Donnager Battle

[@sword_of_light]

As much as I love Star Trek, there is one technology that The Expanse has which far exceeds anything any Star Fleet vessel has: seatbelts.

[@David_randomnumber]

What I hated most about Star Trek: they have artificial gravity but never use it as a weapon in boarding actions. Even in the expanse it would be viable. Imagine a secret command played on every deck, the whole crew rushing to the next starboard wall and a second later just a burst with a small thruster doing up to 2g. You can see the boarding party fly across the ship and gain precious seconds to take them out

[@tearstoneactual9773]

@@David_randomnumber - yeah, but that also affects *your* crew, too.

[@David_randomnumber]

@@tearstoneactual9773 yes, that's why you need a shipwide signal. Your own crew is prepared for the sudden change, the other one is not.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@David_randomnumberNot true, captain archer used it against the Gorn

[@forceinfinity9445]

@@David_randomnumberWell, there was always ST6 Undiscovered Country when the Klingon Ship lost gravity and two dudes with mag boots beamed in and shot up the place.

[@nsambataufeeq1748]

This is the episode that hooked me

[@colonelsanders82]

I can't quite recall what episode hooked me. It wasn't the first. But this scene drilled hard into one's mind that you were on board for a good sampling of military science fiction.

[@Aniket2712]

Me to

[@dimaleoniv7987]

Yeah, it was when I understood I must give this series a chance, and I haven't regreted.

[@ChanticoChulo]

woohoooooooooo blast them all the fracccccc

[@MrHaakwood]

Yeah! Me too! XD

[@nismo4321]

This was the episode which hooked me to the show. Sad that Donnager was destroyed so early in the show. It would have been awesome to see this ship in later battles.

[@thursdaythought7201]

Well you see donnagers later on

[@МаксимСалтыков-о9л]

@@thursdaythought7201 You will see another Donnager being quickly destroyed

[@jonny-b4954]

We get to see some of her sister ships. Just not the Donnager herself.

[@jrayner21679]

Me too my bro. I liked the first episode but a soon as they started delving into the battle scenes I was so amazed with how awesome it looked that I would have watched each episode simply to see the next scene that was like it!

[@sickofitall8486]

I was on the edge prior to this episode, then, when the Donny appeared, my first thought was "Holden, you F'ed up." I was hooked since, Best Sci-Fi series ever.

[@halwakka504]

4:56 Foreshadowing of most of Holden's actions throught the series: He sees the gun, chooses to help instead.

[@alibaba1881]

Another foreshadowing in that episode is when Avasarala and her grandson lay on the house roof and watch the shooting stars. Grandson: They're nothing to be scared of, you know. They're just little rocks that burn up in the sky. Avasarala: They're not always so little. Grandson: U mean like the one that killed the dinosaurs? Ok that rock was big. But that hardly ever happens. Like winning the lottery. Avasarala: I worry about poeple who throw rocks. Grandson: Nobody could throw rocks that big...

[@halwakka504]

@@alibaba1881 Oh, I missed that one! Looks like I need to rewatch. :p

[@GodzillaFighter]

@@alibaba1881 Marco: So anyways I started throwing big rocks

[@alexandreoliveira7604]

He mostly goes the Paragon path. And Amos usually goes with the Renegade path...

[@IronSpyder-ky2lk]

@@alibaba1881 that’s possibly the best one

[@doctormoobbc]

This is how I wanted to see other Martian ships in the series. I love the captain calmly waltzing around with a drink in her hand as if this is a child's game. The crew with the battle suits. An imposing, utilitarian feeling surrounding you. You can really feel that Mars is something different to Earth. I was really disappointed that once we actually saw the planet Mars in the show, they were past their prime and in a decline post-rings. I'd love to see a spin-off from before the events of the expanse, really showing the birth of Mars and some of their early battles.

[@21kiwi24]

Felt the exact same way. An entire society built from adversity and the need to adapt. Undone with a change of circumstances, belittling their sacrifice.

[@voxdraconia4035]

If they continue, maybe with a mini series, you will see what prime Mars is ... a bunch of fascistic wannabe imperialists...they should have surrendered to Earth instead of making the Sol System unstable due to their silly ambitions

[@spamquisition4046]

The Dream of Mars died when they realized there's thousand more planets that they can live in without the hassle of terraforming.

[@olegkosygin2993]

@@voxdraconia4035 Laconia is as much Mars as Protogen is Earth. A bunch of power-hungry short-sighted scum.

[@EchoNovemberDelter]

There was that one short scene where the dude invented the torch drive or whatever it was called

[@themocaw]

"Boarding a ship was one of the riskiest maneuvers in naval combat. It was basically a race between the boarders rushing to the engine room and the collective will of those who had their fingers on the self-destruct button. "After even one look at Captain Yao, Holden could have told them who'd lose THAT race."

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Can somebody explain to me why PROTOGEN decided to board the Donnager?. They had already won…they stopped firing and deployed borders when they could’ve simply destroyed the ship. Apart from an origin story that explains how Holden and crew got a hold of the Rosinante…..It served no purpose for them to do so.

[@themocaw]

@@Matt-yg8ubCapturing the enemy's tech, intelligence, and codes?

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@themocaw …. But at the cost of the ENTIRE Amun Ra fleet. There was nothing on board the Donnager worth the risk. ProteGen isn’t the UNN risking it all for king and country, the chances of them being able to make it all the way to the command bunker, force their way inside and get “the codes “….( whatever that means) Was infinitesimally small. It didn’t make any sense to do that outside of the writers creating a way for Holden to escape alive with the Rosanante. One round through the reactor and it would have been deader than a doornail. Hell, even just putting a round through the command deck would have killed the senior staff and prevented them from scuttling the ship

[@themocaw]

@@Matt-yg8ub People in fiction aren't allowed to be wrong? ProtoGen had been kicking everyone's asses up and down the solar system. They just beat the pride of the MCRN fleet in open battle. Maybe they figured Yao would surrender. Maybe they all had that emotion deadening going and had no fear of death. Maybe they had plans to capture the Donnager and use it in a false flag attack. Just because we never find out why doesn't mean there was no reason why. The only people who can give that answer died in the attack.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@themocaw I see your point here, maybe they did have plans to use it in a false flag attack or something like that which would have required them to capture it intact, but destroying it served their purposes quite well. The way the show is written, the Amun Ra fleet needed to go away or else they would’ve been far too powerful…. This achieved that objective, as well as giving them an excuse for Holden to get his hands on the Rocinante. All I was saying, was that the chances of being able to board and take over the Donnager were infinitesimal… everybody has their finger on the self-destruct button, and the Donnager command deck is a bunker. There’s no real way you’re going to cut your way inside without them pushing the button and self-destructing the ship . Successful boarding actions in modern sci-fi, are rare and require plot armor on the level of spartan 117 with Cortana, already jacked into their systems and overriding all of their failsafes and self-destruct mechanisms in order to achieve it. As mentioned before… even putting a round through the command deck to vent it and kill Yao wouldn’t have guaranteed victory because she could have been suited up to withstand loss of atmosphere. Nothing onboard that ship was worth the loss of all the frigates. At the very least, they should’ve pulled back out of range after deploying their breaching pods

[@Blaze6108]

Nice detail: even the Donnager's turreted railguns have a large rocket booster at the back which fires on each shot to compensate the recoil.

