Interestingly, if the ship simulates gravity by accelerating, deaccelerating, and spinning, three walls of every room function as a floor. Place must be a Swiss cheese of doors.
2 Walls must function as floors. And then only in the drum part of the ship. In the non-drum part of the ship, only 1 wall is a floor.
You need to stop thinking about Speeding up and slowing down as 2 different things. There is Only Acceleration. And it comes from the engines. So the wall that aligns with where the engines are is also a floor during acceleration.
Unless it is due to battle damage the spin probably would not be very fast it would be very similar to being at the top of the space needle. Noticeable depending where you are in the ship but not crippling.
I mean, it depends on the ratio. If you’ve got one g along the axis and one g spin gravity you’ve got 45 degree gravity. Which sounds awful.
Interestingly, if the ship simulates gravity by accelerating, deaccelerating, and spinning, three walls of every room function as a floor. Place must be a Swiss cheese of doors.
2 Walls must function as floors. And then only in the drum part of the ship. In the non-drum part of the ship, only 1 wall is a floor.
You need to stop thinking about Speeding up and slowing down as 2 different things. There is Only Acceleration. And it comes from the engines. So the wall that aligns with where the engines are is also a floor during acceleration.
Which means you generally only need one floor for most usages because the ship is flipping the thrusters are always in the same orientation to where your floor is so whenever they are on that "floor" is down.
Unless it is due to battle damage the spin probably would not be very fast it would be very similar to being at the top of the space needle. Noticeable depending where you are in the ship but not crippling.
I mean, it depends on the ratio. If you’ve got one g along the axis and one g spin gravity you’ve got 45 degree gravity. Which sounds awful.
The navoo was only spinning up for 1/3 gravity basically martian normal and sufficient to ward off the ill effects of zero g.
Do Earthers have a combat advantage because they're used to higher gravity so their ships can accelerate a bit faster, or does the white goo and comfy chairs erase that advantage?
I would assume they probably do their bodies are more used to high G than mars and especially the belters so could sustain higher G before stroking out. I assume the martian military probably trains hard in 1g as they were training to take on earth itself so for martian military probably not much advantage. But given belters have serious issues with long term 1G environments they probably would have some serious issues in longer term engagements.
Do Earthers have a combat advantage because they're used to higher gravity so their ships can accelerate a bit faster, or does the white goo and comfy chairs erase that advantage?
the Martians military make an effort to train in high Gs regularly, and the white goo helps. They have something close to parity.
the belter generally can't afford either high G training or good white goo, so they can't really deal with high G as well as either.
We get the scene of Holden looking crazy when talking to Miller.
They should have had him turn and look at the camera and go "you blew up a fucking ship?"
And everyone watching the screen would have a second of "oh, shit. He's not crazy."
No time to explain it to the other side when in the firefight (and for all they knew he could have been bullshitting them), but it'd give more plausibility to like...Drummer being on board
Season 3 finale spoiler
I didn’t catch it, but people on reddit were saying that Drummer perked up when she heard him spout some Belter slang and ask what the hell it meant. He’d repeated a slang phrase he could only have heard from a belter, i.e. Miller.
We get the scene of Holden looking crazy when talking to Miller.
They should have had him turn and look at the camera and go "you blew up a fucking ship?"
And everyone watching the screen would have a second of "oh, shit. He's not crazy."
No time to explain it to the other side when in the firefight (and for all they knew he could have been bullshitting them), but it'd give more plausibility to like...Drummer being on board
Season 3 finale spoiler
I didn’t catch it, but people on reddit were saying that Drummer perked up when she heard him spout some Belter slang and ask what the hell it meant. He’d repeated a slang phrase he could only have heard from a belter, i.e. Miller.
Oh, that's what that little bit was!
Subtle enough that it flew right by me, but did the same thing, and honestly in a better way because it's not the sort of thing that could be explained. Awesome.
I'm half in a food coma, please stop dunking on my physics knowledge I surrender
Just having fun. I didn't play all those hours of Kerbal Space Program for nothing.
Earth Combat Advantage (Book 2 Spoilers)
Earth and Mars are evenly matched in space. Earth has more ships, Mars has better newer ships. But the Earth Gravity won't matter because during combat you would be strapped in a chair the whole time, alternating between 0 and 6 G.
