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Platystemon posted:This is like if I said “nearly everyone Hitler’s dog meets needs bitten” and you accuse me of wanting to kill every ethnic German. So who in the context of the show should be shot? Ashford and Diogo? Dawes? If your criteria is "everyone who wants a belter revolution" then you might as well be killing every single belter not speaking for Ashford but you're accusing anti-imperialist, egalitarian revolutionaries of being the equivalent of the "leaders and facilitators of a fascist ethnostate" the only people the show or books shows us as being anywhere near equal to right-wing nationalists is Marco and Black Sky
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May 25, 2018 22:23
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Revolutions are cool & good but not when they entail murdering every human currently living, twice. Anyone who supports that can take a long walk in a short airlock. As the mushroom on top, in one stroke the revolutionaries do more ecological damage than every evil empire and corporation since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Marco Inaros has finally surpassed such luminaries as Fritz Haber and Thomas Midgley, Jr. I find the accusation that every Belter supports such a heinous act racist and unlikely.
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May 25, 2018 22:45
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Dawes deserves to be shot on the basis of trying to kill Drummer. Ashford hasn’t earned that yet but the plot of the book suggests he will. Diogo should have been shot by Miller for stealing water from widows and orphans to sell to fat cats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq7SGQzeCEw
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May 25, 2018 23:07
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Platystemon posted:Revolutions are cool & good but not when they entail murdering every human currently living, twice. Anyone who supports that can take a long walk in a short airlock. You first welwala
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May 25, 2018 23:13
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Platystemon posted:Revolutions are cool & good but not when they entail murdering every human currently living, twice. Anyone who supports that can take a long walk in a short airlock. Marco should've killed you and only you
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May 26, 2018 03:14
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If the Belters had simply agreed to abide by their prior commitments with the proper UN authorities all of this bloodshed could have been avoided. Earth supports these people in ways most of them can't even fathom, it's just a shame that the relationship never matured the way Earth wanted.
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May 26, 2018 03:24
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Phi230 posted:So who in the context of the show should be shot? Every last belter in existence. Look at them, they can hardly be called human anymore. We must end this distruction of the ubermensch ideal. Earth first!
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May 26, 2018 05:54
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first pic of Admiral Duarte from the next season leaked.
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May 26, 2018 20:33
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Oh you just know Bezos thinks Duarte is the good guy
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May 26, 2018 21:01
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If he unironically gets himself vanitycast as space hitler it'll be the best thing ever. Also it's crazy to think all the books are probably getting adapted now. Always figured the show would peter out at some point but it's not like Amazon is about to run out of money.
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May 26, 2018 21:44
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It was interesting he said it's picked up for the future seasons. If I were a hyper billionaire who just bought a TV show that I genuinely enjoyed, I'd pay for it to get all the way to the end of the books out of my own enormous pockets.
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May 27, 2018 04:04
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I hadn't looked into much past Bablyon's Ashes before the jokes about Bezos casting himself as Duarte in seasons to come If this series really has Mars's corporate fascism culminate in a 'human empire' centered on a planet called Laconia (they went with the worst English transliteration of that place-name, btw) then I might actually need to read the books.
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May 27, 2018 20:39
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zeal posted:I hadn't looked into much past Bablyon's Ashes before the jokes about Bezos casting himself as Duarte in seasons to come I don't think "corporate fascism" really applies to Mars as portrayed in the books. I don't recall much reference, if any, to big Martian corporations, whereas we hear about multiple powerful Earth corporations. The government is a representative democracy that appears to have legitimate elections. There are haves and have-nots, but there's no mention that I can recall of anyone as well-off as the Maos or as disadvantaged as Earth's undocumented impoverished. Martian society is very focused on contributing to the public good, primarily through the terraforming project, but it doesn't appear to be coerced beyond the social pressure of being thought of as selfish or a freeloader. I'd need to go back and re-read, but I think there's a lot less emphasis on military service in the books. It's one way to contribute, but it's Bobbie's POV as someone with a long family history of military service that makes it seem so important, from what I recall. I don't know how much you want to hear about Laconia (what transliteration would you have preferred?), but I think it's fair to say it's not representative of Mars as a whole.
