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Quit bein a bitch and pill me up!
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Mar 30, 2019 04:42
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One thing I noticed and liked is Wes Chatham’s performance of Amos bleeding into the character a little bit. Like, when Holden initiates the “are you still you” conversation with Altered Amos, I can exactly imagine how Wes would say “Sure am.” and then go back to whatever he was doing.
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Mar 30, 2019 05:28
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Far far better book than the last.
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Mar 30, 2019 17:32
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ZombieLenin posted:Far far better book than the last. I was thinking about this the other day. If I had to name the strongest books, I'd say 2, 5 and 8. Which as it turns out, would be the middle books of each trilogy, if we viewed the series as three trilogies. I know a lot of people didn't like 4, but on a reread, 1 seemed by far the weakest. Now that I've read 7 and 8, I like 4 better than I did.
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Mar 30, 2019 17:40
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I'd agree that 2/5/8 are the strongest. 8 is still fresh though so I guess we'll see how I feel once the honeymoon phase is over.
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Mar 30, 2019 20:50
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Inspector 34 posted:Quit bein a bitch and pill me up! You totally rule. I totally already know that.
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Mar 30, 2019 23:45
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So, did anyone else notice this particular irony in the discussion of the Goths and the Prisoner's Dilemma? The aliens may have actually been playing tit-for-tat for the last three decades without humans realizing it. They kept "punishing" ships for over-using the rings, but weren't trying to annihilate them until humans started using those alien weapons or dropping bombs and gamma bursts into the space inside the rings. All of their responses make sense if you figure they're trying to change human behavior, and are "betraying" in response to human activity.
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Mar 31, 2019 09:02
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So, did anyone else notice this particular irony in the discussion of the Goths and the Prisoner's Dilemma? Yes, it was one of several ways Duerte was obviously a moron.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:54
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i am fully on board for frankenamos, immortal galactic assassin, empress teresa's surest blade
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Mar 31, 2019 14:28
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I read that at FrankenMoses and now I'm not sure which I'd want to see more.
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Mar 31, 2019 16:35
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So, did anyone else notice this particular irony in the discussion of the Goths and the Prisoner's Dilemma? It was a little strange how the authors chose to have Duarte frame it as some existential battle between humanity and the Goths since they displayed no outward hostility towards humans in the millions (billions?) of years since they wiped out the Romans, when a more believable (if sinister) motivation for taking on the Goths is to secure Laconia's hold on power via its gee whiz magnetic field weapon. That weapon is what really makes the Laconian navy unbeatable and the Goths are effectively keeping the Laconians from using it, so it'd make sense that they'd want to be rid of the Goths for that reason alone. I don't remember any of the characters couching it in those terms, even in their private conversations with likeminded or sympathetic people.
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Mar 31, 2019 16:57
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I don't really even buy that the Goths are reacting or even there at all, and that the Laconians aren't just beating themselves bloody against a security system or previously unknown law of physics and ascribing intelligence to it
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Mar 31, 2019 19:18
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Pharmaskittle posted:I don't really even buy that the Goths are reacting or even there at all, and that the Laconians aren't just beating themselves bloody against a security system or previously unknown law of physics and ascribing intelligence to it Nah, the changing frequency and type of attacks on humanity requires some sort of intelligence, even if an artificial kind. It’s not purely reactive anymore.
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Mar 31, 2019 19:54
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Drone Jett posted:Nah, the changing frequency and type of attacks on humanity requires some sort of intelligence, even if an artificial kind. It’s not purely reactive anymore. Yup. The final "blackout" that affected everyone more intensely was not in response to anything, but was a pure escalation on the part of the Goths.
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Mar 31, 2019 20:39
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Drone Jett posted:Yes, it was one of several ways Duerte was obviously a moron. I liked that he had no problems becoming a guinea pig for a sociopath mad scientist using largely unproven tech. If I had to name one weakness in this series it would definitely be dumb villains.
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Mar 31, 2019 21:20
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Loved the book, but I'm a bit wary about how Zombie Amos is going to affect the finale. I've always loved how humanity's response to alien poo poo throughout the series has been "we have no loving clue what was/is up with these aliens, and the little knowledge we do have has to be filtered through brains which probably can't even conceive what the aliens wanted or were like." The last conversation in TW, along with the knowledge that Cara and Xan apparently have, makes me worry that the authors threw in Amos getting zombified as a bit-too-tidy method of allowing an infodump on the protomolecule makers and the dark creatures in the final book. I guess they were going to have to get explained eventually, but I'm not sure this is the best way of doing it, especially since zombifying was only introduced in TW. EDIT: Also I get the historical reason for calling them "Goths", but every time I read it I imagine humanity's greatest threat being a bunch of pasty teenagers wearing all black. TheOneAndOnlyT fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Apr 1, 2019 |
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Apr 1, 2019 20:51
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:EDIT: Also I get the historical reason for calling them "Goths", but every time I read it I imagine humanity's greatest threat being a bunch of pasty teenagers wearing all black. Well Elvi did perceive them as creatures that had never existed in a world with light. You can't get much darker than that  Also, I'm pretty sure the Jupiter sized diamond computer is going to be their info dump, not the grey zombies.
