Early Access: The Expanse S1E4

please post Expanse s1 e5, I'm dying to see the next reaction videos!

This is the 'hook' episode for sure! A couple of clarification points: Avasarala wasn't necessarily sure at first that Mars was at fault for the destruction of the Canterbury; she leaked the stealth tech info she got from torturing that OPA courier to DeGraaf to test him to see how he (and Mars) would react. This was a relatively safe move politically, because she was risking very little and she would gain information with which to properly advise the UN government to either avoid a war or properly prepare for it, but in doing so she ruined DeGraaf's life. She knew what was at stake and she readily did it. Signal jamming is a typical space warfare tactic, it's not exclusive to Mars. The stealth ships that attacked were jamming the Donnagher to prevent it from sending any communications elsewhere in the solar system. It seems like whoever's manning the stealth ships is trying very hard to leave no survivors and not have anybody report in on what's actually going on. The stealth ships were approaching the Donnagher in a tight cluster, with their reactors burning very closely in proximity as they decelerated towards the Martians, so at first, they only look like one ship. Then, we see them turn off their engines, rotate their orientation, and split up and accelerate to engage the Donnagher (and also fire a boatload of torpedoes). The Belter gambling parlor were betting on Bizi Bitiko's slingshot run - basically, thrill seekers who do dangerous 'race-courses' around astral bodies, usually using various moons' gravity wells to accomplish faster runs - like in Apollo 13, where the NASA astronauts used Earth's moon's gravity to correct their course and change the path of their acceleration. The Belters in the parlor were watching Bizi to see if he would complete his race or not (he didn't). The dead guy in the morgue is a data broker, who was basically using Bizi Bitiko's ID as one of many fake IDs. Shed was beheaded by a railgun round that cut through the body of the Donnagher - railguns are very scary (and currently existing!) technology that basically fires a metal slug at very, very high speeds that are propelled by electromagnetic currents. Railguns in the Expanse are basically only on very high-class warships, and the Donnagher's crew was surprised to see them on ships so small. The Donnagher is the flagship of Mars' navy and is functionally what both Earth and Mars thinks is the pinnacle of military hardware at this time, and they were outgunned (well, it was technically a draw). That fact, plus the advanced stealth tech and troop gear on the unknown party, paired with the Martian marines' comment about 'never seeing Belters with tech so advanced,' definitely says something about the faction that Holden and Co. have narrowly escaped twice now. So, yes, there are definitely more questions than answers at this point, but the new questions are clues in and of themselves.

Joe Tucker

"Shed's dead, baby...Shed's dead." XD Interesting bit of backstory to this: the authors of the Expanse novels were part of a D&D group in Albuquerque (along with a few other writers) and the story is largely based on a campaign they were playing in. Shortly after it started, one of the players had to back out due to a time commitment. Shed the medic was his character. So they "wrote him out" conveniently and that aspect of the story made its way into the books. Note: "Bizi Betiko" (or the data broker whose ID-spoofer said was him) wasn't on the Scopuli, but he definitely was Julie's information hookup, using Space Tinder as a sort of a place to low-key advertise his services. Miller's interest in him was because he wound up dead after the Medina riots AND he was on her Swipe Right list. Was it random mob violence or was this a convenient opportunity to shut someone up? Hmmmmmm...

Zachery Gaskins