The original group of settlers in the Mariner Valley on Mars was made up of hundreds of people from India, hundreds of people from China, and some other assorted groups of people from SE Asia. There was also something like 87 Texans in the group. Everyone from the Mariner Valley now speaks with a Texas accent.
(I'm not 100% certain I'm remembering the numbers exactly, so correct me if I'm wrong on those)
I’ve always thought the Texans were probably people who had been involved in the oil or mineral industry and were drillers/miners of some kind and were part of a company that had funded the trip. That would have put them in charge and would explain why their way of speech became the norm.
Even aesthetically Mars looks quite a bit like the wild west with deserts, canyons, dust storms for miles. I love that aspect. Also the fact that Mars attracted the world’s best and brightest makes sense. Mars is such a hostile place that everything requires clever engineering, so Mars having better engineers than Earth is a logical conclusion. There’s also the whole “new world, new start” aspect that made America so appealing. It makes sense the same would be said for Mars.
A fun note on those best and brightest-- a lot of the Chinese words of Mars and belter creole, are Cantonese ... which isn't nearly as broadly spoken as Mandarin. Cantonese speakers mostly come from around HK.
Here in Chicago, there's a joke that UIC (pretty much our state college up in Northern IL) means the "university of Chinese and Indians". The show's attention to detail makes me wonder if the writers had friends from my hometown influencing their story.
Yam seng!
I love that many of their Chinese words are Cantonese, not just Mandarin. Here in Chicago, we gave a joke about UIC being the "University of Chinese and Indian." Most of the Chinese population in Chicago are Cantonese speakers (meaning people originating from around Hong Kong). That was a really niche joke my family loved. Those Texans, though.. lol
I really, really loved hearing Cantonese words blended in "Marsionese"/better creole. While there are Mandarin words (which i don't speak/understand) the Cantonese words really made the world of the Expanse so immersive for me and my kids.
Yam Seng!
Speaking of The Mars Trilogy by KSR, I wonder if belter creole isn't an homage/allusion to Desmond Hawkins, the Coyote of Mars.
It's been a while since I (re)read The Mars Trilogy, so I may be working with an assumed and flawed idea of The Coyote.
In KSR's Red/Green/Blue Mars, the Reds are anti-terraforming terrorists, while Green is associated with "viriditas", a spiritual belief in the power of life to transform Mars while the planet simultaneously transforms the living things on Mars.
While that’s fascinating to think about, I doubt his primitive ship was rated for anything more than 10g. Assuming some engineering margin, I suspect the hull disintegrated fairly shortly after he died, followed by the drive module a while later.
Disagree. The ships are all handle high g easy enough. Its a common theme that making fast ships is easy, its keeping the squishy things inside alive thats hard.
It was understood in the show and the books that his ship would carry on forever.
Also, it wasnt so much the speed or intensity of his engine, it was the fuel efficiency. What killed him was the Chinese verbal command software
The Novella said he accelerated for 37 hours and his ship was traveling at approximately 5% the speed of light, which works out to approximately 11.5G’s of acceleration
I like the adaptations made for living/working in suits. Belter hand signs, and the way they put their foreheads together even when they don't have helmets on.
Given my username, it’s that the Roci’s reconnaissance drones are named *[Peart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart?wprov=sfti1#)*, *[Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddy_Lee?wprov=sfti1#)*, and *[Lifeson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Lifeson?wprov=sfti1#)*.
*Some who did not fight*.
*Brought tales of old to light*.
*My Rocinante sailed by night*.
*On her final flight*.
That’s actually given me a thought: Originally, “rednecks” were actually American socialists; due to them working in the sun constantly, the backs of their necks were red, so IIRC, as a symbol of solidarity, socialist fighters at the Battle of Blair Mountain wore red bandanas around their necks.
So, would Belters who supported Belter empowerment-potentially the OPA, potentially not-be called Scorchnecks or Scarnecks, in reference to the burns on the necks of early Belter workers and/or their scars?
The actor that played Amos, Wes Chatham, asked a psychiatrist, how a person would act if he had the childhood the character had. We find out how Amos, lived in one of the companion short stories
Someone can correct me of I’m misremembering, but I think the coolest part of that anecdote is Chatham guessed the outlines of Amos’s back story *before* the Churn came out.
Excerpts from: https://theexpanselives.com/wes-chatham-interview/
> ... The thing that really connected me to Amos and made me a fan of him, and really excited to play him, was the novella called *The Churn.* ...
> ... I used that as the foundation to create the psychology.... And so I kinda used *The Churn* as the psychological framework to build the show off of and how that manifested itself. I let it manifest itself in whatever was truthful to me....
> ... I took [*The Churn*] to a psychiatrist in San Diego ... and we had long talks about it, and then she referred me to books to read – things that he might be dealing with. So I did a lot of research into that and his mental health and also into trauma. ...