[@andrewreynolds912]

You know irl seeing a railgun firing like that is very realistic and is possible because what their doing is how they work is using high-powered pulse lasers to charge up gasses like helium or neon etc into plasma in a chamber, the plasma acts as an electric conductor and is held together and prevented from escaping which are held by electro magnetic fields and what's also great is the plasma can act as an extended barrel which means for example if you have a longer barrel on a regular chemical weapon that is gun powder than it means that if you make the railgun longer you are extanting yhe railgun to have to ability to accelerate the Tungsten round up to higher speeds quicker but uses less energy to do that but if the railgun was shorter it would need much more power to accelerate that round to the same speed as the longer railgun but their pros and cons to having a longer and shorter railgun if it's longer it will use less power and could have more effective range sense the donnager class has one of the most effective and longest range railguns it's basically almost an artillery platform and if it's shorter it needs more power to accelerate the round and would be more stiffer and able to turn or train onto its target much quicker than a longer railgun but as I said it uses more power and in certain cases I believe would be less effective at longer ranges, that's where the plasma comes in using Ionized gas plasma we can sent the slug round at incredible velocities while I think it might use more power than a shorter normal railgun this means we could also use the plasma either like a Recoil countermeasure where we saw a large stream of plasma being shot from the opposite end when the railgun fired or this kind of stream of plasma could be used to actually accelerate the railgun slug even higher speeds for a bigger boost in velocity like how a normal gasses in a gunpowder weapon accelerate the bullet down the barrel and that can be done with the same thing for plasma railguns like the donnager or any expanse ship that has these, but that depends on the plasma gasses density and other factors, this is why many ships in the expanse uses this because it allows them to fire kinetic slugs at terrifying speeds with a shorter barrel but they use up more energy and are more complicated than normal railguns. Website like Atomic rockets or YTbers explains a little more detail about them if you want also depending on the certain gasses you use like argon, neon, helium, hydrogen, or whatever you can make it fire into many different colors but I have been thinking is this also could be used for some applications like if the ship's IFF is down or not in range to identify a ship could fire a railgun to see which color it is this could be used for emergency or battle purposes like single or multiple fired different color-coded communications or silent communications for controlling certain factors of formations or orders and ships could keep an eye out if theirs like follow me, retreat, etc but also as I said could Identify a ship from long range if their need but during a battle when its chaos that's also useful as well but I might be getting ahead of myself of this a bit.

[@JacopoSkydweller]

@@andrewreynolds912 Bro. Punctuation. This is an unreadable wall of text.

[@andrewreynolds912]

@@JacopoSkydweller ok

[@runwords_]

I think you can see it on the PDCs too

[@AsrielDreemurYT653]

@@andrewreynolds912 Nerd Alert! A nerd has been spotted in your area. He looks like you: 🤓

[@arthurloginov4722]

Cptn. Yao: If you maintain your present course you will be fired upon. Cptn. of a Protogen ship: Witness me!

[@g.williams2047]

Cptn Protogen: precisely what we want

[@TehAntares]

And that's how the Protogen lost the majority of its fleet.

[@karlfranzemperorofmandefil5547]

@@TehAntares mostly because they tried to board it to get to the data vaults of the flagship. If they had stayed at longer ranges and used Planet or moon busters (which we know they had ) the Donny would have been dust on the first hit.

[@newpylong]

still lost 5/6.

[@thegreenreaper6660]

Cpt Yao: 'We will end you!" Cpt Protogen-vessel: "Hold my Protomolecule!"

[@ak102986]

"Who would be insane enough to take on the Donnager in COB?" Someone who thought they were not going to lose!

[@Anuisgod]

They did lose got self destructed.

[@thetshirtblog]

They should have deployed the Tachi and any other attack ships they had on board.

[@ak102986]

@@thetshirtblog Yes, but she was overconfident and underestimated the enemy ships.

[@Aniket2712]

CQB … it’s CQB (Close quarter battle) … it not just some SCI-FI line but a real thing in the military, very common in old days before misiles

[@dimaleoniv7987]

@@ak102986 she had a real combat experience with pirate ships of that size, that's why she thought it's the issue in a coffee break.

[@Snowy123]

What i love about this fight is that instead of "shields system" we get the idea that automated PDCs are being overclocked and the systems behind both the torpedoes and PDCs are like on a tug of war. This lays the groundwork for the Rocci to be a dominant frigate for the early part of the series as it was state of the art with its systems.

[@Generalkidd]

I do agree but I feel like PDCs are a kind of pessimistic prediction of future tech. They're already common today on naval ships. What I'd have expected is a laser-based missile defense system. They're already very effective today in atmosphere but lasers are at their most effective in the vacuum of space. Much more accurate than PDCs and doesn't need to waste ammo either.

[@Snowy123]

@Generalkidd true in the honor harrington series they use the same concepts of breaking down defensive linked networks of multiple ships automated laser systems.

[@donnovicki9771]

@@Generalkidd you're right. The reach on the Laser would be infinite and should be able to take out the bandits from long range. On the other hand since when the Donagers engines started to overload, they were firing the rail guns. I'm assuming that the rail guns use an immense amt of power which probably comes from the Epstein drive. Perhaps the lasers might have drawn too much power and would have taken power from the rail guns. Trying to run main engines, engage rail guns, and supply a laser defense system could be too much. Man I miss this show.

[@Snowy123]

Laser weapon move at the speed of light, you get information on enemy positioning at the speed of light, so first you need to receive/detect enemy (old) position then shoot at the enemy's (old) position. Which means you'll likely get a miss even if it's a near miss. Missiles get the benefit of being smarter once it's near the ship with onboard computers able to adjust for new parameters.

[@liamholland7824]

@@donnovicki9771 The bigger problem with lasers is they don't really have an infinite range. Even the best laser will spread out due to beam divergence (even our best optics enforce a focal point on them and then they spread out. The ideal is a focal range of infinity but we just can't achieve that) and even megawatt range lasers need to focus on a small area in order to cause catastrophic damage and then it still takes some time to cause that damage. The other problem is they're fairly easy to defeat with fairly inexpensive coatings, either reflective or ablative, though the target's acceleration takes a hit from the coating mass so they can only add so much. Where lasers shine is as mid-range defenses on the order of 100s against protected targets to tens of 1000s of km at max on unprotected targets (close enough that beam divergence isn't a problem and coatings are easier to defeat by sheer energy concentration in the same spot). They also suffer from the light speed target acquisition lag noted in a comment below. Farther than that you're better off using missiles, even if they have a LONG coast phase followed by a powerful final sprint, be they attack or interceptor missiles.

[@animo9050]

I mean...she did finish it, just not the way she had hoped for.

[@OceanHedgehog]

The Donnager also could have won the fight if Yao had taken the fight more seriously (but she would have had to know what she was up against). They should have launched more torpedoes and also the Tachi to provide additional support. The Donnager alone took out 4/6 ships when it was half-assing the fight up until the stealth ships got into CQB. If the Donnager was in full war mode, they would have won.

[@WaveForceful]

@@OceanHedgehog I dont think the Donnager had a chance really. They had no answer for the Protogen rail guns, rail guns on ships that small were completely unheard of, she just arrogantly assumed they were missile frigates and that's that.

