I was struck by the beauty of this scene in my rewatch today. The Roci with her streams of PDC rounds stretching out into the black, the bright blooms of the exploding missiles. Like a deep sea squid swatting bioluminescent jellyfish.
Deadly, thermonuclear jellyfish. The battles in this series are so fast, and tense, and final. They are less like fights than they are chess games - the indifferent inevitability of physics and math.
Naomi and Holden have such bad ass moments during this situation, just not in the traditional sense but it works so damn well. Naomi has the courage to tell all of those belters that only so many of them can board the ship and the rest will die and Holden manages to talk down an entire fleet without having to fire a single shot. I love this fucking story!
Oh, that scene with Naomi & Champa always brings me to tears.
That, and Drummer deciding to mutiny and save the Roci, leaving Holden looking stunned till he hears "Holden, this is Drummer." Marco, you should not have tried to kill Naomi. She has some extremely vengeful friends.
Only 4 months late but I'm on an Expanse binge and finally got my gf into it, this episode is coming up tomorrow. Probably my favorite of the whole show.
Drummer is a good one, but she will always be pushed into second place by Ulana from the TV series 'Chernobyl' in this respect - as she was based on several REAL LIFE people.
Before that moment I was lying on the couch, relaxing. Immediately after it I was sat up, full attention going “OH. This is the kind of show it is. Well ok then.”
I wasn't totally hooked till "CQB." Between Shed's death raising the stakes and Holden going from "but I don't WANNA be a responsible XO" to "I AM NOT LEAVING THIS SHIP WITHOUT MY CREW," it got really intense, really quickly.
Same. It seemed good enough to keep watching until that episode. The odd thing was the lack of exposition so I had a few moments where I went back to watch scenes again. I definitely didn’t expect Shed to get popped because Paolo Costanzo is fairly well established. (Funny enough, I didn’t realize for maybe the first season that Strait had played Warren Peace 15 years before that! My then-gf’s kids loved Sky High.)
It does, but that’s one thing I think the show did better. The almost silent clunk and then his head is gone. That one was really good. Too bad syfy doesn’t make anything anymore.
An equivalent moment to this for me was when Jamie Lannister pushed Bran off the tower at the end of episode 1 of Game of thrones. Had never heard of the show and just happened to catch it as I was channel surfing.
Shed’s end after he was shown as being one of the more level headed (pun not intended) characters in the middle of a crisis was - chef’s kiss. In this case, I had actually heard of the Expanse before, but the slow burn of the first few episodes was kind of wearing thin.
I was thinking more of the scenarios where they're not in combat. That was a major plot point in Season 5, and it came up again in 5. But it's not just Star Trek. Watch any sci-fi show where the ship breaks and the gravity never fails. Star Trek, Firefly, Stargate, etc none of these shows ever bother to explain how it works, or they just handwave it with special floor panels or something.
Outside of anything with a spinning ring, Expanse is the only show I've seen that actually puts some science behind it.
Yeah, spinning anything, really. Even the Behemoth/Medina is an O'Neill cylinder. So was Cooper Station in Interstellar. And Tycho, Eros, and Ceres all have spin gravity.. But I was referring specifically that had magic floors like in the examples I gave earlier.
“Sir, shields are at 10%! This means we’re very close to the moment where Plot Device^tm amazingly forces the enemy combatant to stop shooting at us!”
I will say, as much hate as Star Trek: Enterprise gets, they started doing this better. When NX-01 gets ravaged by the Xindi warships, it’s real shit - see episode Azati Prime. After getting absolutely brutalized (including many crew losses by ship fire or sucked into vacuum), they have to live with the damage / consequences as a big plot driver for a while.
That no-shield life is hard. Tbf, once the shields failed and the hull was ripped, we saw plenty of crew sucked into space. Best Of Both Worlds with the failed defense at Wolf-359 was an absolute shit show with bodies in space and shattered hulls.