On a ground fight (Earth like gravity/atmosphere), Earth would win in a walk. Bobby is top of the line trained, and has a panic attack the first time she walks outside in the open air. Also, she says they could arm earthers with sticks and rocks and they would roll over the entire Martian Military in a tidal wave.
Do Earthers have a combat advantage because they're used to higher gravity so their ships can accelerate a bit faster, or does the white goo and comfy chairs erase that advantage?
the Martians military make an effort to train in high Gs regularly, and the white goo helps. They have something close to parity.
the belter generally can't afford either high G training or good white goo, so they can't really deal with high G as well as either.
I thought the martian training was for a theoretical earth invasion?
While Earthlings would be relatively stronger that's not necessarily an advantage in zero g. Until they get their bearing it can be a liability.
I thought everyone was basically scared shitless of the Martian marines?
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
On a per engagement basis, yeah they're the baddest. But they're outnumbered by Earth something fierce. Errinwright said this season their navies are like 5-1?
We get the scene of Holden looking crazy when talking to Miller.
They should have had him turn and look at the camera and go "you blew up a fucking ship?"
And everyone watching the screen would have a second of "oh, shit. He's not crazy."
No time to explain it to the other side when in the firefight (and for all they knew he could have been bullshitting them), but it'd give more plausibility to like...Drummer being on board
Season 3 finale spoiler
I didn’t catch it, but people on reddit were saying that Drummer perked up when she heard him spout some Belter slang and ask what the hell it meant. He’d repeated a slang phrase he could only have heard from a belter, i.e. Miller.
Do Earthers have a combat advantage because they're used to higher gravity so their ships can accelerate a bit faster, or does the white goo and comfy chairs erase that advantage?
the Martians military make an effort to train in high Gs regularly, and the white goo helps. They have something close to parity.
the belter generally can't afford either high G training or good white goo, so they can't really deal with high G as well as either.
I thought the martian training was for a theoretical earth invasion?
While Earthlings would be relatively stronger that's not necessarily an advantage in zero g. Until they get their bearing it can be a liability.
I thought everyone was basically scared shitless of the Martian marines?
Yeah, everyone is terrified of the Martian Marines, because in space the Martian Marines have the best tech and the best training.
However, they live their entire lives in tunnels on Mars since the whole terraforming process will take generations to produce a viable atmosphere there, or in space ships.
So, the first time we see Bobby on Earth, she gets a really bad case of vertigo combined with agoraphobia because for the first time in her life she's outside. No roof over head, no walls, no bulkheads, no filters for the natural light, no armored pressure suit, just outside. And it understandably messes with her head. It's not exactly a thing you can train for if going outside without a space suit means dying horribly.
As to invading Earth, the Marines, even in their armor to minimize the shock of being outside can only carry so much ammunition, and the Earth population would be able to bury the invading Martians in a tide of flesh if they could be whipped into a sufficient frenzy. Sure, the casualties they suffered would be horrifying, but even if each Martian Marine takes out a hundred people before falling, that's still a win for Earth because Earth has the numbers to soak those casualties.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Fuck me, not only did they finally wrap up a season at a logical point in the story, they did an awesome job of it.
At this point, I'm glad the books got written so we could get this show, but I'm actually liking the show a lot more. This is some top-notch modern scifi, complete with solving big problems with a combination of thinking and utterly human elements. Love, hate, dedication, redemption, and hopes for a brighter future are all there, and they did it without ever making me roll my eyes at somebody making really contrived stupid decisions. Everybody is reacting according to their character and in actual human ways, rather than the direction of the plot forcing awkward or dumb actions.
Really looking forward to seeing where they go from here, but I'm also extremely satisfied with where this third season goes with everything that came before it.
Just finished book 5. Reflections and speculation to follow (obviously book 5 spoilers):
Again Holy Fuck! With the general impressions that people hinted at, I was expecting very different stories for both Cibola Burn and Nemesis Games. While I can understand the idea of CB being low-stakes, the feelings of frustration and helplessness peaked (so far) in that book. I was much more at the edge of my seat, and honestly I really enjoyed it. That being said I think I'm still in shock over the immensity of rocks falling on Earth. I keep thinking of the famous Planet of the Apes quote:
You finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up. God damn you! God damn you all to hell!
