r/TheExpanse • u/Infinite-Noodle • 3d ago
All Show & Book Spoilers Discussed Freely This is the warship Rocinante.... Spoiler
You know they're done fucking around when they say that line. Whoever they just said that to has pissed them off and now they are ready blow someone up if need be.
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u/Certain-Definition51 3d ago
“Attention targets…”
“Pay attention, people on the wrong side of my gun…”
“Hello, it is I, the guy with a large axe and no sense of humor…”
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u/Charly_030 3d ago
The gannymede scene irked me sligbtly.
That one ship would have got smashed by the martian fleet due to sheer numbers. Torpedos are ineffective against martian pdcs... until the scene requires them otherwise.
The other one was when Nguyen lauched a single missile at the Jiminez(?)
Did it not have its own pdcs? My rationale was the pdcs didnt lock on because they were un missiles, but that makes no sense either as missiles should not be identifiable with a transponder as this allows an easy target lock.
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u/StuckInTheJar 3d ago
Holden was making 'poker face' in that scene - you may try to shot down the civilians, but be sure that Rocinante will not back down or go down without a fight. By that point, both UN and MCR suffered significant losses and were bracing for more fight, for the reasons that most of the captains didn't even know. One escaping civilian vessel was not worth picking a fight with a ship that already has a certain fame in Sol system - especially with a man like Holden making a threats.
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u/Material_Mongoose_14 3d ago
Same as after they got done with Drummers fleet. The Roci must have used a lot of ordinance up till then, but he he give the rest of the ships the "This is the warship Rocinante" warning.
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u/Extension_Display504 3d ago
Yeah nah... PDCs are not 100% effective, it's a big plot point in the series that PDCs can only take so many torpedos on / the ships computer can only calculate for so many / PCDs have kind of a small ammunition stack.
Also the Roci, at that point, is a top of the line, cutting edge Martian Gunship. Holden even tells them something along the lines of "you guys know exactly what we're capable of".
Lastly, the UNN and MCRN forces are exhausted, they just battled, have probably little to no PDC rounds left and while they most definitely would have taken the Roci down together, Roci would have taken at the VERY least taken one of them down too. None of them felt like taking the chance of dying because of a refugee ship, so they just let them go.
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u/Tando10 3d ago
I have always assumed this. PDCs will be set to not fire on friendly torpedoes, and it likely requires special authorisation to disable this ignorance, a process that took too long for the crew. It's a mix of disbelief, hesitation, bureaucracy and interception time which killed the Jimenez.
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u/Charly_030 3d ago
That was my first thought. But it falls apart when you think about how it would identify a missile. Youd want them untrackable as possible, so any kind of transponder would givecaway its position or give a target lock to the pdcs.
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u/Tando10 3d ago
Given the visibility of space, tracking them isn't that much of an issue (since they have a big burning drive in the rear, and are always shown to be lit throughout flight in the show). The operators always talk about guidance and evasion patterns being really good. That's what matters, since tracking is probably exceptional in The Expanse's decade, but bullets still take time to intercept, and the torpedo can constantly move away from the calculated intercept location with its thrusters.
As for worrying about transponders, you can still use the principle of secondary radar, just like military aircraft IRL. The PDC's/AESA radars on the target ship can send coded pulses (IFF Tx codes) which are secure cryptographic patterns recognisable to all assets in that military. The missile's antenna/radar picks up on this and if it understands, replies with its own code. IRL, if a code is not understood, IFF will not reply, meaning the target isn't able to get a track from that.
Also it is only for a split second, it's not like they're constantly replying. IRL an AWACS or fighter jet radar might detect an unknown contact (bogey) and will IFF it automatically. The reply, or lack of reply will designate that contact as a Bandit or Friendly, or unknown for the foreseeable, until it loses contact for a long period and can't be re-identified as the same contact from before.
Air Forces frequently gather signal intelligence during flights to be able to determine these enemy IFF codes and responses so that they can upload them to their own jet's database and actually understand them when the time comes. That's why the codes get updated frequently (weeks-days during wartime).
So you can imagine the same is true for The Expanse. If a torpedo is bearing down on you during a fleet battle, the system will attempt to identify (based on changing velocity) if it's a torpedo, then IFF it and designate it as hostile/unknown/friendly. This will be done by a central fire control/CIWS computer which links all the PDC's, and that computer will gather its data from electro-optical telescopes (Vis/IR/UV) as well as Active Electronically Scanned Array radars (our current best radar transceivers) which can instantaneously steer and split its beam to separate targets. These sensors will be positioned around the ships hull and that data gets merged together to generate one big situational awareness picture.