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May 27, 2018 22:00
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Show-Mars is a lot more corp-fash than book-Mars, I think. In the show one of the Marines in Bobbie's squad is absurdly rich because they come from the family that owns all the terraformers, and the idea that one single family privately owns a large chunk of the 'formers and makes a profit off that has all sorts of fun implications for the rest of society. But book-Mars never really gets even that much fleshing out. They do appear to have a legitimate democracy, and I'd be tempted to call them some kind of leftist society what with the planned economy (and red color scheme), but there's really no evidence beyond that and lots of other stuff like the hyper-militaristic culture and the elitism against 'takers' or whatever. They're an entire society built around terraforming, and if you aren't contributing towards the project somehow you're a worthless taker. That's pretty much all we know. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 22:12 on May 27, 2018 |
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May 27, 2018 22:09
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Toast Museum posted:I don't think "corporate fascism" really applies to Mars as portrayed in the books. I don't recall much reference, if any, to big Martian corporations, whereas we hear about multiple powerful Earth corporations. The government is a representative democracy that appears to have legitimate elections. There are haves and have-nots, but there's no mention that I can recall of anyone as well-off as the Maos or as disadvantaged as Earth's undocumented impoverished. I should've expected that term to confuse some people. Corporatism doesn't refer to rule by business corporations (which is a Corporatocracy) but to states organized around the interests of a single, discrete social group--a military hierarchy, scientific association, extended family etc. The fascist element lies in the Martian emphasis on sacrifice for the good of the state while simultaneously maintaining private control of the most important parts of their economy. To quote Mussolini, a man who knew his fascism: "everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." According to the show at least, the terraformers are privately owned. As Crazycryodude says the books don't explain much more about Martian society, but given that the show is supposed to be Expanse 1.5 and the authors have significant creative input, I don't think it's a leap exactly to think the same holds true in the world of the books. If that's a bridge to far for you, feel free to assume that I'm just talking about Show-Mars. That being said, the whole Dream of Mars is effectively owned and operated by a handful of old duster families. Martians aren't any more socialists than the Roman Republic their political system transparently copies - another republic that had an enormous emphasis on striving for the good and glory of the state while investing enormous political and economic power in a tiny number of hands, along with populist policies to keep the pleb population docile and productive while offloading the most dangerous and profitable labor in society to workers without rights or political representation in the republic (Roman slaves, Expanse Belters). Martian society is organized by the founding families of the Republic for the furtherance of the terraforming project, which they control. The only way to be a good Martian is to do your part to further the project in some way - attempting to live in a way that does not assist the project, again owned by dynasties you can only hope to marry into, makes you an Eater lumpenprole (and what convenient internal scapegoats for the state those make). It makes perfect sense that a society organized like that collapses the second the existence of habitable worlds beyond the Ring Gates make the Dream of Mars obsolete. It also makes perfect sense that renegade MCRN elements that go on to found Laconia would set up a new system of Corporatism, this time structured around the interests of their officer class, the new owner-operators of their Martian spin-off civilization. The Martians even have the classic fascist approach to their great cultural enemy the Earthers: simultaneously frighteningly strong (numerically) and hopelessly inferior (technologically). A force of chaos and degeneration to be kept at bay and conquered by Martian science and martial skill. Sacrifice, Martian, for your descendants to live on a green world (owned by a handful of Senatorial families). Sacrifice, or the Earth-man will come to take all we (the Senatorial families) have. Sacrifice, and one day we will overthrow the decadent Earthers with their billions of drug-addicted Takers, and make the solar system Martian! It was a bold, bold move in my view to make two of the most likeable characters in the main cast, Alex and Bobbier, come from the fasc republic. It's been delightful to see Bobbie especially grow out of some of her social conditioning re: Belters, Earthers and Takers/Eaters generally. Toast Museum posted:Laconia (what transliteration would you have preferred?) Lykonia, definitely
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May 27, 2018 22:55
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Thank you for clarifying re: corporatism vs. corporatocracy; somehow I hadn't run into that term before. As you say, I think your analysis is a much better fit for Show-Mars. Book-Mars is sketched loosely enough that Abraham and Franck could have incorporated world-building elements from the show, but they've chosen not to. Most of the book series is coming after work began on the show, and there's still no indication that the Mars of the book series has anything like a ruling class of elite families, or that the terraforming project is a mechanism for aggrandizing the few at the expense of the many. Assuming that that concentration of wealth and power does not apply to Book-Mars, does that cast the terraforming project in a different light for you? Tangentially, it is odd that we don't hear anything about destitute Martians. They don't appear to have a version of Basic, so it's unclear what happens if you fall on hard times on Mars. Edit: actually, I think Bobbie runs into a panhandler at one point, so at least some people are desperate enough to beg. Toast Museum fucked around with this message at 00:29 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 00:21
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I do recall that book Mars has a few civilian ships mentioned in passing that have libertarian/objectivist names, definitely a couple of Ayn Rand type references in there. Whether that was any sort of hint dropping I don't know.
