The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

Post by FireNexus »

It's a hair early, just over a month, but my favorite current Sci-Fi series is coming back for a second season just after Emperor Trump destroys the world in a fit of poorly-understood MAD. Enjoy the trailers below.





Looks like it's really starting to build buzz, from the response the trailers are getting. It had a slow burn in the ratings in its first season, but I would chalk that up to the first few episodes leaking and most media outlets being unable to really speak on it. Plus some story choices that sort of weakened the first few episodes in the interest of a "show don't tell" ethos that I expect to pay off a lot better now that things are in motion.

Unfortunately, it didn't get on many "best of 2016" lists except for gizmodo. But if we're being fair, it didn't deserve to in season 1. Season 2 almost certainly will, if the tail end of season 1 is an indicator of future quality.

Book Spoilers below.
Spoiler
Bobbie Draper looking fucking fly and perfectly cast in these. Looks like they dropped a little Prax in trailer #3, too. I just hope that the introduction of The Investigator is the closing scene of the season. As soon as I heard about the show I thought that would be the perfect season finale closing.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

Post by Vendetta »

I'm guessing that spoiler will end season 3, if anything.

Season 2 is the end of Leviathan Wakes and probably some of the the start of Caliban's War.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Vendetta wrote:I'm guessing that spoiler will end season 3, if anything.

Season 2 is the end of Leviathan Wakes and probably some of the the start of Caliban's War.
I just don't see how they need two whole seasons for that, though.
Spoiler
They already found the Anyoobis, and Eros is in full swing. With them running the Thoth raid in the first episode, then the early events of Caliban's war concurrent with Eros heading to Earth, and five extra hours of screen time...

Plus, I just can't see them sidelining Tom Jane for a season and a half and being sure they'll get him back. To say nothing of the impossibility of keeping under wraps that he's on set. I'll bet any amount of money that they filmed that scene during the early episodes before Miller and Julie's Venusian honeymoon.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

Post by Vendetta »

FireNexus wrote:
Vendetta wrote:I'm guessing that spoiler will end season 3, if anything.

Season 2 is the end of Leviathan Wakes and probably some of the the start of Caliban's War.
I just don't see how they need two whole seasons for that, though.
Spoiler
They already found the Anyoobis, and Eros is in full swing. With them running the Thoth raid in the first episode, then the early events of Caliban's war concurrent with Eros heading to Earth, and five extra hours of screen time...

Plus, I just can't see them sidelining Tom Jane for a season and a half and being sure they'll get him back. To say nothing of the impossibility of keeping under wraps that he's on set. I'll bet any amount of money that they filmed that scene during the early episodes before Miller and Julie's Venusian honeymoon.
That does imply Caliban's War being more compressed for screen than Levaiathan Wakes was though, given we're still really only 2/3-3/4 through that in the TV series.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Vendetta wrote: That does imply Caliban's War being more compressed for screen than Levaiathan Wakes was though, given we're still really only 2/3-3/4 through that in the TV series.
Almost certainly it does. But that's not terribly surprising. Leviathan Wakes and world building (including establishing Avasrala early and making what was a cohesive crew relationship already in the books get built from scratch) had to compete for five hours less time. I bet they resolve Leviathan Wakes by episode 3, or they concurrently run the beginning of Caliban's war with the end of LW.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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They're mixing the second book into the first,Spoiler
which makes sense since the basic plot of both is "evil corporation weaponizes alien ubertech and shit gets out of control" once you get through the murder mystery that is the first half of Leviathan Wakes. They ended season 1 with sending Chrisjen on Mao's yacht, which happens in Caliban's War.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Having now caught up on the series(it is on Amazon Prime for anyone in the US), I have to say that it was better overall than the book. I liked how it took more time to delve into the overall story, as well as having viewpoint characters other than Holden and Miller. Adding Chrisjen to the story early is especially nice, as it fills what I felt to be a gap in the story.

Looking forwards to season 2. I'll have to grab a copy of Caliban's War as well.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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So to give an update for anyone who doesn't know, the Season 2 premiere is tonight.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Adam Reynolds wrote:So to give an update for anyone who doesn't know, the Season 2 premiere is tonight.
Ooh! Thanks, I'll give it a watch as soon as I'm able.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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It's a two-episode premiere and for book readers, the second part is called "Doors and corners".
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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So, the episode was good. I was pleasantly surprised that they kept the space battle with the Roci being able to defeat the "more advanced" stealth ship because it is designed for light ship engagements, whereas the stealth ship is designed as a cap ship killer. Being in close to prevent them from using their nukes and rail gun, and utilizing their clearly superior PDC armament to bash them to bits, was tactically very smart.