[@Solaxe]

@@WaveForceful You've literally mentioned something the person you replied to already addressed

[@georgelionon9050]

@@OceanHedgehog Also the simple fact that non of them wear space suits.. in every other battle everyone wore suits. (I watched somebody speculate it was because the ship being so big, depressurization wasnt seen as an issue.. but I dont buy it, IMO it was simply they were so sure, they couldnt even scratch them, they didnt bother to go into full fight mode, which included suiting up)

[@tylerjohn4607]

if you look closely at the PDC turrets on the Donnager you can see them blasting out behind the gun as well, which means it is a recoilless rifle design so the guns don't act like thrusters which is a really cool detail

[@AnonD38]

The designs work on the same principle, but that doesn't make them the same. Muskets and gunpowder cannons also work on the same principle, but muskets aren't cannons and cannons aren't muskets.

[@derek96720]

@@AnonD38 to be fair, he said "design." He didn't say it was a recoilless rifle

[@AnonD38]

@@derek96720 To be fair I'm actually wrong, I just realized I misread and thought he was talking about the railgun turrets.

[@Tallacus]

I would pay just for a series about the Donnager taking on pirates in the Belt

[@nemo99nemo83]

Would be pretty boring Donnie shows up and pirates either give up or are blown to pieces.

[@AnonD38]

@@nemo99nemo83 Do you know how many successful TV shows there are about just a camera crew following a random police patrol while on duty?

[@vonfrancois]

I just finished season 1 and this scene is what sealed the deal and hooked me. I know I’m late to the party but I’ll catch pretty quick. I’m getting also my dad on board. He’s been a trekky for a long time and he didn’t know about this series.

[@docb8324]

You two are in for a real treat

[@vonfrancois]

@@docb8324 - Indeed! Just finished season 2....!! Wow.... just... wow....!!! Don't get me wrong, season 1 is amazing but season 2 really hooked me for good. I'm not binging too much because I was to digest that massive plot but I should get caught up by the end of the month I'd say. One of the best series I've seen since Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul in my opinion.

[@vonfrancois]

I know Better Call Saul is current but still, you know what I mean.

[@docb8324]

@@vonfrancois Sweet! Love this show and don't care if I'm an evangelical about it. Season 3 is the best in my opinion, so get ready for dessert lol

[@vulc1]

@@vonfrancois Season 4 wasn't so good, but now Season 6 is excellent

[@DarthEvilicus]

This is how you do relativistic space battles.

[@darkleome5409]

Imagine if every new sci fi will have the same battles as the expanse. Pretty boring. Although taking inertia into consideration is huge milestone, that should be used

[@wgemini4422]

@@darkleome5409 Why would it be boring? And inertia has been in space battle scenes before.

[@WolfeSaber]

@@darkleome5409 Not how the Expanse does it.

[@dsdy1205]

these battles aren't relativistic yet. The best that Epstein drives have been shown to reach is 10٪ c, at those speeds gamma factor is not even a percent. For sure it would create issues in targeting on the order of kilometers, but it's not the same as what you'd see at high %c

[@thatspiderbyte]

@@darkleome5409 the expanse had some of the most interesting space battles I've seen in Sci fi???

[@reginaldbarkley2391]

Holden being lawful good at 4:50 is one of the key moments in this timeline.

[@Makkis]

personally I view him as neutral good with a white-red colour pie

[@GuardDog42]

Oh wow he didn't try to grab a pistol on the deck of a battleship with literally 2000 armed martians, some of which using power armor immune to small arms. Man if only he had picked up that gun and taken everyone on the bridge hostage while they were getting fucking attacked, that could have been a play. I don't know why the camera angle is giving you guys a labotomy it wasn't even a decision.

[@BlaneNostalgia]

@@GuardDog42 will you relax a lil

[@MajeedBelle]

I actually think he's more chaotic. Good. His naivete did not suit the situations that they were in really. That often led to big problems happening. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[@JustinMShaw]

A very appropriate conversation given that in its history of coming to be, the Expanse spent some time as an RPG before becoming a book series and a TV show.

[@Morpheus-pt3wq]

I like, how space is portrayed in this series. Not just a "water for ships to flow through", but truly inhospitable place with its realistic physics, along with very realistic space battles. The only other show with somewhat realistic space physics, is Battlestar Galactica, but that 2nd place is far, far back.

[@ZakhadWOW]

AHEM, Babylon 5 puts BSG to shame.. especially with the Vipers and Raiders maneuvering as if they were in atmosphere... fatal flaw in that sense.

[@moteroargentino7944]

I love BSG, but the truth is that it's a soft sci-fi with a hard sci-fi paint job. Which is not a bad thing in the slightest, don't get me wrong. But it's not a realistic show.

[@locarno24]

​@@moteroargentino7944I think it's fair to say the EA ships are pretty good, science-wise. However the series makes the deliberate choice to lob physics out the window when high technology races (e.g. the minbari) get involved. In fairness the expanse does the same; part of the reason protomolecule tech is so scary is that you know the series normally obeys the rules so the moments when it doesn't are extra shocking as a result.

[@StYxXx]

Maybe also Firefly a bit (like no sound in space). At least BSG borrowed some style elements from it. Or Foundation a bit. But The Expanse is on a whole other level

[@DodderingOldMan]

Reminds me a lot of Stephen Donaldson's Gap series of books, which The Expanse creators REALLY NEED TO MAKE A SERIES OF AAAAARGH SERIOUSLY IT WOULD BE THE BEST SCI FI TV SHOW EVER...

[@seraphik]

ughhh i love teresa yao. it's so rare to see an asian woman in this sort of role. she's not eye candy, she's not even a dragon lady, she's just a stone cold badass, fearless in the face of overwhelming odds, and competent as hell. i wish donnager and her crew had lasted longer so we could see more of the capt in action.

[@peterwolf8395]

As in irl combat usualy doesnt last very long exspecialy if the smallest weapons are 40mm gatling guns

[@neuro.weaver]

This series was by far THE BEST and MOST REALISTIC SciFi ever produced.

[@buttersquids]

MCRN had such a cool uniform!

[@Creasy5678]

The Mars shipyards best and brightest and most powerful battleship annihilated in minutes by six unknown ships. All credit to Captain Yao, though-she got the intel they needed off-ship so that people would know what was coming before scuttling the ship to take the attackers with them.

[@remo27]

They also managed to take four of the six attackers and presumably all of the boarding party along with them.

[@WaveForceful]

She however should have fled either back to MCRN territory or called for assistance, she was overconfident and she got herself and her crew killed.

[@spoodermanxxmlgxx]

@@WaveForcefulAgree with your first point but they got jammed immediately, she couldn’t call for assistance.

[@PianoBoy99]

As others have said, this wasn't a case of superior technology against MCRN technology. But it was one of superior tactics against poor tactics. It would be like an aircraft carrier going up against a missile cruiser by itself. It wouldn't stand a chance. Now an Aircraft carrier against a fishing vessel with 50cal bow-mounted guns, no problem. That is what the Donnager thought they were going up against when they separated from their support ships (in the book. Not in the tv show).

