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Babylon's Ashes, Chapters 41 - 44 No reason for this delay beyond the fact that Babylon's Ashes is wearing me down. Chapter Forty-One: Pa Pa is assaulting Pallas. The offensive throughout the entire Belt has drawn the Free Navy away from the port. She numbers four ships -- the Connaught, the Serrio Mal, the Panshin, and the Solano. They're striking from four different directions, aiming to spread the remaining defenses thin. There's a bunch of commands given and shots fired but it's hard to care about because I just don't enjoy reading about Pa. A Marco confidante with a change of heart is still a Marco confidante, polycule or no polycule. Three of her ships are distracting and disarming Pallas with the idea seeming to be that they're going to ram the Solano into the docks to take them out of commission. Captain Pa gives a speech that is somewhat reminiscent of Captain Sheridan's speech to Earth at the end of Babylon 5's fourth season. She orders everyone to evacuate the docks because, in fifteen minutes, they're going to destroy them and the shipyard if the Free Navy does not surrender. Pa can't believe she's fighting against Belters. But according to Sanjrani, they have three years -- maybe three and a half -- before starvation hits. She can't help but think that they're doing it so Holden can re-open the way to the colony worlds and render the Belt obsolete again. She changes her plan and calls off the Solano ramming attack. Instead, they'll pick off all the Pallas defenses and then park the Solano so its Epstein drive can melt anything that tries to leave. The Belters of Pallas aren't the enemy, she says. Again, Pa's desire to disable and disarm Pallas brings to mind Captain Sheridan's refrain of 'disabling not destroying' the Earth ships on the other side of the civil war. So, they do it. Over two hours, the Connaught and her two other ships pick off every weapon emplacement on Pallas. For all the angst her crew have about changing the plan, nothing bad really happens. They get the Solano in place. Oksana says the blockade can't hold for long, they'll find a way to destroy the Solano. She'll leave one of her ships behind to safeguard it from a distance. Use the Solano to kill Free Navy, not civilians. Pa hails Rosenfeld aboard Pallas. Rosenfeld is proud that she broke with Inaros but disappointed she ended up serving the inners. Pa tells him that if anyone tries to leave or if Rosenfeld tries anything, she'll shoot everything down and slag the docks. If anything Free Navy comes without a hundred thousand klicks, same thing. She tells Rosenfeld to use it as an opportunity to abandon Marco. She says he made a mistake in thinking he could be the power behind the throne -- Marco is too much to be controlled. Captain Foyle of the Serrio Mal calls up Pa. They'll be heading onto the next fight with one less ship and a lot fewer supplies. The next battle line is being drawn up near Titan. Elsewhere, a dozen Martian warships are engaging some of Marco's forces that are trying to make a run at Mars. Four Free Navy ships are heading for Ceres. Earth is on high alert, with its patrol ships away from their posts and on the attack (but what about the rocks, the rocks...) And the Giambattista and the Rocinante are decelerating toward the ring gate, with two fast attack ships in pursuit... Pa hopes she won't be sorry for trusting Jim Holden. Chapter Forty-Two: Marco Oh, hey, our first Marco chapter. Michal al-Dujaili is screaming Belter lingo at Marco over the comms. Marco mutes him and asks if they have target lock. Marco's charging out of Callisto with the Pella and six other ships. One gee of acceleration is already giving him a headache. So. Y'know. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 42 posted:“Let’s shut this fucker up, then,” Marco said casually. “Fire everything.” The rest of the system is a battlefield. Pallas has been blockaded, as we saw in Pa's chapter. Vesta has fallen. The battle at Titan is going to be the largest in history which, again, makes me wonder just how many ships the Free Navy has. Anyway, Marco thinks he's got the upper hand because he's goaded the Earth-Mars forces into overreach. Even if they win, Marco thinks the Free Navy will scatter into the dark and loop back to hit anything his enemies have left unguarded. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 42 posted:Until now – until him – Earth and Mars had thought they were at peace because the violence had all poured out on the Belt and not back at them. Their fault. Their shortsightedness. They’d had their age of victory. It was over now. And this paroxysm, this grand mal seizure of a battle plan, promised a thousand more like it to come. Marco has ten ships inbound from Ganymede. If the enemy waits to attack, they'll be outnumbered. If they charge ahead, they can be pulled out of formation. Al-Dujaili's ships go on the attack. Marco takes the pilot controls and takes control of the Pella. There's a bunch of space combat stuff which Marco thinks is awesome and glorious and musical. Al-Dujaili's ship goes up. Victory. But there's a cost. Two Ganymede ships destroyed with all hands. Three of Marco's Callisto ships need repair. The Pella suffered a serious air recycler malfunction, something that'll take them out of the fight for a few days. And Nico Sanjrani is messaging Marco, telling him that the Belt's infrastructure is getting hammered so hard that'll be nearly impossible to fix it up again. More than that, Marco's dream of a financially independent Belt might be dead regardless. Marco sends his reply. He can't control what Earth and Mars are going to do. The Belt will prevail -- in time. They have to defend themselves, and Marco can't compromise on that. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 42 posted:There. Thirty seconds to answer thirty minutes of alarmist maundering. That was what efficiency looked like. The battle at Titan has been going on for two days straight. The Pella is ready to launch but without escorts. He goes off to meet his war council. Marco wants to mount a counterstrike, and his council appears to agree. Except Filip. Filip says, hey, your last grand gesture did so well, didn't it? That this is what they keep doing, talking about making counterattacks, and Marco's circle of allies grows smaller and smaller. How is this going to be different than last time? Is there a plan, or is Marco just pretending to have one? Marco tousles Filip's hair and says he's having a tantrum. One of Marco's people presents a report on targets. Marco wants to go after Tycho with all the ships they have. Because he's not going to let Jim Holden sit on one of the jewels of the Belt. But another of Marco's people says, um, the Rocinante isn't on Tycho. Yeah, that ice hauler? It didn't have transponders, but the two ships chasing it down have gotten a reading on the drives -- the Rocinante is there. The fact that the Rocinante is escorting an old ice hauler drives Marco into a panic. Where, he asks, are they going? Chapter Forty-Three: Holden The Rocinante is still under pursuit from the "fast-attack ships." Holden's trying to figure out what the Giambattista, the ice hauler, can take. Alex thinks that the Free Navy ships will "plan to overshoot" but also get an opportunity to launch their torpedoes as they pass because, once they're past, the torpedoes will have to fight velocity instead of building on it. Personally, if I were the Free Navy, I'd split my ships, fire torpedoes from two opposite sides of the Giambattista, and force the Rocinante to try and cover both sides of the ice hauler at once. Hell, stagger the launch for time-on-target as know these ships can do, and make it a question of mathematics. I know, I know, I know. Enough about the spacebattles dot com space battles pedantry. But I'm basically just reiterating the logic of how these novels have wanted me to approach space combat. Alex says their best shot is to reach the ring as quickly as they can and use the window once the Free Navy ships have passed them to begin the strike on the ring station railguns. It's kinda funny that Holden, the experienced officer and indie frigate captain, doesn't know what kind of ships they're facing, and neither does Alex. The plan, they decide, is to go for a hard braking burn. The point is made that this might break the ice hauler, but that's fine -- they can just launch their attack from outside the ring. Which... the plan was to launch it from inside the ring? Where the railguns can reach them? Huh? Holden spends the hours wondering what will happen. Whether the Free Navy will attack the Rocinante or the Giambattista first. What'll happen if Earth and Mars win the war or if the Free Navy does. Afterward, he chats with Naomi and wonders if this was the first war he started. I'm not sure where Holden's getting that thought from, and Naomi even says Marco started this one. Holden wonders if it was Duarte or the last "couple of centuries" of history in regards to Earth, Mars and the Belt. Holden wonders if they could've changed anything -- say, if Naomi had killed Marco in childhood -- but doesn't bring up that he just spared Marco's life. Holden wonders what you can do, if it's possible to change the way things go or if the shape of history will always remain the same. Even the protomolecule didn't change anything, according to Holden. It's all the same crap humanity's been doing since the first guy sharpened a rock. Then, Naomi says: Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 43 posted:“You’ve changed,” she said. “The man I met on the Canterbury wouldn’t have said that it was everyone’s business. That whatever anyone did counted.” Except that was kind of Holden's whole deal in Leviathan Wakes, wasn't it? Information must be free, we can trust people to make the right decisions? Maybe Naomi's referring to some time period we never saw prior to the first novel, but we never really got much indication of Holden starting as a cynic and finding his ideals (in fact, Caliban's War indicated the opposite, for example, and we know Holden's ideals got him kicked out of the navy) and this is even what Holden says: he's had a lot of people shooting at him since he believed that. It's weird. Backwards. Later, the battle is about to begin. The Rocinante and its charge are decelerating, and so are the fast attack ships -- who really have decided to take one shot at the two ships and speed on past. Oddly, the crew aren't on the juice. The Rocinante takes a hit -- one torpedo detonated close enough to wing them with some debris. Four at the Rocinante, two at the ice hauler. Only light damage. And the battle is done -- one hour for the Rocinante to reach the gate, and six and a half for the Free Navy ships to swing back into effective range. Eight at the absolute outside. They have six to eight hours to launch their attack. So, they do. Bobbie launches the first wave, heading off with them, through the gate and into the slow zone... Chapter Forty-Four: Roberts Roberts. Uh, who the gently caress is Roberts? One of Salis' pals? I think so. Well, ever since news of the incoming ice hauler, they've been fortifying Medina as best they can. The Free Navy's "fast attack ships" were apparently "fighters." Roberts and co. watch footage of the attack just outside the gate, but the Rocinante comes through. Vandercaust says it doesn't matter what happens -- if they come through the gate, the railguns will smash them to bits. So, the attack begins. There are blind spots for the railguns, places they won't target. That's anywhere that a railgun round might hit a gate itself or Medina Station. They realize that the fast movers are torpedoes. The railguns open up. Salis wishes they weren't shooting out past the gates, into the place where things "go away." Anything that goes past that radius is destroyed or vanished, as mentioned as far back as Abaddon's Gate. Medina opens up with its PDCs and torpedoes and starts taking damage as debris strikes the station. The incoming swarm has dropped from thousands to a few hundred, and still dropping. Roberts thinks they're winning, until Vandercaust points out that a bunch of the incoming swarm isn't drifting or malfunctioning -- it's playing possum, heading straight for the ring station and its railguns. Roberts tells them to call Duarte's people. The target isn't Medina. The target is the ring station. The attackers don't want Medina -- they want the railguns.
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Mar 5, 2023 08:44
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Babylon's Ashes, Chapters 45-48 I'm so tired... I can barely concentrate. How long have I been awake? I can't remember... I can't remember. What did I forget? It was important... Chapter Forty-Five: Bobbie Chapter 45 begins oddly. There's this brief exchange between Bobbie and Amos, right before the point where it feels like the novel was supposed to begin in a former draft -- "the boat was crap." But I'd say someone decided that a big bunch of exposition about the converted cargo container was stupid, so, they shoved some dialogue like it's sugar before the medicine. Bobbie's three minutes from hitting the surface of the ring station. The ring guns are defended by bunkers of MCRN design. Bobbie's arm-mounted gatling gun has a "full mag" of two thousand rounds -- mixed armor piercing and high explosive. I'm not tactical enough to know if that is sensible, but I am pedantic enough to know that "high-explosive armor-piercing" rounds have been said to exist and that in Caliban's War her armor was said to carry five thousand rounds. She's also got a single-use rocket launcher. They hit the moon and charge out. Enemies in Martian light armor are waiting for them, already manning the rail gun and the defenses leading to it. Bobbie calls for them to fall back. She's already fired "a few hundred" rounds. Amos is with Bobbie. Bobbie calls Holden and tells them it's not going well, Holden says those fast attack ships will be on station in under two hours. Bobbie requests air support but Naomi says it's not possible. Amos suggests hitting whatever is powering the railguns and that it'd be hidden on the far side of the Sol Gate. Bobbie takes control of their landing craft and rams the fusion reactor with it. Boom! The Ring Station flashes from blue to green but otherwise nothing happens. This may have taken a few hours. Bobbie says Holden and co. can come through the ring now. Holden assumes this means they control the railguns. Bobbie says they don't but no one else does, either. The elaborate harness holding the railguns to the ring station has been busted up. This chapter does not align at all with my memory of it. My memory was that the way the TV series did it was pretty true to the book. Guess not. Chapter Forty-Six: Holden Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 46 posted:“At this rate we’re going to be sitting here with our jumpsuits around our ankles when the bad guys get back,” Alex said. “There’s a reason they don’t call those things slow-attack ships.”  The Giambattista is pretty messed up. Holden hails Bobbie who is on her way back to keep shooting the Free Navy people on the Ring Station. As the Rocinante and Giambattista head through the ring gate, Holden hails the incoming attack ship -- yes, singular, I don't know what happened to the other -- and tells them they don't have to fight. The Free Navy ship keeps coming. Holden says to Alex to give the ship a chance to break off. It comes through the ring gate and Alex blows it up after Holden lets it fire off half a dozen torpedoes at the Giambattista. Bobbie calls up the Rocinante. The Ring Station defenders have surrendered and they're Martian, which everyone seems to think is surprising. Holden says to make sure they're treated well, because he's getting a bit sad and introspective about all the violence. Holden hails Medina Station and advises them that they're taking back control from the Free Navy. He says they have people with guns and he has people with guns and it could all get violent, or they can surrender and he can promise human treatment for the Free Navy's command structure and other prisoners. That's a bit of a joke, right? Captain Samuels of Medina Station calls back and accepts Holden's offer, but only under the condition that they get to record and broadcast the boarding action. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 46 posted:“Sounds good,” he said. “We’ll be right over.” He killed the broadcast. The fall of Medina Station takes twenty hours. Command staff go in the brig, everyone else ends up confined to quarters. Holden sums up Bobbie's post-combat response as "unnervingly postcoital." Avasarala gives a speech about the liberation of Medina. Bobbie thinks Avasarala shouldn't be milking it, Holden says it's the biggest unambiguous victory they've had. As an aside, is it weird that the speech from Avasarala is reaching them so quickly? It feels weird. Anyway, that's nothing because it's like Holden has forgotten Bobbie's immediate next point: holding Medina was contingent on being able to take over the railguns, which are now inoperative. Without that, they'd need a pair of Donnager-classes to do it (the editor mistakenly italicised the class designation.) Bobbie assumes that Inaros is scrambling everything he has to take Medina. And maybe Duarte is coming in from Laconia gate, too. Holden's like, oh yeah, do we have a plan for that? Bobbie says nope, but they have a fine hill to die on. Chapter Forty-Seven: Filip Back at Callisto, Filip's been doing karaoke with a girl named Marta. He asks her what the attack was like, and he's blushing. Yes, really. So, Marta says what you can probably guess: it was like any other day, then they thought the first rock was a reactor going up, and then the next hit and while Marta was fine, her mother died. Filip says he doesn't have a mother either, and the last time he saw her she said it was her right to walk away. Someone shoves Filip. Filip goes for his handgun. Filip thinks about killing the guy, then considers it a misunderstanding and leaves. He walks through Callisto's space hallways (they're "pale corridors") and he wonders how many people died. He always told himself it was just Martians, but he's not sure now. He finally answers his hand terminal. Karal tells Filip he has to get back to the Pella. The railguns are down and the Rocinante is the only ship protecting Medina. Marco's pulling every ship he has to take back Medina. Marco grabs the hand terminal and takes over the call -- he's happy and smiling. Marco thinks everything has come together perfectly. Filip thinks that, as much as Marco talks a big talk about Earth and Mars, his real target is Holden and Naomi. They'll have to burn hard ("highest burn we've ever done," Marco says) and they're launching in an hour. Filip wonders if he should go back to the club he'd just been in, or go back to the Pella. He heads back for the docks. Filip feeds his gun and hand terminal to the recycler (although they are not half-finished, drat), and then heads off to find work. On the form, he writes down his name as Filip Nagata. This should be a really touching moment but, like... Filip just hasn't grown much. I don't nod and smile at this development, I roll my eyes. It's been inevitable ever since Naomi and Filip met that Filip would turn on Marco. And then we took two loving books to get to this point, a moment that's about as milquetoast as they come. This is Filip's final chapter (and he basically exits the entire series at this point) and this is what his part of the story led to: he just walks away from Marco and gets work at a temp agency, having not seemed to come to any significant realizations or epiphanies on his way there. Like I've said before, I think the Coreys would say this is realistic. But, as I've also said, I'm pretty sure they think realism and boredom are synonyms. Filip just wasn't a compelling character. I feel like the Coreys bit off more than they could chew in not only writing a surly teenager (strike one) who is a willing associate to the greatest act of mass murder in humanity's history (strike two), but one who was a true believer (strike three), and one where they'd attempt to illustrate how he'd go from adherent to apostate. That'd be tough to do! Especially in a novel that's as weak and scattered as Babylon's Ashes. As a reader, why do I want to see Filip start a new life? Yes, there is an allowance for him being an actual child, but he's also done so much along the path since that I want a resolution that's dramatic or cathartic in some way. I don't want his big moment to be getting a job. Like, Filip isn't a petty criminal. He's not a kid with a good heart who made one mistake. Heck, he's not even an idiot who made one mistake. Not to lay out Filip's list of sins, but he has, in no particular order: been involved in stealing Martian technology, a strike that involved civilian casualties, a willing participant in the conspiracy to drop rocks on Earth, a willing participant in abducting his own mother, called his mother a whore, shot someone on Ceres, thought about shooting someone on Callisto up to and including imagining the look in his eyes, etc. Not to invoke Blake Snyder but, y'know, maybe it would've helped to give the guy a moment of him saving a cat? Instead, he gets a job. Maybe. More importantly, I just don't buy Filip walking away like this. Even though it's been as obvious as tooth decay, it still rings false. It doesn't help that the Coreys aren't particularly concerned with showing us a character's perspective, but rather telling it (and even then, they sometimes lapse and jump around -- the last Holden chapter has an example where it seems to put us in Bobbie's head for a moment, for example.) Even though the Coreys are like, yeah, this is the story they were setting up, it feels like Filip would've just climbed back aboard the Pella and been surly about it. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't want Filip to end up on the Pella with what comes next, and realized this is their last moment to avoid it. Chapter Forty-Eight: Pa Pa is on Titan in a resort. I don't care about Pa. I don't give a poo poo about Pa. Remember when they said the biggest engagement in history was starting up at Saturn last chapter? Guess we're skipping that. More important to give us exposition about the history of Saturn's resort moons. Do people actually, genuinely enjoy reading this? I feel like these paragraphs exist so someone can, like, go down a list and tick off 'worldbuilding.' Pa's got burns all over her back, presumably from the battle. Nadia comes in and rubs cream in them. Pa doesn't like that they're working with Earth. Avasarala sends Pa a message about Medina -- took the station, lost the rail guns, Free Navy is sending fifteen ships to the ring gate. Avasarala apologises that Pa lost two of her spouses but asks her to use anything she can to stop or slow Inaros. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 48 posted:“This is the second time one of our enemies has called me to pull them out of a fire.” So, flashback time -- the battle took place at Titan. Fifteen Free Navy ships versus nine MCRN ships. Despite multiple novels telling us that the MCRN ships are superior pound for pound, Pa thought at the time that the battle was not one they were going to win. Apparently, every single Free Navy ship is Martian-made. The Connaught and Serrio Mal got taken out early in the battle. Then, she ended up in hospital. It was Evans and Oksana who died. Pa replies to Avasarala: can't help, all her ships are destroyed or derelict. She consults the strategic map. Marco's got fifteen ships heading for the gate. Even if the rail guns had been operation, Pa thinks it would've been "a hell of a fight" which... I'm just not going to comment on the space warfare stuff anymore. Pa thinks joining up with Holden was just like following Johnson, Ashford, and Inaros. Josep and Pa talk some dumb stuff about dreams and prophecy and Josep says that they, the people of the Belt, still need a champion.