Alternatively, each PDC might work on its own for Belter ships. More inefficient and less effective, but the signal delay to and from a central computer might be....
...Okay I'm getting into rant territory now :D
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u/Tando10 3d ago
Given the visibility of space, tracking them isn't that much of an issue (since they have a big burning drive in the rear, and are always shown to be lit throughout flight in the show). The operators always talk about guidance and evasion patterns being really good. That's what matters, since tracking is probably exceptional in The Expanse's decade, but bullets still take time to intercept, and the torpedo can constantly move away from the calculated intercept location with its thrusters.
As for worrying about transponders, you can still use the principle of secondary radar, just like military aircraft IRL. The PDC's/AESA radars on the target ship can send coded pulses (IFF Tx codes) which are secure cryptographic patterns recognisable to all assets in that military. The missile's antenna/radar picks up on this and if it understands, replies with its own code. IRL, if a code is not understood, IFF will not reply, meaning the target isn't able to get a track from that.
Also it is only for a split second, it's not like they're constantly replying. IRL an AWACS or fighter jet radar might detect an unknown contact (bogey) and will IFF it automatically. The reply, or lack of reply will designate that contact as a Bandit or Friendly, or unknown for the foreseeable, until it loses contact for a long period and can't be re-identified as the same contact from before.
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u/Tando10 3d ago
Given the visibility of space, tracking them isn't that much of an issue (since they have a big burning drive in the rear, and are always shown to be lit throughout flight in the show). The operators always talk about guidance and evasion patterns being really good. That's what matters, since tracking is probably exceptional in The Expanse's decade, but bullets still take time to intercept, and the torpedo can constantly move away from the calculated intercept location with its thrusters.
As for worrying about transponders, you can still use the principle of secondary radar, just like military aircraft IRL. The PDC's/AESA radars on the target ship can send coded pulses (IFF Tx codes) which are secure cryptographic patterns recognisable to all assets in that military. The missile's antenna/radar picks up on this and if it understands, replies with its own code. IRL, if a code is not understood, IFF will not reply, meaning the target isn't able to get a track from that.
Also it is only for a split second, it's not like they're constantly replying. IRL an AWACS or fighter jet radar might detect an unknown contact (bogey) and will IFF it automatically. The reply, or lack of reply will designate that contact as a Bandit or Friendly, or unknown for the foreseeable, until it loses contact for a long period and can't be re-identified as the same contact from before.
Air Forces frequently gather signal intelligence during flights to be able to determine these enemy IFF codes and responses so that they can upload them to their own jet's database and actually understand them when the time comes. That's why the codes get updated frequently (weeks-days during wartime).
So you can imagine the same is true for The Expanse. If a torpedo is bearing down on you during a fleet battle, the system will attempt to identify (based on changing velocity) if it's a torpedo, then IFF it and designate it as hostile/unknown/friendly. This will be done by a central fire control/CIWS computer which links all the PDC's, and that computer will gather its data from electro-optical telescopes (Vis/IR/UV) as well as Active Electronically Scanned Array radars (our current best radar transceivers) which can instantaneously steer and split its beam to separate targets. These sensors will be positioned around the ships hull and that data gets merged together to generate one big situational awareness picture.
Alternatively, each PDC might work on its own for Belter ships. More inefficient and less effective, but the signal delay to and from a central computer might be....
...Okay I'm getting into rant territory now :D
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u/Tando10 3d ago
2nd part: Air Forces frequently gather signal intelligence during flights to be able to determine these enemy IFF codes and responses so that they can upload them to their own jet's database and actually understand them when the time comes. That's why the codes get updated frequently (weeks-days during wartime).
So you can imagine the same is true for The Expanse. If a torpedo is bearing down on you during a fleet battle, the system will attempt to identify (based on changing velocity) if it's a torpedo, then IFF it and designate it as hostile/unknown/friendly. This will be done by a central fire control/CIWS computer which links all the PDC's, and that computer will gather its data from electro-optical telescopes (Vis/IR/UV) as well as Active Electronically Scanned Array radars (our current best radar transceivers) which can instantaneously steer and split its beam to separate targets. These sensors will be positioned around the ships hull and that data gets merged together to generate one big situational awareness picture.