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May 28, 2018 00:24
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IIRC there's a Martian ship named the Elon Musk mentioned in passing so that should really tell us all we need to know. E: Wait maybe I was thinking of the Mark Watney which isn't nearly as egregious. Hrm. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 00:35 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 00:29
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But like, if these are all privately-owned ships, then they're just named whatever their weirdo owners decided on. Remember, even piss-drinker Mateo managed to cobble together his own spaceship. Imagine if every single moron out there got to give an official name to his piece-of-poo poo pickup? Docking Control on Tycho Station has almost certainly had to deal with the Hitler Did Nothing Wrong, the Friendship is Magic, the Murderboner, the SS Fuckboi, who knows.
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May 28, 2018 03:01
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I can only imagine the kind of person that owns "The Badass Motherfucker".
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May 28, 2018 04:40
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It’s time for another instalment of “prescient prediction or surreptitious spoilers?”Phanatic posted:A communications laser powerful enough to reach out and talk to Earth from light-years away is a communications laser powerful enough to vaporize ships at considerably closer ranges.
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May 28, 2018 05:11
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I think it's mentioned in the first episode that the stealth ship's targeting laser alone could burn a hole in the Knight if it was closer. Although I could be mixing that with a book thing. Anyway it's a laser. You may have seen them in scifi before. It's not a massive leap to make that a powerful enough one could damage a ship even if straight up laser weapons aren't a thing.
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May 28, 2018 05:43
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bloom posted:I think it's mentioned in the first episode that the stealth ship's targeting laser alone could burn a hole in the Knight if it was closer. Although I could be mixing that with a book thing. Book thing, and it's about the Nauvoo rather than the stealth ship.
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May 28, 2018 06:20
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Message one of the two mods that frequent that thread if you're mad, but most people won't remember one post out of hundreds they read between episodes to be spoiled. It's super, incredibly pathetic to make spoiler-"predicitions" though. I feel bad for the guy.
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May 28, 2018 10:16
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It’s a strange detail to get right, but it may well be real speculation. I’m not going to report it and I’m certainly not going to point it out in the show thread.
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May 28, 2018 10:47
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I've taken to calling those Heisenspoilers, since they only become "real" spoilers if you actually point them out. Anyway, I agree that it's super lame to pretend like you came up with something yourself, but unless that person starts bragging about "calling it" later on (or worse, if some other poster starts praising them for being so clever), it's probably best to just let those posts get washed away with all the other random noise. At worst, they're doing it just to troll the people who want to call them out, and getting worked up about it is just giving them what they want.
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May 28, 2018 12:35
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I mean, he isn't wrong and it's not like that's a totally unwarranted conclusion to reach given the direction the conversation had gone. I don't even remember it coming up in the books at all.
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May 29, 2018 12:19
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I've been rereading book three and forgot about the little detail that the cosmic microwave background coming from the ring is older than the big bang. 
