I’m finally finishing the series and absolutely speed read through PR and the first few chapters of Tiamat’s Wrath (also Auberon, which I absolutely adored).

This is such an incredibly compelling, somber, yet ever so slightly hopeful narrative that I’m finding it difficult to get adequate sleep and actually put these books down.

With that said, a very minor quibble I have pertains to the theft of The Gathering Storm. What a fucking awesome plot development at the end of PR, I was damn near cheering out loud. All I kept thinking about was what a massive slap in the face to Laconia it was, and all I wanted was to read more of their reaction to that specifically, figuring it was a huge insult and embarrassment.

If sort’ve feels like it got lumped in with the greater operation when referenced and I feel like it hasn’t been explored enough. I wanted to know what Duarte thought about it, I wanted to know if there was any Laconia gossip about it, or if it sowed any doubts in their supremacy facade (how could we lose a ship to them??, etc).

I just finished the first Naomi chapter where she’s thinking about clandestinely smuggling the Storm into Sol and all I kept thinking about was how incredibly embarrassing that has to be for Laconia. I get that their image is to project absolute supreme confidence no matter what, but internally there had to be some level of, “fuck.”

I guess it’s sort of covered when Bobbie I think mentions how the Storm would get obliterated by the Tempest in direct engagement, so perhaps Laconia is just ignoring it.

Absolutely amazing stuff going on however, I’m so excited to finish this.

Stupid question, sorry, having trouble finding an answer.

I'm in my first watch of The Expanse, so I'm trying to avoid spoilers. But I also absolutely love 'after shows' or 'director's commentary' in general, so I was thinking of listening to Ty & That Guy after each episode.

So my question is, does the podcast spoil future episodes/seasons, since it's recorded well after the respective episodes air? Or do they do a good job of sticking to the episode discussed?

When Amos visited Peaches in the pen, what did she mean when she said take what they give and give nothing in return?

How do you interpret this wisdom?

Just started reading the first book of the series and I’m enjoying it so far. But, I feel like there’s a lot of greater context to events that I am missing specifically with the socio/political make-up of this world. Why do the belters hate earthers? Why does it matter that the ship that destroyed the Canterbury is from Mars?

Do these things get explained later?

There are so many good ones, but I am finishing up the series right now and this exchange in LF has made me laugh uncontrollably. I keep going back and listening to it because it is just so perfect.

"You want bullshit happy mouth noises, or the truth?"

"Bullshit happy mouth noises..."

"It's great!"

I finished the show two months ago and now I'm reading the books. Leviathan Wakes was good, Caliban's War was great, but I just can't stand Abaddon's Gate. (I'm only on Chapter 8). I'm finding myself only enjoying the Holden chapters, and I'm also finding myself to be missing Bobbie and Avasarala. It's also important to note that my clumsy self also accidentally read some spoilers, such as >!Bull dies in a heroic ending (I don't know what act though)!<and >!Melba kills Ren!<. With all that considered, will I enjoy Abaddon's Gate and does it get better?

This might be an overly simplistic question with a very simple answer, but throughout the show and series, they're using the powerful shipboard computers to generate a "firing solution" - what is that? I know that in the battle with the Pella, we get one broken down a little bit in Bobbie's finely timed combination of PDCs and railgun fire to aim where the Pella will be once it dodges the rail gun - Which is a fairly complicated arrangement of timing and firing vectors from dumb-fire weapons.

But isn't it usually "The pointy end of the torpedo goes into the other ship"? That seems like something the torpedo can figure out on its own, and something it can continue to figure out on its way there. What is the shipboard computer solving?

I'm currently at season 3 of the TV series and I'm a bit confused about Drummer. I could have sworn that this actor was introduced as Sam and her plot line earlier certainly matches that of Sam but now it seems that she is referred to as Drummer all of the sudden? Did I miss anything? Also it just seems like this season is a huge deviation from Abaddons Gate. Where is Bull? And where is Michio Pa?

I've only read up to Cibola Burn so no book spoilers past that please.

Or indeed any other Laconian buildings.

Any games for the switch only? I keep seeing recommendations for pc and other consoles wondering if there are good ones for the switch. Thanks in advance!

Edit:

Game suggestions

KOTOR Outer Wilds Everspace No Man’s Sky Astral Chain Battlestar galatica Dreadnaught Citizen Sleeper Observer Metroid Prime

The expanse book serie is one hell of a beast with 10 books each spanning a thousand pages (more or less). Should I decide to commit to this serie, it would take a considerable amount of my reading time, it's not a marriage but it's pretty damn close all things considered, It would probably be the biggest serie I've ever red.

