The Expanse - Planetary Railgun Strike (Inc All Build Up Scenes)

[@LordDarthHarry]

"82% is not good enough" Clearly this man has played X-Com

[@botbit1557]

If we’re going by XCOM terms, then sometimes even 100% isn’t good enough 😢

[@henrydimmock2691]

@@botbit1557 But 70% somehow is

[@Muschelschubs3r]

The game where 95% hit probability leads to three fucking misses in a row. Multiple times.

[@Palora01]

@@Muschelschubs3r sorry to burst your bubble but that's how percentages and statistic probability works. Given an infinite number of shoots you would hit 95% of the shoots taken. But those 5% misses can happen at any point in that time, even in the early part, even one after the other. And if you don't do an infinite number of shoots, or very many of them, you could actually end up with 100% misses on a 95% chance simply because you didn't take enough shoots. The "modern" (it's been a while) Xcom games are actually cheating in favor of the player, increasing the chance to hit on high to hit odds. Tho depending on the setting the outcome is decided before you take the shoot. (I think there was an option to reset the seeding on loading a saved game). Add to that human perception where all the "Stupid misses" get remembered and all the "lucky hits" are forgotten and you end up with "The game where I always miss".

[@whitelabrat]

@@Palora01 Yea we know that. That does not help the moment when you really need that 95% to hit and it misses though. =) It is a long running inside XCom joke. Like decades. We have all become bitter and jaded and when we read your comment all we can do is giggle manically and repeat "10% to hit on rapid fire and the f*** sectoid hits all 3... I take 5 shots at 95% and miss them all..."

[@adamm2091]

The build up and execution of these events is so well done. You feel gutted when one slips through and nails 2 million people and you can almost sympathize with both Sadovir and Gillis.

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

though , considering the blast radius of the impact compared to the continent size , the 'gaia' faction still got incredibly lucky if it struck any of the over urbanized continents/continent sections the casualties likely would been in billions specially with the collateral shookwave. i doubt it be only 2 million casualties though , since i bet with a outer planets & asteroid war going on while earth climate and nature stability be a precious asset to reduce the resources needed to sustain a large manpower pool compared to some of the other factions , i bet there still be plenty of mines not to mention indigenous groups or wildlife density 'nearby' that the collateral from the impact wipe out if nothing else outside of that though , surprisingly 'clean' weapons of the martians considering the speed though i have to think the show calling those shoots 'warheads' just was to trigger the audience 'oh serious' reflexes ...since at those speeds just a solid tungsten rod could be made large enough to outright start crack a tectonic plate upon impact. still its scenes like this ''even if the general? doing the whole 'appeal to commander in chief ego'' appeal was a bit mhe.. that keeps me tempted to get a complete set of the expansion show ,so much of scifi that gotten 'lost' in the concept every moment must either be action or 'romance' :/ i miss when fantasy or scifi stuff could take half an houer just to give you some ambiance and context for the world/universe itself ...rather then hyper focusing on personal drama or action etc the whole time. sometimes i wonder if those 80's action movies is to blame for this XD as in setting a faulty precedent of ''action = success''

[@defeatSpace]

How did they fuck up RoP so rOYaLlY...

[@hazardgoose2352]

lmao 2 million got owned

[@defeatSpace]

@@hazardgoose2352 How didn't they learn from acquiring and fucking up The Expanse...

[@dougaltolan3017]

Agreeing to a nearly 1 in 5 chance of failure is ludicrous.

[@casacara]

You know, a little redundancy would have helped. Overconfidence like this has definitely happened in military history before though.

[@Chopstewie]

I assumed they could only get these platforms In to place and did not want to risk a larger assembly lest they give the martians any suspicion. Hoping to eek it out with the minimum amount. The entire operation was a horrible risk from the word go; so no bonus points for pulling it off. Just got lucky really. No on who's played X-COM or D&D would have fucked with that 85%.

[@DrunkGeko]

@@Chopstewie 85% that you destabilize MAD, 15% chance that your entire planet fucking dies Not a good move i'd say

[@MidWitPride]

It kinda fits the theme. Earth being the big dog, but slowly going stagnant. Things aren't kept up as well as they used to anymore etc. Not too dissimilar to France before WW2. Being a great military power on paper, but in practice the troops are unmotivated, officers lazy and corrupt, and the assets poorly maintained.

[@iraholden3606]

@@Chopstewie this is spot on, the US literally halted the development and deployment of weapon systems that would have made a nuclear war unwinnable for the USSR because they knew that continuing to do so would force the USSR into launching a pre-emptive strike while they stood a chance and had the US actually had the capability to wipe out the USSR with a high enough level of confidence that survival and remaining in power would be the result, they would have nuked the USSR. Aka Earth is the USSR, Mars is the US.

[@Chopstewie]

@@iraholden3606 I'm still a bit confused as to why Earth, having removed Mars' first strike (and presumably counter-strike) capability. Would not proceed to launch their attack immediately, and demand unconditional surrender from Mars within the operational window for second line attacks. I.E. "Mars, missiles are is in route and will terminate all life on Mars in 8 minutes, you are unable to mount a responses and you have 2 minutes to respond with your unconditional surrender." The books must have explained it more.

[@GeorgeTsiros]

82% was exactly accurate after all. 4 railguns out of 5 functioned as _expected_

[@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022]

It was not expected in the show. The 5th only malfunctioned briefly BECAUSE the first strike was put off.

[@jacobshaffer7700]

​@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 always my least favorite plot point. What kind of shitty machine fails after one warm up. Felt like they added that just for drama, especially cause this plot point goes nowhere

[@GeorgeTsiros]

@@jacobshaffer7700 I can think of many machines that if they do _not_ go through the normal cycle have an increased risk of failure.

[@warbrain1053]

@@jacobshaffer7700 a lot of machines can fail if you do not go by protocols. Some - catastrophically. Tchernobyl was an example of not following protocol. Railguns especially are very precise machinery that have to be cycled and replaced frequently

[@Draga01]

@@jacobshaffer7700sounds like someone doesn't know how sensitive advanced electronics & mechanics can be. 🤔

[@IAmNumber4000]

82% was a bad number to gamble on anyways, even knowing the results of standing down

[@DrownedInExile]

Every XCOM player knows this!

[@MidWitPride]

If such estimations were perfect anyway they wouldn't had failed the last launch. But yeah, blue balling the railgun probably isn't doing it any favors. Especially if the maintenance crew is being taken for granted, which often is the case with stagnant empires.

[@tarik158]

The thing I love most about this episode was how the military personnel operating the railguns spoke like people in the military operating a machine of war: No emotion, just doing their duty. It added so much to the scene to make it feel “real”.

[@DreamersOfReality]

This right here is what makes it possible to kill millions. When humans are reduced into the mere cogs of a machine designed to kill. When doing your duty and being professional means taking lives.

[@vga991]

@ElodieFiorella "Recieving no comunications from anywhere in the system...Not even beacons" "The subject did not survive interrogation"

[@gamegoof]

Chomping at the bit to test their toys

[@wayando]

​@@gamegoof😂😂😂 ... Like in the real world. Alot of the wars we see today are because weapons companies want to test their toys on real people ...

[@gerard4039]

It seems you never been to the army !!!! All your informations come from movies …. Look around you and learn why soldiers comeback sick from wars !!! Just go outside and ask the homeless … I am pretty sure you will meet a soldier amongst the first ones !!!

[@leaderunith4l324]

A single warhead was able to kill 2 million people in an instant and create an explosion large enough to be seen from orbit. There are 20 warheads in each planet buster, 10 planet busters in each platform and 5 platforms around the sun, so about 1000 warheads in total. I think Mars may be going a bit overkill here

[@rendedspace5606]

Given the fact that they only managed to get 1 off and out of the 20 heads only one got through only hitting 1 city and only killing 2 million people, I'd say it was underkill.

[@arthurbriand2175]

They know that even with a first strike, Earth's protection system is going to destroy most of the warheads.

[@fireshredder24]

@@rendedspace5606 Absolutely underkill. However, given the fact that that warhead was programmed to hit that target, the Martians must have been planning to glass the entire planet. You'd expect each warhead to be programmed to hit military targets or big population centers. The fact that this one "backwater" place in Brazil was the only place hit means that they must have spread those nukes out over every inch of every continent.

[@combomaster666]

They don't state it a much in the show as in the books, but both Mars and Earth know that in case of an all out war, Earth wins every possible scenario. Not only because their navy has the numbers, but simply because Mars is not self sufficient, so while Earth could turn the entire surface of Mars into radioactive glass, if Mars did the same it would starve.

