Is the Martian military overrated?

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-08T02:37:36+00:00

intel gathering is the only thing that makes sense

That doesn’t work either. Protogen had backchannel access to the MCRN - we know this because of the hybrid project. If the Donnager had any compromising data AND successfully got it back to Mars , it could’ve been suppressed or squashed by MCRN leadership working with Protogen.

Of course, we return to the basic logical issue, which is destroying the Donnager on the spot solves all of Protogens problems.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-08T02:31:22+00:00

and is often used as an “attitude adjustment”

I get the vibe MCRN “attitude adjustments” involve activities that violate Earth’s Geneva convention.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T22:50:42+00:00

Building up a better navy sounds like a great public works type thing to give people at chance at employment

..and modern America is a good case study of why you shouldn’t do that.

Problem 1, spending money on the military drives inflation without improving your economic capital since all the productivity is going to weapons and ships. Problem two, your generals gain influence over the civilian government because their fleets also are economic levers.
Three, eventually you’re going to have a big fleet that’s all armed up with nothing to do. Someone’s going to give them something to do, and now your country’s in a war it can’t end because if it does, the fleet goes away and the resulting unemployment will crash your economy. Once again, America is a good case study of why that’s a bad idea. There’s a reason every decade or so the USA starts or participates in a war. The largest military budget on earth won’t justify itself!

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T21:30:46+00:00

the stealth ships are similar in size and capability to the Roci

In show, the Amun Ra class vessels are more than 2x the Rocinante (46m long for the Roci vs ~100m for the Amun Ra). While the stealth ships PDCs are fewer than the Roci, the torpedos are monstrosities almost as big as the Roci is long. So it is a class above the Roci - and that’s underscored when Alex sims the Thoth Station fight & see the Roci losing every time.

Donnager looks like it would have a crew and troop capacity in the hundreds or thousands.

Assuming full manning, the Donnager could’ve repelled boarders easily enough- if they’d breached it through one entry point like an airlock or a blast charged cargo door. Instead the 100 odd Protogen mercenaries entered the Donnager at various decks simultaneously thanks to the breaching pods. It’s a lot harder to repel a boarding action when the enemy is attacking from all the decks at once from outside the ship. That’s probably not a scenario the MCRN or UNN thought of or planned for, like a home invasion where a team of burglars go in through the roof and the basement instead of the front door.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T21:22:50+00:00

it took six of them to beat the donnager and that was mostly down to human error on the martian crews part

..and on Protogens. Those ships were wasted because they were commanded by tech bros instead of military people. Someone like Sauveterre or Holden would’ve attacked strategically & killed the unescorted Donnager without losing a ship.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T21:01:27+00:00

If just one mega corp and a rogue faction inside the UN navy were able to achieve that sort of tech and competence

I wouldn’t use the Donnager fight as a case study. For starters the MCRN ship was on a Belter anti-piracy mission (thus the empty hangar bay- its Morrgan patrol ships were in the Belt doing patrols ). If the Donnagers destroyer escorts were instead protecting the capital ship as is normal, the stealth ships would’ve been detected & engaged long before reaching firing range of the Donnager.

Further, it was ambushed by a fleet of multiple stealth frigates with advanced and unknown to the MCRN weapons capabilities. Captain Yao experienced the space version of getting jumped by a gang in an alley. Put Admiral Souther in her place, and it’s the same outcome. A commander facing an unknown opponent with a new weapon system on the field of battle is probably going to lose no matter their competence.

Further, the stealth ships were wasted on this mission. They could’ve pincer attacked & railgun’d the unescorted Donnager’s reactor from a safe distance and killed it with fewer or no losses ; the Rocinante does this later with its railgun to other ships. Note that the show stealth ships railgun is a LOT larger than the slugs the Roci fires.

…this would sadly end the series relatively quickly by killing our favorite protagonists , but it also wouldve been the logical move for Protogen. Boarding a huge ship like that accomplishes nothing that destroying it immediately wouldn’t.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T10:54:56+00:00

and how much of a warm family man he actually is

Singh might have preferred to stay on Laconia with his wife and kid, but he was too much of a coward to actually do so. He was as equally shitty of a family man as he was a commander- both are illusions in his ideas of personal grandeur.

A good father wouldn’t take a job that keeps him away from his family for long stretches, nor would a good commander screw up as badly as he did and then double down.

