Hope you all enjoy the video! Alasdair did some killer editing on this one and I had a great time coming up with Egyptian-themed ship and class names to submit to James SA Corey.
I love the design of the ship and the technological approach to its furtive nature, the asymmetric form and the railgun are just great, excellent work with background history and information.
Although certainly scary... at the same time obviously not that effective considering they were all destroyed within a few months of going into combat. They sort of remind me of the German Tiger tanks, impressive but ultimately kind of ineffective, kind of like private corporatism in general wink wink. Unless you could somehow make a ton of them, but I think in the series the crews were pretty much reacting to these situations out of a certain amount of panic, and were using them in a way they weren't really designed. Sure they did disable the Donnager, but it was pretty much a suicide mission considering the losses they took in the attack and then lost the entire group with the self destruct. I think about these things too much.
I reckon they had ex-military mercenary types crewing the Amun-Ra ships, the boarding party that attacked the Donnager was certainly competent enough to give the MCRN's finest considerable trouble. Topped off with a similar arrogant "we won't lose" attitude", less than stellar discipline and considerable plot armour - you didn't think the Osiris had a chance against the Roci did you? - and they find themselves in a similar position as those Tiger crews. Equipped with badass tools but ultimately falling short. Would have been interesting to see one the Amun-Ra ships survive and become a regular antagonist, stalking the Roci across the system. It's captain and crew could have been the most competent and deadly among the Amun-Ra ships, with a vendetta against Mars and the Roci crew for killing their comrades.
Thats the reality. Many real advanced designs were never really adopted past few advanced prototypes because it would be much expensive to field en masse, or because the design were too much of one-trick-ponnies. While awesome for black ops, Donnager killed 2/3 of the fleet. Its easier to just throw proven cheap workhorses into the fray.
Well they did not want to destroy the Donnager, they wanted to capture it. If they fired a barrage of nuclear torpedoes similar to those they used to take out the Cant - Donnager would not stand a chance. They fired only like 10 or 11 torpedoes and scored t least 2 direct hits. Donnager on the other hand fired twice as much torpedoes and only scored one or two hits. Protogen tech was somewhat superior to MCRN.
YEEEEES FINALLYYY! without you Spacedock, no delevoper would ever expand the canon regarding the stealth ship and would just say, "yeeah, it's a stealth ship, it's stealth and scary". you being part of the Expanse team is the best thing ever. you guys are the best!
I know, right? I love the design and all, but they were presented in such an evil light, it's kind of satisfying to know they were all destroyed. They were like sinister dark dragons roaming the solar system.
I honestly was confused and shocked, I thought they were aliens or something weird like that because up to that point every ship we had seen had a very industrial look to them, and were not as technologically advanced as those ships.
The most terrifying part imo was their first few seconds during their attack on the donnager. The way they just flipped and burned: *engine cut* _puff_puff_puff_puff_ *silence* puff_puff_puff_puff_ *engine burn* next scene *faint clangs* _missiles shooting_ the introduction was brilliant
brooklyn560 True. But I like to think that somewhere deep she knew they’d take no survivors based on previous antics, and decided to just say a final “no u”
It's misrepresented in the video, but the Donnager actually destroyed four of the Amun-Ras in direct combat, only the two surviving vessels were taken out by the scuttling. So it's not like these vessels were completely superior to the Donnager in combat and only a crazy and unexpected action could take them out - they actually only managed to take out the Donnager by ambush. Prior knowledge of the enemy would have allowed the Donnager to open fire much earlier and more decisively, and deploy her frigates in advance, probably defeating the Amun-Ras.
@@brooklyn560 It's much higher stakes than that. In the books is described that advanced spacewarefare relies heavily on fullyautomated friend and foe identification, tracked and shared accross the sollar system. The main computer of the Donnarger houses a private key used to authenticate these identifications. Should a enemy ever get inside the main server room, the whole marsian fleet would fall. Basically the enemy could mark their own torpedos as friendly and attack before anyone could react. For these reasons protocol requies immediate selfdestruction if either the main control, server- or the engine-room gets compromised.
In the fight with the Donnager we see both the strength and weakness of these ships. They can show up nearly anywhere with little to no warning and pack enough of a punch to take out even much larger opponents, but they're vulnerable and unable to take much punishment once found.
They only threatened the Donnager because of the boarding action. There is a running theory that the Donnager was not fully manned and thus the reason the boarding parties were succeeding.
One of the big weaknesses of the ships is that their angular shape (necessary for their stealth functionality) also makes an efficient PDC full-coverage impossible. This is how the Donnager's torpedoes were able to take out two or three of them. The ships are good for appearing, killing, then leaving, not slugging it out with a capital ship.
@@OceanHedgehog I'm pretty sure that was a big reason the Rocinante won in its' fight with the Osiris. The Roci has 6 PDCs that give it great coverage and was able to use most of them at any given time. Whereas the Osiris has 4 PDCs, even though it's a bigger vessel. In that fight, the real advantage the Osiris had, was its railgun, that could only be aimed with the maneuvering thrusters. When the Roci got close and was able to stay away from the railgun, its 6 PDCs were able to do more damage than the Osiris' 4.
@@LenAnderson856those blue glows that shot down Mars' missiles may have been just Earth's missiles since they give off a very bright blue glow while under thrust.
