So I managed to find a reason why #TheVela feels so different from #TheExpanse.
The world's framework feels similar: a solar system, with sublight interplanetary travel possible, but usually not fast, using both gravity assists and high-g burns. The outer planets as basically colony worlds, exploited by the inners for water and other materials. Refugee waves if something goes wrong, and prejudice against outer planetary folk in general. Political systems not being democratic.
(1/n)
Living conditions in the outer planets are hostile, so the inners are seen as soft and spoiled, freeloaders having it easy.
So that's a similar setup, isn't it? And we have refugees and ex-military running around in it in both cases, as well as a big technological disruption.
But "The Vela" felt different, and I wondered why.
And I think part of the reason is how and as what we meet the outer planet folks. That makes for different tales.
(2/n)
In "The Expanse", we meet the Belters as workers, as an industrial proletariat: as welders and mechanics and miners, represented by unions, and organizing as terrorists as well as a political arm. They live in built, "urban" spaces.
In "The Vela", we meet the outer planet folks a country dwellers: as farmers, hunters, foragers, as living in clans and extended family groups, as singers of songs and tellers of folk tales. Their landscapes are important to them.
(3/n)
So, maybe that makes a difference? At least for me, it makes "The Vela" feel a bit like a story stuck in "good, pure country folk vs. spoiled exploitative city dwellers' mode, especially as the rural outer planets are not responsible for the sun's demise and the terrorists are criminals in other ways as well.
"The Expanse" has a bit of that dynamic in the Martian attitudes too, but it's different: the Martians are neither innocents nor oppressors.
(4/n, n=4)
Jules