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Mar 20, 2023 12:31
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Babylon's Ashes, Chapters 49 - Epilogue I think I remembered it. It was some strange thread I made. To read a series of sci-fi novels. I don't remember their names though. But it was very important. Chapter Forty-Nine: Naomi Naomi's going through the system logs of Medina Station. It's a lot of words that don't really say much beyond this desire to seem like Naomi is doing something. I feel like this is a particular problem that remains with Naomi through the later novels, too -- the Coreys just don't know what to do with her. Eventually, Naomi just starts dumping all the stuff she digs up on Medina out through all the rings. Holden shows up to be like, hey, what're you doing? Naomi says she's acting like how he used to act, and Holden says that he still thinks that way (???) The Free Navy force is still coming. Fifteen ships. Holden thinks they'll come through the gate like a rugby team. And the railguns aren't working. And they're out of ammo, even if they were. Holden thinks they can try to board the Free Navy ships as they come through, but doesn't think it's a realistic plan. His other plan is to run through one of the gates with as many supplies as they can carry and wait for the allied navy to take back Medina. Naomi asks where the Pella is and, when Holden says it's leading the attack fleet, she says they're staying to face it because Marco will follow them wherever they go. They talk a bunch about Holden's Youtube streams. Holden says they shouldn't have come out to Medina. Naomi says it's just like he was on the Agatha King. Bobbie comes in to ask if they're sending the info on the missing ship to Luna. Naomi goes over it again, for the whole night. The next morning, she tells Holden that she doesn't know what's eating the missing ships -- she knows something better. Chapter Fifty: Holden What Naomi has found, is the pattern of the missing ships. If they can simulate the pattern by loading the Giambattista with as much junk as possible and overload its reactor, and transit it just prior to the arrival of Marco's fleet, they might be able to make his fifteen incoming ships go missing. Holden sarcastically remarks that the gates are safe to play with, right? Marco's fleet is a short while away from the gate. Naomi preps the Giambattista's captain for the operation. All he has to do is take his ship through one of the other gates. We get what might be my favorite bit from Babylon's Ashes: Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 50 posted:It reminded Holden of Father Tom telling him about bears when he was young. If a black bear wandered onto the ranch, the thing to do was to open your coat and raise your arms over your head, shout and make noise. If it was a grizzly, the only thing to do was very quietly to get as far away as you could. Only this felt like they were making noise at a grizzly in hopes that it would eat the other guy. The timing has to be perfect. Inaros' ships must be about to come through the gate as the Giambattista transits. If it goes through too early, the Free Navy fleet will come through without issue. If it goes too late, the Giambattista will be the one to vanish. It's a window of five to ten minutes. Clarissa brings Holden some coffee. Marco's ships are early. Naomi reflects that Filip is on one of those ships. Holden orders the Giambattista through one of the gates. It goes through. The Free Navy ships are about to come through. Chapter Fifty-One: Marco Marco's pushed his ships hard to reach Medina. It's a trip that would've normally taken months. But if victory comes from running his ships and fighters ragged, then, well, that's what he has to do. Marco introspects a lot about the inners, the Belt, etc. He reflects he'd been wrong about Medina. Medina wasn't important because he could use it to stop everything going out to the colonies; it was important because he could use Medina to control it. The Belters could've spread out through the gates, and there had to be planets almost as good as Earth. With what he's understood now, Marco thinks he would've thrown three times as many rocks at Earth, destroyed Mars, and left the system. He needs more ships though. He needs to find a way to talk to Duarte. Marco's not surprised that Filip didn't board the Pella on Callisto. Marco had done much the same thing once. He'd just need to humiliate him so he knows his place. After more pages of introspection, the Pella finally begins to go through the ring. Babylon's Ashes, Chapter 51 posted:Something was wrong with his monitor. He thought at first that the image had gotten grainy, the resolution rougher, but that wasn’t right. It was the same size, only he could see the parts that made it up. He wasn’t looking at the Rocinante. He was looking at photons streaming off a sheet of electrically excited plastic. The polymer chains glowed dark and light and dark. It was like seeing a woman’s body in painting across the room and then, without warning, only the brushstrokes that made it up. Naomi was nowhere in it. Chapter Fifty-Two: Pa Michio Pa and co. have just arrived on Ceres Station. She's there, in her mind, to beg Earth and Mars for her freedom. It's six months since Marco Inaros was killed, and the remnant of the Free Navy had been destroyed. In the aftermath of the event, the Free Navy broke apart. Some groups tried to continue Marco's work, and others surrendered, but it's over. Mars keeps trying to send messages through the Laconia gate to Duarte, but no one ever responds beyond a recorded message: "Laconia is under its own sovereign authority. This message serves as notice that any ships passing through the Laconia gate will be in violation of that authority and will be denied passage." Earth is down to three battleships, and devotes two of them to blockading the Laconia gate. Just how many ships did they lose? I would've assumed Earth had dozens of battleships, given that Mars had at least ten and the idea of the quantity-versus-quality thing. And now they're down to three? Didn't Duarte steal a significant chunk of the Martian fleet? Anyway, of Marco's inner circle -- Rosenfeld is put on trial The Hague and prosecuted for billions of counts of murder. Dawes and Sanjrani are also in custody. Avasarala gives a speech, and the gives the floor to Holden. He says that the Free Navy wasn't wrong and that the Belters are on borrowed time. He also brings up the newly-discovered safety issue with the gates -- in order to prevent ships from disappearing, travel through the gates must be regulated. What if the answer to these problems was one and the same? Holden proposes what he calls "the spacing guild." It's basically turning the space-bound population of the Belt into a massive transport company. Avasarala says they'll have "limited sovereignty" in exchange for input from Earth and Mars. The first president of this new organization will have a massive job ahead of them. Pa thinks it's going to be Holden. In fact, Avasarala suggests Holden. Holden says that's a bad idea, and nominates Pa. Chapter Fifty-Three: Naomi Afterwards, the crew are chilling at a bar called Cooperative Fourteen. Amos gets an  amiable smile mention . Holden says that Avasarala tried to get him to be the first union president, but he didn't want to do it. The Coreys make an error with their numbers here. They say there's four plus Holden at the table for a total of five... but there's actually six (Clarissa, Alex, Holden, Amos, Naomi, Bobbie.)Holden says Pa was the perfect choice and, for now, we'll just say I'm not sure about that. He cites that she worked with Mars, had experience with distributing supplies, and knows Medina. I guess Holden doesn't know about Operation Paperclip. Holden thinks they should join the union. Bobbie is melancholic because the Martian terraforming project is truly dead. She's not sure what the world even is anymore. Earth is hosed, Mars is dying, and the Belters are going to be a shipping company. Naomi doesn't think anyone recognizes them in the bar which is, well... Whatever at this point. It wasn't as if this novel and the novel beforehand were stressing that these guys were known names and faces. Everyone sings karaoke, and then they go back to the Rocinante. Eventually, Holden and Naomi retire to their room. Holden had been planning to make Pa the leader of the union as soon as he'd heard about it. He thinks Naomi could've done it, even though she doesn't want to. Naomi thinks she's a monster. Holden wonders if they should go out to the colonies or help prepare for Duarte's return. In this chapter, Naomi doesn't think about Filip once. Epilogue: Anna Anna is reading some Tolstoy. She's on a ship, the Abdel Rahman Badawi, and heading out to the new colony of Eudoxia. With almost a thousand people on it, it's one of the most populous colony worlds. The Abbey is carrying enough people to triple the population, including Anna, Nono and Nami. Nami's made a new friend, a boy named Saladin. That evening, Anna and her family discuss history. Specifically, the great man theory. Nami -- whom I should remind everyone is somewhere between nine and thirteen gives a pretty remarkable summary: Babylon's Ashes, Epilogue posted:“It’s dumb to break it up like that,” she said around her food. “Like it’s one thing or it’s something else. That’s not how it ever is. It’s always that there’s somebody who does whatever it is. You know, conquers Europe or decides that it’s a great idea to line aqueducts with lead or figures out how to coordinate radio frequencies. You never have one without the other. It’s like nature versus nurture. When do you ever see one without the other?” After dinner, Anna attends a sermon. She thinks the choice between nature and nurture is a choice between determinisms. Maybe, if they can find a way to be gentle, the stars will be better off with them. And with that thought, Babylon's Ashes comes to a close. I have a lot to say about the ending, but that'll be the next post.
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Apr 2, 2023 13:55
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Is that — I guess this question is a spoiler — the last we see of Anna?
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Apr 2, 2023 15:06
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Certainly is a way to handle the arc's big bad, I guess. Would I say it's a GOOD way? ........... No.
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Apr 2, 2023 18:18
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General Battuta posted:Is that — I guess this question is a spoiler — the last we see of Anna? Short of a minor cameo that I'm not recalling, I think it is, yes. Kchama posted:Certainly is a way to handle the arc's big bad, I guess. Would I say it's a GOOD way? It's funny because I had thought that, perhaps, Marco would come back in some way. Like, the last avatar of the protomolecule was Miller so wouldn't it be fun if it was Marco? Why else would the Coreys have done it? I mean, Holden being tormented by Naomi's rear end in a top hat ex who knows stuff about Laconia and guerrilla tactics? Just seems like it makes sense to me! Well, spoiler: He doesn't come back. We'll talk about the TV series next because it's also pretty sub-par, which was unfortunate. But even then, they were trying to turn this awkward novel into a six-episode long season of TV. They do about the best they could without a full-scale rewrite but, honestly, as a fan of the TV series, I was surprised they didn't chuck out and rewrite this part of the story. Because it turns out that while they did the best they could with the ending, people still thought it was underwhelming.
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Apr 2, 2023 23:00
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 Okay, doesn't that sound like something I'd say to kind of talk about the lack of philosophical meat in this series? I don't think there's much need to sum up Babylon's Ashes. The takeaways are all pretty obvious: the novel is a mess without much of a plot, too many perspective characters rob the story of momentum, the Coreys have no real interest in the mechanics of space opera and interplanetary warfare, the antagonists are uninteresting and so is Pa, and it ultimately leads to a ho-hum battle around Medina Station and an end for the series' biggest antagonist that might not technically be a deus ex machina but is certainly effectively one. What's interesting is how the TV series does its best to rectify these issues, but it still hobbled by telling the same story. Babylon's Ashes, Season 6, and Cancellation  I've said before that, in my opinion, it is the awkward writing-out of Alex Kamal that killed the TV series. It was a cut that, seeming safe at the time, was revealed to have severed a major vein. But Season 6 certainly doesn't do the show any favors and is, fittingly given the source material, the worst season of the TV series. Two additional factors don't help it any: it's the shortest of the seasons at only six episodes, but it also draws in elements from the Strange Dogs novella. With the exception of The Churn, I have not read the novellas and don't really have much interest in them. My understanding of Strange Dogs is that it is a glimpse of Laconia's early days and a way for the Coreys to fit in important protomolecule metaplot worldbuilding that they were unable to put in the main series. Additionally, the TV series has a set of bonus content called The Expanse: One Ship. I only found out about this as I was researching for this post. I didn't watch One Ship, and I don't know anyone who did. As best as I can determine, it is a series of six webisodes that basically show off moments from the novel that they couldn't fit into the main story while characters reflect on the Belter 'one ship' ideology. Whatever. Because I don't want to go through the whole season, I think illustrating the changes made to the worst parts of Babylon's Ashes is sufficient enough to demonstrate: The Azure Dragon In the TV series, the Azure Dragon is introduced to the story not through a scene where everyone sits around and talks, but through an action sequence. It's been six months since the end of the fifth season. The crew of the Rocinante are out doing recon in the Belt when they're ambushed by a Free Navy ship. They manage to destroy it and decide to investigate the asteroid it'd been shadowing. They discover that the asteroid has a drive built into it. They've stumbled upon one of Marco's rock-missiles. While Holden and Amos work to demolish the asteroid, Naomi pulls data from the engine's computer that allows her to trace similar signals across the system. The signals all converge on a particular point, something referred to as the Azure Dragon. Holden thinks it must be a ship, one that is triggering each rock on its collision course with Earth. Holden, using his naval experience, figures that the ship must be specialized and valuable. They check in with a UNN battleship-turned-supply ship and get repaired and restocked. They are surprised by the arrival of Bobbie Draper, who is there with orders from Avasarala herself. They are not to destroy the Azure Dragon, but capture it, as the UN wants access to the ship's computers. They're sending Bobbie because Avasarala's last mission was a travesty, and Bobbie's power-armored self is more than enough to handle the Azure Dragon's crew. The plan is to sneak up on the Azure Dragon, where Bobbie will then disable the drive, break-in, and kill the crew. But it goes wrong. The Azure Dragon detects them, and the Rocinante launches into a high-g pursuit. The Dragon pulls off this awesome move where it tries to burn the Rocinante in its drive plume. Holden wants to fire on it, but Bobbie overrides him. She manages to disable the drive but also her suit in the process. Naomi is set to go across to the Azure Dragon, but has a panic attack due to her near-death experience with the Chetzemoka. Clarissa goes in her place. Two of the ship's crew emerge and open fire at Bobbie who protects Clarissa. Clarissa saves Bobbie from a third crew member by using her mods, although she almost drowns in her own vomit afterwards. Amos and Holden breach the ship and find that there's hundreds of other rocks ready to be thrown at Earth. The loss of the Azure Dragon reaches Marco's ears, who now knows that the inners now know where every single rock-missile is. They'll shoot down all the ones in flight and lockdown the rest that haven't been launched. Marco isn't too upset by this because the Free Navy will be ready for when the inners go on the offensive. So, the TV series basically neatly solves all the issues with the novel's take on the Azure Dragon. It's not a spotter ship because that's nonsensical, it's a ship that is triggering each rock. They located it because the crew stumbled upon a rock and did things to track it down instead of the weird idea of finding it despite it being invisible. Thing is, I think the Coreys would argue that 'stumbling on' the rock is less 'real' than the book's intel briefing approach. Why is taking out the Azure Dragon a big victory? Because it has a list of all the rock-missiles, launched or otherwise. The Rocinante is assigned to do it because they found it, they've been on similar missions for six months, and because Avasarala has had some political setbacks. Bobbie doesn't get awkwardly locked in an airlock for the whole chapter, and the Azure Dragon isn't packed full of construction mechs. It's just more sensible and more exciting! The Rocinante Ambush This is changed dramatically. The first thing to note is that the Pella is not a frigate. In the TV series, the Pella is a light cruiser that bears a striking resemblance to a Turanic Raider corvette from Homeworld. That's not a dig, it's a great, sleek, aggressive design. So, the Pella itself is more than a match for the Rocinante. Even if Marco isn't the best commander, it is still a bigger ship with more engines and more guns. The battle is one of chance. The Rocinante is en route to Ceres and Marco, flying dark, spots it at range. The Pella is accompanied by the Lauber and Granicus, both of which are not Martian warships but more like improvised Belter warships. Marco still thinks they have the advantage simply with the Pella alone. Additionally, the Rocinante has been operating for six months straight with very little in the way of repairs or maintenance at this point. The battle begins. The Belter ships almost overwhelm the Rocinante with their torpedoes, leaving Holden to put the Rocinante into a spin and snap off a desperate shot with the railgun. The shot manages to cripple the Lauber because no one expected Holden to fire his railgun from such a distance and Marco lets the Granicus disengage to offer assistance. Marco tells his crew to watch out for when the Rocinante is turning. Holden tries the shot again and, this time, the Pella dodges it. The Rocinante loses some PDCs, and the Pella keeps the pressure on. Bobbie asks Holden to give her firing control and Holden and Bobbie work together to pull off the trick from the book where they make the Pella dodge into a bunch of PDC shots. When the Pella is crippled, Bobbie wants to finish them off. Holden wants to take Marco in as a prisoner and not make him into a martyr. Holden calls Marco and demands his surrender. Marco refuses. Bobbie goes "gently caress it, we tried" and fires a torpedo. Marco does the thing where he shows Holden Filip. Naomi breaks down in tears as she realizes he's on-board. Holden disables the torpedo at the last second, already knowing that his order to disarm it is logged on the Rocinante's computer... Much like the Azure Dragon, everything make a little more sense. It's a spur-of-the-moment decision from Marco, one which he is cautioned against taking but you can see why he thinks he has it in the bag, and the slight changes involving Bobbie, Holden, and Naomi all add a lot of texture to it. Fred is already dead at this point in the narrative, and dying in the attempted coup is much more dramatic than him having a stroke. Additionally, the aftermath is more interesting. Marco's snark that it's not a three-to-one advantage if the other ships withdraw is fun in how it shows off his fragile ego underneath the bloodlust, and also how he blames Filip for being the gunner and letting the Rocinante escape. With this being the first direct encounter with the Pella, the Rocinante crew also get intel on Marco's flagship. Later on, Clarissa does a diagnostic on the torpedoes, looking for other duds. She's not sure how it happened as she'd cleared the misfiring torpedo the day before. So, she digs into the systems but finds out that Holden deactivated the missile but figures it's above her pay grade. She tells Amos. He does not take it very well. When Holden and Amos are doing repairs, Holden notes that Amos is particularly quiet. Amos tells Holden that he can lock him out of fire control if he wants, and that he knows the torpedo wasn't a dud. "See, here's my problem," Amos says. "I trust you to do the right thing. What you think it is. But we had a chance to end Marco, and you pulled the punch. Now, I keep trying, but I can't see how that was the right thing." Holden says it was a gut decision and he made the call. Amos doesn't get it -- if they're not trying to win the fight, then why are they even out here. Holden says he doesn't owe Amos an explanation and Amos points out that he's pissed because he doesn't have an explanation to give him. And it's much, much closer to how I think Amos would handle finding that old from Holden. When Holden tells Naomi about it, there's no 'kid with the cookie jar' skipping over it. Holden says he couldn't kill her son. Naomi says that Holden isn't responsible for her choices, and that she can't believe her let Marco escape to spare her feelings. Stop treating me like I'm broken, she tells him. Holden says he can't be the reason for the death of her son because she'll wake up next to him, the killer of her son, for the rest of their time together. And okay, Holden is still a bit selfish about it, but I think his argument is a fine one to make! Naomi tells him that she tried to save Filip and failed. He may just die in the course of stopping Marco. It's the price to pay. The Ending The battle of Medina Station is a little different. A big difference is the prelude to it. Mars launches an attack but loses their flotilla in seconds to the Laconian railguns around the ring station. But the MCRN got enough info out to pass it to Avasarala. Marco is also en-route to Medina already. Mars and Earth figure they must stop Marco from drawing his forces back to Medina. So, the combined fleet rushes out to engage the Free Navy. The show notes that Marco can't fight them toe-to-toe, but he's split his forces into three big groups. There are two large groups and one small one. The UN and Martian fleets go after the first two, leaving Drummer and her band of Belter ships -- having inherited something of Pa's role in the story -- to go after the small group. If Marco reaches Medina Station, they'll never evict him, and he'll be able to dictate terms to Sol. While the allied fleets try to stop Marco, Holden will take the Rocinante and Giambattista out to the ring to try their Plan B -- capture the Ring Station while Rocinante knocks out Medina's sensors. It's Holden's plan and a desperate one. The UN fleet engages Marco's forces, and what they think is the Pella. Drummer finds a freighter fleet protected by a single frigate. The UN fleet strikes the Pella and disables it, but Avasarala notes that the Free Navy abandons the crippled ship -- Marco can't be on-board. Meanwhile, in a tactic that's similar to one the Rocinante has used, the Pella throws off its freighter disguise and engages Drummer's fleet of improvised warships and shreds them in a few volleys of PDC fire. One of her ships manages to ram the Pella, killing Rosenfeld, but Marco's flagship manages to head on toward the Ring. The attack on the Ring Station goes similar to the novel -- the Giambattista dumps out a horde of cargo containers and drop pods. Medina Station spots the drop pods and engages them and the Rocinante with the railguns. But the Rocinante can't maintain speed enough to evade the guns without burning out its reactor. Clarissa manages to fix the reactor. Amos and Bobbie land on the Ring Station and move on the railguns, they suffer incoming fire. Armor-piercing rounds that shred through the armor of their landing team. The Rocinante can't offer assistance as the railguns are keeping them pinned close to Medina, and firing torpedoes risks the Ring Station getting angry. Bobbie goes off to take out the reactor herself, manages it, and comes under heavy fire. Then, and this is honestly kinda dumb, Amos throws himself in front of Bobbie to protect her even though the show has told and shown us that his armor can't withstand those bullets. But whatever. But by destroying the reactor, they now can't use the guns against Marco. En-route to Medina, Marco asks Duarte for more ships. Duarte tells him to get hosed, basically. In the TV series proper, excluding the Strange Dogs stuff, this is our introduction to Duarte -- a scene that's maybe a minute long. It's very odd. The Strange Dogs stuff isn't much better about introducing him, to be honest. Anyway, Filip is still on the Pella at this point. Filip is disturbed by the death of Rosenfeld and Marco's behavior. Naomi and co. figure out the plan to invoke the 'ring entities' against Marco. It works and Marco and his fleet are destroyed, with Marco's last moment realizing that his son abandoned him. Filip snuck off the Pella just before the destruction of the ship, but Naomi doesn't know this. Naomi screams, believing that she's just killed her son. And while I won't say this makes the ending work -- lots of people were disappointed by this being the resolution to Marco -- putting some emphasis on the emotional cost at least makes it feel a little better. I also thing the ring entities have been more of a presence in the story at this point and toying with them is seen as a much more threatening event. Again, still not great, but they're doing everything they can to make it work better. Afterward, the transport union stuff is much as it goes in the novels. Holden, however, is made President of the Transport Union. Holden, true to form, immediately throws a wrench in Avasarala's plans by stepping down and placing Drummer in charge. Bobbie becomes the Rocinante's new pilot. As the Rocinante flies off into the stars, and Naomi reflects that the important thing is to try and help people even if it comes at the cost of feeling good about yourself, Holden wonders what happened to the protomolecule sample... And that's the end of Season 6 and wraps up the discussion of Babylon's Ashes. I'm going to take a little break before getting stuck into Persepolis Rising, mainly to wash off as much of my dislike for Ashes as I can so as not to have the seventh book inherit my distaste for is predecessor. The series gets pretty different from here, some parts better and some parts worse. There are also a bunch of things I didn't mention about Season 6, but I'll just kind of throw them in here. The season fixes the weirdness of Season 5 by properly establishing that Earth is dying instead of it being treated as a 9/11 analogue. The crew grapples with the loss of Alex and it's actually decent, if you can ignore that it was not done for the benefit of the story. Drummer inherits Pa's story which is better, but still not great. The series disregards things like travel time and communication lag in a way that draws comparison to the last few seasons of Game of Thrones, which was disappointing. The Strange Dogs prologues are basically pointless and I think the showrunner said they were an attempt to get the show uncancelled. The show also gets a little too set on fan-service, such as talking up the long-awaited meeting of Drummer and Avasarala. The fact that the Ceres sets were destroyed during the first cancellation means that, despite all the scenes set on Ceres, it's all just this one hallway and portside dive bar. Rosenfeld is a woman, Dawes is dead. Marco isn't the one who wishes to abandon Ceres, seeing it as an important symbol. Filip is more obviously conflicted and Chase-Owens can fill him with sympathy. Keon Alexander, however, struggles with some of Marco's lines and has some really clunky deliveries. Clarissa and Holden benefit from scenes together, too. Duarte feels miscast, which is odd because the show usually has impeccable casting.