[@Creasy5678]

@@PianoBoy99 The book makes more sense, sadly. Based on what we saw in the tv series it looked like the Donnager might just have won, but the book made why they lost clearer.

[@dsdy1205]

"Enemies are now inside missile range, torpedoes will no longer be effective" Holden in the next 3 seasons - LOL good joke

[@Pierce1996h]

I never noticed that lol.

[@karmallarma5871]

I never really got that, maybe it's a protocol thing? Since torpedoes (at least the ones the Roci carries) don't seem to have a minimum range limit

[@yourfriend8052]

Guided missiles like the ones belter ships use, non Epstein drive equipped.

[@Neuttah]

Donnie launched 20 of those to nail one target. It only has 14 tubes. Guessing the range was so short, the first torps would've already gotten shot down by the time they launched a full salvo. Also, Roci is a frigate that commonly engaged in running fights, so the effective range might've been a lot longer.

[@dsdy1205]

@@karmallarma5871 they might at that; my head-canon is that a torp's min-range is: a. the min range where a warhead detonation will not damage the launching craft b. determined by the min fusing time for the torp (analogous to real life air to air missiles) c. the min range needed for the torp to build up enough speed to be viable against PDCs d. the max effective range of the enemy's PDCs or whichever of the 4 is greater depending on the combat situation

[@falsum2701]

Captain Theresa Yao is the best casting and performance for a limited part in any TV series. Absolutely nailed the character.

[@dallassukerkin6878]

This clip is the entirety of what I have seen of this series and I have to say, aye. She played a captain very well - I was getting real Honor Harrington vibes :)

[@Beef1188]

No she wasn't. She was about as stale as a week old lettuce. And this whole time she's holding on to her coffee mug like a final stage caffeine addict.

[@DavidKAnderson]

@@dallassukerkin6878 Exactly! No matter how much "oh shit" is going on internally, a captain can't allow any of it to show.

[@matthewsutton5946]

The Donnager is the most advanced, most powerful ship in the MCRN, but that was her downfall. The captain and crew got overconfident and underestimated their opponents capabilities, mostly because they assumed they were fighting OPA pirates.

[@pwnmeisterage]

@@matthewsutton5946 To be fair, the Donnager's opponents were ships unlike anything ever seen before. Secret technology more advanced than anything the MCRN and UN militaries have. Stealth frigates carrying the same firepower as heavy cruisers. I wouldn't call the Martians overconfident and arrogant. I would call them unlucky.

[@UnmatchedSkills]

The part that sold me on this show was the captain's demeanor during the fight, she was calm, and the sense of "urgency" wasn't there at the start, because well..... this is a fight happening over a long distance, it's measured in minutes not meters. It took the time to account for just how vast space battles would truly be, not just in distance but in time.

[@Wustenfuchs109]

There is also a fact that being on board the newest and most advanced battleship, she didn't think anything can take her on. She didn't know that those frigates were even more advanced. Which is why she is calm at first, but goes into panic mode when she realizes that those frigates are not only stealth, they are packing way more ordinance than any ship of their class should, have more advanced computers and actually field railguns, which were never before fitted on a ship smaller than a battleship. It's basically like sitting in the Abrams MBT and seeing some WWII light tanks in the distance. You think it is going to be easy... until you realize that those small tanks are packing the latest in sensor and electronic technology with the most advanced anti-armor weapons known to humanity.

[@icer1249]

@@Wustenfuchs109 very good analogy with the tanks but i would of gone with late WW1 tanks. the martians were so far ahead of other factions even there cruisers could take a 5-1 fight against the UN ships and still survive and these were assumed to be belters.

[@AnonD38]

@@icer1249 It was said that the UN had a 5-1 numbers advantage, not that every martian ship can take on 5 UN ships, it's more so that every martian ship HAS TO take on 5 UN ships, meaning they have no room for error, which naturally requires that they have superior technology and training.

[@icer1249]

@@AnonD38 i was referring to the vesta blockade, where 1 martian cruiser took on 5 UN destroyers and crippled all of them.

[@zeldamage001]

Truely awesome space combat! Wish these scenes were a lot longer!

[@PaiSAMSEN]

I wish it's way less whobby, though.

[@xBloodXGusherx]

@@PaiSAMSEN What do you mean by whobby?

[@ClassicMagicMan]

@@xBloodXGusherx The camera shifts around constantly, it helps give the feel of things moving, which is especially useful for empty backgrounds such as space to convey that motion. Battlestar Galactica 2004 did the screen shake also, but they did it /constantly/ and was even more exaggerated.

[@xBloodXGusherx]

@@ClassicMagicMan I HATE jump cuts with a passion. It's the most LAZY trait of "film making" Even in the Hollywood big budget movies. Whobby seems to be more tolerable

[@decespugliatorenucleare3780]

bros I couldn't see shit: some hints of dark polygons on a black background - maybe because their renders were absolute dogshit (and tried to mask it with everything almost impossible to see)

[@g.williams2047]

The protogen railguns look incredible. Every other one should look more like it.

[@orcasin112]

I love the space battles in Star Wars and Trek but this show is on a level by itself. The suddenness of the fights and how quickly it can be over add to the realism.

[@AntonNight]

I like how the Donnager destroyed four out of six of the attackers before being boarded. Shows that even with state of the art ships wielding weapons meant to punch above their weight, the MCRN was fielding a whole different kind of beast. Makes how their war with the UN shifted from a 5-1 advantage against them to a 3-1 advantage by its end make a concerning kind of sense. In the series we always hear about Martian ships taking on larger groups of UN ships, and we see the Roci herself outfly or outshoot everything. Also see that Martian marines pack ridiculous firepower to the point of being nigh unstoppable walking tanks. Honestly, MCR is my favourite faction in the series and out most other franchises.

[@matthewsutton5946]

The MCRN knows they cant match the UNN’s numbers, so they built their ships to outclass the UNN, and they have the resources to keep their fleet upgraded with only the most modern equipment. Many UNN ships are aging rust buckets by comparison

[@stacymcmahon453]

Mars has its issues, but Earth is an absolute shitshow, run by a hereditary overclass that keeps the proles out of its hair by handing out free drugs and subsistence income, not giving a shit what happens to them as long as they don't get uppity. Mars in contrast is merely a military dictatorship, which works better than it otherwise would because everyone on Mars accepts the primary mission of maintaining their independence while working towards eventually terraforming Mars. Martians have a future to work for (at least before the Ring Gate) while Earthers only have a pointless existence to temporarily escape from. The scary thing about Earth in the Expanse is how believable it is as a possible future in real life. The Davos crowd probably struggles to understand why Errenwright and Jules-Pierre Mao are the bad guys.

[@Irfan87]

The disparity in tech between UNN and MCRN is greatly exaggerated in the TV series. In the books it isn't a huge difference at all. Think Cold War. UNN were like the USSR, they went for reliable, tough, easy to manufacture and maintain. The MCRN like the US went for less ships, but with all the bells and whistles.

[@WaveForceful]

Because the donnager was a much larger ship.

[@Rimasta1]

I thought the Martians were going to be the space Russians like in CoD Infinite warfare. Instead they’re portrayed as professional, reasonable, and valiant especially in this sequence. Great show.

