Television For All Mankind: Season 4 All Mankind

[Greatoneshere]

"Do you want to help me steal an asteroid?"

 

Fuck it, I'm in.

[TwinIon]

I'm along for the ride with this one, but the idea of stealing the asteroid seems pretty dumb and I'm not really sure how we're supposed to read the character motivations.

 

They're setting up the whole "heist" aspect just fine, but lets assume they succeed and get the asteroid into Mars orbit. It's not like Mars orbit is some deep gravity well that they couldn't escape. I'm pretty sure the delta v for asteroid capture isn't hugely different if it's in Mars orbit or the Suns. So if they still wanted to get it to earth, the M-7 nations could just run the same mission they're doing to capture it, but now there isn't a time limit. They can leisurely make more fuel, prep the rock, do all their calculations, and they'll have the experience of having done it once. Still sound easier than all the ships and robots and what not required to mine it from Mars.

 

Lets say for some reason that they decide that post heist they really can't get it back to Earth, or they just crash it into Mars. Are we supposed to be under the impression that Dev and Ed expect to still be in charge, or is this entirely a self sacrifice to get Mars built into a new colony? Can Dev really think that Helios isn't just nationalized or dissolved or absorbed or something, or are we really supposed to think he just doesn't care as long as it turns Mars into more than a scientific outpost? Wasn't it this same episode where Margo and the Soviets conclude that Dev is in it for himself?

 

I'm curious to see that they do with this, and I suspect the aftermath won't be clear until next season (if it gets one), but this show just keeps pushing the limits.

[Greatoneshere]

2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Lets say for some reason that they decide that post heist they really can't get it back to Earth, or they just crash it into Mars. Are we supposed to be under the impression that Dev and Ed expect to still be in charge, or is this entirely a self sacrifice to get Mars built into a new colony? Can Dev really think that Helios isn't just nationalized or dissolved or absorbed or something, or are we really supposed to think he just doesn't care as long as it turns Mars into more than a scientific outpost? Wasn't it this same episode where Margo and the Soviets conclude that Dev is in it for himself?

 

I'm curious to see that they do with this, and I suspect the aftermath won't be clear until next season (if it gets one), but this show just keeps pushing the limits.

 

I think we're meant to be asking these very questions. I do agree that the aftermath will mostly be during the time skip between seasons but there's no way the show can't be considering what the global response on Earth will be to this move - they certainly can't pull a coup and take over all of Mars . . . or maybe they can since it's all Helios for the most part but I just don't see that happening. Either way this is not something the show can skip past - whether the characters have considered the weight of these actions to this degree seems moot - the few involved just don't care anymore but seem to be doing it as more of a "fuck you" to everyone in charge (except for Dev and Ed).

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I think we're meant to be asking these very questions. I do agree that the aftermath will mostly be during the time skip between seasons but there's no way the show can't be considering what the global response on Earth will be to this move - they certainly can't pull a coup and take over all of Mars . . . or maybe they can since it's all Helios for the most part but I just don't see that happening. Either way this is not something the show can skip past - whether the characters have considered the weight of these actions to this degree seems moot - the few involved just don't care anymore but seem to be doing it as more of a "fuck you" to everyone in charge (except for Dev and Ed).

 

What? Ed is 100% in spite mode for Dani taking him off duty. 

[Greatoneshere]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

What? Ed is 100% in spite mode for Dani taking him off duty. 

 

Yeah there's definitely that but Ed does seem to want to stay on Mars permanently. He wasn't even trying to go back home before the whole Dani thing. Whether that's him continuing to run away from his dead wife who died on Earth is arguable but he seems more invested than just fucking over Dani, though that's definitely a part of it and why he initially did the shitty things he was doing egging the laborers on. But his initial convo with Dev did seem to unlock something in him.

[Gavin King]

So I binged the whole show from season 1-ep1 about a week ago... you're telling me I have to wait now for the last two episodes of season 4

 

Hope the show gets more seasons, really interested in where they can go next... Eventually that can't continue with Ed though, right?

[Jason]

@Kal-El814

 

 

[Greatoneshere]

That was a a really good finale! Not sure positioning those who want to get the asteroid to Mars instead of helping Earth as "the heroes" but otherwise that was some damn good television, and as always they killed it with the ending (we're in 2012 and going now people). The only thing I could never buy was the premise of the asteroid capture mission - it looked like the Mars program was doing just fine for eight years before its discovery, but once it's discovered, if it goes to Earth the Mars/space program will wither and die? Why? They never give a reason and that confused me. But otherwise, great stuff.

[Jason]

30 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

That was a a really good finale! Not sure positioning those who want to get the asteroid to Mars instead of helping Earth as "the heroes" but otherwise that was some damn good television, and as always they killed it with the ending (we're in 2012 and going now people). The only thing I could never buy was the premise of the asteroid capture mission - it looked like the Mars program was doing just fine for eight years before its discovery, but once it's discovered, if it goes to Earth the Mars/space program will wither and die? Why? They never give a reason and that confused me. But otherwise, great stuff.