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Apr 4, 2023 01:45
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Book 7: Persepolis Rising Welcome back. So, we're out of the woods and the worst of the series is behind us. But where would this series go after Babylon's Ashes? Where could it go? I won't get into my thoughts just yet, because Persepolis Rising certainly begins with... Well, not quite a bang, but certainly a choice. Prologue: Cortazar Persepolis Rising, Prologue posted:Almost three decades had passed since Paolo Cortazár and the breakaway fleet had passed through Laconia gate... The thirty-year gap also exposes something of a storytelling problem with the series and one that is being echoed, apparently, by the interquel comic series Dragon's Tooth that is being released presently. The middle three books -- Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes -- do not need to exist to tell this story. Ultimately, these books are totally irrelevant to what's coming next, and the most important part is just "Mars tore itself to bits and the most hardcore Martians snuck into Laconia with half the fleet." You could have easily gone from Abaddon's Gate to Persepolis Rising and lost nothing. I'd argue that the thirty-year gap wouldn't be quite so stark, either. Thirty years after the ring gates opened? Sure, let's skip ahead to the consequences! But thirty years after some dude died? (Apparently, Dragon's Tooth is based on an outline for three books set between Ashes and Rising and while, honestly, I think that's just marketing-speak, I think the Coreys made the right choice to skip over it.) Anyway, Cortazar gives us a refresher on recent events. Over the past thirty years, Laconia has built a little civilization. The protomolecule was designed to be a 'bridge builder' and the slow zone/ring station had been a hub of a empire beyond any idea of human scale. Cortazar loves the protomolecule. Laconia has been exploiting the protomolecule for military research, even if some of the infantry armor they've developed has an unfortunate tendency to "permanently bond to human skin." Cortazar has an appointment with "Him." Yes, capitalized. He takes a detour to "the Pen" which is the second most secure facility on Laconia. The Pen is something of a gallery of horrors where people and animals who have been deliberately infected with the protomolecule can be "milked" for more of the substance. Laconia throws its own people in there if they're found, say, in dereliction of duty. So, that's Laconia. Cortazar collects two injections and heads for the State Building. He's there to meet with High Consul Winston Duarte. Cortazar likes Duarte, basically thinking he's the greatest man alive. It's kind of interesting that the Laconian power armor suits are dark blue like the UN ones are. Duarte is being dosed up with a special mixture of the protomolecule, and it's having some odd effects. For example, he hasn't slept in eleven days to no ill effect. He's the sort of cool teacher dictator who tells Cortazar to call him Winston, not High Consul. Persepolis Rising, Prologue posted:“The ironic thing?” Duarte said. “I’ve always rejected the great-man idea. The belief that human history was formed by singular individuals instead of broad social forces? Romantic, but…” He waved a hand vaguely, like he was stirring fog. “Demographic trends. Economic cycles. Technological progress. All much more powerful predictors than any one person. And yet here I am. I would take you with me if I could, you know. It’s not my choice. It’s history’s.” Persepolis Rising, Prologue posted:“If you want to create a lasting, stable social order,” Duarte said, “only one person can ever be immortal.” How has Sol fared in thirty years? How about the crew of the Rocinante? What have they done for thirty years? They'd be in their sixties and seventies by this point! Well, we'll find out next time!
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May 2, 2023 08:29
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Duarte (I guess this constitute spoilers???) should've been the most interesting character in this series, instead of the narrative equivalent of "guy who gets hit by a bus in the middle of his speech". The God-Emperor speeches with Holden as his Duncan Idaho could've been so fantastic.. Missed opportunities.
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May 2, 2023 14:07
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General Battuta posted:Duarte (I guess this constitute spoilers???) should've been the most interesting character in this series, instead of the narrative equivalent of "guy who gets hit by a bus in the middle of his speech". The God-Emperor speeches with Holden as his Duncan Idaho could've been so fantastic.. Missed opportunities. I agree. The promise of Persepolis Rising's epilogue is utterly wasted. This sounds like a backhanded compliment, but I don't mean it as such. I think the Corey team has a wonderful ability to craft epilogues that make you go, holy poo poo, where is this going? But they just can't seem to develop them in a way that does justice to that initial hook. The ending of this novel is probably the most obvious. Persepolis Rising: Chapters 1 - 4 It's been thirty years. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We meet our four core perspective characters/protagonists: Camina Drummer, Bobbie Draper, Santiago Jilie Singh, and Jim Holden. Chapter One: Drummer TSL-5, presumably standing for Transfer Station Langrange-5 is about to be open for business. Drummer is now President of the Transport Union. Earth (referred to by Drummer, oddly, as Terra) has finally been pulled back from the brink of destruction -- all it took was Martian terraforming expertise, ruthless UN administration, and a market of "thirteen-hundred-odd" worlds. A lot of this chapter is concerned with the Transport Union, so, I'll go ahead and sum it up. The Union has had three presidents before Drummer: Pa, Tjon, Walker, Sanjrani. Pa is self-explanatory. Tjon has never been mentioned before. Walker is presumably Carlos Walker, OPA bigwig mentioned in Babylon's Ashes. Sanjrani was part of Marco's inner circle -- huh, pretty interesting that two of Marco's people ended up as the head of the Transport Union. Operation Paperclip? Within the decade, the Union intend for every one of the thirteen hundred worlds of the expanse to have their own version of TSL-5. These stations mark the end of planetary sovereignty. Things move between the planets only with the assistance of the Belters. In return, apparently, members of the Transport Union cannot head down the gravity well. Drummer notes that the treaty she signed prohibits her from going down to Earth. Seems a little odd to me. One thing I'll note here is that Drummer feels very much like Avasarala. I think that's intentional, as, if my memory is correct, we'll learn later that she tutored Drummer in the art of politics. At the same time, I think this is somewhat disappointing for this political-focused character to feel like, well, the last one. But that's kind the problem with stories with a timeskip like this: it feels a little odd to see Drummer like this, but it'd also feel odd if nothing had changed. That said, Drummer of the books is not the Drummer of the TV series. Nemesis Games came out in 2015 where she was basically Fred's lieutenant. Season 2 began production in 2016, where Drummer was introduced earlier and massively expanded. In the TV series, Camina Drummer basically went through Michio Pa's arc. In the books, she hasn't. Persepolis Rising is the novel that establishes that her first name is Camina. So, it's all a little awkward. One thing to note is that while Drummer inherited Pa's polycule in the TV series, in Persepolis Rising she has one husband, Saba. Anyway, Drummer gets a priority call. She worries it is a lost ship, but it isn't -- in fact, one ship went through unscheduled and without a transponder. The ship had come in from Freehold and headed out to Auberon. It did not, however, 'go dutchman' -- that is, vanish like the Barkeith and Marco Inaros' armada. Still, the need to carefully monitor and coordinate gate traffic to prevent any dutchman events means that one unexpected transit can screw everything up. Drummer goes to meet Secretary-General Li of Earth. Li gives a little speech about Earth and hope and Drummer thinks history has moved on from Earth. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 1 posted:She’d grown up in a universe where people like her were disposable, and she’d lived long enough for fortune’s wheel to lift her up higher than Earth’s sky. Everyone wanted the Belt for a friend, now that the term meant more than a cloud of half-mined-out chunks of debris trapped between Mars and Jupiter. During the meeting, mention is made of Persepolis Rising, Chapter 1 posted:There was even one question about the dead systems – Charon, Adro, and Naraka – where ring gates led to things much stranger than goldilocks-zone planetary systems. After the meeting, Drummer calls up Captain Holden. She sends him the data on the transit from Freehold to Auberon. She wants him to head on out to Freehold and tell them that "repeated violations of Transportation Union guidelines have triggered punitive action" and that Drummer is "banning all traffic in and out of Freehold for three years." Well, okay. And she wants Holden to take his time getting there, basically to make the people on Freehold squirm as they see a gunship coming at them. She sends the message, then orders the Rocinante put to the head of the queue. So, thirty years, and Jim Holden is still in command of the Rocinante. Drummer reflects that, over time, everyone had become allies among the stars... Chapter Two: Bobbie The Rocinante is heading out to Freehold, and Bobbie is onboard. They're still weeks away, but she's taking time to check out the Rocinante's ability to actually land there. The ship is old. Alex, still the pilot, is helping out. Amos is still the mechanic. Clarissa is still there, Naomi is still there, Jim is still there. This is something that kind of bothered me about Persepolis Rising, and I know a few readers frowned at it. It's been thirty years -- and our core crew members are all still there, doing the same thing, existing in much the same way. These characters would be in their sixties or seventies and, while mention will be made of aches and pains and how aging doesn't mean what it used to be, it's a little awkward. Thirty years? It could've been thirty days since the ending of Babylon's Ashes for the Rocinante crew. And like, it's fine. It's similar to the thing with Drummer where I don't think there's a way of handling it that won't alienate readers. Imagine cracking open Persepolis Rising and it's like, yeah, Clarissa died between books from her mod sickness, Amos lost his arm in an ship repair accident, Alex left the Rocinante and settled down with Sandra Ip... That's the problem you run into when your book series suddenly skips over more time than the previous six books have covered in their entirety. The characters can't really move on, but they can't really stay the same. I don't think it's possible to stress this enough -- it's been thirty years. If they're dead set on telling the story of Laconia, then there's no other choice the Coreys could've made. But was this the right move for The Expanse? Would it not have been better to establish a new cast for the last three novels? I don't know. I don't think there's any good answer, but keeping everyone basically as they were would probably alienate readers the least. Bobbie heads up to the ops deck and chats to Alex. Alex is bald and has an (ex-)wife named Giselle and son who is an engineering major. Bobbie had been Alex's best man at the wedding, and now he's divorced... again. Which I guess explains why he's still on the Rocinante. Bobbie thinks the divorce was the fault of husband and wife and, uh, acts like a twenty-something about it: Persepolis Rising, Chapter Two posted:The failure of the marriage wasn’t entirely Giselle’s fault, but Bobbie had picked Alex in the divorce, so acting like she blamed his ex for everything was part of the best-friend pact. Amos is in the medical bay. Clarissa -- or Claire, as Bobbie calls her -- is ill. Her gland mods are basically poisoning her body and while the Rocinante can filter her blood, it's not great. They can't remove the mods because it'd mess up her body even worse. Amos has thinned out over the past thirty years. Bobbie says she'll backup Holden, if only because she knows Amos wants to stick around on the ship to take care of Clarissa. Then, she goes off to find Naomi and Holden. Naomi gives us the lowdown on the colony: small colony, agriculture, lithium and uranium, and a citizen's militia. Freehold is not self-sustaining, and Bobbie worries that -- when they land -- they'll shoot them and try to take the ship. The Freehold colonists believe that there's no reason for the Transport Union to be taking tariffs on basic life-sustaining trade. Holden does his idealistic schtick. Persepolis Rising, Chapter Two posted:“The issue here,” Holden said, “is that we’re delivering a death sentence. Isn’t that right? We’re going to land and tell them they’re cut off from trading with other colonies. And they know they’re going to run out of usable food in a few months, and won’t be able to grow their own for years. The union is putting them in an impossible position. And by union right now, I mean us. We are.” Chapter Three: Singh Singh has been summoned to see the high consul. He considers it the single most important event of his life. He's preening in the mirror and his wife, Natalia, comes in to basically tease him and grope him and we get this sentence that feels like it came out of a terrible Japanese light novel: "The newly promoted captain in the Laconian navy gave an undignified yelp." Coreys, come on. After waking his daughter, Elsa, Singh goes off to see Duarte. He reflects upon hubris and the rise and fall of empires. Children, he thinks, forget the dreams of their parents because those dreams had never been their own. "Once the creators and their intentions were gone, only the tunnels were left." Protomolecule and the builders, right? That is why Duarte won't let himself die. While he lives, the dream of the Laconian Empire can be realized. Singh thinks that's all well and good, but has no idea why he's been summoned. Duarte sits Singh down for a meal and I feel like this is where you can really see, like, the GRRM influence on Franck because it's like, hey, here's all this food. Duarte asks Singh about his family, then about Captain Iwasa, Singh's former CO. Singh filed a report that got Iwasa stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged. Singh says that Iwasa failed to enforce the naval code of conduct, lied to an Admiral about it, and so Singh reported him to that same Admiral. Iwasa's issue was that dereliction of duty was not worth sending people to the Pen. Duarte asks Singh if he disliked Iwasa. Singh just says that wasn't it -- his CO was no longer his CO when he failed to obey the regulations. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 3 posted:“Yes, Admiral,” Singh said. “Duty isn’t a buffet where you pick what you want and ignore the rest. Provisional loyalty isn’t loyalty. Captain Iwasa’s duty was to enforce the code of conduct on those in his command. When he lied about failing to do so, it was my duty to notify his commanding officer.” Yes, the chapter is that short. Chapter Four: Holden Persepolis Rising, Chapter 4 posted:Holden had been in his twenties when the Earth Navy kicked him out. He looked back at that version of himself with the kind of fondness and indulgence that people usually extended to puppies that were overly proud of themselves for scaring off a squirrel. He’d signed up to work ice-hauling runs with a sense of turning his back on the whole corrupt, authoritarian, cynical history of his species. Even the name of the company he’d signed on with – Pur ’n’ Kleen – had seemed rich with meaning. A promise of integrity and purity. If it was also a little cartoonish, it hadn’t felt like that at the time. Holden says he's not there to negotiate. There were consequences for sending a ship through the gates without authorization and Holden's there to tell them what they are. He figures he can either follow his instructions to the letter, or fudge it. Holden says there's two ways it can go. The first is that the Transport Union cuts off all access to Freehold for three years, which means three-hundred people will die. Holden says that is the decision they made when they sent the ship through the gates. Ships heading through the gate will be "killed without warning" and all communications will be jammed. Option two is that Governor Houston comes with them for trial and jail time. Houston (get it, it's Texas, haha) says that they can shoot them. We get this little response from Holden that I think is worth noting: Persepolis Rising, Chapter Four posted:“If you just look at the hundred or so meters around this building, we’re totally outnumbered and outgunned. But if you expand that to half a klick out, I have a gunship. My gunship has PDCs. It has a rail gun. It has twenty torpedoes. Hell, it’s got an Epstein drive that can put out a plume that would glass this whole settlement if we pointed it at the right angle.” Holden heads back to the ship and thinks about Freehold as he goes. 263 highlights: Persepolis Rising, Chapter Four posted:That seemed to be the human pattern – reach out to the unknown and then make it into the sort of thing you left in the first place. In Holden’s experience, humanity’s drive out into the universe was maybe one part hunger for adventure and exploration to two parts just wanting to get the hell away from each other. Amos gives them an amiable smile when Holden and Bobbie return. Holden says they're waiting twelve hours. Naomi wants to know why. Holden says he changed the deal a little. Naomi doesn't think Drummer will be okay with it. Amos is like, hey, this is just what Holden does. Holden says he won't submit a whole colony to collective punishment because it is not what "the good guys" do. Naomi say, well, not without twelve hours warning. Holden's like, hey, I'm giving them a choice.In twelve hours, the colonists come by and surrender Governor Houston. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:06 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 04:01
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Oh, and no one else gets to say that these chapters are just the calm before the storm (The... Gathering Storm  ) because I'm saying that first. Like, I get it. But it's also a little tiresome that it's been thirty years and Holden is still just basically a hatchetman for a political organization he disagrees with. Like, that was his whole thing in Caliban's War, and then again in Cibola Burn. I'm not sure how much of this is an intentional invocation of nothing-ever-changing which is basically the MO of this series, and how much of it is just the Coreys churning these books out and writing what comes easily.
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May 18, 2023 09:02
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I'm reminded of how the Honorverse had a tiny 1-system polity run all trade and merchant ships in the universe, which seems about as likely as Mars and the UN allowing a random trade company to run all trade in the universe.
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May 18, 2023 10:36
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Eh I wholly believe that if there were a giant super traumatic event you could achieve some major political changes, including “this organization will handle interstellar trade so we don’t have another space genocide war.” Giving the disenfranchised space people a stake in the stability of civilization seems like an okay idea.
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May 18, 2023 22:16
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General Battuta posted:Eh I wholly believe that if there were a giant super traumatic event you could achieve some major political changes, including “this organization will handle interstellar trade so we don’t have another space genocide war.” Giving the disenfranchised space people a stake in the stability of civilization seems like an okay idea. I think where that kind of falls apart is the fact that said trade organization is given the power of literal life and death and can just go "Oh well, one of your ships broke a trade law, now you all die bye forever, we'll return to take your stuff after you're dead."