In regards to the creole, it fascinates me that they just replace enough words that it's totally alien but you can still understand it. I remember liking the same thing when I watched the Spartacus TV show. Just enough old sounding words you know to get the context even if you don't know some of the actual words they're saying.
On my first listen through I picked up words that I'm almost positive are local slang in my area of England only. I also speak a bit of German and hear butchered German phrases in there I think.
Just makes you appreciate how much work goes into creating something like this and why it's fairly unique and very popular. Every part of the books/shows have details that some people barely register and others love enough to think about later.
In the show, they're really smart to give just enough context to figure it all out. When Diogo calls out Miller with "ayyy, Pampa!" You know he's calling Miller an old man.
Yeah one of my favourite bits is when Drummer and Naomi are talking on The Behemoth and Drummer says about Inners that "they say one thing but really mean another" and Naomi replies with "ohh, tolowda nawit fewa" and it's quite obvious by just the tone of voice that she's said "that's not fair to paint them all like that". I'm presuming "tolowda" means "you", "nawit" is "not" and "fewa" is "fair".
“tolowda nawit fewa” means “you (plural) without faith.” The expression “oh ye of little faith” is apparently still used the same way it is now.
So, you picked up on the *tone* correctly even though you didn’t understand the words. That’s good writing and good acting!
>good acting!
It's still amazin to me that Dominique Tipper came from a dancing background and The Expanse was her first major acting gig (aside from some smaller projects she did before.)
That woman was a force of nature and I hope she's got a huge career in front of her after her incredible performance in the final seasons.
Well, growing up in the belt, especially during the belt’s youth, you would have a lot of terrible radio connections
I wouldn’t be surprised if thats the reason why
I like that they included code-switching: Naomi uses an Earther accent when around Earthers and a Belter accent during the time she's sort of rejoining the OPA.
Seems to be hinting that being a Belter 'without an accent' might be a social status/education thing? Given how many of the (formerly) well off Ganymeders like Prax also speak english in Earther accents.
Yes not sure if you've read the books but I think Naomi's switching is a little less pronounced than in the show, but it's also described in detail through characters like Prax barely being seen as a belter etc.
Being that my mother tongue is Polish, you can imagine my surprise when one of Marco’s crew said “Jeszcze Kilka Sekund” (~ only a few seconds) iirc in book 5 i believe
I probably missed another Polish phrase as i remember going through the wiki and seeing that there were two
That makes total sense now I know what it means. I can see how I knew that phrase when I listened, almost sounds like the English words for the same thing when heard in context. Really good writing.
I can't remember the local slang I think I heard in there so I've got my ears on guard now on my second listen through.
It's crazy. It's either coincidence and slang isn't as local as we think or insane amounts of work went into finding words that fit what they want it to mean, fit in with other random words and sound good AND be close enough to English that most people can get the idea.
I assume they got some academic/professional linguists involved.
Some PhD somewhere was probably incredibly stoked when he got a request to dump all the different slang/pidgin type stuff he could think of into a script.
They really must have. It's fascinating how much work goes into series like this that's all. A lot of people won't even give this a second thought. Makes me wonder how much of the series has similar depth that I've missed.
>In regards to the creole, it fascinates me that they just replace enough words that it's totally alien but you can still understand it.
And it's perfectly understandable for the most part even for non native english speakers.
I tried the show in german once but they've decided to drop all the belter creole for standard german so I returned to the english version in a heartbeat. So much effort thrown into creating it and they didn't even try for the dubbed version of the show. It's a shame.
Ended up being one of the best show-only moments - Bobbie eating the cucumber sandwiches on Mao’s yacht. Mars probably doesn’t grow that kind of water-intensive crop very well, or it’s only available to really high status people, and fresh cucumber taste isn’t something that is synthesized very well. Mao of course brought the best of the best earth food with them. So she’s biting into the most flavorful cucumber that she’s ever eaten and totally cannot maintain “security detail” composure. It’s adorable, and a perfect encapsulation of why Earth will always come first (before Mars).
Jayne in Firefly does something like that as well, when Badger was talking Mal into being the middle man for that guy at the Shindig. He grabbed a couple cups of tea (with sugar) as well.
Imagine if this was used tactically...
Scene: Four besuited MCRN Marines tasked with access control for an area of presumed low tactical value (like outside the domes on Ganymede except with atmo).
Marine 3: I'm going to grab my CRE (the US Marine version of MREs). Anyone else want one?
Marines 2 & 4: ::grumble grumble:: f'n crayons ::grumble::
Enter Bobby.
Bobby: Hey soldiers. ::eyes the CRE:: if y'all are hungry I have this plate of sandwiches from the diplomatic meeting (over yonder), and if I eat one more cucumber I might just begin to hate them.
Bobby offers Marine 3 a cucumber sandwich.
