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Anonymous Zebra posted:Happy that you've made it to this point so I can finally say that I LOVE that the show-runners were able to go a season and a half of meticulously showing mostly hard-sci real physics and limitations of space travel without blowing their load so that Eros doing what it does shows how completely game-changing the Protomolecule is. The impact would not have been as strong if I hadn't been completely unprepared for Eros turning and completely breaking all the rules of inertia and acceleration. Yeah, it does kind of break the usual storytelling rules, and that threw me a bit, but then that's the point of it. Definitely grateful for your restraint, along with everyone else, so it had its proper impact.
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Sep 25, 2020 17:36
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I had something better to do tonight than watch the freak show: lie down with my toddler so he could go to sleep, and then S2E6: Paradigm Shift Ah, good, so the missiles weren't forgotten. Slightly surprised Johnson so readily admitted he had them; I presume the net behind them was a Faraday cage of sorts, preventing the abort signal from getting through. Amos defacing the Mars flag so it shows rubble instead of Deimos was pretty funny, I gotta admit. But also not cool; starting to suspect he might have got a dose of the empathy erasure treatment, if he isn't just a natural born sociopath. Do tell me if it's just a "okay, here is our concession that the rockets in this setting are implausibly efficient" but that seems like a totally unnecessary derail; otherwise I'll assume the flashbacks to Epstein are obviously meant to be relevant in a way I haven't yet been shown. I'm wondering how far he went, how long, was time dilation maybe a factor so he could still be alive (I don't know offhand how long 10G acceleration would take to reach relativistic velocities, although I suspect a good bit longer than 4 hours), and what possibly he might have encountered? Seems a bit too soon for my earlier-hypothesized transhumanist enclave to be a thing by then, but could he have started it? Vague thoughts up in the air, is where I'm at on that still. The figure at the end looking down on Draper still leaves that open as a possibility imo. But yeah, it could be aliens I GUESS. At first I thought the UN soldiers were firing on each other, but it makes more sense if they were firing at one or more of these. Also what was it destroyed in orbit around Ganymede, a simple solar reflector (yes, I've read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy) or an actual station? Kinda glittery and glassy looking, but on the small side of what you'd need for a reflector that far out from the sun. Trying to figure out how you'd want to put an agricultural station on Ganymede of all places. I guess The OPA Gotta Eat Too.
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Sep 30, 2020 03:53
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Ganymede has a smallmagnetic field. Keep the reviews and thoughts coming. Loving this thread.
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Sep 30, 2020 04:15
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The Epstein drive is extremely efficient because of storytelling reasons, yeah. It's not completely implausible but... best not to examine it too much. The official stance of the authors on how it works is "very well". Ganymede is one of the bigger science goofs if you care about that. The magnetic field is the reason for all the Ganymede stuff, but even with its magnetic field Ganymede is radioactive as all gently caress because of Jupiter. It really doesn't help and you'd be better off just avoiding the Jovian system entirely. Or stay out on Callisto, which is far enough that the radiation dose is acceptable. Or go under the ice on Europa; water's a good radiation shield. Ganymede is also icy so if you were enough underground it would be okay, but the magnetic field really doesn't matter either way.
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Sep 30, 2020 04:32
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Grand Fromage posted:The Epstein drive is extremely efficient because of storytelling reasons, yeah. It's not completely implausible but... best not to examine it too much. The official stance of the authors on how it works is "very well". The other thing that it exists to explain is how Mars won independence from Earth without fighting a war. They traded the drive to Earth to recognize their sovereignty.
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Sep 30, 2020 05:08
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S2E7: The Seventh Man I wonder if blood would really form snowflakes - it's mostly water, so checks out on a first pass at least. I finally figured out what Dawes's accent reminds me of: the priest in The Princess Bride. Turns out my comment last episode on Amos and the anti-empathy treatment was somewhat prescient. And then he's not in the rest of the episode, I don't think I like where this is headed. I wonder why Mars wants Draper to omit what she saw, and lie saying her team fired first. Haven't formed a hypothesis on that one yet. Was I mistaken or was the chaplain the one giving the orders when they had her recollect the events on the brain juice? Doesn't seem like a standard command structure, to say the least, unless he was lying to her about being the chaplain? And also, in that case, about knowing her father and family? Naomi is feeling the guilt about keeping the protomolecule intact, but I'm going full long shot and hoping Miller and Julie somehow survived the Venus impact and are still around in some form. Whether they'd talk to Cortazar is more iffy though, but hey, just covering all my bases. And not gonna lie, I miss Miller. When Miller's not on screen I'm asking, "Where's Miller?"
