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Yeah some people gently caress in the book but it's not erotica. There's some anatomically explicit body-horror, though. Every 14 year old boy worth his salt knows to clam up about that kinda poo poo. If the mom comes in to complain tell her that the kid's a fuckin narc and should just read C. S. Lewis's more obscure stuff. Violence wise it's roughly on par with John Wick: you have face shooting, executions and so on. Look these kids are yanking it to Russian snuff films, they can handle the Expanse. ninja edit: no regrets
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Apr 2, 2018 14:39
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Yeah, tell them all that verbatim. Honestly it's fine. Nobody bones down super hard in the Expanse novels, it just happens as a plot point. At that age I'd already read all of the Rama books and any of the sex scenes in those are a thousand times more explicit than anything in The Expanse.
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Apr 2, 2018 14:52
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I'm pretty sure every sex scene in the Expanse is just a 'fade to black' in the books, excepting maybe Timmy and his partner in The Churn?
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Apr 2, 2018 15:06
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Well I started them off with Leviathan Wakes, which does have protomolecule tendrils blasting out of everoy orifice in Julie's body. And it has Naomi and Holden's relationship getting blown wide open by Amos shouting "Your banging the first mate!" I suppose it's not so bad. I read A Clockwork Orange when I was fifteen and that has straight up child rape in it.
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Apr 2, 2018 15:31
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Ainsley McTree posted:I’m almost with you, but I think the grey area kind of turns straight up dark once you factor in the part where if you step out of line, you get sent to the pens for horrific protomolecule mutation, that’s just straight up villainous. I won't use spoilers here since the book's been out for awhile and it'd be tough for me to cordon off sections of this post sensibly, though I don't have any problem with people using them. They're still the bad guys, but we've also had all the major factions trying to kill certain people or sentencing people to death, I'm sure Duarte would say that it's death with a purpose toward advancing the society and that it's a valuable threat to have ready to maintain loyalty. If they properly take over then you have billions of humans and a very limited amount of people and facilities to study the protomolecule by infecting people with it, so it'd really just be a slim fraction of the people sentenced properly to capital punishment in a court of law in that kind of scenario. Like, it's super hosed up, but when the potential gains are already at Immortality and wild superpowers after only a couple decades of biological experimentation, and insane death spaceship tech on the space side, then suddenly throwing a few thousand people a year at it becomes an acceptable loss. If there was a proven drug trial or scientific experiment now that was doing even half the stuff the PM is doing I totally believe most governments would have programs to throw whatever materiel they could into it, up to and including human lives if necessary. Duarte's still a total rear end in a top hat and the worst living character currently in the books due to his complicity in the Earth attack and total lack of remorse for it, but villains who think they're the heroes are always interesting and that's certainly his mindset right now. Arcsquad12 posted:Well I started them off with Leviathan Wakes, which does have protomolecule tendrils blasting out of everoy orifice in Julie's body. And it has Naomi and Holden's relationship getting blown wide open by Amos shouting "Your banging the first mate!" I had a mini-treatise on parental control of content written but I deleted it when I realized it was dumb and I was way unqualified to give my hot take since I have no kids. Basically I think you're in the clear here and you shouldn't sweat it. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 16:47
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NowonSA posted:I had a mini-treatise on parental control of content written but I deleted it when I realized it was dumb and I was way unqualified to give my hot take since I have no kids. Basically I think you're in the clear here and you shouldn't sweat it. Kids are different. What my 15 year old can handle might be different that what your 15 year old can handle. Decent parents just want to know what's there so they can make a decision, and less your opinion on to what they should be exposing their kids. As long as you accurately depict the kind of content there you should be good for those folks. lovely parents? Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.
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Apr 2, 2018 17:55
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How did books avoid having a simple industry standard ratings system like movies and TV and video games anyway? I think that's the simple answer, everybody is just happy if kids are reading no matter what they are reading.
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Apr 2, 2018 18:02
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FuriousxGeorge posted:How did books avoid having a simple industry standard ratings system like movies and TV and video games anyway? I think that's the simple answer, everybody is just happy if kids are reading no matter what they are reading. sylph no. 5, October 1796 posted:
I couldn't find the quote I thought I remembered, but i found that one. I'm guessing that the moral panic over books happened too early and didn't have the example of a rating system to pull from.