[@KrzysztofDerecki]

Somewhere in series it's said they are the brightest of men, carefully selected for multi generation terraform mission. That's why even with limited resources they have most advanced ships. They are like race of geeks.

[@sebastijanglozinic8630]

They are more like the space Chinese.

[@BlaneNostalgia]

"We're all gonna be just fi-"

[@itismemoe]

Ding!

[@Skiergold]

Heads up!

[@darkleome5409]

I was just playing FTL and devs of the game used this ding sound there. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

[@BlaneNostalgia]

@@spacefiddlestudios lol

[@kimnice]

Aww..it's a shame that we never had Donnager-class actually deploying light frigates or destroyers in battles. Having Tachi out there with it's 6 PDCs and 20 missiles could have helped a lot. Same as when Free Navy and Laconians attack the ring gate: Having extra 2 light frigates or 4 destroyers there could have really helped.

[@Negativvv]

Both times the MCR were caught with their pants down... There might have been a perfectly good reason why Tachi couldn't launch although the fact it was ready at short notice and it's later service as the Roci showed that even a few crew can use it effectively. That sort of implies Captain Yao messed up by not telling a handful of crew to get out there and give it a go. Ring Gate battle was likely not viable for the Donny class to launch support ships as it got clapped by the micro meteor shower, probably too damaged to have been able to do anything else than damage control & trying to shoot back.

[@PianoBoy99]

In the book they explain it. The donnager was sent at top speed to pick up holdon and was racing against the 6 ships to get to him. They had to leave their support ships behind in order to make the pickup. They changed it a bit for the TV show and it doesn't make as much sense, but it plays better on TV. The calculation was there wasn't anything from the belt that could hurt the Donnager, but obviously that wasn't the case because those ships weren't from the belt.

[@JAnx01]

​@@PianoBoy99 I don't think it plays better on TV at all. It would have been a lot more thrilling had they stayed true to the original. Also, in Leviathan Wakes, the torpedoes that destroyed the Canterbury flew for 8 minutes. The tension was building progressively. When all of those events are crammed into just a few seconds and 80% of the dialogue is cut, the experience is greatly diminished.

[@AnonD38]

@@JAnx01 You can't make a good show if you just take the book and copy everything. As someone who likes shows over books, they did a damn fine job by writing it the way they did.

[@guytech7310]

In real naval warfare, there would be a fleet of ship, Primary capital ship with multiple smaller ships integrated into a unit. Perhaps even with drones to scout out the area adding increased visibilty. Issue with space is that is pretty much impossible to hide heat (IR emissions). IR is the only way for a ship to get rid of heat in space since there is no water or air to dump heat into.

[@midori-doobie]

i can't get enough of the combat in this show, so fucking awesome

[@jonskowitz]

Oh Shed... You dying here hit me just as hard as it did when I read the book, and I knew it was coming this time.

[@phatman808]

not as hard as that railgun slug hit Shed's head though.

[@ryan4640]

@@phatman808 😄

[@TheAnakinn]

Still the best battle in the Expanse. I fell in love with the Donnager-class seeing this. Too bad she was destroyed

[@NorthForkFisherman]

Ring station battle was my fave. Alex and his war cry were amazing.

[@heartrem2]

Why do good shows like this have to go away, but "days of our lives" is on for 40 years!

[@steak5599]

well, for one, they would be running low on Book Materials, and the Book hasn't finished the story yet. When Season 6 was made, there was only 8 books out at the time, and Amazon told the Expanse team they will pay for 3 more Seasons, and we are happy to even get it. The Amazon productions were definitely higher quality.

[@heartrem2]

@@steak5599 so days or our lives still has book material? Your comment is not relevant to my original comment, my comment was more of a critique on the type of shows that can run for a very long time vs this type of show.

[@Karkistoss]

​@heartrem2 unfortunately on average, 3 times as many people watch each episode of days of our lives compared to the Expanse, and it probably cost the same to film 40 years of days of our lives as it did to film one season of the Expanse

[@guytech7310]

Budget. One episode of the expanse costs about the same as 2 or perhaps 3 seasons of days of our lives. Unfortunately big scifi shows are probably a thing of the past. The production costs are very high.

[@fredlandry6170]

This is one of my favorite space battles in Science Fiction, it’s so damn good.

[@hresvelgr7193]

Enough of this. Preempt the railguns. Let’s finish this and go home. Aye sir. Diverting power to railguns Fucking badass six years later.

[@Vilakazi]

Make that 8.

[@johnroscoe2406]

I don't think you know what "preempt" means...

[@hresvelgr7193]

@@johnroscoe2406 I don't think you understand that I was quoting the show, and that "preempt the railguns" is what was said. Also I don't think *you* know what "preempt" means. Multiple meanings of preempt fits how it is used in the show, including "to seize upon to the exclusion of others" or "take precedence over"

[@Twib01]

​@hresvelgr7193 Except, she clearly says "bring up the rail guns" If you watch with subtitles on prime, that's exactly what the subtitles say too You're a loser.

[@AshtonClemens]

I wish there was more of this capitan. Such a cool head.

[@flighted2513]

That look on LT Lopez's face when the guy says, "we're being boarded"

[@lelouche25]

Loved this fight, the Donnager went out like a champ, took out a lot of those stealth frigates.

[@MidWitPride]

Detail I like to most about this is that when it became evident that the tiny vessel had powerful railguns as well, it all went from "let's wreck them" to: "Get drive signatures on every one of them." In a way the captain already knows that they are screwed if a tiny ship can power up such railguns, means they are using some truly magical generator technology, hence probably are way more technologically advanced than they are, so all they can do now is gather intel before they die.

[@Alamandorious]

There used to be a better video on youtube that captured the whole battle, from start to finish...unfortunately, I think it got taken down a long time ago. This is one of the best sci fi battles I've seen, and the attention to detail is actually pretty awesome, in ship, character, and tech details. Like...when that one Martian marine activates the magnetic locks on his boots...first, demonstrating how well thought-out the tech is in The Expanse. Second, demonstrating that this dude is a professional. The ship hasn't lost drives yet, and therefore hasn't lost gravity, but he's getting ready in case it does. I really need to actually get around to watching this...I have the first season, I just haven't really sat down to see it.

[@Tomlar147]

a bit late to the party too, but for me 4:26 was the moment that hooked me. The sudden cut in sound, the shift of the tone... and the way they showed the damage in all ways... A-Tier Show

[@jsthecanuck6804]

seems like no matter how far you advance in technology, hearing "we're being boarded" is scary as hell especially when you're in a spaceship

[@unikmandakh]

Kim's convenience store ? :) Each time i see her in that sitcom i think of her as a captain of donnager :)

[@jerodast]

Reminds me of National Security Advisor Nancy McNally from the West Wing showing up as Rainbow's mother in Black-ish...hard to think of them as everyday grandma types after seeing them in top-rank defense roles haha

[@4no3bo3dy]

Umma and Appa are both secret scifi warriors!

[@TwilightMysts]

This is a fine example of scaling a ship's capabilities to fit the scenario. Even granting planning, surprise, and a purpose built design using bleeding edge black-book technology, 6x stealth ships close to the size of an MCRN frigate shouldn't be able to take out the Donnager.

