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Man, were I a scientist, I would absolutely move to the place that has vat grown steak over some frontier world or Ceres. That's the thing, even without air, their standard of living is comically higher than either Earthers or Belters, and it's going to be decades before ring colonies can even approach that.
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Dec 22, 2019 01:01
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Basic is probably better than most people have it now if for no other reason than you don't have to worry about your next paycheck, but that still kinda sucks from an objective standpoint
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Dec 22, 2019 01:23
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I don't think it was that mars would be abandoned, more that every top scientist and engineer would see that the groundbreaking stuff on Mars was mostly done and the real deal poo poo was out through the ring gate. On Mars, terraforming is an ongoing project and you probably don't get much say in what happens. But if you go through the ring gate and you go from being #10,035 engineer to being #1 or even being #20, you're now making your own decisions and you get to shape what that colony will look like. I don't think the idea that Mars is dying is correct. If they don't innovate, then yeah, people will flee mars for the unknown, the military will wind down, and they will end up as a mini Earth with a bunch of people on basic and no way to give them a better life. But Mars could easily be a staging ground for colonies. Convert from making military ships to Colony ships. Recruit people from basic on Earth to go to Mars to train to be a colonist. Bring people in, train them how to live on a new planet, and send them out.
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Dec 22, 2019 01:27
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Boris Galerkin posted:I don’t understand why Mars would be abandoned just because other planets exist. Europe didn’t get abandoned because America was discovered. We built and continue to build cities in inhospitable hellholes like Las Vegas and Dubai. I see no reason why they wouldn’t keep terraforming Mars. It's a little bit more of a difference between Mars and anything Earthlike than "tropical island paradise or desolate arctic tundra". 100% of the Martian surface is 100% lethal to all known life. Living on the surface requires the importation or manufacture of every single thing people need to survive, as well as all the measures necessary to keep the good atmosphere in and the poisonous, lethally cold and millibar-pressure native atmosphere out. If you want to go for a walk on Mars, you dress about the same as you would to go for a walk on the Moon. Certainly, some people will still see all that as a challenge worth overcoming, because it's there. But a lot of people were invested in overcoming it because they just lived there and they didn't want their descendants to grow up in permanent atomic fallout bunker conditions like they did. Now they don't have to keep working to build a world for their grandchildren if they don't want to, they can get on a colony ship and simply build a settlement on one that's already habitable, in their own lifetime.
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Dec 22, 2019 02:21
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Boris Galerkin posted:I don’t understand why Mars would be abandoned just because other planets exist. Europe didn’t get abandoned because America was discovered. We built and continue to build cities in inhospitable hellholes like Las Vegas and Dubai. I see no reason why they wouldn’t keep terraforming Mars. The thing that did happen when the Americas (combined with the Portugese rounding the Cape of Good Hope and bypassing the Mediterranean monopoly to trade routes to India and China) was discovered was that all of the global routes lurched to the west as Europe and not the Middle East became the middle men for global trade. This meant that places that previously held an incredibly profitable Mediterranean port found themselves losing prominence as the Atlantic ports brought in larger and larger amounts of goods from the New World and Southern Africa trade routes. So while a place like Venice was once one of the largest economies in Europe that dwarfed everyone by a Colossal amount before the Americas were discovered, afterwards it became a back water that was toppled by Napoleon without even a second thought. Mars is not in the exact same position as Venice since it is not a middle man for goods but somewhere that has an incredibly high demand for raw materials and experts to terraform their planet, raw materials that they previously were one of the only consumer and now have to compete with who knows how many new habitable worlds and colony ships headed to those worlds for those same experts and materials and as those things are increasingly exported from the Sol system as opposed to imported to Mars its going to be harder and harder to maintain the flow of materials and experts that keep the terraforming project running. Perhaps in a century, once permanent colonies are established, those planets can start providing those things to Mars as opposed to competing for them but by then Mars will be a ghost of its former self and an economic and political backwater. The show also correctly points out that the Belters have a great deal to gain from the Ring-Gate since every trade good, coming or going, is going to have to pass through their territory and as long as they play their cards right, maintain their independence, and not get blown up by any of their current enemies they stand to make a great deal of money off of it and their economy could easily take off. Don't be surprised if, in a century's time, the Belt has more in common with Venice than it does with British India or Northern Ireland. Nestharken posted:This was the weakest season of The Expanse, but it's still great that it's back, and it's better than 99% of any other season of TV that's ever been made. I know it often comes off as cartoonish in a story like this but people like Murtry are incredibly common in the history of Colonialism and Imperial conquest.
