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The Expanse Season 5 |OT| Last Man Standing
- Thread starter Deleted member 16516
- Start date
1.A small subsection of the military elite.
2.Nope.
3.That's what's implied.
2.Nope.
3.That's what's implied.
OP
OP
1. Just a rogue faction within Mars
2. It's a "look at this alien tech, I wonder what this could be used for?" type of allusion.
3. The protomolecule is the key to reactivating the Gate Builders' technology and establishing a new Empire.
2. It's a "look at this alien tech, I wonder what this could be used for?" type of allusion.
3. The protomolecule is the key to reactivating the Gate Builders' technology and establishing a new Empire.
Rogue fleet
No
Pretty much
Sauveterre mentions that in their new world they won't have a civilian population to answer to, they're deranged fascists basically. That's why he randomly asks her to remove her bracelet, they're nuts. Well I think so anyway.
Thanks for the help guys! I've read the first three books, so I'm thinking maybe starting with Nemesis Games would be my best bet.
Alex dying certainly ruined the payoff of a happy reunion. I understand why they did it, but it definitely hurt the show. The whole personal story is how they all need each other etc etc. so removing 25% of the equation feels bad from a story arc standpoint. Not to mention the death wasn't really that heroic feeling, just kind of "happened"
I did take a great interest in trying to figure out which parts were reshoots and what else felt weird. Like the long shot of the party with everyone together. There is obviously a "Martian" component missing in Avasaralas view — so Frankie Adam's sort of had to fill that role in your mind but it's not as obvious from a visual storytelling standpoint.
I love Cara Gee, and Dominique Tipper and Wes Chatham did such an amazing acting job this season. Holden didn't have much to do, but he's been a big focus for several seasons already.
I did take a great interest in trying to figure out which parts were reshoots and what else felt weird. Like the long shot of the party with everyone together. There is obviously a "Martian" component missing in Avasaralas view — so Frankie Adam's sort of had to fill that role in your mind but it's not as obvious from a visual storytelling standpoint.
I love Cara Gee, and Dominique Tipper and Wes Chatham did such an amazing acting job this season. Holden didn't have much to do, but he's been a big focus for several seasons already.
Pretty much. They're not quite deranged, but they're definitely fascists, and not just authoritarian, but perfectionistic authoritarians who saw life on Mars as being too loose and undisciplined. The bracelet scene illustrates what they think is a noteworthy lack of discipline.
The name "Laconia" should give a reasonable clue what they're about. (The system was called that before they got there so in the story they haven't named it that themselves, but it's clearly an intentional narrative decision).
Not even close.
That awards easily goes to batshit insane epic battle in Orville S2.
OP
OP
Book-wise there isn't much that can top a space battle in The Culture universe.
No there isn't. Although I think the battles in The Expanse books are fantastic, better than in the show. Although the later has some fantastic scenes, I absolutely loved the small moments with the Rociante and all those torpedos in Episode 7.
And in terms of visual midia, both films and tv, Battlestar Galactica stands surpreme.
I wish I was smart enough to understand what the fuck was going on during that space battle though. We spent too little time outside of the ships to tell them apart during the battle. Here the weekly episodic format also works against it. I assume Holden last minute didn't go through with his tactic to barrel roll through the center and instead targeted the main frigate as Bull said, but it wasn't super clear.
Pretty good season overall. The whole Anwar situation sucks major donkeyballs and really affected the ending altough they handled it surprisingly well.
Also didn't like the downplayed asteroid attack, I imagined the impacts and casualties being far more severe. Would have been nice to see more damage and the ramifictions. The strikes should have been a surprise for viewers too.
But the characters, acting, writing, camerawork and space battles are all fracking amazing. Really hope to see books 7-9 to be adapted at some point.
Also didn't like the downplayed asteroid attack, I imagined the impacts and casualties being far more severe. Would have been nice to see more damage and the ramifictions. The strikes should have been a surprise for viewers too.
But the characters, acting, writing, camerawork and space battles are all fracking amazing. Really hope to see books 7-9 to be adapted at some point.
We all know that is the real reason why Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO.
Recently, the best epic space battle I "saw" was in the last Salvation Sequence book.
