|
One more mile marker on the highway to Roger Cross.
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 01:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 11:42 |
|
|
grilldos posted:One more mile marker on the highway to Roger Cross. Maybe this will be the first series where Roger Cross doesn't die. He ALMOST made it to the end of Continuum but at least went out like a loving boss.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 06:23
|
|
|
He's still kicking rear end as a space pirate.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 06:49
|
|
|
R-Type posted:Indeed, didn't know we needed "generic asian martial artist space dude with a sword and a hidden past" up in this already great series.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 14:06
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:We've yet to really monetize space, which is necessary for its colonization. The sat network is valuable, but it is ultimately a means to augment the ground-based economy. In order to really colonize space, it needs to provide something unavailable earthside. Not the moon, it's too carbon poor to support a proper biosphere, and He3 concentrations are still too low to be economically viable. Heavy metals are a good option, most of the Earth's heavy elements have sunk to the planet's core, completely out of reach, while the remnants of the dwarf planet that was shattered into the asteroid belt have all their juicy golds and palladiums and platinums exposed, waiting for some enterprising soul to ship it to market. Orbital manufacturing plants may be another good option, you can vary the g's on an object as it is produced, which could be of value. I think in the books they explain that due to its population Earth is thirsty for massive amounts of water (obvious need, Belt and Gas Giant moons) food/farming space (farms in Callisto/elsewhere I presume) rare metals (for technology, Mars was the primary source before the Epstein Drive) and I suppose just general Lebensraum (Mars). I guess they have no choice but to go to space - hence private space companies being insanely wealthy. The population of Earth is the most unrealistic part, I think current projections have it at around 12 billion.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:02
|
|
|
DarkCrawler posted:I think in the books they explain that due to its population Earth is thirsty for massive amounts of water (obvious need, Belt and Gas Giant moons) food/farming space (farms in Callisto/elsewhere I presume) rare metals (for technology, Mars was the primary source before the Epstein Drive) and I suppose just general Lebensraum (Mars). I guess they have no choice but to go to space - hence private space companies being insanely wealthy. The population of Earth is the most unrealistic part, I think current projections have it at around 12 billion. I think it's more Earth is hungry for mineral resources or something. I seem to remember something about all the food being produced at Ceres(?) being shipped to Earth while workers on near starvation diets have to wait for relief and supplies *from* Earth and Mars. I didn't think Earth needed the water, I thought that was all Mars. Mars is hungry for water and a) it's cheaper to get it from the Belt than Earth and b) Costs aside, they don't want to rely on Earth for nothing. Regardless, the Belters are all more or less multi-generational, indentured servents to Mars and Earth and see nothing of their labors and all their resources stripped from under them. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Dec 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:07
|
|
|
Food is produced on Ganymede in the books, not sure if it's been said yet in the show. (Not a huge spoiler or anything, just don't want to be dropping book stuff for people who want to go with the show's pace.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:22
|
|
|
If left to their own devices space colonies should be pretty much post-scarcity levels of resources. But in the expanse space is kept poor and oppressed with all their resources taken away to support impossibly massive super-projects. A single space colony with a million people or so could be a star-trek utopia of plenty, and after the initial build-out not really need a ton of resource inputs. Water can be mostly recycled, as can most products. But if that colony was never designed to be anything more than a mining camp, if the level of initial infrastructure needed to be self-sufficient and comfortable was never built, and if they were purposefully kept impoverished and oppressed by outside forces, yeah I could see colonies like in the expanse being possible things. I could also see that level of oppression and poverty when you're sitting on top of an comprehensively rich supply of every resource you can imagine would drive people to become terrorists. And probably at this point earth and mars know they could make the belt quite a nice place if they just took 99.2% of their resources rather than 99.5% of them, but they are probably worried that a richer belt would quickly emerge into a rival super power hostile to their 2 former oppressors. Really the lesson is the same as throughout human history: terribly exploiting people is actually an awful long term solution and makes a worse world for everyone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:25
|
|
|
It feels like Ceres is totally self sufficient in The Expanse. The problem is the corporations don't let them have enough of the resources that they are mining. An independent Ceres that kept all its resources would probably be super nice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
Right yeah, the Terraforming of Mars is presumably a huge water sink. The Muffinlord posted:That could be the case, actually, with the Belters' tendency to use physical gestures to supplement their language and all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:53
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:It feels like Ceres is totally self sufficient in The Expanse. They deffo need water -- the Cant blowing up means tightening the water rations and there's mention that another late shipment will lead to dead people in the streets. I think the first five minutes of the show after Julie's prologue has a guy saying 'Ceres had water for a thousand generations but those Earth and Mars jerks stole it all.' Re-watched the other day and one thing I hope they emphasise a bit more in S2 is travel time. Not that we need whole episodes in transit dragging things down, but that things are days and weeks apart from each other is sort of mentioned offhand more than it is actually felt.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 20:56
|
|
|