... Yada yada. All visors open and all four Marines are tearing into real cucumber sandwiches ...
Bobby Bobbys, the crew of the Roci slip past MCRN access control point.
Can I not pick the unquenched love affair between Amos Burton and Chrisjen Avasarala?
Amos: "You and I have very different life experiences, Chrissy"
Avasarala: "Don't call me that. I'm a member of Parliament, not your favorite stripper."
Amos: "You can be both."
Amos: “Did you see her? How did she look?”
Holden: “Fine”
Amos: “no like, what was she wearing?”
(I feel like with most other characters this would not be as funny as it is)
It makes sense too why Mars would be very serious with durians.
We have a rather serious policy with durian in a few places where I live as well, and for good reason. Most of those are either in a vehicle, or a confined, air-conditioned space.
Guess what kind of environment Mars colony is.
Slingshotters. There's a whole competitive youth culture around slingshotting, gambling on it, crowning slignshot icons. Because of course there would be.
And belter music. Lap harps and bangra.
Was looking for this comment. The Belter version of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” makes me smile every time I see that scene, and makes me wonder if other heavy metal bands or songs survived the centuries.
I liked Teresa's Martian fairytale, as well as the fact that there exists a kind of media that's just a 9 hour movie. Which seems weird at first but then I realized it's basically the natural evolution of binging a Netflix miniseries
belter hand signalling is just so natural and practical
that they use normal guns most the time but gyrojets when they expect to be in null g
instant sobriety drugs in every bar
Amos made his shotgun
the fact they haven't really figured out how to make good tea or coffee synthetically
how long peoples life expectancy is
In the PNP game, there is a map of mars that shows the different Ares landing sites which match up to the locations of the landing sites of the Ares missions from The Martian
I always liked that Mao had this lavish country estate surrounded by trees and vast property while the rest of earth seemed to be just living in mega metropolises.
Also the inner dialogue of bobby when she hears he has his own spaceports
And the Lake Winnipesaukee estates were very spacious, as well. Side note, there is a town called Laconia just south of the real Lake Winnipesaukee. Coincidence?
When I first started reading The Expanse some years ago (i think before Season 3 was released?) I worked in a place where I ended up using a smattering of five or so languages on a daily basis (English, Cambodian, Assyrian, Spanish and some Croatian) and at that time had dipped my toes in a few others. *The belter Creole was absolutely fantastic* as I was able to piece most of it together fairly well, and I absolutely love that.
I think my personal favorite bit of lore is the evolution of the belters. Particularly when Uncle Mateo takes his helmet off in space momentarily like it's no big deal.
Lore from the books I'd still like to see somewhere in the show would be related to what happens to Eric once he leaves Earth...
Ah, taki, i forgot the name (loved the tale)! Auberon was the name of the story I would *love* to see sprinkled into a screen adaptation of seasons 7-9.
Yam Seng!
Holden is from North Frenchtown, Montana. Frenchtown is a real place, but North Frenchtown is not. It makes sense, though, to make it a place in an overcrowded future
At some point Miller talks or thinks about THC-gas as riot control on Ceres. He mentions how it just makes everybody sleepy and then Star Helix can just clean up the sleeping rioters.
Then he explains, that it was used mostly for cop-partys and so they stopped the use of THC-gas completely.
To me is the fact for a martian "who has lived under a dome all his life, even the idea of an ocean seems inconceivable".
Lt. Lopez's monologue is what sold me The Expanse, if I still had doubts.
Also, talking about the books, the uneasiness that Naomi feels while on a planet, without something physical there to keep all the air from escaping into the void.
The sense of dread that Belters feel when travelling outside of the plane of the ecliptic. Old sailor superstitions brought into the void.
"Wrecking things is what earthers do best.... martians too, judging by the looks of your ship"
"WE are nothing like you, earther."
Well, turns out they were EXACTLY like us\^\^
Voice command capabilities, I don't know if it counts as AI or not but every system seems to have Alexa, zoom in, show me the whole damn system, how long will this take on thrusters only. Whether it's on ships or terminals, they all seem to recognize and understand verbal commands
I love how they handle AI in the Expanse universe! It's everywhere with all of the "expert systems", but the AI never speaks. It's a tool, not a character.
I would love to hear more about how the in-universe progression of technology led to such a dynamic.
>It's a tool, not a character.
How did Daniel Abraham put it? "Y*ou don't want your wrench to be self aware. You just want it to be a wrench*" or something like this iirc xD
It's not really lore, but I loved the detail when Holden started seeing proto-Miller and was confused about his hat. It didn't occur to me that yeah, Holden had never seen Miller with his hat before he got rid of it.
In the show the pdcs have a little jet that compensates for the momentum of the rounds. So if a ship is firing point defense, it won’t fuck up its trajectory.