Which is why, in your opinion, I need to know in advance how many books of this serie I should read to really give it the chance it deserves. I would also need to have this "test drive" stop at a convenient spot plot wise, a point where the story would be easy to remember, because you see where I live getting physical books is a pain in the ass and it could take me as much as an entire year to get the rest of them (I don't like Ebooks, at least not for doorstoppers). So far the first and second books have already been offered to me.

We are on book 8 of 9 for my book club (plus reading the short stories in chronological order) and I have been making slide decks of all of the discussion questions separated out by the weeks we read them. Now what the heck do I do with them all??

Does anyone have any info on the painting behind Drummer here? A Google search turned up nothing for me, and I love this piece of art! ✌️

After the attack on earth I don't think there can be peace between earth and the belt, drummer heading up the trade union and everyone working together to better humanities future is the best ending... But its really just not possible with all the bad blood between the two people's.

We never get a concrete number on how many people are killed in the attack, but realistically it has to be billions. There's no way that the destruction and chaos we're shown results in anything less.

Honestly the fact that the entire belt wasn't immediately nuked is a miracle. It would not matter to the people of Earth that it was only a small group of belters, it wouldn't matter that many belters were horrified at what Inaros had done, all that matters is what happened to Earth.

To add on to that, after the attack I don't believe there would be many in the UN's cabinet that would oppose retaliatory strikes on the belters stations and eventually vote out David Paster. There would just be too much bad blood, how many people in that cabinet just lost friends and family? Probably a great many of them.

The attacks also did not just stop with the first asteroids. The belters did keep attacking earth and the debris from the asteroids began to block out the sun and ruin crops. If any of those asteroids slipped by then who knows how many millions or billions would die? If they kept attacking earth like that then the belt would get nuked, proto-molecule or no. Avasarala is lucky she didn't get deposed herself.

So all in all, the ending of the show is truly the best that could have happened for humanity, although humanity would never ever get to that point before destroying ourselves. Avasarala is a saint and a hero, she's the only one that would even have a chance at peace between Earth, Mars and The Belt, but even with her I don't think its possible.

Thanks for listening, feel free to tell me how wrong I am if you'd like XD

Just for fun! Been trying to get my brothers (who ARE scifi fans) and my partner (who likes it but wouldn't call himself a fan) to watch the series, but they still haven't.

How do you/would you recommend it? What would be your hook, line and sinker?

By that I mean of course the orbits of important moons and planets, deep space is so vast that a little Kessler syndrome wouldn't matter. I haven't read the books, so maybe there's an answer in there, like each bullet is a tiny magnetic antimatter trap, that sort of cleans up after itself, but I mean if they have antimatter, why would they use ballistics in the first place, or thermonuclear torpedos? With this Epstein drive which provides them virtually infinite delta V, a ship could intercept another ship with a retrograde burn and blow it to pieces just by shooting a bb gun out of the airlock. War in space is a pretty stupid concept, the most realistic application in science fiction, in my opinion is, Space Force, the Netflix series, where safety scissors and bb guns can be used effectively as weapons of deterrence and warfare and to put anymore sophisticated weaponry in space is just plain stupid, you'd just lock entire planets out of space travel, meaning you could only use scorched earth tactics. I love the Expanse show, and i'm sure it's an even better read. Just wondering if the original author had a scientifc explanation on how people would clean / avoid kessler fields.

I'd like to watch them.

Page 129, Erich reveals his gun was empty during the whole meeting with Amos.

Instead, he had a flechette turret installed in his room that, on his signal, would "kill everyone in the room that isn't him".

Erich seems to be fond of flechette guns, because some thirty years later, he uses the same tactic to dispatch the enemy after a business deal goes south during the events of Auberon.

(2nd favourite novella btw)

Someone help me out here. I'm trying to remember a line from Naomi (I think it's from one of the last 3 books). Something about " every solution that has ever been thought of was perfect, except for the 'human' part". I know I'm totally screwing it up. But it's something along those lines. Anyone got anything for me?

I don't care much for Marco Inaros (Hot take). For a long time I found the parts that revolved around the Inaros faction to be the least interesting parts of the series, and a bit of a chore to get through before reaching my favourite parts - Duarte's emergence and the fight against Laconia.

Obviously Marco's ascension is almost entirely a direct result of Duarte's engineering, but it wasn't until a few minutes ago that I saw him as Duarte's dark reflection: The worst possible version of who he is. Daniel and Ty show us a few others in this same way - Murtry and Amos, Tanaka and Bobbie. Amos knows how bad he could be without a positive guiding influence.

-- Amos scowled. It wasn't a question that had even crossed his mind until she said it. It bothered him that it didn't bother him more. He scratched his chest and tried to imagine Holden doing what they'd done. Or Naomi. Or Lydia.