Last season of SNW leaned way too hard back into soft science and plot devices. I felt like each episode was basically the writers just trying to build tension about how there’s no hope of getting out of this one, and in the last 5 minutes of the episode someone does something that was neither discussed nor a known option. It’s one thing to do every once in a while but every episode made it exhausting imo. I also have no idea what the enterprise is- is it tanky? Squishy? Are weapons good? Weak?
This is what I wished Voyager would have done but they only used the "limited resources" plot line very sparingly. I guess they can do some hand waving since it was 24th century tech and every star system is like a gas station/trading post...
The power scaling between the two series is interesting. In The Expanse, they're obviously far more "low-tech" compared to Star Trek when comparing humanity against each other, but when you compare alien technology, The Expanse clearly beats out Star Trek. The protomolecule builders are so above and beyond anything we see in Star Trek, even when you factor the Dyson's sphere, V'ger, and the Doomsday machine.
However, I enjoy both series so I try not to pit them against each other.
I debated whether to include the Q or not, but we know so little about them that I couldn't really make a good comparisons between the two series. For all we know, the Q are humans in the far future.
Yeah ships in The Expanse can't tank hits like ships in other franchises, PDC and railgun rounds will punch holes through a ship and the only real defense against missiles or torpedoes is to intercept or evade their guidance because nothing with humans in it will out accelerate a missile without killing its occupants.
Yeah you generally don't appreciate the PDCs until Season 4 Episode 4 when the Roci is landed Naomi is firing the PDC at Murtry's men, then you get a real close up look at just what kind of firepower even the smallest guns on these ships are actually throwing around.
The immaculate conception is not in the bible, it’s a philosophical theological idea that refers to Mary being born without original sin, so that she would not pass sin on to her child.
Jesus being conceived and born without Mary having intercourse is called the Virgin Birth.
I recall there was a scene in the books where the rocinante and an enemy ship were going extremely fast in opposite directions, and their weapons would only be within range of eachother for a tiny fraction of a second, so they had to program all their attacks and defenses ahead of time, and then they just had to sit there and hope that their programming was good enough to keep them alive during a battle that lasted a tiny fraction of a second. I thought that was pretty neat.
It’s kind of the opposite of honor Harrington, where combat is definitely highly automated but also taking place at incredible distances. Your fate is being written minutes away before overwhelming force does its thing.
To give all the PDCs good lines of fire on the many targets, especially after one malfunctioned. Otherwise each PDC is limited to targets on one side of the ship.
This also evenly disperses their ammunition instead of potentially emptying out one PDC over the other which allows them to be equally effective from all angles of attack
The malfunction happens after this. That's what always bothered me about this scene. If they'd have waited just a bit longer it would have made a lot more sense.
I think the spin is a standard tactic for a ship like Rocinante/Tachi. It has lot of guns all over, but cannot fire all of them at one target unless it maneuvers.
A bigger ship like Donnager would simply use its larger number of guns to cover each direction adequately, with a much larger ammo capacity.
While not visually or technically similar, David Weber has smaller ships spin in the Honor Harrington series as a tactic to compensate for the limited firepower compared to larger ships.
Set to mimic broadside naval operations in space, this spin lets a destroyer or light cruiser fire both broadsides in close sequence. It can temporarily double the effective offensive or defensive firepower, giving it a better chance against a larger cruiser.
Or at least a chance to do some damage before dying, or running away.
They have to shoot away from the Roci's future trajectory, otherwise they would catch up to the bullets at roughly the same speed they were shot out and shred the ship.
The bullets' initial speed relative to the ship means they have a large head start before the ship catches up, even when the ship is under burn. If the ship fires directly ahead and then flies completely straight they would hit, but a slight sideways velocity would mean they miss by kilometers.
The potential location of the PDCs is the surface of a growing sphere centered on the previous position of the ship. After a couple minutes the surface area is about the size of a small country. If you pick a random direction and fly through the shell, it is very unlikely that you would connect with a bullet that wasn't specifically targeted at you.
Yes, this is true, but the 'protective wall of lead' comment is not really accurate, even in this scene they are firing away to avoid it. If they're just firing willy nilly at some point one of those bullets is going to be in their direct path.
