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Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo

Elias_Maluco posted:

I'm rewatching the first seasons and realized there's 2 important things I never understood:

1- why did the protogen guys boarded the Donnager?

2- who started the shooting over ganymede and why? I just can't parse that scene: 1) Bobbie tells in the radio they might be getting charged 2) loses radio 3) ship captain get angry and yells something about needing visual of ground 4) everyone starts shooting

For #1 I think they wanted to stir up poo poo, hence why they left Holden and crew alive. Fake transponder making it look like a martian trap, "martian" stealth ships destroying the earth battleship. Get a war going and people want to buy your weapons

#2 I don't actually recall, but it wouldn't shock me if it was just the general tension getting sparked by the earth marines being attacked by the protomutant guy. Lots of screaming about how they're being attacked, martian marines on the ground, someone got jumpy

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piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender
The MH-60 onboard a destroyer with night optics and hellfire missles would render any WWI vessel inoperable, you wouldn't even need to waste SMs.

Karma Comedian
Feb 2, 2012

Also a harpoon hits with nearly 20mj in kinetic energy

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

Elias_Maluco posted:

I'm rewatching the first seasons and realized there's 2 important things I never understood:

1- why did the protogen guys boarded the Donnager?

2- who started the shooting over ganymede and why? I just can't parse that scene: 1) Bobbie tells in the radio they might be getting charged 2) loses radio 3) ship captain get angry and yells something about needing visual of ground 4) everyone starts shooting

1. Just prior to the pilot Protogen and Mars are working together on Phoebe. Protogen betrays the Martians, kills their researchers, burns the lab and steals the protomolecule for themselves. They need a crisis to distract Mars from Phoebe and keep the system's eyes away from Eros.

2. Mars does. Or rather, the faction of Mars that's working with JP Mao has secret orders to start a battle to stop anyone seeing the weapons test. (the idea of live testing the protomolecule soldiers in the same place as you are making them and also in full sight of both side's militaries is dumb but basically happens to give the crew a lead to hunt down.

CLAM DOWN
Feb 13, 2007




Azhais posted:

For #1 I think they wanted to stir up poo poo, hence why they left Holden and crew alive. Fake transponder making it look like a martian trap, "martian" stealth ships destroying the earth battleship. Get a war going and people want to buy your weapons

This is completely wrong. It's because they say how the Donnager had recently been to Phoebe station, when Protogen stole the protomolecule from it. They thought the Donnager might have a sample, or might have Julie Mao, or something like that.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

suck my woke dick posted:

Not quite, Corvette - Frigate - Destroyer - Cruiser - Battlecruiser - Battleship.

I second this. Battlecruiser is obsolete though (or a subtype of cruiser), just simplify to

Corvette - Frigate - Destroyer - Cruiser - Battleship

Elias_Maluco posted:

I'm rewatching the first seasons and realized there's 2 important things I never understood:

1- why did the protogen guys boarded the Donnager?

2- who started the shooting over ganymede and why? I just can't parse that scene: 1) Bobbie tells in the radio they might be getting charged 2) loses radio 3) ship captain get angry and yells something about needing visual of ground 4) everyone starts shooting

These are good questions, they also bothered me.

CLAM DOWN posted:

It's because they say how the Donnager had recently been to Phoebe station, when Protogen stole the protomolecule from it. They thought the Donnager might have a sample, or might have Julie Mao, or something like that.

Agreed, that is the only plausible explanation to #1.

#2 I don't think there's really a plausible explanation given. Protogen was definitely working with Mars, so Protogen released the hybrid on the ground. In orbit, I think we have to assume Protogen had a hand in starting the shooting, although the exact mechanism for it is unknown.

They had a whole enquiry scene on Earth, I can't remember if they brought up who started shooting first in orbit. You'd think they might have brought that up during the inquiry/negotiations settlement.

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Karma Comedian posted:

Also a harpoon hits with nearly 20mj in kinetic energy

Harpoon flies at about 240 mps, and weighs 691 kilograms at launch, with its booster, packed full of fuel, and that's just about 20 megajoules. But about 110 kilograms of that is booster that gets dropped into the ocean almost immediately and a lot of the rest is fuel that's going to be burned as it approaches the target. So that 20MJ is really like a muzzle energy, not an impact energy. The Iowas were armored against the 16"x50 Mk 2s from the South Dakota class, which fired a 960-kilogram AP shell at 850ish mps, or roughly 400 megajoules of muzzle energy.

Even with a few hundred pounds of HE, a Harpoon's going to bounce off the armor of pretty much any battleship you'd care to name, exception for the deck armor of dreadnought-era ships.

Elias_Maluco posted:

I'm rewatching the first seasons and realized there's 2 important things I never understood:

1- why did the protogen guys boarded the Donnager?

