The Expanse - 4.10: Cibola Burn

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Ashford closes in on an enemy while uncovering a dangerous plot. Avasarala faces a crossroads in her personal and political life. The Roci crew works to reestablish life on Ilus in the wake of a deadly catastrophe.

 

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Papa Ashford. Sabaka.

It's sad that we had to say good bye to the great man Ashford represented. He was a true Belter to the end. May his soul find a way back from the great void. There is no way that the shadow ship can rescue him from the deep cold. He is goner and that is the reason why I had problems on writing this review. Losing the great Belter Pirate Captain is sad.

He deserved better. To have a chance to open that bottle with Drummer and show the Belt brass how thing are done. I suspect that there is a need for the Belter faction to address their state in the great scheme of things. They, like the Outer Planets have been completely forgotten. They don't have a real thing or anything going for them, because the honey doesn't drop from the Belter Brass. All they can do is to focus on their precious station at the centre of the New Worlds.

Think about it. Who will provide for the poor Belters when there was nothing before. It was them that did the original run. It was them that build the base in the New Terra. And they even managed to gather whole shipment of valuable ore, while in the Belt they had nothing.

Earth and Mars could have provided them and eaten a load from Belter's political capital. Humanitary can be used as a weapon. Funny as it is Ashford knows it. He has a better eye for the big picture than people grant him.

Marco, with his intellect could be a great belt leader. A great warlord. But it's hatred that poisons his soul. Earth has to go, even if it means that end of species. It's kind of funny that he doesn't see the cradle of humanity as a food basket or as a source of technology.

Mars and Earth are in sort of alliance at the moment, and if the new enemy presents itself, they have no choice but to unite their forces. A war against the Belt would look easy and in a way a return back to the way back to the old days.

I don't know if the old days as better days, because the Ring gives them so much hope. A chance to really start over and make humans a great player in the galaxy or a few of them. It's just, if there is someone out there, I'm not certain that the humanity is ready for the intergalactic conflict.

Being able to regenerate limps is much more than what they had in the first season. It is a big leap in the medical science, and it would mean that if they would have gouged out their eyeballs to cure the green typhoid, they could just regenerate their eyes. That technology represents immortality.

This correlates with my theory of Bobby being a double agent. She is in deep undercover and she wants to maintain that position until she can't, which makes her call to Avasarala all so much more interesting, because it could make her triple if she got the job.

She also has not lost any of her combat skills. Her problem is that she's no longer wearing a power armour, and therefore she cannot really be doing assaults that she did in the dock yard. It's like her training demands her to be aggressive instead of using her head.

 

[svalbard]

Yes. Ashford was a real badass. I am going to miss him although I do have a problem with his ending. He had Marco in his sights. Surely he knew that giving up would mean his own death. Why take the shot?

Who will get the privilege of taking Marco down. Naomi, Drummer or even Holding? Hope it is Drummer.

BTW it was a great action scene.

 

[ctg]

BTW it was a great action scene.

It was a beautiful and a brutal fight. I feel could have continued fighting instead of giving up so easily. A few shots in their command equipment would have harmed long term things.

 

[Al Jackson]

Season 4 seems mostly to tell the story of Ilus … that seems over... the Belt and Mars seem like all set up. Season 5 all action moves back the solar system? Tho , I guess, the Poly-Moly rides in the background. Marco Inaros's story in S5 look to be a ripping yarn. Look forward to that. The actor playing Marco I have never seen before, I am impressed with the actor.... Keon Alexander …

 

[Al Jackson]

I of course am greatly entertained by season 4 of The Expanse.
I will repeat myself, only complaint, story needed more elaboration even if Belt and Mars are set ups.
Should have 60 min. , at least, episodes.

 

[Susan Boulton]

It's as I thought everything thing that happened on Earth, Mars and the Belt are from book 5.

As to the regrowing of limbs etc. Remember the Belter settlement had just basic medical tech. Earth and Mars have the most advance, if you have the money or position. The Rossi, being a ex Mars warship, would have it. Also they needed a fix for the eye problem, which is a bit rushed in the series, in the book it chugs along in the back ground from the start of the book.

 

[ctg]

As to the regrowing of limbs etc. Remember the Belter settlement had just basic medical tech. Earth and Mars have the most advance, if you have the money or position.

