Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Dec. 21 2022 15:58:40)
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Finished Cibola Burn. To get my opinions on the books out of the way: book 1 was great. 2 and 3 are good but start to feel a bit repetitive, since many of the plot mechanics are the same as in book 1 (someone does a false-flag attack, someone is looking for a single person across the entire solar system, etc.). Book 4 marks a low point. Uncharitably I'd call it Riddick but boring. They also made their universe feel small by bringing back both Havelock and Basia, as if there were just a few dozen people in the world and they keep on running into each other. So, boo book 4, but other than that, an enjoyable read so far. Now: - So far I can't really speculate on the whole rings subspace thing. It's just something that's there and that's that. The only thing I know for sure about these aliens is that Apple didn't make their machines. They still work after billions of years when I can't even get my fúcking laptop to last a decade... What I don't really understand is the logistics of seeding the protomolecule on a planet. The problem is the fact that they apparently didn't find anything on Phoebe except the protomolecule. My thinking is that it had to be either a manned mission or there were at least machines and whatnot on Phoebe. For starters, the protomolecule can't drive itself. And if you're going to just shoot it at a planet, you're not going to use a 200km-diameter rock that'll wipe out all organic material upon arrival, since that would defeat the purpose of sending the protomolecule in the first place. Plus you'd probably want something there that could distinguish between forms of life, to avoid the kind of accident that happen on Eros (imagine the same thing happening to a civilization far more advanced... they could've accidentally started a war doing that). Also, you could always just load up organic material on the thing before launch to avoid that kind of mishap, no? But assuming it was a manned mission or that there were at least machines on Phoebe, why didn't they find anything? Maybe they did and it'll come up in later books with one faction having secretly developed some weapon or something? Just seems strange. Also, part of me wonders if Phoebe "landed" exactly where it was supposed to, and the idea that it was aiming for Earth is just the protagonists being self-centered. - The Belter creole is garbage. It reads like they just glued together random words they looked up on Google. Da this man ein Kartoffeln pour qu'il stop hablar. As Marco Twain geschrieben hat, callar sei mieux than quitar Duden that tú baka desu, sabes. I gather for the show they had someone with experience conlanging come up with something better, so hopefully the language in the show is better than what's in the books. Still, I don't find the idea of a single creole shared by dozens of millions of people across the outer solar system to be convincing at all. They probably didn't explicitly think about it, but the model they're following is Schuchardt's monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles. He postulated that all Atlantic creoles came from one local pidgin, "West African Pidgin Portuguese", and that it then spread as slaves were sold and deported to the Americas. But he had to contend with the fact that Atlantic creoles come in all shapes and colors, so he then imagined various mechanisms that could explain the observed differences. The authors of the Expanse point to this by saying the Belter creole was the language of "the first settlers of the Belt". But even assuming a monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles is plausible (and that's a big if), you still end up with a wide variety of creoles, and not just the one. So, from my perspective, there's no reason why Belters from X place should speak the same language as Belters from Y place. The end result is that they're all a bit flattened out as characters. The only metric to differentiate a Belter from another Belter is just how much they hate the inner planets, ranging from fairly robust hatred to burn-motherfúckers-burn. But culturally, linguistically, etc., they're all the same. A limited analogy, but it's kind of like if you wrote a story set during the Cold War, and wherever the protagonist goes in the Third World, "they speak Third Worlder here". So dunno, I'd personally have imagined a lot more complexity, and potentially conflict, between different areas of the Belt. Or if they do all share the same creole, I'd need a good explanation as to how something so unlikely ended up occurring. - FWIW, I'd totally go on Basic and just play guitar all day. Anyway, happy holidays. Live largo und prosper kudasai, roflcopter sa sa.
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