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Babylon’s Ashes felt more like a part 2 than a stand alone book. Also I'm pretty sure the gate-overload gimmick is the same magicks by which socks go missing from overloaded dryers.
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Dec 14, 2016 05:18
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 19:32 |
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I think that Earth is well poised for a pretty massive comeback. If it happened to us now, we'd be hosed because we still rely on traditional agriculture, but future Earth already has the technology to 1. Mass produce food in artificial conditions and 2. Power said production through a fusion reaction process. Nations that survive major devastation can rebuild quite efficiently of the source of the underlying the devastation is removed. The majority of infrastructure goes to supporting population and standard of living. When the population drops to a sustainable level, whatever that is, any new development (which will almost assuredly be more efficient than whatever it replaces) is bonus capacity. Pre-bombardment Earth was sufficiently overpopulated that the vast majority of people on the planet were idle. Bureaucratic infighting and the massive numbers of mouths to feed was what kept Earth from (even more) completely dominating the solar system. Halved, even quartered, the planet has more than enough of a population to rebuild and reorganize around a common goal. Rebuilding Eden is an organizing concept in the same vein as Building Eden was for the Martians and anyone who doesn't get on board with the plan can be boarded of to some random rear end New Australia beyond the gates. They're in no worse position than any of the new worlds. However damaged the biosphere is it is at least base compatible with flora and fauna. I imagine it's easier to adapt sea algea to cope with altered native conditions than it is to an alien biosphere. Between areas that were leveled and areas that were previously undesirable because of climate change there will be plenty of land that can be redeveloped faster than building an equivalent on Mars, in the belt, or on a fledgling colony world. Edit: I guess that my optimism presupposes a unified government which makes sense based on what we've seen. I don't recall a POV of a single character that considered a deeper nationality than Earth. Anna was sort-of Russian, but it didn't stop her from living in Africa. If that's not true it complicates the situation but the U. N. as presented seems to be a collection of states more akin to the modern U.S. Chef Boyardeez Nuts fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Dec 15, 2016 |
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Dec 15, 2016 01:53
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Was Dawes on the genocide train from the jump? The character really grew on me based on Jared Harris' work on the T. V. show, so I hope he doesn't get lynched. Filip
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Dec 15, 2016 02:18
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There's a certain pragmatism involved I think, but I'm trying to find an appropriate metaphor. Like imagine you're shoved into a locked room with a grizzly bear and some random dude. The bear is hurt and confused the guy is just pummeling the poo poo out of it. If I'm on the outside looking in, I feel bad for the bear because that poo poo is cruel. If I'm on the inside, I'm going to work with that guy to kill the bear before it gets its bearings and realizes that humans are 1. Assholes, and 2. Easy to gently caress up. Basically, I don't trust an angry bear to differentiate between good humans and bad humans.
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Dec 15, 2016 05:06
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If anything, the authors have vastly under-estimated the rage that would exist. Consider the non-ironic calls to nuke Mecca after 9/11 (which killed .0001% of the population). James Holden's This Ganymedeian Life notwithstanding, Earth is going to want blood. It's probably a good thing that the actual elected government died off leaving the civil service in charge because the politically expedient move would be straight up belter genocide. Even strategically, your best bet to kill a pirate navy is to eliminate its support faculties, which means a methodical campaign of total war where you occupy or destroy every settlement from the core outward. Innocent caught in the crossfire? Tough poo poo, pal. I don't have the resources to garrison Ceres so we're forming two lines. This line is for Earthers we know to be loyal. That other line ends at the airlock. Chef Boyardeez Nuts fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Dec 15, 2016 |
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Dec 15, 2016 05:46
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Really, now that I think about it, the logical response would be to forcibly remove the Belters and strictly limit in system spaceflight.
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Dec 15, 2016 06:27
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Also, mass driven rocks work both ways and the belt doesn't have an atmosphere to burn off small projectiles. A dump truck worth of gravel could straight gently caress up almost any man-made structure in the belt with a predictable orbit.
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Dec 21, 2016 02:28
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Which may be a giant mistake. We've taken for granted that the U.N. is U.
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Dec 21, 2016 07:23
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It was probably hard to stir up the masses when all they had to lose was
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Dec 22, 2016 23:48
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I doubt Basic will come up again in the novels, but I presume that it is a reasonably comfortable if monotonous life. The whole point would be to keep the massive populace placated and docile. So free drugs, free entertainment and a decent standard of living.