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Apr 2, 2018 18:23
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One thing that really annoyed me about the latest book was how every character was feeling the wear and tear from so many decades of rough living. The human lifespan has been essentially doubled and there exist magic anti g-force meds, but nobody has figured out how to rejuvenate synovial joints or heal scar tissue?
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Apr 4, 2018 07:29
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Well, Duarte has...
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Apr 4, 2018 15:12
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Mars4523 posted:One thing that really annoyed me about the latest book was how every character was feeling the wear and tear from so many decades of rough living. The human lifespan has been essentially doubled and there exist magic anti g-force meds, but nobody has figured out how to rejuvenate synovial joints or heal scar tissue? That bugged me too. I'm not sure why sci-fi authors do this, but I assume it's probably a challenge of literature (relatable characters) versus futuristic "realism"
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Apr 4, 2018 16:59
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This is also a setting where commercial space suits used to be so bad the seals would burn your neck. You'd think in the next two hundred years we'd be able to make better eva suits than what we have now, not worse ones.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:18
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Arcsquad12 posted:You'd think in the next two hundred years we'd be able to make better eva suits than what we have now, not worse ones. The eva suits the early belters used were mass produced pieces of garbage made to keep space indentured servants alive for long enough to dig enough poo poo out of an asteroid to make it worth shipping them up there.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:38
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Marco Inaros did nothing wrong, except stop redistributing resources amongst the belt
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Apr 8, 2018 01:51
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this got posted like a week ago but I just now saw it. speculate away! https://www.orbitbooks.net/2018/04/03/cover-launch-tiamats-wrath-by-james-s-a-corey/
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Apr 10, 2018 04:47
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tiamat's wrath good title. sounds ominous!
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Apr 10, 2018 07:59
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I'm like 1/3 of the way through the 3rd book and just came to say, drat this is some good SciFi. I did not expect Melba's plan to frame Holden to actually work, let alone be the catalyst that sends a bunch of motherfuckers through the Ring. I feel like(hope, really) she's gonna get her just desserts in a royal fashion, so that should be most excellent.
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Apr 10, 2018 12:27
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uber_stoat posted:this got posted like a week ago but I just now saw it. speculate away! I hope it is a choose your own adventure.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:12
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This isn't really Expanse related outside of the concept of simulating gravitational force. In The Expanse, gravity in zero G is simulated using thrust, with ships built vertically and using a ship's thrust to create the force needed to allow people to stand upright. Otherwise, it is simulated by spin, making stations into large centrifuge drums and then walking around the inside wall. So I was doing a writing project about a spaceship that can land on a surface but doesn't use artificial gravity to create an up and down when in vacuum. I was wondering if some people here who have a better understanding of physics than I do could help me. Basically my idea was that a centrifuge drum would be placed inside the ship for the inhabitants, but on a smaller scale than a giant O'Neil cylinder. However, instead of using the entire interior wall of the drum as a walking surface (being way too small for that to be feasible), I was thinking about throwing some deck plating down on the "bottom" of the drum to work as a floor, and then have a counterweight on the "ceiling" of the drum so that when the drum is spinning, it doesn't throw all the weight to one side. When the ship is on a planet, the drum stops spinning and sits with its floor and ceiling in the right space. I'm sure I've screwed up something with this theory so I wonder if anyone here who knows better could point out some flaws with my plan.
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Apr 25, 2018 22:45
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Arcsquad12 posted:This isn't really Expanse related outside of the concept of simulating gravitational force. In The Expanse, gravity in zero G is simulated using thrust, with ships built vertically and using a ship's thrust to create the force needed to allow people to stand upright. Otherwise, it is simulated by spin, making stations into large centrifuge drums and then walking around the inside wall. Why not just build it vertically, ala Expanse, and have it land upright, ala SpaceX?
