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Qs for people who’ve read the novels (no spoilers please): Is there artificial gravity in The Expanse? There certainly seems to be, but I don't recall it ever being directly referenced, so maybe it’s just inconsistencies/budget. Why did the Protogen forces bother boarding the Donnager instead of just blowing it up? It seems like they lost the rest of their attacking ships to the entirely predictable self-destruct. Were they trying to capture it or what? Does the ending of season three make sense in the novels? Why would cycling the engines make the station re-evaluate the threat level of the human ships so hard it opened the other rings?
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Jul 29, 2019 06:10
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Lazyhound posted:Qs for people who’ve read the novels (no spoilers please): 1 No, all the ships are designed like buildings on their side, so when they move under power, thrust pushes you towards the floor. it's not clear on most of the ship sets, but that's the gist of it. 2 I Don't remember 3 By powering down they were basically showing their belly as non threats. And deserving of seeing down the rabbit hole in a manner of speaking Rocksicles fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 06:20
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For 3, I read it more as the station/ring system just monitors things via energy and by shutting off the engines, they removed themselves from the threat list. When this happened, the station went off of its red alert status or whatever, allowing the proto-miller access to take control (since it was no longer operating defensively).
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Jul 29, 2019 06:41
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Rocksicles posted:3 By powering down they were basically showing their belly as non threats. And deserving of seeing down the rabbit hole in a manner of speaking ehh that feels poorly conveyed in the show. *station spazzes out* “IT THINKS OUR SHIPS ARE THREATS, WE HAVE TO KILL THE FUSION DRIVES” *fires enormous laser, barely missing a ring* station: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *kills drives* *station stands down* *ships power back on* station: ¯\___(ツ)___/¯
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Jul 29, 2019 06:45
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I kind of got the impression proto miller was negotiating with the station and that was a show of good faith that the humans weren't a threat
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Jul 29, 2019 06:54
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Lazyhound posted:ehh that feels poorly conveyed in the show. I didn't think so.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:00
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StashAugustine posted:I kind of got the impression proto miller was negotiating with the station and that was a show of good faith that the humans weren't a threat Yeah, as in these people will comply.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:03
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The way it's described is the station is on alert and the security system can't be overridden until the threat is gone. Once the ships kill their power, the threat is gone and the security alert turns off. Protomiller then disables the station's security system entirely and the ships can power back up.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:12
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Rocksicles posted:1 No, all the ships are designed like buildings on their side, so when they move under power, thrust pushes you towards the floor. it's not clear on most of the ship sets, but that's the gist of it. Also when they're not thrusting, people wear magnetic boots. For space stations, they spin fast enough to produce a centrifugal force that mimics gravity. Incidentally, this also causes a coriolis effect that causes disorientation and nausea, because your head is moving slightly slower than your feet. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 07:13
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W/r/t the donnager, I assume the protogen goons wanted to secure the cic to cut out whatever the equivalent of the black box was so that no one searching the wreckage would be able to link anything back to the stealth ships. Also, the donnager was certainly caught off guard by the stealth ships but it was still putting up a heck of a fight and might have taken them all out without a boarding action to cause chaos. It's certainly never explained, but that was how I took it.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:27
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Fister Roboto posted:Also when they're not thrusting, people wear magnetic boots. For space stations, they spin fast enough to produce a centrifugal force that mimics gravity. Incidentally, this also causes a coriolis effect that causes disorientation and nausea, because your head is moving slightly slower than your feet. I'm pretty sure Reddit scienced the gently caress out of the coriolis effect on places like ceres and came up with the conclusion that it's basically space magic anyone is alive regardless of the coriolis effect.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:28
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Spinning nausea depends on the diameter of the station and its rate of spin (and individual sensitivities). I think two revolutions per minute or less is considered unnoticeable for most people? I know there's a threshold.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:43
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Grand Fromage posted:Spinning nausea depends on the diameter of the station and its rate of spin (and individual sensitivities). I think two revolutions per minute or less is considered unnoticeable for most people? I know there's a threshold. They mention a couple of times i think, that's why all the poors are in the middle dealing with it like poors do.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:45
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CainsDescendant posted:W/r/t the donnager, I assume the protogen goons wanted to secure the cic to cut out whatever the equivalent of the black box was so that no one searching the wreckage would be able to link anything back to the stealth ships. Also, the donnager was certainly caught off guard by the stealth ships but it was still putting up a heck of a fight and might have taken them all out without a boarding action to cause chaos. It's certainly never explained, but that was how I took it. The Donnager also investigated Phoebe Station, so securing/destroying any intel would have been a bonus to starting an Earth-Mars war for Protogen. Worst-case, Donnager self-destructs, taking any evidence with it. Best case, they capture an MCRN warship and...well...it may have been the dog catching the car at that point, but why worry about good problems if you're JP Mao?