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Dec 22, 2019 05:31
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The other big thing is, terraforming Mars must be very expensive. It probably takes ever-increasing corporate investment to keep the project afloat. But now, corporations are looking at colonies with a ROI maybe bigger than Mars, and certainly much sooner than Mars - there is the possibility of finding something ridiculously valuable as soon as you touch down, like massive lithium deposits like Ilus, or maybe a shipyard in orbit with a handy "push button get hyperadvanced alien spaceship" button, or a monolith inscribed with "Protomolecule for Dummies: Now with ten easy projects to teach yourself Builder tech!". So that essential ever-growing investment has become a suddenly shrinking investment as companies are turning that money to riskier but potentially more profitable colony ventures. Which isn't the end of Mars at all, but it definitely has gone from "my grandkids will breathe open Martian air and swim in open Martian oceans" to "my future descendants, in five hundred years" and that has to be a hard blow to take. Especially when you're an autocratic state to begin with.
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Dec 22, 2019 06:10
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AnEdgelord posted:
Yeah honestly my only problem with Murty as a character is that everyone seems convinced he'll actually be convicted of something
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Dec 22, 2019 06:30
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Cojawfee posted:I don't think it was that mars would be abandoned, more that every top scientist and engineer would see that the groundbreaking stuff on Mars was mostly done and the real deal poo poo was out through the ring gate. On Mars, terraforming is an ongoing project and you probably don't get much say in what happens. But if you go through the ring gate and you go from being #10,035 engineer to being #1 or even being #20, you're now making your own decisions and you get to shape what that colony will look like. You’re assuming that every single person out there is driven to push boundaries to be #1. There are tons of people out there who are happy being Employee #12373 in Major Corporation because they are paid well enough to have a nice and stress free life with the time to spend with people they care about. Not everyone is driven to climb to 6+ figure salaries and just want a nice living. Basically all my friends who are engineers, me included, are like this. E: You guys realize that people taking a lower paying but “easier” job is a thing right? That to a ton of people a job is just a thing they do to earn the money to do the things they actually want to do right? Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 22, 2019 |
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Dec 22, 2019 06:31
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StashAugustine posted:Yeah honestly my only problem with Murty as a character is that everyone seems convinced he'll actually be convicted of something if you wanted to convict him you should've waited for him to build a loving court house.