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May 19, 2023 02:08
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General Battuta posted:Eh I wholly believe that if there were a giant super traumatic event you could achieve some major political changes, including “this organization will handle interstellar trade so we don’t have another space genocide war.” Giving the disenfranchised space people a stake in the stability of civilization seems like an okay idea. It definitely makes sense that the Transport Union exists in the wake of the events of Nemesis Games and Babylon's Ashes, but I've been thinking about it for most of my work day and there's a few things that bother me about it. The first is probably the most political -- I don't think the answer to the problems of the Belt are remotely solved by just, somehow, turning all the Belters and the various factions of the OPA into a shipping company. It's a cop-out. "If only we included the Third World in our glorious project, they'd embrace us and stop fighting." But, like, that's basically The Expanse's socio-political ethos. The next is that I'm not sure how it works. Admittedly, we're only a few chapters in, but it's a few chapters that could've trimmed some of the fat and given us the downlow on how the Transport Union conducts itself, its role in the system, and how it fits into the political situation of Earth and Mars. That said, I think we can make some reasonable assumptions -- Earth was crippled and down to two dreadnaughts, Mars' best and brightest had hosed off through the Laconia gate, the Transport Union was instrumental in keeping things running while the inners focused on getting their poo poo together. My problems here basically stem from what I've said previously: without knowing more about the situations and capabilities of Earth and Mars, I'm not really sure what the strategic situation is. I'm also not really sure how the idea of 'Earth was fixed by exporting its biological substrates out to 1300 other colonies' works when the biosphere was collapsing but, hey. What we do learn about the Transport Union doesn't fill me with confidence, and it's a little weird. Earth and Mars basically cede sovereignty to anything past the TSL stations. Do Earth and Mars maintain navies? Does absolutely everything go through the Union? I've read that particular paragraph a few times and I'm not sure whether it's saying that intrasystem trade remains the problem of Earth and Mars, and the Union only gets involved with anything that goes via the gates, because mention is made that the TSL stations mark the end of the inners' spheres of control and that the only thing inners are responsible for is getting things up the well/s. And the idea that Drummer can't go down to see Earth because of the treaty between the Union, Earth, and Mars is very weird and, I feel, undercuts that idea of giving the Belters a stake in things. The Transport Union still maintains the ring station railguns that make Medina the most important location in the human expanse, and that strikes me as a very weird thing for Earth and Mars to leave in anyone's control. Maybe they couldn't stop it, but we know they had their two remaining dreadnaughts watching the Laconia gate. It's a remarkable display of trust to give multiple members of Marco's inner circle, who led a fairly popular revolution against the inner powers, four guns to put to the head of Earth again. Maybe that's the point. But also, as Kchama says, the Union appears to have some pretty broad authority if it can consign a (small) planetary population to death. So, it's not just a shipping company, is it? It's basically a defacto government. But they also don't maintain a navy, and instead require mercenaries to actually enforce their regulations. Okay, maybe Earth and Mars took a beating, but they'd still have decades and decades of infrastructure and bureaucracy that the Belt simply wouldn't have. That the colonies simply wouldn't have. Do they really have the capability to create 1300 transfer stations (three times the size of Tycho, Drummer thinks) in a decade? I always got the impression that Tycho was a pretty massive, unique installation. All that said, I think the Transport Union is similar to Laconia in the sense that its feels like it's one of the most sci-fi ideas in the series so far. "What if all interstellar trade was handled by people who were adapted to living in space?" And like you say, there's more than enough reasoning within the past two novels that means it works from a storytelling perspective. I'm basically examining the nuts and bolts. Which is where I think the disquiet lies. The way I see it, Babylon's Ashes left the Sol system with two problems: the dutchman phenomenon and the missing ships, which Naomi had basically figured out how to prevent, and the plight of the Belters who had (somehow) broken the backs of Earth and Mars. The Transport Union feels like an attempt to answer both by giving the disenfranchised outsiders perhaps the most important seat at the table. And I think the scale of that is what makes it feel awkward because they're not only a trading company of vital importance, but the guys who keep the space monsters from waking up. I think it's one of those things that works well as Holden's zany idea and ending thought for Babylon's Ashes -- but less well when it's thirty years later and it appears to have worked out beyond anyone's hopes. Avasarala had said that the best the Union could hope for was "limited" sovereignty. What changed? The other thing is that it feels like the Coreys borrowed from Dune. Back in Babylon's Ashes, they even called it "the spacing guild" but Holden wasn't married to the name. But Dune's monopolistic Guild is a vital part of the setting and Herbert understands just how much power the guys who control all trade and space travel would have. Here, it feels like the writers just kind of copied it without the thematic richness and/or interrogation of economic power versus political. The Guild having so much power was a sign of the instability of the Empire, that it was a corrupt husk. But here, the Belters basically being given control over space capitalism is this, like, new united age of peace and prosperity in Sol.
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May 19, 2023 13:13
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Oh, and no one else gets to say that these chapters are just the calm before the storm (The... Gathering Storm Isn't this just their RPG roots showing?
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May 19, 2023 17:15
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Isn't this just their RPG roots showing? It's probably an element in it, yeah. I also feel that after Cibola Burn, the books really just fell into a bit of a by-rote formula. If you get offered a nine-book deal, I suppose you take a nine-book deal. But I feel like the enthusiasm for the series is pretty diminished. It's sloppier, there's the constant tribal references, the ridiculous ending and arguable re-write of Babylon's Ashes, etc. Persepolis Rising, Chapters 5 - 8 After thirty years, Holden seems to actually put his foot down about something he realized in Caliban's War; the Laconian gathering storm prepares to break. Chapter 5: Drummer Drummer's having trouble sleeping. She's lying in her two-person crash couch aboard People's Home, "first and largest" of the void cities. She has to be up in two hours anyway, so, she decides to get up. Also, she needs to pee. Ever since it was pointed out back in Caliban's War, it feels like someone needing to pee is mentioned in every novel. Amiable smiles, half-finished meals into recyclers, tribes, and the urge to urinate -- the three constants of humanity. Something I was wondering about here is, like, why are Drummer and Saba sleeping in a two-person crash couch? Mention is made that it's to account for the spin of the void city, or if it had to manoeuvre suddenly, but even the Rocinante has bunks. The Pella had bunks. And it's not just 'bunk' meaning 'place you sleep' because these bunks are often called beds. Anyway, Drummer doesn't think she has a home anymore. Before she had accepted the presidency of the Transport Union, she'd lived on Medina and aboard Saba's ship, the Malaclypse. Now, she has rooms all across the solar system, including the three void cities that "made up the spine of the Belters" dominion -- Independence, Guard of Passage, and People's Home. Well, the Coreys still aren't very good at naming spaceships. The way the next paragraph describes it, People's Home -- and presumably, the other two void cities -- are basically massive mobile space stations. There's some description of the approximate shapes and methods of construction and such, but it all basically goes over my head. Like, I get it. Some people probably like nodding along with the stuff about magnetic fields and thrust gravity and so on, but all I come out of it is with some slight confusion as to what a void city is, and the Coreys could just say 'wow, protomolecule-infused technology had let them build some crazy space stations, and moving on.' Saba wakes up and he and Drummer discuss the oncoming day. Drummer has to meet with Carrie Fisk and her Association of Worlds. Basically, it's a dozen colonies negotiating as a single bloc, and they're gaining in influence, and this annoys Drummer. Saba asks about Freehold, and Drummer ignores it to talk about Auberon, who are about to construct a "universal polypeptite cross-generator." Which is basically a magic box that allows them to turn organic matter on the colonies into stuff humans can eat. Which Drummer is concerned about as it means that Earth will no longer have a monopoly on soil and farming substrates. Drummer and Saba have some cutesy couple moments and it still leaves me thinking of Avasarala and her late husband, Arjun. Like, they're basically the same character and I keep 'hearing' these chapters in Avasarala's voice. It wouldn't surprise me if they were written for Avasarala and maybe someone was like, uh, she'd be like one-hundred at this point -- how about someone else? Drummer has a breakfast of white kibble and sauce. Y'know, it's funny. As quickly as white and red kibble have showed up, and sort of become a bit of a meme, I'm pretty sure the earliest mention of this cultural staple is in Nemesis Games. And my understanding is that Belter kibble was basically poor people food that'd become a staple because they didn't have anything else. I don't know whether I read this like, wow, Drummer is remembering where she came from... or whether the Coreys just kind of go, uh, she's a Belter, and they eat kibble, and so she has kibble for breakfast. It's like the amiable smiles or Holden's coffee stuff, just a checklist. I think the kibble had more of a prominence in the TV series, which this could be a consequence of. A message comes in to Drummer from Holden. We skip over that and head to Drummer's meeting. At the meeting is Emily Santos-Baca, who makes me wonder if she's a relative of Bull, and Fayez Okoye-Sarkis. So, Fayez and Elvi are married now -- cool. Fayez is there representing the Chernev Insititute and sort of sums up the current state of things. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 5 posted:“When my wife was an undergraduate, back in the day,” he said, “her fieldwork involved tracking rodent species that had adapted to live in high-radiation zones. Old reactors and fission test sites. They had evolved to fit into environments that were specifically created. By humans. Well, we’re those rodents now. We’re adapting ourselves into spaces and environments that were left behind by the vanished species or groups of species that created all this. The changes in technology we’ve seen are immense, and they promise to be just the beginning.” Book 9: I really do not like the direction the Coreys took the protomolecule builders, and the 'secret theory' behind the whole series. But we'll cross that river when we get to it! What is funny, though, is that for all the big Reddit posts describing the subtle cleverness of it... I don't think even one mentioned that Fayez spells it out. I don't even want to call that foreshadowing. To me, foreshadowing has a cryptic element. You don't realize it's foreshadowing until the moment has passed. Babylon 5 handled foreshadowing really well, I think. For example, the way Londo mentions that he's had a dream where G'Kar, his nemesis, and himself die choking each other to death. You don't think much about it. Then they become mortal enemies and you go, oh, I see how that would happen. And then you actually see it in the future and go, huh, yeah, look at that setup, wow, two years in advance. But then, ultimately, it didn't tell you the context: it wasn't too hated foes killing each other, but a merciful death from someone who had become a grudging friend. Like, it's right there in the name. Foreshadowing--a shadow is not a true representation of a thing. It'd be really different if Londo Mollari just... said that, oh, in twenty years, G'Kar will kill me but we'll have gained new respect for each other (maybe) and... Anyway, in this meeting, Drummer continues to remind me of Avasarala. Fayez wants the Transport Union to help them out with getting passage to promising research sites on the colonies, and also to provide funding. Drummer says they're not a government but a shipping union, and all they do is take things from place to place with infrastructure that lets them do that, and that they can't handle research contracts. But they evidently can just... kill a small colony? And Earth and Mars has given them that authority? Like, were those sovereign citizens technically citizens of the UN or whatever? Drummer thinks she'd have accepted Fayez's idea, had she not got Holden's message from Freehold. Drummer says Fayez can submit his proposals and the Union board will discuss it. After that, she heads back to her private office and brings up a map of the system. She thinks it looks something like "images of a snowstorm on Earth" but has "never seen snow to know how accurate that was." Huh? I feel like they meant Drummer's imagination of a snowstorm, but got it wrong? She looks at Saba's ship seeming so close to People's Home yet being so far away. "A failure of scale" and we get another Expansian mediation on, y'know, scale in space which feels like something we've seen in half these novels, if not more. Drummer misses the way things were in her youth -- when it was just the Belt, Mars, and Earth. Then, she begins putting together a reply for Holden. Chapter 6: Holden Politely put, Drummer says, Holden's solution isn't going to work. She says the Union can't put someone in jail and they're not a police force. They don't have prisons or prisoners or judges. What they have are contracts, and they can levy fines and penalties as a consequence. What, including killing off a whole colony? Holden's watching the message with Alex. Drummer goes on to say that the reason he was sent out there was to set precedent -- not negotiate. Holden's like, so, it was theater and then an execution. When he arrives at Medina, Drummer says, Holden will have a statement for him to read, and he'll read it word for word. "You don’t get to make the universe be what you want just by saying it, Holden." Alex says she has a point -- if they start hauling in bad guys from all of the colonies, then that's a big task. But cutting them off from everything if they won't play nice? Alex thinks that's fine as it doesn't "change what the Transport Union is." Holden gets that it makes sense when all the colonies can support themselves, but what about now, when they can't? Alex is like, sure, but what if it was Bara Gaon Complex or Auberon and Holden, obviously, points out that it isn't. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 6 posted:“This is Freehold. If we cut them off for three years, the colony would collapse, and they’d all starve. So right now, yeah, she’s saying we should kill them. Only she’s phrasing it so it sounds like it’s just the natural consequence of their choices and not also ours.” Holden thinks Drummer will let them win this one, if only to prevent the Rocinante from refusing to obey, but then the next one might be tough. Holden goes down to see Naomi in her sleeping crash couch. Maybe ships just don't have beds anymore? Mention is made that the crew are all taking "antiaging meds." Holden says he thinks it's time to retire. Holden brings up that when they were hunting pirates, he could accept their surrender. The Free Navy would've been arrested. But the Union is willing to kill people as a matter of policy and Holden feels like an executioner and he doesn't want to do it. But I mean, in Caliban's War he was basically Fred's personal hatchetman, and the Free Navy involved a lot of killing? Like, this is basically his crisis of faith from the second novel. Holden thinks the colonies should have a say in how the Union is run, and that they didn't elect Drummer. Naomi points out they didn't elect any of the leaders, including Sanjrani and Pa. But Drummer's the only one cutting off trade. Naomi says: “And when one thing changes, other things change too.” Deep. Holden thinks he could put out a press release, get the Association of Worlds to pressure Drummer. Or maybe just let someone else take up the fight. Or maybe just sell the Roci. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 6 posted:“You remember when we first got the Roci?” she said. “We were on the run from, oh, I think everyone? Flying this stolen ship. You asked if we wanted to sell her, split the money, and all of us take an early retirement.” Persepolis Rising, Chapter 6 posted:No, Holden thought. No, I will never leave this place and these people. This is my home, and no matter what the dangers and threats and fights are, I will stand this ground. This is where I belong. Where we all belong. But Clarissa says the air recyclers just had an alert to drop oxygen to zero and flood the ship with nitrogen. Luckily, she'd had a patch in place to just lock things down. Holden heads down to the Rocinante's brig -- read spare crew cabin -- and finds it empty. Uh-oh. The governor of Freehold has basically juryrigged his escape. Oh, and there's a little doors and corners reference that feels nice as opposed to hackneyed.Chapter 7: Bobbie Bobbie is in the Rocinante head and reflecting how the bathroom works in space and how good it is that's there's no "pee globes" sharing her living space. No comment. Yes, you know where this is going -- the Rocinante's thrust gravity cuts out. Alex gives her a sitrep and she goes off to find Holden and Amos, who are just inspecting the makeshift brig. Amos thinks it was his fault. Holden says they just have to stop him from doing anything worse. Bobbie says he's down in engineering, if he was able to cut the drive and spin the ship. They might have to cut their way in, but Holden thinks the issue there is that -- if backed into a corner -- the governor might blow the Rocinante's reactor. Amos and Clarissa will hook something up to the door and will use it as a last resort. Bobbie will be sent in without her armor, Betsy, as it can't fit via the back maintenance causeway. You might be thinking, what, her armor is called Betsy? Since when, Milkfred? And you're thinking the same thing I am. It's established as Alex's nickname for the armor in this novel, and I guess Bobbie likes also using it because... Anyway, Bobbie has to head outside the Rocinante to get into engineering through the maintenance back door. She reflects about how the crew of the Rocinante have become her family. Sure, she has a big family back on Mars, but she "rarely" speaks to them. Instead, Amos is her big brother and Clarissa is her little sister and Holden and Naomi are her parents and Alex is her platonic best friend. I'm remembering my comments about the found family trope here, in how it's a replacement for blood relations, and it stems from the reader (and/or writer) having a less than perfect relationship with their own siblings or parents. Yeah, it's probably pretty tough negotiating a family life when Mars is falling to bits. Might as well just run off with Holden and pals. From memory, Bobbie's family life back on Mars wasn't even particularly bad. Amos isn't a gruff big brother -- he's a psychopath on a leash who only thinks of not picking a fight with her because he knows he'll lose.. Clarisa isn't an annoying little sister -- she's a murderer, perhaps the worst in the series so far. And there's nothing saying you can't form bonds with people with dark pasts, but it's so cloying instead of having Bobbie coming to terms with them as people. Anyway, she adopted them as her "kin and tribe" and now Governor Houston is threatening them.While Holden calls for Houston to negotiate, Bobbie heads in. Holden says he has to eat eventually. Houston says he's found Amos' snack fridge. In the end, Houston says that while he can't do much past the lockdown, he can probably induce some kind of reactor explosion if he just fucks with it a bunch. Bobbie heads in and gets ambushed by Houston, who just about brains her with a fire extinguisher. Bobbie breaks her arm in the fall. He charges her and she elbows him in the face, knocking him out. Problem solved. Afterward, while she's recovering in the mess hall, Holden comes in and asks if Bobbie wants to buy the ship from him. He outlines that they're thinking of leaving and taking it easy. Bobbie seems to be about as emotion-dumb as Amos is which is... odd. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 7 posted:It was more of a hit than anything Houston had managed. The ache started just below her ribs and spread up. She didn’t know what it meant yet. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 7 posted:“I wonder what the universe looks like without James Holden trying to ride to the rescue.” Chapter 8: Singh Singh! Yes, we will! Like, this kind of stuff is goofy ("I hope [character] is okay out there..." cutting to "[Character] was not okay" -- that kind of thing) but I like feeling as if any given author is having fun with their story. The Coreys are obviously going for a gathering storm sort of deal, so, it's fine. In a multi-POV story like this, it helps feel as if they've thought about how and when to cut between characters. What is less fine is that Singh is having an Expansian Dream Sequence but it is, luckily, not even a sentence long. Singh's navigation officer lets him know that they're about to rendezvous with the Heart of the Tempest. There's an interesting little slip here where Singh is referred by his first name in the dialogue tags ("Santiago said") whereas he's always otherwise referred to as Singh. Santiago's a fun character, and I remembered liking him well enough on my first readthrough. For example, he's such a stickler for the rules that he notes, in his own permanent record, that he forgot to put classified material away within his own quarters. If his superiors decide to punish him for it then, well, what happens happens. You get the vibe of an officer who is out of his depth and aware he's out of his depth, and it gives him a certain kind of sympathy that, say, Havelock, Filip, or whoever else hasn't had. Singh feels like a character who could potentially go all-in on Laconia or perhaps oppose them. The captain's quarters open right onto the bridge, which feels like an interesting insight into the Laconian way of life. The Captain sleeps or he commands. We have our first mention of Colonel Tanaka, Singh's chief of security, and someone who'll show up again later. The Storm and the Tempest (see, I never would've taken Laconia for having a storm-themed naming convention) are about twenty-three minutes away from each other. The Heart of the Tempest is the first of the Magnetar-class of battle cruisers, which is a bit of departure because often the first ship of a class sets the name for the class. Singh has only seen concept sketches. The Gathering Storm is a Pulsar-class fast destroyer, and the Tempest can fit a dozen of those inside its hull. The series is still italicising class designations. We get an assessment of Laconia's capabilities: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 8 posted:The Heart of the Tempest was one of only three Magnetar-class ships to come out of Laconia’s orbital construction platform. The Eye of the Typhoon was assigned to the home fleet and the protection of Laconia itself. The Voice of the Whirlwind was still being grown between the spars and limbs of the alien orbital arrays. And while the fleet now consisted of over a hundred ships, the Magnetars were the largest and most powerful by far. Singh heads over to meet Admiral Trejo aboard the Tempest. Trejo was a veteran of the Martian Navy, and Singh considers him a military genius. Trejo is a fairly warm individual who instructs Singh to call him Anton and I like the note that Singh realizes it's just a bit of a tactic. The pair make small talk as an excuse to kind of tells us what we already know about Singh -- gifted military academic, has a family, etc. Trejo may or may not consider him a naive "true believer." Trejo asks Singh to explain the problems of controlling Medina. Singh gives us an overview: it houses the heads of the planetary coalition and their various staffs, with maybe ten thousand people aboard in total. Laconia has been observing them through the gates for a while now (Earth and Mars haven't been doing the same back?) and so have an idea of what's going on. Medina's offensive capability consists of one missile launcher of eight rails and perhaps forty missiles. Trejo asks if they're nuclear. Singh says probably not. Which is like... Look, everyone gave Battlestar Galactica poo poo for talking up the danger of nuclear weapons in space. But here, in the Expanse, we know they have fusion power and plasma warheads. I'm not sure why Trejo would be wondering about nuclear capabilities. Whenever the Expanse has mentioned nuclear torpedoes, and it's not too often, it's usually in the context of using them against a planet. In ship to ship combat, it's plasma warheads. Either way, Singh says they don't have nukes onboard because they'd pose a risk to the station itself due to the confined nature of the ring hub. Okay, sure. But the slow zone is a million kilometers across. (I suppose they could be referring to nuclear fusion warheads but the general idea of a nuke is a fission weapon (and they do refer to them as thermonuclear weapons precisely once, it appears, in Leviathan Wakes.) Either way, the things that make nukes especially dangerous here on Earth require conditions that aren't present in space. And as an aside, the reason why the Cylons used nukes is because the basestars were orbital bombardment platforms designed for a genocidal alpha strike -- radiation is great for that!) The hub station is still equipped with the Laconian railgun network, which Singh describes as "aging." Each gun can fire a round every two seconds. It makes you wonder what their railguns are like now. Singh mentions how clever a strategy it is, which feels odd because wasn't that a Laconian strategy in the first place? We also get a comment from him that, like Fayez earlier, feels like he had access to the worldbuilding folder. The Tempest's first target is the railgun fortification while the Storm (okay, less fond of these names now) takes control of Medina. With Medina under control, Laconia will have control the communications and trade for thirteen hundred worlds. And Singh will oversee operations on Medina, running the logistics for the whole of human space. Singh worries about the Sol system, though. Laconian intelligence says that the Earth-Mars Coalition has returned its fleet to pre-war levels of preparedness. Laconia might have newer ships, but the Earth-Mars crews has fought in "two serious wars over the last few decades." Honestly, I would've anticipated that one-hundred cutting edge Laconian ships would've been enough to sweep aside Earth and Mars regardless. I thought Earth and Mars lacking the capability to project force was one reason why the Transport Union could exist. Maybe we should've got some details on this kinda thing at some point. Trejo isn't concerned about the home field advantage, nor the advantage of experience. Because, as he puts it: "The Tempest was built for one purpose, and one purpose only. To render every other power in the known galaxy irrelevant." Dun dun. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 31, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 08:17
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People don't care about the physics of nuclear weapons though. They have a significant cultural impact due to being the number one way we could all die in a horrific mushroom cloud. The reader's not going "well acktually nukes in space aren't nearly as scary," they're imagining Hiroshima.
