The Expanse

LachiusTZ said:

Watched it tonight just to check it off.

My favorite part, skinnies killed billions, but don't use the word skinny because it's mean. Fucking max cringe.

Some of you limp dick faggots should come to the politics thread.



You sound like a faggot that thinks cops are genociding all the poor oppressed black people.

Goddamn you are insufferable and pathetic.

Click to expand...

pharmakos said:

I also realized one really good thing about this season... Holden was basically a side character. He sucks as the main character.

Click to expand...

Deathwing said:

Season 5 was girl power?

Click to expand...

TJT said:

Remind me of how many nations have lasted in their exact current state for century upon century?

Click to expand...

TJT said:

This is insufferable nonsense dude.

Why would the Earthers do this when the opposite just happened? For your idiocy you need one side to "just let bygones be bygones."

Which never happens. Ever.

Click to expand...

Lithose said:

But that's what happened...The Belters formed a treaty with earth, and had their own military. Marcos killed one of the heads of that military and usurped power AFTER the earth entered into a peaceful alliance with the belt.

So this idea that if you treat Belters like a nation and let them self govern you'll get a good outcome is absurd. That's exactly what earth did. The whole reason Marcos survived after killing innocent civilians on a colony ship is because the belt's government granted him mercy and Earth respected their decision. Had earth told the belt to fuck off, Marcos would have been killed and this would have been adverted.

The show directly contradicts your belief. Earth got omega-bombed because they changed their ways.




I love how people inadvertently prove something.

First, the Romans did what you think the Mongols did, as did the Ottoman's and many Chiense dynasties--they conducted systemic campaigns of genocide and then those who submitted were forced to undergo a 'cultural genocide' and adopt the hegemony's customs/culture (No, Dhimmis were not common in the Ottoman empire). Many of these civilizations lasted centuries.

Meanwhile, the Mongolians were exceptionally tolerant of local cultures and beliefs (And became progressively more so after the Ghengis died). They were a genuine, multicultural society that only reacted brutally to a lack of surrender during their conquest (The most famous being Baghdad). In essence, as the Mongolians adopted a kinder approach to ruling, their empire crumbled. Look up balkanization.

So the Mongols fell apart when the cruel tyrant died and his successors adopted what you believe is the correct ruling strategy. Again, this goes against your point. Just like above.

Click to expand...

Lithose said:

This was the U.S. strategy is every war since Vietnam. It has never worked. Ever. “Kind-hearted people might think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed.... and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a most dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst . . . This is how the matter must be seen. It would be futile — even wrong — to try and shut one’s eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality.”----Von Clauswitz

After the industrial revolution began, and the endless wars in Europe really began (The Thirty Years war, Napoleon, Ottoman conquests ect)..People were forced to deal with a simple reality--modern industrialized states could produce enough food and supplies with such a small percentage of the population, that killing the military endlessly could not stop a war. Ever. You could kill millions, and as long as the enemy was resolved to fight, they could continue. (The Romans also proved this against Carthage, btw--and were able to do it due to slave production, rather than industrial). Its why wars began targeting civilians, really WW2 was one of the first since the Roman era where Civilians were targeted specifically (And its not surprise...wars stopped being fought in those areas after that happened.)


Here is General Sherman's take on war and it distills Clauswitz's thinking down to its truest axiom. “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”


The issue is who is responsible for war? This was really touched with a knife a couple seasons ago when Prax spoke about complex systems. Humans build systems we don't fully understand, because we only understand our tiny part in the system. The Poem I, Pencil is a great illustration of how even the most simple things require immense, interconnected networks in a modern economy. Given these networks, who is responsible for Marcos? If the belt stopped supporting him, he wouldn't be able to refuel, repair and he'd be blind. So clearly he is far more than the people directly working with him. Just like its not the earth military that directly oppresses the Belters, right? Its Earth companies and civilians who do that. Which is why Marcos felt the need to target them to heat the war up and bring its ugliness out into the open--because he didn't see a difference between the slow, 'warm' kind of war that would kill millions over a century (IE cycles of belter exploitation and resultant terrorism as counter attacks), and the hot kind that would kill millions over a decade--except the fact that with the hot kind, people might come to the table to discuss how to end and never do it again.

