Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

I'm tempted to read the books, although I've heard the show really goes in some different directions. I am curious if they're going where I think they're going with the protomolecule!

One pretty wild science fiction idea is that long-distance space travel really sucks, so instead of sending a crew that terraforms a planet, why not use the same process on organic life you find. As in, you send some sort of technology that turns organic matter *into you*

wd they have let plant guy watch the spacing? i think probably no

"when the european tall ships first arrived in the new world, the natives couldn't even see them -- they were just too far outside their experience to comprehend"

a: usually hear this story abt australia rather than south america?
b: either way i don't believe it, not even slightly

you send some sort of technology that turns organic matter *into you*

Mild book spoiler: the protomolecule is indeed a colonial technology. But it doesn't turn the biomass it encounters into its maker. End spoiler.

The most plausible accounts I've read of human expansion to the stars involve nanotech Von Neumann probes, gossamer like light/microwave sails, travelling well below light speed, and reconstituting ecologies using stored genomic data.

Mormons wouldn't approve of this technology. They're really a perfect literary device for slowboating to the stars. I suspect the colonists on the Nauvoo would face a similar outcome to those of Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, probably the best space sci-fi I've read from the past decade.

wd they have let plant guy watch the spacing? i think probably no

If you feel oppressed by economically and technologically superior political entities, you probably assume others feel similarly. In contemporary ISIS videos, one can glimpse non-implicated locals in the audience.

maaaaybe -- i just think they'd hustle him away and not require him actually to watch, esp.as he started enacting that very intense goodbye, it makes a liability of him by needlessly heightening a possible conflict of loyalties?

suddenly realised at the end of S2 E13 that this is turning into CAPTAIN SCARLET :D

https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/d/d2/Mysteronised.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161009174122

One thing that is pleasing about the future as portrayed in the expanse is that very few things are voice activated and no computer has a voice. This is a future I’d be entirely comfortable with.

I know we’re not talking about the novels here, however I am pretty excited by Persepolis rising coming out in December and I’m just about to launch into a re-read of the preceding 6.

so it's possibly partly an expanse-expense-of-cgi issue driving this, but to me one of the great strengths of this telling of this story is the extent to which (one mass-spacing excepted)* large-scale horrors happen largely OFF-screen**, including the gradual revelation of what originally happened on eros, but also the wipe-out of draper's team -- of course it's about the effects (and the politics) of hiding things with massive effect and implication. but it helps us stay on the ground with the small crew and the various individuals that we haven't witnessed first-hand*** much either, it's creeping in on the viewers as an unsettling reveal (of a world-changing encounter and of the world-changing crime that immediately followed it)

*tho probably i've forgotten something that invalidates this post (i'm not including huge but distant explosions)
**sometimes just as ships blinking out of existence off of a radar
***not sure if "first-hand" is the right term for what viewers are seeing on-screen, but it isn't second-hand either

Still think budget/PG13 considerations forced them to eliminate the most impactful scene from Caliban's War. Gunny Draper watched as the protomonster tore through the UN and Martian marine patrols, in graphic detail.

if true than budget has underpinned a strength

And the blue glowy thing wasn't scary enough for that to have worked. Should have been pink and hairy.

nice touch also when the nauvoo is launching away from wherever it was docked as a mormon cathedral, and all the little tug-drones* are peeling away from it, the animators took care that a couple of them get a little close to the flames of the thrusters -- i don't think they burn up, but there is a brief flare-up as if serious singeing is going on**

*i assume unmanned
**animation of relative scale of spacecraft seems much better this series

I loved that bit - an incidental technical detail given screen-time just to play out. Like some of the technical processes they show on Breaking Bad.

‘sometimes just as ships blinking out of existence off of a radar‘

This is an ongoing theme in the books, most of the ships are somewhat crappy, none have star trek style big picture windows on to space. The only experience people have of other ships is pips on screens, yes they have cameras but they hardly ever seem to use them.

visual scanning in space is difficult but you'd think they'd have decent motion tracking/zooming

So I've been plowing through the books and just finished book 3. The writing and dialogue are sub-GRRM, but the plotting is impossibly addictive.

Something I'm wondering about is Volovodov -- shouldn't it be Volovodova, or were the authors extrapolating gender politics in Russian surnames for 200 years from now?

Get ready. #TheExpanse season 3 premieres 4/11 on @SYFY.

No planet, asteroid, or ship is safe. pic.twitter.com/a8XeQxJHNC

— The Expanse (@ExpanseSYFY) February 23, 2018

love when this gets revived

i've semi-forgotten some of what on in the first two seasons -- are the books any good?

