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Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Orvin posted:

It’s been a little while since I read the books, but aren’t some of the early engagements handwaved away due to the bulk of Earth and Martian Navies needing to stay close to home to intercept thrown rocks? So what little forces Earth and Mars have outside Mars orbit are much more easily overwhelmed and/or surprised.

Isn’t it a pretty big plot point that once the rocks are not a threat, the Free Navy starts a retreating action going full scorched earth to delay the various fleets as much as possible?

Eiba posted:

That's my vague memory of the tactics too. The Free Navy was no match for the inner planets in an open battle, but they set things up in such a way that the full force couldn't be brought to bear.

The other biggest fleet action was the UN assault on the ring, and because the Free Navy knew exactly where those ships had to be and at what time they would be there, they were able to gently caress the UN fleet up with more stealth rocks, not an open battle.

I don't recall Belters ever coming off well in an open slugfest.

The space warfare aspects of the series are the weakest part of The Expanse, which means it is a bit of an issue when the novels began to put more and more emphasis on it. They don't really detail those parts in line with their importance to the plot, and the details they do add just muddy the waters. It's a big reason why Babylon's Ashes is the weakest in the series.

But, yes, the Free Navy is roughly as strong as the combined fleet of Earth and Mars. We know this because, by the conclusion of the Free Navy conflict, which featured multiple engagements between both sides and the largest fleet action in history, the Earth navy has lost all but three of its battleships. It then takes Earth and Mars thirty years to rebuild their fleets to pre-war readiness, even if we can assume that a significant percentage of infrastructure was devoted to ensuring the survival of Earth and its population. Notably, the threat of a third of the pre-war Martian fleet hanging out on Laconia -- and having conquered the Earther colonists there -- would have likely made military readiness something of a priority. I think you can argue that the storyline of the series requires that the navies of Earth and Mars be taken off the board.

But what is the Free Navy? I think it changes somewhat between the two books. In Nemesis Games, it appears to be a small force that Commander Winston Duarte gifted Marco Inaros in exchange for the Protomolecule sample, a smokescreen for his flight to Laconia. According to Alex and Bobbie, Duarte arranged for small ships (specifically, the Corvette-class frigates carried by Donnager-class battleships) to be 'lost' and end up in Inaros' hands. The bigger ships, such as the Donnagers themselves, can't really be used as part of this strategy. Meanwhile, Duarte takes "almost a third" of the Martian navy out past the Laconia gate. Duarte takes two battleships, one of them the MCRN Barkeith which is lost during transit. By the time of Persepolis Rising, Sol knows he only has the one. Alternatively, he only took the Barkeith, but wasn't travelling on it, and they lost their one and only battleship.

(Duarte did take other ships, as an aside, but I think there was a whole element of the missing ships being smuggled to Laconia/as cover to the Free Navy and not eaten by the rings which might've been a bit of a rewrite.)

So, the Free Navy appears to be a raiding group designed to upset the Sol system while it is reeling from the strike on Earth and the strike on the Martian Prime Minister. These appear to be the only initial strikes the Free Navy makes, with the bulk of its forces focused on destroying the Prime Minister's convoy before it reaches Luna. We don't know whether other elements of the Free Navy strike other targets. Nemesis Games doesn't appear to say so. The only battle we here about is the one against the ministerial convoy.

So, we don't know the losses sustained by Earth and Mars in the opening stages of the conflict. It's likely that the ministerial convoy was destroyed, which included a battleship (presumably a Donnager-class.) It appears the Earth fleets withdrew to Luna and Earth as soon as the second rock hit, and while the fleet is referred to as "ragged" the Earth navy is said to be composed to aging, obsolete ships at the best of times which makes it an unclear descriptor. This is key, because a refrain of the series is that while Mars has better ships, Earth has more. The books never say specifically, but the TV series says it was about 3:1 at the time of the Free Navy conflict (with it being 5:1 prior to the wars in the TV series timeline.)

Mars has approximately nine battleships, which aligns with Duarte taking two with his "almost a third" of the fleet. Let's lowball these figures. Mars starts with 9, but loses the Donnager itself and does not replace it (8), then the battleship carrying the Prime Minister (7), and two who defect to Duarte (5.) If we assume that Earth has a 3:1 advantage across all sizes, this means that the combined fleet possesses approximately thirty battleships. Given that the United States can field eleven carrier groups, I'd say it's a fine number. This is about all we know about ship numbers, but Avasarala mentions that Mars has "sixteen battlecruisers" to Bobbie. Now, battlecruisers aren't battleships, but Martian cruisers did appear in Caliban's War but mid-weight warships vanish after that point. So, we can put the Martian fleet at 5 + 16 = 21 with Earth having 21*3 = 63 for a total of 84 capital ships.