The Canterbury blundered into their operation, the Donnager might have people on it that escaped, including protojulie. The protogen guys need to board it to get their hands on any survivors. They can't just blow the thing up, they need to interrogate people to see if there's anything else they need to track down and kill to keep things under wraps.

quote:

2- who started the shooting over ganymede and why? I just can't parse that scene: 1) Bobbie tells in the radio they might be getting charged 2) loses radio 3) ship captain get angry and yells something about needing visual of ground 4) everyone starts shooting

You've got two armed forces under a Cold War situation in tight proximity, and then the protomolecule monster starts tearing into Earth marines on the surface. I don't think it's every specified who exactly starts shooting after that, but the first shots fired were the Earth Marines against the protomonster. After that, well..

"Prudence demands that we deploy our ships to observe yours. It would be well for your government to consider that having your ships and ours, your aircraft and ours, in such proximity... is inherently dangerous. Wars have begun that way, Mr. Ambassador."

Zotix
Aug 14, 2011



I just started watching the show on Saturday, and I'm halfway through Season 3 now. I'd like to say rip MCRN Donnager. Mars did nothing wrong.

Groetgaffel
Oct 30, 2011

Groetgaffel smacked the living shit out of himself doing 297 points of damage.

gfarrell80 posted:

I second this. Battlecruiser is obsolete though (or a subtype of cruiser), just simplify to
Battleship is an even more obsolete term than battlecruiser.

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The obvious conclusion is that we should go for Battledestroyer.

Elias_Maluco
Aug 23, 2007
I need to sleep
Thanks for all the answers.

I thought they had obvious answers that I missed since I watch smoking pot, but looks like they were kinda difficult questions after all

edit:

gfarrell80 posted:


#2 I don't think there's really a plausible explanation given. Protogen was definitely working with Mars, so Protogen released the hybrid on the ground. In orbit, I think we have to assume Protogen had a hand in starting the shooting, although the exact mechanism for it is unknown.

They had a whole enquiry scene on Earth, I can't remember if they brought up who started shooting first in orbit. You'd think they might have brought that up during the inquiry/negotiations settlement.

I just watched that. They only talk about the shooting on the ground

Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Feb 17, 2021

Chef Boyardeez Nuts
Sep 9, 2011

The more you kick against the pricks, the more you suffer.
"Why did they kill the Donnager?" is easy. They wanted to muddy the waters between Earth and Mars. The Skorpuli was probably a trap for the Donnager that the Canterbury stumbled into.

"Why board the Donnager?" is a harder question as they didn't particularly need anything on board so long as it died. The best way I can make it work in my head is that killing the pride of the Martian Navy is hard, even with cutting edge stealth ships. Perhaps they managed to disable the ship but lacked the torpedos or functional railguns to finish the job kinetically, necessitating the assault.

Elias_Maluco
Aug 23, 2007
I need to sleep

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

"Why did they kill the Donnager?" is easy. They wanted to muddy the waters between Earth and Mars. The Skorpuli was probably a trap for the Donnager that the Canterbury stumbled into.

"Why board the Donnager?" is a harder question as they didn't particularly need anything on board so long as it died. The best way I can make it work in my head is that killing the pride of the Martian Navy is hard, even with cutting edge stealth ships. Perhaps they managed to disable the ship but lacked the torpedos or functional railguns to finish the job kinetically, necessitating the assault.

Yeah, that. Boarding is what makes no sense in my head.

It might be what CLAM DOWN said but it was never explained in the show (I dont know about the books)

Chef Boyardeez Nuts
Sep 9, 2011

The more you kick against the pricks, the more you suffer.
Yeah that makes sense. If they were out of torpedos, then shooting the floating Donnager full of railguns/PDC holes wouldn't guarantee that a theoretical sample couldn't be pulled from the wreckage.

CLAM DOWN
Feb 13, 2007




Elias_Maluco posted:

Yeah, that. Boarding is what makes no sense in my head.

It might be what CLAM DOWN said but it was never explained in the show (I dont know about the books)

The show does talk about how the Donnie was at Phoebe Station. That's why it was attacked. It was not to "muddy the waters". I highly recommend you all rewatch the show now that we're at the events of present day, there's a ton of foreshadowing and little tidbits and it's awesome.

boo boo bear
Oct 1, 2009

I'm COMPLETELY OBSESSED with SEXY EGGS

Elentor posted:

The obvious conclusion is that we should go for Battledestroyer.

mcrn covid, cruisedestroyer

Anita Dickinme
Jan 24, 2013


Grimey Drawer

CLAM DOWN posted:

The show does talk about how the Donnie was at Phoebe Station. That's why it was attacked. It was not to "muddy the waters". I highly recommend you all rewatch the show now that we're at the events of present day, there's a ton of foreshadowing and little tidbits and it's awesome.