[@leaderunith4l324]

@@kukuc96 fair point

[@mecheel7635]

I love how the expanse nails the vulnarability of a planet towards almost everything coming from space. We simply cannot afford even a single thing hitting earth .

[@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze]

Well, a single thing larger than a football field. Small things hit earth a couple hundred times a day

[@Andronichus]

Well, no. Nothing hides in space. The real problem is dumping heat - and a planet has ample amounts of thermal mass to take that. Detecting things happening on or under the surface of a planet is really, really hard while hiding in space is almost impossible unless your machinery can operate just above absolute zero. Operating at relativistic speeds does give the advantage of things arriving unannounced, but any civilisation that can accelerate things to an appreciable percent of the speed of light requires enormous energy input way beyond our technology level. Space is not an ocean. See Project Rho / Atomic Rockets for some hard science discussion on planetary offense and defense.

[@sam23696]

Space is a shooting gallery they say. We could surround earth in a thousand railguns and have asteroid deflectors in the Lagrange points ready to deploy. And a high intensity gamma ray burst from a black hole that happened to have spent the past 500 million years pointing it's plasma jet the other way could sweep earth and shred our DNA to slag. This could happen right now and we'd never even see it coming.

[@TitanshieldGaming]

Doesnt even have to be earth just blow up the moon and we are cooked.

[@cgi2002]

@@Andronichus the problem is proving they are shooting at you before they've fired. I could with a powerful enough computer and the right math, shoot at earth from the far side of the sun in such a way that it looks like I am launching something out of the system. But in reality the object I fired is on a curved trajectory using the gravity of the planets and the sun to hit earth, in 3 years next tuesday. By the time it starts to return towards the earth it will have radiated away any excess heat generated during launch, it can be coated with radar defeating materials, it would simply be nigh undetectable at that point (as close to stealth as you get, zero emissions and no radar signal). Sure it could be intercepted IF it was tracked the entire time since launch and someone bothered to do the math (assuming their tracking was precise enough to be able to figure out all the math, even been 1mm off at launch could have it move 100km by the time it returns), but the reality is no one is going to do that, the resources required at too great, especially in a system like the expanse universe (at any one time you have tens if not hundreds of thousands of ships moving around, each of which uses what is essentially a railgun as its drive system that is constantly firing when they are travelling), no 1 is tracking all those ships, nevermind their drive exhaust. Thats not to say it couldn't be done, you'd need massive investment in detection equipment (with redundancy), and a very powerful highly specialisted AI to do it, none of which exited in universe.

[@serinahighcomasi2248]

One of the best scenes in the _entire_ series.

[@xanthos9641]

I have not watched more than 15 minutes total of The Expanse, but god damn my heart was beating like I was running for my life

[@Takhar7]

@@xanthos9641 you should watch. It's a masterpiece

[@tiagodagostini]

except that is destroys all that the series tried to build with realistic travel times....

[@beomie1039]

@@tiagodagostini wait could you explain more

[@tiagodagostini]

@@beomie1039 The railguns time to target are shorter than the speed of LIGHT would. Mars closest opoint to earth is 3 light MINUTES and further is 22 light minutes.

[@sam23696]

That reveal at the end where the railgun failure was caused by the Presidents inaction directly took me totally off guard when I first saw this. Not only is totally believable and not just "oops gun jammed for drama lol" but it slams home the fact that every choice in war will cost lives.

[@P1x3lMagic]

'Never start a preemtive strike on your enemy with a single railgun. Have 2, better 3 just in case' Sun Tzu (probably)

[@777LGF]

Tbf, if just powering up & down once is enough to really risk a misfire that’s more a failure of the platform. If not, then it’s just bad luck. Original strike opportunity was 82.5% success so could have had some freak malfunction then too.

[@777LGF]

*82%

[@P1x3lMagic]

@@777LGF Only 82%?? Then you MUST to have at least 3 operational units at hand, just not to f*ck up your home planet!

[@JW-452]

the idea that they would have powered them up without the approval to use them, is idiotic, its not the presidents fault, its whoever thought powering them up was a good ideas

[@aiosquadron]

See, guys? This is a good use of hologram. To visualize a tactical map in 3d,as in actual space combat. Not like what YOU did, Star Trek Picard. Thank you.

[@aminuolawale1843]

Yeah. And they're not flickering to remind you that they are holograms.

[@ryanhamstra49]

The holograms of the aliens in live die repeat were good uses too IMO

[@Palad1n20]

ya take that 30 year old concept of Holograms

[@user-jt5vm3mi1w]

Predicted to be available in real life in 2300 :(

[@markcalcagno676]

Seriously, Star Trek did holograms better in the 80's

[@PerryCaulkins]

Of all of the “space opera” tv shows. The expanse really hits the spot. Very realistic(?!) and believable. Lots of great characters. Sometimes the acting lacks behind, but the writers have a real winner on their hands

[@samwalters8209]

Not to ‘as an engineer’ in KZbin comments but being an aerospace engineer it’s really interesting seeing the research in this show, most of the ship stuff at least is incredibly accurate

[@Myname-il9vd]

The only thing not realistic in the engines is the engines and lack of radiators, but it’s an understandable exclusion because space is just so big, and radiators would make too big of a target for any battles, take out the radiators and the whole ship is doomed

[@ViperXSS2]

It’s based on the video game called eve online which the book write himself credited in an interview for inspiring him to write the books!!

[@berkutmig8319]

@@ViperXSS2 really? Quite interesting.

[@Xingmey]

except when they shoot these missile platforms with their railguns... and the railgun shells move at 50times the speed of light ;)

[@deathby4712]

Always a fan of Errinwright's scenes

[@speculativefuture9568]

Oh absolutely! Always been in my top 3 fav characters. A couple of Errinwright vids due shortly, I'll make sure to upload in the next batch of my back catalogue.

[@daisiesofdoom]

There is not one single miscast in this series.

[@LucasAdlf2004]

@@speculativefuture9568 can you upload the scene from season 2 when they launch icbm against Eros🔥, nice cut btw🔥👌

[@speculativefuture9568]

@@LucasAdlf2004 If there's no copyright restrictions then yeah sure. Give me a week or 2? thanks.

[@LucasAdlf2004]

@@speculativefuture9568 Thanks :) i see it on your last upload 👌

[@Swarm509]

Going to have to watch this show. I love that even thought the one guy was pushing for the strike he still felt horrified that a single warhead got through and killed so many people. He wasn't gloating, or saying that is the price to pay, or anything else. Just horrified like everyone else.

[@wtel9536]

Because the show wasn't trying to impose one view over the other as superior. Both sides had intelligent and valid arguments, with each side diverging at the point where the risk was tolerable.

[@khango6138]

I hope you went and watch this show my friend, one of the best out there nowadays!

[@petrowegynyolc7108]

Indeed, because the show did not portray any of its characters as cardboard-cutout villain or good guy, they had understandable and believable motivations. And Errinwright was actually right about the trials that await the divided humanity.

[@Abridgelion]

War *SUCKS.* Hope you saw this show. 👍

[@tiagomagalhaes7032]

​@@petrowegynyolc7108 Errinwright is definitely a villain, much more in the tv show than in the books. It's more clear in the books, but Earth-Mars have an alliance and while the military on both sides are constantly worried about war, the politician themselves do not want that war. The issues only start after destruction of Cantebury and the blaming of Mars by Holden. This is actually the workings of Errinwright and Mao, where the first intends Earth to rule over the entire solar system and the latter intending to control the protomolecule. Greed and desire for power is what sets everything in motion. You can argue that there is no such thing as a permanent alliance but we don't know about that.

[@MirorR3fl3ction]

This exact cut of this event in the show was what got me to finally give the expanse a chance, and i have never regretted it. This show is the best sci-fi show ever made imo

[@johanstinson]

The new Battlestar Galactica was superior in every way. The Expnase is awesome but let's not get carried away

[@rogerthomas7040]

It was more the fact that where possible it was sci-fact rather than sci-fi, within limits.

[@st3gosaurus]

HAHAHAH you gotta be a bot @@johanstinson

[@kennethcraig9228]

@@johanstinson Disagree, and this is coming from someone who loves the new BSG. It was my favorite sci-fi series until the Expanse. My favorite parts of most sci-fi series are the well-done battle scenes, and BSG just didn't have enough of them for me. The Expanse didn't either, but it absolutely nailed the quality of them. Andor's the only sci-fi series I loved where the battles weren't really relevant to me.