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Jun 1, 2023 00:10
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But why would Singh or Trejo care about that? "Oooh, that scary event that happened on Earth like four-hundred years ago." You can't really consider a million kilometres "confined" enough to make nuclear weapons something that Medina Station would not have in its launchers. The point of the exchange is that Medina can't defend itself and it relies on the railgun emplacements. This is a series that gets a lot of talk about the authors doing the numbers and getting the physics right, but they've flubbed it bad here. What's more, they flubbed it in a way that's just unnecessary. Just say as per terms of the Transport Union's control of Medina, the station itself had to be stripped of weapons. There, done. I feel that argument is both a pretty bad indictment of both the Coreys as writers and the general readership.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:37
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I’ll actually stand up for Expanderinos a little here. AIUI the idea that nukes are less destructive in space is kind of a misconception. There’s no atmosphere to tamp the x-rays emitted by the blast into a fireball, which means no shockwave and reduced mechanical effect. But that same lack of atmosphere means the x-rays just…keep going. And they’re very destructive on their own, especially to human bodies. Nukes go from weapons that burn and crush a relatively small area to weapons that poison or just instantly kill people at surprising range. E: neutrons from the blast also keep going, whereas in an atmosphere they’d be stopped pretty fast, and neutron radiation is very bad for you General Battuta fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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Jun 1, 2023 14:35
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General Battuta posted:I’ll actually stand up for Expanderinos a little here. AIUI the idea that nukes are less destructive in space is kind of a misconception. There’s no atmosphere to tamp the x-rays emitted by the blast into a fireball, which means no shockwave and reduced mechanical effect. But that same lack of atmosphere means the x-rays just…keep going. And they’re very destructive on their own, especially to human bodies. Nukes go from weapons that burn and crush a relatively small area to weapons that poison or just instantly kill people at surprising range. True! But I don't think this really matches the vibe of the combat (nor, say, Holden's oncocidals being because of Eros and not something you just kind of might have to get used to when you've got anti-ship torpedoes going off in your general vicinity.) But, as usual, I'm a big dummy when it comes to physics. Persepolis Rising, Chapters 9 - 12 Chapter 9: Bobbie The crew are having dinner in the galley, and Bobbie is reading the anxiety in a rather Amos sense: "in her throat and legs like she was about to get in a fight." It really makes me wonder if we weren't supposed to have Amos chapters sometimes, but then they swapped them at some point. Holden mentions what he and Naomi are going to do: they're cashing out over the next ten years. Bobbie isn't sure how people feel about it. Amos's smile is affable and not amiable. Bobbie's angst about it all is... Well, I don't know if it works. I've mentioned before that Bobbie being brought back into the story felt like a response to fan approval for the character, that it was weird that Holden considered her a close friend when they'd barely known each other, and now there's been thirty years where they had all these adventures, and so on. The thirty-year gap just sticks in my teeth. It doesn't feel like thirty years. Cast your mind back to 1993, and just think about everything that's happened in that time. There's been wars, recessions, etc. The gap between Books 6 and 7 might be said to be thirty years, and has to be about thirty years for Laconia work, but for the core cast of the Rocinante it feels more like three years. Especially concerning Clarissa, which we'll probably get into at a more appropriate time. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 9 posted:“Have I been an rear end in a top hat and just didn’t know?” Holden asked, making it about half a joke. Bobbie thinks about how strange Holden is, the difference between Captain James Holden and the Holden she's come to know. I feel like this has been mentioned in every book since, jeez, Cibola Burn? Persepolis Rising, Chapter 9 posted:The Holden she knew was a guy who drank too much coffee, got enthusiastic about weird things, and always seemed quietly worried that he would compromise his own idiosyncratic and unpredictable morality. Bobbie goes to see Amos. She asks him if he'll be okay with the two leaving, he says he will be. Amos says she should go see Clarissa, so she does. Clarissa is getting another treatment in the medbay. Bobbie wants to hire someone to take Clarissa's place, and she can stay on the ship or Medina. Clarissa breaks down and says she'll miss Holden. Turns out Holden never had a chat with Clarissa about what to do in the event of her death or even just when she requires euthanasia, which Amos has said he'll take care of. Bobbie is surprised that Holden never actually talked about it with her. It's an interesting note to leave the chapter on: is Holden a bit of an airhead, did he not want to face up to Clarissa's death because he cares about her now, was he comfortable leaving it with Amos -- or did he genuinely not give a poo poo what happened to her, did he want her to suffer? Chapter 10: Drummer Drummer is meeting with a bunch of Union types. On the planet Fusang, they've found what appear to be some "claw or seedpod" that induces transcedental mind-altering effects. We get an idea of what's been happening since Cibola Burn: sometimes colonists settle on a planet and find weird things in nature, or weirder ruins. No one really knows what the 'seedpods' are. Drummer says they can be shipped as alien artifacts with isolation protocols. After the meeting, Drummer talks with Emily Santos-Baca about the Rocinante problem. They've basically abducted a colonial governor, and Drummer thinks the Association of Worlds is going to make a fuss. Emily says they've thought about asking the UN for a charter, but don't think they should go back down the well to ask for permission. Drummer reflects she has no real use for the Earth-Mars Coalition. Drummer suggests that by making the UN take responsibility, it means Houston and such will end up in a UN prison. And the Union will remain fairly neutral. This kind of discussion feels like something that should've come up in the thirty-year time gap! Santos-Baca says they need to face up to the fact that the Transport Union is the government of thirteen hundred worlds. Drummer says she just wants to run a transport company. Then they're interrupted by a message -- there's activity at the Laconia gate: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 10 posted:“Citizens of the human coalition, this is Admiral Trejo of the Laconian Naval Command. We are opening our gate. In one hundred and twenty hours, we will pass into the slow zone in transit to Medina Station with a staff and support to address Laconia’s role in the greater human community going forward. We hope and expect this meeting will be amicable. Message repeats.” That doesn't feel right. I had a brief skim back through Babylon's Ashes and Nemesis Games but I thought Duarte's coup took a much bigger chunk out of the Martian navy. Not to get too tactical about it, but if Laconia has 33% of the Martian navy, and Mars still has 66% and then you factor in the Earther fleet -- why did anyone let Laconia sit there for thirty years? I guess the idea is that Earth and Mars lost a lot of ships in the Free Navy conflict? Earth was down to two battleships, but they put them both on Laconia sentry duties. As mentioned, Earth and Mars have rebuilt their navies, and have big technological breakthroughs based on reverse-engineering Protomolecule technology: new armor, new weapons. Even if Laconia has been able to do something similar, Drummer figures they don't have the shipyards and infrastructure to actually construct anything. Which, of course, Laconia does. But again, I just kind of wonder why neither Earth nor Mars kept one eye on what was going on in there. Did no one wonder just why a third of the Martian fleet decided to head there? The idea, I think, is that Duarte realized what he was looking at it and kept it secret -- but did no one else wonder why an Admiral and a big chunk of the fleet headed there and went, hey, don't come knocking? Drummer thinks that the most likely scenario is that Duarte's "private banana republic" has finally gone wrong enough that they're coming to beg, threaten or barter for whatever they need to maintain their power. We're also reminded that the final sample of the protomolecule went missing during the Free Navy conflict, but no one seems to have figured out what happened to it yet. This is something that has surprised me in the re-read. In my memories, no one really knew that Duarte was linked to Marco, and everything made a little bit more sense that way. But in the previous two books, people basically knew about it immediately and openly discussed it. But no one has supposed that maybe the protomolecule sample has ended up in Laconian hands? Another report from Medina comes in -- the ship signatures are either unregistered or so different that they don't match anything in the database. Drummer thinks that there "had been at least one Donnager-class battleship" in the rogue fleet, and that it could be it. And then she... goes off to ask Santos-Baca about it. Santos-Baca is like, lol, why should I be worried about a fleet of out-of-date Martian warships? Persepolis Rising, Chapter 10 posted:“I think we’re about to see a bunch of self-centered assholes who’ve realized that their glorious independence isn’t going to work out in isolation. If we can keep them from losing face, we can probably find a negotiated path to reintegration. But Mars is going to be a problem. They’re going to want all of them trotted back to Olympus Mons and hung as traitors.” It'd be far more palatable if Drummer teased it at like a splinter, instead of just having these puzzle pieces thrown on the table in front of it her and not even caring about the fact she could put some of them together. Is it really likely to be a Donnager-class if the system is saying it doesn't match anything? How did the Laconians survive for thirty years? Why does Trejo sound so confident in the recording, as Santos-Baca states? What happened to the protomolecule sample? Why did they pick the Laconia system? Are any of these things linked? Instead, Drummer is like, well, this can maybe help us get Earth and Mars interested in policing the colonies. And if there was going to be a war with Laconia, then it is Mars' problem -- it's, in her words, nothing they can't handle. I just think that if almost a third of the most powerful navy in the Solar system went and hosed off through one of the gates, that system would become the most monitored system in the galaxy. There'd be covert infiltrations, listening posts, probes. Laconia only threatened to deny passage. Did Earth or Mars ever test it? Did Mars maybe run some recon-in-force? Like, not to get too tactical realism on this but... well. It's been thirty years, and it's just hard for me to believe that Earth and Mars sat on their butts and went, okay, I guess we can leave those hardcore weirdoes to whatever mysterious devices they're doing in there with a third of the deadliest fleet in the system. We know that Laconia was able to get pretty solid intel on the Earth-Mars Coalition (how, what methods, did the Sol powers have counter-operations, were they even aware, why or why not?) so why were Earth and Mars apparently not able to do the same? Again, if it was a few years between the books and the Sol powers were still in the process of handling their issues and regrouping -- yeah, that'd make sense. But it's been thirty years -- three decades. I think characters being blind-sided by something from Laconia only works when they genuinely can't see it coming. Or, better yet, they do their best to figure out what's coming -- and still get sucker-punched because who could've suspected they had an alien super-ship. Outside context problems, baby. Is this that idiot ball TvTropes talks about? Are they trying to make a point about the invisible arm? Drummer even remembers, and still gets upset about, the coup against Fred. Wouldn't that maybe make her look a little bit deeper? Pay more attention to things that seem strange? Did not a single person remember or realize that Laconia had constructed some very impressive railguns based on protomolecule technology only a few weeks or months into the Free Navy conflict? It just makes me think that anyone who has run a scam knows that it takes someone to trick, and someone to be tricked. Chapter 11: Bobbie The Rocinante arrives at Medina. Bobbie reflects that Holden's last act as captain of the Rocinante is to hand over a prisoner. Drummer's threat of a prepared statement he'll be made to read does not eventuate. The crew goes out to a club and Holden and Naomi leave at one point, leaving Bobbie with Alex, Amos and Clarissa. Alex is reciting lines from his neo-noir film collection which is something that might've been fun... back in, I don't know, the first novel. Bobbie heads into the captain's quarters and takes official control of the Rocinante. Mention is made that Holden and Naomi have a two-person crash couch, and this just sticks out to me because the previous novels always said it was a bed. Holden left a message basically saying, hey, thanks for this, the ship is great, if you need anything just give me a call. But there's also a message from Medina Station security, asking for Captain Holden to come along to a meeting regarding a mandatory security contract concening the "incoming ambassadorial contact from Laconia." Captain Draper attends. The head of Medina Station security, Onni Langstiver, has her there with the captain of another gunship, the Tori Byron. Langstiver thinks that the ambassador will come through and dock, talk and so on. But if not, the railguns will take care of them. Bobbie asks if they have intelligence about what's coming through the gate, whether it's a Donnager-class battleship, something smaller, or even just a diplomatic shuttle. Langstiver says they thought of it, but decided not to be "provocative" and that it wouldn't change their plans regardless. Okay. Bobbie suggests sending through a ship with a fruit basket, Langstiver says that is against "Union rules." Instead, Tori Byron will wait by the gate and the Rocinante will wait in Medina's shadow. Bobbie wonders if Holden would've kicked up a fuss about this, and decides that she won't try to beat sense into a stone like Holden would. When Bobbie returns to the Rocinante, Alex asks if there's a plan. She basically says nope. Alex hopes that the Laconians try something, not just because they're traitors but because of "theft." Which is, y'know, ironic. Alex asks if he can keep Holden and Naomi on the Rocinante comms, and Bobbie okays it. After another 'wow, the scale of space...' paragraph, the hours tick by. Then, something begins to come through the gate. A big ship. Maybe the (singular) Donnager-class the Laconians had (was it one, or at least one, Coreys?) and then... Persepolis Rising, Chapter 11 posted:The ship that came through first looked wrong. It was something more than the weirdly organic shape of it. The way the false color struggled to make sense of its surface was like a graphical glitch or something out of a dream. She found herself looking for seams where its plating came together, and there was nothing. Her mind kept trying to see it as a ship, but defaulting to some kind of ancient sea creature from the deep trenches of Earth. Alex is like, what the gently caress, where did they get that. The Tori Byron hails the Laconian ship and orders it to stop. It does not. The Tori Byron gives a final warning, hits it with a targeting laser, and immediately gets reduced to a "sparkling cloud of matter." Bobbie orders everyone to open fire. (Seriously, nothing would change about this if the Sol powers were a bit more competent and aware. Just have them scrape together a small flotilla, have them send some probes through but go, huh, the readings are real odd so we've passed them back to the intel nerds but the ship will get here before they finish their analysis... See what I mean?) Chapter 12: Holden Holden has just transferred the Rocinante and Rocicorp to Bobbie. There's a woman serving him the paperwork, and Holden thinks of as "the puffer fish" because of her hair, which brings to mind some of the other ways Holden has had these weirdly shallow (and misogynistic) thoughts on women in previous novels. Naomi says that she can get a job on Luna, because Holden can visit his parents and-- wait, they're all alive, and back on Earth? It's been thirty years, and not one of them has died? Even though they're all, according to Holden, "pushing the centenarian mark?" They go down to watch the big arrival and it does not "go well." Soon, Holden's running toward the Medina command center, listening to Bobbie shout fire, fire, fire and Alex is... passing him the Rocinante's tactical display. Three of the railguns are firing on the Laconian ship, which strikes me as a bit of a goof. The whole point of the ring railguns was that there were six of them and any four of them could concentrate their fire on any ring. The railguns hit the Laconian ship, the Heart of the Tempest, and it repairs the damage as fast as they can inflict it. Something happens, Medina shakes, and Holden loses his connection to the Rocinante. Naomi thinks they should find a shelter, Holden says he has to get up to command. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 12 posted:Because I’ve fought in three major wars, he thought. Because the Belters running the station are the ones that didn’t join Marco’s Free Navy, so they’ve never been in this kind of fight. They’ll need my experience. All perfectly true and probably valid reasons. But he didn’t say them out loud, because he knew Naomi would see through them instantly to the truth. Because something terrible is happening, and I don’t know how not to be in the middle of it. Holden figures that they're going to board Medina and take it by force, and it won't be much of a fight if they have more tech like the Tempest. Holden suggests that all the officials should get to secure locations, and all the security forces to stand down and not to repel boarders. They purge Medina's security system to deny Laconia any information on who is aboard. The Laconian marines take control of the station, killing only those who try to fight them. Holden thinks they're pretty "admirable" because they don't abuse anyone nor act with bravado or bullying. Eventually, they reach the command center and Colonel Tanaka arrives to take control. Holden tries to provoke Tanaka, and she does not rise to the bait. Later, Singh arrives to take control. He has a blue-gray uniform, which Holden finds odd because he expects Martians to wear red and black. I'm still wondering what color the Earth navy wears because, well, blue-gray sounds about right (and is what the TV series went with) and surely if they look like the UN Holden would have thoughts on it. The whole event has taken less than four hours. They get gathered into an auditorium and Admiral Trejo gives a speech. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 12 posted:“As you know, we have accepted control of Medina Station. And yes, we intend to take control of all the thirteen hundred worlds it leads to. This isn’t an act of aggression, but necessity. We bear no ill will or animosity toward any of you. As you’ve seen, this will be as bloodless a transition as you allow it to be. I’m bringing you here to implore you to please, please, contact your home worlds. We will make communications available for anyone who will tell them to peacefully relinquish control to us. If they do this, there will be no need for violence of any kind.” Trejo says that they'll basically let everything continue -- the Transport Union, the Association of Worlds, etc. Their work, according to Duarte, is important. The Laconian fleet will take over security, and the various colonies will be required to pay a tax that will be invested back into the system to begin a golden age of man. But if anyone defies this government and bright future, they will be "eradicated without hesitation or mercy." Persepolis Rising, Chapter 12 posted:“Ah,” Naomi said, though it was more a long exhalation than a word. “The nicest totalitarian government ever, I’m sure.”
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Jun 22, 2023 07:04
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Oh, right. You ever wanted to see if I can put my money where my mouth is? Well, after getting seven books into The Expanse, and caring far too much about warship designations and whatever else, I've got a novel out in the wild. I figure people might get a kick out of it. It's an "anticapitalist post-superhero thriller" with big inspirations being The Boys and Neon Genesis Evangelion (and, yes, The Expanse series.) You can find it HERE. First six chapters now, then one every single day until it's done.
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Jun 22, 2023 07:08
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Nice to see people ITT discussing the story. Took a long break after Reading 1-3 and watching seasons 1-3. Thanks for leading us along, Milkfred Just finished Cibola Burn and it's kind of rewarding to see others have similar praise and criticisms of the story. I'll probably power right along and do 5 and 6 right away. Are there any 'spoiler' concerns if I watch season 4 as I'm reading book 5 and 6? I'm not super fearful of it, since I'm glad to look around itt, but would prefer to read a big plot point than see it on the show. Along those lines, can I watch all of the show after I finish Babylon's Ashes, or do we go further into the story?
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Jun 22, 2023 22:30
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81sidewinder posted:Nice to see people ITT discussing the story. Took a long break after Reading 1-3 and watching seasons 1-3. Thanks for leading us along, Milkfred Kind of, yes. Season 4 heavily foreshadows a particular event that happens about halfway through Book 5 that is honestly better experienced as the authors intended it -- blind and out of nowhere. But after you finish Babylon's Ashes, there's nothing to worry about because the series wrapped up there. And no problem, thanks for following along!
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Jun 22, 2023 23:24
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Persepolis Rising, Chapters 13 - 16 Laconia takes control of Medina Station. The Sol powers are flummoxed and so is Singh. Chapter Thirteen: Drummer Persepolis Rising, Chapter 13 posted:"We were all taken by surprise," McCahill says. "And I think we can all agree that this was a failure of intelligence." Everyone is meeting in a small room. Even the liaison of the Earth-Mars Coalition is there. According to Drummer, everyone in the Sol system wants "answers and leadership" from her. Which, again, makes me wonder just what role the Transport Union plays in the governance of the Sol system exactly. Lafflin, the liaison, says that they just never had any data on Laconia. Laconia had flooded their side of the gate with electromagnetic chatter, preventing the Sol powers from gaining "passive intelligence." Earth and Mars sent a few probes through, but they got disabled or destroyed. As Laconia never presented an "active threat", Mars and Earth seemed content to leave them alone. Drummer is like, wait, how could the missing Martian navy never have been a priority? The sleeping dogs, she reflects, had been left to lie until they had become good and rested. And Drummer's exasperation feels like another one of those lampshade things -- yes, reader, we get that our writing here is a bit nonsensical. I understand that the plot needs this invasion to happen and, I suppose, it's fine, but I don't think it works with the basic facts of what we know.