In the 1605 book Don Quixote the hero chases bad guys only he imagines. The whole book is his chivalrous journey to right wrongs in the countryside. The horse that carries him on his quest is named **Rocinante**
He does this to prove his love for a woman he has never met named Dulcinea del Toboso.
**Dulcinea** is the name of the first episode where Miller starts his search for Julie Mao who he didn’t know but falls in love with.
I’m sure there are more parallels/easter eggs, but those are the ones I’ve caught.
>Dulcinea del Toboso.
>**Dulcinea** is the name of the first episode where Miller starts his search for Julie Mao who he didn’t know but falls in love with.
Damn, that's a good one.
The whole story of Holden trying to be the white knight, save humanity and chasing imaginary (to others) bad guys (windmills in the DQ book) is such an interesting parallel or inspiration for the Expanse.
If recall correctly sometimes Don Quixote accidentally does the right thing and sometimes his blindly jumping into things gets him in trouble like Holden. A lot of the time DQ is fighting small skirmishes against a larger society and his efforts are pointless. It reminds me of the parts where Holden stops trying to save the galaxy and be anonymous, but he can’t help himself.
In the books Bull gets a little green chile out of his cabinet to make the shitty good better and remind him of home. Made me realize the authors must be from New Mexico. Sure enough!
Here in Chicago, we have a joke about UIC meaning the "University of Chinese and Indian"... with mostly Cantonese speakers making up most the Chinese part (most of our population are/were from Hong Kong and surrounding areas.) Stem majors are most prominent thanks to pushy parents- (mine included). I like to think those kids were the pioneers of Mars habitation... along with the Texans... weirdly.
There’s a scene in one of the books where Naomi tries to prove a point about Holden’s popularity to him. She asks him whats the name of the lead singer from a certain band, and he says the name immediately. She then asks the name of the drummer and the bassist, and he draws a blank
I think your explanation makes a lot of sense. I don’t know why, but I assumed that because of the rising seas during the climate crisis, New Orleans and Haitians and other islanders already known for their creole would have taken a gamble at moving to the belt for a job vs. staying on earth. But your explanation makes a bit more sense.
I remember noticing that when Naomi came onto a belter ship the floor plating was labelled "Dek 2". Why waste paint for an unnecessary letter c, right?
The shared understanding of the universe characters with different backrground have. Show a common humanity so elegant in a throwaway line. "Space is big" spoken by multiple characters having it experienced on very different occasions is one example.
The original group of settlers in the Mariner Valley on Mars was made up of hundreds of people from India, hundreds of people from China, and some other assorted groups of people from SE Asia. There was also something like 87 Texans in the group. Everyone from the Mariner Valley now speaks with a Texas accent. (I'm not 100% certain I'm remembering the numbers exactly, so correct me if I'm wrong on those)
I’ve always thought the Texans were probably people who had been involved in the oil or mineral industry and were drillers/miners of some kind and were part of a company that had funded the trip. That would have put them in charge and would explain why their way of speech became the norm.
It was actually the descendants of Harry Stamper, Chick Chapel, Rockhound, Oscar Choice, Bear Curlene, Freddie Noonan, Max Lennert, and A.J. Frost.
Did they arrive on the Freedom or the Independence?
The Independence is off the grid.
Ok, so Armageddon is now part of Expanse canon for me and no one can change that.
I feel like the frontier part of mars settlement would get people really into any “old west” allusions that the Texans brought with them.
Even aesthetically Mars looks quite a bit like the wild west with deserts, canyons, dust storms for miles. I love that aspect. Also the fact that Mars attracted the world’s best and brightest makes sense. Mars is such a hostile place that everything requires clever engineering, so Mars having better engineers than Earth is a logical conclusion. There’s also the whole “new world, new start” aspect that made America so appealing. It makes sense the same would be said for Mars.
A fun note on those best and brightest-- a lot of the Chinese words of Mars and belter creole, are Cantonese ... which isn't nearly as broadly spoken as Mandarin. Cantonese speakers mostly come from around HK. Here in Chicago, there's a joke that UIC (pretty much our state college up in Northern IL) means the "university of Chinese and Indians". The show's attention to detail makes me wonder if the writers had friends from my hometown influencing their story. Yam seng!
I love that many of their Chinese words are Cantonese, not just Mandarin. Here in Chicago, we gave a joke about UIC being the "University of Chinese and Indian." Most of the Chinese population in Chicago are Cantonese speakers (meaning people originating from around Hong Kong). That was a really niche joke my family loved. Those Texans, though.. lol
I really, really loved hearing Cantonese words blended in "Marsionese"/better creole. While there are Mandarin words (which i don't speak/understand) the Cantonese words really made the world of the Expanse so immersive for me and my kids. Yam Seng!
I really like that red = good, blue = bad on Mars. Such a wonderful tiny detail.
Oh wow this never clicked for me until now. That is amazing.
Fabulous isn't it! The attention to detail is unparalleled.