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Dec 22, 2019 06:38
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It seems to be a common theme in sci-fi for Mars to be the first site of extraterrestrial terraformimh and colonization by humans, only to be left in the dust when extrasolar settlement becomes possible. Poor red planet 
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Dec 22, 2019 06:48
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The Clowner posted:It seems to be a common theme in sci-fi for Mars to be the first site of extraterrestrial terraformimh and colonization by humans, only to be left in the dust when extrasolar settlement becomes possible. Poor red planet Not in the Mars trilogy! I don't think Mars would be abandoned per se but I absolutely see the best, brightest, and richest moving on to greener pastures. Terraforming would happen eventually but it's going to be at a much slower pace. I liked the touch when David said with pride he'd been put on the project and one of the top chemical engineering students. Maybe the kid will surprise but he didn't seem like the brightest tool in the shed. The moment is absolutely meant to show Bobbie that yes, that dream is - if not dead - forever altered. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Dec 22, 2019 |
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Dec 22, 2019 09:11
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I just finished the last episode tonight. I celebrate by posting this gif I made while watching the last season: https://i.imgur.com/ZeI0TnL.gifv EAT YOUR CEREAL MILLER
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Dec 22, 2019 11:30
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Boris Galerkin posted:You’re assuming that every single person out there is driven to push boundaries to be #1. There are tons of people out there who are happy being Employee #12373 in Major Corporation because they are paid well enough to have a nice and stress free life with the time to spend with people they care about. Not everyone is driven to climb to 6+ figure salaries and just want a nice living. Basically all my friends who are engineers, me included, are like this. But Martian culture is built upon ambition. Think about Bobbie and the other marines, or all the other elite and arrogant Martians we saw in earlier seasons. You really think the Martian leadership is going to be content allowing the best and brightest on Mars to emigrate to other planets while those staying behind are either unambitious or fuckups like David? More to the point, Martian political power was largely predicated on the sacrifices and common goals required to keep billions of people alive while the planet gets terraformed. Removing those threatens the leadership’s hold on power. Mars either needs to get imperial or its current government is going to collapse. Earth, not just the blockade but its larger population, is the biggest threat to that right now.
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Dec 22, 2019 15:03
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AnEdgelord posted:Venice.  I was going to make the same comparison! Venice, which once commanded a unified Euopean army against its political rivals could no longer hold it's own against the machinations of those same European powers once its positional advantage was lost.I think the speed of Martian decline of economic and political power is a little too fast and it certainly shouldn't be going faster than the Belters, but scales and timelines of decades create a much less personal story and when one of the themes of your story is economy, you can't afford to lose the personality.
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Dec 22, 2019 17:15
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piL posted:
There's also the strong possibility that Mars was not as unified and driven as it seemed. Situations like that can really collapse suddenly. Mars enthusiasm for terraforming and Starship Troopers style dystopia might have been a cargo cult for the last couple generations. Every vid screen is constantly pumping out propaganda about serving Mars, your education is mostly brainwashing about how sole value of an individual is how well they can serve Mars and its terraforming project, and your entire self-worth is based around a religious faith in the superiority of the Martian military, technology, and society. Societies like that can seem extremely unified until something challenges any of the core tenants of their faith. -The Earth/Mars war did not result in a quick decisive crushing of Earth's military and Martian Marines drinking earth's rivers dry. It was a wasteful stalemate with a lot of gently caress-ups and pointless war crimes. -The core importance of the martian project was that earth was hosed, a write off, and Mars is humanity's one and only hope for a 2nd chance. Now there's thousands of potential 2nd chances. -Earth is full of unemployed parasites because their society isn't managed by enlightend technocrats that know best like on Mars. Oops Mars suddenly has a ton of unemployed people and our benevolent overlords don't seem to be helping them... Seeing these 3 things happen rapidly all together could shake people's faith in mars very quickly. If none of these things are true anymore, was any of it? Is our government actually no better than Earths? Were all these generations of brutal colonialism to feed our terraforming project for nothing?
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Dec 22, 2019 20:19
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I recently saw the pilot episode and the Belter that was being tortured by hanging on those hooks was accused of smuggling contraband stealth technology. It goes way back. Though I forget if he was working for Protogen.
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Dec 22, 2019 20:25
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Mu Zeta posted:I recently saw the pilot episode and the Belter that was being tortured by hanging on those hooks was accused of smuggling contraband stealth technology. It goes way back. Though I forget if he was working for Protogen. You are supposed to assume that it's Protogen later when they show up in stealth ships. It's never clarified who he's working for, because he kills himself before they can get it out of him. Nemesis Games came out in June 2015, the Pilot came out Dec. 2015. Pretty sure they were playing the long game there.