Even with that conservative and frankly absurd estimate (Babylon's Ashes says the operation involves "hundreds"; we're not including any small ships which we know Earth and Mars have), the Free Navy has a pretty big uphill battle because I'm not sure they have anywhere near that number of frigates. In Nemesis Games, I would've said that more than twenty was unlikely. Duarte and Sauveterre appear to think Inaros is unreliable and treacherous, so, you'd assume they'd want to not risk him turning his guns on them.

The Free Navy does keep the bulk of both fleets near Earth on rock-blasting duty, which is a double-edged sword. Sure, it keeps the fleets pinned and allows Inaros' forces to control the outer system and prey on civilian traffic without complications, it also prevents the Free Navy from eroding the inners' capability. Babylon's Ashes doesn't appear to demonstrate that any engagements were happening prior to the combined offensive campaign being launched. When the Azure Dragon is knocked down and the combined fleet moves out, Inaros promptly abandons everything, yes, but doesn't appear to take advantage of this by striking the inners' supply lines.

Enter Michio Pa. Michio Pa has a raiding fleet of about fifteen Corvette-class frigates. This is one part of the Free Navy, but we're not sure how big a part it is. When Pa defects to the combined fleet, the loss of her ships doesn't seem to sway the balance of power that much -- Earth isn't jubilant and Inaros' compatriots aren't concerned. So, just how many ships does the Free Navy have? Well, we don't know. But Michio Pa mentions that they also possess "capital ships" and that she was given the "smaller, lighter ships" with Inaros and some others taking the heavier ships to be "the sledgehammer."

Except Marco doesn't have any capital ships. Even he only has a Corvette-class as his personal flagship, the Pella. We don't know what the Free Navy is made up of, except that it's possibly entirely made up of Martian Corvette-class frigates as these are the only Free Navy ships we see. It's reasonable to assume that a lot of it is converted pirate vessels or civilian gunboats, but this isn't stated (although the TV series goes in that direction.) We never see these capital ships and it's unlikely Pa was mistaken as she's a member of Marco's inner circle and even knows about the Laconian railguns.

In either case, when the fleets clash, the Free Navy doesn't break immediately. It engages in running battles, sure, but it also stands and fights -- and commits to those fights. The Battle of Titan begins with nine allied ships facing fifteen Free Navy ships, and ends up going for two days with "a hundred or more" ships involved and becoming one of the largest in history. It wasn't a decisive allied victory, either. Pa's element is shattered and casualties are heavy on both sides, enough that in the second day it wasn't clear who was winning. So, the Free Navy was putting up a hell of a fight. It is also only one of the engagements taking place at around that time and Naomi assesses the fleet action involving "hundreds" across the whole system.

By the end of it, Marco Inaros' fifteen ships burning for Medina, seemingly all that is left of the Free Navy's viable combat forces, are basically an insurmountable threat. The allied fleet is spent, if not broken, and unable to pursue. Avasarala herself has to Hail Mary Pa's forces that got destroyed at Titan. So, all in all, it appears the Free Navy was either roughly comparable to the combined fleet as a whole, or the Belters punched well above their weight class and practically broke the backs of Earth and Mars while scattered and on the defense with a fleet of frigates.

Now, the Free Navy's attack on the ring blockade with the stealth rocks is a TV series invention and nothing like that appears to happen in the books. The TV series seems to stick with the idea that the Free Navy is a small core of Martian combat vessels, with the Pella getting an upgrade to a light cruiser, and converted/armed civilian ships making up the bulk of the force. In the TV series, the Free Navy gets caught in three battles and basically broken immediately, with the exception of the Pella itself which cuts a swath through Drummer's own fleet.

This isn't even getting into whole Belter crews should be worse at high-gee manoeuvring and endurance than Earthers and Martians, meaning that the inner fleets should've been better on a physiological level. They can burn harder for longer, but this doesn't come up (and Marco himself has no issue with prolonged sustained burns.) The Free Navy lost, but it virtually annihilated the inner navies in the process, and the only open slugfest we know of at Titan wasn't an overwhelming victory for the combined fleet.

tl;dr -- Marco Inaros seemingly took a force that was inferior in numbers and armament (and physiology!) and practically broke the navies of Earth and Mars. This is while he was indulging in personal vendettas and strategic decisions of questionable utility. Had Duarte been paying attention, he probably could've turned his fleet around and taken Sol then and there.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jan 3, 2024

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Eiba
Jul 26, 2007


Milkfred E. Moore posted:

Now, the Free Navy's attack on the ring blockade with the stealth rocks is a TV series invention and nothing like that appears to happen in the books. The TV series seems to stick with the idea that the Free Navy is a small core of Martian combat vessels, with the Pella getting an upgrade to a light cruiser, and converted/armed civilian ships making up the bulk of the force. In the TV series, the Free Navy gets caught in three battles and basically broken immediately, with the exception of the Pella itself which cuts a swath through Drummer's own fleet.
Thanks for the detailed review of events! I had completely forgotten most of it, with the TV version replacing it in my mind.

