry sense of humor by naming one of their stable dishes Red Kibble. 

[Hello World]

Only thing I don't like about this season is the whole Anna character. It seems to be a pointless addition so far.

[Mr. X]

28 minutes ago, Holy Sith! said:

The horde of drones turning the Nauvoo as retrofitting began was very cool. Shouldn't the ship have kept turning, though, after the drone rockets stopped firing? Just a personal quibble. I like the "sound" of rockets in the vacuum of space.

I thought there was a large second set of drones that attached to the other side of the ship and fired second in order to stop the turn.

[Holy Sith!]

1 hour ago, Mr. X said:

I thought there was a large second set of drones that attached to the other side of the ship and fired second in order to stop the turn.

The diagonally opposite positioning of the two sets of drones would make them work together to turn the ship. The ship appeared to stop turning immediately when the rockets ceased firing.

Normally, not the kind of thing I would notice, but it just struck me at the time. 

[matt b]

5 minutes ago, Holy Sith! said:

The diagonally opposite positioning of the two sets of drones would make them work together to turn the ship. The ship appeared to stop turning immediately when the rockets ceased firing.

Normally, not the kind of thing I would notice, but it just struck me at the time. 

I believe there was another set of rockets that fired when the 1st set stopped. Like if the 1st set were topside aft and bottomside fore, the other set were topside fore and bottomside aft. At least that's what I recall seeing.

[Mr. X]

1 hour ago, matt b said:

I believe there was another set of rockets that fired when the 1st set stopped. Like if the 1st set were topside aft and bottomside fore, the other set were topside fore and bottomside aft. At least that's what I recall seeing.

That's what I remember as well (but totally didn't articulate clearly in my early post). 

[Caligula_K3]

3 hours ago, Hello World said:

Only thing I don't like about this season is the whole Anna character. It seems to be a pointless addition so far.

Eh, I kind of like how the show has handled her. We need a character to oppose Errinwright on Earth now that Avasarala is gone, or else that plotline would get very boring, very fast. And now she has the Errinwright video, and will probably be more active in the plot.