Paul Beakley I will drive my Toyota-with-a-50-cal-welded-to-it up to anybody who says that this kind of deep analysis isn’t fun!

But I think (beyond nitpicking your examples) that your deeper question is a really good one: why does all space adventure have this assumption, and why don’t we as consumers of media question it?

I thought Nathan Paoletta’s comments about guns-in-the-wilderness for food collection to be really interesting, because nobody is using a spaceship-mounted blaster or torpedo to hunt space-elk. Like a concealable handgun is meant to kill humans, the only purpose of a massive space-zapper is to blow up other ships, and if independent shipping entrepreneurs feel that’s necessary… well.

Does anybody remember if the non-military ships in the Expanse are armed? I think they aren’t, but I can’t specifically remember.