[@MirissStargazer]

Damn, Samaritan !

[@Owlpunk]

That single, red beam of light, as the scene slowly fades out. That sends shivers down my spine, every time.

[@nealarmstrong3050]

Love the push focus on Errinwright at 5:40 and his shocked face. Much more sympathetic as a patriot who is deeply horrified at harm to Earth than his portrayal in the book

[@anatoldenevers237]

I haven’t gotten to the books yet, but I love Errinwright’s character. I hated him a lot of the time but they did a great job with him, how genuine he was in his motivations. It was interesting to have villains like him and at the same time have Admiral Nguyen who was just a straight up racist psychopath

[@penningtonknickernacker921]

LOL In real life it'd be like "Oh it hit South America? Whew! Ok, everybody back to work..."

[@tardonator]

Right, and we know this because this exact scenario happened in real life too.

[@therealdeal3837]

@@penningtonknickernacker921because humans don’t care when 2 million of their kind is evaporated. Then again, politicians aren’t *really* human are they?

[@tylerjohn4607]

@@anatoldenevers237 I love Errinwright. He was a villain you could sympathize with as he was portrayed as a real man with real emotions and connections with people. Not some evil dude just indulging in evilness for the sake of being evil. You also get to see why he was a necessary evil in a way as if it wasn't for him its very possible Mars would have been the sole owner of the protomolecule, so even if his methods were evil, he did save earth in his own way.

[@TitanDweevilMassacre]

I tried to watch The Expanse once. I kind of just... didn't continue after the first episode. Then I saw this video, the reason I gave it a second try. And now it's changed my life. I always find myself asking how one show can be this good. And now, the final season starts this week. I can't believe it's ending. I'll miss this show so much. What a journey. Bless you, Daniel and Ty.

[@enrique88005]

I've put off watching s6 till all the episodes are out so I can binge watch it. I hate waiting a week to watch an episode, what are we animals

[@Drunk0nCustard]

It was said to be ending, but after watching the last episode and how much effort and detail is put into a show like this, im standing firm with how some platforms agree that this show will have another part to it in the future

[@RedSntDK]

@@enrique88005 Milowda na anyimals!

[@BigMikeMcBastard]

@@Drunk0nCustard Hey, books 7 - 9 are out there waiting for you to finish the story with them.

[@Drunk0nCustard]

@@BigMikeMcBastard Yeah but i was told the show was different from the books and changed a few things, so dunno if i wanna just pick up a book and expect to be left off where the show was.

[@aliciaaltair]

WTH...Read the books and watched the series an embarrassing number of times and regularly look for any scrap of anything new and I'm just seeing this channel for the first time?!! Omg thank you so much for this, can't tell you how often I've fast-forwarded through episodes trying to piece together sequences and this is perfect. Sadavir's cunning and the SG's bobble headed bobbling on full display! About to binge your entire channel lol

[@speculativefuture9568]

Thanks Alicia. I've had a forced absence from uploading anything for a couple of months or so. But should hopefully be back at it from next week sometime. Enjoy!

[@goransvraka3171]

i havent watched anything of Expanse yet at all!

[@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269]

Careful how you say his name dude amen 🙏

[@EllAntares]

Have you red anything Cristopher G. Nuttall? He had quite a number of refreshing ideas. Expanse in a way is made in spirit of his "early space era" pieces

[@jdogdarkness]

*_BABY COME BACK!!_* I simply can't get over how the best sci-fi show of at least the past 10 years, with so much material left... was cancelled. I've watched this series like 7 times. It is a travesty. And where it was left off, such a big cliff hanger. Genuinely breaks my heart.

[@wellendowedplatypus9024]

It is understandable, unfortunately. The next seasons would require a ton more CGI, which would get expensive fast, and the know characters would always be off... a time jump with the same cast of actors is extremely hard to do. I would have liked to see it, even though the focus on space magic was a turn-off.

[@TechExpanse]

@@wellendowedplatypus9024 if Dark managed to nail 3 time jumps with different cast just from Germany .. Expanse could have done just fine with bit effort .. but they were more focused on what hoes which cast member is banging on their free time and canceling people to please sjw

[@topanteon]

Because it's fucking horrible. Season 1 was good. Season 2 also good. Season 3 was already what the fuck.

[@bobbinsgaming3028]

It wasn't cancelled, it was agreed to end it when they did, at a logical point. You should be happy we saw so much of the story in such quality - and that it was revived after it had really been cancelled after season 3.

[@jeremychow885]

you know if you want to see what happens you can read the books right? :P all of them are out now, the story is finished.

[@KenLinx]

I keep coming back to this scene because the nuclear missile caught me off guard. I was not expecting it to part into multiple different warheads at the end there and it just makes perfect sense why its designed that way. I also love the defense system shooting down a majority of the warheads.

[@g.williams2047]

It’s similar to an ICBM we have on Earth today. The large amount of warheads allows for more target saturation and a much higher likelihood of something getting through.

[@SUPERLCAM]

We have this technology already, it's called a MIRV - Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (which they actually mention in the video). Most ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) from the UK, US, France, China, and Russia have MIRVs in their tips, particularly submarine-launched as the missile capacity is limited. This means each missile has several re-entry vehicles that detach in space and can target different targets- so a single missile could wipe out a dozen cities. It is practically impossible to intercept a MIRV tip once it has been separated, as these are black cones the size of a person going Mach 22 coming down from space. In the show Expanse technology has advanced enough to be able to intercept it, but as we can see it is not 100% guaranteed.

[@Cdre_Satori]

Actually I just now got the visualisation of the missiles, it's showing them by delivery vehicle and then vertically of separate warheads.

[@v44n7]

fun fact: A nuclear misile can be used to destroy another nuclear missile. So is more likely to destroy all the warheads than trying to destroy each one

[@admiraljellicoe9268]

U mean that's what todays nuclear missiles do

[@Theplaymaker1271]

This is by far the best sci-fi series/show/movie/anything ive ever seen. The Expanse truly is a remarkable work of art

[@johannjohann6523]

Kinda looked a little cheesey to me. But i guess you work with the budget you have. That's why I like 3D animation, it doesn't cost as much but the detail and graphics are great. It's difficult to make a really great science fiction movie let alone a series.

[@aminuolawale1843]

Erringwright was truly a compelling character.

[@solandri69]

That's one of the things I loved about the show. The "bad" people weren't cookie cutter evil villains with no redeeming features whatsoever. They had goals, motivations, and their own set of morals that they operated under. And under their code of ethics, their actions which could be interpreted as evil by others, were fully justified. Inaros was actually the only one I thought was weak as a villain (as in not entirely rational). But given that people just like him already exist in today's world, I'll give it a pass. Even the BBEG (Jules-Pierre Mao) was doing what he did to try to save humanity (granted he didn't care who he killed along the way, but his greater goal was to ensure humanity's survival - i.e. a different interpretation of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few").

[@jordirolink8254]

Hands down the best sci-fi series I've ever watched. Think I'm going to rewatch it again soon.

[@VikingTarzan]

It’s difficult to imagine just how devastating something like this would be.

[@hazardgoose2352]

well at least they nailed mars first strike capability

[@Metaphix]

We have things exactly like this, no nukes in space, but MIRV warheads on ICBMs, one missile capable of destroying multiple cities

[@jonathantan2469]

They already exist. To make it worse, our technology to intercept ballistic missiles once they're launched has a lower success rate. And with many of these ICBMs launched from submarines, it is much harder to locate them.

[@SolarisSaber]

@@jonathantan2469hell, the submarine could blow up a nuke of off the coast of a city and cause a mega tsunami without it ever flying in the sky

[@psyko2666]

Oh, it gets a lot worse later in the series. And you don't need a nuclear explosion. Just some decent size mass and a lot of kinetic energy. Don't go throwing rocks.

[@KenLinx]

I like how the "villain" actually speaks good tactical logic and is clearly only looking out for their planet.

[@g.williams2047]

He’s only the villain because it failed and his superior was indecisive.

[@MidWitPride]

He represents the "hawks" of many cabinets that are very good at war. Role of the president is to see them as a tool, not as the guiding voice. True role of the president is to balance all the tools in his/her disposal, and even the ones who crave war have their uses, as they usually are the ones that are the best at war. Here the president allowed the hawk advisor get too deep into his head. Point of being a president is being to able to balance the peaceful doves with the hawks.

[@olenickel6013]

Well, if you look closely you can see his logic being contradicting itself, hinting to him having ulterior motives. Within just a minute he both insists that Mars is close to first strike because they are losing the war, but also saying that the UNs numerical advantage is melting away. Well, which is it Mr. Errinwright?

