this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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vs The Expanse: we are headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity's salvation will come from... Nevermind, we're fucked.
Just most of us, except Amos. Amos will be fine.
He is that guy
Nothing this guy can't shrug off. Litterally.
He's got the shotgun, you've got the briefcase. All in the game, though.
[...] humanity's salvation will come from alien technology we haven't discovered yet.
The expense always looked like almost utopic to me.
Truly ? What aspects of it ?
I mean they do have universal basic income on earth but apart from that humanity is all kinds of fucked. And it doesn't exactly get better as the story progresses.
The fact that the earth is even united and not completely screwed is already a great start. It was even recovering from climate change before Inaros.
The earthers are not doing that bad in the beginning that is true. But the rest of the system have it rough.
The earth is united like the United States is united. The tribes just got bigger is all. Instead of NATO vs BRICS, the Expanse universe has Earthers vs Martians vs Belters. And people are suffering hard on earth as evidenced during Bobby’s trip to the ocean.
Bobby's saw a very different earth in the books tho.
People living in UBI weren't really living a paradise but they weren't homeless hobos like in the show.
Example B of earth being shittastic is the entirety of The Churn novella
Everyone starts to come together in the last book though.
They're kind of forced to by an outside context problem, to quote Banks.
In a very... Specific way.
To be fair to Inaros he did end global warming and the overpopulation of earth.
Inaros did nothing wrong.
Chrissie's fabulous saris
Fair enough.
Isn't the UBI on earth literally so poor that people on it are stuck in lives of poverty unless they can get into some kind of training scheme?
Mostly they suffer from extreme boredom and mediocre lives. Nothing drastic but soul suckingly unfulfilling.
You mean dystopic right ... right?
Not at all. It always looked like something in between for me. Humanity is still struggling but moving forward, and most people live under various kind of regimes but no big bad Empire.
Well the belters have it pretty rough and Mars is basically totalitarian. And without spoiling anything I'd suggest you keep reading, it is worth it :).
I have a question for you, fancy pantsy book reader on their own instance: should I watch the show and then read the books, read the books and then watch the show, or read the books and skip the show?
Doesn't really matter as the show ends three books short. You probably want to read them though rather than try and pick up from book 7 after the show as lots of characters were changed a bit in the show and one is killed due to off screen drama who should survive.
That character death was so sad. But the reason behind the scenes was absolutely justified
Well my pants aren't fancy at all thank you very much :p.
The show is great, and so are the books. Mostly I would start by watching the show which is, for the first season at least, much more polished imho (the writers of the book were also show runners). After that, the show ends at book 6 (there are 9 total) but several character arcs are tweaked so I would recommend reading at least books 3 to 6 before 7.
Thank you!
You're welcome!
"(the writers of the book were also show runners)"
This must be why the books read like a TV or movie script to me.
The books came much earlier than the show. What they meant was that the showrunners involved the writers of the books in the production of the show, which resulted in a much more faithful adaptation than is usual for these things.
Yes exactly. Thank you for clarifying my mangled sentence :).
Watch the show and then read the books. In my opinion the show is fantastic and incredibly enjoyable (except for ending the series in what is obviously the middle of a significant plot thread, which is annoying) but the books are even better and spoiled the show a tinsy bit for me.
Listen to the books, don't care about the show.
Winston Duarte has entered the chat.
The chat has become Winston Duarte.
So you would enjoy the belter life much?
Belters are a vast minority, though.
The population numbers sort of... even out later in the books.
So?
As far as I know utopia and dystopia are like polar opposites. I have never heard the take before that the concept of utopia includes that it´s rotten on the inside and only looks perfect. Where did you get that idea from?
and
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia
A dystopia is properly a utopia with one critical flaw.