The Expanse #4: Amazon Rising (spoilers for book only up to last episode)

[Wethers]

7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

That was on the station. The speed limit doesn't apply inside the ships.

 

7 hours ago, Leofric said:

Agreed, velocity inside the ships doesn't appear to be effected.  When the speed limit changed everyone inside the ships still kept moving until they slammed into something, they didn't decelerate at the same time/rate as the outer hulls.  Seems to effect only things in direct contact with the zone space, like the ships, missiles, bullets fired by the marines in the station and the nuclear explosion.

Yes that's how it's explained in the books - the speed limit, whatever it is, is of course imposed by something we don't understand.  "Inertial Damping Field" or something like that is how someone from the books describes it, but basically it's code for mysterious alien phenomenon.  But the when observers test it in the book, they notice that it (the central alien station) only "grabs" the "outsides" of things, however it figures that out.  And only things with mass, so not light/photons.

So anyway everything inside ships is unaffected, other than slamming into things on a suddenly decelerated ship when it happens.  Show-wise, the things inside the ship don't end up with the weird purple glow (not in the books) that pulls and holds them in place in a close circle around the ring (this is in the books).  That's why Clarissa, Anna and (in the show) Naomi, despite having been in ships that were decelerated by the central station and got the purple halo, were themselves able to go where they wanted between ships in EVA suits afterwards.

But when Holden, Bobbie and the other Marines are inside the station, they are on the "outside," as are the bullets from the MMC suit guns.  These bullets exceed the earlier speed limit and get grabbed and pulled out of the station into the same close circle, but since they are inside the alien station itself, the AI on the station decides to take further defensive countermeasures - hence the thing that comes after the Marines.  The grenade does NOT exceed the earlier speed limit, but its explosion teaches the AI on the station that things much slower than the earlier speed limit can cause damage.  So the station applies progressive restraint and further reduces the speed limit suddenly to 100kph or whatever the grenade was moving at.  But even at that lower speed limit, bullets inside the ships are not subject to any limit.

4 hours ago, Corvinus of Teranga said:

When all the ships were being shut down, who shut down the Roci? Or were Alex and Amos responsible sailors and shut it down before leaving, just in case? I don't remember if they did.

This is a good question.  In the books, Naomi's battle/evasion effort with Clarissa goes on a bit longer, and at one point, Clarissa moves over to the controls to try to overload the Roci's reactor.  Naomi is able to knock her away and get to the controls to drop the reactor core if I remember right.  Clarissa taunts her that she'll just activate and then overload the nuclear warhead on one of the Roci's missiles instead.  But anyway, the result later is that the Roci's reactor is not an issue in the books I think.  I guess in the show canon, Alex or Amos must have shut it down.

[Wethers]

On the final 2 episodes themselves, I really liked them.  With Drummer being (mostly) an amalgam of book characters Michio Pa and Carlos "Bull" de Baca (though Ashford got some of Bull too in choosing to fire on the Roci outside the ring, and to spin up the drum), I actually was not sure what was going to happen with her.  Cara Gee is too good not to use her/Drummer in Pa's role going forward, but I was wondering for a second if that was really the end for her there with the grenade and Diogo.

Spoiler

Naomi does the elevator trick in the book too, when all hope seems lost, but the circumstance is different.  It's after the crippled Bull has already made a similar sacrifice with a grenade and lost his life stopping one of Ashfords goons in Martian power armor, but there are 2 others still coming that Naomi nails with the backup elevator whose controls she overrides.

 

[fionwe1987]

I hate that we just got one glimpse of Avasarala. I'd have liked to see her reaction to the opening of the gates. Something about how she has no pages at all on dealing with humanity expanding into 1300 possible solar systems, maybe. Now we'll have to wait a year.

Did anyone find Ashford's insistence on firing into the Ring a bit too sudden? Its not like Holden's plan would have left them defenseless. Switch off the reactors, wait a few minutes, but keep the laser ready. If the Ring looks like it is attacking, power up and shoot the shit out of it. 

[karaddin]

45 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I hate that we just got one glimpse of Avasarala. I'd have liked to see her reaction to the opening of the gates. Something about how she has no pages at all on dealing with humanity expanding into 1300 possible solar systems, maybe. Now we'll have to wait a year.

Did anyone find Ashford's insistence on firing into the Ring a bit too sudden? Its not like Holden's plan would have left them defenseless. Switch off the reactors, wait a few minutes, but keep the laser ready. If the Ring looks like it is attacking, power up and shoot the shit out of it. 

If he thinks they don't have that long, and that the "shut everything down" argument is based in hopelessly hanging onto the idea they can survive rather than it actually coming from genuine info, I think his reaction was reasonable. No less righteous than the others. He just happened to be wrong. I thought that's what the show was trying to get at with the guy on the bridge - it was self interest that was getting through to him and Ashford had decided they were already gone.

[Corvinus85]

5 hours ago, Wethers said:

On the final 2 episodes themselves, I really liked them.  With Drummer being (mostly) an amalgam of book characters Michio Pa and Carlos "Bull" de Baca (though Ashford got some of Bull too in choosing to fire on the Roci outside the ring, and to spin up the drum), I actually was not sure what was going to happen with her.  Cara Gee is too good not to use her/Drummer in Pa's role going forward, but I was wondering for a second if that was really the end for her there with the grenade and Diogo.

