The Expanse: Cascade

March 29, 2017 10:49 PM - Season 2, Episode 10

Harsh realities of future life on Earth are displayed, while the Roci crew are trapped in a dying station.
posted by killdevil (52 comments total)

I do like these more reflectively-paced, character-driven episodes. Highlights: Bobbie sitting at the water's edge (her actress is growing on me), Avasarala orchestrating events with her usual panache, and Alex playing country music and spinning into his drink in zero-gee.
posted by killdevil at 10:53 PM on March 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

I loved, loved, loved Alex's character development, but this "Bobbi sucks at stuff" is going to slowly kill me. Also, if these Martians were supposed to be invading Earth, you'd think they'd have trained them a lot better.
posted by corb at 11:21 PM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I may just be a couple of PBR's in but the scene with Bobbie and Nico (sp?) was one of the most pleasant and genuine things I've seen on TV* in a long time.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:02 AM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

I loved, loved, loved Alex's character development, but this "Bobbi sucks at stuff" is going to slowly kill me. Also, if these Martians were supposed to be invading Earth, you'd think they'd have trained them a lot better

The second book covers Bobbie's landing on Earth. There's a point when she is outside both the Martian compound and the UN (she doesn't break out of her room in the book -- she just leaves the building,) when she comes to the realization that no matter how much training MCRN marines have had at 1G, and in simulations, they would never be able to invade and hold Earth. Between the sheer number of people, the overwhelming cacophony of noise and sound and activity and the intense light of the sun, Martian marines would be overcome by Earth's environment and cities.

In the show and the books, Martians have created a society (as Avasarala has said) focused on one goal: terraforming Mars. But their society is also militaristic -- the better to defend their independence from Earth. We've seen that some Martians chafe at the way they've had to delay their goal and appease our 'decadent' home planet. We've seen some Martians who view Earth as an enemy they will eventually conquer. We've also seen that MCRN high command knows that a war with Earth would be catastrophic for mankind, no matter who wins.

The Belt is a powder keg. If it explodes (as it is slowly doing now,) a war in the outer planets wouldn't stay restricted to them.

Consider about how the System's power players are manipulating the situation -- each with their own agendas. Some want war. Some want to prevent it. Some have other goals. The "little people" are caught up in their schemes. Each thinks they can control the outcome of whatever they set into motion.

It isn't so much that 'Bobbie sucks at stuff' as she is not in control of her own destiny/training/goals/dreams, and never has been.
posted by zarq at 7:02 AM on March 30, 2017 [11 favorites]

Also, for those of us who are Búkwalas, this episode had at least a couple of scenes that were a major departure from Caliban's War. Most notably, Errinwright's confession to Avasarala.
posted by zarq at 7:14 AM on March 30, 2017 [8 favorites]

I think too that Bobbi is an idealist who believed until now that she was striving toward one noble, common goal for all Mars-kind: terraforming and achieving total independence from Earth and the Belt.

Jingoism is a helluva drug.

If she didn't totally get it before, experiencing Earth firsthand is pretty crushing for Bobbi. She's still navigating fresh PTSD in addition to triple her usual UV exposure, gravity sickness and constant vertigo while testifying to the UN in an effort to avoid all-out war.

Like, her entire crew JUST died. But in a way, so did her dreams. Because she now realizes they were partly built on lies about Earth, and that makes her question everything. Her unfaltering loyalty wasn't rewarded, but her lies were -- and she didn't lie by choice. Bobbi's not a politician.

And the lying just sickens her further, since she sees that it's not really a choice. It's incredibly hard to have your ideals thrown back in your face -- and this goes for Holden, too -- because doing the right thing and following orders isn't enough. Telling the truth and being a Good Guy won't protect you from loss, or regret. Sometimes, the greater good requires making sacrifices that put innocent people in the crossfire. The right decision can still get people killed. Or turn their legacy into a lie.

All of Bobbi's macho military posturing is cold comfort when she's the last one alive in her squadron. And she's the only person alive we know of who's confronted a protobiped and lived.

In many ways, the only other thing remotely comparable to Earth in terms of sheer survival probability is the protomolecule.

It's very obvious why Earth seeks to control it (top biometric competitor!) and the co-conspirators desperately want to keep their secrets. We now know they discovered it on Phoebe, and damn if Errinwright's confession wasn't totally shocking to me. I did not see that coming.

