Terror attacks

 This is Joseph. Spoilers for the Expanse below. 

There was a good article on the Expanse from LGM:

Rather, the impression formed is that the show’s writers wanted to write a post-apocalypse, and they wanted to write 9/11, and never stopped to consider that these two stories don’t mesh together very well. And conversely, the extent of the devastation on Earth makes a lot of the handwringing about the proportionality of Earth’s response seem baffling—this isn’t an isolated terrorist attack; it’s an act of genocide. Given that most of Belt’s military factions fall in behind Inaros, it’s hard to argue with the belief of hardliners in the Earth government that they are at war with the Belt, and that the rules of engagement should reflect that.

This is a very good point and it gets at the tonal dissonance of the last few episodes of the season. The question of whether Earth is over-reacting seems a lot more nuanced than the show would lead you to believe. First, the attack on Earth was mostly stopped (only 3 of 9 rocks hit) and the consequences are a planetary level catastrophe. This is a potentially an extinction level event for Earth. 

Second, we later see the stations that are supposedly civilian launching attacks on Earth ships and the Belter government having absolutely no interest in finding the criminals who did the attack.  

I think that this take is a good one and one of the few places that the season mis-steps. The campaign of Marcos Inaros is a great illustration of people being placed in morally ambiguous spots and is best illustrated by the compelling arc of Camina Drummer, who has to pick one of two completely unappealing sides (the colonial power or the terrorist). But that the focus of Earth would be on peaceful resolution seems unlikely, especially as they are losing direct naval battles with the Free Navy with the help of Belter settlements. 

What I think is actually missing is a Belter view that shows struggle with being caught between Marcos and Earth. Sure, that is the point of Drummer's arc. But there isn't a high level political discussion (likely because of Fred's death) as to how to deal with the terrorists internally. It is that form of state capacity that actually generates the best chance of peace -- terrorists are bad and nobody will ignore repeated attacks of this magnitude (civilian killings in the billions, direct attacks on naval assets). The belt really needs to have a response to avoid total war and that is the piece that is really missing from the discussion on Earth. Who are the political factions that they can appeal to in order to create a actual viable peace process? 

This really is the part of the story that makes it hard to grapple with the current approach as it seems inevitable that the current group is unlikely to settle for peaceful co-existence.