I didn't understand why would they want to seize the ring. I need to rewatch Sauveterre's lesson on the tactical space inside the ring. That was a huge foreshadow
I took it as the opposite. They don't have anyone they can fall back on if they fail - no one will bring them food, give them a salary, etc. It's all or nothing.
The bracelet thing... that's more bringing it back to core Mars values. Back when they colonised nothing would have been wasted or taken for granted. If it doesn't serve a purpose, it isn't allowed.
So they're sort of aspiring to be like the first Martian ancestors and repeat what they did, but more successfully. It's a little "Wehrmach in WW2 cosplaying WW1" I suppose.
Mainly to:
1)Have Marco seize the primary economic growth of the Belt. Throughout the last two seasons, the talk for Mars has been to move to the ring worlds. Hundreds to thousands of planets that can provide air, water, food, soil, and valuable minerals without dozens of generations of terraforming that may or may not payoff. I'm not sure if the show covered how this affects the Belters, but
the Belt is essentially losing its use as a cornerstone. Why hire a bunch of rock hoppers or water haulers when all these places can now provide resources off of Earth? The Free Navy controlling the Sol ring gate helps control the exodus and, with Earth out of the picture, establishes them as the primary resource provider within the system.
2)The tactical benefit explained of controlling the ring gate(s) is that it's a chokepoint. A ship would have to commit to a specific approach vector to transition through the gate, while the gate itself limits movement and numbers. So a smaller force can hold out against a much larger battle group, even if they are coming through multiple gates.
I was also lost during it too. Looked cool but couldn't tell what the hell was going on
re: 1, I said it before but I consider that the main weakness of this season. It makes so much sense when it's laid out like that, but instead Marco Inaros comes off as a deranged zealot that nobody in their right minds outside of some hardcore OPA would follow.
x3. It was a cool battle but I didn't really understand what was going on.
Ok so Babbage and the commander guy died along with this ship, is that what everyone is saying? I thought they were traveling and showing how the portal worked on a molecular level or whatever. Like stargate with the gates or Star Trek does with beaming tech. Didn't think they were getting "eaten" or destroyed.
Yeah they dead. The effects looked significantly different from the 'normal' ring transits we'd seen on the show before.
Plus the effect of the Martians on the Barkeith getting dissolved looks pretty similar to the visualization Holden shows Fred earlier in the season of whatever created the artifact that wiped out the protomolecule builders on Ilus: https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-expanses-first-season-5-clip-hints-at-cosmic-troubl-1845742772
I did like the bit of irony that Barkeith seems to be one of the leaders of the Mars traitors, thought he had achieved his goal, was in sight of the world they were heading to, and then in a blink was atomized in the midst of a mundane act. Him and his ship vanishing (I wonder if the rest of that little fleet made it?) will have some pretty major effects beyond just the questions of how the hell he died.
you can see his ingeniuity several times in the show he constantly is checking graphs and projections and every time they execute an attack against a superior outfitted opponent it's accompanied by some environmental effect or ruse that flips the odds massively in his favour.
I wonder if he realizes he's just getting played by the seditious martians though.
As much as I love Camina, I felt like a lot was missing from the Belter POV that boils down to that. We really don't get much from Fred on the issue before his death, as it was primarily focused on finding Monica and Holden being on another moral crusade. Naomi is focused on Philip and suffering under Marco's abuse, but her only real contribution to the situation is speaking of only the death toll of an oppressive establishment to their victims. Camina is really only focused on her family and the loss of Ashford and Fred, and we don't get much insight to the factions that develop within her family aside from one being an Inaros zealot.
The only signal of the bigger picture we get is a throwaway line from Marco about how for maybe a decade the Belt will face lean times with Earth's resources no longer in the picture.
Hopefully next year they will/can bring back Jared Harris to reprise as Anderson Dawes to help provide more insight into the Belt. Earth, which we also lost a bit of the picture there as well, is pretty much off the table and the stakes there are known. We just had two seasons deep diving into Mars, with the Laconia faction in the wings to wrap it up whenever they get around to them. It's time for the Belt to return as an actual people, rather than just a few key characters.
OP
OP
Now that this season is finished and with season 6 still quite far off, we have Foundation to look forward to as the next big science fiction TV show. I hope to see you many of you in the OT thread for that.