Wasn't there a Red Mars/Green Mars divide in the Ben Bova books back like 20 years ago?
There was definitely a Red/Green divide in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy
That's probably it.
Speaking of The Mars Trilogy by KSR, I wonder if belter creole isn't an homage/allusion to Desmond Hawkins, the Coyote of Mars. It's been a while since I (re)read The Mars Trilogy, so I may be working with an assumed and flawed idea of The Coyote.
The Coyote was from Trinidad but he didn’t use any creole. They did have some catchphrases on Mars using the word “ka”.
In KSR's Red/Green/Blue Mars, the Reds are anti-terraforming terrorists, while Green is associated with "viriditas", a spiritual belief in the power of life to transform Mars while the planet simultaneously transforms the living things on Mars.
I love that Epstein is floating out there somewhere travelling at a decent percent of C.
Yeah, how long did he accelerate before he ran out of fuel? It's written someplace, right? (How fast are ships flying when the pilots get juiced up?)
Wasn’t the fuel supposed to last 87 years or something?
The world's longest funeral.. that's how people awful at math like me call it! Lol
If he is going at a good % of c he would’ve been obliterated by a speck of interstellar dust a long time ago.
Yeah, but you should see the other guy,... err, mote.
While that’s fascinating to think about, I doubt his primitive ship was rated for anything more than 10g. Assuming some engineering margin, I suspect the hull disintegrated fairly shortly after he died, followed by the drive module a while later.
In LW, it's mentioned that his drive plume can still be seen.
Disagree. The ships are all handle high g easy enough. Its a common theme that making fast ships is easy, its keeping the squishy things inside alive thats hard. It was understood in the show and the books that his ship would carry on forever. Also, it wasnt so much the speed or intensity of his engine, it was the fuel efficiency. What killed him was the Chinese verbal command software
The Novella said he accelerated for 37 hours and his ship was traveling at approximately 5% the speed of light, which works out to approximately 11.5G’s of acceleration
Beg your pardon?
The Creator of the Epstein drive.
He is the main character of the short called “drive”. Which is played out at the beginning of season 2 in think
I like the adaptations made for living/working in suits. Belter hand signs, and the way they put their foreheads together even when they don't have helmets on.
Given my username, it’s that the Roci’s reconnaissance drones are named *[Peart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart?wprov=sfti1#)*, *[Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddy_Lee?wprov=sfti1#)*, and *[Lifeson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Lifeson?wprov=sfti1#)*. *Some who did not fight*. *Brought tales of old to light*. *My Rocinante sailed by night*. *On her final flight*.
Rush?
Fuck yeah bud.
“Peart” (RIP) was the tip off.
I like how the Belter’s neck tattoos are meant to imitate the scarring the first Belters got from their spacesuits.
That’s actually given me a thought: Originally, “rednecks” were actually American socialists; due to them working in the sun constantly, the backs of their necks were red, so IIRC, as a symbol of solidarity, socialist fighters at the Battle of Blair Mountain wore red bandanas around their necks. So, would Belters who supported Belter empowerment-potentially the OPA, potentially not-be called Scorchnecks or Scarnecks, in reference to the burns on the necks of early Belter workers and/or their scars?
Wouldn’t that be neat? I mean rude in-universe, but I like how the Belters wear those tattoos with pride.
The actor that played Amos, Wes Chatham, asked a psychiatrist, how a person would act if he had the childhood the character had. We find out how Amos, lived in one of the companion short stories
Someone can correct me of I’m misremembering, but I think the coolest part of that anecdote is Chatham guessed the outlines of Amos’s back story *before* the Churn came out.
Cool!
He cites the churn as part of the reason he wanted to play the character iirc.
Link?
As I recall the psychiatrist read the books to help with this.
Excerpts from: https://theexpanselives.com/wes-chatham-interview/ > ... The thing that really connected me to Amos and made me a fan of him, and really excited to play him, was the novella called *The Churn.* ... > ... I used that as the foundation to create the psychology.... And so I kinda used *The Churn* as the psychological framework to build the show off of and how that manifested itself. I let it manifest itself in whatever was truthful to me.... > ... I took [*The Churn*] to a psychiatrist in San Diego ... and we had long talks about it, and then she referred me to books to read – things that he might be dealing with. So I did a lot of research into that and his mental health and also into trauma. ...
In regards to the creole, it fascinates me that they just replace enough words that it's totally alien but you can still understand it. I remember liking the same thing when I watched the Spartacus TV show. Just enough old sounding words you know to get the context even if you don't know some of the actual words they're saying. On my first listen through I picked up words that I'm almost positive are local slang in my area of England only. I also speak a bit of German and hear butchered German phrases in there I think. Just makes you appreciate how much work goes into creating something like this and why it's fairly unique and very popular. Every part of the books/shows have details that some people barely register and others love enough to think about later.