[@g.williams2047]

@@olenickel6013 He refuses to go into a total war stage, which is the only way that the UN wins without taking unnecessarily large casualties. What a bozo and definitely did the right thing by firing, but what an idiot for being indecisive with a weapon classed as a "planetbuster".

[@KenLinx]

@@olenickel6013 I don't think he said that Mars is losing the war. From my understanding and recollection, he is saying that Mars is technologically superior and Earth only has strength in numbers. I believe it was also said that a drawn-out war with Mars could be disadvantageous as Mars can hold the resources from the belt hostage. He insists on Earth striking Mars first because that would deter Mars from unleashing its full nuclear arsenal should it deem it necessary.

[@jamesholden5065]

Errinwright: “I see this as an absolute win”

[@TheExo212]

This scene is a good example of how the long-range destructive capabilities of Earth and Mars are being depleted before Inaros enacts his plan. The UN launched almost all of its long-range nuclear arsenal at Eros, leading to those missiles being co-opted by the OPA. The Loss of the strategic weapons platforms of Mars (probably a prohibitively expensive and long construction process) to the rail gun strikes eliminates the first-strike capabilities of Mars. The fact that a missile got through, despite all the satellite and rail gun coverage of Earth, probably gave Inaros the idea that Earth could be vulnerable to high-velocity asteroid strikes. The depletion of ships during the mars-earth war left the UN unable to supplement Earth's network of defenses with a sufficient number of ships. We saw in 6.1 that even the whole fleet and watchtower satellites couldn't completely prevent additional impacts. With the first strike capabilities that were exhausted in the show, Inaros would have never been able to set up in any large station like Ceres, for fear that Mars or the UN would use those weapons to destroy him and his fleet without warning.

[@Eat_shit--die_mad]

But the UN literally still does that, when the new Secretary general bombs Pallas

[@Boomkokogamez]

@@Eat_shit--die_mad Well, sending a ship or two wouldn't cost much as this is a retaliation of UN for the asteroids attack.

[@anaryl]

The asteroid strike had been planned long before this. In fact, it's set up in the very first scene of the very first episode. Inaros already had had this idea and set it into motion.

[@Froststrike]

⁠@@anarylyep, where a belter had been caught with Martian stealth tech. Also in a later scene Chrisjen Avasarala said that she “worried about people who threw rocks” foreshadowing the events of season 6

[@TrashHeapCustodian]

to be fair about the rocks, when reading the books it's basically mentioned as soon as the topic of threats to Earth or Mars come up in the very first book, it's kind of treated as this well known vulnerability that could be exploited at any time, but especially by the OPA because that's their only trump card over the planets. Marcos was just crazy enough to actually try it

[@felipedimas3551]

When i was watching this back in the day it had a kind of different impact on me, because i live in Manaus, by the blast radius i would be one of the 2 million that was hit by the explosion. Man i love this serie, i really miss it.

[@AdmiralSpaceballs]

you always know that the villain is good when you can sympathize with him

[@hazardgoose2352]

yes

[@penningtonknickernacker921]

All we lost was some town in Brazil. Take the win.

[@nightmare_productions4346]

I do not sympathize with Errin Wright in the slightest, he's a self centered politician who indirectly killed millions (and I'm not just talking about the nuke)

[@AdmiralSpaceballs]

@@nightmare_productions4346 in comparison to avasarala who did what she did for shits and giggles, and god knows what the marsians did

[@Sethy1ST]

​@@penningtonknickernacker921 bro, 2 million people, its not "just a city in brazil" yk?

[@AdminAccount-cr2tb]

Season 3 was the best. The build up to the episode Triple Point with the mutiny of some UNN ships marks the halfway point in the season, which was done so well. The second part of the season is the three factions working together at the ring gate.

[@Whatisthisstupidfinghandle]

Yes. I saw the last half of the last episode of season 3. Then it disappeared and there were no reruns. I didn’t realize it was cancelled. So I waited until season 5 was coming out on Prime and watched seasons 1-4 B2B

[@unowno123]

this plan was needlessly risky

[@triton62674]

literally

[@KenLinx]

Idk about "needlessly". Had things gone according to plan, Mars' first strike against Earth would be completely down and it would be smooth-sailing for Earth to win the war.

[@minervali631]

Dude if you don't take out the platforms, they can strike earth at anytime, and you'd be relying on Earth's planetary defense to handle the incoming missiles. As you saw the success rate isn't that high, 1 in 20 went through. There are in total 1000 warheads.... That'd be 50 nuclear detonations on Earth, assuming the planetary defense system won't be overwhelmed

[@bad_covfefe]

@@minervali631 It was 1/20 with only 20 warheads incoming. There is no reason to believe this rate of success would continue. For all we know, the interception capacity of Earth could be 40 warheads, so it just expended half of its defenses on that one missile. Launch 3 missiles and the last missile gets all 20 warheads through.

[@nicholasleclerc1583]

@@KenLinx But remember there was an *82% chance* of success; that's an _18%_ chance of, basically, from the looks of how the plan was supposed to go, one railgun strike missing a platform, maybe even _2,_ or just not firing on time anyways from "cycling malfunction", and it/them sending _COUNTLESS_ nukes to Earth; from another perspective, it's compelling to say that his precaution was actually the _best_ strategy

[@g.williams2047]

Risky plan. Should have positioned more railguns. Two per target. I think you'll be fine leaving half the planet temporarily unprotected, I don't think anyone's going to rush your defenses.

[@aegisghost]

That's very true. Two is one and one is none. Right now we strive for a 3:1 advantage before making a move.

[@g.williams2047]

@@aegisghost They were asking for trouble. When dealing with missiles in a class literally called planetbuster, don't take chances.

[@JemHadar422]

I disagree, they need a layered planetary defense grid. All the war heads were intercepted in near earth orbit. Interceptors should have been placed on the poles of the moon. Also need like 6 deep space satellites to form a detection grid for missile.

[@andywang7034]

@@aegisghost There's the chance that if they pointed 10 railguns at all five stealth ships it might tip of the Martians that the UN was preparing for a strike. But yes, they should have had at least a few backups in case something went totally wrong like the misfire we see.

[@patricofritz4094]

Were they using dews/lasers for defense of the planet ?

[@jamesinthewild1656]

Such an amazing series.i am feeling a binge watch coming on

[@Rexithedud]

Sadly nothing else is planed for the future :(

[@joemcmanus3585]

It just goes to show that you just need to follow the actual science. No need to invent fantasy McGuffins to add drama. The Expanse is actual science fiction, not fantasy in space.

[@sminkycorp]

Well the epstine drive , the physics-busting builders race and the unseen aggressors are a little far out , you cant make a decent sci-fi by strictly following current science , as then it would just be drama !

[@jcm2606]

@@sminkycorp To be fair, the last two are kind of intended to break science, so I wouldn't really include them. The drive design, though, I'll give you that.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@sminkycorp There’s already too much drama. Marco shouldn’t have been able to tie up ALL the allied forces by throwing rocks, Earth shouldn’t have been so vulnerable, Marco shouldn’t have been able to just sit at Ceres station safe from all attack for 6 months. The UN shouldn’t have walked into so obvious a trap, or failed to check for boobytraps. LOTS of manufactured drama.

[@sminkycorp]

@@Matt-yg8ub You are missing the point , I'm just saying that sci-fi as a genre - without any wonder tech or ideas = the genre known as drama.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@sminkycorp OK, if you’re arguing for drama in general.. fair enough. I was simply pointing out that a lot of people tend to sing the praises of the expanse claiming that it’s ultra realistic… when in reality virtually all of it is dependent upon the magic of the Epstein drive for everything from missiles that never run out of fuel, to Inexplicably maneuverable vessels made of tin foil armed with physics defying guided rail guns …..All of this powered by hyper efficient fusion reactors that appear to generate no heat.