The TV version feels a bit more coherent. Like they were tidying up the whole concept in their second pass at the story. I now see what people mean when they have an issue with how the book portrays all this.

Gophermaster
Mar 5, 2005

Bring the Ruckas

Milkfred E. Moore posted:


tl;dr -- Marco Inaros seemingly took a force that was inferior in numbers and armament (and physiology!) and practically broke the navies of Earth and Mars. This is while he was indulging in personal vendettas and strategic decisions of questionable utility. Had Duarte been paying attention, he probably could've turned his fleet around and taken Sol then and there.

Thanks for the detailed summary. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this stuff seemed completely half baked.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!
Agreed, the idea that some semi-skilled warlord with two dozen hand-me-down ships would seriously threaten the inner navies once they got their collective heads out of their asses was never properly justified in the book.

e: we do have moments like Alex threatening to blast their way through the Ganymede blockade with the Roci alone, but taking his threats literally would mean a whole fleet's point defence can't deal with the handful of missiles on the Roci, and any fleet engagement should result in complete mutual destruction.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jan 6, 2024

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Despite that I've written too many words about the series' approach to space combat, it's the odd ambush between Inaros' three ships and the Rocinante that really takes the cake as, I think, the worst part of Babylon's Ashes. Three next-gen Corvette-classes against the Rocinante, and they just lose. You could fix it by saying Inaros wanted to capture Holden or Johnson, but he doesn't, he just wants them dead, so it should be a pretty simple matter of overwhelming the point defense. It's not like it took much to fix it, the TV series made it really exciting.

banned from Starbucks
Jul 18, 2004




Laconia already had colonists when the rogue Martians landed, right? Or is that just a TV show thing? Seems odd they didn't report the existence of the orbital construction platform back to Earth.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

banned from Starbucks posted:

Laconia already had colonists when the rogue Martians landed, right? Or is that just a TV show thing? Seems odd they didn't report the existence of the orbital construction platform back to Earth.

They did, and they're specifically noted as Earther colonists which is odd, them being Martian colonists could've been just Duarte playing the long game. Which means Laconia didn't just take a planet that everyone thought was unimportant, but a bunch of people who everyone just threw to the wolves. It's not a TV show thing, but I believe it originates from the Strange Dogs novella, and I think is first mentioned in the main novels within Tiamat's Wrath. Given the production realities of the authors never knowing how many books they had (three, then four, then six, then nine (I think)), it appears that a lot of the Laconia subplot (and possibly even the Romans and Goths) was being changed to keep up. Babylon's Ashes, for example, introduces colonies being lost due to alien presences, the alien-derived Proteus coming off the Laconian production line, and an attack on Medina en masse by a horde of silent ships that echoes the climax of Leviathan Falls. The vanishing colonies are never mentioned again, the Proteus is written out and replaced with the Magnetars, and the strange attack is never brought up. It's probably why Babylon's Ashes is such a mess, really. It was going to be a final book that got rewritten into this weird transitory novel.

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang

banned from Starbucks posted:

Laconia already had colonists when the rogue Martians landed, right? Or is that just a TV show thing? Seems odd they didn't report the existence of the orbital construction platform back to Earth.

Colonists were landing on hundreds of worlds and sending back fragmented and crazy accounts for some time. The colonists on Laconia did notice the construction platform, but it was part of a literal pile of insane reports experts were trying to sift through at the time. The whole thing behind Duarte was that he wasn't the absolute smartest person in the room, but he was the fastest at reaching the finish line when it came to noticing things and extrapolating it out the final conclusion. At the end of Book 4 Chrisjen is talking to Bobbie in the epilogue about the chain of events the success on Illith will cause in the solar system and on Mars. She's a very smart person, and is ahead of everyone else we know about at realizing this, but the irony is that Duarte already got there first. He knew Mars was doomed and looked for a new future in those colony reports, and was the first person to make the leap between "half-finished ship in orbit" to "I can build an empire with that".