[@Asghaad]

the problem were the Railguns... combined with higher maneuverability and smaller target profile that was what gave them the only chance they had to take out Donny. larger ships would have been torn apart easily by the main guns of the Donnager, small ships that could avoid getting hit long enough werent supposed to be able to do anything more than surface damage with missiles and torpedoes ... problem was these frigates had guns capable of doing internal damage to the battleship while being small enough to be hard to hit with Donnagers rails and even so they lost 4 of those prototype bleeding edge monstrosities in direct combat and 2 more to the self destruct and only achieved so by total surprise ambush tactics that only ever would work ONCE ...

[@Cyberdactyl]

The Expanse is very realistic, however a hull penetration the size @ 04:48 would evacuate gymnasium size volume in three minutes, let alone the space they are in it would be seconds. The noise of the wind rushing out would not allow conversation.

[@richirich999]

Wouldn’t the whole ship die? I was confused how they survived that

[@kimnice]

Sorry if I've forgotten something: Why Donnager didn't launch Tachi right away? One would think that launching support ships would standard move when six unknown frigate ships are attacking. They still had enough time when it became apparent how advanced those ships are

[@hellohelloington9442]

It's not exactly practical to suddenly take a frigate out of deep storage when it has no ready crew on board and just throw it into a battle. Plus, the moment it comes out, the Tachi is going to be targeted too. The Expanse is meant to be a hard sci fi, and it does so pretty well: the Tachi isn't going to be able to act in time to gain separation from the Donnager, and if they were to instantly destroy the Tachi, the Tachi is now a bomb sitting within a kilometre of the Donnager. The Donnager's crew knew this (not to mention that they thought they were winning). There's a reason why all the fleet battles in The Expanse show all of the vessels spaced out, and why the books have them described as being so far that you literally can't see them. There's obviously more reasons than this, but this is what I can think of on the spot.

[@IronRevolution]

Damn, I've loved this show for so many years. I miss it so much already.

[@donnovicki4104]

Hoping for another season or two or a mini series. SOMETHING PLEASE. I want to see the Magnetar class ships in action.

[@deker0954]

Lucky me because I have not seen past season one.

[@greggv8]

Without artificial gravity there's no really quick maneuvering possible for manned ships carrying large crews. At the closing speeds the attacking ships were moving the Donager should only have needed to spew out a cloud of projectiles into the path of the enemy ships, with plenty of extra aimed off axis so if the ships tried to avoid what was coming straight for them they'd maneuver right into more projectiles. A big problem with space battled with kinetic weaponry is all those projectiles and broken bits of damaged and exploded ships and missiles would be a fairly permanent navigation hazard that would move all around the Sun. This one battle would have placed many thousands of dangerous little pieces of high speed metal into a snarled yarn ball of solar orbits. Some might eventually impact planets, moons, or asteroids but a lot would orbit forever, biding their time until an unlucky spacecraft crosses the orbit of one at exactly the wrong time. *BANG* What was that? The navigation hazard database says it's most likely a PDC round from the final battle of the MCRN Donager. I hope it's stuck in the ship where it can be dug out, battle relic collectors pay good money for crap like that. Might even be enough to fix the damage it did to my ship.

[@nastrael]

So glad they stopped doing the stupid "exploding consoles" cliche after this.

[@MadilynnBrock-f5w]

Truely awesome space combat! Wish these scenes were a lot longer!. Truely awesome space combat! Wish these scenes were a lot longer!.

[@xkavarsmith9322]

"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."

[@Theo-vi8gs]

We need a spinoff of the crew and people of these stealth ships

[@Clone683]

The Expanse is probably the show with the most realistic space battles

[@jordanrose8443]

I really wish this show had gone on for a couple more seasons and had the budget it deserved.

[@siddharthanand5652]

The donnager's destruction was an insane moment in the story, it's like sinking one of America's nuclear supercarriers!!!

[@GhostEye31]

I wonder how big the crews were on those Anubis ships that the boarding pods off of two were enough to be too much for the marine detachment and crew on the Donnager to fight off.

[@FireOccator]

The captain should have realized that an enemy wouldn't attack a Martian capital ship if they weren't certain of victory.

[@thursdaythought7201]

Well she fought pirates before

[@stevem2323]

She couldn't have realized that, she fought pirates before and she couldn't have known that these ships are this advanced.

[@FireOccator]

@@stevem2323 Were those pirates stupid enough to attack her ship?

[@stevem2323]

@@FireOccator Obviously they did, and she take care of them. Possibly in some other ship too.

[@FireOccator]

@@stevem2323 But why would pirates attack the most powerful ship class in the system? Other ships wouldn't count if it made sense for pirates to attack them.

[@richarddavis4954]

Truly one of the best space battles

[@Kain987]

Having read the book version... I have to admit the show's interpretation is quite a bit more captivating.

[@dreyri2736]

That's some interesting use of space boarding. Who new Hard SF could be this cool? No radiators though.

[@Fr33zy159]

4:55 I love this little moment with Holden. The obvious choice would be to go for the gun, but he goes to the Marine. He was a good person. He made stupid choices because of it but nobody could say he never cared.

[@justinmingus191]

he's the Jon Snow of The Expanse

[@tearstoneactual9773]

But it was at that moment that the Lieutenant saw who Holden really was, because he saw Holden choose empathy over violence, choose helping a stranger but fellow person over his own needs and wants. That decision had a ripple all its own.

[@meetdavidothespy]

The obvious choice if you want to be killed by the MCRN, or the ships attacking the MCRN. Holden doesn't seem like the suicidal type to me.

[@brainplay8060]

I always found it odd that only 2 smaller ships could carry more boarders than a flagship cruiser like the Donnager. By all rights they should have been outnumbered 3 to 1 easily. Note that travel time for the stealth ships meant that they would have needed to have life support for all of those bodies for weeks or months (going by the book times). Maybe if the Donnager had take a lot more damage would it have been possible. They also would have had to have known that the Martians would scuttle the ship if they thought they would lose.

[@moteroargentino7944]

Maybe the smaller ships had just a few crew members and the rest were all assault teams, packed to the brim. A larger ship like the Donnager would need way more non combat crew members to run her, while the security team would be comparatively smaller. Plus as a defender you need to spread out your forces, while an attacker is more free to choose where to attack and concentrate their troops to open a path.

[@PianoBoy99]

In the book they explain it a bit. The borders have superior power armor. Although Martian armor is generally pretty good, and I thought they kind of glossed over the "laws of physics" a bit. If this was indeed the flagship of mars, they should have had a significant contingent of martian marines in full power armor ready to repel borders. I agree that this is a flaw in both the book and the tv. show.

[@brainplay8060]

@@PianoBoy99 It would be a pretty big flaw considering that Martian power armor was superior to all. Protogen would have copied it themselves at great expense. Furthermore, each Amum stealth ship only carried a crew of 50 with 50 additional borders. At best that means 60-70 boarders each and only 2 survived at the end. The Donnager had a full crew of over 2000... The terrorists had some pretty serious plot armor...

[@locarno24]

For what it's worth a modern supercarrier with a crew of several times that of a donnager-class carries significantly less than 100 marines. Given that anyone not in battle armour really doesn't count in the fight, that's not too unreasonable when the attackers were coming with a deliberate plan to board.