[@dreammachine86]

Really cool scene with a great mix of the advanced technology used in the conflict between Earth & Mars, and the personal stakes for the Secretary General and Erinwright. A couple of thoughts - the UN's interception of 19 out of the 20 warheads in the missile that got through is very impressive percentage-wise, but I still would've thought if they knew they were facing an imminent nuclear strike if anything went wrong with the railgun strike (as it indeed did), they sky would be lit up with interceptors - as in hundreds of interceptor missiles and railgun rounds. The bigger UNN & MCRN battleships clearly carry over 100 missiles/topedos and with the state of tech 300 years in the future you would expect that a missile could be pretty damn versatile and instantly be set to attack, interception, variable warhead yield, detonation on the target or in vicinity of the target etc. The UN would be able to track the Martian planet-buster missile when it engages its Epstein drive so they should have sent a load of ships to fire interceptors in addition to ground based defence. In the scene it only looked like 1 or 2 interceptors were fired per warhead. Interesting that warhead didn't hit such a strategic target. I saw another commenter that said Mars could've targeted all of their warheads to cover as much of the Earth as possible so whilst they may have a number of warheads targeting New York say, they would still have all the other continents targeted overall. But I'd suggest that Brazil could've been hit as a result of the warhead trying to evade the UN interceptors and that could've been the only significant target it could've hit without being taken out. That logic could be programmed into all the warheads - a priority target but if necessary to avoid interceptors it will go for somewhere else. The one missile getting away after the platforms are destroyed might not be due fifth railgun firing late due to the power cycling failure. Of course this part of the scene has a lot of emotional impact, showing how the Secretary General is now regretting standing down at the first opportunity to launch and feels responsible for the death of everyone killed by the nuclear explosion. But if the railgun rounds were all timed to hit at the same time and the first four did, and the fifth round was only delayed by a short amount of time it may not have been enough of a window for the fifth platform to receive a distress signal from the ones that were destroyed when they detected incoming. The one missile getting away could've just been bad luck from that platform responding slightly quicker to its passive sensors picking up the railgun round. I suppose it would depend on the distance between the platforms, and how long the delay was before the fifth railgun fired - The Expanse does have to compress the time in some of its scenes to make them viable for a TV show. It is great at getting across the overall feel of a near-future space conflict. Also, the legal consideration of the platforms being able to launch a nuclear strike with autonomy if it detects it is under attack is interesting. Of course Mars would have their policies and legal framework for doing this and it would most likely need authorisation from their Prime Minister before deploying the platforms - the legal basis would be considering an attack on their first strike platforms to be an act of war. However that still makes possible a situation where the platforms can launch a nuclear strike automatically before Mars has chance to formally declare war on Earth in response to what they consider to be an act of war from Earth. Interesting compared to today, where nuclear launch platforms will be manned and there will need to be some high level authorisation before a nuclear weapon can be launched. If such a deadly decision can be left to a computer there is the concern that something could go wrong and the system decides to launch a missile even if the platform isn't under attack - and if a machine has made that decision, who is ultimately responsible for the consequences...? Similar to the thought experiment I have heard about autonomous driving cars - if the car is faced with two options that both result in injury or loss of life i.e. it stays on its current path and will kill three people or swerves and kills one, how can a machine make that decision and who is legally and morally responsible for the consequences - the manufacturer, or the programmer, or the car owner, or people that got in the way of the initial path of the car? And with the complexity of modern AI and machine learning/neural networks it can be hard to even understand why an automated system came to a certain decision.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

The scene makes no logical sense. First of all, locating all five of those vessels would basically be impossible, after that firing on all of them simultaneously would also basically be impossible. Firing the giant very very obvious rail guns in orbit of Earth would most likely trip every early warning system in the MCRN…Which would in turn alert those ships to potential attack. Travel times is virtually nonexistent (hugely unrealistic) But the biggest flaw in this entire scene Is as you said, the automated release of Planet destroying nuclear ordinance. Marco didn’t need to throw Asteroids at Earth to accomplish his plans, All he had to do is shoot at one of these ships and the ship would automatically launch all of its missiles at Earth. This gets into even murkier territory, does the UNN also have automated interplanetary ICBM systems Rigged to annihilate Mars if anybody shoots at them? This is a belter terrorist’s dream….Both sides pointed automated annihilation machines at each other on a hair trigger waiting for somebody to toss the rock into the pond And start the ripple effect.

[@paulog.5788]

@@Matt-yg8ub love how you say everything is impossible in this scene but still you don’t manage to explain why 🤣🤣🤡

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@paulog.5788 Correction, I explained why… you just don’t understand the explanation. I’ll break it down very simply. Earth has to search for the Martian missile platforms…. But Mars always knows where the UNN railguns are and it goes without saying that they would know when they power up … and respond accordingly. Earth’s pre-fire test would have alerted the Martians that the UNN was powering up to fire their heavy guns… And the Martian missiles should have automatically repositioned themselves. Furthermore the science and technology of expanse missiles doesn’t require them to be fired from the carrier platform. In operation those ships could arrive on scene and then deploy their missiles… Spreading them out to basically make a Decapitating Railgun strike impossible. For purposes of the story, tactics are kept very simple, But in real life every potential offensive move the UNN makes has a corresponding defensive counter on the part of the MCRN. Marco’s astroid attack on earth is unprecedented, Mars doesn’t need to resort to those kind of tactics and so I can understand why earth did not invest what is supposed to be a tremendous amount of money into upgrading the sentinel satellites to spot stealth material…. What Earth has the technology inherent in the watchtower system to detect Martian stealth vessels and so the MCRN should have altered their tactics accordingly, but didn’t because it would’ve complicated the story. Either way, what we see in the show is a very very overly simplified version of what would’ve needed to actually take place for earth to be able to make that shot with rail guns without the Martians reacting and spoiling they’re targeting solution.

[@g.williams2047]

With the wait time for the 5th railgun to fire, I assumed that Mars has an emergency button where they slap it and the platforms fire off all their ordinance. Command saw that all their platforms were being destroyed and pulled the trigger. Also, the UN likely has some sort of stealth technology that makes it hard to tell whether or not the railguns are charged up.

[@byron2FZ]

@@g.williams2047 Also important to remember that railguns are the fastest conventional (non proto molecule) objects in The Expanse. Even battleship size ones are listed as firing at a "measurable fraction of the speed of light" Comparing alarge size capital railgun to C and not like, kilometres per second (the Roci's is 5km/s for example) is interesting and I can only imagine how fast the planetary ones are

[@kayseek1248]

5:42 I nearly gasped when I first saw this moment.

[@byhyew]

And you see the lights go out...

[@HubiKoshi]

The pain and regret on those faces near the end, that's some really good acting.

[@jamesflannery9270]

Man the intricate details you guys go Into. You're true sci fi nerds and I love you

[@serinahighcomasi2248]

Also, anyone know if there’s a name for the music during the missile launch and detonation scene?

[@speculativefuture9568]

For the majority of this sequence I don't believe there is any one specific title which covers the soundtrack, however I stand to be corrected on that. The scene does end though on "What are you waiting for" Link here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oonZg55mqsecoLc

[@serinahighcomasi2248]

Interesting. Thank you.

[@mac_attack_zach]

@@speculativefuture9568 thank you so much, I was looking for this!

[@NeostormXLMAX]

WAIT 6:22 isn't this exactly the spot where jaburo brazil is located in the gundam universe earth federation headquarters?

[@Loregamorl]

Imagine if the final railgun shot was even a second or two later From a guess (with each light being a missile) there would have been like 10 of them launched at earth And with how one of them managed to just barely overwhelm the defenses 10 would have lead to so many deaths I’m a dumbass and just skipped to the missiles 10 missiles for the final one with 20 warheads per missile 200 warheads 20 were enough to overwhelm the defenses much less 200

[@aegisghost]

Not much of a loss, really. Most of earth's population are not contributing to any of the war effort. I believe Avasarala said that over half don't work at all, so they're leeches on society. The loss of non-contributing components should make Earth more competitive since they aren't spending money with no returns.

[@stevencornett2038]

W

[@xBINARYGODx]

@@aegisghost psychopath

[@xBINARYGODx]

@BLACKVSILVER yes, but plot

[@MG-ec9qx]

Realisticaly even if the stations instantly sent out a distress siginal when they were destroyed it would have taken several minutes for the other stations to receive that siginal. I imaigne earth would have a window siginfigantly larger than a few seconds to destroy all five stations.

[@WafflezDay]

"And if they do manage a launch, what would the casualties be then?" "We estimate it would be-" "That's very unlikely." Bruh shoulda told him to shut the hell up and let her finish lol

[@jamesmaida47]

There was a reason Chrisjen Avasarala called him "The Bobblehead" in the books. He was a figurehead, a symbol, not really a true leader with any spine.

[@arkadian2917]

It would have been out of character, man was already being manipulated. If Avasarala was in his place though...

[@quillquickcard8824]

My response would have been "You're dismissed. Leave." And if I was questioned I would have explained, "I cannot afford to have a single person in this room make a mistake right now, and given that you just failed to answer my question I can only assume that you are not hearing correctly. That makes you a liability. Now leave."