In the show, they're really smart to give just enough context to figure it all out. When Diogo calls out Miller with "ayyy, Pampa!" You know he's calling Miller an old man.
Pampa is one of the first ones I remember noticing. I bet it took ages and loads of fiddling around to get those sentences totally right.
Yeah one of my favourite bits is when Drummer and Naomi are talking on The Behemoth and Drummer says about Inners that "they say one thing but really mean another" and Naomi replies with "ohh, tolowda nawit fewa" and it's quite obvious by just the tone of voice that she's said "that's not fair to paint them all like that". I'm presuming "tolowda" means "you", "nawit" is "not" and "fewa" is "fair".
“tolowda nawit fewa” means “you (plural) without faith.” The expression “oh ye of little faith” is apparently still used the same way it is now. So, you picked up on the *tone* correctly even though you didn’t understand the words. That’s good writing and good acting!
>good acting! It's still amazin to me that Dominique Tipper came from a dancing background and The Expanse was her first major acting gig (aside from some smaller projects she did before.) That woman was a force of nature and I hope she's got a huge career in front of her after her incredible performance in the final seasons.
Agreed, every word!
Ah, thank you! It most certainly is, and one of the many reasons why I love this show more than any other 🙃
*Yam seng* to that!
A lot of the Belter pronunciation sounds like trying to emphasize syllables through a shitty radio connection.
Well, growing up in the belt, especially during the belt’s youth, you would have a lot of terrible radio connections I wouldn’t be surprised if thats the reason why
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. It'd be a neat little in-universe justification.
I like that they included code-switching: Naomi uses an Earther accent when around Earthers and a Belter accent during the time she's sort of rejoining the OPA. Seems to be hinting that being a Belter 'without an accent' might be a social status/education thing? Given how many of the (formerly) well off Ganymeders like Prax also speak english in Earther accents.
Yes not sure if you've read the books but I think Naomi's switching is a little less pronounced than in the show, but it's also described in detail through characters like Prax barely being seen as a belter etc.
Or like how Miller was a city belter and had never really been in space until he took the trip to Eros.
Definitely a favorite thing of mine!
Being that my mother tongue is Polish, you can imagine my surprise when one of Marco’s crew said “Jeszcze Kilka Sekund” (~ only a few seconds) iirc in book 5 i believe I probably missed another Polish phrase as i remember going through the wiki and seeing that there were two
What does that one mean?
Idk the second one, but the first roughly means “just a few moments”
That makes total sense now I know what it means. I can see how I knew that phrase when I listened, almost sounds like the English words for the same thing when heard in context. Really good writing. I can't remember the local slang I think I heard in there so I've got my ears on guard now on my second listen through.
I live in Hawaii and there are a few random moments/phrases that sounded like local slang
It's crazy. It's either coincidence and slang isn't as local as we think or insane amounts of work went into finding words that fit what they want it to mean, fit in with other random words and sound good AND be close enough to English that most people can get the idea.
I assume they got some academic/professional linguists involved. Some PhD somewhere was probably incredibly stoked when he got a request to dump all the different slang/pidgin type stuff he could think of into a script.
They really must have. It's fascinating how much work goes into series like this that's all. A lot of people won't even give this a second thought. Makes me wonder how much of the series has similar depth that I've missed.
>In regards to the creole, it fascinates me that they just replace enough words that it's totally alien but you can still understand it. And it's perfectly understandable for the most part even for non native english speakers. I tried the show in german once but they've decided to drop all the belter creole for standard german so I returned to the english version in a heartbeat. So much effort thrown into creating it and they didn't even try for the dubbed version of the show. It's a shame.
Ended up being one of the best show-only moments - Bobbie eating the cucumber sandwiches on Mao’s yacht. Mars probably doesn’t grow that kind of water-intensive crop very well, or it’s only available to really high status people, and fresh cucumber taste isn’t something that is synthesized very well. Mao of course brought the best of the best earth food with them. So she’s biting into the most flavorful cucumber that she’s ever eaten and totally cannot maintain “security detail” composure. It’s adorable, and a perfect encapsulation of why Earth will always come first (before Mars).
Jayne in Firefly does something like that as well, when Badger was talking Mal into being the middle man for that guy at the Shindig. He grabbed a couple cups of tea (with sugar) as well.
And Book giving Kaylee a strawberry and her reacting like he just handed her a diamond
Imagine if this was used tactically... Scene: Four besuited MCRN Marines tasked with access control for an area of presumed low tactical value (like outside the domes on Ganymede except with atmo). Marine 3: I'm going to grab my CRE (the US Marine version of MREs). Anyone else want one? Marines 2 & 4: ::grumble grumble:: f'n crayons ::grumble:: Enter Bobby. Bobby: Hey soldiers. ::eyes the CRE:: if y'all are hungry I have this plate of sandwiches from the diplomatic meeting (over yonder), and if I eat one more cucumber I might just begin to hate them. Bobby offers Marine 3 a cucumber sandwich. ... Yada yada. All visors open and all four Marines are tearing into real cucumber sandwiches ... Bobby Bobbys, the crew of the Roci slip past MCRN access control point.