To be fair PDC’s aren’t meant to be use offensively. The Roci needed to create a situation for it superior PDC’s to win the fight. Same with it later adopted railgun they can only reliably be use in close quarters so the ship class aren’t even built with them.
@@Phoenix-vf4nd I'm not just speaking of offensive use, as one of the them was destroyed by a torpedo from the Donnager. However, I wouldn't say PDCs are not designed for offensive use. They are also designed for CQB, as torpedoes have a minimum effect range. Otherwise, they cannot build up enough speed to effectively evade PDCs. I would assume the less than idea PDC placement is to accommodate the stealth design aspects.
6 of them lost against the Donnager, when you factor in the Tachi "Roci" actually took one out as well, that's 7 taken out by the Donnager and her Frigate.
True, the Roci did destroy the Anubis, but only after a protomolecure outbreak took out the crew, not sure if she could have been recovered at that point.
The Donnager could carry six Morrigan class destroyer escorts, three Corvette class light frigates, or a mix of the previously mentioned ships. A fully equipped Donnager class battleship would have had little trouble defeating the six stealths.
That's why they had to trick the Donnager at the beginning to catch her off guard, otherwise they wouldn't have stood a chance. If they weren't able to slow her down in the initial stages of the battle, she still would have likely defeated those last two ships.
josh fritz Nah... The Donnager is to strait forward in my opinion this ship is more unique with all the different shapes that make up it's hall and something about all thouse shapes and the black color scheme make me love it. Not that I don't like the Donnager or anything. It's actually the third, second would be the Rocinante.
The Expanse ships are very, very sexy. I only wish they did more shots showing those ships in their full glory, like they did in old Star Trek. Can't wait for breakdowns of the stealth missile platform and Earth defensive railgun station.
That ship would be perfect for piracy with stealth and ambush capabilities along with boarding/breaching pods, a large cargo bay for the bounty and even detention cells for the hostages
Perhaps my favorite design of the Expanse ships. I love the naming convention you gave them, so appropriate! Perhaps the one of most unusual 'human' ships ever designed for film. It's such a nightmare of asymmetrical angles and proportions that you never quite knew what you were looking at. Especially the black hull against space. I think it's brilliantly sinister, sleek & aggressive. They were built for stealthy fast attacks, but they were definitely not heavily armored... the attack on Donnager was practically suicidal & the Roci used the tight maneuvering space at Thoth station to gain an advantage over the Osiris. . . . I want a model kit of this thing!! :)
You sound so professional I've never seen anything like it I've been watching for I think maybe two years and my jaw just drops . The History Channel needs to drop a million on you it would be money and ratings well spent.
Ah, I'm glad you clarified this - I had thought the class name was the Anubis class thanks to Google. There are 3d models of the ship already made and that go by the Anubis class designation.
My favourite class in the show and in the books. So freakishly threatening. A pity the crew couldn’t have stolen, I mean salvaged one of them. So cool, so deadly
Only 61.5m long? In the battle of Toth station we see the 50m long Rocinante right next to a stealth frigate (even featured in this video) an she is considerably shorter than the Amun-Ra class. The 100m given in the starship size comparision chart seems far more realistic. Anyway great video. I had to wait way too long for this.
Better yet, in scene where Holden and Naomi enter the reactor section of Anubis, the entire room is at least 50 m in length. I guess Protogen developed TARDIS technology from all that blue goo.
yea, it was always unclear what happened to the ships that didn't get shot down. It would have been cool for them to appear later in the hands of pirates or mercs, but getting caught in the donnager's blast makes sense.
Good lord. You really tore the roof off with this one. I love it so much, and it's great to get so much more detail about these ships that we only ever see glimpses of. THANK YOU!
There is no such thing as stealth in space. You can't get rid of heat, except to radiate it into space giving a heat signature. If you didn't radiate it into space everything inside that ship would be cooked to death in a matter of hours. You can reduce a heat signature but you cannot, by al laws of thermodynamics get rid of it faster than it is produced, except by radiating it out.
Hey, not sure if you remember, but it was great to say hi to you at the Expanse panel at DragonCon!! Was the first panel I've seen with the cast of the series, and hearing you ask a question made it even that much a better experience, thank you so much for your channel. Also, convinced my GF to finally start watching the series, and love re-watching with her, its great when i can add details about the ships and tech of the show from having watched your vids. P.S. she loves the show!
Hey Daniel, can you do a detailed analysis of what the Donnager could have done to win the battle vs the 6 stealth ships? Maybe something about why Captain Yao was underestimating the ships and what she didn't do, either?
Technically, nobody won the battle between the stealths and the Donnager. Captain Yao underestimated the ships because she thought that they were OPA pirates. A fully prepared and armed Donnager, equipped with it's full compliment of internally stored escorts, would have had no trouble defeating the stealths.
I guess the fun thing will be to explain why some of the other tech never seemed to make it past this particular class of vessels. I know they covered the railgun on the Roci in later books, but another stealth vehicle doesn't seem to come up in the rest of the novels.
At least 4 by the donnager's weapon, and at least 1 from self destruction. The other 1 ship wasn't seen during the boarding sequence, so it could be destroyed or simply out of view. Then again, the last ship isn't visible during the shot before donnie self destruct. Donnager might have destroy that ship when she's being boarded. Regardless of how each ship die, Donnager took 6 out of 8 operational Amun-Ra class.
