The Expanse: S1 Ep 10: Leviathan Awakes

As I said in the last post on Ep 9: Critical Mass, this episode picks up right where the last one left off. So I won’t waste any time either.

Another quick flashback.

We see Dresden is still taking samples of the virus from Julie Mao’s dead body. He lets on that Julie’s father knows about and is in on the Eros Station experiments.

Eventually, Dresden leaves Eros. On his ship, we see him watching the aftermath of the radiation and the virus spreading. He forwards the video of the dying citizens to this superiors.

Miller and Holden are getting desperate.

Miller and Holden are in a desperate search for anything to stem the effects of radiation poisoning. They get some and then head for the docks of Eros to meet up with Naomi, Alex, and Amos. As they make their way to The Rocinante, they try to figure out why they citizens of Eros are being radiated.

They’re getting sicker and sicker. The radiation is causing their insides to literally melt. Worse, neither of them knows where they’re going. As they search for a route, they enter a square where they find some police setting up equipment. They find refuge in an abandoned game room and while there, Miller begins to hallucinate from the radiation poisoning.

Suddenly, a policeman decides to check out the game room. With no other options, Miller has to quickly take action. He kills the policeman before Holden can stop him. It’s clear Holden is beginning to understand what kind of man Miller really is.

Using the dead policeman’s communicator to learn where other patrols are, they’re able to keep out of site. While they’re trying to figure out what the instruments were that the police were setting up in the square, the Eros station public transport pods reactivate. Miller and Holden are excited at first but only find more sick citizens inside. The citizens are all covered with the same virus as Julie Mao. Miller and Holden realize the virus is being spread on purpose.

En route to the docks and The Rocinante the two of them are confronted by another police patrol. Once again, Miller quickly takes care of the patrol with no remorse.

They take the clothes from the patrolmen so they can move about Eros easier. As they roam the deserted streets, they come across Kenzo, the stowaway they crossed paths with earlier. Kenzo is trying to get to the docks, too and asks Holden for help. Kenzo is desperate, knowing that staying on Eros is a death sentence but Holden doesn’t care. He chases Kenzo off. This time Miller witnesses the ruthless side of Holden.

Eventually, they reach the entrance to the docks where they find there is another standoff. It seems CPM has recruited a bunch of former OPA operatives, thugs, and gangsters to act as security for them. But now that CPM is finishing their experiments on Eros, they no longer need the conscripted security team so CPM is not allowing them to escape Eros.

Somehow Miller and Holden need to get through to The Rocinante. They cause a diversion which quickly escalates between the CPM guards and the former thugs. During the chaos, they make their way through to the elevator to the docks.

Finally, they try to get in touch with The Rocinante but are unable to reach anyone. Holden assumes Naomi followed his orders and took off without them.  Stuck at the doors to the docks, they collapse, unable to walk, dying from the radiation poisoning.

At the last minute…the doors open and Amos pops his head out.

How Naomi, Amos, and Alex reach The Rocinante.

After the shootout in front of the docks, Naomi, Alex,  Amos, and Semi reach the same conclusion about Eros Station that Miller and Holden have reached: something bad is going on.

Still stuck outside of the docks, Naomi tells the group she can guide them through the underground shafts that the OPA operatives use to move around. Eventually, they’re joined by some Eros citizens.

As they make their way through the tunnels, they can hear the suffering of the radiated citizens in the streets above. They begin to doubt Naomi knows where she’s going. Soon, she begins to doubt herself, too.

Eventually, they get through the tunnels and the blocks put up to distract anyone down there and reach the docks and The Rocinante.

While on board, there is a disagreement between Naomi, Semi, and Amos. Semi and Amos want to leave immediately, but Naomi insists on waiting for Holden. The disagreement ends with Semi being killed. So they wait.

While they are waiting, Alex intercepts the transmission of Dresden’s video recordings to his superiors. He’s able to track where the transmission is going.

Off to Season 2.

As we already know, Miller and Holden do reach The Rocinante and are on their deathbeds. Luckily, The Rocinante has adequate medical supplies to help Miller and Holden recover.

As the two of them recover, Alex blasts them out of the locked docking bay doors and The Rocinante speeds away to…Safety? Mystery? Danger? Whatever happens, they’re heading to the location that Dresden’s files were sent to.

Earth and Avarasala.