Has anyone revealed more about the protomolecule's background other than Phoebe Station >> Julie Mao >> Sample Hidden By Roci/Protected By Naomi >> Eros >> Venus >> Ganymede?

Bobbi and Avasarala make a great ship. I'm excited to see more of them together.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:43 AM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

It wasn't clear to me if they deliberately switched the plants to distilled water or if it was just a result of not having a qualified specialist on the base to get the system up and running again. Either story could be interesting.
posted by cardboard at 10:38 AM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think we learned tonight that Jules Pierre Mao was working with Earth on the Eros (absorb everything and make banging techno tunes) variant, but Mars on the Ganymede (survives in a vacuum and kills marines bipedal) variant.
posted by IanMorr at 11:43 AM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

It isn't so much that 'Bobbie sucks at stuff' as she is not in control of her own destiny/training/goals/dreams, and never has been.

You make really fair points. I think in this aspect, I maybe have been kind of unfairly influenced by the differences in physicality between Book Bobbi and Show Bobbi - Book Bobbi, or at least my impression of her, is just kind of a brick shithouse - much bigger and thicker than the other Martians, to the point it's noticeable in multiple scenes, and she's really good at hand to hand fighting, and you kind of sense she's a match for most things. Whereas Show Bobbi is played by an actress who simply doesn't have that kind of size - she's large for television, not actually large in reality. So things like her backing away from the crazy guy she asked for help finding the ocean don't jar as much. But that particular aspect just struck me as really out of character, but it may just be a different, and equally valid, characterization.
posted by corb at 12:07 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also, for those who want to talk about differences and What They Might Mean, I have thrown up a crappy 'Season 2, All' thread for such things.
posted by corb at 12:14 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

Interesting, I didn't get the impression from Bobbi backing off that she was afraid of the guy. More just that she was less quick to resort to violence than, say, Amos would have been, and knew she didn't understand fully what was happening. She had kind of a quizzical look on her face (it seemed to me). Though, that's been my own reaction to people getting in my face, so I could just be projecting.

On a related note, Nico was totally one of Avasarala's bodyguard's people, right? It wasn't a coincidence Bobbi ran into him?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:09 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

experiencing Earth firsthand is pretty crushing for Bobbi.

I see what you did there.

I really liked Bobbie in this episode. She's strong, resourceful, and takes a huge risk just to see Earth before she is probably spaced on the way back to Mars (or treated like Fred as a hero after his victory over the miners on Andersen Station, but kept on a very short leash).
posted by zippy at 1:25 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

I actually didn't get the sense they were thinking of spacing her at all. The sense I got was actually more of an implication - they talked so much about her being a part of this proud military tradition in the actual questioning, and then the whole "do what's best for you and us" thing, I got the sense they were talking of retiring her out - like, letting her go back to wherever it is on Mars she came from - (they said I think when the squad was joking around, but I forget) with a generous medical pension, but not letting her be in the Marines anymore. Which it's clear she loves so, so much. And I think that's a part of why she risks so much just to see the ocean on Earth - she is so loyal to Mars that she believes that is what will happen, she knows she may never again have her boots on another world, have this opportunity, because she's going to go back to a quiet civilian life.
posted by corb at 1:28 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

The only thing that gets me about this episode is that window was way too easy to get open.
posted by dis_integration at 2:57 PM on March 30, 2017

The only thing that gets me about this episode is that window was way too easy to get open.

They showed that she had clearly been working on it for some time and she'd broken more than one tool in the attempt. Easy?
posted by Lexica at 5:10 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

Even in the far future, Windows will continue to have fatal flaws...

Heh, seriously, the Martian Consulate is probably optimized against external threats trying to get in, not the other way around. And Bobbi probably has a lot more practical experience in breaking things than the average Marti.
posted by Mogur at 5:35 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

she's large for television, not actually large in reality

Yeahbut, especially if they didn't want to whitewash her, it would probably be Real Hard to do better than a 99th-percentile-tall experienced boxer. I mean, I get you. But the only Real Bobbie that way was going to be CGI Bobbie.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:11 PM on March 30, 2017 [7 favorites]

I was about to be like "How hard can it be?", but then I googled for Polynesian or Samoan actresses and got depressed. You make an excellent (if sad) point.
posted by corb at 11:00 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

I actually didn't get the sense they were thinking of spacing her at all.