Alright. This video just raised the bar again. I really have to say, Daniel, the quality of your content is out of this world and the fact that all this goes into canon just makes all of this even more amazing. Maybe we should lobby Alcon and S. A. Corey for a lore book on TE's space ships in cooperation with you.
I always used to think that Donnager fought one stealth cruiser that carried 6 stealth fighters, turns out these things were frigates that travelled in a group
Needed more PDCs. I understand that even stowable PDC doors may have compromised the stealth a little bit, but given their short lives and limited dependence on stealth, I'd say the extra PDCs would have been worth it and possibly kept more of them alive in the battle against the Donnager, and probably would have prevented the Rocinante from being able to strafe them so effectively.
Amazing! The Amun-Ra class, considering that this is all *canon*, would be the first scientifically accurate depiction of a stealth spaceship in any SF production.
When these ships attack the 'Donny' it appeared as one ship with interlocking capability. I figured you would mention it. Other than that, this is off the rails. For those that gave a thumbs down they don't appreciate your hard work and are out of their minds. You always give informative content in your videos.
it's an old military tactic. same reason why you march troops single file if you want to hide your numbers. or light a massive bonfire at night (utterly screws anyone trying to count your troops, since the bonfire screws their night vision just by being there.)
I thought the same thing when the tactical officer on the Donnager reports one vessel but then corrects to multiple vessels. I think they just de-cloak and decelerate in a staggered formation which is actually a nice tactical move because you force the opponent's targeting systems to acquire new targets while you already have a lock with the lead ship.
I like the look of this thing. I always appreciate when military designers think well outside the box on designing ships from what they are used to. It actually looks like something ONI in Halo. Now they just have to take this design and drop the stealth to make a dedicated combat model. The weapons complement on it is impressive but how many more can be added with they remove the stealth features all together. Plus, I love the use of Egyptian deities as names for these ships. Lately, Greek has been having alot of attention.
I don't know the thing's are pretty dam effective already. The only place they seem lacking is with PDC's where it has 2 less than the corvette class (Rocinante) despite being a larger ship.
They have a railgun though and still superior to Rocinante even in CQB. The only reason they lost at Thoth is probably they did not expect an attack and Roci crew prepared for the battle as much as they possibly could, also they used the station itself as cover and Roci's agility. Furthermore, most of the Steath's crew probably died of asphyxiation since they did not wear their spacesuits and both vessels were thoroughly perforated in the violent PDC exchange.
Plus Stealth ships are attack, not guard, ships. They surrender agility & firepower for the ability to get close without detection. In a passive defence role they are much reduced. This shows the one minded "One suit fits all" stupidity of a crporation
Removing the stealth systems probably would require a complete redesign, its not stated in the video but i suspect that unique hull shape and internal refrigeration systems were probably such a key component that a lot of the stealth ship was designed around them and most of the other systems had to compromise to fit them in. Taking way the stealth parts would probably be like taking the aircraft handling systems out of an aircraft carrier, hard to do and seriously compromising the design.
My favorite ships. They are beautiful, it's a shame that none survived, I wish I had seen more action with them. This idea of highly advanced non-military ships makes them extremely scary. They remind me of the Uss vengeance of Section 31. Always conspiring and wandering in the shadows.
Sorry if i missed it, but if there are 9 in total; six lost to the Donnagers fireworks, 1 infected one nuked by the roci, 1 defeated at Toth station... then isn't there 1 more unaccounted for? What did i miss?
This was awesome, great job again and I'm so jealous you get to do this for the Expanse franchise! I've been pestering Bioware about new info on the SWTOR ships for ages.
I had one of these ships but, because it has a large carbon footprint I traded it in for the latest Rocinate Class Light Frigate (was corvette class but with the light rail-gun and new proto-molecule armour it's shifted up a class) which allows me to hop around the solar system in style and safety... if anyone needs a lift to the Belt I've got room for a few travelers with light baggage or 1x power armour.
Great video! Love the idea that the mysterious 4th faction turns out to be corporate/ private interests! Almost like if Apple or Amazon decided to invest and create its own little supper advanced military unit, supplied with the best tech currently available and funded but their vast wealth and to degree influence. Still was a desperate move and a close call! Watch the battle again the only reason the stealth ships won was the lucky reactor hit at the start of the battle which led to the Donnager having to shut down its PDC's to prevent the damaged reactor over heating. If it wasn't for that, the stealth ships would never have been able to launch their breaching pods and forced the captain to scuttle the ship. Man great TV! Great space battles... best series since BSG (2004) by far!
Very cool and menacing ships. They were more even formidable in the book. The Donnager was disabled without taking any of them down in combat (none that are mentioned anyway), but 6 were lost when she blew herself up.
I'm guessing when it comes to ships in terms of actual looks and specs the Books and TV series agree, except for maybe what class they call it in the Books and what class they call it in the TV series.
Not exactly: the Donnager class in the books is described as an office building in space, no need for streamlining in vacuum and maximum utilization of interior space. I pictured it more like the Dortmunder from Firefly. Instead it looked more stereotypically sci-fi (B-5, Halo, something like that).
@@davidhanson4909 To be fair the Expanse series is trying to cater to sci fi lovers and thats probably why they made the Donnager look more typically sci fi. In the books Holden specifically mentions that these ships weren't like the old sea faring navy ships of earth and therefore it was hard to see them as good looking ships.
