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Tiggum posted:Yes? Evil Scientist Dude comes right out and calls it "unknown" so while it's certainly possible they'll end up subverting viewer expectations (not knowing where the books go with this at all, myself) the obvious conclusion is that it's not man-made at all.
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Feb 7, 2016 02:52
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Tiggum posted:But you said "even the bad guys aren't familiar with it", and the people behind it obviously are familiar with it?
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Feb 7, 2016 04:40
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Combat Pretzel posted:About as familiar as a deep sea squid is with fire. If that scene with Daddy Mao and the scientist wasn't obvious enough, then I don't know. The scene where they obviously knew about the stuff and had specific plans for it?
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Feb 7, 2016 05:43
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Tiggum posted:The scene where they obviously knew about the stuff and had specific plans for it? Yeah they knew pretty much all the special properties of the protomolecule such as how pumping in energy makes it grow like crazy Dessel posted:The scene with Amos casually walking to the side when told to go for the control panel made me actually laugh as the guy got shot. He did it so casually, and knowing Amos, I'm leaning more that it's not because he's expertly hiding his intentions, it's just that he'd make the walk exactly the same if someone told him to take the garbage out or pick a carton of milk because his wife (if he had one) forgot one while they were doing groceries together. It was a great scene since you knew what would happen next. etalian fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 06:26
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From the episode they say they know a little about it, but since it's self evolving they need a larger environment to 'test' it in and see what it does.
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Feb 7, 2016 11:30
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Tiggum posted:But you said "even the bad guys aren't familiar with it", and the people behind it obviously are familiar with it? The scientist dude (Dresden?) says that "we can only learn about it by letting it learn" or something like that. They know of its existence and the basic way it works but they don't have much idea how it operates once it gets going and has enough biomass available (as shown by the fact that Anubis got hosed). Hence the Eros test. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 11:35
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Naturally instead of a herd of cattle and some fusion reactors, the environment needed to be a bustling space station 
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Feb 7, 2016 11:38
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Strategic Tea posted:Naturally instead of a herd of cattle and some fusion reactors, the environment needed to be a bustling space station  The book gives a reason for it though (book and possible future tv spoilers!) They intend to use it as a way to evolve entire humanity beyond what it currently is so they stand a chance if the guys who made the protomolecule ever show up. So the large scale evil human experiment. Still one problem the books have IMO is that The bad guys are always Hitlers or they are so incompetent and confused that the end result ends up being pretty much Hitler. There isn't really that much moral ambiguity in the books beyond Amos.
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Feb 7, 2016 11:43
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DarkCrawler posted:Still one problem the books have IMO is that The bad guys are always Hitlers or they are so incompetent and confused that the end result ends up being pretty much Hitler. There isn't really that much moral ambiguity in the books beyond Amos. As much as I'm enjoying the series so far (just finished #4) this is probably the worst part. Dresden, Mao, Captain Ashford, and Murtry are almost interchangeable. Hopefully Nemesis Games evolves beyond this - from what I understand it's supposed to be getting awesome again.
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Feb 7, 2016 12:23
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Murty was all right but only because he's the exactly kind of person you see in real life who can't wait for the apocalypse so they can ~make the hard choices~ and kill lots of people while shedding a single tear. In terms of moral ambiguity he's still dead on arrival, yeah.
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Feb 7, 2016 13:03
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I think I will actually get the DVDs for this series. It's visual concepts and details are enough that I could watch again just to check out the neat stuff in HD. Especially the last shot of the finale  I've got to say though those two were not the best episodes. Especially the loving tunnel bit, ugh. Still I'm rooting for S2
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Feb 7, 2016 13:42
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Surprise Giraffe posted:I think I will actually get the DVDs for this series. It's visual concepts and details are enough that I could watch again just to check out the neat stuff in HD. Especially the last shot of the finale 
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Feb 7, 2016 14:59
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Strategic Tea posted:Naturally instead of a herd of cattle and some fusion reactors, the environment needed to be a bustling space station There are no cows in space. Belters and their stations are the equivalent of cattle in space. This is supposed to be grounded in reality, cows are most likely only seen in a zoo, due to their enormous energy needs. Almost all the food and drink (outside of water) for belters are grown from GM fungus. A station is self contained and could easily have an accident if things get out of hand. A logical choice.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:15
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A pet shop for the Earth elite then? I don't think the Mao Corp efficiency savings team is vetting this particular project... But yeah I guess at some point they have to go human to get what they want.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:18
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Infecting biomass on Earth or Mars is reckless as all heck, launching cows into orbit is expensive. A small secluded station like Eros is a sensible option if you are an immoral space nazi.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:24
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Tiggum posted:The scene where they obviously knew about the stuff and had specific plans for it?