I don't think it's plan a, but it's sure a contingency with that creep Martens. Consider that they basically tortured Draper (sedate, wake, interrogate, repeat) and made her testify against her squadmate. They know she's going to crack and talk at some point, and the risk there is enormous.

She's definitely in the hands of ends justifies the means types.
posted by zippy at 11:58 AM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

You make really fair points. I think in this aspect, I maybe have been kind of unfairly influenced by the differences in physicality between Book Bobbi and Show Bobbi - Book Bobbi, or at least my impression of her, is just kind of a brick shithouse - much bigger and thicker than the other Martians, to the point it's noticeable in multiple scenes, and she's really good at hand to hand fighting, and you kind of sense she's a match for most things. Whereas Show Bobbi is played by an actress who simply doesn't have that kind of size - she's large for television, not actually large in reality. So things like her backing away from the crazy guy she asked for help finding the ocean don't jar as much. But that particular aspect just struck me as really out of character, but it may just be a different, and equally valid, characterization.

As written, Book Bobbie is also much more confident in herself. Her first appearance in Caliban's War was the Ag Dome attack scene on Ganymede, so her character was developed differently in that narrative. The tv show has gone out of its way to establish certain things about her that weren't immediately seen in the books. For example, her antipathy and disdain toward Earth and Earthers and initial mental rigidity about them being a weaker, conquerable enemy. Also, her bond with her squad. The same scenes that round her out in the audience's mind also make her more humanly vulnerable. We see Bobbie's post-battle PTSD in the book manifesting as unfocused anger and mental numbness/repetitiveness. It's better depicted on the show.

I took her uncertainty as disorientation in the environment and being unused to the gravity. But I also wondered about her physicality in this episode. They show her rolling/falling hard to the ground from a distance. She then gets up and runs in Earth's gravity. We've been told repeatedly that Belters don't have the bone density or musculature to survive on Earth. They certainly can't take a fall like that without shattering bones. But having lived since birth in .38G, Martians are capable of taking a fall like that and then just getting up and running? Even with the bone density drug and 1G training, Bobbie's already been unsteady on her feet when she's been standing and walking around. Struck me as odd.
posted by zarq at 1:02 PM on March 31, 2017 [4 favorites]

The disorientation caused by the horizon didn't make much sense either -- they were running operations on the surfaces of Mars and Ganymede, where you would have a horizon, albeit at closer distances.
posted by cardboard at 1:25 PM on March 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

They certainly can't take a fall like that without shattering bones. But having lived since birth in .38G, Martians are capable of taking a fall like that and then just getting up and running?

I don't know the books, but I felt like that scene was like the one where she was arm-wrestling power armor way back when: a way to show us how much tougher she is than her peers, even though that isn't really the physicality that's being projected on screen, IMO. Like a 'low G bones or not, slim or not, she'd tear a regular dude in half in a fistfight.'

(I'm not sure exactly who I should be picturing for Bobbie Draper, although my headcanon after reading these threads is that she should maybe be more like Gina Carano in Deadpool, just of the correct ethnicity.)
posted by mordax at 1:27 PM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

she should maybe be more like Gina Carano in Deadpool, just of the correct ethnicity

...and about a foot taller. Carano is *looks* 5'8", and I think of Book-Bobbie as being no less than maybe 6'6" and at least as much a slab of beef as Carano.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:43 PM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but without CGI we're never going to get regular Belter and Martian characters who are are larger than Earthers. Naomi is a head taller than Holden in the books.
posted by zarq at 1:54 PM on March 31, 2017

I look forward to when that sort of thing can be done on television, instead of it being restricted to the big screen.
posted by mordax at 2:07 PM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

(Seriously, that sounds great - both the Belters being so much taller, and Bobbie Draper being basically superhuman. I suppose I will have to read the books at some point just to see how this was supposed to go.)
posted by mordax at 2:09 PM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

If they'd been able to, what they should have done is hire shortish people to play Terrans -- like have the men top out at 5'6" or so, people like Tom Cruise and Elijah Wood -- and built their sets at an 85-90\% scale. Then they could hire just-kinda-regular tall people to be Belters and Bobbie.