They need water but they have the ability to go get it. Flying out to a a comet or wherever they are going and getting a bunch of ice might as well be the same as walking down to the well or stream to get a bucket of it. If they weren't being stomped on by Earth and Mars, they would be just fine.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 21:01
|
|
|
Oh, okay. I thought you meant they had it on-site already.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 21:02
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:It feels like Ceres is totally self sufficient in The Expanse. The problem is the corporations don't let them have enough of the resources that they are mining. An independent Ceres that kept all its resources would probably be super nice. It might have had a chance at near-self-sufficiency at one point, but I think the window has closed. They're importing water because Ceres' own water ice was shipped off elsewhere years ago. They produce some food locally, but I'm not sure if they can keep up with demand without imports. Edit: just saw your followup. flosofl posted:I think it's more Earth is hungry for mineral resources or something. I seem to remember something about all the food being produced at Ceres(?) being shipped to Earth while workers on near starvation diets have to wait for relief and supplies *from* Earth and Mars. I didn't think Earth needed the water, I thought that was all Mars. I don't think Earth gets food or water from the Belt. The place is crowded and grimy, but it's still Eden compared to anywhere else in the system. I'm pretty sure the shipments you're thinking of were going from Ganymede to Earth/Mars-owned facilities in the Belt, rather than to the planets themselves, but I could be misremembering.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 21:27
|
|
|
Book spoilers: The most recent book makes it clear that the Belt can only barely survive without organics from Earth, and that it's still iffy. People need material from earth, and no recycling process is 100% efficient.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 21:44
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:We've yet to really monetize space, which is necessary for its colonization. The sat network is valuable, but it is ultimately a means to augment the ground-based economy. In order to really colonize space, it needs to provide something unavailable earthside. Not the moon, it's too carbon poor to support a proper biosphere, and He3 concentrations are still too low to be economically viable. Heavy metals are a good option, most of the Earth's heavy elements have sunk to the planet's core, completely out of reach, while the remnants of the dwarf planet that was shattered into the asteroid belt have all their juicy golds and palladiums and platinums exposed, waiting for some enterprising soul to ship it to market. Orbital manufacturing plants may be another good option, you can vary the g's on an object as it is produced, which could be of value. It's not like they aren't trying. I knew a guy that worked as an engineer for NASA, the project he was on was funded by a consortium of companies that were looking for a system to mine asteroids and comets. Both him and His bosses knew that it wasn't technologically feasible but since they weren't footing the bill went along with it in the hopes they might make a few discoveries they didn't have the funding for otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 22:32
|
|
|
 Season 2 show spoiler leaked
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 23:43
|
|
|
Shocking!
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 01:04
|
|
|
Hell yes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 01:12
|
|
|
How much do you have to smoke to get a voice that good?
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 01:13
|
|
|
That is some foul language. My sensibilities!
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 01:50
|
|
|
Avasarala is the best character in both the show and the books, and saves any scene she's in singlehandedly.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 03:50
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:I have a suspicion that getting over the initial hump to colonize space is the real hurdle. Right now, it is not economically viable to get into space, and Earth remains the centre of the human world. But, once we have successfully colonized the solar system, the sheer amount of resources outside of gravity wells will make Earth an economic backwater. The tricky part is getting from A to B, there is not yet any economic incentive to take the first few steps. The "problem" is that there indeed are practically infinite resources - so what would prevent anyone from ignoring whatever mining towns are out there and just building their own somewhere else? Like if Texas declared independence it would have an impact on US oil/gas import/export balance and they might have some leverage. After all, you can't just find another Texas. If a space town declares independence you just build another one on another asteroid - and there's millions of them. Moreover we're already automating mining here on Earth like crazy so it's probably going to be pretty limited how many workers you'd actually need to do these things. It's a sci fi TV show though - it's not purporting to be realistic and it doesn't have to be. It just needs to be fun and interesting and it is.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 07:36
|
|
|
Bates posted:If a space town declares independence you just build another one on another asteroid - and there's millions of them. There are millions of asteroids, but most are tiny. Ceres alone constitutes 31% of the Belt's mass. There's nothing else like it. Vesta is next at 8.6%. If you fail to get that, Pallas is a decent consolation at 6.7%, but after that there's Hygiea at 2.9% and five rocks between 2% and 0.95%. As a rough comparison to Earth's land area, Ceres is Eurasia. Vesta is Antarctica. Pallas is Canada. Hygiea is India. There are fourteen more rocks proportionally larger than Texas. And then you're out of Texases.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 12:37
|
|
|
It's worth noting that the mineral value of an asteroid is not the surface area, but the quality and quantity of mineral resources. Most heavy metals on Earth sunk into the core as the Earth cooled, completely inaccessible to mankind. What little remains as tiny veins along the surface, and have reacted with other elements in this oxidizing environment. But the asteroid belt is made up of the remnants of a terrestrial planet cracked to pieces, so all you gotta do is find a chunk of the nice valuable heavy metals and drag it to the market. And its not the other asteroids made up of lighter elements are worthless, you can do alot of poo poo with carbon, silicon, hydrates, calcium, lithium, potassium, suphur. Why, you could even build a biosphere with that stuff!