It is interesting that they have not talked about the immortality then even though it is in their grasp. They don't need the clones to do that, when they can simply keep regenerating the failing organs. Eventually they might even learn how to rejuvenate themselves. Which makes it so much more interesting, if you are into transhumanism.

They have not talked about it, but it's clear that the Expanse is a transhuman culture, with all things possible. So it is kind of intriguing that they kind of sigh away from enhancing themselves, and instead choose to remain as humans. The Protomolecule People are the ultimate expression, an end product of that line, but so are the Creators.

If the Miller Construct was one of them, then they too reached the ultimate stage, and maybe they were competing each other. Just like we do in the Expanse universe or in our own. That is one of the reasons for why the Expanse is the hottest thing since Ronald D Moore's BSG. It shows the audience, to us, truer way than Star Trek ever could. And it is not an utopia.

Well, it's not a dystopia either, but the picture of us getting more and more divided is clear. You can already see it happening, with the Elite and the Authorities distancing themselves from the normal people. It's kind of sad that we have to live in this sort pyramidal structure without no real hope in sight. Although, the way we are collectively going through the spaces of moving ourselves to Moon and then to Mars and to the Great Asteroid Belt is clear and it might not happen, they way it happens in the Expanse.

I strongly believe that we find that we are not alone and that there are ruins of older civilisations all over our solar system. We just haven't found them or then we haven't been told about them. Whatever the truth is, I'm kind of glad that the regenerative technology will become reality at some point.

We certainly are on the way to achieve fusion power.

 

[REBerg]

It's sad that we had to say good bye to the great man Ashford represented. He was a true Belter to the end. May his soul find a way back from the great void. There is no way that the shadow ship can rescue him from the deep cold. He is goner and that is the reason why I had problems on writing this review. Losing the great Belter Pirate Captain is sad.

He had Marco in his sights. Surely he knew that giving up would mean his own death. Why take the shot?

t was a beautiful and a brutal fight. I feel could have continued fighting instead of giving up so easily. A few shots in their command equipment would have harmed long term things.

I was shocked that Ashford was killed. As a Belter who could see the big picture and had put the interests of Humanity above those of his own faction, his character had more depth and most if not all of the others in the show.
I think it was his hope for the future that kept him from going out in a hail of gunfire, destroying all that he could in his final moments, The calmness and defiance with which he accepted his fate were a testament to his greatness.

It is interesting that they have not talked about the immortality then even though it is in their grasp.

I imagine immortality or a greatly extended lifespan is available to the Earth elite, but it wouldn't make sense to extend it to the masses on the home planet, which is already teeming with purposeless people who have no place to go.
Immortality for a space crew or on a sparsely settled exoplanet, however, would be an entirely different thing.

Marco, with his intellect could be a great belt leader. A great warlord. But it's hatred that poisons his soul. Earth has to go, even if it means that end of species. It's kind of funny that he doesn't see the cradle of humanity as a food basket or as a source of technology.

I can't blame the guy. The ring opens up 1,300 planets for expansion and who's blocking Belters from realizing their dreams? Earth.
Beyond that, season 5 is going to need a new conflict, assuming that the protomolecule has been vanquished.

Being able to regenerate limps is much more than what they had in the first season

I know it's just a typo, but I had to laugh at the thought of regenerating a "limp."

 

[svalbard]

I agree about Ashford. His character arc was one of the more complete ones in the series. Drummer is going to be seriously peeved when finds out what Marco has done considering since she had the chance to space him. She is going to be one hell of a guilt trip.

 

[Al Jackson]

I imagine immortality or a greatly extended lifespan is available to the Earth elite, but it wouldn't make sense to extend it to the masses on the home planet, which is already teeming with purposeless people who have no place to go.
Immortality for a space crew or on a sparsely settled exoplanet, however, would be an entirely different thing.

Yeah 200 years in the future (isn't it 300 in the books?)… advances in technology bringing longevity has been a topic in prose SF. In Cities in Flight James Blish had anti-agathic" drugs or Stroon in Cordwainer Smith's stories, meds that stopped aging.
There are long lived to immortal civilizations in prose SF.
I don't know about the books, there are a lot of technologies that should have developed in 200 to 300 years.
Propulsion using antimatter , would expect solid state electronics so compact one would never see a box of wires , even sleeker pressure suits, tho I like that the show has not bulked them up, more automation , lack of robots is ok, but except them to be sort of submerged (so to speak) into the fabric of the technology , there are drones … but nothing quite specific... and did AI fail to emerge?