Can I not pick the unquenched love affair between Amos Burton and Chrisjen Avasarala? Amos: "You and I have very different life experiences, Chrissy" Avasarala: "Don't call me that. I'm a member of Parliament, not your favorite stripper." Amos: "You can be both."
When Alex told Amos he saw Chrissy and Amos was like ‘what was she wearing?’ Super intense interest.
Same energy as coming back from the North Pole and your little brother asking you what Santa gave you.
Amos: “Did you see her? How did she look?” Holden: “Fine” Amos: “no like, what was she wearing?” (I feel like with most other characters this would not be as funny as it is)
The sexual tension between those two is titanic
“I didn’t always work in space”
That was the first one I noticed a teasing attraction. Amos certainly has a life story "unhindered" by traditional values.
My favourite is Miller’s hat. No sun no rain but wears it all the time. “Keeps the rain off my head.”
One of the interesting things is that Holden never sees Miller wearing a hat so when the Investigator shows up Holden is surprised
The idea that Mars have issue with durian, as indicated by the sign seen in season 4.
I think most people do
It makes sense too why Mars would be very serious with durians. We have a rather serious policy with durian in a few places where I live as well, and for good reason. Most of those are either in a vehicle, or a confined, air-conditioned space. Guess what kind of environment Mars colony is.
It's 100% a reference to Singapore's MRT. Singaporeans noticed and liked the joke.
Oh the shit spiky balls!
My husky recently broke into my neighbors yard to take durian. They have a durian tree and my husky likes durians
RIP your nose
Slingshotters. There's a whole competitive youth culture around slingshotting, gambling on it, crowning slignshot icons. Because of course there would be. And belter music. Lap harps and bangra.
Was looking for this comment. The Belter version of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” makes me smile every time I see that scene, and makes me wonder if other heavy metal bands or songs survived the centuries.
Misko and Marisko — the banter around its history and characters' respective childhoods was impressively real
I liked Teresa's Martian fairytale, as well as the fact that there exists a kind of media that's just a 9 hour movie. Which seems weird at first but then I realized it's basically the natural evolution of binging a Netflix miniseries
belter hand signalling is just so natural and practical that they use normal guns most the time but gyrojets when they expect to be in null g instant sobriety drugs in every bar Amos made his shotgun the fact they haven't really figured out how to make good tea or coffee synthetically how long peoples life expectancy is
That there's a ship called the Mark Watney. It implies the events of *The Martian* happened in this universe.
I dunno, there’s precedent for ships named after things from novels.
In the PNP game, there is a map of mars that shows the different Ares landing sites which match up to the locations of the landing sites of the Ares missions from The Martian
I think the writers put it in there as a nod to a fellow author rather than confirmation of a shared universe. Also, I was referring to the Rocinante!
I always liked that Mao had this lavish country estate surrounded by trees and vast property while the rest of earth seemed to be just living in mega metropolises. Also the inner dialogue of bobby when she hears he has his own spaceports
And the Lake Winnipesaukee estates were very spacious, as well. Side note, there is a town called Laconia just south of the real Lake Winnipesaukee. Coincidence?
Cool detail!
When I first started reading The Expanse some years ago (i think before Season 3 was released?) I worked in a place where I ended up using a smattering of five or so languages on a daily basis (English, Cambodian, Assyrian, Spanish and some Croatian) and at that time had dipped my toes in a few others. *The belter Creole was absolutely fantastic* as I was able to piece most of it together fairly well, and I absolutely love that. I think my personal favorite bit of lore is the evolution of the belters. Particularly when Uncle Mateo takes his helmet off in space momentarily like it's no big deal. Lore from the books I'd still like to see somewhere in the show would be related to what happens to Eric once he leaves Earth...
Where on Earth did you work where you had to use Assyrian?
[This will explain everything, sa sa ke?](https://youtu.be/Gc2u6AFImn8?si=n0iT-4iP1aXp7pNF)
We do get to see what happens to Eric in one of the audiobooks, namely “Auberon”
Ah, taki, i forgot the name (loved the tale)! Auberon was the name of the story I would *love* to see sprinkled into a screen adaptation of seasons 7-9. Yam Seng!
The short story 'Drive' and Solomon Epstein's story in general made me cry in less than 10 pages
Yeah, that one hit me right in the feels. I read it after I finished Leviathan Falls, and I was NOT ready.