  Reveal hidden contents

Naomi does the elevator trick in the book too, when all hope seems lost, but the circumstance is different.  It's after the crippled Bull has already made a similar sacrifice with a grenade and lost his life stopping one of Ashfords goons in Martian power armor, but there are 2 others still coming that Naomi nails with the backup elevator whose controls she overrides.

 

Actually I was thinking as I watched the episode that they can't kill Drummer off because I remembered Cara Gee's involvement in the #SaveTheExpanse campaign. So I rationalized that she must still be around. But, hadn't it not been for that, I would have been worried for Drummer at all times, as the show did do a good job putting her in danger.

[Corvinus85]

Also, anyone else get goosebumps with that final shot when Holden sees that thing as they pass through the ring?

[SpaceChampion]

So how many more seasons do anyone think they could do with the remaining 6 books?  (Don't post spoilers, I haven't read past book 4 yet).

[Leofric]

They're basically averaging a book per season, with some juggling of the time line, adding some new material, and pulling some material from the novellas.  Assume they will keep doing something similar they will have another 5 seasons at least based upon existing material and the next upcoming book.

 

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

So how many more seasons do anyone think they could do with the remaining 6 books?  (Don't post spoilers, I haven't read past book 4 yet).

I haven't watched this season yet but it sounds like they're wrapping book 3. Book 4 could 'kinda' be done concurrently with book 5 by drastically shortening the book 4 material (wouldn't lose much of substance) and letting Cristjen and Bobby do the heavy lifting for stuff they were otherwise only marginally involved with in book 5.

After that... Book 6 could stand as its own season (so there's season 5). And book 7... eh! I actually don't know how they'd choose to do that.

Has Clarissa appeared in the show?

[Leofric]

Yes, Clarissa is in.

[Jace, Extat]

13 minutes ago, Leofric said:

Yes, Clarissa is in.

Oooh! My favorite character!

[boojam]

A lot happened in season 3, not a book reader ,  the narrative vista just opened up am looking forward to what the show looks like on Amazon.

Still the best science fiction I have seen on TV in years and , by my lights, the best space opera I have ever seen TV (and I love Star Trek and BSG).

[Caligula_K3]

It was a very good two part finale. Some of it felt rushed, particularly as they tried to get from their version of Ashford to the book's climax; it felt like there wasn't much justification for the exploding of the nuke that began the whole crisis, and then Ashford went into authoritarian mode way too fast. That said, I appreciated that the lesson was that everyone's just trying to do the right thing, rather than that Ashford was a crazy incompetent dick, as he is in the book.

The Melba stuff also didn't work too well- it didn't in the book, either, but given what they did with Ashford, I was hoping for something more. Oh well.

Everything else was fantastic. This really is the best space opera show since BSG seasons 1-3.5, and I'm so glad it's firing on nearly all cylinders now. I've only read up to book 3 and I don't think I'll go any further than that with the books, so I'm grateful that we get more seasons of this excellent show!

[Kalbear]

I think without spoiling too much book 4 will be condensed heavily, similar to what they did with book 3, and we'll get a lot of setup for books 5 and 6 and quite possibly finishing with the end of book 5 in season 4. 

Book 6 is very action-heavy, so it'd also do well as a half-season epic. 

I have no idea how they're going to even attempt book 7 though. That's going to be a problem. 

[karaddin]

I think book 7 has to fundamentally change, I don't think any of that works with the way they've approached the show and their cast. Again, trying to avoid spoiling anything.

[SpaceChampion]

The 2-3 week gap between Syfy cancelling it and Amazon picking it up did cost them a few writers apparently.  [Georgia Lee and Robin Veith]

They're NOT doing Book 4 for the entire season 4, but bridge material between book 4 & 5 in the solar system will be added.

Longer than 43 minute episodes likely.

 

[Corvinus85]

At least they didn't tear down the sets, right? Or are they required to move anyway?

I certainly wasn't expecting book 4 to cover a full season.

[red snow]

46 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

The 2-3 week gap between Syfy cancelling it and Amazon picking it up did cost them a few writers apparently.  [Georgia Lee and Robin Veith]

They're NOT doing Book 4 for the entire season 4, but bridge material between book 4 & 5 in the solar system will be added.

Longer than 43 minute episodes likely.

 

This makes sense, there's plenty of Ava and "butcher of Anderson station" material they can inject to make season 4 less alien than book 4 was in terms of story, setting and characters

The "alien" is not meant as non-earth creatures but as the more grounded definition. Bad choice of words should have used "different/isolated/unique" but the word I used fits best besides the fact I'm talking about a SF show

[SpaceChampion]

I'd guess this might be about:

• premiere date
• budget increase
• expanded number of episodes
• new cast members

or maybe something like a movie to cover Book 4 in one two-hour shot with a bigger budget than regular episodes get?

[Jace, Extat]

29 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I'd guess this might be about:

• premiere date
• budget increase
• expanded number of episodes
• new cast members

or maybe something like a movie to cover Book 4 in one two-hour shot with a bigger budget than regular episodes get?

That would be a GREAT idea, doing book 4 as a traditional 3 acts movie! You could easily wrangle it into a tight 2 hours, but since they're a streaming service doing a 3 hour film with an intermission would be pretty effective too.