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Very good to watch a “Hard Sci-Fi” show like the expanse. Not many of these out there. Not just the UI, but The tech is realistic and possible and usually back

Very good to watch a “Hard Sci-Fi” show like the expanse. Not many of these out there. Not just the UI, but The tech is realistic and possible and usually backed up by basic scientific principles. The social scenarios are also quite likely in the future. Even the language makes sense - a kind of hodge-Podge universal accent. And it tangentially originates from Larry Niven’s belter stories just before mankind sent the ram robots to distant stars. The Expanse is everything to like.

hnzix 5y ago
I love the fact that they goofed the physics involving a wrench in one of the earlier episodes, so they got help fact checking the physics for future shows and the wrench has been included as an easter egg / running joke to remind them to strive for realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s (NSFW language)
- mavhc 5y ago
  They also talked about having to teach the VFX people physics, and they got much better after the first season.
  - shakezula 5y ago
    There is a scene in one of the later seasons where a character pours whiskey into glasses on the moon, and it's very much obscured and in the background, and they _still_ made sure that the liquid pours out more slowly and splashes up much higher than it would normally. Honestly some of the best attention to detail in sci-fi I've ever seen.
f00zz 5y ago
I liked the hard sci-fi elements in The Expanse, but the idea of people mining asteroids in poor third world-like conditions makes absolutely no sense to me. Or an evil megacorp that murders millions of people with no adequate explanation. Couldn't get past the first book.
- cryptoz 5y ago
  Both of those things happen on Earth today. Haven't seen the show or read the book or whatever, but those both seem totally believable to me. Earth mining is often done in horrendous and poor conditions. Megacorps and industry do kill millions of people on earth today with little explanation or repercussions.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Related, if you want to discover a new class of horror, read up on how shipping industry operates.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Earth mining (and truck driving) is moving more and more towards robots and automation. In a 100 years time there probably won't be many traditional miners or truck drivers left on earth. So why does it make financial sense to send humans (and all the infrastructure they need) out to the asteroid belts to work as truckers and miners, when you could just send robots.
    - HeckFeck 5y ago
      Sometimes human livestock is cheaper than automation, especially when the value of life is cheapened. As an example, slave societies don't have industrial revolutions because there's never a need to invest in labour-saving devices. Indeed, the Romans knew of water wheels and windmills but never used them much because you could just buy a few slaves. If slavery hadn't been introduced to Rome, who knows what alt-history would've emerged from the Roman engineering prowess.
      - dagw 5y ago
        The huge difference is that keeping humans alive on earth is really cheap and easy. Air and water is basically free, and with some tiny scraps of land you can basically make your slaves feed themselves via subsistence farming. They don't have to generate much value to be profitable. Keeping humans alive in space on the other hand is stupidly expensive.
DonHopkins 5y ago
With a romantic noir space detective and dastardly space pirates! What more could you ask for?
- gbrown_ 5y ago
  A good cup of coffee seems hard to come by.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Chrisjen Avasarala cursing like a trucker!
    - stefanfisk 5y ago
      She’s certainly the character that I think they got the most wrong. Besides the general mannerisms, the fact that she’s all for torture and misc other shitty behavior feels completely off to me.
      - bityard 5y ago
        What do you mean by "most wrong?" Compared to her character in the book, or the character you'd like her to be instead? I think Avasarala is actually one of the better written characters. As far as character development goes, she has one of the best arcs in the whole series. In the beginning, she is a politician and power broker who takes zero shit from anybody, especially the men who are supposed to be her superiors. Various tragedies like the Earth nearly getting wiped out nearly turn her into a bloodthirsty Belter-killing monster. She eventually softens substantially and only wants to do what's best for the human race as a whole. (But still taking shit from no one.) That she is an older Indian woman whose language would make a lumberjack blush is just an interesting twist. One of the central themes of the Expanse (the books and the show) is that unlike most plots in books or movies, there are no good guys here. There are only people who are driven by some greater purpose (greed, power, loyalty to government, justice, etc). They do good things, they do bad things, they do stupid things. They are complicated, just like real people. As an example, the characters that we might try to think of as the "good guys" are the crew of the Roci. Holden is a navel-gazing military wash-out who nearly starts an interplanetary war between Earth and Mars via pure speculation. And NEVER apologizes for it. Amos' background isn't explored in much detail in the show, but in the books he worked for a brutal crime boss on Earth and more or less just kills whoever gets in his way or because he thought they might. Alex was an absentee father and husband. Naomi abandoned her young child. And ALL of them stole their ship from the people of Mars. (They use the euphemism "Legitimate Salvage" in sorry-but-not-sorry kind of way.) Finally, context is important. In the future of The Expanse, human civilization is pretty much A Fucking Mess. The Earth is overcrowded, half the population is on welfare, and crime is rampant. Mars is effectively a military state. In the Belt, you are as likely to die from a random equipment malfunction as saying the wrong thing in a bar. So a lot of parallels with countries in present-day Earth, just amplified. Anywho, I don't agree with torture either, but it's hardly a surprise that it happens in that universe.
shoto_io 5y ago
I agree with you on almost all points. The realism of the series was what I really liked about it. I stopped watching it though once the "protomolecule" stuff started. What is backed by science about it?
