Expanse #5 Game done changed.

[Corvinus85]

It is cool that the show inspires more people to learn about space, space travel and exploration.

[Loge]

On 1/29/2021 at 7:19 AM, Mr Fixit said:

Can anyone knowledgeable in these things tell me: would three 10-15 meter asteroids do damage on the level of environmental collapse? 

They wouldn't. You can try out different scenarios here: https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/ What the scientist on the show says is correct. 

[Caligula_K3]

I've caught up on the last couple episodes and I think I agree with the prevailing opinion here; the season has gone from an excellent and fast-paced beginning to a very slow and pretty unexciting ending. The Holden and Alex/Bobbie plotlines have really been in limbo since episode 4, and I think it's a mistake to hinge so much on Naomi's survival. Parts of episode eight were very well shot and immersive, but there's absolutely no tension, and there are much bigger fish to fry, especially if we're only getting one more season.

One of my biggest criticisms of Book 5 was that the attack on Earth never really had much weight; it always felt more like a plot device than something that had major emotional ramifications for our characters and for Earth, as an attack of that scale would. I think the show has done a slightly better job - especially through showing us Avasarala's perspective, and also because they've scaled down the attack to be less all out catastrophic - but I do wish they'd adapted the Amos plotline more to give a sense of the horrific nature of the attack and how it would affect so many people.

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Isis said:

We have to go to Twitter to have stuff from the shows explained. It's a true multi media experience. Cool. 

To be fair, I thought that was pretty clear from the show alone, if only from Erich saying 'fuck this' before slamming his hand down (indicating that he was doing something extreme) and from other contextual stuff established in the show (you never see ships, even shuttles, launching on main engines, only on thrusters). I can see how it might not have been obvious, but all I can say is that I got it.

[Corvinus85]

Book spoiler for maybe beginning of season 6.

Spoiler

To show the global devastation further, I would not be surprised if Anna came back for an episode. Book 6 had a prologue with her, though I don't remember if she was the POV or her wife.

 

[HexMachina]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

The show itself did show the guy (who clearly doesn't know anything about space flight) slamming his hand down on the controls on maximum power rather than the actual pilot doing the takeoff, so I think there was some inference what was going on. Maybe it could have been clearer.

It does make me think how incredibly hard it is to do even moderately hard science fiction on screen without basically pausing the action every five minutes and having Professor Brian Cox come on and give a two-minute lecture on what just happened and why it happened. Ty's Twitter feed does seem to consist almost entirely of him having to explain that no, people don't turn into icicles within seconds of being exposed to vacuum and why "people are sometimes in gravity and sometimes not."

As I alluded to previously I fall into this category of person who doesn’t fully understand what is going on (though i got the gist of the rocket launch for the reasons you and mormont have outlined). I will sometimes seek clarifications here or elsewhere online but for the most part I just accept it as sure, i believe this could happen and the science behind it is sound. And if its not it doesn’t bother me, though I get there are people who want that from the show.

[john]

It was both clear and not clear, I would say. You have the computer saying “do not engage thrust until hanger doors are fully opened” then Erich says fuck that and slams the switch down. But then the entire property collapses in a fireball, which still seemed excessive even understanding that they’d crashed out under full thrust.

[Corvinus85]

On on a re-watch I did notice that the button Erich pushed said fusion drive. But now I have to wonder if the exhaust pushed by the fusion drive has any radioactivity, so on top of everything else, they may have irradiated the area.

[Maithanet]

On 1/30/2021 at 2:43 PM, mcbigski said:

The oddest part about the last episode for me was the cabinet meeting. 

I understand people's concerns about the pacing of the past few episodes, but this was the part that really stood out to me as farfetched.  Asteroids have hit Earth killing at a minimum tens of millions of Earthers, quite possibly billions.  And yet at this moment, the peacenik faction takes over?  We need to have more empathy for Belters?!  I felt like the books were VERY optimistic in terms of how restrained and understanding the Earth was in response to these attacks, and this show version is taking that even further. 