But oy the sets they'd need, and 90\% scale props for sooo maaaaany things, and they could never work on location...
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:27 PM on March 31, 2017 [7 favorites]

You'd need a Lord of the Rings-sized budget.

It would be completely awesome, though.
posted by zarq at 3:33 PM on March 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just goes to show how lucky Game of Thrones was to find Gwendoline Christie. Although since it was the result of a sustained fan lobbying campaign I guess "luck" didn't have much to do with it.

The Expanse had the added major difficulty of wanting a Polynesian actress which knocks out another 99% of the talent pool. Given those constraints I think the actress playing Bobbie is about as good as we could have gotten!
posted by Justinian at 11:05 PM on March 31, 2017 [4 favorites]

I took the use of George Marsington as a MacGyver tool as a strong indicator from the narrative that Mr. Marsington may indeed be Mark Watney.

I *think* the quick upshot from the Martian compound may include enough current-day NYC buildings to get a physical location. They certainly are under no obligation to shop in anything, and the rest of Bobbie's Big Day Out appeared to mostly just use generic Vancouver shots as a way of presenting her POV, so perhaps I am mistaken.
posted by mwhybark at 10:48 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

The fall that Bobbie takes is pretty implausible.

As for the horizon, my take on it is that she's used to the horizon being so much closer on Mars/various moons. Earth's much further horizon (or lack of it) may be causing some claustrophobia?

There were a few for-real belter-looking extras; tall and skinny with borderline Marsden-syndrome/Abraham Lincoln-looking people (like the captured belter that Avasarala interviews back in the pilot/2nd ep). But yeah, hard to cast in sufficient numbers.

The height reversal between Naomi/Holden is disconcerting.
posted by porpoise at 1:44 PM on April 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Way upthread re: distilled water

Ignorance on the part of the people trying to fix things.

The ecology talk is ... remarkably accurate and not-totally-bullshitty for tv.
posted by porpoise at 1:50 PM on April 1, 2017 [6 favorites]

Way upthread re: distilled water

Ignorance on the part of the people trying to fix things.

Or, given that 60% of the station was destroyed or compromised, perhaps their nutrient stocks were lost, and their gear to create more was destroyed.

But everyone in the belt survives on extraplanetary water - distillation gear must be all over the place.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:47 PM on April 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Fair enough, I guess I was being uncharitable. Maybe the mineral micronutrient recycling tanks got messed up and they didn't have means to do the right/required job.

Distilling stuff in a zero-pressure environment (vacuum distillation) is kind of trivial and I guess I projected that jury rigged/hobbyist distillation were a common experience of most belter kids. Like how prairie kids in the 50's knew how to make traps to catch prairie dogs for bounties, Farley Mowat style.

I just thought that it was weird that Prax said "distilled water," specifically.

Huh. There are "advice column" type web sites that (correctly) advise against using distilled water for cut flowers (lack of mineral solutes and glucose). Maybe that was a writer-ism to connect with that sphere of influence.
posted by porpoise at 2:18 AM on April 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Which brings us back around to electrolytes.

Electrolytes (its what plants crave!*) in closed-systems is super important. Current tech, such material are - if seveneves background research is accurate - ironically called "vitamins" (small compact life-important micronutrients and the like, vitamins+, also ascribed to other high-worth materials).

Everyone in these environments should know be intimately knowlegable about electrolytes in the context of recycled water.

*oh, I just realized that other people might not understand the meta-joke in Idiocracy; it's not that they're spraying "electrolytes" on crops - it's that they're using too much "electrolytes" (and sugar). Plants really do need a certain amount of electrolytes, too.
posted by porpoise at 2:29 AM on April 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Interesting. A mistake that big implies sabotage - maybe someone wants a panicked mob in about two weeks?
posted by Mogur at 11:43 AM on April 2, 2017

Small detail; the 'street doc' talked about trading Bobbie's gravity meds for 'the new chloroquine.'

Chloroquine is an old-timey treatment for acute malaria (and more recently as an experimental prophylactic against graft-versus host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplant). There are better drugs for treating malaria these days.

I suspect that the writers might have intended for him to say 'the new fluoroquinolone.'

Tuberculosis (and especially multi-drug resistant varieties) is a huge problem in Russia and China right now, especially in economically depressed high-population density areas. It is particularly grievious among injection drug-using and immunocompromised (HIV) populations (with a lot of intersectionality). In the society depicted on Earth here, I suspect that TB remains a major problem.
posted by porpoise at 9:25 AM on April 3, 2017

The line is "I can probably get a month's supply of the new chloroquine. It'll help keep some of us from dying this summer when we're forced to drink sewer water."