 

I thought the bolded was pretty clear from what we were presented. Remember that NASA is self-funding via commercially profitable ventures in the FAM timeline, and the whole reason Helios is up there is resource mining (that's what they were trying to do with the asteroid capture in the first episode). So there won't be sustained interest in dumping money into hauling mines resources all the way from Mars when the mother of all space resources can be hauled significantly cheaper and faster from earth orbit, and the US and other governments aren't going to keep the Mars mission going without a profitable commercial activity underpinning it. Helios might, but Helios seems to require significant government funding of the Mars facilities (not just from NASA but all the M7 nations, other than I guess North Korea, who are apparently only there because they have a claim from managing a landing) to make their resource capture venture profitable. 

[Gavin King]

Solid finale...   Really excited to see where they go with it. I wonder if Mars will get setup with it's own government. Even Danielle was getting frustrated by the end with not really being in charge and beholden to Earth interests.

 

Is next season the season that Ed dies? He's got to be in his 70s at minimum in 2012.

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

I thought the bolded was pretty clear from what we were presented. Remember that NASA is self-funding via commercially profitable ventures in the FAM timeline, and the whole reason Helios is up there is resource mining (that's what they were trying to do with the asteroid capture in the first episode). So there won't be sustained interest in dumping money into hauling mines resources all the way from Mars when the mother of all space resources can be hauled significantly cheaper and faster from earth orbit, and the US and other governments aren't going to keep the Mars mission going without a profitable commercial activity underpinning it. Helios might, but Helios seems to require significant government funding of the Mars facilities (not just from NASA but all the M7 nations, other than I guess North Korea, who are apparently only there because they have a claim from managing a landing) to make their resource capture venture profitable. 

 

I understand all that but the resources they were mining on Mars is different from the resources they wanted to mine from the asteroid (which was iridium, I think, rare on Earth they said, Russia had a monopoly on it), so the same need for the resources on Mars would remain, wouldn't it?

[Greatoneshere]

24 minutes ago, Gavin King said:

Is next season the season that Ed dies? He's got to be in his 70s at minimum in 2012.

 

Ed Baldwin's birth year is officially 1931, which is how he could be in the Korean War (making him anywhere from 19 to 22 years old during the war, depending on when he served, since the Korean War was 1950-1953, hence why Ed knows some Korean). By 2003, he is 72/73. So by 2012, he'll be 81/82 minimum. He may be around next season but not sure how much he can do physically.  

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

57 minutes ago, Gavin King said:

I wonder if Mars will get setup with it's own government. 

 

My God - that means that this show is actually a prequel to The Expanse! 

[Jason]

15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

My God - that means that this show is actually a prequel to The Expanse! 

 

We did get a beltalowda tease in that final scene with the mining operation on Goldilocks.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

I understand all that but the resources they were mining on Mars is different from the resources they wanted to mine from the asteroid (which was iridium, I think, rare on Earth they said, Russia had a monopoly on it), so the same need for the resources on Mars would remain, wouldn't it?

 

I think Goldilocks is such a goldmine that it wouldn't be worth diverting people and ships from mining Goldilocks to comparatively small-potatoes missions out on/around Mars. Especially because I don't think they've ever indicated they're getting anything out there (other than Mile's Mars rocks :p) that they can't get on Earth right? 

[Jason]

57 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Ed Baldwin's birth year is officially 1931, which is how he could be in the Korean War (making him anywhere from 19 to 22 years old during the war, depending on when he served, since the Korean War was 1950-1953, hence why Ed knows some Korean). By 2003, he is 72/73. So by 2012, he'll be 81/82 minimum. He may be around next season but not sure how much he can do physically.  

 

It could be that the low gravity on Mars keeps him a lit sprier than he would have been if he'd gone back to Earth, similar to how his grandson's health issues were all cleared up when he got checked out on Mars after a couple of months in space. I think the real question will be how much more can the makeup team do to make him look another ten years older.

[Greatoneshere]

53 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

My God - that means that this show is actually a prequel to The Expanse! 

 

Yeah, people have been joking since Dev had the idea to divert the asteroid that this is our prequel to The Expanse! Remember, Dev said he wanted to go to Saturn and Jupiter next too.

 

36 minutes ago, Jason said:

I think Goldilocks is such a goldmine that it wouldn't be worth diverting people and ships from mining Goldilocks to comparatively small-potatoes missions out on/around Mars. Especially because I don't think they've ever indicated they're getting anything out there (other than Mile's Mars rocks :p) that they can't get on Earth right? 

 

Well, I mean, they were doing something on Mars for 8 years before Goldilocks showed up, and I don't see why they couldn't do both? Even if they can't, Dev and Ed are making a huge assumption by saying it's definitely going to wither and die. I just don't believe it would be that definitive, especially given the big decisions they are making based off of it.

 

34 minutes ago, Jason said:

It could be that the low gravity on Mars keeps him a lit sprier than he would have been if he'd gone back to Earth, similar to how his grandson's health issues were all cleared up when he got checked out on Mars after a couple of months in space. I think the real question will be how much more can the makeup team do to make him look another ten years older.

 

That's a good thought - he probably is a little sprier as a result of being on Mars with its lower gravity, etc. But yeah, the bigger issue is taking very much in shape, 44-year old Joel Kinnaman look 81. He just starred in John Woo's action movie Silent Night - the dude just isn't 81, he's still doing action movies like The Suicide Squad! But I'll accept it for more Ed in general.