- gbrown_ 5y ago
  That'll be the "fiction" part of the science fiction.
- 7sigma 5y ago
  The protomolecule is pretty much super advanced tech from a civilisation that had a billion year or so headstart. For me, a big part of the show is about how technology changes us and the protomolecule is an extreme example of that. Its not backed up by science and thats not the point. The point is how humans react to it and how the story progresses after that is really great, one of the best series overall i've ever watched.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    It's a Banks-style Outside Context Problem.
    - spacedcowboy 5y ago
      I miss Culture novels :(
      - ctoth 5y ago
        I do too! One of the great things though is they're very re-readable!
  - rakoo 5y ago
    > a big part of the show is about how technology changes us I've always thought that movie/series genre are just a facade for the real genre: - Slasher movies are supposedly about the boogey man/monster killing protagonist, but it's really about how humans interact when put under stress and show their true color - (Heroic) Fantasy movies are supposedly about wizards and knights and witches, but it's really just a huge politics playground - Science fiction movies are supposedly about new technology/aliens/space stuff, but it's really about how something outside of our knowledge changes us, challenges our values, and reveals who we are. That's usually technology but can be anything. It's of course not just that, there are always exceptions, and I'm probably not the first one to have this view. But I think this is the reason I like almost anything sci-fi but can barely stand watching fantasy movies: I can't find myself to care about people fighting each other for a little bit more power.
manmal 5y ago
I'm so looking forward to the last book. Reportedly it will be released on November 18.
silvanocerza 5y ago
> Even the language makes sense - a kind of hodge-Podge universal accent. It's interesting see the differences from the books on this topic. The books focus more on the use of belter's sign language, just some small and most common word is written and the rest is just defined as patois. The series instead almost never shows sign language and it uses and evolves the spoken language much more than the books.
- qubitcoder 5y ago
  Check out the audio books. The narrator, Jefferson Mays, does a masterful job at patois/Belter-speak, along with all the other character for that matter. I suspect the Expanse series used his work as inspiration, since the patois is virtually identical on the show. Mays is in a league of his own. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Mays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Mays
block_dagger 5y ago
This is relatively true. spoiler alert Does not hold for the alien technology, which isn't explained well at all (proto molecule, gates, slow zone, etc)
- gregmac 5y ago
  The characters don't understand how it works, which is a key part of the main storyline. spoiler alert The books are a couple seasons ahead of the show, and this becomes and even more prominent plot point. It's internally consistent so far, which is more important IMHO. What I mean by this is there's definitely things that are effectively "magic" to us, but not in the way lazy story writers use it (think ST:TNG where they just invent some technobabble that solves the problem in the last 5 mins of the episode). I particularly liked where Detective Miller explains to Holden why he can see him, effectively saying something like "there's a few billion neurons in the human brain, like a massive keyboard - we just have to push the right combination of buttons"
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Usually I consider internal inconsistencies and the resulting deus-ex machina moments as lazy writing, at best. What Star Trek achieved, especially TNG and VOY, was creating a completely consistent universe by using techno babble just this side of "realistic" that allowed them to get away with their other stories. Some of which are really great. Still, since the Expense came out I think it shows how un scientific Star Trek is.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      The Q in star trek just snap their fingers. No technobabble needed.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        I love Q. He has some Loki-esque characteristics.
ronnier 5y ago
I really like the vocabulary and use of words, such as "tight beam", "space him" and others. I think it's a very creative show and one of my favorites at this point. I enjoy the sound track too.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  Not to burst your bubble, but "tightbeam" and "space" (as a verb meaning "to kill by exposure to the vacuum of space") are both quite common and old usages in science fiction -- they aren't unique to The Expanse. "Tightbeam" was in use as early as the 1930s, by E. E. Smith. Interestingly, this means the term was coined before lasers were even invented! https://sfdictionary.com/view/1943/tight-beam https://sfdictionary.com/view/1943/tight-beam Meanwhile, Robert Heinlein was writing about "spacing" people in 1952: https://sfdictionary.com/view/400/space https://sfdictionary.com/view/400/space
nirav72 5y ago
Is The Expanse really Hard Sci-Fi? I get that the space flight physics and tech involved could be considered hard Sci-fi. But in later books and show season - the whole gate network is quite a bit handwavy.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  IMHO “hard” SF is more about feeling “accurate” than actually being accurate - more lip service is paid to something resembling physics as we currently understand it. And the #1 thing for someone to say “fuck it, I’m cutting a hole in existing physics in the interest of telling a compelling story” for is probably “moving shit between planets/stars faster than orbital mechanics and the speed of light allows”.
Optimal_Persona 5y ago
Agree! My wife stumbled across The Expanse soon after we finished watching all 7 seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and couldn't bear the thought of sitting through Voyager or Enterprise. The Expanse's culture (language, slingshot gravity-racer livestream stars, class relations, etc.) feel so plausible. And the character relationships are deeply nuanced - like how even though Ashford was always challenging Drummer's control of The Behemoth, they showed genuine mutual respect, even love, for one another when it mattered.