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Dec 22, 2019 20:38
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Mu Zeta posted:I recently saw the pilot episode and the Belter that was being tortured by hanging on those hooks was accused of smuggling contraband stealth technology. It goes way back. Though I forget if he was working for Protogen. He wasn't, and they never figure out who he WAS working for...
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Dec 22, 2019 20:39
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Svaha posted:You are supposed to assume that it's Protogen later when they show up in stealth ships. It's never clarified who he's working for, because he kills himself before they can get it out of him. The other side’s motivation didn’t exist then, though. Protogen is the only sensible partner at that point from a risk/reward and plausible deniability standpoint for Martians to be able and willing to lose some stealth technology.
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Dec 22, 2019 21:00
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Dec 22, 2019 22:13
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Oasx posted:I don’t understand why Ashford let him live, if Ashford was going to die anyway why not kill the man he was there to kill? Killing him wouldn't have stopped the rocks with his son there to finish his work, and Ashford made the choice to do something useful instead and record his conversation with him and transmit it in hopes of getting him to confess to his plans.
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Dec 22, 2019 23:45
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Amos' contacts and schedule  
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Dec 23, 2019 01:33
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Doc is obviously the preacher lady but I wonder who Tonight and Peaches are.
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Dec 23, 2019 01:37
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Another good season of a good show. If nothing else, The Expanse at least has confidence that it has a world of interesting things in it, and actually moves the story of the solar system along every season or there-abouts.
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Dec 23, 2019 01:39
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Mister Bates posted:Doc is obviously the preacher lady but I wonder who Tonight and Peaches are. We know that Peaches is Mulva or whatever.
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Dec 23, 2019 01:44
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Mister Bates posted:Doc is obviously the preacher lady but I wonder who Tonight and Peaches are. I thought Doc was the scientist lady on Ilus, Tonight is plausible for his gently caress buddy
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Dec 23, 2019 01:51
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Norton the First posted:We know that Peaches is Mulva or whatever. Melba. Peach Melba.
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Dec 23, 2019 01:57
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GuardianOfAsgaard posted:Amos' contacts and schedule Eat, Drink, Stomp, repeat
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Dec 23, 2019 02:01
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GuardianOfAsgaard posted:Amos' contacts and schedule God, that is priceless. Thank you Expanse digital effects team. Nestharken posted:Re: Murtry--Kinda wish they didn't have him take a total Snidely Whiplash "I'm a bad guy" attitude in the second half of the season. The show has been good so far about making the motivations of the antagonists understandable if not sympathetic, but he just came off as unnecessarily cruel, even though *he was actually right about the landing sabotage and attempted murders*. I guess there's no shortage of people like that in real life, and it made the "thank you" scene really gratifying, so maybe it was worth it. Murtry being a bit of a dickhole was a little rough; they could have dialed him back slightly but it was good having him pretty ruthless; it made the Holden/Murtry final standoff pretty awesome and gave probably my favorite line from the season more weight: "I knew a guy who used historical genocide to justify his bullshit. My friend shot him in the face." And honestly Murtry was humanized and motivations made understandable probably about as much as Jules Pierre Mao, Errinwright, Dresden, Dr. Strickland, and Admiral Nguyen. Of those the least humanized/motivationally exposed was Dr. Strickland.
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Dec 23, 2019 05:25
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"My Best Friend" is Prax, right?
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Dec 23, 2019 05:29
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If Prax is on Ganymede rebuilding why aren't those refugees there too? Like if there's some sort of active rebuilding operation going on I imagine their skills and labour would be welcome?
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Dec 23, 2019 05:36
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Binged this series over the last week and liked it pretty well. Pedantic question, but how did the Rocinante end up with a rail gun? I remember the show mentioning it was remarkable that the Protogen ships carried rail guns and they were bigger than the Roci, right? A followup, but are independent warships and privateers a thing in this setting, or is the Roci a special snowflake in that regard? Like, who sells them ammo and parts for their advanced martian warship?