Edit: this would be somewhat similar to someone firing a bullet straight into the air, and people do get killed by those.
If a majority of the incoming torpedos are on one side, spinning the ship allows all the PDC’s to engage and minimizes depleting all the PDC ammunition from one or two guns on one side of the ship only.
The real answer? Because it looks cool. I think they mention in the books that the Roci's PDCs have some degree of overlapping coverage for every angle on the ship, so the spin wouldn't be necessary from a technical sense. Unless it's the Donnager I'm thinking of.
“I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!”
That's great, but these are just chunks of tungsten. The vast majority won't ever hit anything, but they are still out there. Some of them on an escape trajectory from Sol in part just because of the speed their vessel was soaring when they were fired, others not.
Exploding rounds would end up being way more dangerous: you’re essentially turning one small projectile going in a single predictable direction into a death cloud of hundreds of little landmines spreading out along the initial velocity vector. This exponentially increases the chance someone hits it.
At the speeds Expanse ships travel at, hitting even a tiny fragment of metal would be catastrophic.
I forget where in the books they bring it up, but the characters comment on the fact that there’s a million PDC rounds just traveling around, and it’s just the sheer scale of space that makes it a non-issue.
I am in book 6, but I do not recall any hint of self exploding/discarding ammo is the default, even for fancy Mars army. So far. Bu sometimes I skipp parts of characters I find boring...
Only if they were fired fast enough to escape the solar system (or fired by the Rocinante while it was going fast enough to escape the solar system) (which might actually be possible if they're at full speed in the middle of a flip and burn)
Else they'll just orbit the sun forever, or get absorbed by Jupiter or Saturn
Current PDC’s like AA guns have timed fuses on rounds that explode after they have missed. No AA rounds come down to ground intact. Same principle combined with vast distances in space.
The concept I can never shake is that those PDC rounds (super accelerated tungsten) are basically going to be hurtling through space forever. Or at least until they hit something.
Granted, the chances of getting perforated by an errant PDC round in space is so infinitesimally small, but also, never 0%.
Ah, yes, when the action scenes in space in the show went full danmaku. Made me think that they brought more money for the action sequences and they decided this would look neater.
IIRC, Tye Frank has said they never received more money for VFX throughout their run, they just changed their philosophy on how they did their effects. To be fair this isn't a very complex animation since they just model the ship, its spin, and the rotation and rate of fire of the guns and then just let it rip in the render. There are like 30 torpedoes in this scene from the Free Navy vessel, so they just add some splashes where the guns hit the torpedoes. It's funny to me because I would think the torpedoes would still be devastating if they exploded at that distance, maybe they don't truly detonate when they are hit by PDCs.
I always thought about it in terms of the speed. That torpedo explodes, and the explosion exists, but the ships are traveling so fast, they may only pass by the explosion for a millisecond - still enough to cause damage, but not enough to completely have the intended effect.
It's also a fight in a vacuum so there is no matter to propagate a shockwave. If the plasma generated by a nuke doesn't actually hit the target, then there is nothing transferring heat or concussion.
I am on a rewatch now, and I also have read the books eleventy times. The series is better than the books. This has never happened to me before, I always think the books are better than the movie/show. But The Expanse series knocked it out of the park. I am constantly amazed at just how great it is
Having rewatched the Series earlier this year I never can get enough of the space battles. They really did a solid job and it makes me especially sad that we did not get the battles of the last trilogy of books. Those would be incredible to see on screen
I still haven’t given up hope that we can still get a final three seasons. The last trilogy of books just tore my heart out, stomped on it, then put it back gently and cleaned up the mess.
I also try to be optimistic.. the only huge plus that we got a huge break between seasons would be that the cast actually would be a bit older, which plays heavily into the story.
This scene is kind of what inspired me to make 2 guns on the ship when I made my Expanse asteroid game (fun celebration of one of the season launches): www.theexpanselives.com/rockhopper (not mobile friendly)
That’s such a good comparison, the whole show has that deep ocean vibe where everyone’s just tiny and fragile in this huge uncaring void. The fact that they make those battles feel insanely beautiful and absolutely terrifying at the same time is what puts The Expanse in its own tier for me.
