# The Expanse; season 3 (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247 "2018-04-11T22:07:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/1 "2018-04-11T22:07:09Z")
In honor of my birthday Syfy is premiering season 3 of The Expanse tonight at 9pm ET. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/2 "2018-04-11T22:20:42Z")
Yay! ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/3 "2018-04-11T22:33:56Z")
Oh, wow! So excited. I have to re-watch the last 2-3 of last year first! That moment last year when he met the “actual” Julie Mao was powerful beyond powerful. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/4 "2018-04-12T02:13:08Z")
Well this season is off to a great start. I have no doubt Avasarala is going to make her way back to Earth, and likely invent an entirely new execution method for Errinwright. Also I didn’t realize Alex had a (ex?) wife & kid back on Mars; was that mentioned previously or is it new information? ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/5 "2018-04-12T02:16:58Z")
Alex’s family and how he left them behind to pilot the Roci goes back to, I think, season one. Just hasn’t come up often. Thank Og this isn’t on opposite _Legion_ this year. Although, having never watched in realtime, it seemed like there were a _lot_ of commercial breaks. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/6 "2018-04-19T02:16:58Z")
Well except for some holographic signs protest rallies haven’t changed. Chrisjen held up better than I though she would all things considered. The Secretary-General is getting some character development. And was it just me, it for a brief moment did it seem like Mao was on the verge of expressing regret or disgust at how the children were being used? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/7 "2018-04-19T03:46:49Z")
I am happy to see Anna. One of my favorite characters in the book series - though I have a soft spot for Christian characters who aren’t stereotypes or merely for mockery. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/8 "2018-04-20T12:09:28Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Well except for some holographic signs protest rallies haven’t changed. They had “Eros was an Inside Job!” signs, so that’s one difference: the Conspiracy Theorists are actually correct about something! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PlumBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PlumBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlumBob)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/9 "2018-04-20T14:30:59Z")
I thought episode 2 was great. The the space battle with its changes in attitude & G forces was tense and fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/10 "2018-04-20T16:36:34Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Well except for some holographic signs protest rallies haven’t changed. Chrisjen held up better than I though she would all things considered. The Secretary-General is getting some character development. And was it just me, it for a brief moment did it seem like Mao was on the verge of expressing regret or disgust at how the children were being used? I dunno. He seemed to be just regretting the whole problem. Also, it looks like Amos has transferred his loyalties to Holden. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/11 "2018-04-20T17:24:59Z")
I’m enjoying the 3rd season. But there’s something I seem to have missed. Didn’t Avasarala/Draper go up to orbit just for a meeting with Mao on his yacht? It didn’t seem like she was there for very long before Errinwright tried to get her killed. In the meantime, the Rocinante just recently left Ganymede with no specific destination, and in the last episode they debated whether to go to Ceres or Io (deciding on Io). Io and Ganymed are both moons of Jupiter, and Ceres is in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. So how did they end up being anywhere close to each other??? ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/12 "2018-04-20T21:14:50Z")
I swear some branch of the military is going to use that scene for securing your work area. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/13 "2018-04-22T21:27:41Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > So how did they end up being anywhere close to each other??? Yeah, that’s one weakness of the show as compared to the books. They’ve done a pretty good job overall with the space travel stuff, but they’re definitely sweeping travel times under the rug for the purposes of Drama. In the book, there are many scenes similar to what we’ve seen in the show, but the set-up is different, allowing for the actual physics of interplanetary travel to take place. The timescale of the show feels like at most a few months since the destruction of the Cant, while in the books, at this point of the story, years have passed. But I’m willing to give them a pass on this, since they do so much other stuff well. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/14 "2018-04-26T02:30:15Z")