Hard-ish sci-fi space battles give me a hard-ish boner.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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It could use the rail gun, but weren't able to bring it to bear more than once because of the Rosi's maneuverability and using the station as cover. Their PDCs weren't superior, but the stealth's had difficulty bringing them to bear in the final part of the engagement because of where the Rosi popped out and then the Rosi maneuvering away from the PDC's arc of engagement while raking the larger ship with all four guns. Better piloting and better tactics gave the Rosi the edge and 30mm tungsten going 3kps at close range is no joke. The Rosi dancing around that mother fucker just ahead of its PDC streams and riddling it was a thing of beauty.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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They were superior in that they were more numerous. I couldn't tell that they were at all different, nor see any reason why they would have been. PDC tech is likely more-or-less mature by this point. But the stealth ship seemed to have two PDCs firing max during the whole battle and the Roci had at least four.

Which makes sense. The stealth ship was designed as a first-strike weapon. It's strength is in having a big gun that it can fire before anyone can see it. More PDCs than needed to clear any stray torpedoes are counterproductive to that role. The Roci is a gunship designed to support already heavily-armed capships, in addition to actinnas a projection of their force for missions that don't justify turning the whole giant Donnager to complete them. It's basically a decoy designed to be able to drop bombs when it comes to being in a straight up engagement.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Also, my favorite line of LW finally got said last night. "I didn't kill him because he was crazy. I killed him because he was making sense."
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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The Stealth isn't able to bring all of its PDCs to bear on the Rosi due to the angle's of attack. It's big and not nearly as maneuverable as the Rosi. It isn't that it doesn't have more PDCs its that the Rosi maneuvers to bring all of hers to bear while limiting exposure to the Stealth's return fire, especially the Stealth's rail gun. It's good tactics and good flying, not superior firepower.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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What is your evidence for that claim? You keep making it. We're there inactive gun emplacements visible on the stealth ship? Guns we saw firing in one shot that weren't firing in another? We had a broadside where the Roci had four PDCs and the stealth had two. The dialogue all focused on keeping themselves away from the railgun, never mentioning the PDCs themselves.

I see you assuming the stealth ship should have comparable PDC armament for no particular reason I can determine. It is a different class of ship with a different role than the Roci. The idea of it having fewer of a specific kind of armament that may hobble its stealth characteristics when it has a different kind of armament and less exposure to the specific threats of the former in any case is not unreasonable. Particularly when evidently they weren't using as many of those armaments as the Roci.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Definitely enjoying s2 more than the first. It's certainly kicked things up a gear...
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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FireNexus wrote:What is your evidence for that claim? You keep making it. We're there inactive gun emplacements visible on the stealth ship? Guns we saw firing in one shot that weren't firing in another? We had a broadside where the Roci had four PDCs and the stealth had two. The dialogue all focused on keeping themselves away from the railgun, never mentioning the PDCs themselves.

I see you assuming the stealth ship should have comparable PDC armament for no particular reason I can determine. It is a different class of ship with a different role than the Roci. The idea of it having fewer of a specific kind of armament that may hobble its stealth characteristics when it has a different kind of armament and less exposure to the specific threats of the former in any case is not unreasonable. Particularly when evidently they weren't using as many of those armaments as the Roci.
You can clearly see the Stealth has two PDCs on a side of the ship as well as the railgun which means when the Rosi faces less firepower if she stays on one side, which she does for the entire engagement once they close. The Stealth's PDCs on the far side can't shoot at the Rosi but the Rosi goes bow on allowing her to use upper, lower, and side PDCs. You can briefly see PDCs on both sides of the Stealth shooting at the beginning of the closing part of the engagement, but its unable to bring its full firepower to the bear because Alex moves the Rosi to one side. I don't see any dorsal or ventral PDCs fire on the Stealth (although the forward PDC is place low and the rear PDC placed high so its conceivable that they do double duty), but the Rosi's never really a clear target for them. The need to cover the PDCs in stealth composite housings might compromise their firing arcs but the Stealth is clearly packing more than enough firepower to get the job done (See the damage report next episode). It's the Rosi's maneuverability, attacking from an unexpected direction, minimizing exposure to the railgun, and outrunning the PDCs traverse and exiting their field of fire while keeping their own guns on target that win the fight not.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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The stealth ship seemed to only present two PDCs at a time, though, on each on two sides. If you (for the sake of simplicity) think of each ship as a square cylinder (not sure what that shape is called, but like a cube with long and short sides) the Roci was presenting three sides, other than its ends which were cockpit and engine.

Two guns on one side, one each on the other two. If the opposite side is symmetrical, that's six guns. I can't recall if the stealth ship had two guns on a single side or one each on two sides, but it was presenting two sides (from a gun arc standpoint) to the Roci. So either it has one gun a side on all sides, or two guns on one side and at least one side with no guns. Either way, it's packing fewer PDCs than the Roci.