Then Avasarala shows up, barging into the meeting. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 13 posted:“You’re about to gently caress up,” Avasarala said, and her voice was harder than stone. “I can keep that from happening. And we can have that conversation here in front of these poor loving shitheads, or you can roll your eyes and humor the crazy old bitch with a cup of tea and we can have a little privacy. You can blame me for it. I won’t mind. I’m too old and tired for shame.” Avasarala says she has studied Duarte. Turns out, he got his career in the navy because, at twenty years old, he wrote a logistics-based strategy to take control of the solar system from Earth and the Belt without firing a shot. Heck of an undergrad paper, I guess. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 13 posted:Drummer frowned, opened the book to a random page. The control of resources can be achieved through three strategies: occupation, influence, and economic necessity. Of these, occupation is the least stable. Drummer thinks Avasarala is giving her all this info because she's making the case for defending Earth, and that it is the responsibility of the Transport Union with "the void cities and gunships" to do so. But I mean... Earth and Mars have rebuilt their fleets, right? So where are they, what are they doing, and why is the Union treated like an overarching government? Drummer knows that the plan is to defend the inner planets, and she thinks it is the right strategy, even if it is "naked self-interest" on the part of the inners. Drummer isn't sure how to reach anyone on Medina to try and coordinate anything. Avasarala says that Earth has ways of reaching Medina that she doesn't know about. Also, and maybe they'll bring it up later, but couldn't you just... engineer another Dutchman Event to wipe out the Heart of the Tempest if it tries to move into Sol? It didn't seem difficult to do in Babylon's Ashes as a fairly improvised maneuver. It was a math equation and one freighter. Just keep a bunch of similar ships near the gate and pop one through as the Tempest moves to transit. Chapter Fourteen: Singh Colonel Tanaka, who I'd forgotten appears in this novel, is briefing Singh about the situation on Medina. Basically, it's a generation ship that got converted into a waystation and it's not at all like what they expected to find. The loss of the security and engineering databases isn't helping things, either. Tanaka is described as being "insolently stretched out across a chair" and I'm picturing her, like, draping over it like a stretched-out cat... which I'm not sure is the vibe the Coreys are going for. Tanaka is older than Singh and he thinks she is basically pantomiming respect. Singh says he has a meeting with the Belter authorities. Tanaka asks him how old he was during the "Io campaign" which is, yes, the climax of Caliban's War. He was a child, and those events were the seeds of the Laconian insurrection. Tanaka tells him not to leave his office without his security monitor on. Singh feels humiliated. He tries to make her understand the chain of command by being a stern hard-rear end, but it doesn't seem to do much. Singh meets with the Air, Water and Power Authority. They resist him, telling him they don't work for him. Singh says they can work for him, or he can have Laconians come in and Carrie Fisk, President of the Association of Worlds, comes in and Singh makes her an offer. The old Association had no actual power -- it negotiated laws it could not enforce. Singh says Duarte is offering to allow them to create binding laws backed by the military power of Laconia. She can take the offer, or they can tear the structure down -- Fisk accepts. Lieutenant Kasik tells Singh that they're next meeting with Onni Langstiver, former head of station security. Singh complains that the recycling systems on Medina are "decades out of date and badly maintained." What, I thought Belters were always on top of that sort of thing? The Doctrine of the One Ship or whatever it was! Kasik is, like, who cares, we can just bring in water from the Storm. Singh says they should actually fix the problems on Medina, even if it's basically just to show how awesome Laconia is. Also, I don't really like how the two bad guys ships are the Tempest and Storm. Langstiver arrives. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 14 posted:Onni shrugged again, a short lift of both hands that did not involve the shoulders. The psy-ops briefing on Belter culture had talked about this. That most of their physical gestures had evolved to use the hands only, because they spent so much time in vacuum suits that body language was invisible. Singh tells Langstiver he's no longer head of security and that he'll hand over any information or files he has in his possession. Langstiver says they were all purged. After Singh dismisses him, Langstiver brings up the Tempest's magnetic weapon: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 14 posted:“Okay. So when that beam thing hit the hub station that pinché ball glowed bright yellow for que, fifteen seconds. Anytime anything hits the ball that dumps any energy into it, you get these little flashes of yellow. This is the first time the whole drat thing lit up, and fifteen seconds is a long time.” Singh wants to go check on the data concerning the gamma-ray burst. As far as he's concerned, he's found a way for Laconia to shave months off their imperial timetable. He thinks he's won the empire for Laconia, and without needing to fire a shot in anger. Chapter Fifteen: Bobbie The chapter opens with Bobbie reflecting on her time in the Orbital Drop Task Force. Her sole purpose was for the invasion of Earth. Earth had more people and a bigger industrial base, but Mars had the ability to hit back hard. Bobbie claims to have trained for that day, getting used to Earth's gravity, preparing for urban combat, and getting ready to command obedience from the people of Earth through the threat of death. Except I'm remembing how in Caliban's War, Bobbie realized that such a possibility was bullshit and that Mars would never actually have a chance of beating Earth on the ground. Like, she'd done all that training for nothing because Earth's civilian population would beat the marines to death with sticks and stones. So, it feels weird to have Bobbie being all ooh-rah about it without remembering her big moment where she realized all of her training was for nothing. She's watching some of the Laconian marines in their power armor. She chats them up, mentioning how she used to pilot a Goliath suit in the MMC. She says she was on Io and Ganymede, but after a brief pass at the marine, Bobbie heads into the dockmaster's office. The dockmaster tells her that the Rocinante has been impounded by Laconian Naval Command. Bobbie wants to know if it's a permanent impounding, if the ship will be commandeered, and if she'll get compensation or an opportunity to retrieve personal effects. The dockmaster gives her a form to fill out. She meets up with Alex, Clarissa and Amos. They haven't heard anything from Naomi or Holden. It's a little weird to me that they still call him Holden, now that I think about it. Bobbie is drunk. Alex wants to get the Rocinante back. Amos thinks it sounds like a pretty bad plan, given the overwhelming Laconian advantage. And we get what might be our first example of drama between our main characters in, like, seven books: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 15 posted:“Hey, rear end in a top hat,” Alex said, half standing up from his chair. “At least I want to do something more than feel sorry for myself.” Nemesis Games, Chapter 4 posted:If Amos could be said to have a philosophy, it would be that. The concrete replaces the forest. You get in its way, you get paved over. If you can find a way to live in the cracks, you can thrive anywhere. There were always cracks. Bobbie wants to know what Duarte wants, and why he kicked in the door now. Clarissa says it's because "some men need to own everything." Which she relates back to her father buying up some of the largest rice growers on Ganymede. Not because he wanted to get into rice growing or even to use the political pull it'd grant him, but just to have it. She also, of course, equates Duarte to a domestic abuser. Bobbie's like, yeah, and they've got all this protomolecule poo poo -- including the power armor. She figures that the probes found something on Laconia, something that made ships and armor and whatever else. She figures that Marco's people were already in positions of power on Medina, and they sent the information to Duarte first. Who then plots everything, grabs the Martian navy, kicks off the Free Navy war, and fucks off through the gate. Guys, what if Marco... was just a tool of Duarte! And it's like... Okay? Like, I've said this is why I though the Inaros-Duarte connection wasn't really something that came up until this book, because everyone acts like it's new information. And not something people were openly discussing thirty years before. Alex suggests they see if they can find any old Martian vets who might know Duarte. Amos notices Omni Langstiver acting suspiciously, heading into the administrative sectors -- and just as they spot them, Langstiver and his people produce weapons and open fire. Chapter Sixteen: Singh Singh has just finished going over the data. The Tempest's magnetic weapon hit the hub and was amplified exponentially. Singh figures they don't need to build defence batteries anymore. They could use one Magnetar-class to cover every single gate. And admittedly, while I understand this reasoning, does this even matter? Are the colonies packed full of warships? But Singh wonders how Langstiver knows this. And just as he thinks that, he spots the man approaching. Kasik gets shot, and this really affects Singh. Singh's marine guards throw him to the ground and blow the Belters to bits in just a few seconds. Singh basically goes into shock. Kasik dies on the operating table three hours later. Singh doesn't get it. Laconian intelligence is calling it a rebellion, yet how could it be a rebellion when it wouldn't have done anything to put Medina back in Belter hands? Trejo would've just put in another governor. He remembers what Tanaka said, about Belters resisting authority, and thinks he understands it now. He calls Tanaka in who explains that Langstiver's attack was made up of one part security forces and one part criminals, coordinated via a secret encrypted network. And now that they're all dead, they have no one to interrogate. Tanaka does a Belter shrug, of all things. Singh suggests curfews, checkpoints, and restricting station security to quarters. Tanaka appears to start taking Singh serously, but does not support the crackdown -- she thinks it'll just cause Belters to push back. Singh tells her to implement his plan anyway. Tanaka refuses. Singh promptly strips her of command and tells her to bring her second in to take over. He sends a message back to Laconia basically going, yeah, Tanaka just isn't the right fit, not her fault, don't punish her. Then he sends one to Admiral Trejo, telling him about the gamma burst and how it'll allow them to take absolute control of Earth and Mars in weeks.
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Jul 1, 2023 07:44
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Wait a minute, what’s the Proteus? I entirely do not remember the Proteus.
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Jul 1, 2023 13:33
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General Battuta posted:Wait a minute, what’s the Proteus? I entirely do not remember the Proteus. It's a ship that shows up in Chapter 21 of Babylon's Ashes. We don't learn much about it, beyond that it's a Laconian ship, "one of the first ships built at a shipyard on the far side of the rings", that it might not have an Epstein drive, and there's this little note that "it was just a ship... not like [the Laconians] were flying there on the back of a dragon." It's the ship that brings in Captain Montemayor, the guy who helps fortify the ring station and Medina. So, it's obviously supposed to be another protomolecule-derived alien design (which the TV series confirms.) In Chapter 8 of Persepolis Rising, there's a mention that the Proteus-class has been retired, and that's it. Additionally, I think they capture a bunch of Laconian marines during the assault on the super railguns... So, what happened to them, too?
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Jul 2, 2023 01:27
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It's also interesting to me that Persepolis Rising hasn't really told us what a Belter is. I mentioned in Nemesis Games that it feels like the Coreys had either forgotten what a Belter was, or had deliberately introduced the idea of 'severe' Belters to soft retcon the books for the series' benefit. But I think it's pretty striking how we're sixteen chapters in and the Coreys haven't touched on the unique physiology of the Belters. Sure, they've mentioned they were an exploited underclass, and there's bad blood between them and the inner powers, but the physiological aspect is completely missing. Why is that odd? Well, for one, Naomi spent at least twelve hours on Freehold to no ill effects. Twelve hours beyond whatever the initial arrangement was. Naomi doesn't have any problem with this, despite the fact she's thirty years older than she was in Cibola Burn where the effects of being on Ilus were fairly debilitating, and even at half a gee Freehold is above what most Belters find comfortable (.1-.3 gees, Naomi mentions later that Luna's .16 gravity is ideal.) Holden doesn't even think about Naomi's physiology potentially being a problem. Drummer doesn't ever bring up that inners and Belters look different. The young Laconian marines, who've probably never seen a Belter in the flesh, don't seem to notice them even though it'd be such an easy way for the Coreys to make them look like jerks. Even Singh, the guy who lives and breathes Laconia, doesn't note that any of the Belters he encounters are these, like, nine foot tall stick people with huge heads. We've had more time spent on the Belter shrug than actual Belter physicality. Surely the fact that Belters are physically weaker and more fragile than your average Laconian would've come up when they're making plans to occupy Medina. On the one hand, we're seven books in and maybe it's deliberately writing under the assumption that everyone by this point knows what a Belter is. But with Naomi spending so much time on Freehold with not a single person commenting on it, it really feels like the writers just forgot. Or it's a deliberate attempt to smooth over the TV interpretation. But what came first? Are these later books reacting to the TV series, or were the Coreys already tired of the big head space Belters when they were doing the first season? Were the Belters even a Corey invention, or one of the bits they borrowed from someone else? Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jul 3, 2023 |
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Jul 3, 2023 11:10
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:It's also interesting to me that Persepolis Rising hasn't really told us what a Belter is. I mentioned in Nemesis Games that it feels like the Coreys had either forgotten what a Belter was, or had deliberately introduced the idea of 'severe' Belters to soft retcon the books for the series' benefit. But I think it's pretty striking how we're sixteen chapters in and the Coreys haven't touched on the unique physiology of the Belters. Sure, they've mentioned they were an exploited underclass, and there's bad blood between them and the inner powers, but the physiological aspect is completely missing. Considering you've commented a lot of on how the Coreys tend to have a 'checkbox list' for stuff they need to repeat basically every book, I'd be shocked if this was the one thing they decided was something that didn't bear repeating or using as part of the story again. It's like the one really unique thing that the setting has to offer and is ripe for causing all sorts of reasonable drama and issues. So it sounds like they retconned it, perhaps in service of making the show cheaper to make. Fat lot of good it did them.
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Jul 4, 2023 00:55
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Kchama posted:Considering you've commented a lot of on how the Coreys tend to have a 'checkbox list' for stuff they need to repeat basically every book, I'd be shocked if this was the one thing they decided was something that didn't bear repeating or using as part of the story again. It's like the one really unique thing that the setting has to offer and is ripe for causing all sorts of reasonable drama and issues. So it sounds like they retconned it, perhaps in service of making the show cheaper to make. That's true. If you asked people what made the Expanse unique, you'd probably get 'protomolecule' and 'Belters.' What I don't get, however, is how it'd be a really simple thing to address, and also show us something about Holden and Naomi. Holden walks in and goes, hey, we're hanging around for another twelve hours. Naomi mentions that her joints are getting a bit sore and she's not as young as she used to be. Then you can have a few things going on -- Holden's got his heart in the right place but he pushes limits, Naomi is tough but maybe a little annoyed, but they're adults and it's only half a gee and, well, it's for a good cause, right? Kind of like how Drummer says that there are "float-adapted" Belters who are the ones who can't handle more than a tenth of a gee. Which makes it sound like some Belters made the choice to not be able to withstand normal gravity, or maybe she's just being diplomatic (in her own internal monologue.) Perhaps notably, the Expanse wiki does not mention "severe" or "float-adapted" Belters -- every Belter is a two-meter tall thin 'skinny.'
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Jul 4, 2023 03:11
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Persepolis Rising, Chapters 17 - 20 Holden struggles to find his crew, then wiggles out of that jam easily. Drummer continues to do nothing, as does Bobbie. Singh also continues to do nothing, but in a fun way. Chapter Seventeen: Holden Holden and Naomi are passing through a Laconian checkpoint. Both of them make it through without issue. Medina's falling under strict curfews and work shifts. Holden and Naomi return to their quarters and have dinner. Holden says he wishes that there hadn't been an assassination attempt on Singh, Naomi wishes that it'd been successful -- then say it was a bad joke. With Holden not sure what to do, Naomi offers to have a shower with him. But it turns out it's not for sex, but because they have fifteen minutes where the water will obscure their voices. And so they talk about, y'know, making plans or going back to the Rocinante, while the Coreys throw in stuff about being grabbed in sensitive places or kissing each other or the feel of skin, etc. I've got nothing against sex in stories, but it just reads weirdly. If they just had sex, and it was skipped over, that'd be fine. Or if they just talked plans and tactics while under the shower. Instead it's kind of... a weirdly sensual discussion moment that comes across more as awkward than anything else. It just feels like something written, essentially, for the Holden and Naomi of thirty years ago. Holden's a bit freaked out by the Laconian crackdown. Naomi's like, hey, NBD, us Belters have been through this and I think I'm hearing 'Marco was right' on the winds but I can't be sure. Holden thinks they can be war refugees, or turn into insurgents. Neither of them thinks they can stay out of it. Later, Holden isn't able to sleep. He feels like a prisoner. He reflects that the Rocinante did "its fair share" of prisoner transport jobs. He thinks keeping someone in the brig is different to what Laconia is doing because you can step outside a brig and be free but not be outside Medina. Naomi and Holden step out of their cabin to go... somewhere. They pass by a lot of people who give them free stuff or treat them respectfully and Holden thinks that it's some deep human instinct. Near a cafe, a bunch of Laconians are building prison cells. Holden says: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 17 posted:“That’s how it works,” Holden said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Show everyone what the punishment is. Enough fear, and we’ll all be obedient. They’ll train us like dogs.” Chapter Eighteen: Bobbie Clarissa isn't doing so hot. Without access to the Rocinante, her condition is slowly worsening. She mentions that she thinks the atmospheric pressure is low and Bobbie mentions it's a Belter strategy she trained for back on Mars. They're waiting in line to get back to the Rocinante -- the docks apparently aren't off-limits as much as you need to wait in a queue (???) -- and then they do so. So, I'm a little confused about the ending of the previous chapter then. Turns out you wait in a queue to spend one hour on your ship, which isn't enough for Clarissa's blood flush. Clarissa says it's fine. A Laconian asks if the Rocinante is a Martian ship and then says they had "a lot" like her in the First Fleet. That is, the fleet Duarte took to Laconia. After grabbing whatever they need from the ship, Alex thinks it'd take him twenty minutes to boot up the Rocinante, and Amos has enough tools to cause trouble. Bobbie wants to get in contact with Earth and Mars. Amos thinks it'll be pretty simple. Three days later, Amos has got something for them. An old Belter (no mention of height, limbs, head, etc.) leads them down into a warehouse. Then they meet another Belter ("Tall and muscular...", "striking" and "pretty") who is, apparently, Saba -- Drummer's husband. Saba and Bobbie are tense. Saba's like, oh, you want to join the underground? Bobbie's like, well, we're better than those idiots who tried to kill the governor, so you need us. And then, uh, James Holden and Naomi walk in from the other side of the room? And Holden's like, oh wow, you've made friends with my old crew already. And I'm not the kind of person to go, oh come on, this is too convenient -- but it is a little, isn't it? I feel like the biggest issue with the Expanse novels on a sort of broad multi-book level is that they begin well, often have a great hook -- and then just start floundering somewhere between the 25-35% mark. It feels either like the plot is suddenly trying to jump rails to something else, or the characters start sort of... waiting around. Chapter Nineteen: Drummer Drummer is getting a message from Saba. Avasarala's covert contacts are able to get messages in and out of Medina. Saba has sixty-eight people broken into independent cells numbering three to eight each. Avasarala's network has limits, though -- the Laconian destroyer is handling all the Laconian comms, therefore preventing the Sol powers from breaking into the Laconian systems. A third of the Laconian force is busy with the checkpoints. People's Home is being flooded with diplomats, coordinators, and military attaches from the Earth-Mars Coalition. I'm still not sure what the Transport Union is. Lafflin shows up and says they have a plan, Drummer asks if it's being given direct control over the Earth-Mars fleets, but that's not it. Lafflin says they have a plan to deal with the enemy battleship, but it's basically skipped over. What is clear is that it will involve the void cities, which strikes me as an insanely bad decision, as they give the Union "a fleet at least as powerful as the EMC." They considered mining the Sol side of the gate with nukes, but, well, nukes in space and they're not sure if nukes can damage the rings. But I'm reasonably certain everything from Abaddon's Gate made it clear that they couldn't be? Hence the gambit with the super-comm-laser? You wouldn't even need mines. Just get a bunch of nukes or plasma torpedoes, have them sitting nearby, and then use a spotter ship (lol) to sit by the gate and fire them at the Laconian warship the moment it comes through. We know that this is the sort of thing that even the Rocinante could pull off. We saw something like it in Nemesis Games. A transmission comes in from Medina. Carrie Fisk basically goes "Hi everyone. The Association of Worlds is signing on with Laconia because Sol and the Transport Union consider us as second-class planets and citizens." Drummer calls her a quisling. Drummer goes off to shower and sleep. She is unable to sleep. I'm not sure how many chapters have had characters unable to sleep at this point, but it's beginning to feel like a weird little tic. Part of Drummer likes the idea of the Sol powers falling before Laconia because then she can be a Belter underdog again. The next day, she's having a meeting with Cameron Tur (the Union's science advisor.) Tur says a bunch of technobabble. Long story short is, when the Laconian Chapter Twenty: Singh Singh is having problems. No one is happy about his security crackdowns. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 20 posted:However the conversations were phrased, what he heard in them was always the same. The new rules will make people unhappy. They won’t work as hard. Sabotage will increase. Are you sure we want to do this? Admiral Trejo shows up. Singh, who has been weeping and vomiting into a trash can, has to clean himself up in sixty seconds. Trejo walks in and is like, wow, you look like poo poo but Singh insists he is fine. Turns out, Trejo is bringing good news: everyone loves Singh's gamma-ray burst plan. It went all the way to Duarte and he thought it was great. The Eye of the Typhoon (oh my God) will be on-station soon and she'll hold the ring system by shooting her magnetic cannon at the ring station if anyone gets uppity. Rear Admiral Song will be commanding the Typhoon, but Duarte will have operational command. The Tempest will be heading through the Sol gate in four hours. Singh worries that the locals might use that as an opportunity to do something. Trejo doesn't think it's likely, nor does he think Singh will have to deal with anything incoming from Sol once the Tempest pushes through. So that's Storm, Tempest, Typhoon. Singh attempts to politely dismiss Trejo. Trejo brings up Singh's dismissal of Tanaka. Trejo wants to know what happened. Singh says that Tanaka didn't support his crackdown and that her military experience did not prepare her for the situation on Medina. Singh says that Tanaka was used to dealing with a belligerent but non-aligned population and that, by mandate from Duarte himself, all humans are part of Laconia. Therefore, he's not dealing with foreign insurgents but citizens resisting arrest -- criminals. As he puts it: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 20 posted:"Any other reaction defies the imperial mandate and legitimizes them. I don’t need to win their hearts. I need them to understand that all the previous political bodies and relationships are irrelevant. We are not conquering new territory, we are enforcing the law in our empire." Trejo says that Tanaka was assigned to him to rub off some of Singh's stupidity and that, hopefully, she has. The point, Singh realizes later, was to drop the inexperienced true believers in the deep end and hope they can swim. By throwing Tanaka aside, he'd screwed up. He thinks Trejo was maybe not far from stripping him of his command, but now this is a test -- how will he recover? Singh calls up Tanaka. Singh apologizes, but only unofficially -- he won't put it into the official record, so as not to appear weak. Tanaka doesn't seem happy about it. Singh wishes her well in Sol and thinks that things can only get better from here.