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Apr 1, 2019 21:06
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My impression so far of the authors is that while they're willing to do flavor exposition dumps in the narrative (the characters all measuring distance in their observation, thinking about how the ships work, etc.) they also generally maintain the mystery about the alien civilizations. Like another poster pointed out, the Goths actions could be construed as tit-for-tat although the human characters never realized it. One thing I wonder about, given that their writing seems pretty deliberate, is the selection of the Roman/Goth metaphor. My amateur understanding of the end of Western Rome is that it was a rotten rump state, and much of the damage had been done by the Romans themselves (such as the destruction of buildings and monuments for materials). The Goths came in and took over, but they didn't knock down a strong nation. The Eastern empire continued on for a long time, which no one seems to want to talk about. So I'm wondering how much the authors' alien civilizations will mirror either pop historical knowledge or actual historical knowledge. Sarern fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Apr 1, 2019 |
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Apr 1, 2019 21:14
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Unless I missed something, the metaphor only crops up in lessons given to a 14-year-old, and even then its acknowledged by the characters as imperfect. I would hesitate to draw much from it. As an analog for "we are living in the ruins of something we can't comprehend how to build and aren't sure exactly what became of the builders," which sounds like what it would have been like to live in much of Europe in the tenth century, it works well enough though.
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Apr 1, 2019 21:55
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Enigma posted:Unless I missed something, the metaphor only crops up in lessons given to a 14-year-old, and even then its acknowledged by the characters as imperfect. I would hesitate to draw much from it. Good point! I conflated the thread's use of shorthand with what was in the text.
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Apr 1, 2019 22:11
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it'd be interesting to learn that the historical relationship between the PM builders as the things beyond actually resembled that between the romans and goths though the goths were pushed out of the eurasian steppe by a chain of westwardly migrating peoples that began on the frontiers of the Han Empire. they fought the romans, won some significant victories in the east through great piratical naval expeditions, but were eventually defeated and settled on the Danube frontier, where they alternatively served as auxiliaries to the Romans and rose joined with other foreigners' inroads when the romans gave them cause for vengeance, as the romans' habitual arrogance and greed tended to ensure. they lived at the edge of the empire for centuries before the final break with the imperial government, which precipitated such fine events as the burning of Rome, but that break only happened because the Goths were stuck in famine conditions and the imperial administration failed entirely to assist them it would be highly interesting if the things between the gates were an old foe the PM Builders defeated, subordinated, and utilized some way, until the Goths managed to turn it around on them.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:10
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Lmao that Duarte puts so much faith into the prisoner’s dilemma but doesn’t seem to grasp that humans are consistently ‘punished’ for high gate activity, and we’re fine as long as we keep traffic low. He didn’t even take the basic step of putting himself in the other side s shoes? If he treats the Dutchman ships as a tit-for-tat response to us overusing the gates, he’d realize that punishing the Dutchmans is going to lock both sides into constantly defecting, right? Which is exactly what happens.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:26
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Yeah but I feel like that's good writing, in context. Duarte wasn't a guy with a real high empathy quotient. He was so confident in his own power that he didn't seem to notice much else.
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Apr 2, 2019 22:42
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Yeah he's pretty much the beep boop I have no selfish emotions rational logic will save us nerd you see growing out of every crevice of the Internet. Except charismatic.
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Apr 2, 2019 23:05
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Well that was a good book.
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Apr 3, 2019 19:28
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I enjoyed the book. It did kind of stand out that they had written themselves into a corner making Laconia too powerful and overcompensated making the rag-tag resistance genius tacticians with the devil's luck and the Laconians Keystone Kops level bumbling idiots.
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Apr 3, 2019 23:43
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You can’t really blame them. Holding the ring space was a good plan but the moment they provoked the Goths they lost everything - Medina, their absolute leader, and their communications and control over the other stars. Abandoning the platforms to hunt an obsolete battleship was stupid, but it was the kind of stupid decision that authoritarians make all the time. You could even argue it was the right call, if you figure an asteroid was gonna get through eventually. Probably the biggest unjustified reach was Laconia’s planetary defenses not swatting Naomi’s group effortlessly. That doesn’t really make sense to me until the antimatter goes off.
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Apr 4, 2019 00:06
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It’s pretty unbelievable that the platforms weren’t resistant to railguns. Singh says in PR they were familiar with artifacts similar to the slow zone security station and that’s why they were confident it would survive a magnetar blast. If those artifacts weren’t the platforms what were they? And why were they built so weakly if hardened facilities aren’t unique to the slow zone?