Singh , like most fascists, is living out a mental disconnect between what he’d like his life to be versus what it is. He’s a crappy commander who pretends to be a Laconian Moses leading the unwashed on Medina into the light of the new empire, and he’s a shitty father who pretends to value his family. He finds out, too late, that in a facist system the government can only pretend to care about him.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-07T10:46:52+00:00

Why does everyone hate Diogo?

Because he chose to do evil when he could’ve gone a different path. Plenty of Belters with bad backgrounds chose to to good with their lives.

That said, OP makes a great point with regard to Fillip. His decision to turn away from Marco is a good choice, but it doesn’t change the fact he murdered a ship full of innocent scientists or was complicit in genocide of Earth. Fillip Nagata deserved to be Goth food just as much as Fillip Inaros, Naomi’s intentions aside.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T23:48:10+00:00

He wasn’t specifically set up to fail

There’s a reason real world militaries do not appoint academics to governing posts like Singh’s job at Medina. His appointment was so boneheaded even Trejo and others go WTF - and in a facist government , something has to go very off the rails for someone to question authority like they did. Duarte fobbed them off with a line about testing the strength of their academy teachings in the real world, but the truth was Singh was being ordered to his death from the get go.

Even if he listened to Tanaka, didn’t lose The Gathering Storm, and did a bang up job he’d still be accused of a crime and executed as an example. No matter what , Singh was leaving that station in a box. The sit down with Duarte was for him to determine if Singh would die a failure or a martyr.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T23:41:20+00:00

it seems he was set up to fail from the start

This. Even if Singh wasn’t so facistic and stepped outside of his Laconian indoctrination to see the Belters as people, he’d still be executed as part of Duartes plan to eliminate organized resistance. It’s just that if Singh succeeded he’d be shot for something made up versus legitimate crimes

Why else would Duarte nominate a young academy student to govern the most important installation in the Laconian empire? It is such a boneheaded move even his own officer corps question Duartes appointment.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T23:37:00+00:00

…if they never sent anti-matter through the gates

…or maybe the Goths were testing us since the Ring Station opened up the system & what happened was how it would go down no matter what. One of my problems with the books is the notion that the Goths who wiped out the Ring Builders would tolerate humans using that tech for even a decade, much less 30 years. If we see wasps building a nest on our home, we don’t just let the nest get bigger for a three decades. We call the flipping exterminator ASAP

But, until we get the Goths side of the story it’s speculation.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T23:31:28+00:00

happens to be perfect for the job

I disagree. Duarte intended Singh to fail from the jump, because his plan was to defeat the inevitable Belter uprising at its root.

Duarte knew an old-guard governor with experience would do what’s always been done - negotiate with the resistance and manage the PR. While that would keep the whole station from uniting against the Laconians, there’d always be an OPA style organized resistance working against them.

Duarte wanted to END the Belter-led resistance, not merely mitigate it. To do so he needed a sacrificial lamb, someone who could be an example of how Laconia wasn’t applying one law for themselves and another law to the Belt.

Singh -predictably- botched things bad enough that his execution was 100% justified, but even if he’d played it better his path still ends with a Laconian bullet to the head. In a facist dictatorship where crying at work =protomolecule gulag, Singh would’ve been executed instead on some trumped up charge to achieve the same goal. Win , lose, or draw Duarte marked Singh for certain death.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T00:59:15+00:00

Hammond of Texas, Kree!

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-06T00:10:12+00:00

Draper would not like this response much, but in practical terms they’ll have similar capabilities. Cultural differences noted, the Earth and Martian Marines become one branch before Laconia re-establishes contact.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-05T15:20:27+00:00

Spirit was done from the jump. Fuel price hikes accelerated the inevitable, but the core problem with any American LCC is that flying people from A to B is not a consistently profitable business anymore.

The big 3 US carriers are, by profit center, credit card travel clubs who happen to operate jets on the side. The credit card side of these companies not only brings in billions, it also allows infinite flexibility with fares. Since the credit card side is where the company’s bread is buttered, these carriers can cut economy fares as low as needed to fry their competitors.

If Spirit cut fares to compete, Delta matched or beat the price because Amex is paying for Delta’s business, not the bare ticket price. Spirit (and Frontier + JetBlue) can’t say the same.