It’s nice that Mme. Avasarala realized opening up was her best strategy right away. Also I did not realize until that that she’s been wearing _heels_ the whole time she’s been in space until now. > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I dunno. He seemed to be just regretting the whole problem… Well, [even evil has standards](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasStandards). > [@Horatius](#): > > Yeah, that’s one weakness of the show as compared to the books. They’ve done a pretty good job overall with the space travel stuff, but they’re definitely sweeping travel times under the rug for the purposes of Drama… I’ve been imaging the difference in pre and post Epstein Drive travel times as analogous to the Age of Sail and the Age of Steam, but where was Admiral Nguyen that he was able to get to the UNN Agatha King in what seems like hours? Was he all the way back on Earth? Interplanetary seems more reminiscent of traveling on an ocean liner than a jetliner. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/15 "2018-04-26T11:17:03Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I’ve been imaging the difference in pre and post Epstein Drive travel times as analogous to the Age of Sail and the Age of Steam, but where was Admiral Nguyen that he was able to get to the UNN Agatha King in what seems like hours? Was he all the way back on Earth? Interplanetary seems more reminiscent of traveling on an ocean liner than a jetliner. And tonight’s episode just made it all the more obvious, with that railgun attack on the Martian’s weapons platforms. The display made it clear that the platforms were significant distances from Earth (Earth’s orbit around the Sun was clear on the display), but the railgun rounds took only a few seconds to reach their targets, and the Martian missile wasn’t all that much slower. Considering that light takes 8 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth, these weapons were moving faster than light. Good for Drama, bad for Physics, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/16 "2018-04-27T02:47:07Z")
Horatius, I havn’t seen the episode yet, but I’m goint to try to fanwank that away by saying that having maps that show actual distances between things in space would be a really bad idea because planets are so small compared to the space in between them that it would be a much better idea to have maps that show positional relationships rather than distance relationships. What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/17 "2018-04-28T12:49:59Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Horatius, I havn’t seen the episode yet, but I’m goint to try to fanwank that away by saying that having maps that show actual distances between things in space would be a really bad idea because planets are so small compared to the space in between them that it would be a much better idea to have maps that show positional relationships rather than distance relationships. What do you think? Nope. Yes, they expand the sizes of the planets to make them visible, but when you’ve got an image of Earth in the same frame as a big giant glowy gas ball thingy, it’s hard not to conclude that the scale is at least [one AU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit), which we know is about 8 light minutes. Nice try, though! ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/18 "2018-05-03T02:16:11Z")
Well so much for Mao’s attack of conscience. The “dissembled” nurse was pretty unexpected. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/19 "2018-05-03T11:18:50Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Horatius, I havn’t seen the episode yet, but I’m goint to try to fanwank that away by saying that having maps that show actual distances between things in space would be a really bad idea because planets are so small compared to the space in between them that it would be a much better idea to have maps that show positional relationships rather than distance relationships. What do you think? Nope, there is no saving it. [Here](https://imgur.com/a/qV72bKU) is the hologram. Earth’s orbit is the blue circle, Mars’ orbit is the red circle, the ship positions are the dotted circles. I just looked at the scene, and all ships were hit at around the same time (no matter how far away they were) around 45 seconds after the railgun launches. So for the furtherest target (which was on the opposite of Mars’ orbit from Earth) the railgun rounds were traveling at approximately 28 times the speed of light. ---
**Author:** ![MeanJoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanjoe/32/5693_2.png) [@MeanJoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanJoe)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247/20 "2018-05-03T14:27:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Nope, there is no saving it. [Here](https://imgur.com/a/qV72bKU) is the hologram. Earth’s orbit is the blue circle, Mars’ orbit is the red circle, the ship positions are the dotted circles. I just looked at the scene, and all ships were hit at around the same time (no matter how far away they were) around 45 seconds after the railgun launches. So for the furtherest target (which was on the opposite of Mars’ orbit from Earth) the railgun rounds were traveling at approximately 28 times the speed of light. I realize that for t.v. they have to make concessions to time/distance but they at least made the point that the railgun fire at different times to ensure the impacts hit all 5 simultaneously. That for dramatic purposes they fired within seconds of each other and total travel time was too short for the distance is acceptable to me. Otherwise, we’re sitting staring at people staring at a hologram for minutes, hours, or days… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-expanse-season-3-open-spoilers/812247.md?page=2)