It is hard to believe that the Earth wouldn't see the Belt as already at war with them, and any station that doesn't immediately disown Marcos as an enemy.  Killing 9,000 Belters on Pallas station (that has always been Pro-Marcos) wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I understand people's concerns about the pacing of the past few episodes, but this was the part that really stood out to me as farfetched.  Asteroids have hit Earth killing at a minimum tens of millions of Earthers, quite possibly billions.  And yet at this moment, the peacenik faction takes over?  We need to have more empathy for Belters?!  I felt like the books were VERY optimistic in terms of how restrained and understanding the Earth was in response to these attacks, and this show version is taking that even further. 

It is hard to believe that the Earth wouldn't see the Belt as already at war with them, and any station that doesn't immediately disown Marcos as an enemy.  Killing 9,000 Belters on Pallas station (that has always been Pro-Marcos) wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. 

I suppose it would have made more sense if Avasarala took over after the total toll was starting to take shape, and Paster and his generals were still more focused on attacking the Belt. I saw a comment somewhere where the attack and immediate response was compared with 9/11 and attacking Afghanistan as a response. But the U.S. did not suffer such an economic and social catastrophe that it couldn't handle the war. Earth is going to have to focus more on fixing the home problems than going after Marco.

[Maithanet]

19 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I suppose it would have made more sense if Avasarala took over after the total toll was starting to take shape, and Paster and his generals were still more focused on attacking the Belt. I saw a comment somewhere where the attack and immediate response was compared with 9/11 and attacking Afghanistan as a response. But the U.S. did not suffer such an economic and social catastrophe that it couldn't handle the war. Earth is going to have to focus more on fixing the home problems than going after Marco.

I agree, if that had been the thrust of her argument then that would have made more sense. 

[Kalbear]

Yeah, that was always my problem with the books too - the Earth faction was so absurdly constrained in their response given the scope and the potential rage - combined with Inaros' ego and taunting. The book talks a bit more about not being able to go attack because the ships are left behind in case there are more rocks falling (which the spotters couldn't see, even when they knew about the stealth tech), but even then they really don't get into why Earth is just so...passive about it. 

[Poobah]

While I don't necessarily think that it's entirely unreasonable that there might be enough sane people in government who think that indiscriminately murdering civilians is wrong, I do agree that the angle that maybe they should be looking to reinforce Earth's defences and putting their resources into helping deal with the fallout and their planet's economic, social, and ecological collapse would have made more sense.

[Kalbear]

The thing is that military ships can't do much of anything to help anything down below the well. The only value they have - really the only value any of the military resources they have - is to go fuck shit up and make sure that the Earth doesn't get any more fucked up.

Now, one could argue reasonably that if the Belt decided to they could obliterate the Earth. It isn't hard for ships to throw rocks at Earth in such frequency that they could be overwhelmed, especially if all the Belt decided to do it at once with every single shitty ship out there. Being at the bottom of a gravity well kind of sucks for that. But if that's not the case - or for whatever reason, that's not the primary concern - then the choice isn't 'use resources to help earth via economics vs use resources to punish the belt'. 

It's 'use military forces to punish the belt vs don't do that'. 

I personally think it's pretty compelling to make sure that Inaros' forces cannot continue refueling, resupplying and do not have a safe harbor anywhere from a military standpoint, especially if the converse is 'they might throw more rocks at us if we don't'. Now, what I think is going on is that the Earth doesn't have to fear any more rocks for whatever reason and there is not a lot of value in destroying Ceres/Pallas/whatever AND the cost to Earth of destroying Ceres/Pallas is way higher than they're saying - but I don't think they're doing a good job of that calculus or telling us about it, and even more I think there'd be a very large group of people who would say 'fuck that long term thinking, let's go kill them'. 

[Maithanet]

And Avasarala's opposition to the Ceres operation was before they even made clear what that operation would be.  Yes, there would be civilian casualties, but it's possible that the military incursion would at least seek to minimize those casualties.  And what other choice do you have?  Ceres is the power and population base of the Belt, and Inaros is seeking to rally the Belt against Earth.  Seeking to capture it is a very reasonable military objective by any measure. 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

And Avasarala's opposition to the Ceres operation was before they even made clear what that operation would be.  Yes, there would be civilian casualties, but it's possible that the military incursion would at least seek to minimize those casualties.  And what other choice do you have?  Ceres is the power and population base of the Belt, and Inaros is seeking to rally the Belt against Earth.  Seeking to capture it is a very reasonable military objective by any measure. 