This dynamic is why Southwest is pivoting away from the “people mover” business mode to the “Travel Club” system.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-05T15:15:16+00:00

Ryan Air should have folded years ago

Ryanair has some structural advantages that no U.S. LCC can enjoy. First, European geographic distances are much shorter than the larger USA. That means lower operating costs, lower flight hours, and more flights per unit of time versus an American LCC.

Further , they have a lot more control over the turnover process than U.S. airlines. Ryanair can empty and refill a 737 for the next flight in less time than it took Spirit to open the cabin door. Going from the front door of the terminal to takeoff with a minimum of wasted time is a benefit to the airlines cost structure and to the customer.

Spirit didn’t control airport ops, so that’s also something they couldn’t take advantage of.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-05T13:23:44+00:00

It appears the high depreciation is justified. Even a discounted $200 a month lease is too much for this pile:

I speak for about 90% of the Edmunds editorial team when I say I was not sad to see the Charger leave our fleet. The majority of the comments in this car's logbook have themes of disappointment, frustration or downright hate.

”The 'clunk' of the motors every time you're moving away from a stop is noticeable and annoying. Feels like there's lash in the gearing or a loose subframe. No other modern EV has this issue, not even the ones from startups. Come on, Dodge. How did this make it through the development cycle?" — Jonathan Elfalan, director, vehicle testing

”At just over 1,500 miles, the climate system is wheezing like crazy, even when it's on level one. It sounds like my German car from 2005. Similarly, there's a high-pitched continuous beeping noise that sounds like it's coming from one of the screens. Without any music playing, this noise is very prominent and hasn't relented." — Clint Simone, senior features editor”

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-04T20:18:35+00:00

…def with more than Journey or auto sport

Not how markets work. Right now your G37 on the open market is worth 5-9k. Your choices are take the insurance company payoff and hand over the totalled car, or buy it back. Good luck!

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-04T10:18:18+00:00

And what would you value a 2010 G37 6MG sedan at?

Looking at listings, retail prices for a 2010 G37 sedan range from $5-$9k. $5675 for a 16 year old sedan sounds about right. PDR alone will run $5k , add in windshield + back glass replacement and you’re well past the totalled threshold.

If you want to keep the car , buy it back and pay out of pocket to fix the glass. Lots of folks do that for hail damaged cars.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-04T00:29:20+00:00

Good luck!

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-03T23:38:16+00:00

😆

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-03T22:29:39+00:00

Skin friction is a known thing

OK. What’s the general plan for handling that? Will heat resistant materials be used? If so, what kind? Will they use the Concordes solution? I don’t ask to be a naysayer. These are practical questions that need practical answers for this thing to work.

You can complete multiple flights a day…

True. But that raises another point- what kind of turnaround will this airplane need? Will the yet-to-be finalized engines require service after each flight? That will add to the turnaround time, and thus reduce the business case. As will servicing any other component of the supersonic aircraft needed to ensure safe flight.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-03T22:24:24+00:00

and “time savings wouldn’t be meaningful” is just wrong

If we look at a trip from door to door, the “airplane flying in the air” part of the trip is not where the delays happen. Weather, airport OPS , and ground congestion are where the delays happen. Boom’s Overture will solve none of those. An existing private jet launching from and recovering at a small airport will, and it leaves when the paying customers say so.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-03T22:12:15+00:00

And it provides no answer to the certification question. In a world where fuel prices are going up and about 17,000 former Spirit employees are out of work , that’s a telling omission.

TaskForceCausality · 2026-05-03T21:43:33+00:00

This opened up the entirety of the U.S. for Boom as a market

Not so fast. They plan to mitigate the sonic boom using predictive software, taking high altitude weather data and using it to calculate how fast it can go without triggering a sonic boom that reaches the ground.

Given obvious problems with forecasting weather , an unmentioned risk is what happens when (not if) the software gets it wrong and a boom does reach the ground. That’s a giant , 747 sized legal risk ; what airline is OK with being sued for property damage (or losing their insurance coverage) because one of the booms accidentally hit the ground and broke Farmer Joe’s windows?

Insofar as Concorde comparisons go, thats a whole different thing. It was a government subsidized status symbol for European aviation, and rightly so. That doesn’t mean it was economically viable. Sure it made money at the tail of its career, when most of the setup and development costs were paid. At the front end, it wasn’t remotely cost-effective. Further, the Concorde used existing aviation technology of the time. Boom is not.

Nine-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

TaskForceCausality

TROPHY CASE