Outside of that I really enjoyed getting to know the other characters better. Until now they seemed mostly accessories to Holden. I mean, they've always been amazing fleshed out characters, but I understood them via their relationship to Holden. I feel like NG really pushed the narrative away from being centrally focused on him. Two other moments I enjoyed both happened at the very end: the explicit revelation that Naomi is just as flawed a person as Clarissa Mao, and the implicit revelation that our own perceptions of others are inherently flawed by the vary nature of perception, and the epilogues terrifying reminder that there are greater threats, and even greater threats beyond them. But seriously Rocks Falling and The Nothing are the two biggest WTF moments so far.
Just about through book 1 and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I'm not sure if I want to start the next book more than I want to rewatch the first season. I'll be doing both, of course, just which one first?
Read a blurb about the authors in the back of the book, and apparently they've been GRRM's long time writing assistants? That true? If so, I find it interesting that the first expanse book and the last game of thrones books came out in the same year a month apart, and yet the expanse series is probably going to be finished before the next GoT book is released.
Probably book 5 spoilers, but I'll go with all books to be safe:
I forget the order, so not sure what you know about Naomi for sure, but it's a stretch to say she equates to Clarissa.
Naomi balks at exactly what Clarissa does. And Naomi had more justification all around.
Rebuttal, and still book 5 spoilers:
Well, there are two schools of thought about this. In book 2 Clarissa suffers from psychopathy, while Naomi at her worst suffers from naivety and coercion. In both cases their suffering compels them to perform horrific acts. From a Utilitarianist point of view the motives behind their actions are not as important as their results. Both are responsible for similar outcomes: killing ships, killing friends, abandoning family, etc. From a Deontological standpoint Naomi could be excused of her actions because of that naivety and coercion... but depending on your read Clarissa could also be excused because of her mental illness. And yeah, that's a big 'depending' because of how we understand mental illness. But I think the authors offer a good justification via Anna's character who looks at Clarissa as a sick, frightened, needful person, and instead of seeking justice or retribution asks for her forgiveness and clemency. It's a great take on Christianity and how a priest can help heal the distressed.
Sometimes I'm watching this show, and a scene comes up where I just think
"That had to be a hell of a day on set. People just strung up off the ground around the hallway like some kind of murderous art gallery"
Do Earthers have a combat advantage because they're used to higher gravity so their ships can accelerate a bit faster, or does the white goo and comfy chairs erase that advantage?
The Martian Military is exceptionally well provisioned and trained, they outstrip earth in terms of technology and capabilities on a ship-to-ship basis. Basically because they're 'Space Collectivists, but not because it works'.
The Earth military has a larger number of ships and service members who are not as well equipped or as well trained. Earth, for instance, doesn't have the resources to push into stealth tech.
Belters are fairly fragile, being physically uncomfortable in environments over 1/3 g and suffering from disability at 1g. Thinner bodied, less developed musculature and thinner bones. However, they basically have home field advantage. They're more used to changes in direction caused by maneuvering and more comfortable in 0g environments than Martian or Earth militaries.
The juice is there to counteract some of the effects of a high-g burn, but even with good juice and stable crash couches you can still die from the effects.
Book...3? 4? spoilery question about the Navou/Behemoth:
I'm fairly certain I remember the inner surface of the drum having, like, landscape. Dirt, grass, I'm pretty sure a lake... Am I misremembering that or was that shipped out after it became Midian Station or are they just going a different way with the visuals in the show?
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Book...3? 4? spoilery question about the Navou/Behemoth:
I'm fairly certain I remember the inner surface of the drum having, like, landscape. Dirt, grass, I'm pretty sure a lake... Am I misremembering that or was that shipped out after it became Midian Station or are they just going a different way with the visuals in the show?
It never got that far, unless I'm forgetting something!
as I recall, it remains a naked metal drum for Book 3, as it's supposed to be a warship? Nothing in the drum section would work correctly while the ship is using thrust gravity.
I could be way off, but I think it only gets the farmland and lake and such added after the drum is spun up. Possibly mid Book 3, as part of the life support? And then once it's done, they stay in the Slow Zone rather than convert it back?