Avarasala has been trying to investigate deeper into the fusion drives. She’s invited to a briefing where Undersecretary Errinwright will explain the origins of the drives and how they got to Tycho Station. He wants to show that Fred Johnson has something to do with it all. Although Avarasala does not believe Errinwright, but plays along.

While Errinwright is inviting Avarasala to the briefing, Julie Mao’s father walks up and is introduced to her.

Later, as Avarasala is home talking with her husband, she tells him she suspects a deeper conspiracy and that Undersecretary Errinwright is at the heart of it.

Season 1 ends…

…with the lonely Kenzo exploring the now deathly quiet streets of Eros Station. He comes across the virus floating in the air, slowly spreading through the station. It’s also evolved. It’s able to mimic Kenzo’s form. Then tentacles shoot out and pull him into the center of its body…

The Expanse: S1 Ep 9 Critical Mass

Whew! This season’s almost over! If you’ve been following me on the journey, you’ll notice that I moved as slowly as the show did. That’s a joke, so I hope you chuckled. Anyway, I’ll be finishing this just in time for y’all to get excited for Season 2 of SyFy’s most popular TV series.

If you’re watching On-Demand,  Ep 9 and Ep 10 are usually bundled into one long episode because the events flow together but for y’all, I’ll break it into two separate posts to keep things uniform.

Catching up…

S1 Ep 8 was called “Salvage.” In that episode, we had the deeply satisfying meeting of Miller, Holden, and the rest of Holden’s team on Eros Station. Chaos ensues as Miller helps Holden fend off a U.N. kill squad. It’s all topped off when our two main characters finally find Julie Mao.

Now, let’s tie Season 1 all up. Flashback to…

… the events that led Julie Mao to the hotel on Eros. We finally get some background and we, as an audience, can start to piece the clues together.

We’re taken back to Miller discussing his theories about Julie Mao’s disappearance and why The Canterbury and The Donnager were blown up with Olivia. This was the point that he realized Julie was part of something big.

(If you’re confused on which ship is which in the series, click here for a refresher)

We’re then further taken back 7 weeks to onboard The Scopuli with Julie Mao. The entire crew is made up of Belters and they’re planning to high-jack a cargo ship when the stealth ship, The Anubis, suddenly appears. The Anubis’ crew violently boards The Scopuli and kills everyone except Julie Mao. At a critical moment, we also overhear The Anubis crew say they’ve planted a homing beacon on The Scopuli to draw The Canterbury to it. We now know the destruction of The Canterbury was part of their mysterious plan.

Julie is kept in a cell. She’s able to send a distress signal using her code name: Lionel Polanski. We also learn that she was on The Anubis when it attacked and destroyed The Canterbury way back in Episode 1.

After much time, Julie escapes her cell to find the ship is deserted and sees signs of a struggle. After further exploration, Julie is terrified to find the same creature is at The Anubis’ core reactor. It’s this creature that Holden and Naomi came across. But when Julie finds it, we’re led to believe she sees it in all its horror.

She retreats to The Anubis’ control room where she quickly records a message for Anderson Dawes explaining why she’s on The Anubis and what she’s found. It’s this message we later see Fred Johnson unscramble and listen to.

After sending the message Julie Mao hides The Anubis on the abandoned asteroid where Holden and crew later find it.

The flashback ends with Miller receiving the call from Inspector Semi, his friend on Eros Station, letting him know there’s a shuttle from The Anubis there.

From there, we follow Julie Mao’s arrival and retreat to her hiding place in the hotel. We also watch her health deteriorate and see her finally curl up to die in the spot where Holden and Miller find her. 

Back to The Expanse timeline, sort of…

From here, the show takes on an almost ‘Game of Thrones’ feel as we jump from scene to scene and setting to setting in order to tell the full story with all of the events happening at the same time. Try to keep up…

We’re zapped back to the present Miller’s and Holden’s reaction to finally finding Julie Mao.

They realize they need to leave quickly. As they get to the hotel lobby, they find Semi waiting for them. Semi can see Miller is stunned and want’s to know what’s going on. He tells them to get away while he handles things with the soon to arrive authorities. As they leave, they cross paths with a new crew of characters who ask to be shown to Julie Mao’s room. They say they’re from an organization called CPM. Semi has no idea who they are. They’re certainly not affiliated with any Eros authorities.