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May 9, 2017 20:42
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Phi230 posted:Not entirely. Its presupposed on using primitive organic life to create the Gate without destroying the planets ability to sustain life is how I take it When the protomolocule beelined for earth everyone thought it was going to eat everything, but in retrospect it probably would have just consumed enough biomass to build the gate. The biological life hidden on Venus' surface is probably damaged and pissed off, but still alive.
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Oct 2, 2017 03:54
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Wasn't Alex like 50 in the first book? I seem to recall him being appreciably older than the rest of the crew.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:15
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I feel like they wrote into a weird corner by making Laconian tech too powerful. The offensive threat was fine but the ability to completely shrug off all the Sol system's firepower invalidated Trejo's point about wasting life.
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Dec 12, 2017 14:19
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The part I'm having the most trouble with is the rebuilt combined fleet letting history's greatest monster chillax unmonitored for 30 years. Every single faction has a very compelling reason to grind Laconia into dust. but they blew up our probe
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Dec 14, 2017 05:17
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Marijuana posted:Holden and Duarte are going to 7,000 year old sandworms in the next book. Walk without coffee.
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Mar 26, 2018 20:16
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But for the eternal god-king bit.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:37
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A baby swipes ineffectually across a magazine before throwing it away in disgust.
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Apr 1, 2018 06:21
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Eh, it was only neccessary to build laconia as a legit threat which was ultimately unnecessary because their strength is their bullshit magic tech. I wish it had been done differently because we barely got a glimpse of rebuilt universe before they kicked it all down. The characters never had a chance to breathe.
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Nov 27, 2018 07:37
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I was legitimately shocked when Amos went down. It was so sudden and non-pivotal and the kind of thing you expect him to power through and then the top of his skull gets taken off and its barely even remarked upon in the chaos and its exactly the type of death he'd expect. I'm glad he's still around, but it's sort of a cop out as he was basically a robot anyway.
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Apr 6, 2019 14:36
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Honestly the best redemptive arc of the series is Elvi's consistent "this motherfucker" reaction to encountering Holden.
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Apr 7, 2019 00:48
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I wouldn't be surprised if the girl Holden talks to in the prologue ends up being a POV character in the finale so we get a bit more of that big dick Aversarela family energy and a final look at the Sol system.
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Apr 11, 2019 05:14
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The spin off legal non-thriller we'll never get is the wheels falling off the case against Tycho when the Mormons realize that they just dodged a bullet
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Apr 15, 2019 23:13
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They'd already proven that the field projector worked. It's not like the Sol governments knew about the bullet. If they'd used their time in power to build a couple dozen conventionally armed Magnetar-Potempkin ships no one would have known the difference.
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Apr 17, 2019 14:21
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I got the impression from the text that the Magnetar ships were already there along with the platforms and have been retrofitted for human things though I don't recall the specific passage. I think they could churn out those frigates though.
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Apr 17, 2019 20:22
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Hilariously the repair dog immortality appears to be more valuable than Duarte's version but because grey skin freaks people out more than florescent blue they're just ignoring a literal cure for death
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May 11, 2019 03:04
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It would be a neat trick to pass Duerte off as a Martian extra until the reveal.
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May 28, 2019 17:16
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Part of the reason the U.S. was such an upstart world power was that the traditional world powers blew each other up and it was one of the few remaining industrial bases. Laconia had the industrial base.
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Jun 4, 2019 02:54
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It would be sweet if they got Jared Harris back and had Dawes be the force driving the Belter side of the Free Navy gambit. Marco and Naomi's kid could still be there as part of the organization. I could buy Marco as a high ranking Mook better than space Hitler 3020.
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Jun 11, 2019 13:22
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I wonder if putting Avesarala's corpse in close proximity to Lazerus Pups means we're going to get a very foul-mouthed spokesgoth. They managed to put Amos back together and his brain was bulletmush. Oh God, Miller and Aversarala hashing it out. Chef Boyardeez Nuts fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 00:36
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I mean it's probably a dead language the way Latin is a dead language. Just finished and it was great. Closed out the big arc, gave fitting ends to everyone and was economical and satisfying getting there. I hope they book Thomas Jane to put down his Miller bits now, just in case. Amos got all the best lines.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:23
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Nail Rat posted:"I like you Doc. You're a good person. I know you're not getting off on this. That's why we're not having the other version of this conversation." Her body reacting to the polite conversation like one might to a narrow miss with a train is a nice touch.
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Dec 1, 2021 20:54
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 19:32 |
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I like that they've built a really cool universe to explore further if they want to.
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Dec 2, 2021 19:12
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