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May 29, 2018 12:52
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Grand Fromage posted:I've been rereading book three and forgot about the little detail that the cosmic microwave background coming from the ring is older than the big bang. Little tidbits like this are the poo poo I really want answers to and I know they won't ever provide them and it makes me 
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May 29, 2018 17:08
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Grand Fromage posted:I've been rereading book three and forgot about the little detail that the cosmic microwave background coming from the ring is older than the big bang. Oh gently caress, totally missed that detail! Does that imply ~other universe~ (I remember thinking of the Slow Zone as a pocket dimension) or that the Slow Zone is anchored far in the future?
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May 29, 2018 17:10
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Seems to me that they're implying the slow zone is a different universe. Maybe one so old all the matter has decayed and the protomolecule aliens set up their space subway station in the abandoned void.
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May 29, 2018 17:13
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There are a whole lot of mentions about how completely empty the space past the gates is, so that's not necessarily a far fetched idea.
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May 29, 2018 18:10
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bloom posted:There are a whole lot of mentions about how completely empty the space past the gates is, so that's not necessarily a far fetched idea. If I lived there I would have a super rational fear of moving beyond the spherical plane created by the ring gates...
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May 29, 2018 18:15
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Actually if we're doing speculation about other universes, that could be where the thing that killed the protomolecule creators came from. Maybe they started messing with interdimensional travel and caught the attention of some kind of entropic force or species.
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May 29, 2018 18:19
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:If I lived there I would have a super rational fear of moving beyond the spherical plane created by the ring gates... I'm pretty sure there's no mention of anyone intentionally going beyond the ring sphere, unless someone else can remember one. poo poo got shot/flung out past them, but there has been almost no exploration of ring space except for the station itself.
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May 29, 2018 18:30
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I thought stuff that went past the volume defined by the gates just disappeared. Am I misremembering?
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May 29, 2018 18:32
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Yeah iirc trying to "leave" the bubble formed by the rings just makes things disappear into who the gently caress knows. Anything that touches the boundary is never seen or heard from again, some junk/intentionally fired probes and railgun slugs have definitely poofed out of existence and I think some idiots may have tried to fly out there once or twice but I'm less sure on that.
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 19:20
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bloom posted:Actually if we're doing speculation about other universes, that could be where the thing that killed the protomolecule creators came from. Maybe they started messing with interdimensional travel and caught the attention of some kind of entropic force or species. I'm sure people who enjoy the show did so mostly because of how grounded it is (and I sympathize) but stuff like this is just more intriguing to me. Crazycryodude posted:Yeah iirc trying to "leave" the bubble formed by the rings just makes things disappear into who the gently caress knows. Anything that touches the boundary is never seen or heard from again, some junk/intentionally fired probes and railgun slugs have definitely poofed out of existence and I think some idiots may have tried to fly out there once or twice but I'm less sure on that. Like this. That's supremely creepy.
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May 29, 2018 20:38
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It is probably linked to the ships disappearing. Perhaps too much mass passing the rings ends up getting ejected into Outside Spacetime, with the many tentacled monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions.
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May 29, 2018 20:58
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Milo and POTUS posted:I'm sure people who enjoy the show did so mostly because of how grounded it is (and I sympathize) but stuff like this is just more intriguing to me. In my case I think a gentle dollop of this sort of deep sci-fi trope is made that much more fascinating when it's in the context of an otherwise mostly-kinda-sorta-hard scifi setting, especially when it's couched as the realistically written human characters encountering the wacky alien magic for the first time. As everyone keeps pointing out, the Expanse is at heart a story of how humans treat each other and how they might plausibly, really react to Crazy poo poo showing up (spoiler: they keep treating each other like poo poo). Compare to settings or works where the deep scifi magical-technology is more established and arguably there just to enable Fun Space Fantasy Things. Nothing wrong with that and I enjoy that stuff too, but I find the treatment the Expanse gives it to be a more rare thing and more valuable for that.
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May 29, 2018 21:03
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