"Yeah," he said. I should really get back to my ship soon." -- Chapter 30, Nemesis Games

There's a conversation between Bobbie and Alex (I think it's in Tiamat's) where they talk about the people who joined Duarte's breakaway fleet. Bobbie points out neither would have been approached because they were both out of the MCRN by then, but what if they had? Could they have been convinced to follow Duarte? Alex said absolutely not, but Bobbie was not convinced. In a world where Bobbie's unit isn't used as a test subject for the protomolecule, I don't think it's hard to imagine her 30 years later refusing promotions to remain a Colonel in the Laconian Marine Corps.

​

The starkest contrast between Duarte and Marco is their parenting and how we see their influence on Filip and Teresa.

-- The mother smiled and turned her attention back to Elsa. Teresa waited for the mother to start asking questions of the little girl. What just happened? and What mistake did you make? and What would you do differently next time? All things her father would have asked. -- Chapter 20, Tiamat's Wrath

It speaks highly of Duarte that as a man decades into his tenure as the supreme leader of a totalitarian military colony, he has, as a single father, raised a teenager who almost effortlessly fits in with the crew of the Rocinante. Watching her father deformed by the protomolecule and ripped to pieces by Tanaka was surely a traumatic event, but she's going to grow up with Naomi and Amos, and Cara and Xan. She'll be loved and protected.

​

Conversely, Filip Inaros had facilitated genocide by his 15th birthday.

He murdered a security guard on Ceres.

As a father, Marco personally held Filip responsible for lost battles, and publicly humiliated him after Filip challenged him. He even ordered him to murder his mother.

Filip spent the rest of his days living a solitary, transitory life. No friends, no family. He carries the weight of his complicity in the bombardment of Earth and his searing hatred of his father until 40 years later, when Jandro seizes control of Beta. Jandro is just too much like Marco. The limited scope of the last novella allows for some ambiguity here, and ultimately as a trolley problem whether or not killing Jandro was justified doesn't matter. It didn't matter that he was banished from the settlement. It didn't matter that it was likely that the settlement would not survive on its own, especially with 2 fewer people.

The opportunity for the catharsis offered by personally killing a surrogate for his father was too much to ignore.

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probably a dumb question here but just couldn’t find the answer online so the explosion just happened and now there saying there gunna be a earthquake in 1 hour then shockwave traveling the speed of light 8 hours later but my question is if the shockwave is traveling that fast how does the earthquake hit them hoursss before shouldnt the shockwave be right away or even close to it

The description of what happens to everyone when the 'bullet' is fired is pretty much what epilepsy feels like. Your brain shuts off, then turns back on after a bit.

Three minutes is not a particularly long seizure for me, anyhow. The twenty minute one would kill me and most other people. (around 5 minutes is where it starts getting very dangerous)

So, if you have read the books, that feeling people in the books describe, (including sometimes visuals and a feeling of dissociation) is how at least I experience my seizures, and I am willing to bet other people know what I mean here. (although in my case I am invariably seriously injured during them, but that is more a me thing)

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Was there any artwork in the books? Was there any fan-art made before the TV show was even conceived?

I just wonder what images were in people's minds before we had a TV show to watch.

Did any of the TV show character portrayals differ significantly from what you pictured in your mind from reading the books?

Bloody Marco has made such a number on Filip! Everytime they show like he is realising the wrong and just when it feels like he will change… he goes and screws it all up. As much as I hate the Marco Inaros character… I feel sad for Filip having become a loser!

In book 7, isn't Muskrat a puppy when Theresa is 10 years old? However in books 8 & 9, Muskrat is referred to as an old dog who is greying around the muzzle. Surely, she be about 4 or 5...

Edit - Just had another look - it's chapter 3 and Theresa is (maybe) 12 'playing with a puppy' observed by Singh - so that makes Muskrat 2 or 3

Reading Book 5, page 81…

LYDIA MAALOUF ALLEN, PASSED AWAY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14TH AT…

What are the odds I’d get to this page on April 14?

BTW, just finished the scene between Amos and Christie…my two favorite characters sniping back and forth…fantastic.

I wrote a novella, that's Expanse-ish, in that there are multiple factions in a Solar System drama, though Luna is much more prominent, and the outer planets aren't as developed (no Epstein drive slows things down quite a bit).

Thought maybe this would be a good audience to get feedback from.

If self-promotion like this isn't allowed, please go ahead and space this post.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/363663458-carpathian-forty-three

When Avasarala asked Holden to go to Illus, she said she was worried it could be another Eros.

If that were true, what threat would it pose to Earth/the milky way on the other side of one of the ring gates? Surely the planet wouldn’t travel through the ring gate, to the station and then through another gate to the Milky Way to cause havoc?

And if it were a threat, why would you send Holden, who seems to activate all this stuff to begin with?