I wonder if the Peaches reveal at the end was filmed in a reshoot or not. Wonder if there's a version closer to the books:
A little wrap up video of the ending of the season and what some of the themes of the season were.
when I believe Amos has hidden her in a crate, and Alex finds her first.
A little wrap up video of the ending of the season and what some of the themes of the season were.
They talk about Alex's death, so pretty much a reshoot i'd say.
Speaking or reshoots, i wonder if they reshot all Bull scenes as well. There's a shot in the first episode that felt weird to me. The big long shot on Tycho station, with Naomi and Bull talking in the ball lift. We see both characters in the same shot but they look at each other with incorrect elevations. Like if both actors where shot separately and then stitched together during the editing.
So now, i wonder if Bull was only supposed to be there this season but with the Cas fiasco, the production decided to keep him around next season as well for being the new pilot and decided to recast and reshot Bull's scenes with a different actor.
It's just a hunch but... Dunno... Seems plausible i think.
Bull ended up having a lot of scenes overall, I seriously doubt they would have reshot so much, he is with Holden and Monica like 90% of their scenes this season. I think we would have heard if that much had been reshot especially considering how sloppy some of the editing in of the reshoots ended up being.
Marco really is a zealot. He believes in the Belt and the Belter way of life to the extent that it's pretty much religious faith.
In his own universe, though, most of what he's saying would be kind of normal for Belters. Whether the Belt needs Earth (and/or the extent to which the Belt needs Earth) would be a regular-ish conversational topic among Belters and the arguments would be well rehearsed and familiar to most Belters, whatever their own stance on the question.
So when Marco talks about the Belt running the system and not needing Earth, this probably isn't new to Belters, who'll have heard dozens of different suggestions of how the Belt can be independent of Earth and Mars with varying different levels of plausibility including several impossible ones. The way Marco is talking should be normal to them - with the difference being that Marco has taken away the status quo option.
I agree the show could have done more to illustrate this. There's a lot of foreshadowing in earlier seasons (I think most people who've only watched the show once will be surprised at exactly how much if they rewatch), and they've spent quite a bit of time on developing Belter attitudes, but the Belter politics have kind of focused on allegiances rather than ideology and that's possibly made Marco's following seem slightly implausible.
I'm sure he has thought about the chances of them betraying him. From his perspective it's probably not a worry though. He figures he's going to control the Sol system and the ring space so he can handle any immediate betrayal from the Laconia side and once he gets to consolidate his position it'll be thousands of worlds against one.
Just realized, and I may have missed it being pointed on in the episode directly, that Anderson Dawes had handed Marco/Laconia Dr. Cortezar, so there's definitely still some behind the scenes involvement from the character.
Awesome. Glad they were able to get Dom and Steven too for this one.
Awesome. Glad they were able to get Dom and Steven too for this one.
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Finally finished watching season 5. Last half of the season is much better then the first half. My major gripe is that they killed off Fred early for no real reason, and his absence is noticed. There was really 0 reason to change that from the books, and the season was worse because of it. Not only did they lose a good character early, but an excellent actor as well. Just made absolutely no sense to deviate from the book there. Moronic decision.
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I do wish this issue had been explored a bit more. If anything, the Belter way of life was probably more secure than ever. They make up like two tenths of a percent of humanity's population, and with the Ring Gate there is unlimited potential for growth. Assuming Earth was even mildly reasonable, Belters could have negotiated massive prospects for expansion for themselves in the various belts of new systems. New colony worlds will presumably still need rare elements and minerals for the same reasons Earth did -- why not have local Belters in their systems control those contracts? Every Belter should have been salivating over their near-term prospects. Belter anger against Marco for upsetting the apple cart in pursuit of zealotry should have been huge.
It seems like if the Earther government had any sense, they would have negotiated the gifting of rich, habitable systems to Belters and Martians in order to buy time and peace. According to a quick google search, there were 31 billion Earthers*, 3 billion Martians, and 80 million Belters; and the Ring Hub system linked to 1,373 systems, most of which were habitable.