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Jul 29, 2019 07:49
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Rocksicles posted:They mention a couple of times i think, that's why all the poors are in the middle dealing with it like poors do. Yeah they say the poors live in the lovely uncomfortable part of Ceres where you can feel the coriolis. Nothing about Ceres holds up to any scrutiny though.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:53
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:The Donnager also investigated Phoebe Station, so securing/destroying any intel would have been a bonus to starting an Earth-Mars war for Protogen. Worst-case, Donnager self-destructs, taking any evidence with it. Best case, they capture an MCRN warship and...well...it may have been the dog catching the car at that point, but why worry about good problems if you're JP Mao? No to mention all the Protogen troops are basically mind melted into doing whatever they are told.
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Jul 29, 2019 07:58
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Lazyhound posted:Qs for people who’ve read the novels (no spoilers please): My take: The reason the Donnager blew up is because of the self destruct protocol - this was only initiated because the Protogen forces had boarded the ship and were in danger of taking it over. The Donnager is a large ship, it's not clear that they would have been capable of blowing it up without a suicide assault. The captured soldier said they would all be dead soon so it seems like triggering the self destruct was the aim of their attack. The point of cycling the engines wasn't so much to show that the engines weren't a threat as to prove that the gate building PM, via The Investigator, can reason with the humans and make them take action on mass. Getting all the ships to power down was a way to show that humans can be reasoned with and mean no harm. The gate building PM and the nucleus station are separate entities making calculations based on different sets of data so they had a disagreement about whether humans were a threat. The gate builder PM isn't meant to have the concious drive and intelligence to reason this way, but it ate a bunch of humans so now it's way smarter than intended. As for the gates being opened, I guess it was the next logical step. If humans aren't a threat and can be reasoned with, the nucleus can use them as a tool to transport the investigator to all these old systems they sealed off to find out what happened to their creators. Maybe the nucleus station would never have thought to do this on its own, but the gate builder is smart and curious now.
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Jul 29, 2019 08:23
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:For 3, I read it more as the station/ring system just monitors things via energy and by shutting off the engines, they removed themselves from the threat list. When this happened, the station went off of its red alert status or whatever, allowing the proto-miller access to take control (since it was no longer operating defensively). Yeah, the ships and missiles work using the same tech, so the ring doesn't know one from the other. Everything had to be shut down for the ring to release
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Jul 29, 2019 11:54
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Rocksicles posted:No to mention all the Protogen troops are basically mind melted into doing whatever they are told. Eh, I maintain that it's doubtful that all the Protogen goons have the same sociopath treatment that Cortazar got. The guys and gals manning the ships and boarding the Donnager were probably just being paid a SHITLOAD of money, enough that they'd willingly go into a seemingly suicidal situation (like fighting the MCRN flagship), and the guy on the ship they (briefly) took alive knew that cooperating with the dusters would just get him a slower death, at best, given the ship is probably toast at that point sooner or later, so what's the point of that? Besides, sociopaths generally aren't exactly the best recruits for fighting forces. Looking out for no one but yourself, to the point they do, makes for really bad soldiers you send into dangerous situations, there's a reason most military forces weed them out quickly. None of Protogen's other security personnel struck me as sociopaths, just bad people (who generally didn't live long enough to have a conversation with anybody on screen). Hell, Mao's personal bodyguard was the guy arguing the hardest for keeping their people alive in the face of a threat. I could see a lot of the science-types receiving it, just like Cortazar, but the security goons are there to keep the newly minted sociopaths from killing each other, so it wouldn't make much sense for them to have it, too. Or, for that matter, people on a highly armed warship where a minor interpersonal conflict could turn into a massive loving explosion.
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Jul 29, 2019 14:27
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EimiYoshikawa posted:Eh, I maintain that it's doubtful that all the Protogen goons have the same sociopath treatment that Cortazar got. The guys and gals manning the ships and boarding the Donnager were probably just being paid a SHITLOAD of money, enough that they'd willingly go into a seemingly suicidal situation (like fighting the MCRN flagship), and the guy on the ship they (briefly) took alive knew that cooperating with the dusters would just get him a slower death, at best, given the ship is probably toast at that point sooner or later, so what's the point of that? Besides, sociopaths generally aren't exactly the best recruits for fighting forces. Looking out for no one but yourself, to the point they do, makes for really bad soldiers you send into dangerous situations, there's a reason most military forces weed them out quickly. They boarded a state of the baddass art 500 meter long MCRN Battleship capable of carrying 2000 crew and went to town, i think it's fair to say these black ops goons weren't all there.
