The Expanse and My Near Space

No. Spacers: Near Space is not a homage to The Expanse TV series or the books that it is based upon. While I've responded to the emails specifically, I think the three out of fourteen that posited that assumption indicate a trend that I want to address. Besides the content being written up mostly in the early Aughts (2000-'10), I have tried for a much more fantastic look and feel to the universe of a solar system filling up with people and drama. My buddy Smiles in Austin Texas and his "Iska Dawn" campaign setting, unpublished, back in the late 80s and Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars has a lot of influence on the background science mentioned but no. No Expanse.

While I love the watching the show, well except for the fourth season, it's actually a little too simplistic SF to be classic nuts and bolts space. Imagine me, the guy that does rocketships versus little green men, calling a well-budgeted show and paperback series by an established writer too simplistic to be called hard sci-fi (err SF, since the inception of FM radio). It's not out of character for me so take that for what it's worth.

I have some definite ideas what constitutes hard sci-fi versus pulp. I love both and Near Space, while being pulpy, it had a lot of reading of science while it was being conceived and roleplayed in. The science of the show while incorporating bits of real life, like pharmacology and astrophysics, is like reading a magazine in a office waiting area. The politics of the worlds are comic book at best. But it it's space battles sure make you the viewer want to join the military though doesn't it?

Sorry guys, but Mars will always be a white elephant. The population will always be too small to be a real power regardless of its status with Earth.  The Belters will be more likely to be running officious shake downs on private spacefarers than be a coming together as a randy band of pirates. Ships won't have to "flip and burn" because the energy source which provides propulsion can be vented to different engine ports. And ship engineers will know how to create centrifuge in all but the smallest vessels. That is at least in my estimation of things.