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Feb 7, 2016 17:35
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flosofl posted:Keep going. You won't be disappointed. The first 3 are establishing the show's universe and characters. From 4 on it just keeps escalating to the finale. Thanks everyone. Episode 3 was already more on-point and things started becoming interesting. I liked it better than the 4th episode, actually. It made everything start coming alive. Not sure why they waited 4 episodes before showing any action, though.
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Feb 7, 2016 18:34
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Infecting biomass on Earth or Mars is reckless as all heck, launching cows into orbit is expensive. A small secluded station like Eros is a sensible option if you are an immoral space nazi. Racism/otherism against the Belter physical differences is a pretty blatant theme, and it's not like there aren't any real-history examples of exactly this kind of thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chariot
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Feb 7, 2016 18:35
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I'm not sure why they included the super obviously Belter guy in the first episode if they were going to ignore it for the rest of the show. I understand not wanting to cast 7 foot actors for all the roles (Miller's got a good foot on Holden, for instance), but why bring it up in the first place?
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Feb 7, 2016 18:53
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mossyfisk posted:I'm not sure why they included the super obviously Belter guy in the first episode if they were going to ignore it for the rest of the show. I understand not wanting to cast 7 foot actors for all the roles (Miller's got a good foot on Holden, for instance), but why bring it up in the first place? I think they gave up on it for practical reasons, so Belters just end up looking like people from Portland.
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Feb 7, 2016 19:00
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Flesh Forge posted:Racism/otherism against the Belter physical differences is a pretty blatant theme, and it's not like there aren't any real-history examples of exactly this kind of thing. Vague book spoilers: It's one of the reasons I like books 3 and 4 better than the consensus seems to be. Even among the most amazing things ever seen by humans, people are just going to revert to human nature. And human nature is a dick.
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Feb 7, 2016 19:01
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mossyfisk posted:I'm not sure why they included the super obviously Belter guy in the first episode if they were going to ignore it for the rest of the show. I understand not wanting to cast 7 foot actors for all the roles (Miller's got a good foot on Holden, for instance), but why bring it up in the first place? I think to show that belters actually are physiologically divergent and can't go down a well or deal with prolonged gravity. It's a shame that it's so impractical (and one of the main reasons I thought they'd never be able to do a film/tv adaptation) because I really wish Naomi was 7' tall.
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Feb 7, 2016 19:37
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etalian posted:I think they gave up on it for practical reasons, so Belters just end up looking like people from Portland. I think they made a good excuse in show for it too. Most belters have some sort of physical mutation depending on the medical treatment they got when they were young. Some are the morfans syndrome looking dude and others', like Miller, have bone spurs in the base of their neck at the calcium injection site. Doesn't the video of the Phoebe Station researcher talking about the protomolecule straight up call it alien in origin? Or at least they discovered it during an excavation?
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Feb 7, 2016 19:53
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I watched this, Killjoys and Dark Matter. All of them get a next season "some day". What I'm going to do now?
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Feb 7, 2016 20:39
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I think they made a good excuse in show for it too. Most belters have some sort of physical mutation depending on the medical treatment they got when they were young. Some are the morfans syndrome looking dude and others', like Miller, have bone spurs in the base of their neck at the calcium injection site. I think it also might have to do with growing up on a station like Ceres (where there's some, albeit lower gravity) versus out on a space dump truck. They probably could have put a few throwaway lines in there about it, but I guess they're just trying to gloss over it and raise as few questions as possible.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:01
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I never really got the whole "Belters can't cope with gravity without loads of drugs" thing. Is standard burn really that much less than 1G? Seems like anyone who lives ona ship should spend enough time accelerating that they'd be used to it.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:07
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They usually accelerate at about 0.3g unless it's during combat maneuvers and the such.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:14
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mossyfisk posted:I never really got the whole "Belters can't cope with gravity without loads of drugs" thing. Is standard burn really that much less than 1G? Seems like anyone who lives ona ship should spend enough time accelerating that they'd be used to it. More acceleration = more fuel. There's a lot of financial incentive to travel as slowly as your passengers will tolerate and physics will permit. And we know that Belters get shat on in that regard...