[@marcoeisenberg4337]

Refreshing! That series was sooooo good!

[@GeFlixes]

The most unrealistic thing here: The see-through screens and mobile devices. Imagine how obnoxious that would be.

[@estaticethan1752]

5:30 Well, wonder if Mars have a planetary defense system like the UNN. And in this scene, PDCs would usually be the go-to anti missile system. But here it seems the UNN have quite a sophisticated railgun defense system that it has the ability to hit relatively small objects.

[@locarno24]

The problem is the effective range, which is mostly a feature of muzzle velocity. If you want to protect against missiles converging on ship a few hundred metres across, PDCs are fine, but if you need to interdict hundreds of kilometres of orbit you need a railgun. Besides which, if you're a stationary platform in orbit, mass and power aren't a consideration so why not?

[@mac_attack_zach]

It's pretty wild looking, I wouldn't be surprised if it was some sort of energy weapon

[@SkyChady]

They don't. If the UNN wanted they could turn Mars into glass.

[@locarno24]

@@mac_attack_zach railguns are solid shot buy accelerated to huge speeds. The 'trail' is often added because the electrical arcing inside the rails often turns the outer layer of the slug to plasma.

[@tylerjohn4607]

it also shows how the UNN railguns were optimized for short range rapid fire, not long range max power shots. The railguns had a power cycling issue due to ramping up their capacitors to max power and sitting there for hours, not actively charging and and rapidly discharging like they are designed to do!

[@CorBor69]

Imagine if the rail guns failed and hypothetically they only took out 1-2 platforms then mars just let loose on earth

[@Debbiebabe69]

theres LOADS of points in the series where just one little difference would mean earth ends.

[@kblargh]

I don't know that the failure of No.5 can be laid at the SG's feet. Yes he ordered the rainguns to stand down earlier, but he did not order them to power up in the first place. He walked into the room and it had already been done without his authorization or his knowledge, and all he was left with was the final order.

[@Rexithedud]

The railguns are ready in just a few minutes if Mars launches an attack on earth, they have to be fast otherwise they would be basically unless

[@kblargh]

@@Rexithedud None of which was the case here, this was a preemptive strike Erenwright came up with and only informed the SG at the eleventh hour.

[@GhostEye31]

The faint radio chatter in the background as they fire the railguns and have the malfunction really makes the scene for me.

[@rock3tcatU233]

That laser based planetary defense system is the coolest thing I've ever seen in a Sci Fi show.

[@khango6138]

It's smaller railguns

[@yimingwang8037]

guys those are interceptor missile

[@CarlosAM1]

those are not lasers

[@mac_attack_zach]

seriously dude, those were projectiles and most certainly were not traveling the speed of light

[@thesuperintendent4290]

The Orbital Defense Platforms are one of my favourite things in sci fi. Blackstone fortress and ODP array from 40k and Halo are so badass.

[@arralartathi]

And for the briefest of moments you think Arranwright saw what he'd done and felt remorse, but he shook it off and kept right on.

[@kingkea3451]

This is the type of Sci-Fi I like. Feels way more realistic (with the exception of the protomolecule) than anything in Star Wars or Star Trek.

[@hoilst265]

I like to differentiate: Science Fiction is based on predictions from reality. Sci-Fi is astro-fantasy.

[@HubiKoshi]

@@hoilst265 This is basically the Hard Sci-Fi vs Soft Sci-Fi

[@nightingale8154]

And the superluminal communications! Completely impossible and often overlooked

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

I would say the real exception is the Epstein drive since it only gets to rely on mundane tuning of a fusion drive rather than higher dimensional alien physics and nanotech. The Epstein drive is to reaction mass what infinite ammo is to firearms in Stargate.

[@lordwind9745]

I can’t imagine what the Mars side was like, there was probably only 10 seconds of difference in strike times yet the fifth platform already started to launch. Imagine being the commander on Mars, hearing that four platforms had been destroyed, and only getting a few seconds to give the order to glass Earth.

[@solandri69]

The USAF (in charge of land-based nuclear missiles) did secret test drills on this in the 1970s. They found that when the airmen tasked with launching were convinced it was not a drill, and they really were going to nuke the Soviet Union, only about half of them would actually turn the keys to launch (to successfully launch required both keys on opposite sides of the room to be turned simulatneously, to prevent one rogue airman from launching). This was actually the basis for the 1983 movie Wargames (where they give a computer authority over launches, instead of people). Read up on the close calls during the Cold War. There were several incidents where we came close to global thermonuclear war, and it was prevented because someone, either on the U.S. or Soviet side, was convinced it had to be a error because the people on the other side couldn't be crazy enough to actually start a war. So did everything they could to stop it, or delay it until better data came through.

[@icer1249]

the whole thing would of been over before mars even knew there platforms were destroyed. Remember theres a time delay from earth to mars. I dont know if they took some creative liberties with this and time frames but given they launched all within a min and they were meant to hit at the same time, theres no way mars could of got the data, decided to launch and send the firing signal back the platform before the last was destroyed. More likely the platforms were linked and if 1 was destroyed it sent an automatic signal to the others to launch. but even then it shouldnt of received the signal in time.

[@richardcrosby6682]

So they're basically the Earth Federation and Mars Zeon, but without any mobile suits?

[@WolfeSaber]

I don't think mobile suits could work, not by the technology the suits have, but on how the Expanse's militaries work. They can hit targets beyond vision range.

[@Breadlootgoblin]

@@WolfeSaber even in close ranfe mobile suits would not work because ships in the expanse have a really accurate full 360 degree coverage when it comes to turrets, and as we see even the most armored ships get their hull pierced easily from whatever the fuck those turrets fire

[@WolfeSaber]

@@Breadlootgoblin The MACs are powerful and the PDCs shoot 40mm.

[@Breadlootgoblin]

@@WolfeSaber also the torpedoes in this series are SUPER fucking powerful, i feel like they would be able to oneshot a covenant cruiser from HALO with ease, not only that but their tracking is super accurate, they're extremely fast, ships carry a LOT of them and it appears that they can also be programmed to detonate when they're close to the target, which means that a single ship could make quick work of mobile suits

[@WolfeSaber]

@@Breadlootgoblin Tha may be true, but it takes 21 gigatons of tnt equivalent of a MAC projectile. And they have been know to shrug off 30 megaton bombs to the hull without shields. However they still have potential.

[@markusanderson1517]

I miss this show ... one of the best space/sci-fi shows ever!!!

[@tom-vf1xv]

until amazon took it over that is... syfy made seasons were among my favorite scifi content ever. sadly amazon has polluted a lot of very promising franchises...

[@zhenyueqin6910]

Amazing intense scenes.

[@TheAndroidNextDoor]

The scary thing about this scene that I don't see people mention is that, aside from the advanced capability and the number of bombs, that kind of missile is a very real thing the nuclear powers have developed. Most ICBMs aren't 1 bomb for 1 missile but more like 10 to 15 for 1 missile. Contained inside the warheads are MIRVs: Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles, each containing a nuclear weapon and essentially allowing nuclear powers to shotgun blast an area with hydrogen bombs using only 1 missile. This makes it incredibly costly to try to intercept a nuclear missile as you suddenly need 10 to 15 interceptors for each ICBM. Occasionally, a few of the MIRVs will be dummies without any nuclear payload to try to waste enemy interceptors on empty MIRVs but as a defending country, you can't take that risk. Currently, as far as is known publicly, the ability to intercept these things is still extremely limited meaning that if a nuclear war were to break out, it's still highly likely pretty much everyone on Earth would be dead or wish they were. Of course, there's always the possibility countries have developed in secret the capabilities to hit these things but given how expensive and difficult Israel's Iron Dome system was to develop and it still at best only has a 97 percent interception rate against comparably easier to hit targets, I wouldn't be so sure. Given how fast ICBMs and their warheads travel, intercepting one is almost like trying to shoot every pellet from a shotgun out of the air using a gun of your own. And even if something like Iron Dome does exist for nuclear weapons, 97 percent is still an unacceptably low number.

[@RobertStrong124]

Most of the larger MIRVs have been decommissioned via different de-nuclearisation treaties. The US only mounts 3 warheads per missile now and retired the Peacekeeper which was the largest MIRV in its arsenal.

[@Tank50us]

@@RobertStrong124 and those three warheads to a missile are all on the Ohio's. Most of which are still armed with their 24 Trident SLBMs.... 72 warheads for each sub... And unless they're in port, you don't know where any one of them are at any given time.... A fact that most certainly keeps many a dictator awake at night.