hnzix 5y ago

I love the fact that they goofed the physics involving a wrench in one of the earlier episodes, so they got help fact checking the physics for future shows and the wrench has been included as an easter egg / running joke to remind them to strive for realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s (NSFW language)

mavhc 5y ago
They also talked about having to teach the VFX people physics, and they got much better after the first season.
- shakezula 5y ago
  There is a scene in one of the later seasons where a character pours whiskey into glasses on the moon, and it's very much obscured and in the background, and they _still_ made sure that the liquid pours out more slowly and splashes up much higher than it would normally. Honestly some of the best attention to detail in sci-fi I've ever seen.

f00zz 5y ago

I liked the hard sci-fi elements in The Expanse, but the idea of people mining asteroids in poor third world-like conditions makes absolutely no sense to me. Or an evil megacorp that murders millions of people with no adequate explanation. Couldn't get past the first book.

cryptoz 5y ago
Both of those things happen on Earth today. Haven't seen the show or read the book or whatever, but those both seem totally believable to me. Earth mining is often done in horrendous and poor conditions. Megacorps and industry do kill millions of people on earth today with little explanation or repercussions.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Related, if you want to discover a new class of horror, read up on how shipping industry operates.
- dagw 5y ago
  Earth mining (and truck driving) is moving more and more towards robots and automation. In a 100 years time there probably won't be many traditional miners or truck drivers left on earth. So why does it make financial sense to send humans (and all the infrastructure they need) out to the asteroid belts to work as truckers and miners, when you could just send robots.
  - HeckFeck 5y ago
    Sometimes human livestock is cheaper than automation, especially when the value of life is cheapened. As an example, slave societies don't have industrial revolutions because there's never a need to invest in labour-saving devices. Indeed, the Romans knew of water wheels and windmills but never used them much because you could just buy a few slaves. If slavery hadn't been introduced to Rome, who knows what alt-history would've emerged from the Roman engineering prowess.
    - dagw 5y ago
      The huge difference is that keeping humans alive on earth is really cheap and easy. Air and water is basically free, and with some tiny scraps of land you can basically make your slaves feed themselves via subsistence farming. They don't have to generate much value to be profitable. Keeping humans alive in space on the other hand is stupidly expensive.