From the Wikipedia entry on chloroquine:

Chloroquine is a medication used to prevent and to treat malaria in areas where malaria is known to be sensitive to its effects.[1] Certain types of malaria, resistant strains, and complicated cases typically require different or additional medication. It is also occasionally used for amebiasis that is occurring outside of the intestines, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus erythematosus.

Amebiasis is also known amoebic dysentery, and seems quite likely if they're forced to drink sewer water.

Seriously, they're not making stupid, lazy mistakes with the science on this show.
posted by Lexica at 11:01 AM on April 3, 2017 [9 favorites]

Likewise if New York in anno domini whatever has the climate that, say, Savannah does now malaria among the people-who-don't-matter could indeed be a common worry

One assumes "the new cholorquine" isn't chloroquine, or it wouldn't be "the new," it would just be chloroquine. It's some unspecified thing that is in some way enough like chloroquine in either composition, function, or just effect that it's "the new."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:38 AM on April 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

Everyone in these environments should know be intimately knowlegable about electrolytes in the context of recycled water.

What, even the mechanics in the motor pool?

Go back to what Prax was telling Amos about simple complex systems. The complexity means that everything's proper functioning is dependent on multiple interrelated parts of the system functioning properly.

Simplicity means that it's a Rube Goldberg contraption that has almost no back up capability.

Earth is big enough, and with enough back-up systems in place that if one craps out, the system self adjusts and doesn't immediately collapse.

The farms of Ganymede is simplified version of Earth, and orders of magnitude simpler. The margin of error almost doesn't exist to respond to systemic stress.

And a localized outbreak of war killing/displacing the people with botany degrees & leaving someone from the motor pool in charge of the hydroponics has stressed the system beyond recovery.

At some point, all the preparation and planning and readiness one has is just not enough to overcome the sheer inhospitable universe that is actively trying to kill is the moment we leave Earth. No sabotage necessary.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:45 AM on April 3, 2017 [7 favorites]

Show Bobbi is Frankie Adams. She is six feet tall, which is legitimately huge for women both on and off television. She's also not some skinny waif; she's sturdy and muscular, as befits a former boxer (which Adams is).

By my lights, she's the best or second best casting choice on the whole show; her only real competition for me is Shohreh Aghdashloo as Avasarala, which was probably an easier search -- the notion being that middle-aged Indian/south Asian actresses with gravitas might be a bigger pool than six-foot athletic Polynesian women.

Book-Bobbi seems to suffer less from being essentially adrift an unsupported post-Ganymede, which upon reflection seems like an unbelievable reaction. I think I prefer the characterization here, at least so far, and Adams is doing fine work.
posted by uberchet at 7:18 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Hey, I thought this episode was great! Specifically for Bobbie; we finally get to see her exhibit some autonomy. Sure she's still weak and cowering under the sky, but she also has determination and a simple goal of seeing the ocean, just for herself. I loved the scene with Nico, the friendly drug dealer / doctor played by Milton Barnes. They had super chemistry on screen, I think because he was so damn charismatic. And finally Bobbie has something to think about that's not the horror on Ganymede. In contrast the connection to Avasarala is a bit creepy, we know all she wants is to use Bobbie to get to the truth, but at least she's being honest about it and sharing information.

One more thing to remember about Bobbie; she's separated from her suit. She's trained to fight with this massive powered exoskeleton. And now she's a soft little weak thing on Earth, without her shell, without her weapons. With nothing to do but parrot lies for diplomats. She's totally out of her element.