[@bad_covfefe]

@@Tank50us Trident II missiles are spec'd for up to 14 MIRVs each, but at the moment are limited to 4 MIRVs, not 3. Minuteman III silo-based missiles are spec'd for a max of 3, but due to START have been limited to only 1 warhead each. A compliment of 24 Trident II SLBMs will carry 96 MIRVs, not 72.

[@dsdy1205]

also goes to show how insanely advanced Expanse tech is, shipboard PDCs regularly deal with missiles closing at velocities that would make ICBMs blush

[@alamos8]

​@@RobertStrong124 And the war race is on again... Did you look at the Satan-2 Russian missile?

[@martinwells1918]

Really enjoyed this show. Sad that it came to an end.

[@scaucymancannotdiebaby7034]

Budgets always gets In the way 🥲🥲

[@Fallinghorizons_Ewen]

I like the detail of power going out around the blast

[@Laborkei]

Oh... How I miss this Program... Please come back...

[@KenChanFr]

I was watching this episode on the plane and I remember screaming "oh my God" when the warhead hit Earth because this scene was so intense and everyone in the plane looked at me.

[@RedSntDK]

That must have been incredibly trippy 😄

[@cbence96]

When the nuke actually hit Earth I jumped up from my seat and said that this series has balls.

[@CaffeinePanda]

For real. This show has some incredibly intense, dramatic, and painful moments, and they're all earned.

[@apachedisco]

I watched the shows read the books and god damn I want more. This show is still a better universe than the simulation I'm currently in.

[@TheSkullConfernece]

My fucking god, this whole sequence is brilliant.

[@TheDaveRout]

One, if not the, best sci fi programs ever.

[@charlie11ng42]

That was really good.

[@mbaxter22]

Fantastic scene, but something I don't understand is wouldn't going after the Martian stealth platforms have elicited an all-out nuclear war? That would be like if we suddenly tried to sink all of Russia's nuclear ballistic missile subs. The Russians would logically assume a nuclear first strike was underway and fire everything. Why didn't the Martians do the same?

[@MissChief57]

As they said at the end they eliminated all first strike capabilities of mars. It's like russia had to drop the nukes from planes and without the us even having attacked russian soil.

[@devinthierault]

Also if Earth died so would Mars. Remember Mars wasn't completely self sufficient.

[@rms1034]

@@devinthierault really? Then how can the two have any war at all. That's like if the US went to war with China but was still dependant on supplies from China. (Which is not the case in reality) but isn't that strategically unwise to have war at all?

[@wow664112]

@@rms1034 Earth need Mars resources and Mars need Earth's agriculture because Earth still the only place to get alive soil and complex biological

[@voidkat4202]

@@wow664112 Yes, but do you think they already cut off their trades with eachother since they at war?

[@wm490]

nice edits, thanks for continuing to upload

[@noirangel6416]

The simple fact of the matter is, humans didnt evolve from throwing rocks. We just got really good at it. - Sun Tzu probably

[@wtfduud]

I guess bullets are technically rocks.

[@MAL1GNANT]

And then threw rocks that made explosions by splitting the very atoms they're made of

[@brettbaxter7882]

In the big scheme of things, pointy stick and big effin' rock still hold the lead, body-count wise.

[@ralphrestubog5519]

Not Sun Tzu, Marco Inaros lmao

[@Loudlevin]

Love how they panned through the red holo trace towards the end with the ominous soundtrack, powerful.

[@TheAmbex]

One is dumb and weak. The other is arrogant and foolish. One hell of a duo.

[@uwillnevahno6837]

If you [Earth] started with a 5:1 advantage in favor of Earth and it's down to 3:1 then how could Mars possibly be even remotely under pressure/fear of losing? That's literally the exact opposite of losing.

[@Rexithedud]

Yea but in the sow and in irl there are 2 ways to fight a war: conventional ships canons and tactics Or you fire a first strike zb railguns missiles or something else that wins you the war or hevaly favours you zb destroying the enemies first strike capability

[@SkyChady]

The writing was flawed because what he said didn't make sense. For every ship Earth loses, they're simply building two more. Mars can't do that, so I don't understand why the writers chose to include that.

[@JoshSweetvale]

And this is why Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest sonofabitch in space, and one does not 'eyeball' a railgun.

[@Ray_treks]

It’s the Mass Effect deep cuts that make my day 😅

[@magicmulder]

5:46 One common mistake with these animations is that the blast wave does not expand that fast. From this perspective it looks like several kilometers in diameter which would take tens of seconds, not fractions of a second.

[@andreasaa2000]

Its not a normal nuke...

[@magicmulder]

@@andreasaa2000 Doesn't matter.

[@markhunter3263]

Yeah, from orbit at those distances, it would take a lot longer for the full fireball to develop like that. We see it sped up, most likely for convenience sake. More dramatic that way, and more efficient use of screen time. But the same can also be said for the railgun shots themselves. Even light doesn’t travel as fast as those shots were moving.

[@tombblades]

I love this show, everytime a clip shows up in my recommended, i have to watch it

[@Aweeeks]

Every time I watch this I get goosebumps. It really hits hard

[@maxtruong187]

This scene is very simplified, this scene would have taken hours or days in the book to do because missiles are essentially small automated ships giving them unlimited range with a good navigation system. Some of these platforms, like how the holograms in the scene show, are located on the other side of the solar system. Light from the sun takes 43 minutes to reach Jupiter and around 5 hours to Pluto. A railgun slug traveling at a percentage of light speed will take much longer. However, the ability to hit a railgun shot at a distance of many AU is insane engineering. The slug itself must be a small kinetic kill vehicle with a steering system and the ability to explode.

[@xray3268]

I don't think so, because it's stated that launch platforms are close to earth, to decrease the chance of an interception.

[@sierra1513]

There are a lot of cuts and time that is implied between events, they would have timed the railgun shots to hit simultaneously with each other so unless you want hours of random UN shit in-between the action I don't really understand your point

[@Eat_shit--die_mad]

The launch platforms are less then One AU from Earth

[@guildedcharr7459]

@@Eat_shit--die_mad That's why the hologram has one of the platforms on the other side of the Sun right?

[@alamos8]

​​@@Eat_shit--die_mad But the missile the 5th platform launches, would have a fusion drive like a spaceship. Even not limited to human body g-limits, the missile closed in to Earth in just seconds... Not too realistic. But hey, yes, in the shows you always have to give some room for the sake of the rythm and the action. It happens always

[@iliketrains0pwned]

So I'm curious about something. At 4:34 we can see that platform 5 is at about Mars's orbit, and it is about halfway between Earth and Mars's maximum distance. This means there would be a light delay of about 14 minutes between Earth and the platform (minimum 4 minutes to Mars, maximum 24 minutes to Mars). In the show, there's a 17 second delay between railgun 4 and 5 firing their shots. At the same time, we can see platform 4 is less than half of platform 5's distance from Earth. Even if it was at the halfway point, a launch signal would still take a full 7 minutes to get from platform 4 to platform 5. How would platform 5 know to launch if it only lasted 17 seconds longer than planned?

[@shuttlecrossing7084]

Not the best answer, but perhaps the strikes were timed so that while Mars would know they were getting hit and would try to send out commands to the platforms to retaliate, none of the commands would arrive in time. Thus that 17 second differential meant enough time to get one missile out. The show also compresses a lot of events for time. It's likely that in reality there were hours in between railgun shots.

[@greendude96]

@@shuttlecrossing7084 Could've also been that they were launched at different speeds, fastest to the furthest target, and slowest to the closest so they would it the targets more or less at the same time :)

[@solidoxygen7873]

Too bad Earth only had 5 railguns

[@SX41799]

They should have at least six so they could point one to the capital City of Mars.

[@mrfister1234]

@@SX41799 wouldn’t that be impossible, (or at least very inaccurate, considering Mars also orbits the sun lol. By the time the rail gun blast gets to its initial target, the planet is either not there anymore or you hit some random part of Mars. Remember that railgun blasts only travel straight lol

[@will2brown50]

@@mrfister1234 not quite true. It would be fairly eZy go launch a railgun round to hit mars. Unfortunately a direct strike on Mars would lead to earth being glassed by mars.

[@will2brown50]

@@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269 a loving God would not eternally judge people for sinning when they could never be certain of his existence. A loving God could also never let mankind be absolutely certain of his existence as doing so would make any love between man and God meaningless. Therefore, we can conclude that a loving God could not eternally judge people for sin, therefore Hell and judgement and all the other threats of violence that religious fundamentalists use to scare people theologically cannot exist. God wants people to act kindly. He will not torture you if you don't.