DonHopkins 5y ago

With a romantic noir space detective and dastardly space pirates! What more could you ask for?

gbrown_ 5y ago
A good cup of coffee seems hard to come by.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Chrisjen Avasarala cursing like a trucker!
  - stefanfisk 5y ago
    She’s certainly the character that I think they got the most wrong. Besides the general mannerisms, the fact that she’s all for torture and misc other shitty behavior feels completely off to me.
    - bityard 5y ago
      What do you mean by "most wrong?" Compared to her character in the book, or the character you'd like her to be instead? I think Avasarala is actually one of the better written characters. As far as character development goes, she has one of the best arcs in the whole series. In the beginning, she is a politician and power broker who takes zero shit from anybody, especially the men who are supposed to be her superiors. Various tragedies like the Earth nearly getting wiped out nearly turn her into a bloodthirsty Belter-killing monster. She eventually softens substantially and only wants to do what's best for the human race as a whole. (But still taking shit from no one.) That she is an older Indian woman whose language would make a lumberjack blush is just an interesting twist. One of the central themes of the Expanse (the books and the show) is that unlike most plots in books or movies, there are no good guys here. There are only people who are driven by some greater purpose (greed, power, loyalty to government, justice, etc). They do good things, they do bad things, they do stupid things. They are complicated, just like real people. As an example, the characters that we might try to think of as the "good guys" are the crew of the Roci. Holden is a navel-gazing military wash-out who nearly starts an interplanetary war between Earth and Mars via pure speculation. And NEVER apologizes for it. Amos' background isn't explored in much detail in the show, but in the books he worked for a brutal crime boss on Earth and more or less just kills whoever gets in his way or because he thought they might. Alex was an absentee father and husband. Naomi abandoned her young child. And ALL of them stole their ship from the people of Mars. (They use the euphemism "Legitimate Salvage" in sorry-but-not-sorry kind of way.) Finally, context is important. In the future of The Expanse, human civilization is pretty much A Fucking Mess. The Earth is overcrowded, half the population is on welfare, and crime is rampant. Mars is effectively a military state. In the Belt, you are as likely to die from a random equipment malfunction as saying the wrong thing in a bar. So a lot of parallels with countries in present-day Earth, just amplified. Anywho, I don't agree with torture either, but it's hardly a surprise that it happens in that universe.

shoto_io 5y ago

I agree with you on almost all points. The realism of the series was what I really liked about it. I stopped watching it though once the "protomolecule" stuff started. What is backed by science about it?

gbrown_ 5y ago
That'll be the "fiction" part of the science fiction.
7sigma 5y ago
The protomolecule is pretty much super advanced tech from a civilisation that had a billion year or so headstart. For me, a big part of the show is about how technology changes us and the protomolecule is an extreme example of that. Its not backed up by science and thats not the point. The point is how humans react to it and how the story progresses after that is really great, one of the best series overall i've ever watched.
- XorNot 5y ago
  It's a Banks-style Outside Context Problem.
  - spacedcowboy 5y ago
    I miss Culture novels :(
    - ctoth 5y ago
      I do too! One of the great things though is they're very re-readable!
- rakoo 5y ago
  > a big part of the show is about how technology changes us I've always thought that movie/series genre are just a facade for the real genre: - Slasher movies are supposedly about the boogey man/monster killing protagonist, but it's really about how humans interact when put under stress and show their true color - (Heroic) Fantasy movies are supposedly about wizards and knights and witches, but it's really just a huge politics playground - Science fiction movies are supposedly about new technology/aliens/space stuff, but it's really about how something outside of our knowledge changes us, challenges our values, and reveals who we are. That's usually technology but can be anything. It's of course not just that, there are always exceptions, and I'm probably not the first one to have this view. But I think this is the reason I like almost anything sci-fi but can barely stand watching fantasy movies: I can't find myself to care about people fighting each other for a little bit more power.