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Apr 25, 2018 22:52
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Why not just build it vertically, ala Expanse, and have it land upright, ala SpaceX? No real reason not to, but I was just wondering if my idea would work or not. Basically my whole concept is about using orbital rings to slingshot ships from one planet to another, and then when they "land", they move off the main launch rings onto the orbital tethers, which act as elevator lifts down to the surface. Spin gravity in vacuum but also able to land on its side and still have an up and down. Obviously nothing I just wrote invalidates building vertically, aside from desired aesthetics. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Apr 25, 2018 |
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Apr 25, 2018 22:54
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Arcsquad12 posted:This isn't really Expanse related outside of the concept of simulating gravitational force. In The Expanse, gravity in zero G is simulated using thrust, with ships built vertically and using a ship's thrust to create the force needed to allow people to stand upright. Otherwise, it is simulated by spin, making stations into large centrifuge drums and then walking around the inside wall. That would be all kinds of wonky. The down direction felt at any point on the inside skin of a spinning cylinder is a ray from the center of the cylinder to the point. If you put a plate down to act as a floor, the direction of 'down' would change pretty dramatically depending on how far you were from the center of the floorplate (down would point more toward the walls as you got further from the center). If you had a really narrow floorplate, it would kinda work, I guess, but that would be a huge waste of space.
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Apr 25, 2018 22:56
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Could it work with a narrow floor plate and then use the dead space between the counterweight and the standing surface as storage? Or maybe scrap the spinning cylinder altogether and have two standing areas on opposite ends of a central axle which spins within a stationary drum? Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Apr 25, 2018 |
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Apr 25, 2018 23:02
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It's possible, but your interior space would be a really tall, very narrow room, and if anyone threw anything past the halfway point, it'd fall 'upwards' to the ceiling and get stuck there.
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Apr 25, 2018 23:06
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a foolish pianist posted:It's possible, but your interior space would be a really tall, very narrow room, and if anyone threw anything past the halfway point, it'd fall 'upwards' to the ceiling and get stuck there. Maybe make the central axle hollow, throw a ladder inside it that travels the spine of the ship, with hatches that open up to leading to spokes with ladders traveling down to either counterweight. And then still use the dead space that isn't spinning for secured cargo. Or maybe I could say gently caress it and build a flying skyscraper with a rocket attached to its rear end.
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Apr 25, 2018 23:17
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Also, depending on your propulsion, that thing is going to fly all kinds of wobbly. It's either going to pitch around or constantly want to spin off because of the rotating counterweights inside of the ship. It may be more feasible to have two to four small rooms like this that the crew could use for quarters or exercise. The problem then, however, is they would have to spin so fast that any occupants would get motion sickness... 
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Apr 25, 2018 23:27
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Well like I said propulsion would primarily be the slingshot from an orbital ring, so they wouldn't need to constantly burn with thrusters except on launches or slowdown. And during these periods the counterweights could stop spinning and people could strap into chairs built into the walls or secured to the floor.
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Apr 25, 2018 23:31
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If you put the razorback on a conveyor belt that was running really fast...
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Apr 26, 2018 00:08
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One option could be a deployable carousel type of pseudogravity like Peter Watts used in Echopraxia: For planetary gravity or under thrust, the hab modules are oriented "down" but on the float you spin up the hab modules, and the flywheel counteracts the spin of the hubs on the ship's trajectory. Though depending on how realistic you're trying to make your setting I think you have to ask if there's any good reason for void ships to ever go into a gravity well, the additional capabilities you'd need to engineer into the ship to make it atmo-capable are going to be a bunch of dead mass in space, and unless you have an Epstein drive, you're wasting a lot of energy pulling your whole ship up a gravity well as opposed to having purpose made shuttles or something like a space elevator to ferry crew and cargo.
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Apr 26, 2018 14:58
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ATP_Power posted:One option could be a deployable carousel type of pseudogravity like Peter Watts used in Echopraxia: About as realistic as "car culture" in space actually is. Highly customized personal homes/vehicles that flaunt practicality in favour of style. While I love the expanse and it's dedication to thinking out how the physics work without compromising on story, I'd like to write from a more post-scarcity SF scenario. It's not a matter of what is the most practical way to do something so much as it's a matter of "we have the means to make it this way so why not go all in?" It's already a setting where planets have concentric rings used to catapult ships at other worlds.