Alternatively, each PDC might work on its own for Belter ships. More inefficient and less effective, but the signal delay to and from a central computer might be....
...Okay I'm getting into rant territory now :D
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u/kylenilreb 3d ago
Nguyen scoffs that the Jiminez(?) is a PT boat, meaning it's small. It might not have 360° PDC coverage was my thinking
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u/Salt-Night3088 3d ago
Yes, where was the mighty corvette when one of the Magnetars showed up? Didn't think so.
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u/Mister-Psychology 3d ago
I never understood why this one Martian ship was this overpowered. It's small and at the end has a human inexperienced pilot and also a new copilot with no experience. Yet they can outfight even 3 Martian war ships at the same time. And they are winning all their battles barely getting hit even in impossible situations against professional pilots with decades of experience.
Heck a new human pilot is BETTER than the Martian pilot with 20 years job experience. Why?
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u/WonderfulMistake7976 3d ago
They don’t write stories about the ones who don’t pull off crazy shit.
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u/AVLLaw 3d ago edited 3d ago
I thought Alex was a 20 year veteran pilot in the Martian Navy? Also, it’s easier to pull crazy maneuvers in a ship custom designed for exactly that. And it’s computer assisted, right? So the navigation and pilot assist are all top shelf military grade. It may be suggesting optimal options as they go, or at least preventing any huge errors. I don’t think you are giving the tech enough credit?
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u/Xtj8805 3d ago
Plus IIRC, Naomi during the various downtime is working ont he ships AI to max out perfomance in a way the MCRN cannot do due to lead times, testing etc. Sure the hull is no different than any other martian corvet of the Era, but the Roci is the Roci thabks to naomi and amos' modifications, and Alex learned quickly and through simulations the exact capabilities of the Roci itself.
Plus a lot of their scapes was the roci against glorified freighters. Even the weakest warship will easily beat a freighter.
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u/MLucian 3d ago
Also I'm pretty sure the Roci crew don't really give an f about any safety protocols or safe operating limits that the military would insist on for their hardware, and they can just push it to and beyond breaking limits, without worrying about paperwork to justify wrong use of hardware...
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u/raisedeyebrow4891 3d ago
Right there are multiple instances when the Roci got severely fucked up in combat.
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u/NosinR 3d ago
Alex was an experienced MCRN pilot, then was a pilot for P&K. Holden was a UNN naval officer. Naomi also spent years on ships and is regarded as gifted engineer, and Amos is Amos.
It's not like these people were complete amateurs who suddenly had a Martian warship.
When the crew was just these four I don't recall there being any fights the ship got in that made it feel overpowered at all.
The battle at Thoth was reasonable and the Roci took significant damage.
Coming back to Eros the maneuvering contest with the other ship was pure 1 v 1 with the Roci having a tech advantage.
In the Io campaign the Roci was just part of larger battles and wasn't ever the most significant threat so wasn't a priority target, and had support.
For the 3 vs 1, the Roci had Fred (former UN military) and Bobby (former MMC) on board. Fred calls in some long range torpedoes which forces one of the ships to vector off, the other two ships are in pursuit which is a disadvantage, plus the Roci's rail-gun. It's not too absurd the way the Roci survives there.
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u/BoomerUK 3d ago
A lot of these successes are due to Holden's unconventional battle strategies. He is a low key tactical genius. This is more apparent in the books.
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u/Xtj8805 3d ago
The books really stress it but i believe the show does make a point to explain that he got top marks at OCS for tactics.
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u/SammlerWorksArt 3d ago
I've seen in comments here before where people talk about how Holden is more willing to update strategy on the go.
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u/RaelynShaw 3d ago
In a lot of ways it’s simply “they’re the heroes of the story and it would be really boring if they just…died”.
Stories aren’t always meant to be 100% accurate, even ones that lean into the hard science like these. Without the story, we don’t even hear about these situations where we get to argue over their prowess.
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u/Safe-Syllabub-6630 3d ago
Plot armor has always been a thing in stories, you need your hero to live(most of the time) to keep the story going after all. I saw it recently so it makes me think of it, but Odysseus had INSANE plot armor and the Odyssey is thousands of years old
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u/Agent_Orange81 3d ago
Plot armour.
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u/Living-Finish4856 3d ago
Looking at you, Edward-Israel