Briefly

[selenak]

One question for Expanse fans as I continue to marathon the show: what is the crew of the Rocinante actually living from? I mean, we do get some explanations about freebie repairs and refueling, but who pays for the food, the clothing, the plants, any leisure activity item? It's not like they're traders, or in the passenger transport business. As Buffy Summers could tell you, hero-ing and world saving does not get paid.

Also, have some Beatles links. Get Back last November brought some new meta (and some new readers to older scribblings by yours truly, bless):

The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back: lovely lengthy essay about the three parter

What else did we get wrong?: amusing essay by Greg Jenner, who, I take it, is also the history consulted for Horrible Histories.

(Which reminds me, kathyh gave me the second season of Ghosts for Christmas, in which several HH veterans are involved, and it's as funny and charming as the first.)

Well, since you ask, Jenner, that sketch about Peter III might be somewhat more accurate than The Great, but the accent is dead wrong - what with him not being Russian...

Comments

[lizbee]

I think this is one of those things that's largely skipped over in the TV series, but in the books, the Rocinante is a freelance security/general problem solving organisation. (There's also more info about who owns the Roci, and where Holden's endless supply of coffee beans comes from.)

[selenak]

Ah, okay.

[musesfool]

They definitely got paid to have Monica and the blind dude around filming everything in season 3 (or, they had their legal fees paid by that). In the books, they did a some work hunting pirates for Fred Johnson but that doesn't come up on the show. Iirc, materials goods are fed into recyclers and reprinted (but again, I don't think the show goes into that) so they don't cost much.

[selenak]

They definitely got paid to have Monica and the blind dude around filming everything in season 3

Yes, but I seem to recall that was just to settle their debts with Mars, plus given how this ended with Monica and the camera man spaced - due to higher circumstances, sure, but hardly with a filmed documentary - I wasn't even sure they got the full amount of money for that.

[dhampyresa]

Doesn't Fred Johnson finance them?

[selenak]

He covers the repair and fuel costs in the first two seasons as far as I recall but also says in s3 he wasn't going to do so forever. Nothing was said about living expenses, but the other commenters said in the books, they also do some freelance work for him.

[lilacsigil]

Originally they did assorted security/long haul courier/shady passenger travel for money, but this becomes a plot point at the start of S3.

[reverancepavane]

Whoever is basically employing them at the time is paying them, not just in refitting and fuelling the ship, but also refitting and refuelling the crew. Particularly Holden's coffee. They are the condottiere of the space age, due to lucking out at managing to "salvage" (and doesn't that idea piss off the Martians) a fully-armed corvette. Even as a fast small packet cargo for high value items, the insurance savings for the shipper would more than outweigh the cost of employing them to move the goods. And tehn there are the actual military contracts for keeping the peace.