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Anonymous Zebra posted:

Colonists were landing on hundreds of worlds and sending back fragmented and crazy accounts for some time. The colonists on Laconia did notice the construction platform, but it was part of a literal pile of insane reports experts were trying to sift through at the time. The whole thing behind Duarte was that he wasn't the absolute smartest person in the room, but he was the fastest at reaching the finish line when it came to noticing things and extrapolating it out the final conclusion. At the end of Book 4 Chrisjen is talking to Bobbie in the epilogue about the chain of events the success on Illith will cause in the solar system and on Mars. She's a very smart person, and is ahead of everyone else we know about at realizing this, but the irony is that Duarte already got there first. He knew Mars was doomed and looked for a new future in those colony reports, and was the first person to make the leap between "half-finished ship in orbit" to "I can build an empire with that".

Except that Persepolis Rising says it was data from the first wave of probes that Duarte saw, not reports from any colonists. He knew about the potential of Laconia, or just had a very good guesstimate, from the moment the gates opened, practically speaking, and not from whenever anyone thought to land there. It's something the series can't quite tie together. The interquel comics apparently have Laconia sending people captive to the planet to boost their population numbers. Has anyone in this thread gotten around to those comics?

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jan 7, 2024

chainchompz
Jul 15, 2021

bark bark
I know it's not the books, but The Expanse telltale game was released on steam. I'm cautiously optimistic but I'm going to wait for a sale. Looks like it follows character arcs from the show more than the books at first glance.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Did they get actors from the show back to do voices (sans Cas Anvar obviously)?

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug

Arc Hammer posted:

Did they get actors from the show back to do voices (sans Cas Anvar obviously)?

haven't played it but I know they got Cara Gee who is the main character. looking at IMDB they got Shoreh Aghdashloo and Chad Coleman.

jeeves
May 27, 2001

Deranged Psychopathic
Butler Extraordinaire
It’s still insane that season 6 of the tv series spent so much time on the Laconia colonist plot lines and then did nothing with them since the series was done.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

jeeves posted:

It’s still insane that season 6 of the tv series spent so much time on the Laconia colonist plot lines and then did nothing with them since the series was done.

The series did so well with integrating even Marco Inaros into the story before his first appearance, and generally telling the overall story better than the novels, that it's a real surprise they dropped the ball on Duarte. He's first introduced in those shorts, where you have no idea who he is, and if you missed that for whatever reason, his first and only appearance is when he denies Marco's request for assistance. This is after drawing so much more attention to the Martian coup plotline and doing it earlier and more consistently than the novels. My guess is they cut it down severely when Anvar was removed from the series, which is why you get this whole season of Bobbie and Alex on the Razorback set. My understanding is that the Strange Dogs stuff introduces some of the ideas toward the end of the series, which is why they had to include it. I think the showrunner also said it was a bit of a Hail Mary to renew the series: check out this alien stuff going on! I remember when people thought that Babbage was going to inherit Duarte's role because the guy was just completely absent.

chainchompz
Jul 15, 2021

bark bark

Arc Hammer posted:

Did they get actors from the show back to do voices (sans Cas Anvar obviously)?

Not sure. From watching the trailer for it, it looks like it is a prequel.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

chainchompz posted:

Not sure. From watching the trailer for it, it looks like it is a prequel.

It's set 3 years before the show, to be specific.

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe

chainchompz posted:

I know it's not the books, but The Expanse telltale game was released on steam. I'm cautiously optimistic but I'm going to wait for a sale. Looks like it follows character arcs from the show more than the books at first glance.

It looks like it’s 40% off right now

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PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

My guess is they cut it down severely when Anvar was removed from the series, which is why you get this whole season of Bobbie and Alex on the Razorback set. My understanding is that the Strange Dogs stuff introduces some of the ideas toward the end of the series, which is why they had to include it. I think the showrunner also said it was a bit of a Hail Mary to renew the series: check out this alien stuff going on! I remember when people thought that Babbage was going to inherit Duarte's role because the guy was just completely absent.

Tim DeKay did an interview recently, that was 95% related to talks of a White Collar reunion, but he spoke about a lot of his work on The Expanse being cut out, so that pretty much confirms for me that Cas Anvar's behaviour led to that season being heavily retooled. Which, honestly, I think was probably a big mistake. Keep his death in, by all means, but the footage that was already filmed should of been left intact, as it impacts a lot of the story that season. It's silly that the creators tried to say they didn't reshoot much when we've had publicity shots leak with Cas in the final assembly scene on the moon for example.

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