Also thought this was a great episode for Prax. We finally see him in his element, the ecology of Ganymede. The realization that whole system is just gonna fail and all these desperate people are stuck there, no one gives a shit. The guy trying to eat the air scrubbing weeds was particularly heartbreaking.
posted by Nelson at 7:31 AM on April 4, 2017 [6 favorites]

My wife and I both commented on how great Barnes was in that scene. I hope we get more of that actor, because he's incredibly watchable.
posted by uberchet at 8:06 AM on April 4, 2017

Recently, Nick Farmer posted a ghazal in lang Belta for World System Poetry Day

Sésata, kang xalte to wit me ke ere da nax?
Da belék tubik - ma na wanya solo ere da nax

Ta kom kowl milowda asilik lowng, un fo keting?
Fongi da sowng inya wa setara ere da nax

Manting wamali liviting wowm ere imbobo
Kuku deting nakangikeng dansa ere da nax

Imim mebi du mi unte du to fong materi
Amash bera tenye terásh xiya ere da nax

Im na gut fo mang pensa ere da ting da gerówsh
Da we fo sémpere du sif maili ere da nax

The translation is in the link above. Lotta Persians & South Asians went into space, so Belters are big into poetry.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:12 AM on April 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

Re Bobbie taking the fall.

That Osteo-X is pretty good shit, keya? ;-)

Sure Martians "train a lot" at 1G. But in the book once Bobbie actually walks around on Earth, she comes to the realization that no, Martian Marines will never invade Earth. Just not happening.

No matter how much you train, how much power armor and drugs you take, just breathing in and out when your body suddenly weights 3X what it does where you grew up is a struggle. The Earthers will overwhelm them by sheer numbers of 1G natives throwing rocks. Dusters gotta run out of ammo sometime.

And the power armored marines are just the heavy-hitters. Most MCRN soldiers* are in the non-powered stuff we've seen. Assault landers coming in hot to Earth was only ever a fantasy.

There's a YT channel called "Let's do the Science" that looked at "Where was Bobbie when she got to the Ocean?" The UN Building is on the lower East side of Manhattan, but there's a whole lot Brooklyn & Queens between the river and the Atlantic. The tuber postulates that She's probably somewhere in mid-Brooklyn, around Flatbush. Rising sea-levels have long since drunk most of the outer boroughs.

---

*"Marines are not soldiers, Bobbie shouldn't address them as soldiers..." yadda, yadda, yadda. "Because 300 years from now on a different planet that doesn't have anything called an "army" the rules would be exactly the same."

Terms & traditions change. Isn't that right, Centurion?
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:50 AM on April 5, 2017 [6 favorites]

The disorientation caused by the horizon didn't make much sense either -- they were running operations on the surfaces of Mars and Ganymede, where you would have a horizon, albeit at closer distances.

The books (no spoilers here), make it pretty clear that while the Martians may have experience on surfaces such as Mars and Ganymede, they have zero experience in such an environment without the enclosing safety of a suit.

IIRC, Bobbi reacts not just to the larger horizon, but also to the knowledge of only a thin skin of atmosphere protecting her on Earth, though I may misremember. It may just have been a throwaway line about being exposed in a way you aren't in suits. Belters and Martians are mentioned more than once tending towards pretty severe agoraphobia due to their necessarily enclosed upbringing. Lord only knows how much my memory mangles all this; I sucked the books down pretty quick. They're a lot of fun to blow through.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:11 PM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

I just got to Bobbie's first outdoors experience on Earth in the books recently, it's largely just an issue of severely​ disorienting overwhelming of the senses and agoraphobia. She acknowledges that her gravity training doesn't mean much and isn't sufficient but that's not the single biggest issue she struggles with really. Severe agoraphobia makes a lot of sense, you're outside and for your entire life "outside" has meant you're dead without a space suit and for Belters, "outside" means you need to tether yourself to keep from flying off the spinning rock and "up" is "down". It would be like us opening a door and finding ourselves at the bottom of the ocean yet somehow we can still breathe, terrifying.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:30 AM on April 6, 2017 [7 favorites]

"Every shitty thing we do makes the next one that much easier, doesn't it?"

truer words...
posted by numaner at 7:54 PM on November 28, 2017

I gotta say that watching this for the first time in 2020 and hearing them mentioning chloroquine is pretty weird.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:17 PM on September 16, 2020 [7 favorites]

> I gotta say that watching this for the first time in 2020 and hearing them mentioning chloroquine is pretty weird.

I was going to say the same thing. It was a throwaway line three years ago, but now it's so very grim.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:57 PM on December 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yes about the chloroquine!
posted by medusa at 7:32 AM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

[T]hey have zero experience in such an environment without the enclosing safety of a suit.

Having worn a mask in public for almost two years now, I am much more understanding of the psychological aspects at play here.
posted by cardboard at 3:39 PM on December 31, 2021 [2 favorites]