There wasn't any suggestion in that scene that the attack on Ceres was aimed at capturing the station, or achieving anything beyond pure retaliation.

As regards Avasarala taking over again, Paster (OK, I had to look up his name) doesn't have any actual power base of his own. His actions can be seen as trying to establish one by a show of strength and allying with the armed forces. Avasarala's objections are principled, but also practical, and she has a well established reputation for ruthlessness. That's enough to give some of the others in the government pause. And it's likely there was a not insignificant faction concerned about having a weak leadership, weakened further by the resignations of Avasarala and her allies, at a critical juncture of the operations to rescue and protect Earth. They wanted to lance the boil and move on. The easiest and best way to do that was topple Paster and install Avasarala.

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

There wasn't any suggestion in that scene that the attack on Ceres was aimed at capturing the station, or achieving anything beyond pure retaliation.

There wasn't any discussion at all of what the attack on Ceres would be.  And that's kind of the problem, without knowing more, Avasarala looks like she's overreacting.  Because if the plan to attack Ceres was comparable to what was done in the books, then objecting to that on humanitarian grounds is very weak indeed. 

[Werthead]

There's also the issue that - on paper - the OPA controls the Belt and the OPA and Earth have various treaties and agreements in place. The Free Navy is a new faction that's popped up almost out of nowhere and started winning over settlements and so on, but there's a nebulous line between the OPA, the Free Navy, opportunists and the asteroid settlements that just want to keep their heads down and hope no one notices them.

The analogy is more that the OPA are like Pakistan and the Free Navy is the Taliban, and the Earthers are free to go blow the shit out of the those settlements which openly swear allegiance to them (who'd be Afghanistan in this stretched analogy) but they don't want to attack the OPA to turn the neutral or friendly factions into the enemy, which causes problems when Free Navy personnel go and hide in on-paper-OPA-aligned bases (which Pallas still seems to be, at least nominally), just as the Taliban spent years and years simply evading US and allied troops by simply popping across the border into Pakistan and hiding there with almost complete equanimity (at least up until 2011).

Although there is also an ISIS analogy here, in that Marcos has made the mistake of losing his ability to hit and run and hide by taking on very large, very visible Martian battlecruisers: no matter how big and how powerful they are, Earth and the actual Mars government can eventually defeat them through conventional means.

Spoiler

This all makes more sense once the renegade Martian faction declares itself as well, which I'm assuming will be in this week's episode, if they're not going in a completely different direction.

 

[SpaceChampion]

19 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

On on a re-watch I did notice that the button Erich pushed said fusion drive. But now I have to wonder if the exhaust pushed by the fusion drive has any radioactivity, so on top of everything else, they may have irradiated the area.

No, fusion reactors are typically hydrogen to helium fusion, and no isotope of either is radioactive.  You need quite heavy elements to be radioactive and have long half-lives more than a few seconds.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

There wasn't any suggestion in that scene that the attack on Ceres was aimed at capturing the station, or achieving anything beyond pure retaliation.

They literally say "What are the intentions for a full scale attack - incapacitate or occupy" right before Avasarala leaves.

1 hour ago, mormont said:

As regards Avasarala taking over again, Paster (OK, I had to look up his name) doesn't have any actual power base of his own. His actions can be seen as trying to establish one by a show of strength and allying with the armed forces. Avasarala's objections are principled, but also practical, and she has a well established reputation for ruthlessness. That's enough to give some of the others in the government pause. And it's likely there was a not insignificant faction concerned about having a weak leadership, weakened further by the resignations of Avasarala and her allies, at a critical juncture of the operations to rescue and protect Earth. They wanted to lance the boil and move on. The easiest and best way to do that was topple Paster and install Avasarala.

That's fine, but I think the 'practical' part is kind of stupid here. Causing Inaros to lose his main supply ports and whatnot is important militarily and important to protect Earth. Blowing up Ceres is bad, but securing Ceres is not.