manmal 5y ago

I'm so looking forward to the last book. Reportedly it will be released on November 18.

silvanocerza 5y ago

> Even the language makes sense - a kind of hodge-Podge universal accent. It's interesting see the differences from the books on this topic. The books focus more on the use of belter's sign language, just some small and most common word is written and the rest is just defined as patois. The series instead almost never shows sign language and it uses and evolves the spoken language much more than the books.

qubitcoder 5y ago
Check out the audio books. The narrator, Jefferson Mays, does a masterful job at patois/Belter-speak, along with all the other character for that matter. I suspect the Expanse series used his work as inspiration, since the patois is virtually identical on the show. Mays is in a league of his own. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Mays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Mays

block_dagger 5y ago

This is relatively true. spoiler alert Does not hold for the alien technology, which isn't explained well at all (proto molecule, gates, slow zone, etc)

gregmac 5y ago
The characters don't understand how it works, which is a key part of the main storyline. spoiler alert The books are a couple seasons ahead of the show, and this becomes and even more prominent plot point. It's internally consistent so far, which is more important IMHO. What I mean by this is there's definitely things that are effectively "magic" to us, but not in the way lazy story writers use it (think ST:TNG where they just invent some technobabble that solves the problem in the last 5 mins of the episode). I particularly liked where Detective Miller explains to Holden why he can see him, effectively saying something like "there's a few billion neurons in the human brain, like a massive keyboard - we just have to push the right combination of buttons"
- hef19898 5y ago
  Usually I consider internal inconsistencies and the resulting deus-ex machina moments as lazy writing, at best. What Star Trek achieved, especially TNG and VOY, was creating a completely consistent universe by using techno babble just this side of "realistic" that allowed them to get away with their other stories. Some of which are really great. Still, since the Expense came out I think it shows how un scientific Star Trek is.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    The Q in star trek just snap their fingers. No technobabble needed.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      I love Q. He has some Loki-esque characteristics.

ronnier 5y ago

I really like the vocabulary and use of words, such as "tight beam", "space him" and others. I think it's a very creative show and one of my favorites at this point. I enjoy the sound track too.

duskwuff 5y ago
Not to burst your bubble, but "tightbeam" and "space" (as a verb meaning "to kill by exposure to the vacuum of space") are both quite common and old usages in science fiction -- they aren't unique to The Expanse. "Tightbeam" was in use as early as the 1930s, by E. E. Smith. Interestingly, this means the term was coined before lasers were even invented! https://sfdictionary.com/view/1943/tight-beam https://sfdictionary.com/view/1943/tight-beam Meanwhile, Robert Heinlein was writing about "spacing" people in 1952: https://sfdictionary.com/view/400/space https://sfdictionary.com/view/400/space

nirav72 5y ago

Is The Expanse really Hard Sci-Fi? I get that the space flight physics and tech involved could be considered hard Sci-fi. But in later books and show season - the whole gate network is quite a bit handwavy.

egypturnash 5y ago
IMHO “hard” SF is more about feeling “accurate” than actually being accurate - more lip service is paid to something resembling physics as we currently understand it. And the #1 thing for someone to say “fuck it, I’m cutting a hole in existing physics in the interest of telling a compelling story” for is probably “moving shit between planets/stars faster than orbital mechanics and the speed of light allows”.

Optimal_Persona 5y ago

Agree! My wife stumbled across The Expanse soon after we finished watching all 7 seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and couldn't bear the thought of sitting through Voyager or Enterprise. The Expanse's culture (language, slingshot gravity-racer livestream stars, class relations, etc.) feel so plausible. And the character relationships are deeply nuanced - like how even though Ashford was always challenging Drummer's control of The Behemoth, they showed genuine mutual respect, even love, for one another when it mattered.