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 13:15
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:I have a suspicion that getting over the initial hump to colonize space is the real hurdle. Right now, it is not economically viable to get into space, and Earth remains the centre of the human world. But, once we have successfully colonized the solar system, the sheer amount of resources outside of gravity wells will make Earth an economic backwater. The tricky part is getting from A to B, there is not yet any economic incentive to take the first few steps. As on the show and in the books, Earth will always and forever have something that no space habitat will ever have: an enormous, diverse ecology that did not develop solely to support humanity. This alone makes it the sole or predominant source of what the Expanse likes to call "biologicals." Given the difficulty of starting up a whole new biosphere in space that'll probably continue to be the case for a long time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 13:44
|
|
|
 If only Syfy were premium cable and they could give us the full Avasarala experience all the time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 13:48
|
|
|
Pretty sure that the belt mining is indeed mostly automated, Belters seem to be a class largely devoted to the maintenance of the various space robots and in charge of transport. The most unbelievable thing about the Expanse setting is the complete lack of long range automated war platforms, the main thing preventing the earth and MCRN fleets from projecting their power effectively is the fact that manned ships can't handle burns exceeding 3g or so, an unmanned platform could catch up with any ship in the solar system with ease, if Torpedos can handle 10+ gs there's no reason a more sophisticated platform armed with point defenses and missile weapons of its own can't do the same.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 13:48
|
|
|
Probably for the same reason we don't let hellfire armed drones shoot missiles at will. Add in time lag measured in minutes just to find out whats going on, double that for a response to go back out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 14:12
|
|
|
Also it's not a compelling story for a bunch of robots to do everything while the humans sit around with their thumbs up their asses, as future-realistic as that may be. E: I could see us not going down the full automation track that we appear to be on, too. We might do that and decide actually, this isn't so great. Cheapens the human experience or whatever, and we roll it back. Think of what happened to food. We heavily automated and industrialized and standardized food in the 20th century, and now there's a huge backlash and return to handmade basics movement all around the world. Who knows? Maybe robots make war too easy and cause mass civilian death and they end up relegated to the same "don't use this" mental box as WMDs. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Dec 30, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 14:22
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:
Eh, they could if they wanted to. Actually they may and just barely bleep them out. I'm pretty sure in one Magicians episode last year, the number of fucks in a single episode crossed the double digit barrier. They just silenced the 'uc' part of the gently caress (in other words, not much at all.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 18:04
|
|
|
The only backlash they would face is from sponsors. I'm sure anyone who runs ads during The Expanse would understand the viewers of that show are ok with some fucks.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 18:26
|
|
|
Sneak peek of the upcoming episode next month. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42q6l49Bb4
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 19:27
|
|
|
Combat Pretzel posted:Sneak peek of the upcoming episode next month. Production values are HBO level. I'm really wondering how Syfy is affording this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 19:37
|
|
|
bull3964 posted:Production values are HBO level. I'm really wondering how Syfy is affording this. Well, they're probably not affording it all that well. This is their first big bet at making their own prestige sorta show that can hold it's own with AMC and HBO. But it's SyFy so they can't go the safe route of a nebbish family man who shocks you with a dark ~*secretwist*~ Allllso they made a big deal last season about how all their sets are huge expansive(lol) things, not just a few set pieces and a green wrapping above the 8ft mark. So if they spent all that money building everything they need in season 1 it leaves a big chunk of budget to spend on digital effects going forward. That may even explain why they cut the first season the way they did compared to the books.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 19:53
|
|
|
bull3964 posted:Production values are HBO level. I'm really wondering how Syfy is affording this. Netflix started picking up the tab. SyFy is turning a profit before the show airs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 20:30
|
|
|
So Netflix is funding a show on a tv network with the understanding that they're going to get it in "syndication?" That's really interesting if I'm correct.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 20:36
|
|
|
Pharmaskittle posted:So Netflix is funding a show on a tv network with the understanding that they're going to get it in "syndication?" That's really interesting if I'm correct. Expanse is a Netflix Original outside the US. I haven't heard that their contribution is high enough to fully fund it (unlike Discovery), but it probably helps.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 20:39
|
|
|
Pharmaskittle posted:So Netflix is funding a show on a tv network with the understanding that they're going to get it in "syndication?" That's really interesting if I'm correct. No they get it in other countries that aren't served by SyFy and Space.com. I'm not sure if they get same day or next day distribution on it. They definitely don't have US rights for airing past seasons. Amazon video locked that up as a Prime offering.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 20:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 11:42 |
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Also it's not a compelling story for a bunch of robots to do everything while the humans sit around with their thumbs up their asses, as future-realistic as that may be. In the end we have no idea how things will develop so it's all just idle speculation. I don't think everything in The Expanse makes total sense but I really, really appreciate the show for making an effort to recognize different environments and the limitations and possibilities they afford. Living in space or on another planet should be different from living on Earth - sometimes it's hard and difficult and grimy and sometimes it's beautiful and cool. I mean watching some of the old Star Trek stuff, travelling through the stars is going to be slightly less comfortable than living in a 4 star hotel. It's a fun show and all but it handwaves so much that everything becomes so neat and polished. The Expanse feels lived in and challenging. It's fun.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 21:17
|
|