The CPM crew rushes to Julie’s room and quickly begins to conduct tests and take samples from her dead body. As we watch, we can see that whatever the crystalline substance on her body is, it’s important. As the scene ends, we see the lead scientist calling Julie Mao’s father. He tells him that he can take comfort in the fact that he was able to obtain a large sample of the “proto-molecule.” We now know Julie’s father knows what’s going on and is in on whatever cover-up is going on.

Meanwhile…

Outside the hotel, the crew is trying to figure out what to do next. They still don’t know whether they can trust Miller. They finally are able to pause in a dark alley where they try to figure out why they’re all looking for the same person.

While they recuperate, they feel a small quake followed by an announcement saying Eros Station has experienced a radiation breach. They learn a ship has blown up on the docks, trapping them on Eros. The crowds on the streets are ordered to immediately retreat to the Eros radiation shelters.

Miller. Holden.

As they watch, Miller and Holden notice something strange. The crowds are being violently corralled into the shelters. Suddenly, Miller spots the CPM scientist he saw entering the hotel. He decides to investigate. Holden runs off with him and we finally get to see what the dynamic between the two will be.

As they follow the scientist, Miller captures one of the guards escorting him and “questions” him. Holden doesn’t approve of Miller’s tactics but they find out the scientist’s name is Dresden.

They decide they want to see why the citizens are being shoved into the radiation shelters. They act like two of CPM’s guards to get past security and enter the nearest shelter. As they get in, they’re shocked at what they see. The citizens are actually being dosed with radiation. CPM has reversed the shelters.

And now Miller and Holden have been dosed, too.

Naomi. Alex. Amos.

Since Miller and Holden have run off on their own, Naomi, Alex, and Amos decide to head to The Rocinante so they can figure out an escape from Eros Station. They find the docks are heavily guarded. No one is being let in or out which is strange. Naomi figures out the ship being blow up on the docks wasn’t an accident, but a set-up. Outside the docks, the crowds start getting angry that they’re not being allowed to pass. Semi arrives just as the guards open fire on the crowds and orders them to stand down, to no avail.

Tycho Station and Fred Johnson.

While the chaos on Eros escalates, we learn Fred Johnson is recording an incendiary speech denying his involvement in the attacks on The Donnager. He lets the galaxy know that the Earth U.N. has sent troops to have him arrested, but he can show proof that he had nothing to do with the incident. He finishes by ominously warning of impending war, and that he believes the stealth ships behind the attacks were in fact built on Earth.

Earth. The United Nations. Avarasala.

On Earth, Avarasala has gone to her friend Frank’s (the Mars ambassador the killed himself) house under the pretenses of paying her respects to him and his widower. While she’s left alone for a moment, she quickly searches his desk, taking some of his personal files as she leaves.

As she flies home, she opens the files and is shocked to find blueprints and plans for the stealth gunships that destroyed The Donnager and The Canterbury.

Was Fred Johnson right after all?

 

The Expanse NYCC Full Cast Panel

I’m working on the final two episodes of SyFy‘s TV series, THE EXPANSE for everyone. Thanks for being patient with me!

While you wait, I thought I’d post the full NYCC Cast Panel. Sounds like the show runners are gearing up for a big Season 2 (trailer)!

Don’t forget the latest show news: Netflix has picked up Season 1 for international viewing! I’m hoping to hear from all of those new fans!

Remember to catch up on the first season here and let me know what you think! Without further ado…

Scrubs Creator To Launch Space Comedy

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence is teaming up with his Undatables collaborator Adam Sztykiel for a new NBC single camera comedy. Spaced Out will be a workplace comedy (similar to Scrubs) but this time set in the not to distant future, where commercial space travel is available.

No cast are confirmed yet, however I’d put money on Lawrence’s wife Christa Miller popping up at some point. If Lawrence’s previous outings are anything to go by (as well as Scrubs and Undatables, Lawrence created Spin City and Cougar Town) he could be looking at another hit.

Space comedies appear to be in vogue at the moment, with Family Guy mastermind Seth McFarlane launching a space-based comedy drama on Fox next year.

Follow me on Twitter @pixiewose

The Expanse: SDCC 2016 – Full Panel

Don’t laugh at me. This is the first year I’ve actually paid attention to what was happening at San Diego Comic-Con. Until now, it hasn’t been something I’ve followed.

Enter The Expanse.

I can’t put my finger on why I’m totally loving this show but I can tell you I was hooked from the opening scene.