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Jul 11, 2023 08:16
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I wonder what the Coreys think the "right" thing for Singh to do is, tactically. You figure they've got to have some kind of opinion on counterinsurgency!
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Jul 11, 2023 16:55
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The irony being that attacking the solar system seems like a rather ideologically driven decision then something the Laconians absolutely need to do.
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Jul 12, 2023 23:54
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I'm a few chapters ahead and trying to make sense of the Sol theatre and various decisions made by both sides regarding it, but I'll think I'll leave it for a bit. It tends to spiral out into a lot of aspects of Laconia and, of course, space navy particulars. I'm not even sure the Coreys realize the irony of the counterinsurgency stuff and the Transport Union making the decision to send the void cities into the fight.
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Jul 13, 2023 03:51
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Persepolis Rising, Chapters 21 - 24 Bobbie gets upset that Holden is famous and she isn't, Drummer spins her wheels, and Singh thinks harder than he's ever thought in his life and decides trials for some and exterminatus for others. Chapter Twenty-One: Holden Holden is reunited with his crew, and now all six of them are hanging out in a "smuggler's cabin" that is basically a storage locker they've converted into an off-grid sleeping area. Holden's worried that Saba would be annoyed with him because he's learned that Saba is married to Drummer, but Saba doesn't care. According to Saba, "three percent" of Medina is now set up so the Laconian security can't see it. No explanation is provided, but you'd think the Laconians would notice gaps in their various systems. Maybe they will. Saba also says they have support from the crew and they can send transmissions through the Sol gate. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 21 posted:In his peripheral vision, Bobbie leaned in. When he looked over at her, her expression was empty, but he had years of experience to tell him she was evaluating something. A threat, maybe, except that she was looking at him. Holden says that Medina is "our" station and that they know it better than the Laconians, including the doors and corners . But he also says that's only true until it isn't, and the Laconians adapt. For the moment, they're busy, Holden cautions, but they won't always be. Saba wants to create a long-term setup, Holden thinks they shouldn't be concerned about that. Saba agrees.Bobbie snaps at Holden. Holden asks Naomi if he did something to piss her off, but she has no idea. He goes to talk to Bobbie. Bobbie wonders if Holden is there to help them or hinder them. She's annoyed about his little cult of personality and how it's affecting the group. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 21 posted:“That’s absolutely you. James Holden, who led the fight against the Free Navy. And stopped Protogen from killing Mars. And captained the first ship through the ring gates. Brought people together on Ilus in the face of fifty different kinds of poo poo falling apart. You’re in the center of everything just by walking into the room.” Bobbie thinks Saba and co. have it all wrong, and she has an idea about what to do. But she needs Holden to say it, because if it comes out of her mouth she'll have to fight to prove it. There's this weird little bit where they basically go, oh, you're the lead singer and I'm just playing bass. Holden mopes about Bobbie being treated less than he is. Like I said, it's all kind of dumb. Twenty minutes later, after Bobbie has told Holden her plan (in between paragraphs), Saba comes in and Holden says they have a plan he wants to discuss... Chapter Twenty-Two: Bobbie The plan is to get intel from the Laconian ship. They can't get physical access to it, so, they need to passively monitor the incoming and outgoing signals and mirror it all. They can't decrypt it, but if they get the data then they can just decrypt it once they get the codes. Medina Station, having intended originally to be a generation ship, has a very powerful comm array. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 22 posted:Clarissa pushed herself out of the corner she’d been hiding in and came to stand next to Bobbie. She wore a mechanic’s jumpsuit with the name TACHI on the back, and had her hair pulled into a tight bun. Clarissa says the problem is they can't just mess with the array without the Laconians figuring out something is up. So, Clarissa says they need Saba's people -- seemingly led by a possibly severe but definitely sexist Belter named Ramez -- to get up on the ops deck and prevent the occupiers from learning about it. Holden will call Daphne Kohl and they'll use code words to act as signals. Bobbie and Clarissa will be outside the station, waiting for the go word. Ramez thinks the plan is stupid. But everyone goes with it. Later, Bobbie and Clarissa are outside Medina Station. Bobbie and Clarissa spend two hours climbing up the hull and make it to the comm array. Clarissa recalls how the comm laser had been part of a plan that might've ended all human life. Bobbie wishes she'd been there to back everyone up. They fire up the radio and chat with Holden using code words and so on. Clarissa gets to work on the comm array, while Bobbie... Goes off to plant a bug on the Gathering Storm? Anyway, we get our first description of it and, honestly, it isn't what I expected: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 22 posted:The destroyer – Holden had called it the Gathering Storm – looked like a natural crystal formation that someone had chipped into a knife. The colors were all translucent pinks and blues, faceted like a gem. She spotted something at the tail that probably served as the ship’s drive cone but didn’t look anything like the UN or Martian designs she was familiar with. The nose of the ship ended in a pair of sharp projections, like a dagger point with a channel cut down the center that left her almost certain it was a rail gun. If the ship had torpedo launchers or PDCs, she couldn’t see them. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 8 posted:The Pulsar-class destroyers were tall and sleek in design. To Singh’s eye they were almost reminiscent of old Earth naval ships. Or could it be that this is what the Proteus-class looked like, assuming the Coreys had a plan to do something more than that then they did? So, despite the plan being how it is because they can't get physical access to the connection between the Laconian ship and the station, Bobbie and Clarissa saunter over to a maintenance hatch and plant a bug on it. "Huh," says Bobbie. "I honestly thought that would be harder." Chapter Twenty-Three: Drummer The... poo poo, I genuinely can't remember the name of the Laconian super-battleship. The... Heart of the Tempest makes the transit to Sol, well before Drummer and her people are ready for it. The EMC fleet is still several days, if not weeks, from being able to deploy. The void cities are still en route. Drummer thinks that they could've used the gates against Laconia like they had with the Free Navy -- yeah, Drummer, you could've! Drummer shuts down the comm link between Sol and Medina to prevent the Tempest from picking up on it. A recorded message comes in from Admiral Trejo: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 23 posted:This is Admiral Anton Trejo of the Laconian Imperial Navy, and high commander of the Heart of the Tempest. I am presently on a mission to secure Laconian interests in Sol system. We recognize the deep cultural and historical importance of Sol system, and hope that this transition can be made peacefully and with the minimum of disruption. In the event that local forces resist, I am prepared and authorized to take any actions necessary to complete my mission. High Consul Duarte and I extend our best wishes to the local residents, and ask that you contact your governments to urge them to act in the name of peace. Violence is always a loss, and the measure of that loss is entirely in your control. Drummer reflects that the void cities are battleships with "greenhouses and schools, children and common space" and it's like, uh, maybe don't deploy them into action against a super-battleship that has a physics-defying magnetic death ray? But apparently, the Transport Union constructed them explicitly as a way to control the gates, armed with rail guns, missiles and PDCs. Drummer goes to meet with the representatives of Earth and Mars. She reflects on the streams and news: some see Laconia as a liberating influence, an end to the oppression of the EMC and TU, or that they're the true inheritors of Mars, or that the Sol powers should immediately capitulate. Admiral Hu of Mars is testy that Santos-Baca wants to make the EMC "a branch of the Transport Union." Persepolis Rising, Chapter 23 posted:“Thank you all for coming,” Drummer said. “As you know, a ship originating in Laconia system has now made an unauthorized transit into Sol system. The union’s stance is unequivocal on this matter. The Laconian incursion is illegal. It is a violation of the union’s authority and the sovereignty of the Earth-Mars Coalition. We stand as one body in the defense of the Sol system and all its citizens.” Later, Drummer is having trouble sleeping because she had a nightmare about Saba. The Tempest is moving slowly toward the inner system, it is not burning hard. Drummer goes down to the arboretum and finds Avasarala there. Drummer is concerned that Laconia has sent through one ship and only one ship. They didn't hold Medina, they didn't fortify, they haven't prepared supply lines or a flotilla. Just one ship. But, she thinks, all they have to do with deal with one ship and "everyone will see that Duarte is not invulnerable." All they need is one lucky break and Again, saving thoughts on all this until about Chapter 27. But personally, I would not be hinging up defensive strategy on one lucky break, whether that's against one battleship or otherwise. Chapter Twenty-Four: Singh Major Overstreet, Tanaka's successor, comes to see Singh. There's been a terrorist incident that involved a "loss of life" which means specifically a Laconian fatality: an environmental support specialist by the name of Imari. Overstreet's people have already been rounding suspects and will bring them in alive unless Singh says otherwise. Singh likes Overstreet more than Tanaka because he gets the vibe Overstreet will just do anything he says. Singh wants to form a justice system and put the suspects on trial, and to promote Overstreet to lieutenant colonel. Then, Singh goes down to see the suspects. All of them are Belters, and Singh is... not very good at interrogation. For example, he reflects that maybe he should've separated them out and done his talking one-on-one... but it's too late. I do like the Singh chapters. He's just such a dweeb. He makes them an offer -- he will ask the judge to find all seven of them guilty and have them all shot in a public place (holy heck, Singh), but the first one to cooperate will get to live. Singh has them separated into different cells on the way out. Overstreet appears skeptical about it. Singh is like, look, we're teaching them that ratting out each other is good citizenship. Overstreet would like to build an actual police force, Singh approves it. He also wants a thorough security review. Then, they go to see Carrie Fisk. Singh reflects that what he does to secure Medina will be established as the template for Laconian operations going forward. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 24 posted:Seven Belters had decided that killing a single low-level officer was worth risking all their own lives. That wasn’t a rational position. An enemy that bad at basic math might do anything. The colony worlds might decide that throwing a few hundred people with rifles onto a transport ship and trying a suicide attack on Medina made sense. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 24 posted:“It’s come to my attention that many of the social organizations of the old human power structures show a shocking inability to do risk analysis. They may foolishly attempt a doomed assault, thinking all they’re risking is their own lives. Reason doesn’t work with this kind of person. I need you to make them understand, on an emotional level, the price for such an attack. I will kill every single person on their planet. I assume even former OPA radicals have family members they care about, and whose lives they are less willing to risk on a romantic notion of a hero’s death.” Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jul 16, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 03:49
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Oh, and a magnetar is a type of pulsar and it seems very weird to me that the destroyers and battleships would share such a similar designation, especially when they all seem to be named after storms, tempests, etc and it suggests that every single ship in the Laconian navy is named after something like that. That said, Magnetar-class is a solid choice given that a magnetar has a very strong magnetic field, and while it is unususual there does not appear to be a Magnetar of the Magnetar-class, it is not unknown for the first ship to be not be named after the class.
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Jul 16, 2023 04:53
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Perspolis Rising, Chapters 25 - 28 Holden meanders. Bobbie gets into a fight, and wins. Drummer (and the Sol powers) blunder into a fight and take a bad loss. Amos is in a bad place. Chapter Twenty-Five: Holden Holden is... having trouble sleeping . His struggles to get back to sleep and his annoyance at not being able to is... fine, but also kind of boring. Do these everyday relatable moments really work? Anyway, he ends up going for a walk and he meets Naomi out there, and they go have breakfast out in the Laconian-controlled part of Medina Station. As they eat, Holden worries about the situation becoming normal, which is very reminiscent of Prax's thoughts about Ganymede back in Babylon's Ashes. Holden and Naomi think Laconia is winning.The pair return to Saba's hideout. He's going over the dump of info from the Gathering Storm, but they have no way of decrypting it. Saba asks Holden if something is wrong with Bobbie and his crew, but Holden says they're not his crew anymore. Holden sums it up as he's back in charge but also not and it's awkward. Saba mentions that things are getting tense and he's had to stop some of his people from inciting poo poo. A message comes in -- a traffic control plan update. Something big is coming through the Laconia gate in forty-two days: the Eye of the Typhoon. Another Magnetar. Another ship with enough people to begin the permanent occupation of Medina. Saba wishes he could tell Drummer, but she disabled the comm link to Medina in her last chapter. (As an aside here, I'm wondering: do the Laconians know about the gate limits?) Holden says they still have time do something. For the time being, their only obstacles are the Gathering Storm and maybe two-hundred to two hundred and fifty power-armored marines. They have forty-two days to get something figured out or, as Saba says, there won't be any more of them to do anything. Chapter Twenty-Six: Bobbie Bobbie, Alex and Clarissa are eating lunch. They are eating red kibble. Alex misses Martian food, and he's very upset about the Laconians. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 26 posted:“You know, I think what chaps my rear end more than anything else about this poo poo? The guys who came out of the gate and started wreckin’ our poo poo and takin’ over aren’t some drat aliens. It’s loving Martians. I bet there’re people on that Laconian ship I served with back in the day. Dollars to donuts, the top brass in the Marine detachment here are people you know, at least by name.” Okay, I'm not sure of his rank. In Nemesis Games, he is introduced as Commander Duarte, but by the end of it he is an Admiral. I'm not sure whether Admiral is an MCRN rank that he managed to acquire during the internal chaos on Mars, or if it is a self-given rank as part of the Laconian mutiny. The only people who seem to call him an Admiral are members of Laconia, so, that could be it -- but the 'good guys' never use his rank at all, nor comment that he's calling himself an Admiral, meaning it's a little murky. The Expanse wiki says it is an MCRN rank, but it doesn't really provide evidence for that conclusion. That said, I find it odd that Alex is acting like he's just some guy. Alex met him! Alex found him charismatic and charming and got suckered in by him to such an extent that it derailed his investigation. Commander Duarte was an aide to Admiral Long, and it's noted that everyone likes the guy. If his promotion was legitimate, then he may have been the highest-ranking person in the MCRN. Bobbie wonders if they would've gone with Duarte. Clarissa makes a direct reference to the Book of Revelation: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 26 posted:“A third of the stars of heaven,” Clarissa said, as if she were agreeing. Amos comes in and says to Clarissa that "Cap" wants her to check something out. It stings Bobbie, and she ponders discussing it with Amos. Clarissa tells her to be "gentle" with Amos as he's "fragile" right now. Bobbie isn't sure she wants to find out what Amos is like when he's fragile. Later, there's a briefing with Saba. The Voltaire Collective, some old OPA extremists, want to take the fight to the Laconians on Medina. Holden thinks they should recruit them, if only to stop them from blowing anything up. Holden thinks they'll send Bobbie and Amos, and to make it clear that Voltaire can join their movement or get stomped out. En route, Bobbie tries to ask Amos how he's doing. He says his feet hurt. It goes about this well: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 26 posted:“Claire thinks maybe you’re having a tough time right now.” Katria Mendez is in charge of the Voltaire Collective (first mentioned back in Nemesis Games as radicals up there with Marco Inaros.) She says they've been resisting the inners for nearly a century, and she doesn't think Bobbie and her people get to tell her what to do. She especially doesn't like that Saba sent a Martian and an Earther to dictate terms to a Belter. And y'know, that's a good point -- if you're dealing with some hardcore OPA types, why would you send two people who might just annoy them? Bobbie says that's the message, that it isn't about inners and Belters anymore, now it's them versus the Laconians. Katria nods and goes, oh yeah, good answer -- and Amos loses it. "You keep giving me that eye, boy, and I'm gonna pull it out of your head and hand it back to you," he suddenly snaps. Then Amos attacks the guy. The Voltaire guys leap into the fight -- Bobbie lays Katria out with one kick, and then takes a crowbar to the face, enough that blood and flesh is left on the edge of it. But despite being pretty old and griping about how sore she is, Bobbie just kind of shrugs it off and takes out the crowbar wielder, even though he hits her again and numbs one of her arms, and someone kicks her right in the cocyx. Meanwhile, Amos is taking on like four dudes at once. I feel like the action scenes in the Expanse novels are some of the more dissonant parts. The series shoots for a degree of realism, but also the protagonists are action heroes. And while that really isn't a problem, it's a little odd given that this novel has been trying to stress that they're old has-beens. Or maybe because the Voltaire guys are Belters, they're physically weaker? Anyway, it's fine. Amos and Bobbie beat up the goons and Katria and tell her that they kicked their asses and her group can work with Saba's people or they'll kill them and throw them in the recycling system. Katria says they understand each other. Chapter Twenty-Seven: Drummer Drummer sometimes forgets the void cities didn't always exist. During the "starving years", they felt like a dream. This isn't strictly speaking our first mention of the starving years (Carlos-Baca mentioned them) but it's the first time it feels notable. She's having some angst about involving the Belter void cities in the defense against Laconia. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 27 posted:She had to remind herself that war was always this way. Had always been. Cities had been falling under siege since the time there were cities. Mortars had fallen on schools. Soldiers had stormed hospitals. Bombs had set churches and parks and children on fire. Homes had been lost before now. Drummer reflects they've evacuated "as many people as would fit" away from the theater of battle, but there's a population of two hundred thousand people on the void city Independence and it's unclear how many people still remain aboard. Drummer is on People's Home, monitoring the battle -- space is really big! Independence and "a dozen" EMC ships are heading toward the Heart of the Tempest. The battle is over an hour's time-distance away. The battle could already have concluded. Avasarala and Admiral Hu are there, and Hu makes some crack about them being on the same side of a shooting war.Admiral Trejo orders the approaching EMC ships to stand down. "Don't make this any worse than it has to be." Emily Santos-Baca is "the ranking board member" aboard Independence, and she replies: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 27 posted:“Admiral Trejo,” Santos-Baca said, “on behalf of the Transport Union and the Earth-Mars Coalition, I am informing you that your presence in Sol system is a violation of territorial space and is being considered an act of war. Your ship will brake immediately and return to Laconia until appropriate contracts and diplomatic resolutions are in place.” The battle opens. The allied fleet fires many missiles, and space is still big! The missiles don't make it -- the Tempest's point-defence capabilities are further ranged than anyone anticipated, and concealed within the ship. The Tempest fires its railguns, and Hu wonders if they're running out of PDC rounds. Avasarala says its a warning to retreat, showing they have bigger guns they're prepared to use. Drummer thinks that maybe they should.The EMC ships reach railgun range and open fire. The Tempest, Drummer reflects, has no way to stop the slugs. But it doesn't need to -- it dodges them. A quick aside here, something I'll discuss in a bigger post: does no one remember the type of maneuvers that Eros was pulling back in Leviathan Wakes? Anyway, they score some hits on the Tempest. But, as in the Medina battle, the hull can self-repair, and it does so quickly. The Tempest evades as it opens fire, vanishing in a cloud of plasma -- because it has that many railguns. Four allied ships go down immediately, and the railgun rounds are more powerful than the EMC thought they would be. So, for those keeping track, that's approximately a third of the EMC flotilla taken out in the first volley. And Independence is blown to pieces with eight simultaneous impacts virtually immediately, too. Drummer realizes Emily Santos-Baca is dead. She wants to shout the order to retreat, but it doesn't matter -- the battle is already over. The surviving EMC ships break formation and retreat. The Tempest lets them go. Trejo, Drummer thinks, is killing them only because he doesn't need to or want to. A whole city, Drummer thinks, dead in a heartbeat. Avasarala says they knew the risks going in. Did they? Did they really understand the risk of facing down a protomolecule warship with hypertech/magic weapons? Avasarala says it was always a thin chance to turn the Tempest back on their first attempt. Drummer says they should've tried a bigger strike. Avasarala says, no, they did it right. Because they learned things. How quickly the armor can heal itself, which PDCs they knocked out ("Maybe the