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Jul 29, 2019 14:38
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EimiYoshikawa posted:I could see a lot of the science-types receiving it, just like Cortazar, but the security goons are there to keep the newly minted sociopaths from killing each other, so it wouldn't make much sense for them to have it, too. Or, for that matter, people on a highly armed warship where a minor interpersonal conflict could turn into a massive loving explosion. Exactly this. Security doesn't get the treatment. Re: opening the gates, I'm pretty sure that was something Miller did once he had more control over the station, not something the station did as a direct consequence of the progressive restraint sequence ending.
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Jul 29, 2019 14:42
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Rocksicles posted:They boarded a state of the baddass art 500 meter long MCRN Battleship capable of carrying 2000 crew and went to town, i think it's fair to say these black ops goons weren't all there. There will always be people willing to do basically suicidal things if you pay them enough money, especially if they're already in a field where your life is on the line as a matter of course, and Protogen has enough people on staff and enough connections that hiring/providing a bonus to people to go on a probable suicide run in a relatively short period of time isn't that improbable. Do a job and get enough money from it to set your family up for life/pay for a loved one's rare and expensive medical treatments/know you've got a terminal disease and will be dead soon anyway, etc, Protogen is going to on the lookout for these factors in their own/potential employees anyway, even without a research station on the outskirts of the system going dark suddenly and their needing to quickly set some poo poo up for another purpose. Each ship had a relatively tiny crew, this wasn't exactly a large operation in terms of the Anubis-class manpower involved, and they thus didn't have to find that many people willing to take the risks necessary to carry it out.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:07
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I think each Anubis-class had a crew of, like, 20-30 or so? In a system with something like 30-40 billion people, you can definitely find a few dozen guys with military training willing to go on a suicide mission for one reason or another without having to make them uncontrollable sociopaths, especially when your budget is essentially infinite and you have all the connections of the richest and most powerful man in all of human history behind you.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:11
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Yeah, imagine all of the dishonorably discharged military guys or bad cops who would be willing to take on a suicide mission like that if it meant a fat payout for their families...
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Jul 29, 2019 15:19
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Especially given that the alternative is presumably your family being stuck on Basic Assistance literally forever.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:27
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hailthefish posted:Especially given that the alternative is presumably your family being stuck on Basic Assistance literally forever. Also Mega-Corporations always tell the truth and accurately represent risk and likely outcomes to pee-ons they hire.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:58
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It probably wouldn't be that hard to find people who would be ready to die if it means their family gets off basic and lives a decent life.
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Jul 29, 2019 16:11
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I love a lot of the world building in the Expanse, there's honestly nothing else like it out there I can think of. But yeah, I have no idea what was up with the Protogen soldiers in season 1, and that still bothers me. You can easily imagine their families are getting a huge payout and so it's worth it to them, but that's never stated. Nothing is ever even implied about their motivation. They come off like fanatics at the time. Like they're fighting for a cause or something. And you're left wondering what cause. And it turns out there is no ideology behind them personally, it's just selfishness and capitalism that had someone throw them into that situation. There's no greater idealism or impulse to self-sacrifice in their whole organization. Why they agreed to go along with it is incredibly relevant to understanding what the heck has been happening, and we just don't get that. I don't know how you could elegantly insert a scene where a mook goes, "They're gonna pay my family so much money! No regrets!" right before he dies or something, but I feel something like that would have brought things together better. The Expanse has been good about giving the villains understandable motivations, but specifically in a capitalist/mercenary organization you're going to need to be a bit more clear as to why the grunts are willing to do a suicide mission.
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Jul 29, 2019 18:31
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Please tell me there's a short story at Protogen's classified HR department reviewing candidates for weirdo black ops mercenary work.