[@brainplay8060]

@@locarno24 Note that the Donnager had been engaged in anti-pirate operations and did regular boardings. She captured many alive and used her large brigs to transport them. Supercarriers of our time period dont do that kind of thing anymore. If the Donnager had taken significantly more damage I could chalk that up to the crew all killed but it really didn't. We didn't even seen any PDC strafings. Not to mention that the fight took hours instead of minutes so everyone would have been in vacuum suits. But then we saw a LOT of bad military writing throughout the show. The writers were really good with space and physics but no so good with military tactics.

[@deltaomega2136]

I like that it wasn't a complete curb stomp battle. The Donnager lost but still took out 4 of 6 ships first.

[@NorthForkFisherman]

"We're all gonna be just fi..WANG!" and the shit literally went sideways from there. DAYUMN, this was a GREAT show!

[@lordwind9745]

4:27 is the moment that started my panic attacks every time a touching moment happens on The Expanse.

[@hko2006]

Rewatching this after watch the series made me appreciate this fight much more.

[@louisazraels7072]

how can the single remaining stealth frigate transport enough personnel to overwhelm the entirety of the Donnager's crew?

[@21kiwi24]

Selective boarding location after a lot of damage was done. You don't need to fight them all, just the ones between you and where you intend to be going, I.e the bridge, key systems etc.

[@louisazraels7072]

@@21kiwi24 the Donnager is big but not THAT big, you can redeploy from one end to another in minutes.

[@21kiwi24]

@@louisazraels7072 if you know where the breach is , and the routes are non interrupted, and you have internal comms.

[@baneblackguard584]

most of the crew were busy trying to survive at that point. and the boarding pods looked like a significant portion of the ships overall bulk as they detached. purpose built for carrying troops into battle. possible it was carrying more battle troops than the Donnager, even though it's much larger.

[@tearstoneactual9773]

Well first of all, there were two remaining frigates and BOTH deployed boarding pods. These were Protogen troops, Protogen Marines essentially. They had absolute bleeding edge tech, bleeding edge training, taken from some of the most experienced Operators in the entire solar system, and given a virtually unlimited budget. Meanwhile they are fighting a crippled enemy who has had little to no prep time, the whole ship is leaking air and burning. Most decks are exposed to vacuum (the real purpose of the railguns), cut off, and just trying to survive. Most of the MCRN Navy aboard are not warfighters, and the Marines they DO have are not that many.They're outnumbered probably 2 to 1. (Assuming that each pod holds a couple squads. That's between two and four platoons of very very well paid Protogen trigger-pullers, who are extremely motivated. Oh and they probably have zero empathy, like the protogen scientists.

[@pleasestopforcingmetopicka2679]

This ep hooked me too. It was so many things, the detail to the little things in the tech, sure, the competence and camaraderie of the Martian navy, sure, but the humanity... Oh, they got me good

[@TheZabinqp]

These space battles are so realistic!

[@patricofritz4094]

Realistic to our modern day equipment but who is to say we won't have more advanced equipment in the next few centuries

[@worldcomicsreview354]

@@patricofritz4094 If you ask me, missiles will be countered by other missiles, not spray 'n pray guns. ECM will be a big thing too, even back in the Falklands the Vulcans had a pod that bent radar signals and made radar-guided guns think it was off to the side of where it really was. There's a comic called Erma Felna, which is furry, so that puts a lot of people off, but that has interesting space combat, too. Ships launch largely-automated "fighters" which can shoot bullets, missiles or even themselves at each other / the enemy ship. Once the "fighters" are done with each other, the actual manned ships have a millisecond of automated response time to use last-ditch evasion or countermeasures. Victory at that point is pure statistics.

[@patricofritz4094]

@@worldcomicsreview354 read.my comment then understand think about it then you wouldn't answer back and be wrong k

[@Ben00000]

@@worldcomicsreview354 If the missiles are grouped they do use other missiles to take them out. Otherwise, PDCs are extremely efficient both for defense and compared to drones, which need fuel and space within the ship which could simply be occupied by a ton of bullets instead.

[@Farrell461]

@@worldcomicsreview354 Missiles are countered by other missiles in The Expanse. PDCs are just that, point defense. Should anything get close, including but not limited to a missile, autocannons are a good counter. Especially in a battle like this where there are huge amounts of torpedos.

[@kencf0618]

I've been (slowly) milling through the novels, having heard how good the show was. This is the first time I've seen footage! Modern times, modern times.

[@seyumaiayami3536]

Chose the wrong seat, bro. The series did the book good justice on this.

[@mattdragon1253]

What was different in the books about his Death?

[@robertsheffield57]

@@mattdragon1253 haven't read the books but I think what they meant is the tv show perfectly depicted how he died in the books so probably exactly the same way

[@guytech7310]

Must have s(u)cked for that actor, getting written off so early in the show.

[@Antares_451]

The Expanse should definitely have never been canceled..

[@cgavin1]

It was the end of great TV. Nothing much since but shyte.

[@crunchyoats1862]

the show improved visually so much once it got amazon dollars though and a proper ending

[@razorback8300]

It wasn’t fully cancelled it was picked back up by Amazon ( after syfy cancelled it ) and the director decided with them to do up until season 6.

[@Antares_451]

@@razorback8300 Thanks but I know all that however, it's currently officially ended.

[@porksterbob]

It wasn't cancelled. The story ended. The writers of the books said six seasons and that is what we got.

[@drevilatwork]

No sf show till then or since then has been so realistic and well made

[@bcr3327]

That moment at 4:27 when the sound just cut out was the best. Science, sort of since there's no way all the atmo left that fast, but the fact that they at least acted like they were going to lean hard on Science in science fiction was nice.

[@ChairmanMeow1]

The Donnager arc is where I got hooked

[@tschriv]

The Expanse is a truly brilliant show. Pure sci-fi at its finest.

[@TheCaptainCrack]

0:15 "there is only one man who would dare give me the raspberry! Lonestar!"

[@dm121984]

"They've gone to Plaid

[@Bigmbrennan]

Just goes to show ya, just like all throughout history, a battleship without an escort is a sitting duck

[@possumGFX]

The show was great when it didnt focus on Naomi Nagata feeling emotions, leaving , feeling emotions, joining, feeling emotions and leaving to join again when she was feeling emotions.

[@mattdragon1253]

Nah I think there is nothing wrong whit Naomi's arc.

[@aaalll4840]

I'm right there with you. I got to the point where I was hitting the skip 10 seconds button whenever she and her angst face were on the screen. I started out thinking she was an interesting character but the drama got old real quick.

[@uchealisha9510]

Loved Naomi Nagata especially in season 5, best part of that season, carried it. Amazing actress and character in both TV and the books.

[@thecollierreport]

Sucha great show!!! We need 10 more seasons

[@madlarkin8]

A solid slug travelling through a pressurized room at the speeds needed to puncture many layers of armor would have overpressurized and superheated the room, killing everyone. Only an unpressurized room could have avoided this.

[@Razaiel]

Yeah, but then the series would've been over.

[@madlarkin8]

@@Razaiel a reasonable precaution for space combat if they were trying to make it sci-fi/realistic is to depressurize the ship and have crew don space suits. Otherwise the first large hit would cause explosive decompression and combust the whole air supply.