[@XMysticHerox]

@@mrfister1234 You can calculate where it will be and fire at that. They would have had to do that for the missile carriers as well.

[@HuntingTarg]

Ok, without having seen ANY of The Expanse, this sequence sold me. Without fully understanding the plot or the characters, this comes through with dramatic tension in spades. Even past the between-average-and-excellent acting.

[@Jeff-cn9up]

Unless these railguns have faster than light capability, which they do not, those Martian missile platforms would have been only a few light seconds from Earth, and easily detectable with optical telescopes through stellar occlusion.

[@WoWKackorot]

5:38 the size of that explosion is truly ungodly... and they don't even really defeat mars, it just kind of rots away after the gate opens

[@barbados3592]

Anyway, they should have anticipated the possibility of failure and had a redundant system ready just in case.

[@usptact]

That's why there are two snipers per target, at least.

[@gummyworms9329]

I call that a successful operation.. DAMN only 2 mil? that's bonkers

[@VirginiaRican]

This was so so good

[@aaronw.2050]

Beautiful show. It got a bit slow and silly but I still love it.

[@nonyabeeznuss304]

My favorite detail is how they show equipment can fail. Often at the worst possible moment.

[@cake6476]

There's also Luna, which is where most of the UN's higher ups would probably flee to if Earth was leveled.

[@atolon123]

this show is such a gift to humanity

[@Tiparium_NMF]

The Expanse is one of the few adaptations of a book series out there where I feel like the show actually did a lot better. I have some issues with the show, probably the biggest is how they seem to artificially create conflicts that weren't there in the books just to add extra tension. But then they also added stuff like this that was just so damn well done.

[@МояСемья-у3ш]

Expanse - это не тщедушные игры престолов - это больше, шире и реальнее (в рамках текущей цивилизации)

[@L33tSkE3t]

Im so sad this show is ending but i think they did a good job wrapping it up, especially in 6 instead of 10 episodes

[@AvalancheZ250]

13 seconds. That was the delay of the 5th railgun firing. 2 million lives were lost off that delay.

[@francisdavis1271]

I didn't get a chance to watch "The Expanse" while it was running but have read many complimentary statements about the technology and how it was portrayed in the series. Unfortunately I decided to see what railguns would do under a set of assumptions. I also calculated the power consumption. I began at 5% of light speed, then reduced that to 2% but the acceleration numbers were so high for a barrel length of 39 meters I'm not sure the distort. I reduced the projectile weight several times as the reaction loads were equally staggering. Millions of pounds of force... So I ran a matrix of 5 km/sec to 50 km/sec. I also assumed superconducting components: I tried field strength of 2 Tesla to 5 Tesla. Amperage was 25,000 to 50,000 amps. The real problem for me was the voltage above 15 km/sec was in the millions. I don't know how you'd have that potential and keep it where you'd want it. We deal with 100,000's of volts. At 15 km/sec to 50 km/sec you have to lead a target significantly and your threat could merely thrust randomly to dodge. I used a 5 kg projectile at 60 mm which makes the voltage problems worse but stabilizing a stubby l/d slug compared to a flat disk was the issue. So after that exercise I calculated POWER. We're looking at 500 MW fusion power plants (I was going to compare to what propulsion might require). A 50 km/sec at 50,000 amps was 82 million volts for 60 mm while 125 mm was 39 million volts. The voltage goes down by shorter length and up by field strength divided by rail separation. At 30 km/sec the reaction loads is just over a million pounds (5.8 MN). I enjoyed the plots and acting I've seen in clips but railgun engagements of 100 km to 250 km (max) are likely. Any notable percentage of light speed would be terawatts of power

[@Rexithedud]

It is a sow after all so not 100% realistic but they gave there best to make it as good as possible

[@mapesdhs597]

I also wondered about how accurate such a gun could really be in terms of exactly what the projectile is doing once it leaves the barrel, ie. what degree of targeting error would result in a miss, though this is covered to some extent by showing the devices as being something that splits apart into multiple kinetic missiles rather than a single mass slug (in which case, holy cow the materials science and engineering required to make something that can be accelerated so damn fast and yet still function as intended). As Rexithedud says though, it is a fictional show, but they did far more than any other production to try and convey a more solid foundation of believability. A lot of scifi series require a great deal of suspension of disbelief, especially Star Trek, but we tend to ignore it because usually it's the characters and stories that really matter, though sometimes the plots or specific events derive from questions about what happens when technologies fail (Star Trek did that a lot with transporter problems, or funky stuff with the holodeck; Star Wars was a bit weird in that sense, it never tried to ground its tech in hard science, instead the movies just conveyed the notion that tech could always be potentially unreliable from general wear & tear, like the Falcon needing a good fist bump, even though it could do incredible things when working properly such as FTL travel). The Expanse though is different, because significant aspects of what happens and why directly arise from the nature of the enormous distances involved and the unique dangers inherant to whizzing around in a vacuum at crazy speeds. Sure the magic fluid that gets injected into people to withstand high-G is itself a sort of McGuffin, but the very fact it's even included is a serious nod of recognition to real world physics, rather than just brushing the issue off as a lot of scifi does (to the extent that what we are shown in other series may aswell just be magic). The groundedness of The Expanse is what quickly hooked me, including the idea that the Protomolecule could do even more incredible things because it exploits layers of science unknown to us. FYI my teenage railgun experiments didn't get further than a 9" tube that could embed a nail about half an inch into an opposite wall, achieved by winding 2500 turns of wire by hand. I realised later it would have worked better with a different kind of wire, I just used a coil pulled from a large CRT. It was powered by a capacitor bank made of 450+V electrolytics removed from a lot of CRT TVs; they were typically a few hundred uF each and the board had about a dozen of them in parallel. I used a mains powered voltage stepup circuit to charge it up. I can't remember now the total energy available, but I do remember once dropping a butter knife onto the terminals when charged, it vapourised the tip of the knife (and oh my the loudness of the bang. :D) I wanted to build a much bigger device (bought a dozen 3 foot tubes), had ideas about multiple stages to give extra kicks, pondered how that might work, but I went to uni instead to do a comp sci degree. Ahh the 80s, when one could roam around unmanaged landfill sites, salvaging whatever from discarded tech at one's leisure. :D I pulled a 4500V transformer from a photocopier, still have it, also part of the capacitor bank somewhere, and I think the tube aswell. Mind you, this was on an island where nobody much cared, I doubt it would have been so easy in a mainland town. I was really into all things Tesla back then, anything high voltage. I made a small W/C voltage doubling circuit, that was fun, some nice arcing effects (dread to think of the RF noise I was creating, probably drove the local CB types nuts). I really wanted to build a Tesla coil but never did.

[@ralphrestubog5519]

"It was a power cycle function caused by standing down earlier" Jesus Christ.

[@PaiSAMSEN]

"Because [MCR] are losing the war, and they know it" "When we began this war, [UNN] had 5 to 1 advantage, now it's down to 3 to 1" Pick one, please.

[@reentrysfs6317]

Is seems the un is winning though since Calisto is the final bastion of Martian resistance in Jupiter and the un fully kicked mars out of titania and Saturn

[@ryankoh917]

Earth is winning, but its a damn costly war. Mars would run out of bodies before Earth runs out ships, but Martians are making more use of every gram of spaceship metal compared to Earth.

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@ryankoh917 admiral souther is pressing his advantage of ship numbers Callisto will soon fall

[@g.williams2047]

War of attrition. Earth is winning, Mars is running out of options. However, I don’t think they’ve deployed the next generation of battleships, things like the Donnager.

[@loneneotank.5687]

You could feel the tention in the room as the missile hit south america. Amazing show.

[@teslashark]

"It's Jaburo in this timeline too"

[@coffee_drinker2912]

This was a great series. They need to bring it back.

[@riogrande5761]

There were 3 more books written but they take place 30 years after the first 6 ended (which the TV series followed).

[@coffee_drinker2912]

@@riogrande5761 I'd like them to pick this up and keep going.

[@FUL0H8]

@6:05 That look. Their blood is on your hands and yours alone.

[@adamcheklat7387]

5:56: Ouch. Well, that’s half the world’s biodiversity wiped out.

[@relazar]

Marco Inaros took care of the other half.

[@themightyjagrafess8596]

@@relazar 💀

[@teslashark]

It's Jaburo, it will happen

[@neglectfulsausage7689]

yeah but it was latin america. bleh.