If you’re still undecided about the show, here’s the full panel from this year’s SDCC to give you a bit of insight.

Enjoy!

Killjoys SN2 EP3 – ‘ Shaft ‘

The opening sequence this week has Dutch appropriately enough trapped in a dark shaft, having a conversation with Khlyen, in which she accuses him of wanting to turn her into a cold and bloodless level 6. He tells her it has already been done, and then stabs her in the gut right after telling her that everything he has done has been to protect her. How did we get to this pass? To find out we must return back in time to 12 hours earlier.

Independence Day: Resurgence Review

Much like the aliens featured in Independence Day: Resurgence, Roland Emmerich returns to exact vengeance on this beloved franchise. I’m glad Will Smith got out when he could.

REVIEW: Stellaris

Review: This article goes in depth about a game and opens a dialogue about the positive and negative aspects that compose that game. At the end of the review, the author notes whether he or she feels this game was worth playing. Keep in mind that this review reflects the author’s opinion; you may have a different experience with this game!

Time Spent: 88 Hours

Version Played: PC-Only Release

Holy crap. I genuinely have no idea how I’ve spent so much time on a game that released less than a month ago. Where did all of that time go? What happened?!

Crafted by the same minds behind Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, Paradox Interactive has made their first foray into the 4X genre of video games. Called Stellaris, this insanely addictive grand strategy video game revolves around exploring your randomly generated galaxy, completing unique and entertaining quests, and building up your interstellar empire. Time seems to evaporate when playing Stellaris; indeed, the need to explore just one more system or complete one more piece of technology drives you forward in a fascinating romp through your galactic neighborhood.

Let’s start with the basics. Built in the same vein as games like Civilization, Endless Legend, Endless Space, and probably most like Sins of a Solar Empire, Stellaris is a 4X game. For those of you not familiar with the “4X” title, it means “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” which runs the gamut of what you can accomplish in a standard game of Stellaris. I’ve often been a fan of 4X games and their insanely addictive turn-based or real-time gameplay usually has me staring at my clock wondering how much more time I can put into the game before I absolutely have to sleep. Stellaris is no different. Put in charge of a galactic empire of your choice (you can choose from pre-made empires or create your own with a wide variety of options available), you must explore all of your nearby systems and begin colonizing planets in order to expand your empire. Resources such as energy and minerals help power your fleets and build your structures while the ever important influence resource fuels diplomatic and empire-wide decisions and helps you recruit new leaders such as scientists and admirals.

Building your own empire is half the fun!

Simply moving past the empire builder can become a difficult task as you are given a plethora of races, racial traits, colonization options, government ethics, and ways of space travel from which to choose. Some of these remain purely cosmetic; my lovely bird people certainly look spectacular, but that doesn’t affect how other empires see me. Other options, however, impact how your people interact with their environment and the plethora of empires you’ll meet. When building a race, you can select from many positive and negative traits that could boost their ability to produce minerals or make the migration of your citizens take longer and cost more. Beyond that, your government ethos will play a dynamic role in your overall empire as well as your interactions with other nations. Depending on what you choose for the ethics section, this will open up new government types that could fit the style of play for your empire as well as offer bonuses for your people. It’s all a little complicated at first and I highly recommend reading a guide that discusses some of the major differences between the ethics.

It’s a shame that Stellaris doesn’t expand on the variety of options and give players more information on what bonuses, technologies, and buildings each ethos allows them to research or create. Such knowledge remains vital when crafting a unique empire! When beginning a new game, though, the amusing and sarcastic tutorial serves as a very helpful guide. Some 4X games have difficulty introducing new players, but thankfully Stellaris seems to handle that with relative ease while not overwhelming a player with absurd amounts of information. Do not mistake me for saying that Stellaris is a simple game; the complexities available to the avid grand strategy player are abundant and the AI can be utterly ruthless. It’s just that Paradox manages to present their newest title in a way that offers new players a beautiful interface and a quick entry into their first game.