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Oct 1, 2020 05:18
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S2E8: Pyre I kind of hate it when a show uses kids to tug at my heartstrings, especially because I have 8- and 5-year-old daughters, so it's even more effective. Needless to say, if they wanted me to empathize with and root for Dr. Meng, well they got me. Amos walking on the outside of the habitat ring was some great physical comedy, even if it was in the midst of a coup. Starting to sense that Holdmi (I'm sorry, although not quite sorry enough to not post that) is not long for this world. I wouldn't exactly call what they have "chemistry" anyway; as far as I could tell until now, they were just sharing a bunk. Didn't really expect either of them to brandish the L word, to be honest, let alone both. Amos, what did you do? I haven't got a good read on it yet and I'm conflicted. I kind of sense a slightly overt hint that he zapped his empathy away, yet at the same time clues that he didn't (like wanting to search for Lydia). He's conflicted too, but about what I haven't seen yet. On we go to Ganymede.
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Oct 6, 2020 05:20
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I don't remember, is that the episode where he asks if Cortazar could do what he did to his own brain in reverse?
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Oct 6, 2020 05:32
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Amos is the way he is because of his childhood. If you want you can read the short story The Churn, which describes it and doesn't spoil anything since it takes place like 25 years earlier.
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Oct 6, 2020 05:38
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Amos and Alex are both significantly older in the books. The tour of duty that Alex did for Mars in the books was twenty years long, for instance. So there's probably some background they're gonna change for Amos just like they did for Alex.
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Oct 6, 2020 05:44
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Defiance Industries posted:I don't remember, is that the episode where he asks if Cortazar could do what he did to his own brain in reverse? That was a couple of episodes ago. Dawes absconded with Cortazar last episode before this one - although I may have misinterpreted that scene you mentioned, now that you put it that way. It seemed to me that he was asking if it could be reversed in Cortazar, as though he were thinking about having it done to himself too so he wouldn't have to feel anymore, but didn't want to commit to something irreversible, or at least wanted to know what he was getting into if he had it done. I know that not doing the full synopsis/reactions makes it a little more difficult to follow along with where I'm at; I'm more posting about observations I find interesting, questions I have, humorous asides when possible, guesses about where it's going, that sort of thing. Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Oct 6, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 13:13
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S2E9: The Weeping Somnambulist Aha! I knew that Eros slamming into Venus was not the end of the protomolecule there, and the callback to Star Trek II's Genesis Device got even more obvious. Therefore still hoping for Julie and especially Miller to return. Good thing Col. Barack Obama is there on the U.S.S. Grissom to discover them - no doubt shortly before the Martian version of Kruge blows them up while the few important characters are on the surface. Also, in this scenario, Julie and Miller with the protomolecule are more like Decker, Ilia, and VGER from TMP, aren't they? But I'm getting off track a little bit. I appreciated that they made a big deal about the difficulties of the Martians traveling to Earth. One of the greatest joys I've ever had reading a book was Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars when one of the Martian-born characters travels to Earth, and is overwhelmed by the intense sunlight, heat, gravity, thick and humid air, and everything else including all the abundant life everywhere. It was almost a religious experience reading his descriptions, and it pointed my nose at what I often take for granted; I'll never forget it. Draper is getting really burned by her government here and I won't be surprised if, after cracking under Avasarala's 2nd questioning, they push down on her hard enough that even as a dogmatic true believer, she'll go renegade. RIP captain of the titular Somnambulist; we hardly knew ya. Amos "Trail of Bodies" Burton was here.
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Oct 12, 2020 04:37
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I do appreciate you all not giving even the slightest hint of whether I'm hot or cold on my guesses, but it does make the thread rather sparse and desolate, lol. S2E10: Cascade Ah, another themed episode. Ganymede Station is going to die because each system failure makes the next one more likely, and in complementary fashion Naomi points out that for every lovely thing they do, the next one gets easier. Errinwright's turn and confession to Avasarala surprised me some, I'll admit, but looking back they did lay the groundwork. I agree with Cotyar too: it's good to be able to root for your protagonists. Bobbie goes rogue, and not just for the ocean I think. Good employment of Chekhov's Purple Heart there in her escape. I can't quite remember what was on the screen they showed her on the beach from Errinwright's files - Project C-something - and the recap I looked up didn't list it. Is it a robot, alien, or transhuman? Find out next time, on Son of Sam-I-Am's "Belter? I hardly knew 'er!" (note: may not actually find out next time)
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Oct 14, 2020 05:30
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The collapse of Ganymede is also there to show you how precariously life outside Earth is balanced, even for a place where things are going good. On Earth, life is a web, flexing and shifting under stress. Everywhere else, it's a chain of processes that need to happen in order for survival, and there's no room for slack.