Book...3? 4? spoilery question about the Navou/Behemoth:
I'm fairly certain I remember the inner surface of the drum having, like, landscape. Dirt, grass, I'm pretty sure a lake... Am I misremembering that or was that shipped out after it became Midian Station or are they just going a different way with the visuals in the show?
It never got that far, unless I'm forgetting something!
as I recall, it remains a naked metal drum for Book 3, as it's supposed to be a warship? Nothing in the drum section would work correctly while the ship is using thrust gravity.
I could be way off, but I think it only gets the farmland and lake and such added after the drum is spun up. Possibly mid Book 3, as part of the life support? And then once it's done, they stay in the Slow Zone rather than convert it back?
you aren't going to farm on the walls.
the Mormons would probably have built out the farms after they stopped boosting and spun the drums up.
in the time between the books, after it became a station, the belters did the same.
Book...3? 4? spoilery question about the Navou/Behemoth:
I'm fairly certain I remember the inner surface of the drum having, like, landscape. Dirt, grass, I'm pretty sure a lake... Am I misremembering that or was that shipped out after it became Midian Station or are they just going a different way with the visuals in the show?
It never got that far, unless I'm forgetting something!
as I recall, it remains a naked metal drum for Book 3, as it's supposed to be a warship? Nothing in the drum section would work correctly while the ship is using thrust gravity.
I could be way off, but I think it only gets the farmland and lake and such added after the drum is spun up. Possibly mid Book 3, as part of the life support? And then once it's done, they stay in the Slow Zone rather than convert it back?
Mild books spoilers
Yeah, it stays barren for a huge amount of time, I think in book 4 or 5 they were still trying to get dirt shipped in to start farming, but don't actually have everything set up in the drum until sometime between book 6 and book 7.
Around book 3 they mostly have plant life designed for air scrubbing in it's own section rather than farming.
Sometimes I'm watching this show, and a scene comes up where I just think
"That had to be a hell of a day on set. People just strung up off the ground around the hallway like some kind of murderous art gallery"
One assumes once they are hung then some schumuck got to spray paint the fake blood around them to make it look real too while they were hanging around.
Book...3? 4? spoilery question about the Navou/Behemoth:
I'm fairly certain I remember the inner surface of the drum having, like, landscape. Dirt, grass, I'm pretty sure a lake... Am I misremembering that or was that shipped out after it became Midian Station or are they just going a different way with the visuals in the show?
It never got that far, unless I'm forgetting something!
as I recall, it remains a naked metal drum for Book 3, as it's supposed to be a warship? Nothing in the drum section would work correctly while the ship is using thrust gravity.
I could be way off, but I think it only gets the farmland and lake and such added after the drum is spun up. Possibly mid Book 3, as part of the life support? And then once it's done, they stay in the Slow Zone rather than convert it back?
you aren't going to farm on the walls.
the Mormons would probably have built out the farms after they stopped boosting and spun the drums up.
in the time between the books, after it became a station, the belters did the same.
Yup you carry enough food to last you through the boost phase + a couple years. Then once you stop boosting you spin up the drum and get the farms rolling. Then on the other side a few years before you get ready to start decel you start harvesting and canning the hell out of all your food as you start stripping the farms back down and packing everything up so you have food to last you until you enter the system and hopefully find a habitable world. And if not park the navoo and start up the drum and farms again.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
I'm trying to remember, did the Nauvoo ever actually have a specific system/planet in mind when they were initially making the plans to leave?
If they accelerate at the standard third-g for two years, that puts their final velocity on the float at about 206 Million m/s, or about 2/3 the speed of light. At a Lorentz factor of 1.376, here are a few of our closest galactic neighbors with potential planets and how long it would take the Nauvoo to get there from their own frame of reference (time in earth's frame of reference in parentheses). Note, this also takes into account the distance traveled during the four years of accel/decel, which is a total of about 1.375 light years:
Alpha Centauri: 4 (5.5) Years
Bernard's Star: 5.5 (7.5) Years
Tau Ceti: 12 (16.5) Years
Wolf 1061: 14.4 (19.8) Years
Gliese 876: 15.7 (21.6) Years
(I didn't factor any lorentz contraction into the accel/decel period because I'm lazy, so someone feel free to check my math on everything and add that part in if you'd like, but this gets close at least)
What's interesting about this is that, at that kind of velocity, the Nauvoo is able to get to several of our neighboring stars with potential planets within a lifetime. Now of course those are only systems that may have planets, it says nothing about whether they could be habitable planets, but still. The fact that they're looking at travel for multiple generations, what I'm assuming would be 90 years from their own frame of reference (almost 125 years from Earth), means they're looking WAAAAAY out there. If you take time dilation into account, from their frame of reference they are traveling at about 1 light year per year. That means that within their 94 year travel time, they could potentially get to any star within a 100 light-year radius of Earth. I don't think anyone knows exactly how many that actually is, but estimates I've seen range up to as many as 15,000 stars. That's a lot of options!