Can confirm that rewatching the series is incredibly eye opening and I understand so much more now.

Toast Museum
Dec 3, 2005

30% Iron Chef
Here's a related question that just occurred to me: if the Tachi was ready to go because it happened to be the designated alert escort at the time (I forget the specific term they used), why wasn't it deployed during the battle? I mean, sure, Yao underestimated the threat at first, but you'd think the eventual realization that the attack had to be taken seriously would have involved launching escorts.

boo boo bear
Oct 1, 2009

I'm COMPLETELY OBSESSED with SEXY EGGS
'we thought we couldn't lose.'
- theresa 'poo poo captain' yao

CLAM DOWN
Feb 13, 2007




Toast Museum posted:

Here's a related question that just occurred to me: if the Tachi was ready to go because it happened to be the designated alert escort at the time (I forget the specific term they used), why wasn't it deployed during the battle? I mean, sure, Yao underestimated the threat at first, but you'd think the eventual realization that the attack had to be taken seriously would have involved launching escorts.

Yeah it's made incredibly clear in that fight scene that Yao is arrogant as hell and thinks they're going to dominate that fight effortlessly. That's why the Tachi wasn't launched.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006
Also because our plucky crew needed to have a cool ship to get around in.

Yao being overconfident can be what we fall back on to explain it.

I never liked how the Rocci managed to burn away scot free from the Donnager battle. There were still a few stealth ships standing, they almost certainly would have engaged the Rocci. Only an insane stealth ship captain would have closed to within the Donnager's blast radius, they would have been at a safe stand-off distance while the boarding parties were engaged.

But we've allowed escape pods to get away before in science fiction due to plot armor....

"Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited."

Toast Museum
Dec 3, 2005

30% Iron Chef

CLAM DOWN posted:

Yeah it's made incredibly clear in that fight scene that Yao is arrogant as hell and thinks they're going to dominate that fight effortlessly. That's why the Tachi wasn't launched.

Yeah, it didn't escape my notice that Yao is arrogant, but I don't think she's portrayed as so arrogant as to be unaffected by losing main power and being boarded.

Thinking about it some more, if I'm going to attribute the decision to something other than "the plot demanded it," I'm going to put my money on plan continuation bias. As the situation deteriorated, she started clinging tighter to the original plan. Launching escorts wasn't part of that plan, so the possibility just didn't even occur to her while everything was falling apart.

Kazzah
Jul 15, 2011

Formerly known as
Krazyface
Hair Elf
The Protogen people had a currently-alive active-duty Martian military personnel detector, and they were just itching for an excuse to use the drat thing

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

I think she prioritized getting Holden to safety so he could exonerate Mars from the Canterbury attack.

e: The Mars/Belter conspiracy goes way back!!!

Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Feb 18, 2021

Mameluke
Aug 2, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
We've had Umma, Jung, Mr. Mehta show up, when is Shannon going to leap into the twenth-fourth century?

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

Groetgaffel posted:

Battleship is an even more obsolete term than battlecruiser.

You mean slightly less obsolete, given there were still a few around in the 80s. No, the Kirovs don't count as a battlecruiser.

swickles
Aug 21, 2006

I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just some QB that I used to know

gfarrell80 posted:

Also because our plucky crew needed to have a cool ship to get around in.

Yao being overconfident can be what we fall back on to explain it.

I never liked how the Rocci managed to burn away scot free from the Donnager battle. There were still a few stealth ships standing, they almost certainly would have engaged the Rocci. Only an insane stealth ship captain would have closed to within the Donnager's blast radius, they would have been at a safe stand-off distance while the boarding parties were engaged.

But we've allowed escape pods to get away before in science fiction due to plot armor....

"Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited."

I dont think the Donnager was surrounded though, the stealth ships were on one side and the Donnager another. The Roci escaped out the back at high burn, so in order for a ship to engage them they would have had to wait for the blast to be over and shockwave/shrapnel pass, then burn at an even higher rate to close the distance and make up fornthe head start the Tachi had, which simply isn't doable, especially if the ship was manned by mostly belters.

Nail Rat
Dec 29, 2000

You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!!

swickles posted:

I dont think the Donnager was surrounded though, the stealth ships were on one side and the Donnager another. The Roci escaped out the back at high burn, so in order for a ship to engage them they would have had to wait for the blast to be over and shockwave/shrapnel pass, then burn at an even higher rate to close the distance and make up fornthe head start the Tachi had, which simply isn't doable, especially if the ship was manned by mostly belters.

Also there were probably a lot of MCRN ships monitoring the Donnager (especially amid distress calls). Hard for stealth ships to stay stealthy if they're on high burn, especially when you add in the fact that part of the stealth tech is massive internal heat sinks that eventually must be vented. They would have gotten a lot of people watching them and seeing that they were stealth ships, and, well, there goes that secret.