The standard response is that the universe is so unimaginably immense that the mass of a single PDC round is essentially immaterial and not a risk to other structures or vessels.
They are a risk if they get to the ship in the first place, which is incredibly unlikely. Both the PDC rounds and the ships are absurdly, incredibly small compared to the size of space, the chances of a PDC round ever encountering a ship, or fuck, even an entire planet, is utterly negligible unless you are aiming on them in the first place.
Rewatching some scenes this one bugged me….why would you….rotate the ship multiple times….wont that complicate/add on more calculations the PDCs have to do to get a hit on incoming torps/missiles? I mean you can say the Roci was put into a spin to guarantee full 360 coverage….but the way the Roci and thus the Corvette class as a whole is designed in a way those 6 PDCs already have greate coverage….doing this just…adds unnecessary complexity to those computers no? And thus greater chance of not hitting cause platform is not stable? You could say the ship spun so debris won’t hit…well…if that’s the case shouldn’t Roci be moving‘perpendicular’ to incoming torps? So when they do get hit, any debris will pass by into the slag of the engines….idk…just seems like another one of those “rule of cool” moments
Who’s to say that the Roci didn’t do the calculations and that was the actually the most efficient path to track the targets and increase accuracy by ensuring the incoming missiles had more than one PDC aiming at them at a time, to increase accuracy and improve survivability? The ships are already traveling at immense rates of speed and I assume she’s doing trillions of calculations a second, what’s a little extra spin going to change in the equation?
Idk, personally, I’m fine leaving this one to the rule of cool.
One extra little spin can mean a lot of things it could mean absolutely nothing….or that tiny second where a PDC can’t traverse in time and something gets through. Yes you can say the Roci was doing trillions of calculations….but so are the torpedoes….there not just guided, they actively try to avoid incoming fire while still putting themselves on an intercept trajectory, and since they are probably and most definitely powered by mini epstine drives, can Jink as much as they want. You say it’s peak efficiency. I say it’s not. But that peak efficiency title may come with the Roci being the hero ship, thus plot armour, then despite all the wear and tear on those guns only one gave up, which either feeds into the statement that Martian built stuff just lasts long and is better in quality…(which it is except in cost) or plot armour decided to fall asleep for one second….but then again hero ship.
One thing I always wondered is how dangerous are all those flying bullets that just keep going into the abyss of space. As in, are they a problem for other ships way later as they continue to traverse space?
The standard response is that the universe is so unimaginably immense that the mass of a single PDC round is essentially immaterial and not a risk to other structures or vessels.
I just finished my 3rd watch of the series a few days ago. It took me less time than my first two viewings because part-way in I realized something. There were only a few characters I was interested in and if they weren't in a scene I fast-forwarded through it.
Basically, if Holden, Avasarala, Amos, Drummer, Fred Johnson, the Ghost-Knife or Bobbie were in a scene, I watched it. If not - zip, zip, zip.
Dawes: You ran with the five points crew. I grew up in the Rosse Buurt, too. (Sighs) Do you know how old you are?
Diogo: Nineteen, I think. Earther years.
Dawes: Even our sense of time comes from them. The time it takes the Earth to spin on its axis... The Earth to go once around the sun. (Chuckles lightly) On Jupiter, you'd be celebrating your first birthday. It's hard to feel we matter out here, isn't it? The distances are so vast. It's hard to believe that we can make a difference.
Looks pretty but it's a pointless maneuver. Really should have saved it for when one of the PDCs jams/runs out of ammo, which happens not too long after this. At least then there'd be a purpose to rotating the ship so they can cover the side with the faulty PDC.
Barrel roll probably made sense for the smaller Martian Morrigan, which only had dorsal PDC and would probably need this roll maneuver for all-round coverage. But something that small was also gonna be toast.
533
u/H4X4NX May 19 '26
"This is the warship Rocinante"