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Jul 29, 2019 19:17
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Yeah, Cortazar and co would try to kill each other over the drop of a hat, whereas ops teams and security and troops have to work together and coordinate and a bunch of other things that would just fall the gently caress apart if they had the treatment too. And there's plenty of ways to get people to do all sorts of poo poo things, just look at... well, now. Y'all keep hammering on about big fat payouts and supporting family, but consider the sorts of brainworms going around today and extrapolate that to a solar system scaled cold war. There's so much to pick from. Look at all the technocrat/hypercapitalist worshippers genuinely believing in overpopulation and enthusiastically volunteering themselves whenever someone mentions Tesla was a eugenicist. Look at the heroic narrative death cults popping up everywhere. Look at the SEALs turning themselves into the number one warcrimes unit in Afghanistan. Look at all the people who will happily gently caress off to kill people elsewhere for not really all that much money because "they are an effete and degenerate race and they all deserve to die." You're thinking of Protogen mercs like they're a bunch of Norman Osbergers and Merlo Reis. Don't. They're Armbrusters and Grafs and Rems and Salazars. To take this comparison to its inevitable conclusion, Holden is Johnny.
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Jul 29, 2019 19:42
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It's been a while since I've read the early books and short stories, but IIRC Protogen is specifically shown to have a corporate culture that strongly encourages voluntary elective neurosurgical procedures for key employees in order to improve their decisionmaking and maintain cross-functional team alignment on core organizational objectives. You have to start taking the corporate Prozac because if you don't you might end up on basic again, and it does make all the bullshit in your life easier to deal with. The corporate Prozac makes you a sociopath, but you don't care, because now you're a sociopath. It was true of all the scientists assigned to work on the protomolecule; stands to reason it applies to the security/PMC types as well.
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Jul 29, 2019 19:52
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if I were a space trillionaire, my personal army would be stoned to the loving tits on combat drugs. no need for brain surgery, just mountains of space meth and dissociatives
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Jul 29, 2019 20:03
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Except it doesn't, because sociopaths aren't capable of sacrificing themselves for anyone else, or putting themselves in serious risk of harm if both the payout and their assumed safety aren't both substantial. Particularly not the sort of sociopaths produced by the procedure, who are apparently incapable of dealing with any minor slight or inconvenience at the hands of another without immediate violence. They would be absolutely capable of performing the tasks expected of them in a security or military capacity. Protogen clearly isn't limited by any form of morality, but they are limited by their own self-interests, and it makes zero sense for them to make their operatives *worse at their job*, given that there's no shortage of goons out there willing to goon it up for a good paycheque, while there are considerably fewer scientists willing to cheerfully commit crimes against humanity without some neurological nudging.
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Jul 29, 2019 20:07
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EimiYoshikawa posted:Particularly not the sort of sociopaths produced by the procedure, who are apparently incapable of dealing with any minor slight or inconvenience at the hands of another without immediate violence. imagine taking some ultra-fixated barely-functional people who will be at each others throats over the smallest perceived slights, giving them automatic weapons, then trying to give them orders and putting them under fire on high stress black ops missions. Someone's going to bump someone else's shoulder trying to get into the boarding pod and they're all going to mow each other down on the spot. Hell, they won't even make it to that point, the captain's going to give a briefing and someone's going to think the cap's got a tone and then it's rat-tat-tat, yo. If the mercs undergo a procedure, then it must be dramatically different from what the scientists go through.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:14
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I can imagine one horrific brain burning procedure for scientists and another, different one for the soldiers but maybe I'm just v good at imagining idk
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Jul 29, 2019 21:34
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IIRC Cortazar said when Amos asked him about the procedure that he had it done temporarily/less so at first and then committed to full sociopath mode after realizing how much more effective it made him. Maybe there's degrees of sociopathy available in the brave new world of Expanse neurosurgery?
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Jul 29, 2019 21:38
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They have insane self-healing space suits, it stands to reason their psyops training is pretty advanced from our own understanding of it as well. Like self-healing psychological conditioning that resists attempts to deprogram, or sociopathy with ingrained hierarchical respect. Does it explain in the book if the surgery is just future lobotomy/burning away parts of the brain, or do they add tech that releases drugs/electrical stimuli as needed?
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Jul 29, 2019 21:49
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Going off of foggy memory here, but I think the books explicitly state that only the scientists underwent the procedure.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:52
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bring back old gbs posted:They have insane self-healing space suits, it stands to reason their psyops training is pretty advanced from our own understanding of it as well. Like self-healing psychological conditioning that resists attempts to deprogram, or sociopathy with ingrained hierarchical respect. Does it explain in the book if the surgery is just future lobotomy/burning away parts of the brain, or do they add tech that releases drugs/electrical stimuli as needed? the explanation in the show is they do it with electromagnetic stimulation of the brain.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:56
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Yeah IIRC the sociopath surgery isn't actually an invasive surgery, they use microwaves or whatever to burn out the "empathy" and "has objections to doing crimes against humanity" circuits. Sit in the chair for 30 minutes, let your brain cook, and off you go permanently sociopathic, no implants or anything needed.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:58
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