By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Whether it’s George Lucas’s fantasy-style X-Wings buzzing around like World War 2 fighter craft, or the more measured approach of shows like Battlestar Galactica, sci-fi space battles skew more towards fantasy than reality.
The exception is The Expanse, a 2015 hard sci-fi series based entirely around a stringent dedication to realism.
The ships of The Expanse operate based on the technology that might actually be possible in humanity’s near future.
That means no magical energy shields, hyperspace drives, or super blasters.
Ships in The Expanse fight in the vacuum of space using ammunition-based weapons like missiles and railguns.
The Expanse‘s craft don’t have fantastical gravity plating or science nullifying technobabble. They deal with real Newtonian physics and the way G-forces impact objects in motion along with the fragile human bodies inside them.
The show’s approach creates complex space engagements involving attack salvos and counter measures, as opposing forces jockey for position in the darkness of space, battling the limits of physics to achieve victory.
And the result of this approach is a series of space battles unlike anything else, you’ve ever seen on screen.
So make sure your couch is juiced and get ready to pull some serious Gs.
Season 1 Episode 4, “CQB”
It was episode four of The Expanse’s initial season that gave us our first taste of the show’s potential.
The episode’s big battle takes place from the perspective of the Donnager, the biggest, baddest battleship humanity is capable of producing.
A Donnager class is crewed by hundreds and covered with weapons.
It’s so big it carries other smaller, corvette-class warships inside it.
That’s how Captain James Holden and his friends end up aboard the Rocinante. The now iconic ship was originally a corvette berthed inside the Donnager, and named the Tachi.
The Donnager’s believed superiority is quickly demonstrated to be flawed as the ship faces down a surprise attack from six stealth ships.
Initially mistaken for a single vessel, the attackers split into multiple craft, launching a coordinated torpedo barrage.
Despite the Donnager‘s formidable weaponry, including numerous point defense cannons and railguns, the stealth ships’ advanced technology allows them to evade countermeasures and deliver critical damage, disabling the Donnager’s reactor and compromising its structural integrity.
Holden and his crew flee the ship in a Martian Corvette they find in the Donnager’s launch bay, narrowly escaping the Donnager’s destruction.
Season 5 Episode 10, “Nemesis Games”
In the Season 5 episode “Nemesis Games”, the crew of the Rocinante faces down a fleet of 5 ships and wins.
The Rocinante, still recovering from previous engagements and low on ammunition, is pursued by a Free Navy squadron comprising five ships—two Martian-built and three Belter vessels.
Before Rocinante’s Captain Holden can put a plan into action, all hell breaks loose in the free navy fleet.
Former Holden ally Kamina Drummer has been pressed into service against her wishes, on the salvaged free navy ship Tynan. She mutinies and takes control.
Drummer fires a missile salvo at the Destroyer Koto, distracting it long enough for the Rocinante to get inside effective range for the ship’s railgun. The Koto is disabled by the Roci’s superior weapon.
Drummer orders her loyalist ships to stand down. One, the Mowteng, leaves the battle.
The Heavy Frigate Serrio Mal is left battling the Rocinante on its own, but the Roci’s smaller missile salvos can’t break through the more powerful ship’s defenses.
The other Drummer-led ship is an armed salvage vessel called Dewalt, and it joins the fight on the Rocinante’s side by firing all of its missiles at once in a massive salvo directed at the ultra-deadly Serrio Mal.
This distracts the enemy ship, long enough for the Rocinante to close the distance and destroy its reactor with railgun blasts
Every detail of this battle is perfectly thought out, right down to the little engine flare the ship uses to counteract the force of its rail gun firing.
No show, but The Expanse would ever go to this much trouble to get everything right.
Season 2 Episode 2, “Doors and Corners”
Our heroes identify Thoth Station as the clandestine Protogen facility responsible for the horrific protomolecule experiments, the same horrors that kicked off the plot of the show.
To approach undetected, the Rocinante conceals itself behind the OPA freighter Guy Molinari, exploiting its radar signature. As they near the station, the Rocinante detaches, drifting in silently to maintain the element of surprise.
Thoth Station’s defense comprises the Osiris, an Amun-Ra-class stealth frigate, and an anti-asteroid cannon. Upon detecting the approaching vessels, the Osiris launches torpedoes at the Guy Molinari.
The Rocinante intercepts, deploying its PDCs to neutralize the threat. A fierce dogfight ensues, during which the Rocinante sustains damage to a port-side thruster, forcing it to seek cover behind the station’s ring.
Simultaneously, two breaching pods carrying OPA marines and Detective Miller are launched toward Thoth Station.
Amos Burton, aboard the Rocinante, repairs the damaged thruster, enabling the ship to maneuver and destroy the station’s cannon, clearing a path for the remaining pod to dock, allowing Miller and his teams achieve their objective.
Season 6 Episode 3 “Immolation”
The best battle of The Expanse is one of its smallest, and also its shortest.
But the detail involved and the tactical skill on display are some of the best ever captured on screen.
Marco Inaros, leading a Free Navy Flotilla chances across the Rocinante and gives pursuit.
Inaros is commanding the Pella, a light cruiser that outclasses the smaller Roci. He also has two other ships with him.
The Roci may only be a Corvette, but it is not a normal Corvette. She mounts a rail gun, a weapon usually considered too large for a ship its size to carry.
Inaros attacks the Rocinante with missiles, and the Roci fends them off with fire from its PDCs.
The rail gun is forward-facing and can only be fired forward, but the Roci is on the run, which puts Marcos and his fleet behind them
Rocinante’s captain and pilot James Holden, whirls his ship about in a wild 180, snap firing a single Railgun round from outside the weapon’s normal effective range. He then immediately executes another 180 to put the Roci back on course.
Since the rail gun is fired from outside its effective range, referred to in The Expanse as “hammerlock”, Inaros ships should have enough time to dodge the railgun slug, but they’re surprised.
The rail gun round connects and cripples one of the Free Navy ships. Another stays behind to render aid, leaving only the Pella still in pursuit.
The two ships exchange torpedoes, but neither can get through the other’s PDC fire.
PDC stands for Point Defense Cannon, and that’s exactly what they are.
They’re never used as offensive weapons, regarded as too slow for offensive use in the vast distances of space.
It’s then that the Rocinante’s gunner, Bobby Draper, notices a flaw in the Pella’s piloting.
When evading their missile attacks, the Pella always dodges to port.
That means they can predict where the Pella will be when they fire on it.
Bobbie overrides the automated controls on the Roci’s PDCs in order to fire them at empty space, aiming for where she predicts the Pella will dodge to.
She fires a salvo of missiles, and the Pella dodges to port, right into the Rocinante’s PDC rounds.
The Roci’s PDC fire rips through the Pella, disabling the ship.
Like the video and subscribe to our channel, if you too think everywhere’s Baltimore.