Well, at least they got the no stealth in space if the drive is powered up part right, as we have the optical technology now in 2018 to detect the main engine of the Space X Falcon rocket, from Pluto! Do wonder where they put all the heat they are generating, but maybe they have some sort of scifi material that can store heat until they have to vent the melted heat sink material. Something like ice, but even more so, that absorbs huge amounts of heat durring phase transition maybe.
Hope you all enjoy the video! Alasdair did some killer editing on this one and I had a great time coming up with Egyptian-themed ship and class names to submit to James SA Corey.
The continuity of bringing the name Anubis full circle with the other ships was a very nice touch. :D
Are the Expanse team allowing you to give their ships official names?
@SPACETV Yes, James SA Corey vet our scripts.
I love the design of the ship and the technological approach to its furtive nature, the asymmetric form and the railgun are just great, excellent work with background history and information.
Spacedock That's so wicked awesome. You must be over the moon. Well done mate.
The UNN gets made fun of for fielding old and outdated warships. Then a private Earth corp produces only the scariest warship in the setting.
And that's how public state economy compares to private corporatism... conspiring with the state entities.
Although certainly scary... at the same time obviously not that effective considering they were all destroyed within a few months of going into combat. They sort of remind me of the German Tiger tanks, impressive but ultimately kind of ineffective, kind of like private corporatism in general wink wink. Unless you could somehow make a ton of them, but I think in the series the crews were pretty much reacting to these situations out of a certain amount of panic, and were using them in a way they weren't really designed. Sure they did disable the Donnager, but it was pretty much a suicide mission considering the losses they took in the attack and then lost the entire group with the self destruct.
I think about these things too much.
I reckon they had ex-military mercenary types crewing the Amun-Ra ships, the boarding party that attacked the Donnager was certainly competent enough to give the MCRN's finest considerable trouble. Topped off with a similar arrogant "we won't lose" attitude", less than stellar discipline and considerable plot armour - you didn't think the Osiris had a chance against the Roci did you? - and they find themselves in a similar position as those Tiger crews. Equipped with badass tools but ultimately falling short. Would have been interesting to see one the Amun-Ra ships survive and become a regular antagonist, stalking the Roci across the system. It's captain and crew could have been the most competent and deadly among the Amun-Ra ships, with a vendetta against Mars and the Roci crew for killing their comrades.
Thats the reality. Many real advanced designs were never really adopted past few advanced prototypes because it would be much expensive to field en masse, or because the design were too much of one-trick-ponnies. While awesome for black ops, Donnager killed 2/3 of the fleet. Its easier to just throw proven cheap workhorses into the fray.
Well they did not want to destroy the Donnager, they wanted to capture it. If they fired a barrage of nuclear torpedoes similar to those they used to take out the Cant - Donnager would not stand a chance. They fired only like 10 or 11 torpedoes and scored t least 2 direct hits. Donnager on the other hand fired twice as much torpedoes and only scored one or two hits. Protogen tech was somewhat superior to MCRN.
YEEEEES FINALLYYY!
without you Spacedock, no delevoper would ever expand the canon regarding the stealth ship and would just say, "yeeah, it's a stealth ship, it's stealth and scary". you being part of the Expanse team is the best thing ever. you guys are the best!
You know they were previously expanded on in the books right?
@@snonsig2688 people often don't even know books exist, lol
@@snonsig2688 not everybody is going to go out and read an entire novel (series) just to get some little bits of lore
Their appearance in the show really was terrifying. Great video.
I know, right?
I love the design and all, but they were presented in such an evil light, it's kind of satisfying to know they were all destroyed. They were like sinister dark dragons roaming the solar system.
Kirsten Bayes Yea
They appeared from nowhere and attacked the Donnager
Edouard Dubois yes! Those "lost with all hands" listings.
I honestly was confused and shocked, I thought they were aliens or something weird like that because up to that point every ship we had seen had a very industrial look to them, and were not as technologically advanced as those ships.
The most terrifying part imo was their first few seconds during their attack on the donnager. The way they just flipped and burned: *engine cut* _puff_puff_puff_puff_ *silence* puff_puff_puff_puff_ *engine burn* next scene *faint clangs* _missiles shooting_ the introduction was brilliant
I forgot that 6 of those bastards died against the Donnager.
Glad to see how useful a spiteful captain can be.
lol i think her self destructing the ship was to prevent cutting edge martian tech from falling into the hands of an earth corp
brooklyn560 True. But I like to think that somewhere deep she knew they’d take no survivors based on previous antics, and decided to just say a final “no u”
It's misrepresented in the video, but the Donnager actually destroyed four of the Amun-Ras in direct combat, only the two surviving vessels were taken out by the scuttling. So it's not like these vessels were completely superior to the Donnager in combat and only a crazy and unexpected action could take them out - they actually only managed to take out the Donnager by ambush. Prior knowledge of the enemy would have allowed the Donnager to open fire much earlier and more decisively, and deploy her frigates in advance, probably defeating the Amun-Ras.
AGH331 The ships were made for ambush tactics though, and that’s part of warfare.
