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The Expanse


Ranxerox

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I'm loving this show.  

 

No doubt there are mistakes in its science but they are getting so many things right.  The moment a ship stops accelerating the crew start floating up and have to activate their mag boots to stay on the deck.  When detective Miller pours himself a drink the booze doesn't go straight down because of the Coriolis effect from the the stations spin.  He tries to pour water in a part of the station where the rich people live and he misses the glass because the Coriolis effect is less pronounced in that part of the station.  People who grew up in the asteroid belt are tall, thin and can't handle gravity well (no pun intended).  Consequently using a gravity as form of torture on them has been banned.  When a spaceship wants to turn around it flips over so that it's main rockets are facing the way it was heading and then uses those rockets accelerate it back the way it came.  Just so many little details that show they actually respect science.  It's wonderful. 

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We've watched all four episodes so far (streamed the one that airs on Tuesday) and we're enjoying it too. It's nice to see some (relatively) hard science on a tv science fiction series--especially on SYFY of all things! The ships and torpedoes do still tend to swoop and soar like atmospheric vessels too much, and of course there's the inevitable sound in space, but overall, yes, it's a nice change.

 

I have to say, though, that I'm mostly invested in the five survivors of the Canterbury and their attempts to survive. The adventures of the Space Cop on Ceres, and the machinations of the folks on Earth and Mars interest me very little--but more, since the Canterbury survivors are clearing being drawn into that plot.

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We've watched all four episodes so far (streamed the one that airs on Tuesday) and we're enjoying it too. It's nice to see some (relatively) hard science on a tv science fiction series--especially on SYFY of all things! The ships and torpedoes do still tend to swoop and soar like atmospheric vessels too much, and of course there's the inevitable sound in space, but overall, yes, it's a nice change.

 

I have to say, though, that I'm mostly invested in the five survivors of the Canterbury and their attempts to survive. The adventures of the Space Cop on Ceres, and the machinations of the folks on Earth and Mars interest me very little--but more, since the Canterbury survivors are clearing being drawn into that plot.

 

I had the same problem when I tried to read the first book. One plot line really grabbed me, but I just couldn't get into the others. Eventually I gave up on the whole thing. I think I'm suffering from "space opera fatigue" because the same thing has happened with several other books in the last couple of years.

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It's too early to say whether I really like the show, but I do appreciate the attempt to do SF on TV without blatantly "magical plot device" technology (FTL, artificial gravity, etc.)

 

It may also prompt me to post the Belter societies I devised as part of the background for my SF setting. (Though I never got to use them or develop them in depth. My players said firmly they wanted Planetary Romance. Fortunately, I had a suitable planet ready.)

 

Dean Shomshak

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Question of a zero grav technical nature, keeping things vague to avoid spoilers.

 

The CQB episode features a moment where two characters suddenly experience the loss of gravity but are wearing suits and they start floating away from the catwalk. One character clips himself to the person floating in front of him, lifts his legs off, and kicks off that person to send himself back to the catwalk where he can gain leverage to pull his personal booster (get it???) back.

 

Overall, I liked this. It was a nice nod to how gravity, inertia, and "equal and opposite force" works.

 

However, how could he have lifted his legs up like that? It seems like he managed to just change his orientation to pull of the maneuver without having any surface/object to use as a brace. So it seems like he was "swimming" for a second there.

 

Couldn't they have just had him use his hands to smack himself in the top part of his helmet/suit/head, thereby giving him a minor degree of spin?

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However, how could he have lifted his legs up like that? It seems like he managed to just change his orientation to pull of the maneuver without having any surface/object to use as a brace. So it seems like he was "swimming" for a second there.

 

 

 

Movie physics :)

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Question of a zero grav technical nature, keeping things vague to avoid spoilers.

 

The CQB episode features a moment where two characters suddenly experience the loss of gravity but are wearing suits and they start floating away from the catwalk. One character clips himself to the person floating in front of him, lifts his legs off, and kicks off that person to send himself back to the catwalk where he can gain leverage to pull his personal booster (get it???) back.

 

Overall, I liked this. It was a nice nod to how gravity, inertia, and "equal and opposite force" works.

 

However, how could he have lifted his legs up like that? It seems like he managed to just change his orientation to pull of the maneuver without having any surface/object to use as a brace. So it seems like he was "swimming" for a second there.

 

Couldn't they have just had him use his hands to smack himself in the top part of his helmet/suit/head, thereby giving him a minor degree of spin?

 

I don't know what CQB is so I haven't seen the episode in question, but I think I can answer your question anyway.  In zero gravity without expelling something, pushing something or pulling something a person is not going to be able to move their center of gravity vertically or horizontally.  They can however give themselves spin, and indeed there is always the danger of accidentally giving oneself spin.

 

The trick is that people can pull there limbs in close to there center of gravity and extend them out away from there center of gravity, and actions done away from the center of gravity have more centripetal momentum to them than actions close to the center of gravity.  This is a fact that kids on swings use get higher and higher into the air without actually having anything to push on and figure skaters use speed up and slow down their spins.

 

So if you are floating in zero gravity and for some reason want to start spinning, you just need to sweep your arm in a broad arc away from your center of gravity and when it come time to bring your arm back, first pull the arm in close to your body before rotating the arm back to its starting position.  The broad sweep will impart more centripetal momentum than the close to the body rotation back will cancel out.  You can repeat the process as many time as need be to get up to the desired spin speed.

