Weapons of The Expanse – S1-E10

And I am back for the season 1 finale – Leviathan Wakes (named for the first of the books in the series – all season finales are named for the book they are primarily based on.) In many ways this is episode 9, part deux, and therefore we don’t see a whole lot of new weapons. Instead we get a better look at the ones introduced during the past two Eros-focused episodes.

The first of these is the revolver Miller stole from the hitmen in episode 8 (the Chiappa Rhino.) He fires it to open up a medical vending machine, apparently blasting away the metal-looking lock without any issues.

Three interesting things from this little scene. First of all, the ammunition is clearly hard and massive enough to blow off a metal lock (which makes fully plastic rounds unlikely, they would just flatten themselves on the harder metal).

Secondly, neither Miller and Holden appear to be worried about ricochets, i.e. the projectile bouncing off the hard surface they are shooting at and potentially hitting them. This again suggests the ammunition is designed to avoid this, by either flattening itself or disintegrating upon impact. This is not unique – many types of ammunition have this feature today, particularly training ammunition, and makes perfect sense since that is something you absolutely would like to avoid in the confined spaces of a space station or a ship.

The third interesting thing is that when Miller fires at the machine, Holden appears to be covering his ears. Also, afterwards, when they approach it, he seems to be removing ear plugs. This again shows that Miller’s new gun is likely quite different from the other weapons we have seen, causing a much greater shock wave when firing than other guns.

After they raid the conveniently well-stocked medical dispensiary, Miller takes time to reload his gun, clearly ejecting individual cartridges. Again, this shows how this gun not like most others we have seen so far.

Next they begin looking for their way to the docks, and we meet another set of Protogen rubber suit baddies and CPM goons. This time they all seem to be carrying UN-style assault rifles, but the female Protogen baddie for some reason carries a tan version.

And of course, one of the goons has to come inside the arcade where Miller and Holden are hiding to try his luck, proving once again that arcades are just bad for you overall!

But at least we get another close look at a Martian service pistol…! Note how Holden seems unconcerned about any recoil.

Next we spend some time with Amos, Alex, Naomi and Sematimba roaming the tunnels of Eros. And we get yet another good look at the Martian service pistol. With the top silver barrel less visible here, we can more clearly see the gun’s similarity to its base design, the WE X Series IPSC Airsoft Pistol (in turn based on a Springfield Armory XD.)

A key theme of The Expanse is that it is civilization that makes us civilized. Once civilization collapses, our civilized behaviour does as well. Holden is clearly getting exposed to this once more as Miller assassinates two additional CPM-thugs. Holden’s expression kinda says it all…

In this image you can clearly see the double barrels on the Martian gun, same as on the Martian assault rifles. More on that in the weapon profiles for the two Martian weapons.

Next, as they steal the gear from the the CPM guys, we get a few pensive close-ups of the UN assault rifles they carried. Not much to see here, except a safety switch identical to that on Heckler & Koch rifles (which is not surprising, since they are based on just that) and the characteristic enclosed pistol grip of the SL8-4.

But as they do, they hear a sound…! Holden, clearly hoping to avoid further bloodshed, goes to check it out, and finds the sneaky spy they originally discovered on the Rocinante. He does the whole passive-aggressive threatening-shooting thing, but from a gun perspective, the only interesting aspect is that Holden finally runs out of ammo, as he had suggested they would do in Episode 8.

But we are now approaching the climax of the episode, with very intense gun activity!

Amos, Naomi, Sematimba and Alex have reached the Rocinante (along with a few refugees). Sematimba makes the crucial mistake of pointing his Star Helix-style gun at Naomi with Amos watching…

… which proves to be a very bad career move.

Back on Eros station proper, tensions are rising as the CPM goons are realizing that the Protogen rubber suit baddies are done with them, and we get a room full of guns…! Lots of abominable guns and UN assault rifles!

So Miller does his thing – echoing his favorite agitators on Ceres, he drops the match that lights the magic fuze, and we get some serious gun action. The next few minutes are just a blur of movement, so we don’t get that many good stills. For instance we never get a clearly look of how the abominable guns are used in a firefight like this. However, we finally get a close-up of what the Protogen rubber suit baddies have been carrying in their side holsters.

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These appear very heavily modified, so it is hard to determine exactly what they are based on. Most likely, however, they are more Magpul FMG-9s without stocks and grips.

And with bullets flying, at least we get a lot more UN Assault Rifles in action.

Our heroes survive, of course (barely) and make it to the ship where they are met by Amos. Note the marks on their body armor where rounds have flattened themselves against the plating. With most ammunition in the show clearly designed to be effective against people without risking holes in walls and bulkheads, it apparently becomes possible to stop bullets if you have the right materials (as long as the bullets are nice enough to avoid all the gaps between the tiles in your armor…!)

And as we get an amazing CGI-shot of The Rocinante proving that it will take more than a few docking clamps to hold her down (at least as long as she has some external fake tanks to dump)…

… we get some sweet music between two of our heroes…

… ending with some serious foreshadowing of Season 2, as Dresden and Protogen escape in a stealth ship. How they did NOT notice that the Roci was there, and decided to send their transmissions to Thoth (!!) without checking if it was secure is beyond me, but there you go.

And we also see the demise of our not-so-super spy…! Yep, it was a death sentence to leave him there, Holden.

So there we are – season 1 finished! But what have we learned about the Weapons of The Expanse this season?

• Ship to ship combat – rare, but short and intense. The short duration of the battles is surprising given the distances involved, but it appears that the weapons are so powerful that once a ship begins sustaining hits, they do not survive for long. Again, this excellent video from Spacedock gives us an in-depth view of how this appears to work.
• Outside ship to ship combat, all firefights are between personnel – i.e. light infantry combat. We never see drones or other kinds of ground vehicles firing weapons. Even in an intense firefight as seen during the boarding of the Donnager in episode 4, we never see any such systems in use.
• Firefights are almost all at very close range, focused on achieving maximum volume of fire.
• Weapons are predominantly low-recoil, likely gauss/coil gun variants. In only a few instances do we see weapons that appear to be using chemically powered rounds (i.e. regular bullets powered by gunpowder.)
• Martian weapons appear to have been prepared to use both recoilless and chemically powered ammunition. Other weapons use either one or the other.