ship can't fix complex mechanisms.") And they know what weapons it has, and maybe they can push it in ways they couldn't have guessed at prior to this battle. Avasarala says they didn't die for nothing. Drummer wonders if Avasarala manipulated her into sacrificing "her people" for that data. Avasarala says that they're all "her people", including the Laconians. Chapter Twenty-Eight: Holden Holden is watching a news report about the battle between the Tempest and the allied Sol fleet. The Tempest humbled the whole fleet, and it's unclear if it suffered any notable damage. This section is much more interesting than the play-by-play from Drummer and, honestly, I think the whole Drummer perspective is both superfluous and something that downgrades the rest of the novel. Singh gives a speech where he says the battle is a tragedy for everyone involved, including the "brave warriors of the Sol system" who died believing they were defending their homes. He stresses that the Tempest only fired when fired upon and let the Sol forces escape. This is the rules of engagements for the Laconian military: they'll only fire if fired upon first. He suggests those with family or friends in Sol to contact them and talk them into applying pressure to join with Trejo and discuss Sol's entry into the empire. Saba tells his people not to do anything stupid -- no reprisals, no anything. He says if they kill one Laconian, they'll lose ten of their own people. Holden goes off to talk with Bobbie, where he says the problem is that they're rats in a cage. Too busy figuring out how to get out when they should be thinking about what they'll do when they get out. Holden thought that was enough, when he thought it was a war. But it isn't that anymore. Holden, in a remarkably perceptive moment, points out that the war is already over but Sol's going to sacrifice more people so they can say they gave it a shot. Honestly, I like this from Holden. This is the Holden that I think people think of when they think of Jim Holden. Holden says they're no longer looking to escape Medina and join the war effort, but to do a prison break. They need to get past the Laconian garrison and grab as many ships as they can and just scatter through the rings. And they have thirty-two days to do it. Bobbie asks to talk to Holden about Amos. She mentions that Amos was looking for a fight and when he didn't get one with the Voltaires, he started one. Bobbie doesn't know how to fix it, and neither does Holden. Holden goes to talk to Amos. He asks him how he's going, and Amos says stuff about the work he's doing on a wall conduit. And Holden is stumped: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 28 posted:The truth was, in spite of decades flying the same ship, Holden still had very little idea what made Amos tick. He liked food, booze, meaningless sex, jokes. He seemed to like palling around with Alex, but when their pilot had decided to try being married again, Bobbie had been his best man. Amos treated every word out of Naomi’s mouth as if it were gospel, but the truth was all of them did these days. Also, is Holden not knowing anything about Amos after over three decades of time in close conditions a point to how enigmatic Amos can be, or an indictment of Holden's interpersonal skills? Persepolis Rising, Chapter 28 posted:So,” Holden said again. “How’s it going?” Persepolis Rising, Chapter 28 posted:Holden hesitated, turned, and walked away. Bobbie was right. He didn’t know what was going on in Amos’ mind, but something definitely was. He was hard-pressed to think what the good version of that looked like. And if Amos was finally coming off the rails, he had no idea what would cause it or how to fix it. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 24, 2023 02:50
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Persepolis Rising, Chapters 29 - 32 These synopses feel really short, but that's because there's a lot of just... Expansian exposition and spaceship corridor stuff. A lot of it is just word count padding. Chapter Twenty-Nine: Bobbie Bobbie's present at a meeting with Saba, Holden and the the rest, with Katria Mendez' Voltaire Collective cell just arriving. Bobbie finds it a little unsettling how "comfortably the men and women of the Transport Union fell back into being criminals" and how well she and her friends are fitting in with them. There's a weird little note where Bobbie isn't happy that Saba told her to go and bring the Voltaire people onboard after "she and Amos had kicked their asses" -- but wasn't that the whole point of them heading over there in the first place, to bring Katria's people into Saba's command structure? Saba says Katria has to listen to their plan alone. One of Katria's people, Jordao, is not happy with this. Katria has her people wait outside. Bobbie explains the situation: they have a bug on the point of contact between the Gathering Storm and Medina, but they can't break the encryption. While the long-term goal is disabling the destroyer, shutting down Medina's sensors, and escaping before the Laconian second wave arrives, the short-term goal is breaking that encryption. Bobbie explains that there's an air-gap encryption room on the station. The data goes between the ships, but is unencrypted before it hits Medina's systems, whereupon it is physically walked into the local system. The room is physically locked and crewed by two people with a whole bunch of guards. Katria wonders if they want her to blow the door. Bobbie says no. While the room is virtually off the Medina grid, Clarissa points out that it is still connected to the environmental systems. Katria thinks they can bust the carbon dioxide scrubbers and choke them out. Alex says, no, what they're going to do is send in some little drones to kill the guards and pop the lock. From there, Naomi and Bobbie slip in, copy the encryption box, and escape into a radiation shelter. Saba says, of course, they can't let the Laconians realize they have the codes. So, Holden explains they can cover the theft of the decryption software by blowing up some liquid-oxygen storage tanks -- they are close enough to the Storm that it'll look like they tried to take out the Storm, and the explosion should also take out the communications vault. Katria balks at blowing up their own air supply. Saba says it is Laconian air and for the docked ships, anyway. Bobbie thinks bringing in Saba was a bad idea. Saba thinks the plan is too complicated. Saba says all they need is the bomb and the place to put it. Saba says that he needs the charges, someone to plant them, and someone on the remote switch who won't panic. Katria thinks that it'll take out the radiation shelter that Naomi and Bobbie will be in, too. And that people will die. Saba is like, hey, it's the price to pay. Saba wonders if he'd be happy to pay it. Katria offers to step in and make the bombs, plant them, and hold the trigger. Bobbie doesn't want to go with it, but Amos allows it. Bobbie thinks it is a bad idea, and thinks Holden agrees with her, but he says that it's settled -- Clarissa will handle the environmental controls, Alex will pilot the drone swarm, Bobbie and Naomi will take care of the server, while Katria, Amos, and himself will set the charges to hander the cover up. Apparently, Holden being involved wasn't part of the plan, either. Chapter Thirty: Singh Trejo has sent a message that the Sol operation is almost complete and for Singh to prepare shipping authorizations. Singh is overjoyed because the Laconian efforts are weeks ahead of schedule, even based on recently amended projections. 284 highlights: Persepolis Rising, Chapter 30 posted:The sad fact of the human species that High Consul Duarte understood so well was that you could never overcome tribalism and jingoism with an argument. Tribalism was an irrational position, and it was impossible to defeat an irrational position with a rational argument. The message is from Singh's wife. She might be getting a posting to Medina. Everything is fine. Like the other times we've had 'dad moments' in these stories, these sections feel much more... earnest and genuine than the novel surrounding them? Sometimes I feel like the Corey team would do better writing something with more of a focus on that and less on something that tries to be a space opera. Carrie Fisk shows up. She doesn't like the new name for her organization, the Laconian Congress of Worlds, and wants to vote on it. Singh says they do not vote on anything from the high consul's office. Singh says that High Admiral Trejo has decided that limited shipping can resume. A single ship transit per week, and each one must be approved personally by Singh a month before it is scheduled to occur. Fisk asks if the lifting of the travel ban permits ships to dock with Medina, as there may be new representatives to the Congress. Singh isn't sure, and so makes something up on the spot: that it'll be like with the gate transits -- he has to approve it thirty days prior. The meeting ends. Fisk remains and asks what the point of her office is, as she wasn't elected to just be press secretary for Singh's office. She wants to know if they'll vote on anything. Singh reiterates that you do not vote on orders from the high consul's office. They'll vote on what the high consul decides they can vote on. After the meeting, Overstreet calls Singh and says that someone has some information for him. The man is Katria's bodyguard, who says that one of the people in the town square jail cells is his sister. If they let his sister go, he'll share with them some info from "deep in the Voltaire Collective." Uh-oh! Chapter: Thirty-One: Drummer Drummer is having trouble sleeping and is reading message boards. Some people think Laconia is just Mars regaining its sense of purpose. Does Something Awful exist? Is there a thread where people post mispellings of Duarte's name over and over again? Some other people are annoyed that the Laconians even got through the gate in the first place, and they blame the Trade Union and claim they need an army. But I mean, the Earth and Mars fleets are at pre-Free Navy crisis levels, supposedly, so... what, exactly?Persepolis Rising, Chapter 31 posted:A school on Luna had started a campaign where the children were dyeing their right hands red in defiance of Laconia. Things aren't looking good. Some are arguing that Laconian victory is inevitable and that the Sol powers should capitulate. A lot of it, according to Drummer, is "desperation-fueled optimism dressed as military theory." The Tempest is still on its path sunward. A single ship demonstrating the power of the authorities. Drummer notes that it is precisely what she did to Freehold, and she sees herself in the position those colonists had been. Apparently, the loss of the void city Independence incurred significant civilian death -- which comes back to the idea of why the gently caress would you sortie it in the first place. She decides that, of course, Holden was right to call her out on her plan for Freehold, and that she can't help but feel like the Laconian invasion if a ghoulish twist of fate. A message comes in from Trejo for Drummer. If they do not surrender within eighteen hours, then Trejo will deny the Sol powers the use of the shipyards at Pallas Station. Drummer can end this "at any time" but, if she does not, then the blood of Pallas Station will be on her hands. He has also sent similar messages to Earth and Mars. Drummer has them wake up Lafflin and send a message to Hu. Pallas Station is, as it turns out, Pallas-Tycho Complex -- perhaps the biggest shipyard in the Sol system. It was where the void cities has been built, and one is there at about half constructed. Hu thinks the loss of the complex would be catastrophic as it is basically the only chance of rebuilding and fortifying their navies. But. I thought. The fleets. They can't send the EMC fleets to defend the station in time. The plan is to sacrifice Pallas-Tycho to exchange long-term readiness with an increased chance of being able to strike the Tempest decisively, but it requires coordination between the Union and EMC. Drummer gives the order for Pallas-Tycho to be evacuated, using Tycho itself if necessary. She sends a message to Hu and says they'll evacuate Pallas-Tycho and see if the Tempest will hunt down the civilians. They need to wait to send the full combined might of their fleets at the Tempest because they'll only get one shot at it. Chapter: Thirty-Two: Holden Holden, Katria and Amos are en route to blow a hole in Medina Station. Holden is so familiar with Amos that he doesn't even need to see his face to know he has a meaningless amiable smile . There's been a raid on Saba's people, with a quarter of them being taken, but it appears the plan is still sound. But there are some new checkpoints. The Typhoon is about ten days out. Holden thinks the only thing they have to do to escape the Laconian noose is kill a bunch of people in the wrong place at the wrong time.Persepolis Rising, Chapter 32 posted:“Holden. Do you have to do that?” Katria asked. Meawhile, Clarissa has done her thing and Alex is inserting the drone swarm. Holden and pals head off to set the bomb. Naomi asks if they're in position yet. Not yet. Katria sets the bomb, they head off for the shelter. But then Alex runs into a problem -- there's two guys in the room, sure. But one of them has what he thinks is a dead man's switch. They won't be able to get the door open before the Laconians know about it. Bobbie says they can just move faster. Clarissa says that isn't the problem -- the problem is that they'll register that alarm before they register the rest of them, and so they'll know they were compromised. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 32 posted:“You’ll be fine,” Holden said. “Just wait until the… I don’t know. The tenth alarm goes off.” Two Laconian marines show up and tackle him to the ground, hard enough to break some bones. Holden says he surrenders, but one of the marines says that isn't an option and basically say he's lucky he's not going to end up in the pens. Holden asks what the pens are, and gets hit again. Holden suggests they should probably get to an emergency shelter, but who knows if the marines will listen...
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Aug 2, 2023 02:48
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Persepolis Rising, Chapters 33 - 36 The Medina insurgency blows some stuff up. Singh grapples with being a dictator and a family man. The Sol powers lean on making the Laconians feel embarrassed, and something very strange and ominous takes place. Chapter 33: Bobbie We swap over to Bobbie as Holden tells them wait for the tenth alarm. Alex isn't sure about it. Bobbie tells him to go with the plan. So, they go with the plan. Bobbie rushes into the room so hard that she slams into a server rack and bounces off the wall. Then Bobbie heads out of the room while Naomi begins going through the data. Naomi grabs the data and they head for one of the shelters. Amos and Katria are there, but Holden is not. As the group arrives, Katria shuts the door to Amos' displeasure. He says he's going to go get Holden, and they should hold off on detonating the bomb before he gets back. Bobbie tells Amos they don't have time to do a rescue mission. Amos is about five seconds from going ballistic. Bobbie tells him to put on a vac suit and for Katria to get ready to blow the charges. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 33 posted:“You’re really gonna blow it,” Amos replied. He didn’t sound surprised. Or like he was issuing a challenge. He didn’t sound like anything. Bobbie involuntarily braced for violence. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 33 posted:It was an eerie ship. The angles of it were like something cut from crystal, and the curves felt like something grown more than built. It was like looking at a venomous snake. She had a hard time pulling her eyes away. Chapter 34: Drummer Back in Sol, Lafflin is informing Drummer where the next attempt at bringing down the Heart of the Tempest will take place. A point beween the asteriod belt and Mars with no strategic importance. They're calling it Point Leuctra. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 34 posted:“The Spartans were decisively defeated there by Thebes,” Lafflin said. “I mean, they call their planet Laconia. Psy ops thought it might speak to their sense of their own invincibility.” Lafflin says they have a good model of the Tempest but also says the only hard data they have is where the PDCs and torpedo launchers are. That said, it's apparently enough that Earth thinks they can hit the right points and blow the ship apart. Drummer considers that, yet again, the inners are using her people as grist for the wheel of history, and just kind of shrugs it off because apparently there's a particular belter idiom about taking pleasure in hardship. Okay. En route to Point Leuctra, the Tempest is going to pass by Pallas Station within the hour. The Union has evacuated the installation. Time passes. The Tempest passes by Pallas Station (in a relative sense, it's well beyond visual range) and... something happens. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 34 posted:She tried to put the bulb down, but the surface of the table was distant, visible, but through a distracting cloud that was the air – atoms and molecules bouncing against each other, striking and spinning away and striking again. Thicker than bodies at a tube station. She meets with Cameron Tur. Tur gives us a bunch of technobabble that I'm going to try and list as simply as possible: the protomolecule is still bound by the speed of light, the gates are wormholes, the strange episode of missing time was associated with the magnetic weapon, it didn't happen in the slow zone and no one knows why, the event happened everywhere within the system simultaneously. Drummer waves it all off and wants to know if it was a deliberate Laconian weapon -- can they make everyone in Sol experience that again, did they target it, or did it affect them, too. She shouts without realizing it. But they have to know if the Laconians got hit by that phenomena. Drummer figures the Tempest will send a report back to Laconia and that, either way, they'll get an answer. Drummer says they're going to reopen communications with Medina Station and Saba. Chapter 35: Singh Singh is getting a briefing on the explosion from Overstreet. They think the target was probably the Storm. Casualties were five Laconian fatalities, seven injuries, two local fatalities and twelve missing. Overstreet says they have someone in custody who was pulling a lot of alarms prior to the incident. A James Holden. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 35 posted:Singh frowned. “Why do I know that name?” Singh was a child during those events, so, doesn't recognize Holden. Overstreet appears to be similar. Singh says they need to make a strong response to the attack. Overstreet says it might be difficult -- insurgents don't wear uniforms, killing an insurgert radicalizes others, and the strongest possible response is closer to genocide than counterinsurgency. Persepolis Rising, Chapter 35 posted:“I see,” Singh said. He’d studied counterinsurgency and urban pacification at the academy, of course. Afghanistan had been impossible to conquer going all the way back to Alexander the Great. Ireland in the twentieth century. The Belter troubles for the last two centuries. Singh goes to see Jordao and asks him if he knew about the attack. Jordao tries to play dumb. Singh tells him that he released his sister in return for information, and telling him a bomb was going to go off would've been helpful. Jordao says he didn't know. Singh tells him that he's going to give him a list of every name involved in the underground before he leaves. And when he leaves, he will infiltrate the underground and learn what they're plannning. If he does not do this, Singh will hang his sister in a public space. Returning to his quarters, Singh isn't sure whether he's able to remain the man he thought he was while he has to be an authoritarian ruler. He doesn't think the latter can be with his wife and daughter. He also thinks, if he's honest, he can be both, and that's what scares him. A courier comes in with a message from Trejo. Trejo says something has happened, and they have no idea what it is or what to do about it. The Tempest has picked up a "passenger of sorts." Persepolis Rising, Chapter 35 posted:The object – there really wasn’t any other word to describe it – was a floating sphere of light and darkness hovering about three feet off the deck in a corridor on the Heart of the Tempest. Just looking at a recording of it on the monitor’s small screen made his head hurt. Someone passed a length of pipe through it and back again on the recording. The pipe did not seem to interact with the object at all. And in fact Singh had the sense that he saw both the pipe and the object at the same time with equal clarity even when that should be impossible. It made his head hurt even worse. Trejo says it showed up the moment they fired on Pallas Station, and was accompanied by a three-minute blackout that affected everyone on the ship. Trejo thinks it might be a weapon from the inner planets (really?) and, much like Drummer was about them, is worried the Sol powers can do it again. That said, Trejo is apparently still moving to engage the combined Sol navy. As Singh heads off to send the message on to Laconia, he recalls a mention of a "sphere of light and darkness." Which is odd because he claimed (in this very chapter) to be a child during the mention of the Free Navy incident which is why he doesn't know who Holden is, and I kind of think you'd be more likely to remember Jim Holden than a weird sphere that I doubt anyone ever heard of who wasn't in the upper echelons of the UN government. Singh brings up a report on Ilus. The "Ilus Incident" involved Captain Holden of the Rocinante reporting seeing the exact same object. The same Holden who is now in his brig... Chapter 36: Bobbie Bobbie is near the public prison on Medina. Holden isn't there, but she didn't think he'd be there, either. A bystander is very unpset about the underground taking a chunk out of Medina. Bobbie suspects Belters are upset about it because of the way you don't gently caress with environmental systems, which they had. She gets a message from Alex and goes to meet him. Alex is there with Saba and Jordao. No one has any news about Holden. But they're decrypting the Laconian intel as fast as they can do it. Alex says things are bad -- Holden is gone, Naomi's turned into a recluse and not helping with the decryption, Amos is off doing his own thing, and Bobbie keeps going on long walks. Alex says he'll go talk to Naomi if Bobbie goes and talks with Amos. Bobbie can't find Amos as he isn't answering his comms. Saba says they know that Holden's alive, and that they have a message from Drummer. It's the stuff about the loss of Pallas and the loss of time. Saba says nothing in the Laconian database matches it. The plan remains to get a window and get as many people off Medina as possible. Saba is concerned that Holden's loose mouth will get them in trouble. A Belter woman comes in with a decrypted file: MEDINA STATION SUPPLEMENTARY SECURITY REVIEW AS REQUESTED BY GOVERNOR SANTIAGO SINGH. It appears to cover everything about Medina's security systems. "I think this is everything," Bobbie says.
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Aug 13, 2023 11:47
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This is kind of a side question, but there seems to have been some discussion about in the thread and I'm out of touch with the Expanse franchise. Do we know any more behind the scenes gossip/news about how killing Alex affected that season/the reason the show ended/what future plans where and if anything is still happening? Loving reading your thoughts on the books, which I've finished, and I always felt like the writing in the last trilogy was held back by keeping events scaled to a TV show budget.
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Aug 16, 2023 10:25
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