The AI empires in a single player game all have unique personalities and along with exploring the galaxy, meeting these new empires fills the exciting early portions of the game with a bit of tension. Who will you meet: the peaceful mushroom people that wish to form alliances or the crazy spider people who desire nothing else except to purge everything in the galaxy? Like many 4X games, you can engage in diplomacy with every race you meet and while the diplomacy section seems a bit more detailed than some games of its ilk, Stellaris‘ diplomacy remains cluttered and annoying. As of the recent Clark 1.1 patch, asking for things such as civilian access through another empire’s borders became a bit easier, but the process still remains convoluted. Even if you remain on excellent terms with another empire, they might laugh in your face if you suggest things like an alliance or a non-aggression pact. The update added more notices for diplomatic events in the galaxy so hopefully Paradox continues to refine their diplomatic system.

As you expand into the galaxy, your science ship will encounter intriguing anomalies on the various planets it scans that could provide resource benefits, empire-wide bonuses (such as this floating tree that produced a sap that helped reduce the aging of my people and gave me a bonus to my overall happiness), or that could kill the scientist and the ship he/she/it tried to research the anomaly in the first place. As I mentioned before, this makes the beginning portions of the game a huge blast. After discovering all of these planets and mapping the galaxy, Stellaris comes down to two options: eliminating or subjugating the opposing empires or colonizing/conquering 40% of all colonizable planets in the galaxy. This doesn’t give players a wide range of options in which they can win the game. What if someone wants to form the first United Galactic Nations? What about if someone researches a piece of technology that allows them to transcend existence? Stellaris moves away from other 4X games that give players these options and simply demands that they engage in warfare to achieve his or her goals. While I don’t necessarily disagree that moving away from those general tropes is a bad thing, I feel like every style of play should have a way for players to achieve victory.

The galaxy quickly becomes a crowded place.

The scale of Stellaris becomes readily noticeable when you begin your first playthrough. You can customize your galaxy by choosing its size (150 systems is considered small while 1000 is the largest option) along with its shape (spiral, ring, etc.). You can even designate how many AI empires exist in the galaxy with you and how many get a head start as well as their aggressiveness and the overall game difficulty. The size of the galaxy generally determines how long that game will probably take; small is perfect for a day-long session while the largest setting may take you quite some time. Managing your empire as it grows becomes a daunting task. You can only directly control so many planets on your own. Beyond that, you must create sectors and assign governors to manage your ever expanding nation. These sectors act as miniature empires of their own and produce their own resources, science output, and construction ships. While it takes them some time to get started, you can help them out by giving the sectors some resources from your own pool to accelerate their growth. You can even tell the sector governor what you would like them to focus on producing: Energy, Minerals, Science, or Military. Before patch 1.1, the sector governors were practically useless. I generally began building up a planet and taking a resource penalty for having too many under my direct control before adding that planet to my incompetent governor’s sector. This made expanding out into the galaxy aggravating. Thankfully, patch 1.1 helped relieve some of these issues and greatly improved on the sector governor AI. While it’s still not as good as running everything yourself, I look forward to Paradox’s continuing updates.

In the end of the game, you only have one option: war. You have to expand your control in order to achieve victory and warfare in Stellaris resembles warfare in Sins of a Solar Empire. You can build fleets, assign admirals, and upgrade their technology in order to defeat your opponents. I’m still not entirely sure what the best weapon combinations are, but the computer can customize your vessels for you and it does a reasonably good job. You can only conquer so much of another empire’s planets at one time, however, and attaining overall galactic victory will take some time. You could even encounter crazy endgame events that pit you and the other empires against powerful new enemies such as hyperdimensional invaders if someone researched the jump drive or a rebellious machine consciousness hellbent on annihilating organic life if another empire researched artificial intelligence and refused to treat their synthetic people with respect. The middle of the game seems dull by comparison, but you rarely have nothing to do and Paradox has promised more scripted events for the middle game. As always, it’s nice to see a publisher supporting their product and listening to their fans.

Tired of the crazy AI? Try multiplayer! Having played with several of my friends, I can confirm that coordinating with actual humans helps in your galactic conquest. You can even play in massive 32 player games! The server begins to lag as players engage in large scale fleet battles and this becomes especially prevalent in a larger galaxy, but interacting with other players feels more natural than the sporadic AI. Stellaris also supports an incredibly active modding community and I can’t wait to see what people create. There’s already a Warhammer 40K mod in the works! Woo!

Stellaris has floored me with its craftsmanship and ingenuity. It certainly has its issues, but with the generally rapid pace at which Paradox has released patches, I remain confident that Stellaris will only get better with time. If you like space and 4X grand strategy games, definitely consider giving Stellaris a try.

Happy gaming!

-Valiant