So what's more cruel? The long, slow kind of war that rarely involves direct conflict, or the quick, brutal kind that brings about a resolution? Who knows. But dismissing one kind as a simple psychopath's view just illustrates an ignorance toward how human conflict plays out. Its a manufactured consent toward war, that relies on it being less direct, and thus more palatable.

Click to expand...

Grez said:

There's no nation called the belt. Just people living out in the belt, clans and what not. Slaughtering belter civilians is fucking crazy and will only make things worse.

Click to expand...

Grez said:

You honestly think that signing a treaty with "the belt" is going to cool the independent hot-headed psychos out for revenge, and those who will surf that tide for personal power? Are you really that childish? Human beings are not pieces on a fucking chess board.

Republican or Imperial Rome? Big fucking difference. Republican Rome, before the trimverate, didn't go around conquering others unless they attacked Rome first. It all went to shit after Sulla, and so too did the civilization.

I find it fascinating that you think the belters are subjects of Earth. They're not. I don't understand how you don't understand this.

Click to expand...

I find it fascinating that you think the belters are subjects of Earth. They're not. I don't understand how you don't understand this.

Click to expand...

mewkus said:

fuck the elite douchebags drinking premium scotch and moralising about "muh values" while little amos is getting buttraped on the daily.
View attachment 332958

Click to expand...

Lithose said:

So you agree your assessment was wrong. Treating the belt like its own nation won't solve the problem. I have no idea why you're upset because you were wrong, and had a completely childish view (Way to indict yourself with your rebuttal. You realize YOU'RE the one who made the argument that treating the belt like a nation would solve these issues and prevent this kind of attack--NOT me. ) But you're finally getting it; no, treating the belt like a nation will do nothing. Because some hot head will always use the difficulty of life as a belter, to blame an outside enemy and use that hate to rise to power.

This is consistently what happens in third world countries. The reason they don't throw stones at other countries (Nationalization schemes by force, Nationally supported privateering/blockades of trade routes for taxation ect) is because you have a hegemony currently that uses a mixture of intelligence, and military intervention to destabilize regimes who engage in this behavior (Pretty much like earth and mars did to the belt). The idea that if you simply let them be they will magically become stable and NOT attack more stable countries is laughable. It's a child's view of the world. (It MIGHT happen, mind you--but counting on it would be naive..our history is littered with examples of both)

Second, you don't know your Roman History. The Italian allies themselves were conquered and subjugated under the Republic. half of Rome's founding stories are of rape and conquest, literally. Rome had a long history of wars of aggression before Imperial Rome. But that doesn't really matter--because it doesn't matter which Rome we're speaking of, Imperial Rome ruled for centuries (4 or more depending on how you count Eastern Rome). So they were an extremely stable Empire that thrived off of genocide and slavery, as did the Ottoman's and many of the Chinese dynasties. The largest, most stable Empires in history were often the most brutal. In fact, you can correlate declines with populations essentially losing their stomach for the brutality of conquest and occupation (Wealth naturally declines Empires due to this, at least in theory)



Segregating this out because I'm not sure where it came from? Are you rifting off the Mongolian thing? Being a subject or a subject by proxy through being a colonial/client state doesn't matter. It's a distinction without difference. And up until the gate opened and the Belt formed its fledging government, they were absolutely a client/colonial entity under the control of Mars/Earth. This is clear in the show, in fact the first season emphasizes this a great deal--the OPA were literally looking for independence.

Click to expand...

Grez said:

It's like talking to a brick wall. A murderous psychopathic brick wall with no understanding of human nature or history. I could continue to talk to the brick wall, or I could do anything else. I'll choose the latter.

I'll leave you with this: the belters are human beings, when they are aggressed against, they will retaliate. That retaliation has a variable time-lag associated with it.

Click to expand...

Dandai said:

If you mean the last scene, it’s a tease/cliffhanger for future story. I don’t think that even keen show watchers would understand what’s going on there.

Click to expand...