The Expanse, on SyFy - Spoilers!

[LookingSkyward]

Ok, does anyone have any clue why episode 1 was named Dulcinea?

[plant]

Nope but it is a pretty good show. I like the low gravity birds. Some acting a little cheezy. Actors slightly too buffed and goodlooking.

[parallaxicality]

I like the idea of a hard SF space opera; shows that there's still adventure to be had even in our own back yard.

[grant hutchison]

Ok, does anyone have any clue why episode 1 was named Dulcinea?

I haven't seen it, but is it a reference to Don Quixote? Dulcinea was Quixote's idealized love - a peasant girl he imagined as a courtly lady. So "a dulcinea" is a remote female lover who has grown purer and more beautiful in the imagination.

Grant Hutchison

[Krel]

Could it be the name of the woman, the Detective is searching for? I don't remember the name they gave in the show.

David.

[LookingSkyward]

- Grant: Yep, that's the best I've been able to come up with - I was just hoping someone smarter than me had a deeper insight, as the Don Q reference is not an exact match.

[tusenfem]

@Krell, no the girl he is looking for is Julie Mao

According to the expanse wiki, grand is right:
The title is one of many references to Don Quixote in the book and TV series, where Dulcinea is the name of the fictionalized love interest of the novel's namesake. The word today either means simply "a man's sweetheart" ^[1] or it "implies hopeless devotion and love for her, and particularly unrequited love"

It's a great show, but I pictured James Holden older reading the books.

[CJSF]

I watched last night's episode and I am a little confused by one scene. When the 2 belters (uncle and nephew) are first shown, after the nephew plants the charges and heads back to their ship, his uncle raises his visor(!!!!!) and takes a breath. IN SPACE. Did I miss something about that which made sense? He has something on his forehead, I think? Did I see that right, or is my mind going??

CJSF

[Extravoice]

I watched on demand last night. It looked like he took a breath, opened the visor, and let it out.
I'm not sure how this advanced the plot, except to show that belters are physically tough.



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[Extravoice]

I watched the season finale last night (on demand) and still have no idea of the purpose of the thing from Phoebe station.

I am, however, impressed with the writers' ability to kill off characters just as I start to take an interest in them.

[CJSF]

The glowy alien stuff that killed (probably) Julie Mao? Yeah - that's going to be the mystery of Season 2, I think.

CJSF

[CJSF]

They've done a good job of making Chrisjen complicated and evil (some, more charitable than I, would say merely "calculating"). They also left Miller's partner, Havelock, in limbo.

CJSF

[LookingSkyward]

For me, the last episodes were well worth watching, and I'm looking forward to the next season.

[Ara Pacis]

I started watching this and immediately wondered if I should stop writing my own story. So many similarities. So I had to look up spoilers to see. Luckily it's different enough. After all, mine is Hard SF, but they posit some sort of advanced rocket with super-dense and super-efficient propellant so that interplanetary trips take days or weeks instead of months.

As for the visor thing, I think I remember seeing it and thinking he was exhaling. In space you're not supposed to hold your breath or else you can hurt your lungs.

[CJSF]

As for the visor thing, I think I remember seeing it and thinking he was exhaling. In space you're not supposed to hold your breath or else you can hurt your lungs.

I still don't see how this "helps" explain anything. He opened up his pressurized suit to the vacuum of space. I realize it's not like he would be pressurized to 100 psi or anything, but it still seems massively dangerous. I did think on this, of and on, for a while after I watched it. My best conclusion is that the suits use pure(er) oxygen at low pressure and he had heaters turned up. Would that work, hypothetically?

Yes... yes... "If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts. Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"

CJSF

[grant hutchison]

I haven't seen it, but is it a reference to Don Quixote? Dulcinea was Quixote's idealized love - a peasant girl he imagined as a courtly lady. So "a dulcinea" is a remote female lover who has grown purer and more beautiful in the imagination.

I have just finished the first novel (I'm not watching the TV series), and there's a link to Don Quixote there - one of the lead characters has a spacecraft called Rocinante, the name of Don Quixote's horse.

Grant Hutchison

[CJSF]

Perhaps just as pertinent is the reference to Rush's Cygnus X-1 (and later, after a fashion, Hemispheres), where the protagonist's spaceship is also called Rocinante.

CJSF

[grant hutchison]

Perhaps just as pertinent is the reference to Rush's Cygnus X-1 (and later, after a fashion, Hemispheres), where the protagonist's spaceship is also called Rocinante.