@@brooklyn560 It's much higher stakes than that. In the books is described that advanced spacewarefare relies heavily on fullyautomated friend and foe identification, tracked and shared accross the sollar system. The main computer of the Donnarger houses a private key used to authenticate these identifications. Should a enemy ever get inside the main server room, the whole marsian fleet would fall. Basically the enemy could mark their own torpedos as friendly and attack before anyone could react. For these reasons protocol requies immediate selfdestruction if either the main control, server- or the engine-room gets compromised.
this is the ship that made me intriuged with the expanse, but the Roci was what made me fall in love with it.
Nothing will ever top your ship , captain solo.
For me the donager made me fall in love with the expanse
The Roci is a tough little ship with a tough little crew!
Im still in shock that the roci beet one
christ, imagine a stealth-plated Corvette class
In the fight with the Donnager we see both the strength and weakness of these ships. They can show up nearly anywhere with little to no warning and pack enough of a punch to take out even much larger opponents, but they're vulnerable and unable to take much punishment once found.
They only threatened the Donnager because of the boarding action. There is a running theory that the Donnager was not fully manned and thus the reason the boarding parties were succeeding.
One of the big weaknesses of the ships is that their angular shape (necessary for their stealth functionality) also makes an efficient PDC full-coverage impossible. This is how the Donnager's torpedoes were able to take out two or three of them. The ships are good for appearing, killing, then leaving, not slugging it out with a capital ship.
@@OceanHedgehog I'm pretty sure that was a big reason the Rocinante won in its' fight with the Osiris. The Roci has 6 PDCs that give it great coverage and was able to use most of them at any given time. Whereas the Osiris has 4 PDCs, even though it's a bigger vessel. In that fight, the real advantage the Osiris had, was its railgun, that could only be aimed with the maneuvering thrusters. When the Roci got close and was able to stay away from the railgun, its 6 PDCs were able to do more damage than the Osiris' 4.
What I'm hearing then is that these ships should be operated like submarines
@@LenAnderson856those blue glows that shot down Mars' missiles may have been just Earth's missiles since they give off a very bright blue glow while under thrust.
Protegen Amun-Ra: "Do we take prisoners?"
Donnager: "I don't."
Boisegang
Clone wars reference, I assume?
Yep.
RIP Hevy
I never asked for this, nor did I know I _needed_ this.
Jimmy Seaver
I have said similar things about many videos myself.
Jimmy Seaver same
Then don't watch. It is that simple
TheDude Abides ???
Pretty much sums up my feelings about this. It's just
hshfkdslafjsdlfa
so good.
"You thought you were passing an asteroid, BUT IT WAS ME, HATHOR!"
Stargate reference?
Poor PDC coverage seems to be the main weakness of this ship, based on the battle with the Donnager and the later battle with the Roci.
To be fair PDC’s aren’t meant to be use offensively. The Roci needed to create a situation for it superior PDC’s to win the fight. Same with it later adopted railgun they can only reliably be use in close quarters so the ship class aren’t even built with them.
@@Phoenix-vf4nd I'm not just speaking of offensive use, as one of the them was destroyed by a torpedo from the Donnager. However, I wouldn't say PDCs are not designed for offensive use. They are also designed for CQB, as torpedoes have a minimum effect range. Otherwise, they cannot build up enough speed to effectively evade PDCs. I would assume the less than idea PDC placement is to accommodate the stealth design aspects.
6 of them lost against the Donnager, when you factor in the Tachi "Roci" actually took one out as well, that's 7 taken out by the Donnager and her Frigate.
gpage actually Roci kill two of them, Anubis and Osiris!!
True, the Roci did destroy the Anubis, but only after a protomolecure outbreak took out the crew, not sure if she could have been recovered at that point.
The Donnager could carry six Morrigan class destroyer escorts, three Corvette class light frigates, or a mix of the previously mentioned ships. A fully equipped Donnager class battleship would have had little trouble defeating the six stealths.
That's why they had to trick the Donnager at the beginning to catch her off guard, otherwise they wouldn't have stood a chance. If they weren't able to slow her down in the initial stages of the battle, she still would have likely defeated those last two ships.
Excuse me, the name is Rocinante and it's legitimate salvage
Imo this is the best looking ship in the Expanse.
Agreed, personal favorite
Me to
I personally favor Martian Corvettes like the Roci but this is a CLOSE second.
and your opinion is wrong, that would be the MCRN Donnager. not to say that this is a bad looking ship, but i get hard just looking at the Donnager.
josh fritz Nah... The Donnager is to strait forward in my opinion this ship is more unique with all the different shapes that make up it's hall and something about all thouse shapes and the black color scheme make me love it. Not that I don't like the Donnager or anything. It's actually the third, second would be the Rocinante.
Thanks for this. Its really hard to get an idea of the ships shape in the series. Now i see why.
I agree with you. It's really hard to see the ship on the show. I think that was on purpose.
Woah! Didn't see you there!
The Expanse ships are very, very sexy. I only wish they did more shots showing those ships in their full glory, like they did in old Star Trek. Can't wait for breakdowns of the stealth missile platform and Earth defensive railgun station.
Amun-Ra, continuing the Egyptian theme the Anubis started. The class name gave me goose bumps;)
Only 9 commissioned? But 12 fusion drives for these ships were stolen from the Bush Naval Yards. So what happened with the other 3 drives?
Dun dun dunnnnnn!
Ooooohhhhh...