 

In your example, the person probably brought there legs close into there body so they would give as little centripetal drag as possible and then made a broad sweeping motion with there arms fully extended away from their center of gravity to flip their body so that their feet were facing the person they wanted to kick off against. 

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Ranxerox-

 

Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough answer. I will go with your interpretation of what the writers intended for the characters to do, even if perhaps the visual delivery wasn't as thorough (perhaps they'd think most of the audience would go "Why the hell is he doing that??").

 

CQB is the name of the most recent episode, or at least it was at the time of my post. I apologize for not making it clear.

 

(Also, I had to read your first paragraph 3-4 times before it *clicked* that you weren't using the Oxford comma, and finally I understood what you were saying. How funny is that?)

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CQB is the name of the most recent episode, or at least it was at the time of my post. I apologize for not making it clear.

 

(Also, I had to read your first paragraph 3-4 times before it *clicked* that you weren't using the Oxford comma, and finally I understood what you were saying. How funny is that?)

 

A little embarrassing since I'm the one who started this thread, but I was only up to watching episode 3 when I replied to your post, which is why I didn't get the CQB reference.  Sorry, that my writing style was difficult to understand.  That was something that I was worried about.  If you would quote it back to me with the edits that you think it needs, that would be helpful to me.

 

BTW the Science in the Book is better than what they are showing on the screen. Which is a matter of some frustration to me.

 

I'm pretty sure that the him pushing Naomi away in order to propel himself back to the catwalk came right from the book.  Now obviously they can't just go into scientific exposition like the the book sometimes does, but given that limitation I feel that the show has been good in its presentation of the science.  What scientific inaccuracies, in the show have been frustrating you? 

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I hate that the whole show has so far put all of the ship stuff so close together. With no sense of the scale of how big things are. Most of the stuff took hours, and days to happen. ie the torpedos that killed the Canterbury took quite awhile to get there, not that few seconds that they showed. I understand that they can't make us wait minutes/hours for stuff to happen. Just a mention of the time helps.

 

The last part on the Donnager where they got onto the gunboat was close enough to the book that it didn't bother me.

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Well, for myself I like it.  Not because its is fantastic or a 100% or even 90% interpretation of the book.  

 

But because it is one of the very very few attempts at a hard scifi show on TV in the last 5-10 years or so.  With the science fantasy or space opera'ish style shows dominating everything, not to mention fake wrastl'in on SyFy, seeing a show like this is a very welcome change.  

 

And my hope is that just like what happened with SciFantasy, this will be a success and lead to more and improved shows. 

You have to start somewhere...

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Since you asked, I will answer. I will note, however, that I am not saying you are wrong in your grammar- there are regional differences and heated debates about the Oxford comma. I'm personally a fan, as I hope my argument below makes clear as to why.

In zero gravity without expelling something, pushing something or pulling something a person is not going to be able to move their center of gravity vertically or horizontally.  

(Emphasis added)

 

When I first read this sentence, it didn't make sense to me because I read it as "Without expelling something, neither pushing nor pulling something will allow one to move their center of gravity." It didn't make sense to me because first I know that to be factually untrue, but also there was no connecting thought that made it clear why expelling something suddenly allowed pushing/pulling to move the center of gravity.

 

Then I realized that if I read it like a non-Oxford comma user, then the meaning of the sentence is transformed:

"Without expelling something, pushing something, or pulling something, a person is not going to be able to..."

 

Again, I'm not saying you were wrong, but rather our stylistic differences led to my confusion for a bit.

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Books? I very much prefer books!

 

What are the titles of the books and by whom?  My search for "Expanse" on my sources of books site while giving me space operas it is also yielding romen/greek philosophies as well as "Life of Pi". The list is also in the over 50 range  and may miss my target books entirely so a little guidance would be helpful in the narrowing down my search.

 

A good visual example of effecting inershal mass on orbiting bodies would be at the circus.

The acrobats can change the speed of the large wheel by changing their positions in/on the smaller rings. while this is being done in gravity they are moving large masses by making relatively small changes in the center of gravity and I am sure once they get the wheel going earth gravity is having only a minor effect.

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The Expanse is a series by James S A Corey (a pen name for the writing duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).  The events in season one are lifted pretty much straight from the first book in the series, Leviathan Wakes  Though the character Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't appear in the books until the second in the series,Caliban's War.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Episode 7 Question

 

 

I think I missed a plot point.  How did Detective Miller know to go to Eros Station?  

 

In the book, IIRC, Miller decided to track  Holden and used a complex process of elimination to narrow down the ships he might be using to a barely manageable number and then played a hunch that the name of Don Quixote's horse would appeal to someone with as big a hero complex as James Holden.  So since the Rocinante flight plan said it was heading to Eros, Miller went to Eros.  

 

However, in the TV show he is not shown doing anything like that, so why did he choose Eros as his destination?  

 

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Miller is getting to Eros via the girl... Julie Mao? Anyway, he interrogated a transporter on Ceres who had taken her all over the Belt, which led to knowledge of Phobos and then a shuttle craft that came FROM the ship he thought she was on was docked on Ceres. For some reason he didn't investigate that craft, which was apparently abandoned, but rather went to its last known point of origin. I think. I was cooking while watching this so I might not have heard all the details. But he is not following Holden at all in the TV series, yet.

 

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