Only Earth has the population and the ships to actually transport settler-farmers to work the remaining ~1,000 worlds. And Earth would have had the political latitude to give Mars the habitable worlds it wanted and the rich systems the Belters wanted in exchange for peace, because Earthers would have wanted to get off Earth and finally get rich, too! Gao and Avasarala's best weapon would have been buying everyone off, and almost everyone's interest would have been to be bought off, so I wish we'd heard more about why that didn't work.
*before Inaros's attack, of course
Ty and that Guy didn't really go into the big set-up at the end there with the Laconia and protomolecule stuff, plus implied that the plan from Day 1 was for Alex to stroke out. It was a nice get together closure for the season, but it certainly felt less...insightful compared to the rest of the episodes beyond the talk surrounding Naomi's message to Holden.
Same with Mars. Earth doesn't want Mars in the position to be entirely self-sufficient in the way habitable worlds would allow for. The people of Mars scattering to several systems while struggling and needing to rely on Earth products until they adapt to the world's ecosystem works to Earth's favor without having to spend a UN dime.
Now, there was a line about the loss of Earth causing starvation and other issues throughout the system and possibly beyond for Belters, so hopefully that becomes more of a set-up for things to come to Marco's plate than a throwaway line to display Marco's one track strategy.
Well shoot, I forgot that was the thing Monica wanted to show Holden before being abducted, especially since Cortezar has been a well passed baton by this point. Either way, can't imagine Dawes is happy that Marco abducted Cortezar and killed people on his turf in Ceres.
The problem there, as Season 4 solidified, was that the Earth corporations were going to force their claims no matter what to where buying off wasn't necessary if they could bury everyone else in legal claims of prospecting or settlement rights and forcing Belters to, as they always have, into indentured work under their boot. The Belt, before the rocks fell, didn't have the leverage to have a seat at the table so-to-speak, though maybe Fred was planning something along those lines with the sample he had.
Same with Mars. Earth doesn't want Mars in the position to be entirely self-sufficient in the way habitable worlds would allow for. The people of Mars scattering to several systems while struggling and needing to rely on Earth products until they adapt to the world's ecosystem works to Earth's favor without having to spend a UN dime.
Now, there was a line about the loss of Earth causing starvation and other issues throughout the system and possibly beyond for Belters, so hopefully that becomes more of a set-up for things to come to Marco's plate than a throwaway line to display Marco's one track strategy.
This subject actually becomes a major focal point for the Belt in wanting a trade federation of sorts to both handle the resource loss of Earth while establishing their position favorably as a necessity to life beyond the planets and trade between them.
Well shoot, I forgot that was the thing Monica wanted to show Holden before being abducted, especially since Cortezar has been a well passed baton by this point. Either way, can't imagine Dawes is happy that Marco abducted Cortezar and killed people on his turf in Ceres.
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Favorite season yet. 5 > 3 > 2 > 4 > 1. This year's finale was the clincher for me because season 3 was damn good, too.
I thought it was great. It set a mood on the Roci this season that would have been lacking, otherwise. It also contributed to Bull feeling remotely relevant.
One more on Amazon. I'd wager a guess that 6 will indeed be the final season. But in post-finale interviews, showrunner Naren Shankar has been asked several times if he'd be up to helm more. He always says yes, and he always says it's up to Alcon.
Alcon, meanwhile, is interested in "interactive, graphic novels, continuing storytelling in features."
Now I don't want to get people's hopes up here. But to me, "features" in particular sounds promising.
I thought it was great. It set a mood on the Roci this season that would have been lacking, otherwise. It also contributed to Bull feeling remotely relevant.
One more on Amazon. I'd wager a guess that 6 will indeed be the final season. But in post-finale interviews, showrunner Naren Shankar has been asked several times if he'd be up to helm more. He always says yes, and he always says it's up to Alcon.
Alcon, meanwhile, is interested in "interactive, graphic novels, continuing storytelling in features."
Now I don't want to get people's hopes up here. But to me, "features" in particular sounds promising.
Just finished season 5. Salivating for more, and am kind of disheartened about there only being one more renewed season that is being advertised as the "final" season. Sounds like GoT levels of rushing for a final season if they are planning on tying all the loose ends, some of which feel like they are just getting started. I thought Bezos was obsessed with the series? Why wouldn't they have signed on for more? (I know he stepped down as CEO but he can easily fund more if he wanted). Isn't there a lot more book content or something?