I'm very curious how they make that initial decision into which direction to point. Is it just a factor of how many they can hit within a certain proximity of a single vector, or do they have a single specific target? Does anyone remember exactly how they stated this in the book or in the show?
Disclaimer:
Please don't rip me too hard if my math is completely wrong or I missed some critical factor. I was surprised at just how fast the Nuavoo ends up going after 2 years of 0.3g acceleration, to the point that I feel like I must have missed something here. So I welcome anyone who wants to double check me on anything and fix what I missed!
If I had to make completely pointless conjecture, it would be that by that time, the LDS faith had decided what star was supposed to be Kolob and were heading off to there.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
They're going specifically to Tau Ceti, as it's their closest safest bet. I don't remember the specifics, but closer systems have unstable stars that could cook their planets with no warning, or something?
Book 3 spoilers
I hope Tau Ceti has a Ring Gate. If it does, the church should have their ride and colony setup fees entirely comped by Tycho Station. Be a nice way to settle the court case over the Nauvoo/Behemoth ;p
Oh brilliant
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
They're going specifically to Tau Ceti, as it's their closest safest bet. I don't remember the specifics, but closer systems have unstable stars that could cook their planets with no warning, or something?
Book 3 spoilers
I hope Tau Ceti has a Ring Gate. If it does, the church should have their ride and colony setup fees entirely comped by Tycho Station. Be a nice way to settle the court case over the Nauvoo/Behemoth ;p
Alpha Centauri is a trinary system, which can lead to some pretty unstable problems, even if the star types may actually be conducive to life.
Alpha Centauri A is 1.1x the mass of Sol, and 1.5x the luminosity. Alpha Centauri B is .9x the mass and .4 the luminosity (and also is orange-skewed color-wise, I think?). They're binary with one another. Alpha Centauri C is tiny compared to the other two and waaaaaaay out. It's a white dwarf, I think? It's the closest one to us, though.
A and B's distance varies between like...Neptune and Saturn's orbits, give or take. So there's the possibility for rocky planets around either one of them, but it's a pretty narrow window.
...I remember the main swaths of that (not the specific numbers) of this from a (probably pretty mediocre) novel called Illegal Alien, where (after first contact and a world tour and stuff), one of the first aliens on Earth is arrested on murder charges and has to go through the US court process. It actually mattered materially to the case. I have no idea why it made such an impact on me, but here we are.
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
I also assume by the time of the expanse and the space infrastructure they would have their imaging of their target system was probably good enough to determine earth sized planet/s yes/no and presence of oxygen/water y/n so I am assuming the navoo was targeted at something that had at least one target planet that to their best ability to determine at least had the right building blocks.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding a Belters alagory.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding a Belters alagory.
Which is a good thing anyway. They really aren't just a case of some well-known group with a palette swap, they're in a fairly unique situation with both their biology and their politics.
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding a Belters alagory.
Plenty of fractious ethnic groups end up getting exploited by powerful outside forces while they tear themselves apart. They just don't tend to get remembered or last long.
Basically Zeon is Mars. Earth Federation is the UN. And the browncoats are the belters.
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding a Belters alagory.
Which is a good thing anyway. They really aren't just a case of some well-known group with a palette swap, they're in a fairly unique situation with both their biology and their politics.
The fact that belters are basically all the various independent facilities/ships basically everywhere in the entire solar system except mars and earth is one huge reason why there is a huge amount of factionalism/diversity amongst the belters also why they have a hard time coming together on anything. It would be like trying to hammer a unified force/government out of every random island nation on earth.
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2 Walls must function as floors. And then only in the drum part of the ship. In the non-drum part of the ship, only 1 wall is a floor.