Which, again, is sensible given its role. It is a first-strike ship designed to come out of nowhere and fuck you up, preferably in a pack. It has advanced stealth that won't render it invisible, but will hide the exact nature of its armament and allow it to lie in wait. Every PDC on that ship increases its radar cross section and complicates its heat-management situation. And if you get to the point where the PDCs are necessary, you've been laying down on the job anyway.

The Roci presented four guns on three sides, while the stealth presented two guns on two sides. It was more lightly armed with PDCs than the Roci. And you'd expect that from their different roles and likely design priorities.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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That's pretty much what I said. It clearly has two PDCs a side and the rail gun plus the possibility of ventral and dorsal PDCs that didn't open fire because they didn't have a good shot at the Rosi. It is a much larger ship and has that extra ability to take hits as well as the shear murder power of the rail gun on its side. Thus the winning strategy for the Rosi is minimizing exposure the the enemy ship's fire while maximizing its own pour on damage. Thus engaging from the side where it can't bring the rail gun or the other PDCs to bear and maneuvering out of line of the PDCs tracking arc, which it did, while filling the ship with high velocity 30mm tungsten.

It definitely does need PDCs as a missile range ambusher because the missiles aren't magic and the enemy might survive the strike or get its own strike off before the missiles hit. It's not a Romulan Warbird with plasma torps that will strike in a couple of seconds and vape its foe. The Stealths are repeatedly detected in engagement range and their missiles take time to travel. The Stealth does allow them to get to engagement range without being detected earlier and then escape after the battle is over without being tracked.

Firing PDCs doesn't really complicate the heat management situation because you're firing PDCs at enemy ships at close range or missiles that engage you. You're invisibility has already failed when PDCs matter. The need to keep them in emplacements with retractable covers when or something similar when being stealthy out of battle might limit their fire arc.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Hmm....the UN has a bigger population. is not investing a high percentage of GDP into terraforming and it has clearly a higher standard of living. So why are they worried about a war against Mars? They should be able to win because they can take more losses than Mars.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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All it takes is more asteroids dropped on Earth than they can stop. Any gravity well is a big fat target that has many angles of approach, and is thus very difficult to defend.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Thanas wrote:Hmm....the UN has a bigger population. is not investing a high percentage of GDP into terraforming and it has clearly a higher standard of living. So why are they worried about a war against Mars? They should be able to win because they can take more losses than Mars.
Essentially they're heavily invested in the things that keep a population of 30 Billion on one planet viable and Mars has a more advanced fleet so they're worried about Mars's tech advantage being decisive over the long term. It's the ships that really matter number wise unless you start talking about planetary invasion and Earth's population advantage doesn't translate into that much larger of a fleet.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

Post by FireNexus »

Imperial Overlord wrote:Firing PDCs doesn't really complicate the heat management situation because you're firing PDCs at enemy ships at close range or missiles that engage you. You're invisibility has already failed when PDCs matter. The need to keep them in emplacements with retractable covers when or something similar when being stealthy out of battle might limit their fire arc.
Of the firing PDCs I'm worried about. It's the mounting of them. To keep this thing from leaking IR just from the heat it produces during normal operations is probably incredibly difficult. It would take sophisticated mechanisms with materials that absorb radiation in specific patterns across its surface. The more holes (for cables, as an example) you put on the surface, the more likely someone is going to see that.

Before anybody knows those ships exist, maybe not a problem. But you don't build a ship like that with the expectation that it will remain a secret forever. And the Roci, at least, has very sensitive IR sensors. This is to say nothing of the fact that it increases your radar cross section, by a lot unless their radar-absorbing material can stand the beating that a gun will put on it and even then still by a little.
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Re: The Expanse Season 2 Trailers

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Thanas wrote:Hmm....the UN has a bigger population. is not investing a high percentage of GDP into terraforming and it has clearly a higher standard of living. So why are they worried about a war against Mars? They should be able to win because they can take more losses than Mars.
Quite simply Mars is far more willing to take losses and make sacrifices than Earth, in every possible sense. It is no coincidence that every Martian character we have seen in the series is military. By contrast, a large percentage of Earthers are on basic income, a form of welfare, which is also likely where most of their government's money goes.

It is also not that the Martains would necessarily win, it is that they could do enough damage that Earth would regret the war in the first place. Even Chrisjen Avasarala notes this as a serious concern, commenting that Martian marines train at 1 G for a reason.


Something else I have randomly been thinking about is the question of why no one bothers with point defense lasers. It occurred to me that the reason why is probably about not wanting to take away from engine power. Which is also likely why railguns are such a short ranged weapon, that the ships can burn fast enough to be all but impossible to hit at long range with unguided weapons.
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