Well, it's Don Quixote that's referenced in the novel - in fact, the connection to Quixote's horse is significant to the plot.

Grant Hutchison

[CJSF]

Well, it's Don Quixote that's referenced in the novel - in fact, the connection to Quixote's horse is significant to the plot.

Grant Hutchison

Fair enough. I was thinking how ultra-cool it was that they had a Rush reference in there, but even without it, it's still one of the better science fiction shows on TV in a while, in my opinion.

CJSF

[UntrainedObserver]

I've read the first four books and I'm about to start the fifth: loved 'em all.
The show...... not so much.
It is a good show, it's waaaaay far from being crap, but I can't watch it without comparing it to the books...... and all the little details that have to be changed to port the story from paper to screen are driving me mad

Avasarala on screen never cusses. Not once. It's like seeing a tv version of D'Artagnan that can't hold a sword
The tiny Belters OK, finding a bunch of very, very tall and skinny actors is difficult, I get it.... but at least choose the right one for the main characters. Naomi is nearly 2 meters tall in the books.
The much more.... aggressive relationship between the Roci's crew.
The Martians seem like fascists, while in the books they are not portraied as such: only slightly more advanced in military technology and with a bit more ships.

So, a suggestion: if you have read the books, forget'em if you can (I can't ) and you will see a great show.

[Noclevername]

I just binge watched the whole show, never read the books. It's pretty good, and much better than most of the stuff on TV today. The science was fairly hard, though they did take some liberties. I did cringe a little when they kept making references to trade routes instead of orbits, and distances instead of delta V. The spaceship battles and boarding maneuvers were less physics-breaking than I first thought, since in the cases they showed, the ships in question were already matching trajectories for docking and were at nearly a dead stop relative to each other. While the portrayal of weightlessness was not bad, their low G FX was mostly unbelievable except for that one bird.

[Noclevername]

The bit about needing to import water ice to Ceres annoyed me, though. Ceres is almost certainly covered in ice, it would most likely serve as a main source of water and volatiles for the Belt and beyond. Now phosphorous, that is a different story. It's necessary for life and is fairly rare in asteroids, but plentiful on Earth and Mars. It would be invaluable in a space society.

[Noclevername]

Question for someone who's read the books: Does it say anything about how (and how well) their fusion drives work?

In the TV series, there's mention of a passenger ship that can maintain Martian surface gravity for its entire journey. They show common cargo ships that can pull multiple Gs for several minutes, at least.

[UntrainedObserver]

Question for someone who's read the books: Does it say anything about how (and how well) their fusion drives work?

In the TV series, there's mention of a passenger ship that can maintain Martian surface gravity for its entire journey. They show common cargo ships that can pull multiple Gs for several minutes, at least.

I don't recall anything about it (and that means that I have to read'em again: it's your fault, sir ): the books are good science fiction, but, well, fiction. There are scarce (read: next to none) technical explanations of any kind.
And yes, the sustained hard burns that several ships (Rocinante in primis) are capable to undertake have puzzled me as well.....

[Noclevername]

That much sustained thrust makes every ship a potential WMD. It seems like Earth and Mars probably have a great deal of faith in their orbital defenses if they are willing to let Belters control their own ships. OTOH that's probably why the planets are so afraid of a war between the three, Belters may have the most ships even if they are all civilian miners and cargo haulers.

[UntrainedObserver]

That much sustained thrust makes every ship a potential WMD. It seems like Earth and Mars probably have a great deal of faith in their orbital defenses if they are willing to let Belters control their own ships. OTOH that's probably why the planets are so afraid of a war between the three, Belters may have the most ships even if they are all civilian miners and cargo haulers.

I don't know if it's present in the show (and I don't want to spoiler too much...) but something like that is a major plot point of one of the later books....

[Noclevername]

Maybe the Belt was settled using ion drives. That would reasonably explain why the Planets allow the Belters their own ships; they predate the invention of a readily weaponizable fusion-torch fleet (aside from throwing rocks, but presumably asteroids were sluggish enough to be easily redirected back in the Space Pioneer days.)

Idle thought apropos of nothing: I wonder if "brachistochrone" is a common spelling bee word in that universe?

[TJMac]

Good Grief! I just discovered a couple days ago that there was a book 4 and 5. I found the first 3 to be highly entertaining, but Ive only seen the first 3 episodes of the TV show.

TJ

[UntrainedObserver]

With book 6, Babylon's Ashes, coming out in november

[Noisy Rhysling]

Inquiry: Do I watch this series? (My goal is time wasting and background noise.)