You need to stop thinking about Speeding up and slowing down as 2 different things. There is Only Acceleration. And it comes from the engines. So the wall that aligns with where the engines are is also a floor during acceleration.
I mean, it depends on the ratio. If you’ve got one g along the axis and one g spin gravity you’ve got 45 degree gravity. Which sounds awful.
Which means you generally only need one floor for most usages because the ship is flipping the thrusters are always in the same orientation to where your floor is so whenever they are on that "floor" is down.
The navoo was only spinning up for 1/3 gravity basically martian normal and sufficient to ward off the ill effects of zero g.
the Martians military make an effort to train in high Gs regularly, and the white goo helps. They have something close to parity.
the belter generally can't afford either high G training or good white goo, so they can't really deal with high G as well as either.
Season 3 finale spoiler
Oh, that's what that little bit was!
Subtle enough that it flew right by me, but did the same thing, and honestly in a better way because it's not the sort of thing that could be explained. Awesome.
Just having fun. I didn't play all those hours of Kerbal Space Program for nothing.
Earth Combat Advantage (Book 2 Spoilers)
On a ground fight (Earth like gravity/atmosphere), Earth would win in a walk. Bobby is top of the line trained, and has a panic attack the first time she walks outside in the open air. Also, she says they could arm earthers with sticks and rocks and they would roll over the entire Martian Military in a tidal wave.
I thought the martian training was for a theoretical earth invasion?
While Earthlings would be relatively stronger that's not necessarily an advantage in zero g. Until they get their bearing it can be a liability.
Specifically
However, they live their entire lives in tunnels on Mars since the whole terraforming process will take generations to produce a viable atmosphere there, or in space ships.
So, the first time we see Bobby on Earth, she gets a really bad case of vertigo combined with agoraphobia because for the first time in her life she's outside. No roof over head, no walls, no bulkheads, no filters for the natural light, no armored pressure suit, just outside. And it understandably messes with her head. It's not exactly a thing you can train for if going outside without a space suit means dying horribly.
As to invading Earth, the Marines, even in their armor to minimize the shock of being outside can only carry so much ammunition, and the Earth population would be able to bury the invading Martians in a tide of flesh if they could be whipped into a sufficient frenzy. Sure, the casualties they suffered would be horrifying, but even if each Martian Marine takes out a hundred people before falling, that's still a win for Earth because Earth has the numbers to soak those casualties.
At this point, I'm glad the books got written so we could get this show, but I'm actually liking the show a lot more. This is some top-notch modern scifi, complete with solving big problems with a combination of thinking and utterly human elements. Love, hate, dedication, redemption, and hopes for a brighter future are all there, and they did it without ever making me roll my eyes at somebody making really contrived stupid decisions. Everybody is reacting according to their character and in actual human ways, rather than the direction of the plot forcing awkward or dumb actions.
Really looking forward to seeing where they go from here, but I'm also extremely satisfied with where this third season goes with everything that came before it.
Read a blurb about the authors in the back of the book, and apparently they've been GRRM's long time writing assistants? That true? If so, I find it interesting that the first expanse book and the last game of thrones books came out in the same year a month apart, and yet the expanse series is probably going to be finished before the next GoT book is released.
Naomi balks at exactly what Clarissa does. And Naomi had more justification all around.
Rebuttal, and still book 5 spoilers:
"That had to be a hell of a day on set. People just strung up off the ground around the hallway like some kind of murderous art gallery"
The Martian Military is exceptionally well provisioned and trained, they outstrip earth in terms of technology and capabilities on a ship-to-ship basis. Basically because they're 'Space Collectivists, but not because it works'.
The Earth military has a larger number of ships and service members who are not as well equipped or as well trained. Earth, for instance, doesn't have the resources to push into stealth tech.
Belters are fairly fragile, being physically uncomfortable in environments over 1/3 g and suffering from disability at 1g. Thinner bodied, less developed musculature and thinner bones. However, they basically have home field advantage. They're more used to changes in direction caused by maneuvering and more comfortable in 0g environments than Martian or Earth militaries.
The juice is there to counteract some of the effects of a high-g burn, but even with good juice and stable crash couches you can still die from the effects.
It never got that far, unless I'm forgetting something!