Willaev Mars has them
👽
That sure makes me think about eventual novel-TVseries divergences, when it gets to the Nemesis Games arc. No spoilers but you know what i mean.
It's possible that three of them were drive signatures from scouts. Another possibility is that there was sensor distortion.
*raises fist*
DAAAAMN YOOOOU PROTOGEEEEN
but, thanks for the sweet ship design all the same.
The coolest Expanse spaceship by a long shot.
That ship would be perfect for piracy with stealth and ambush capabilities along with boarding/breaching pods, a large cargo bay for the bounty and even detention cells for the hostages
I've just finished reading the first Expanse book and I can finally follow the events you describe in your Force Recon episodes
I've waited for that one, and I'm fully satified!
Ty Ty Ty. I wouldn't say we forgot about the Anubis. But she was way in our Expanse past. This was a welcome reminder. Spacedock rocks.
Perhaps my favorite design of the Expanse ships. I love the naming convention you gave them, so appropriate! Perhaps the one of most unusual 'human' ships ever designed for film. It's such a nightmare of asymmetrical angles and proportions that you never quite knew what you were looking at. Especially the black hull against space. I think it's brilliantly sinister, sleek & aggressive. They were built for stealthy fast attacks, but they were definitely not heavily armored... the attack on Donnager was practically suicidal & the Roci used the tight maneuvering space at Thoth station to gain an advantage over the Osiris. . . . I want a model kit of this thing!! :)
You sound so professional I've never seen anything like it I've been watching for I think maybe two years and my jaw just drops . The History Channel needs to drop a million on you it would be money and ratings well spent.
Ah, I'm glad you clarified this - I had thought the class name was the Anubis class thanks to Google. There are 3d models of the ship already made and that go by the Anubis class designation.
My favourite class in the show and in the books. So freakishly threatening. A pity the crew couldn’t have stolen, I mean salvaged one of them. So cool, so deadly
Would have been cool for the crew to legitimate salvage™️ the osiris and fix it up
Only 61.5m long? In the battle of Toth station we see the 50m long Rocinante right next to a stealth frigate (even featured in this video) an she is considerably shorter than the Amun-Ra class. The 100m given in the starship size comparision chart seems far more realistic.
Anyway great video. I had to wait way too long for this.
Probably old art works
Better yet, in scene where Holden and Naomi enter the reactor section of Anubis, the entire room is at least 50 m in length. I guess Protogen developed TARDIS technology from all that blue goo.
It's cannon man, take it up with the show writers.
@@JustinEpperly They were discussing its length, not its rail gun.
@@Helbore Heh, pretty sure he meant canon, not cannon :)
I've been looking forward to this one for quite some time.
Woo! Finally!
Theses are the sexiest ships in the Expanse.
Typo at 2:40? Says Anubis class! Nice to see Osiris made the cut. That was actually my head canon name for the ship at Thoth station already!
Been watching The Expanse for 2 3 days.Love it!
This class is honestly one of my absolute top favorite spaceships in all of Sci-Fi!
Goddamn. Divorced from all the horrible things these ships were used to do. This ship is truly beautiful to look at.
Amun Ra
The Hidden One
I was eagerly awaiting the stealth ship review and I was not disappointed. Thanks for producing this series! Love it!
I love these videos.
......
I really wish we didn't have to wait several years to see the Magnetar-class Breakdown though ^_^
Pain
What I'd give to see an actual image of one, to say nothing of a breakdown video.
@@logicplague I was a sweet summer child when I wrote this :'(
Cool Ship, I like such stealth shapes.
That's my favotite project from the entire expanse series,
Nice to finaly see it in spacedock, thanks
Wow, the Donnager killed more of these things that i remembered, i thought it destroyed like 3 but not 6. Protegen lost 2/3 of their fleet that day.
yea, it was always unclear what happened to the ships that didn't get shot down. It would have been cool for them to appear later in the hands of pirates or mercs, but getting caught in the donnager's blast makes sense.
Donnager destroy 3 of them, other 3 go down when Donnager's reactor explode.
Killed four in the battle, the last two were destroyed in the blast from the self-destruct.
It would be more surprising if they didn't get destroyed by the Donnager's self-destruction.
The the Capt of the Donni did what she needed. For Mars. The death of the Donni stood for something!!!
Good lord. You really tore the roof off with this one. I love it so much, and it's great to get so much more detail about these ships that we only ever see glimpses of. THANK YOU!
I hope the expanse will make it to the sixth series. I am really interested in what the Magnetar-class battleships will look like!
I often watch the CQB episode again just because of the aaaweeesooomee fighting scene. Best I have ever seen.
Neat using heat concealment like the Normandy
There is no such thing as stealth in space. You can't get rid of heat, except to radiate it into space giving a heat signature. If you didn't radiate it into space everything inside that ship would be cooked to death in a matter of hours. You can reduce a heat signature but you cannot, by al laws of thermodynamics get rid of it faster than it is produced, except by radiating it out.
dayum, I didn't realise it was 6 stealth ships that attacked the Donnager....no wonder we never saw very many of em after that lolz
Hey, not sure if you remember, but it was great to say hi to you at the Expanse panel at DragonCon!!
Was the first panel I've seen with the cast of the series, and hearing you ask a question made it even that much a better experience, thank you so much for your channel.