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Apr 27, 2018 01:07
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Torch ships which are capable of doing continuous burns for passenger transport might be more what you're looking for if you want a "gently caress it resources don't matter we just want to be comfy" without artificial gravity. Why fly like dumb cargo shot out of a glorified cannon with a really unpleasant start of the the trip and similar deceleration at the end when you can comfortably travel at X G pseudograv the whole way? If you're imagining a multi-solar system setting where transit between systems doesn't take decades if not hundreds of years, I feel like you're throwing enough of physics away that artificial gravity isn't too far fetched. Check out http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ if you aren't aware of it and want way more info about all kinds of possible sci-fi settings and tech described in far too much detail. ATP_Power fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Apr 27, 2018 |
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Apr 27, 2018 01:27
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That's a really good website and I've been trolling through it for ideas. I think my best bet to go with a form over function ship design would be to keep my centrifuge idea but make the counterweights on a gimbal system so they'll orient to the direction of the thrust.
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Apr 27, 2018 06:24
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If the whole thing is spinning, a counterweight just means a lot of dead space. Why not have an identical usavle surface on the opposite side of the space you described? Then add identical spaces 90° from each of those spots. Then keep going and now it's just a rotating balanced cylinder. Why waste so much necessary space with a small weighted balance when it could be usable instead? Doesn't even need to be habitable, just make storage space or something and it'd make more sense.
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Apr 27, 2018 23:50
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I'm up to episode 3 of season 3, and so far I'm really enjoying the additions they've made to the story, as well as dropping the "we put up a GoFundMe page to find Mei" plotline. It's also pretty amusing watching them censor out Avasarala's potty mouth by saying "freaking" all the time for the TV broadcast standards. It's about as convincing as Sigourney Weaver saying "screw that!" in Galaxy Quest.
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May 5, 2018 04:32
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So remind me, the protomolecule was not at any point planning on making difficult to kill monsters, right? Just repurposing meat to spread itself? The monsters were due to human engineering?
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May 11, 2018 18:45
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General Battuta posted:It's particularly bad because it highlights how deadly dull the Expanse's vision of alien worlds turned out to be. How do you make a planet riddled with dead alien technology so boring? Peter Watts or CJ Cherryh they are not. Agree 100% with this. A lot of buildup but in the end, it was all sort of unclear and vague and somehow kind of boring. Arcsquad12 posted:So today at work I recommended this book to a mother buying SF novels for her fourteen year old son. She said he'd tried to read Dune but couldn't get into it, but I figured if the kid could hanlde reading Frank Herbert then Leviathan Wakes isn't too explicit with its sexuality or violence, right? I mean, it's there and there's the exploding vomit zombies, but it's not really gratuitous in the way someone like George R.R. Martin writes. I'm just hoping I made a decent call and I'm not going to get some moral guardian mother pouncing on me because I suggested a book to her teenager where two adults have sex. You're absolutely on the right track here, but if a 14 year old in 2018 hasn't already routinely been exposed to things far "worse" than LW, then he's living a very charmed and sheltered life. Geisladisk posted:At the end of Perseopolis Rising, where Holden meets Duarte and exclaims that he's "using that poo poo on himself", and Duarte responds with something along the lines that most people don't notice but he's changed physically, was that ever elaborated on? How has he changed? How is it not noticeable to most people, but Holden notices? Are the Laconians just too terrified/awed/respectful of their Immortal Psychic Space Hitler to mention that his eyes are loving glowing or something? I did a little backtracking when I reached this point, too. I don't think it's ever really explained or described. Lame.
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May 11, 2018 18:53
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AlternateAccount posted:So remind me, the protomolecule was not at any point planning on making difficult to kill monsters, right? Just repurposing meat to spread itself? The monsters were due to human engineering? Yes. Maybe some version of its plans would have involved those big crab robots, but the Caliban's War monsters were humans' fault.
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May 11, 2018 18:54
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Toast Museum posted:Yes. Maybe some version of its plans would have involved those big crab robots, but the Caliban's War monsters were humans' fault. OK, my wife is less than okay with the body horror elements of the show, like even Kotoa's transformation big time creeps her out, and I keep trying to explain to her that that bit's almost over and is purely the result of human shenanigans and not at all what the protomolecue was supposed to do. Just a few more eps and that's basically wrapped up, just gotta get through. Explaining to her that it was WAY MORE GROSS in the books does not help, strangely.
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May 11, 2018 18:58
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I don't know if it counts as body horror for your purposes, but those robots do nonchalantly grind some humans into 3D printer material at least once.
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May 11, 2018 19:09
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Well she won't have to worry about the show freaking her out much longer considering SyFy just shitcanned it.
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May 11, 2018 21:03
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