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Dec 23, 2019 05:36
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Baronjutter posted:If Prax is on Ganymede rebuilding why aren't those refugees there too? Like if there's some sort of active rebuilding operation going on I imagine their skills and labour would be welcome? Why weren't the refugees of Katrina just all brought back to New Orleans to rebuild? Or Maria and Puerto Rico? The great thing about The Expanse is that it presents you with a world of fantastic possibility that's still wedded to the logic of modern capitalism, bringing you right back to the same desperation we're at now.
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Dec 23, 2019 05:43
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:The other side’s motivation didn’t exist then, though. Protogen is the only sensible partner at that point from a risk/reward and plausible deniability standpoint for Martians to be able and willing to lose some stealth technology. Season spoiler Inaros has been motivated to commit mass murder since before Naomi even signed up on the Canterbury. It's not out out of the realm of possibility that he'd formed this plan ages ago, but has been unsuccessful in procuring the materials he needed, until now. I doubt Protogen, with all of Mao's connections and resources at their disposal, would need to smuggle stealth tech in piecemeal using belter smugglers. They probably have the facilities to manufacture it. Hell , they probably have a government contract to manufacture it. Svaha fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Dec 23, 2019 05:51
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Skippy McPants posted:Binged this series over the last week and liked it pretty well. Belter ingenuity at it's finest? Honestly the books don't go into it much other to mention that it runs the entire length of the ship, and that they get it because procuring replacement nuclear torpedoes is prohibitively difficult/expensive. They definitively can't get replacement parts from Mars, as they are still a little salty about the whole legitimate salvage thing. The ship gets patched up with whatever they can find, so yeah, it's a special snowflake. Svaha fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Dec 23, 2019 06:03
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Skippy McPants posted:Pedantic question, but how did the Rocinante end up with a rail gun? I remember the show mentioning it was remarkable that the Protogen ships carried rail guns and they were bigger than the Roci, right? A followup, but are independent warships and privateers a thing in this setting, or is the Roci a special snowflake in that regard? Like, who sells them ammo and parts for their advanced martian warship? In the books it's a pretty major retrofit that they get done somewhere in the Belt. I forget exactly where, maybe Tycho? They're mentioned as doing a bunch of pirate hunting and such to make money. Ammo isn't too hard to come by and as we saw this season martian tech isn't exactly impossible to obtain. Independent gunships are a thing, but they're more like what we saw Ashford's ship being this season. The Roci obviously has an edge being as advanced as it is.
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Dec 23, 2019 06:07
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Svaha posted:They definitively can't get replacement parts from Mars, as they are still a little salty about the whole legitimate salvage thing. The ship gets patched up with whatever they can find, so yeah, it's a special snowflake. Not officially, anyway, but given Mars' current issues...
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Dec 23, 2019 06:15
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Nestharken posted:This was the weakest season of The Expanse, but it's still great that it's back, and it's better than 99% of any other season of TV that's ever been made. Re Murtry, the way it was presented in the books was that he was initially presented as a sympathetic character - the first thing you see him doing is caring for his team and telling them not to snipe at each other. Then it sets up a narrative arc that looks like it will be “extremists on Ilum successfully murder their way to power because the Good Guys won’t use the same extreme measures, and the Rocinante crew has to deal with it”. This plot is then undermined immediately by Murtry straight up merking the lead conspirator in front of everyone on a hunch, and you realise oh poo poo, he’s actually a fascist who just needed an excuse, and now he’s in charge.
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Dec 23, 2019 06:18
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Mister Bates posted:Doc is obviously the preacher lady but I wonder who Tonight and Peaches are. Tonight is whoever he’s banging tonight and is presumably updated regularly. Peaches is psycho-girl from last season.
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Dec 23, 2019 06:23
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The Roci also gets a railgun because Alex and Amos collectively go "this poo poo is awesome I want one". Also My Best Friend is 100% Avasarala.
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Dec 23, 2019 06:26
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