[@Makkis]

@@madlarkin8 they actually do that during most battles, but this one was a surprise ambush

[@olenickel6013]

My first instinct would be that that math is off, considering how small the rooms in question are and how little time there actually would be to transfer heat to the surrounding air.

[@madlarkin8]

@@olenickel6013 Your first instinct would be wrong. The smaller the room, the faster the air temperature rises from a passing projectile. The primary cause of thermal shock comes from the friction of the projectile as it passes through (and ionizes) the air. The actual radiative heat of the weapon is inconsequential. As the weapon passes through atmosphere, it would create a pressure flux in the air around itself which would liquefy and incinerate the occupants.

[@pyroslev]

I know people struggled to get into the first season. But once you made it here, the show had one sets of hooks in you. The other came at the very end of the season.

[@olegkosygin2993]

imagine if these ships secretly went into UN service instead of being pissed away on a useless criminal war Marco would've never gotten off the ground

[@guytech7310]

Well the plan was to start a war to force Mars under UN rule. IIRC, Marco was used as a tool as a revenge proxy by Mars.

[@therealmaxspeedster]

Captain Theresa Yao fought this battle almost as though the Donnager was a stationary fortress. She should have immediately given the order for maximum speed as soon as those attackers showed hostile intent. This would have kept the attackers in the effective range of their most destructive long range armament (which was mauling them) for much longer. I really enjoy the "realism" of this scene but Captain Yao's combat decisions frustrate me.

[@guytech7310]

A big capital ship isn't going to be able to accelerate very much. The crew put too much confidence in there PDCs, in real world, a capital ship has escorts to guard it. A capital ship is designed to bring heavy firepower, not to engage enemy ships directly.

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

Shed should've picked a different chair.

[@misterangel8486]

Best scifi space battle nomination🏆

[@bartolomeestebanmurillo4459]

That Martian overconfidence was admirable but in the end, its what defeated them.

[@GabbieTheFox]

To be fair to them, aside from Yao and Lopez. None of the Donnager's crew had any real combat experience. The simple fact of the matter is that a Donnager class ship is such an imposing and intimidating force, that it's presence alone is almost always enough to convince an enemy (usually some belter pirate vessel) to surrender. Add to that the fact that the Donnager class is the biggest, meanest warship the solar system has ever seen... And it becomes understandable that the Donnager's crew would be convinced that they could take on anything and win right up until they got boarded.

[@baron.7284]

@@GabbieTheFox And they could've, with ease, if not for one very unlucky main reactor hit from a torpedo that somehow slipped through the PDC grid at the most vulnerable part of the ship. It's called plot. :D

[@GabbieTheFox]

@@baron.7284 Yep. Precisely. The protogen torpedoes had state of the art guidance systems that as stated by one of the weapons officers in the show "They're pushing our PDCs to the limit." Presumably in reference to the targeting computer. After all, the Donnager class is the best the MCRN has to offer and at the time, the MCRN had no idea the stealth ships existed so when they went into combat, the MCRN was effectively fighting while blindfolded. They didn't know what those ships were capable of but since the captain was used to fighting belter pirates, she assumed that the stealth ships were just more belters... Until her ship started getting holes poked in it with railguns. EDIT: Spelling

[@outrider425]

@The Program using capital ships without escorts is one of the worst things you can do especially in a Cold War situation

[@peterwolf8395]

​@The Program Yeah but if you hunt pirates on a long deployment you dont want to overcommit resources and you will become complaicent. Imagine somali pirares suddenly shooting torps and anti ship missles and all more advamced than the us equivalent. Nobody can account for that. Also 1. Hit on reactor housinf was crippling

[@ChanticoChulo]

Need more seasons this show was everything and then some for SYFY

[@swiety1981]

Always wondering. Why board a Donnager?

[@WaveForceful]

The purpose was to use it to incite a war between mars and Earth.

[@Anguilla2001]

So all the Donnager torpedoes missed except one? Download that firmware update

[@peterszendrei]

Most realistic space battle ever made.

[@afriendofafriend5766]

Yet still not that realistic.

[@peterszendrei]

@@afriendofafriend5766 much better than star wars or star trek bullshits:)

[@SirShiv7]

Season 1 and 2 will forever hold a special place in my heart. The show started to lose me when it started bringing in stupid characters but damn what a solid premise.

[@TheKingTywinLannister]

Yeah me too. After that the show went pirates of the Caribbean mode.

[@chestersleezer8821]

Ship of that size should had escort ships but they thought they were the biggest and nasty thing out there. They weren't and left their escorts behind and paid for it.

[@hello-ox5rf]

It carried 2 light frigates (of which Rocinante is one) and 4 patrol destroyers. The captain must have just had a brain injury or something because they didn't even try to launch their support compliment for seemingly no reason

[@1650th]

​@@hello-ox5rfit was too late to launch anything

[@hello-ox5rf]

@@1650th We see only one deployment at-speed that I know of, which is the razorback and deployment happens in just under 30 seconds. It should be very quick to move them outside the ship and roci is shown to activate very quickly. I believe the smaller compliment ships were also automated. This captain pauses for a solid 30 seconds AFTER they're jammed and before weapons range

[@rule1dontgosplat]

One of the nicest easter eggs in this scene was when they are about to self destruct, there's a warning image that pops up about the self destruct sequence which is basically a direct copy of the Nostromo's self destruct warning in Alien, when Ripley opens the floor panel to turn off the reactor cooling system. The font and the colors are almost perfect matches.

[@lordwind9745]

It does feel a bit out of place that the flagship of the MCRN was taken out by boarding action so easily.

[@OceanHedgehog]

There’s a couple of things at play here. Captain Yao was overconfident - she ordered everyone to battle stations but did not warn anyone to prepare for a boarding action, because she reasonably assumed the bogies wouldn’t get that close. They did not expect (1) the enemy torpedos to be so good; or (2) for the enemy to have rail guns They thought that they’d be able to end the battle easily, hence why everyone was so calm until their reactor armor got hit by a torpedo, at which point they were focused on using the rail guns and PDCs to take out the enemy. When the stealth ships began riddling the Donnager with rail guns, at that point it was basically too late to prepare for a bidding action

[@VoodooV1]

And to be fair. the Donager gave as good as she got. She did take out most of the enemy. Only 2 left right? If those remaining lucky 2 still had enough troops to successfully board them, then I have to assume they had just as many troops on the ships that did get splashed. So that shows how much Protogen was willing to sacrifice to get on there.

[@Chris__R]

This is the best 5 minutes of television I have ever seen.

[@Phantom6.6.6]

What's sad is if the donnager had launched its two gun boats then this was a fight it could've won

[@josephbracero4652]

Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

[@durza9390]

"The sin is not in being outmatched, but in failing to recognize it."

[@tearstoneactual9773]

They could have won even without it's gunships/frigates, if Yao had taken the fight deadly serious as soon as it started. Used different tactics, pressed the ship's overwhelming torpedo fire into service much earlier, instead of firing one small volley.. etc. Should have, could have, would have. Too late now.

[@cesaravegah3787]

One of the unrealistic parts of the series, probably for dramatic effect is the crew fighting the ship with common clothes, on a real combat space ship most probably the crew would dress pressure suites and helmets.