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Oct 14, 2020 06:02
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Not much to say but I'm dinitely enjoying the posts
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Oct 14, 2020 06:42
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GodFish posted:Not much to say but I'm dinitely enjoying the posts Agreed. It's pretty much made me resolve to go back and rewatch the series before the fifth season drops in December.
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Oct 14, 2020 13:29
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:S2E6: Paradigm Shift You gotta remember, there are a lot of people living in the Belt and beyond, and Earth and Mars depend on the resources those people extract. It's not just a bunch of scruffy outlaws up there, it's also mining colonies and so forth. And they gotta eat.
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Oct 14, 2020 23:35
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showbiz_liz posted:You gotta remember, there are a lot of people living in the Belt and beyond, and Earth and Mars depend on the resources those people extract. It's not just a bunch of scruffy outlaws up there, it's also mining colonies and so forth. And they gotta eat. Yeah, one thing I think the show has failed to impart is that the Belters are not all scruffy anarchists with sweet tattoos riding their improvised space ships around while blaring punk rock. The belt is a fully developed society. It has multiple prestigious universities (one of which Naomi has her PhDs from) entire space stations like Ceres where both the poor underclass and rich administrators (and the cops) are all Belters. Places like Tycho Station and Ganymede, which are leading areas in biology, medicine, and engineering not just for the belt but all of humanity. It even has Titan, which is a wealthy resort colony that caters to wealthy inners and Belters alike. I guess my point is that there lots of well off middle-class Belters out there amongst the more humorous OPA gangstas crushing rear end into dust. EDIT: vvv Hmm, I might need to go look that one up. All I can find is that she has two degrees, but it's never mentioned in the books where they were from. I think the show mentions it, but that's past where this thread is so I won't quote it. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Oct 15, 2020 |
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Oct 14, 2020 23:49
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I thought Naomi's PhDs were from a university on Luna? Not that you're wrong about the other stuff.
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Oct 14, 2020 23:58
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The episodes on Ganymede really disappointed me with the set design. The remains of the hydroponic farms look like this.  I think I even see potted plants in the second photo. The plants on the wall are seem like an ornamental variety of sweet potato as well, which is a weird choice for food. Nothing shown is really impossible. It does seem like an inefficient use of space, and it makes me wonder where all the lights went. My big issue is that current indoor agricultural set-ups look more scifi than that. This one might just be a concept, but it shows what proposals look like.  even setups that that really on sunlight are sort of uncanny 
Atrocious Joe fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Oct 16, 2020 |
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Oct 16, 2020 03:53
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the main reason that all stood out to me is how fantastic most of the other sets and props were.
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Oct 16, 2020 03:57
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If I remember right, this wasn't a hydroponics farm, it was just a random hallway. Because even random hallways have a bunch of plants in them as part of the life support systems.
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Oct 16, 2020 07:16
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Eiba posted:If I remember right, this wasn't a hydroponics farm, it was just a random hallway. Because even random hallways have a bunch of plants in them as part of the life support systems. Yeah, that wasn't the real hydroponic farms. They were destroyed by the falling mirrors.