Zorak of Michigan
Jun 10, 2006

feedmegin posted:

You mean slightly less obsolete, given there were still a few around in the 80s. No, the Kirovs don't count as a battlecruiser.

Well you see Kirov is not armored to survive a hit from her own weapons therefore

Actually this is actually a sillier derail then the original derail about whether a Burke could destroy the High Seas Fleet, since any weirdness in the Expanse's labeling of ship classes can and would be swept away in a great cloud of "the names for space ship classes developed centuries from now were influenced by, but do not correspond to, named used by 19th, 20th, or 21st century wet navies.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Zorak of Michigan posted:

Well you see Kirov is not armored to survive a hit from her own weapons therefore

Actually this is actually a sillier derail then the original derail about whether a Burke could destroy the High Seas Fleet, since any weirdness in the Expanse's labeling of ship classes can and would be swept away in a great cloud of "the names for space ship classes developed centuries from now were influenced by, but do not correspond to, named used by 19th, 20th, or 21st century wet navies.

Broadly speaking, this sentence can be expanded to state that "naming conventions for ship classes in a given era are influenced by, but do not correspond to, naming conventions used in other eras."

Otherwise every BB produced following the HMS Dreadnaught would be... a DN?

Chalks
Sep 30, 2009

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

"Why did they kill the Donnager?" is easy. They wanted to muddy the waters between Earth and Mars. The Skorpuli was probably a trap for the Donnager that the Canterbury stumbled into.

"Why board the Donnager?" is a harder question as they didn't particularly need anything on board so long as it died. The best way I can make it work in my head is that killing the pride of the Martian Navy is hard, even with cutting edge stealth ships. Perhaps they managed to disable the ship but lacked the torpedos or functional railguns to finish the job kinetically, necessitating the assault.

Yeah, I always thought it was to force them to destroy it themselves. It can't be easy to destroy a ship of that size by poking holes in it with a bunch of small ships.

TommyGun85
Jun 5, 2013

Mameluke posted:

We've had Umma, Jung, Mr. Mehta show up, when is Shannon going to leap into the twenth-fourth century?

when did Jung show up?

Mameluke
Aug 2, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Season 3, he was the Marine on Bobbie's fireteam who got killed trying to arrest Holden

Solenna
Jun 5, 2003

I'd say it was your manifest destiny not to.

Having finally finished season 5 over a couple weeks my big takeaways are that was a great season though I can see why the Naomi stuff could have dragged watching weekly and I would like some detailed instructions on how to do belter hairstyles.

The fact Marco always has his hair long and down combined with being a heavier build than most belters and no visible tattoos did a really good job of making him come across as distant from the other belters no matter much he talked about unity.

Elias_Maluco
Aug 23, 2007
I need to sleep

Solenna posted:

Having finally finished season 5 over a couple weeks my big takeaways are that was a great season though I can see why the Naomi stuff could have dragged watching weekly and I would like some detailed instructions on how to do belter hairstyles.

The fact Marco always has his hair long and down combined with being a heavier build than most belters and no visible tattoos did a really good job of making him come across as distant from the other belters no matter much he talked about unity.

Even binging it dragged a bit, to be honest. The trap ship part, I mean. The rest was fine

It was the worst part of the season for me along with Alex death

Firstscion
Apr 11, 2008

Born Lucky

I just finished watch this over my holidays and yeah the trap ship stuff did drag and the worst part is Alex dieing.

One of my little favourite little things in the show is Naomi code switching when she is talking with belters and non-belters

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Solenna posted:

The fact Marco always has his hair long and down combined with being a heavier build than most belters and no visible tattoos did a really good job of making him come across as distant from the other belters no matter much he talked about unity.

Dawes is like the authentic version of a OPA belter while Marcos is like the Hipster version of belter who agonizes over what brand of beard oil is the best.

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

The writers should just change his name to Marcos Inaros in season 6 without explanation. I guarantee like half the viewers think his name is Marcos.

Kazinsal
Dec 13, 2011



feedmegin posted:

You mean slightly less obsolete, given there were still a few around in the 80s. No, the Kirovs don't count as a battlecruiser.

Hell, the Missouri was laid down in 1941 and finally retired in friggin 1992. That’s a hell of a service life.

Battleships are only obsolete because nobody has a navy worth throwing battleships at anymore.

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ElBrak
Aug 24, 2004

"Muerte, buen compinche. Muerte."

Kazinsal posted:

Hell, the Missouri was laid down in 1941 and finally retired in friggin 1992. That’s a hell of a service life.

Battleships are only obsolete because nobody has a navy worth throwing battleships at anymore.

That is not true. Battleships are massive expensive pieces of machinery, that can only project power as far as their guns could reach. Once aircraft carriers and guided missiles could project power further than a Battleship could shoot its guns, it was no longer worth the price.

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