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Feb 7, 2016 22:15
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emanresu tnuocca posted:They usually accelerate at about 0.3g unless it's during combat maneuvers and the such. If I recall correctly, that's also about the apparent gravity near the surface of Ceres. Since it's all based on spin, the closer you get to the core, the lower the apparent gravity, and the more disorienting the coriolis effect (because the acceleration difference between your feet and your head is more pronounced). Unsurprisingly, that's where the slums are.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:32
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mossyfisk posted:I never really got the whole "Belters can't cope with gravity without loads of drugs" thing. Is standard burn really that much less than 1G? Seems like anyone who lives ona ship should spend enough time accelerating that they'd be used to it. On a ship, you're only accelerating if you're actually going somewhere though. If you're busy mining or whatever, you're not under thrust. If you're living on a big base/rock with spin gravity, like Ceres or Tycho, you'd have constant (lovely) gravity, but I don't think all bases/rocks have that.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:36
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Aboard a station, there's built in class-reinforcing mechanic (not deliberately, just poo poo luck). 1G is the most comfortable, so the less you have to spend on an apartment the lower the G you live in. Give it a few generations and you've literally turned the poor into a divergent species.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:15
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Strategic Tea posted:Aboard a station, there's built in class-reinforcing mechanic (not deliberately, just poo poo luck). 1G is the most comfortable, so the less you have to spend on an apartment the lower the G you live in. Give it a few generations and you've literally turned the poor into a divergent species. I don't wanna nitpick too much because this is good setting info and an explanation that hadn't occurred to me, but they're not diverging into a separate species. That's Lamarckian evolution and would be very close to the commonly cited example of giraffe necks, not how heredity actually works. Edit: like yeah sure, given enough generations Belters will undergo natural selection and diverge as a population. But there's really no evidence of that given in the TV show, their height and frailty is a direct result of their bodies developing in low-G, it's an acquired rather than hereditary characteristic. It's also going to take many many generations to produce something that would fit any definition of a distinct species, humanity actually has very little genetic variation (due to a recent bottleneck during the last ice age). Scientifically I doubt the Belters would even qualify as a genetically distinct population, let alone a separate race, subspecies, or species. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 23:36
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Pellisworth posted:I don't wanna nitpick too much because this is good setting info and an explanation that hadn't occurred to me, but they're not diverging into a separate species. That's Lamarckian evolution and would be very close to the commonly cited example of giraffe necks, not how heredity actually works. Yeah it's racism, not genetic divergence. Belters get poo poo on because they're permanently bound to outer space, this also applies to their children because they develop in the womb at very low G's as well. And though many choose to go to Ganymede to give birth the poor don't have that option. Developmental handicaps are only mitigated by the drugs they take during childhood but like in Miller's case their bones don't fuse right and they literally cannot survive in Earth's gravity. I don't actually know if it's possible for a newly born belter child to survive in Earth's gravity though.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:50
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Demiurge4 posted:Yeah it's racism, not genetic divergence. Belters get poo poo on because they're permanently bound to outer space, this also applies to their children because they develop in the womb at very low G's as well. And though many choose to go to Ganymede to give birth the poor don't have that option. Developmental handicaps are only mitigated by the drugs they take during childhood but like in Miller's case their bones don't fuse right and they literally cannot survive in Earth's gravity. I don't actually know if it's possible for a newly born belter child to survive in Earth's gravity though. Book Answer: It is possible, before age 3 they can adapt without medical intervention. Even Adult Belters can adapt, with extensive and painful regimens of drug and steroid therapy combined with lots and lots of exercise.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:53
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I'm not a book reader, but wouldn't Martians also suffer from similar symptoms? Mars gravity is 38% of Earth. I'm gonna guess Earth gravity is uncomfortable for them, but they have kickin' rad drugs and other technology so their kids aren't nearly as affected as Belters.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:56
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Pellisworth posted:I'm not a book reader, but wouldn't Martians also suffer from similar symptoms? Mars gravity is 38% of Earth. Just a wild guess because I don't actually know but maybe they have like gravity stabilizers if they live in ground colonies.
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Feb 8, 2016 00:12
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Humans in The Expanse aren't advanced enough to bend gravity. I dont recall the books mentioning martians having trouble on Earth, but I imagine they need the same cocktail as belters and would never be comfortable. Something that is mentioned in the books is the intense agoraphobia martians and belters can experience on Earth from being outside without a spacesuit on.
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Feb 8, 2016 00:43
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Being on earth is definitely uncomfortable for Martians in the books.
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Feb 8, 2016 00:48
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Combat Pretzel posted:The scene where they have no loving idea what it does, beyond growing with supplied energy? Strategic Tea posted:From the episode they say they know a little about it, but since it's self evolving they need a larger environment to 'test' it in and see what it does. DarkCrawler posted:The scientist dude (Dresden?) says that "we can only learn about it by letting it learn" or something like that. They know of its existence and the basic way it works but they don't have much idea how it operates once it gets going and has enough biomass available (as shown by the fact that Anubis got hosed). Hence the Eros test. 
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Feb 8, 2016 02:10
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Flesh Forge posted:Racism/otherism against the Belter physical differences is a pretty blatant theme, and it's not like there aren't any real-history examples of exactly this kind of thing. etalian posted:I think they gave up on it for practical reasons, so Belters just end up looking like people from Portland.
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Feb 8, 2016 02:16
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