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Oct 16, 2020 07:38
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Yep. That last picture is more similar to what the farms look like, you see (a small part of) them a few times. Those random plants around the station are for air recycling and whatnot. Prax even explicitly describes that and says they're inedible.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:55
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Outland is a good movie with some Expanse vibes but that speech about failure cascade makes me chuckle at the scene where the greenhouse gets shot up
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Oct 16, 2020 22:13
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S2E11: Here There Be Dragons Would've been more on the nose to call this episode "Chrysalis," but then I'd accuse it of ripping off Babylon 5, so I'll allow it. Now was Prax's daughter truly ill in some way, and that's why she was selected, or was that merely a pretext for why she had to keep returning to Dr. Strickland for "treatment"? I caught the name this time, Project Caliban. Where I recognized that from is Frank Herbert's Whipping Star, and if memory serves, the Caliban were the stars, personified after a fashion. It's been quite a while so if anyone has correction for me, or more detail, you're welcome to add to this, but it doesn't seem that's the same thing here. Starting to look like my transhumanist theory is panning out, at least by some definition, as they were called hybrids. Extremely strong Half-Life vibes in the tunnels under Ganymede Station. I was ever so slightly lost on the exact sequence of events - when Amos threw the grenade back into the other room, was that explosion what freed the hybrid, which then escaped, or was the black ops team Alex followed already on their way out with it? Now that I type it out, I think I just answered my own question because I remembered they saw it looking back at them. I can only assume Alex's thruster-only gravity assisted trajectory was heavily compressed for tv viewing purposes, because I'm sure it would have taken at the very least days, if not weeks, to complete, judging by the orbits of some of those moons. Good plan, though; even with future sensors I'm sure it'd be hard to differentiate an unpowered smallish ship from the no doubt innumerable rocks collected in the Jovian system.
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Oct 17, 2020 04:39
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They originally wanted to film the Alex scenes with him growing an ever longer beard and an increasing number of beer cans floating around him to show that it was taking him quite a while to get there, but ended up not having time to do so.
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Oct 17, 2020 04:54
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:
This was probably the least scientific thing in the show. You could do it, but yeah, it would take months. I was willing to forgive since it was cool.
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Oct 17, 2020 04:58
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Yes, Mei has a serious medical syndrome she's been dealing with since she was a baby. Prax mentions it a couple times.
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Oct 17, 2020 05:02
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I wasn't sure of the timeline on her condition, thanks. Grand Fromage posted:This was probably the least scientific thing in the show. I assume you mean aside from the macguffin.
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Oct 17, 2020 05:05
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:I assume you mean aside from the macguffin. I'm willing to give that unknowably advanced alien forgiveness. And they do make a point about it (mostly) still following known physics. The only thing I can think of offhand that the Protomolecule does that is totally outside of currently understood physics is FTL communication.
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Oct 17, 2020 05:07
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Grand Fromage posted:This was probably the least scientific thing in the show. You could do it, but yeah, it would take months. I was willing to forgive since it was cool. They did a mea culpa about that
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Oct 17, 2020 10:56
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:S2E11: Here There Be Dragons Caliban is a character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, which I haven't read or seen, but he is apparently a half-human monster who is subjugated/enslaved, so I'd guess it's a reference to that (both in the show and the Herbert book).
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Oct 17, 2020 14:41
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Thank you; I think I've read that one but it must have been 20+ years ago.
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Oct 17, 2020 14:55
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Sorry I haven't updated in a while, had some unforeseen circumstances crop up (got addicted to Hyrule Warriors, among other things). So, see you guys in 5 years when I finish that. No, I do want to keep going with this, just didn't want you all to think I abandoned it.
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Nov 10, 2020 14:18
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Its a good thread my dude
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Nov 11, 2020 18:56
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S2E12: The Monster and the Rocket I had to rewind at the end to make out what the music was telling me I should see: presumably the "monster" as it were, boarding the Roci. I have a 65" TV. Well that said, welcome back, and you're welcome for the generous donation of my otherwise dedicated Hyrule Warriors time to this little side project. When Errenwright first held up the little vial I wondered if it was a suicide cocktail; just a small step from there to a homicide one I guess. Desperation led him to choose between the two, I think, rather than let himself be the fall guy as Avasarala intended. This is more the Errenwright I've come to loathe; farewell conscience, it was nice knowing you, briefly. I understand the refugees loading children and young people first up to the 52 they had air for, but why split up families? That poor guy in line. I mean it's no doubt tough to come up with a priority list agreeable to everyone, on the fly, under that kind of pressure. Now there's no antigrav tech in this setting, right? The Roci sure was maneuvering over the ag dome as if it were in free fall rather than just above the surface of a major moon like Ganymede, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the solar system. Size of Mercury iirc (a quick google shows I do indeed rc). When not under active thrust it should have been moving in pretty decent arcs. Little tip for the fx team there, gratis.
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Nov 17, 2020 05:01
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:S2E12: The Monster and the Rocket That's exactly what I thought too, they got me good
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Nov 17, 2020 11:41
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:S2E12: The Monster and the Rocket 1.5 m/s^2, so not that significant
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Nov 17, 2020 12:37
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I guess the Roci is big-ish on a human scale, and they were pumping the thrusters every second or two.
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Nov 17, 2020 13:35
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