Also, convinced my GF to finally start watching the series, and love re-watching with her, its great when i can add details about the ships and tech of the show from having watched your vids.
P.S. she loves the show!
Never 'seen this' before!Get it
I can't wait to see a video on the proto molecule tech ships
My absolute favourite ship in the whole series.
Hey Daniel, can you do a detailed analysis of what the Donnager could have done to win the battle vs the 6 stealth ships? Maybe something about why Captain Yao was underestimating the ships and what she didn't do, either?
Technically, nobody won the battle between the stealths and the Donnager. Captain Yao underestimated the ships because she thought that they were OPA pirates. A fully prepared and armed Donnager, equipped with it's full compliment of internally stored escorts, would have had no trouble defeating the stealths.
@@ProfTheorie Perhaps the Morrigna were all out on missions at the time?
I love these Expanse backstory briefs. Some of the best stuff on your channel. I hope you keep doing them for awhile!
I guess the fun thing will be to explain why some of the other tech never seemed to make it past this particular class of vessels. I know they covered the railgun on the Roci in later books, but another stealth vehicle doesn't seem to come up in the rest of the novels.
ok so the costs issue and the gun issue is highlighted, sweet
I just want to say a late "thank you" for making this video, as it's what got me into the Expanse. I just finished 3rd season and it was a blast!
I was waiting for this one and you didn't disappoint. Excellent!
Damn the Donnager took out six of these, that battle is ever more impressive to me now.
pretty sure they only took out two congenitally, then thee rest got caught in the self-destruct blast
It was 4 in combat.
Two to Torps, two to Heavy Railguns.
At least 4 by the donnager's weapon, and at least 1 from self destruction.
The other 1 ship wasn't seen during the boarding sequence, so it could be destroyed or simply out of view.
Then again, the last ship isn't visible during the shot before donnie self destruct. Donnager might have destroy that ship when she's being boarded.
Regardless of how each ship die, Donnager took 6 out of 8 operational Amun-Ra class.
this ship is like a villian itself, and a good one
Alright. This video just raised the bar again. I really have to say, Daniel, the quality of your content is out of this world and the fact that all this goes into canon just makes all of this even more amazing. Maybe we should lobby Alcon and S. A. Corey for a lore book on TE's space ships in cooperation with you.
I always used to think that Donnager fought one stealth cruiser that carried 6 stealth fighters, turns out these things were frigates that travelled in a group
I was waiting for this
Oh man, imagine if the Roci had been one of THESE bad boys!
Now Imagine if Protogen decided instead of frigates build an actual battleship. It would be the scariest thing you could meet in the solar system.
Needed more PDCs. I understand that even stowable PDC doors may have compromised the stealth a little bit, but given their short lives and limited dependence on stealth, I'd say the extra PDCs would have been worth it and possibly kept more of them alive in the battle against the Donnager, and probably would have prevented the Rocinante from being able to strafe them so effectively.
They are supposed to ambush target, and therefore strike first. PDCs take valuable space and mass, and are not needed if the ship strike first.
Awesome name for the class! Great Vid!
The Expanse is the best sci-fi show i've seen for quite some time. it's Stellar. ;) No really, it's great.
"On my ship, the 'Rocinante'
Wheeling through the galaxies,
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery "
-Cygnus X-1
Remember the Cant
I like how its basically a well armored crewed railgun
great, keep the Expanse stuff coming :)
Man I love The Expanse! First scifi IP in a long time to really put thought into it's ships, beyond visuals.
This is my favourite ship in the expanse. Everything about it is absolutely vicious.
I think this is one of your best expanse videos
Great video Spacedock. Any chance you can do videos on the two background UNN ships (Seen over Ganymede and in the Sol ring fleet)
Been requesting this from a long time. I clicked like even before I watched it lol.
Amazing! The Amun-Ra class, considering that this is all *canon*, would be the first scientifically accurate depiction of a stealth spaceship in any SF production.
@@es4583 that and also there is no AI in the expanse. Artificial intelligence would be very useful, yet we never see them used.
I've been waiting for this! Thank you!
I was wonder when we'd get the An-Yoo-Bis
Gotta wonder where Jehuty is.
When these ships attack the 'Donny' it appeared as one ship with interlocking capability. I figured you would mention it. Other than that, this is off the rails. For those that gave a thumbs down they don't appreciate your hard work and are out of their minds. You always give informative content in your videos.
I didn't think they were interlinked, just flying in formation to disguise numbers and make Identification more difficult.
Andrew Wootton
Reviewed Video: Valid Point 🤔
it's an old military tactic. same reason why you march troops single file if you want to hide your numbers. or light a massive bonfire at night (utterly screws anyone trying to count your troops, since the bonfire screws their night vision just by being there.)
pendraco2000
Hmmmmmmmm now that's interesting 🤔
With all the military movies then I watch, I should have been able to figure that out.
I thought the same thing when the tactical officer on the Donnager reports one vessel but then corrects to multiple vessels. I think they just de-cloak and decelerate in a staggered formation which is actually a nice tactical move because you force the opponent's targeting systems to acquire new targets while you already have a lock with the lead ship.
I'd say seeing one of these in this series is the same as seeing a Borg Cube in Trek.....the fear it produces is incredible.
Potentally the deadliest ship in the expanse. Very good to come back and rewatch!