I could be way off, but I think it only gets the farmland and lake and such added after the drum is spun up. Possibly mid Book 3, as part of the life support? And then once it's done, they stay in the Slow Zone rather than convert it back?
the Mormons would probably have built out the farms after they stopped boosting and spun the drums up.
in the time between the books, after it became a station, the belters did the same.
Mild books spoilers
Around book 3 they mostly have plant life designed for air scrubbing in it's own section rather than farming.
One assumes once they are hung then some schumuck got to spray paint the fake blood around them to make it look real too while they were hanging around.
Yup you carry enough food to last you through the boost phase + a couple years. Then once you stop boosting you spin up the drum and get the farms rolling. Then on the other side a few years before you get ready to start decel you start harvesting and canning the hell out of all your food as you start stripping the farms back down and packing everything up so you have food to last you until you enter the system and hopefully find a habitable world. And if not park the navoo and start up the drum and farms again.
If they accelerate at the standard third-g for two years, that puts their final velocity on the float at about 206 Million m/s, or about 2/3 the speed of light. At a Lorentz factor of 1.376, here are a few of our closest galactic neighbors with potential planets and how long it would take the Nauvoo to get there from their own frame of reference (time in earth's frame of reference in parentheses). Note, this also takes into account the distance traveled during the four years of accel/decel, which is a total of about 1.375 light years:
(I didn't factor any lorentz contraction into the accel/decel period because I'm lazy, so someone feel free to check my math on everything and add that part in if you'd like, but this gets close at least)
What's interesting about this is that, at that kind of velocity, the Nauvoo is able to get to several of our neighboring stars with potential planets within a lifetime. Now of course those are only systems that may have planets, it says nothing about whether they could be habitable planets, but still. The fact that they're looking at travel for multiple generations, what I'm assuming would be 90 years from their own frame of reference (almost 125 years from Earth), means they're looking WAAAAAY out there. If you take time dilation into account, from their frame of reference they are traveling at about 1 light year per year. That means that within their 94 year travel time, they could potentially get to any star within a 100 light-year radius of Earth. I don't think anyone knows exactly how many that actually is, but estimates I've seen range up to as many as 15,000 stars. That's a lot of options!
I'm very curious how they make that initial decision into which direction to point. Is it just a factor of how many they can hit within a certain proximity of a single vector, or do they have a single specific target? Does anyone remember exactly how they stated this in the book or in the show?
Disclaimer:
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Book 3 spoilers
Alpha Centauri is a trinary system, which can lead to some pretty unstable problems, even if the star types may actually be conducive to life.
Alpha Centauri A is 1.1x the mass of Sol, and 1.5x the luminosity. Alpha Centauri B is .9x the mass and .4 the luminosity (and also is orange-skewed color-wise, I think?). They're binary with one another. Alpha Centauri C is tiny compared to the other two and waaaaaaay out. It's a white dwarf, I think? It's the closest one to us, though.
A and B's distance varies between like...Neptune and Saturn's orbits, give or take. So there's the possibility for rocky planets around either one of them, but it's a pretty narrow window.
...I remember the main swaths of that (not the specific numbers) of this from a (probably pretty mediocre) novel called Illegal Alien, where (after first contact and a world tour and stuff), one of the first aliens on Earth is arrested on murder charges and has to go through the US court process. It actually mattered materially to the case. I have no idea why it made such an impact on me, but here we are.
Looks like the hardcover can be had for $2 used :P
Eh, the Belters are too shortsighted and way too discordant to be Browncoats; Belters won't unify without being virtually forced too, the Browncoats just didn't want a pretty nasty government ruling everybody. Belters can barely operate one big ship and a little fleet without shooting, stabbing, or spacing each other.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding a Belters alagory.
Which is a good thing anyway. They really aren't just a case of some well-known group with a palette swap, they're in a fairly unique situation with both their biology and their politics.
Plenty of fractious ethnic groups end up getting exploited by powerful outside forces while they tear themselves apart. They just don't tend to get remembered or last long.
The fact that belters are basically all the various independent facilities/ships basically everywhere in the entire solar system except mars and earth is one huge reason why there is a huge amount of factionalism/diversity amongst the belters also why they have a hard time coming together on anything. It would be like trying to hammer a unified force/government out of every random island nation on earth.