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Apr 4, 2019 00:12
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Yeah that is kinda weird, especially if they could produce antimatter. Even if you couldn’t harden against the scary stuff itself you’d want to prevent any sudden impacts. I think the plot fix would be to save some of the antimatter from early on and use it in railgun shells at the finale.
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Apr 4, 2019 00:23
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Overall I liked TW but one thing kind of bugged me but I'm not sure if it's a plot hole - how does Laconia or anyone for that matter know that the gates eating ships is related to whatever killed the protomolecule aliens and shot the bullet into the laconian battleship 1 book ago? That just seems like a pretty big logical leap that everyone in the book seems to take for granted. Couldn't the mass limit on the gates just be a built in feature? The TV show seems to be dodging this by having Holden see the black alien monster rushing him as they pass through the gate at the end of the last season Also since we're sidetracking into ancient Rome, a fun fact is that the Goths weren't really even the big invasion that killed the western empire. The vandals managed to take over the richest parts of the empire in north Africa that really screwed up the Roman economy and nailed the coffin shut.
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Apr 5, 2019 03:17
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adebisi lives posted:Overall I liked TW but one thing kind of bugged me but I'm not sure if it's a plot hole - how does Laconia or anyone for that matter know that the gates eating ships is related to whatever killed the protomolecule aliens and shot the bullet into the laconian battleship 1 book ago? That just seems like a pretty big logical leap that everyone in the book seems to take for granted. Couldn't the mass limit on the gates just be a built in feature? The TV show seems to be dodging this by having Holden see the black alien monster rushing him as they pass through the gate at the end of the last season spoiler'd just in case Duarte makes the connection and tells Holden about it during the PR epilogue. Says that something doesn't like them using the builder's technology and connects the bullet on the Tempest to the disappearing ships. Doesn't seem like too big a leap but readers can already make the connection because of the similarity between Elvi's experience passing through the bullet and the PoVs of various characters getting dutchman'd
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Apr 5, 2019 08:03
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I enjoyed this one a whole lot. Somehow managed to be a lot more interesting than the previous. Also, I think Duarte suffers because he's supposed to be this incredible genius leader, but most of that happens off screen. Sure he's an MCRN admiral, but we don't really see the intervening time when he makes Laconia into a real power. (shrug). Is it a spoiler to suggest that people also read the side story Strange Dogs, since it ties directly into this, besides being a really good little story on its own? Maybe The Vital Abyss, too, even though I found that a little less good on its own merits.
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Apr 5, 2019 15:55
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:I guess they were going to have to get explained eventually, but I'm not sure this is the best way of doing it, especially since zombifying was only introduced in TW. It was actually introduced in an earlier novella, Strange Dogs. I liked that TW doesn't require you to have read it, but if you did then you already knew what the repair drones were up to when they first appear. adebisi lives posted:Also since we're sidetracking into ancient Rome, a fun fact is that the Goths weren't really even the big invasion that killed the western empire. The vandals managed to take over the richest parts of the empire in north Africa that really screwed up the Roman economy and nailed the coffin shut. I enjoyed the book but that "Goths and lead pipes" bit made me grind my autism teeth hard.
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Apr 5, 2019 16:47
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Grand Fromage posted:
When I first read that I did a double take. Then I took it as one piece of evidence that God-Emperor Duarte and the Laconians aren't as smart as they think they are. They just managed to turn on a 3D printer that printed them a small number of more powerful ships than the other humans had.
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Apr 5, 2019 17:04
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Grand Fromage posted:I enjoyed the book but that "Goths and lead pipes" bit made me grind my autism teeth hard. combined with marco inaros's facile understanding of the history of Afghanistan in his little presentation to the admiralty of the Free Navy in Babylon's Ashes, my take is that Martians and Belters have extremely limited understandings of pre-spaceflight human history
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Apr 5, 2019 17:10
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I am sure that Mars has a full spread of academic disciplines, but I would not be surprised if fields of study that don't basically equal job training weren't pretty much extinct among the Belt. I remember their institutions being extensions of Earth-based campuses and I'm sure they're only offering courses on how to put up radiation shielding or how fusion drives work.
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Apr 5, 2019 17:27
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I think it's safe to write as though, just as every generation thinks it discovered sex, every megalomaniacal dictator thinks he's the one who invented being the Maximum Leader, and history is just a story about a bunch of wannabees. Did any of them conquer the world? No? See, they were losers. What can you learn from a bunch of losers?
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Apr 5, 2019 19:15
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@RealWinstonDuarte Don't be afraid citizens of Laconoa! Alien technology weak, low energy! It's time for some game theory (1/254)
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Apr 5, 2019 22:37
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Surely if was all in on his theme he would just dramatically state: "If..."
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Apr 5, 2019 22:55
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Phi230 posted:@RealWinstonDuarte 
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Apr 5, 2019 23:10
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