I like the look of this thing. I always appreciate when military designers think well outside the box on designing ships from what they are used to. It actually looks like something ONI in Halo.
Now they just have to take this design and drop the stealth to make a dedicated combat model. The weapons complement on it is impressive but how many more can be added with they remove the stealth features all together.
Plus, I love the use of Egyptian deities as names for these ships. Lately, Greek has been having alot of attention.
I don't know the thing's are pretty dam effective already. The only place they seem lacking is with PDC's where it has 2 less than the corvette class (Rocinante) despite being a larger ship.
They have a railgun though and still superior to Rocinante even in CQB. The only reason they lost at Thoth is probably they did not expect an attack and Roci crew prepared for the battle as much as they possibly could, also they used the station itself as cover and Roci's agility. Furthermore, most of the Steath's crew probably died of asphyxiation since they did not wear their spacesuits and both vessels were thoroughly perforated in the violent PDC exchange.
Plus Stealth ships are attack, not guard, ships. They surrender agility & firepower for the ability to get close without detection. In a passive defence role they are much reduced.
This shows the one minded "One suit fits all" stupidity of a crporation
Removing the stealth systems probably would require a complete redesign, its not stated in the video but i suspect that unique hull shape and internal refrigeration systems were probably such a key component that a lot of the stealth ship was designed around them and most of the other systems had to compromise to fit them in. Taking way the stealth parts would probably be like taking the aircraft handling systems out of an aircraft carrier, hard to do and seriously compromising the design.
My favorite ships. They are beautiful, it's a shame that none survived, I wish I had seen more action with them. This idea of highly advanced non-military ships makes them extremely scary. They remind me of the Uss vengeance of Section 31. Always conspiring and wandering in the shadows.
lukas villar you can bet the UNN stole the tech after Protogen dissolved, canonically the tech might get into more modern ships of the UN.
@@s.31.l50
It's my hope !!!
@@s.31.l50 At the very least the missile guidance and other targeting technology should be a good upgrade
Actually it’s possible one survived in the later books it seems like a stealth ship is running around & is described as a generation old
Sorry if i missed it, but if there are 9 in total; six lost to the Donnagers fireworks, 1 infected one nuked by the roci, 1 defeated at Toth station... then isn't there 1 more unaccounted for? What did i miss?
Woah!
I now have so much respect for the Amun-Ra.
I thought it was awesome before... But now!!!
Except 4 PDCs? That's a bit optimistic.
Keep these coming! I love your channel.
Please do Dyson Sphere vs Ringworld. Which is more practical, energy efficient, habbitable, and longer lasting?
That roster with what happened to each of them is just a standing testament for Martian badassery
Can you do the adamant frigate or arachne cruiser from battlestar Galactica deadlock please?
Wicked SpaceDock episode as always !
Thanks, since first seeing them I had wanted some lore on the stealth frigates.
“Appropriately named” says the guy who named it. Haha I love it!
This was awesome, great job again and I'm so jealous you get to do this for the Expanse franchise! I've been pestering Bioware about new info on the SWTOR ships for ages.
That is one SERIOUSLY dangerous looking ship.
I had one of these ships but, because it has a large carbon footprint I traded it in for the latest Rocinate Class Light Frigate (was corvette class but with the light rail-gun and new proto-molecule armour it's shifted up a class) which allows me to hop around the solar system in style and safety... if anyone needs a lift to the Belt I've got room for a few travelers with light baggage or 1x power armour.
Great video! Love the idea that the mysterious 4th faction turns out to be corporate/ private interests! Almost like if Apple or Amazon decided to invest and create its own little supper advanced military unit, supplied with the best tech currently available and funded but their vast wealth and to degree influence. Still was a desperate move and a close call! Watch the battle again the only reason the stealth ships won was the lucky reactor hit at the start of the battle which led to the Donnager having to shut down its PDC's to prevent the damaged reactor over heating. If it wasn't for that, the stealth ships would never have been able to launch their breaching pods and forced the captain to scuttle the ship. Man great TV! Great space battles... best series since BSG (2004) by far!
Very cool and menacing ships. They were more even formidable in the book. The Donnager was disabled without taking any of them down in combat (none that are mentioned anyway), but 6 were lost when she blew herself up.
I'm guessing when it comes to ships in terms of actual looks and specs the Books and TV series agree, except for maybe what class they call it in the Books and what class they call it in the TV series.
Not exactly: the Donnager class in the books is described as an office building in space, no need for streamlining in vacuum and maximum utilization of interior space.
I pictured it more like the Dortmunder from Firefly.
Instead it looked more stereotypically sci-fi (B-5, Halo, something like that).
@@davidhanson4909 To be fair the Expanse series is trying to cater to sci fi lovers and thats probably why they made the Donnager look more typically sci fi. In the books Holden specifically mentions that these ships weren't like the old sea faring navy ships of earth and therefore it was hard to see them as good looking ships.
Star citizen is looking nice.
I'll get my coat.
Well, at least they got the no stealth in space if the drive is powered up part right, as we have the optical technology now in 2018 to detect the main engine of the Space X Falcon rocket, from Pluto!
Do wonder where they put all the heat they are generating, but maybe they have some sort of scifi material that can store heat until they have to vent the melted heat sink material. Something like ice, but even more so, that absorbs huge amounts of heat durring phase transition maybe.
I love these vids