Pretty enjoyable popcorn read, yeah. And very interestingly put together as a series. Each book takes the protomolecule Macguffin in a different direction and plays it out as far as possible, changing the universe's status quo before returning to the main plot-line and advancing the characters just a little further. The books are fairly different from each other in style, but each of them carries the crew of the Rocinante deeper into weirdness than what came before. Also, there are two writers as "James S.A. Corey" and one of them is very interested in integrating 'real' science, and the other is kinda tv-style Mr. Character Backstory. The TV series covers book one and part of book two, and it gives heavier weight to the Earth/Mars/Belter politics than the novels.

Book three or book four deals with colonization and rebellion and ooky-creepy aliens, and seems TOTALLY unfilmable... but would be kind of like Deadwood meets Twilight Zone.

i cant wait for s3 <3

my wife and I started this a couple of weeks ago. I was doubtful she would want to watch more after the first episode, but I think she's on board. That said, it's been a couple weeks and we haven't seen episode 2 yet.

it properly kicks in around ep 4 iirc

I watched the first season of this awhile back, but have recently been plowing through the books. On the last book now, looking forward to revisiting the series.

April 11.

Whoops didn't see the post above.

Introducing anyone to this, I'd recommend watching S1E1/S1E2 and S1E3/S1E4 each as 80 minute double episodes. E2 and E3 dragged so much. It picks up.

Yeah I think literally everyone I've recommended it too has got stuck around that point and come away thinking it's a really boring and confusing show.

a thing i liked abt it was that it showed space is super-boring as well as bad and dangerous

Chrisjen doesn't curse enough.

lol

xp the commentary we need

I'm midway or so thru season 2, was a bit worried in ep 3 when they seemed to drop a spoiler for the season climax(*). But then said climax climaxed in ep 6 and where are we going now? Thrilling.

(*) And probably my favourite bit of terrible dialogue so far, "I didn't kill him because he was wrong, I killed him because he was RIGHT!", >>>>> than all the "this thing is happening that we are all completely familiar with but i am going to explain it anyway for the viewers".

https://io9.gizmodo.com/if-you-arent-watching-the-expanse-the-best-scifi-show-1825114968

Chrisjen better fucking curse more this season.

Too danged right!

Not in the US it would appear

"Flying coffin"? The line was "Fucking deathtrap" #TheExpanse

— Naren Shankar (@narenshankar) April 12, 2018

Strong opener. They appear to have upped their CGI budget and it somehow looks better shot than before.

Yeah that was pretty good!

Only took until episode 2 of the third season for the main players to finally come together though I hope Chrisjen and Bobbie still have scenes together by themselves.

Honestly, I was looking forward more for the return of this (and Bosch) than Westworld. It's somehow captured the best parts of old Heinlein-style pulps - characters bounce around between planetary nationalism, trillionaires funding mad scientist outputs on Io, some sort of handwavey "protomolecule" that makes vague mad science sense - and made it all work and somehow current. Firefly who?

I haven't read any of the books but I think I'm OK with that.

Oh nice, is Bosch back as well?!

this is off to a good start, agree the graphics look a little updated.

I am amazed how hard this episode went! I got to the end and was hollering because I want to know what happens next!

Read the book!

Not yet! Let me enjoy this at it is without having to go all GoT expanded universe/extra web content/social media engagement

I feel like we're going to diverge pretty hard from the books this season in any case.

That episode was edge of the seat awesome.

We're watching via iTunes and there have been several Crisjen F-Bombs.

the entire plan to intercept and pick up that ship was the kind of tactical thing that seems completely unbelievable, but they're doing a good job at selling us on the idea this crew is somehow remarkable

it really did feel like the story was rpg-derived for a minute there. "you try the missile gambit and it.. *rolls* succeeds!"

That episode was edge of the seat awesome.

Yes! The premiere bored me but this had great action, plus some nice fleshing out of the SG -- my god the "You'll get used to her" is so loaded it's beautiful.

We're watching via iTunes and there have been several Crisjen F-Bombs.

Seeing the Roci's torpedoes escorting the Razorback gave me, as the kids might say, the feels.

Only disappointing thing about this episode was the lack of Drummer who is clearly the best Belter; I loved her snarling at Fred in the bar last week. That said I’m liking how Prax is developing.

I love Drummer. One of the few characters where I like the tv version more than the book version. The tv version has fulfilled all my Drummer dreams and desires.

Fairly interested in the Canadian feminist western series Strange Empire, where Cara Gee plays lead as a gunslinger for good.

As for The Expanse, my recommendation to newcomers used to be watch S1E4 (CQB) first, then the series in order (S1E2 & S1E3 are slogs), but now it might be watch S3E2 first.

plus some nice fleshing out of the SG -- my god the "You'll get used to her" is so loaded it's beautiful.

To expand a little on this: that scene dramatizes the "winners write history" axiom re: perpetrating war crimes and how that line in particular that the voice speaking truth to power, even if it gets a seat at the table, will get patronized and sidelined.