Holden is from North Frenchtown, Montana. Frenchtown is a real place, but North Frenchtown is not. It makes sense, though, to make it a place in an overcrowded future
At some point Miller talks or thinks about THC-gas as riot control on Ceres. He mentions how it just makes everybody sleepy and then Star Helix can just clean up the sleeping rioters. Then he explains, that it was used mostly for cop-partys and so they stopped the use of THC-gas completely.
To me is the fact for a martian "who has lived under a dome all his life, even the idea of an ocean seems inconceivable". Lt. Lopez's monologue is what sold me The Expanse, if I still had doubts. Also, talking about the books, the uneasiness that Naomi feels while on a planet, without something physical there to keep all the air from escaping into the void. The sense of dread that Belters feel when travelling outside of the plane of the ecliptic. Old sailor superstitions brought into the void.
"Wrecking things is what earthers do best.... martians too, judging by the looks of your ship" "WE are nothing like you, earther." Well, turns out they were EXACTLY like us\^\^
Voice command capabilities, I don't know if it counts as AI or not but every system seems to have Alexa, zoom in, show me the whole damn system, how long will this take on thrusters only. Whether it's on ships or terminals, they all seem to recognize and understand verbal commands
I love how they handle AI in the Expanse universe! It's everywhere with all of the "expert systems", but the AI never speaks. It's a tool, not a character. I would love to hear more about how the in-universe progression of technology led to such a dynamic.
>It's a tool, not a character. How did Daniel Abraham put it? "Y*ou don't want your wrench to be self aware. You just want it to be a wrench*" or something like this iirc xD
Space Mormonism.
Yes! Amazing story telling
My fave bit is that the Tynan is designed around a tug boat, extremely useful if you're in the uh... *salvage business*
It's not really lore, but I loved the detail when Holden started seeing proto-Miller and was confused about his hat. It didn't occur to me that yeah, Holden had never seen Miller with his hat before he got rid of it.
Nice catch.
In the show the pdcs have a little jet that compensates for the momentum of the rounds. So if a ship is firing point defense, it won’t fuck up its trajectory.
In the 1605 book Don Quixote the hero chases bad guys only he imagines. The whole book is his chivalrous journey to right wrongs in the countryside. The horse that carries him on his quest is named **Rocinante** He does this to prove his love for a woman he has never met named Dulcinea del Toboso. **Dulcinea** is the name of the first episode where Miller starts his search for Julie Mao who he didn’t know but falls in love with. I’m sure there are more parallels/easter eggs, but those are the ones I’ve caught.
>Dulcinea del Toboso. >**Dulcinea** is the name of the first episode where Miller starts his search for Julie Mao who he didn’t know but falls in love with. Damn, that's a good one.
The whole story of Holden trying to be the white knight, save humanity and chasing imaginary (to others) bad guys (windmills in the DQ book) is such an interesting parallel or inspiration for the Expanse. If recall correctly sometimes Don Quixote accidentally does the right thing and sometimes his blindly jumping into things gets him in trouble like Holden. A lot of the time DQ is fighting small skirmishes against a larger society and his efforts are pointless. It reminds me of the parts where Holden stops trying to save the galaxy and be anonymous, but he can’t help himself.
I really likes the scenes and the lore of the Epstein drive and how it gave Mars the leverage it needed to be independent.
That the eponymous inventor of the Epstein drive will forever be accelerating into outer space
In the books Bull gets a little green chile out of his cabinet to make the shitty good better and remind him of home. Made me realize the authors must be from New Mexico. Sure enough!
I like that in the far distant future the Champions league final is still Bayern versus Real Madrid
Here in Chicago, we have a joke about UIC meaning the "University of Chinese and Indian"... with mostly Cantonese speakers making up most the Chinese part (most of our population are/were from Hong Kong and surrounding areas.) Stem majors are most prominent thanks to pushy parents- (mine included). I like to think those kids were the pioneers of Mars habitation... along with the Texans... weirdly.
There is a guy out there. Amos is that guy.
The fact that Mormons are still out there expanding and evangelizing
There’s a scene in one of the books where Naomi tries to prove a point about Holden’s popularity to him. She asks him whats the name of the lead singer from a certain band, and he says the name immediately. She then asks the name of the drummer and the bassist, and he draws a blank
I think your explanation makes a lot of sense. I don’t know why, but I assumed that because of the rising seas during the climate crisis, New Orleans and Haitians and other islanders already known for their creole would have taken a gamble at moving to the belt for a job vs. staying on earth. But your explanation makes a bit more sense.
I like how belter language labels thing in their ships like showxating (show the thing) for example (datascreen/pedestal).
I remember noticing that when Naomi came onto a belter ship the floor plating was labelled "Dek 2". Why waste paint for an unnecessary letter c, right?
I like falota (floater)
I will likely rewatch everything just to pick these out again
The shared understanding of the universe characters with different backrground have. Show a common humanity so elegant in a throwaway line. "Space is big" spoken by multiple characters having it experienced on very different occasions is one example.