Leviathan Falls - spoilers tagged on first page only

[Liffguard]

34 minutes ago, karaddin said:

You could say they were simply seeing buttons and pressing them to see what happened?

I think that's about it, with the added restriction that they couldn't even see the direct effect of pushing each button. All they could see is whether or not pushing a button stopped a gate from being used or not.

[karaddin]

So the Goths were really just another Holden

[Leofric]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

So the Goths were really just another Holden

Yes, Mirror Holden with a goatee.  

[Kalbear]

The goths were also akin to Duarte and his prisoner dilemma. 

One dark idea I have is that the changes they make to the systems aren't actually local to that system. They do turn off and on something for just a few minutes, but every effect goths have done has been alocal to the system. Why would it not spread from there?

Which means that once it is introduced - why would it not spread at the speed of light across the galaxy? 

So yeah, in my headcanon systems are going to eventually be hit by a wave of ionic bonding change that will wipe out any organic life in that system at that time and will last for like 20 minutes. 

[Liffguard]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

So the Goths were really just another Holden

My own headcanon is that far from being angry and terrifying gods, the goths are just entirely normal people scrambling to  deal with this terrifying incursion into their own universe with the same desperation and improvisation that humanity shows in dealing with them.

[Kyoshi]

Like everyone, I struggled through the beginning (new characters I didn't particularly care about because they didn't get as emotional an introduction as Maneo, Fillip, Prax, etc.; and not really knowing what the primary goal for most characters was from the beginning) ... but once it got going, it was really amazing. I loved the ending a lot. But I also felt really sad for Amos. Everyone he knows eventually dies.

The one complaint I had was that I was really hoping for a Fillip chapter (keeping fingers crossed that one of the novellas/short stories will address this). And maybe a Prax chapter to kind of tell us how the inner planets (relative to the gates) experienced this whole thing, the same way Amos gave us insight after the Free Navy attacked Earth.

I can't believe I have to wait for March to get the complete short story/novella compilation. 

[3CityApache]

But there ain't going to be any short stories there, that weren't previously published, are there? 

It was not the best of nine books for me, but I liked the ending, mostly. I also hoped Filip would reach out to Naomi somehow, probably during Hive mind's incidents. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, 3CityApache said:

But there ain't going to be any short stories there, that weren't previously published, are there? 

It was not the best of nine books for me, but I liked the ending, mostly. I also hoped Filip would reach out to Naomi somehow, probably during Hive mind's incidents. 

There is going to be one - The Sins of our fathers: https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sins_of_Our_Fathers

 

[shortstark]

It looks like we are kinda unanimous in our desire to see felip again, I wonder why they didn't go his route instead of Kit, there was a focus on Alex here that perhaps explain the Kit decision, but it was a minor bug in an excellent finale, that Amos is the figurative last man standing was a delight, burnished by the fact that cara and xan should be there also to keep him company. 

[Jace, Extat]

I thought the whole point of Filip's ending was that it was his own, free of his parents and their stories.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Babblebauble said:

I thought the whole point of Filip's ending was that it was his own, free of his parents and their stories.

That would be a stronger interpretation if he hadn't picked Nagata as his surname when signing on for the new job. 

[Kyll.Ing.]

3 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

That would be a stronger interpretation if he hadn't picked Nagata as his surname when signing on for the new job. 

There has to be a lot of Nagatas around if nobody ever thought "That Naomi Nagata sure is making a name for herself as a leader of the underground resistance ... and I know a Filip Nagata. Wonder if they are related?"

And it's not like Filip has a lot of ways to hide either. He's a (multi-generation) Belter by birth, which means he's bound to a life in space or in weak gravity. He could not have found a planet to settle on and hid away in the crowds, but had to stay on ships and stations, of which there aren't that many. Doesn't the prologue of the first book say there were only ever about fifty million Belters at the very most? Add perhaps a few million Earthers and Martians living part-time in space. If Filip frequently traveled through ring space, or did so at all, his name would probably be picked up by someone in the Rocinante's orbit. Tall Belter named Nagata, there can't have been so many of those around that nobody would find it interesting. But if he stayed in the Sol system, well ... still only a limited number of places for him to be, and a limited-size crowd for him to hide in. And it's a crowd where his mother has a sizable network of connections.

Then again, I suppose he could have died or changed his decisions shortly after we last saw him. Perhaps he walked a few hundred meters down a corridor, saw Naomi on a wall screen somewhere, realized he'd be asking for trouble if he kept open about his identity, and hastily changed it to John Smith or something.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Kyll.Ing.

[mcbigski]

3 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

And it's not like Filip has a lot of ways to hide either. He's a (multi-generation) Belter by birth, which means he's bound to a life in space or in weak gravity. He could not have found a planet to settle on and hid away in the crowds, but had to stay on ships and stations, of which there aren't that many.

Judging only by the sample size of belters on Ilus, Filip most likely could have adapted to planetary gravity with time and the right drugs.  Naomi herself had IIRC a poor reaction to the regimen used by other belters, but I got the impression that there were a lot more of them planetside than stuck on the Barb because they couldn't handle adjusting to the gravity.  And getting out of Sol ASAP and then staying way, way off the beaten path should have been his priority, all things considered. 

[Jace, Extat]

7 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

That would be a stronger interpretation if he hadn't picked Nagata as his surname when signing on for the new job. 

How about the fact that he did not reappear in the text after emulating his mother's quest for anonymity and escape from his misdeeds? Maybe he was trying to follow her example, not her literal life path.

How's that for an interpretation? 'Cause that's what was written, not what I wanted to be written.

[shortstark]

The reappearance of felip would have raised interesting issues for the crew of the Roci, he is a war criminal, he was hands on in the attack on Earth, I can't see Holden and the rest of the Roci crew just turning a blind eye to that while he and his mom worked out their issues, don't think this could have been dealt with in the chapters allocated to Kit and would be a serious distraction at such a crucial juncture, authors should have re introduced him in TW imo, during the time when Naomi was by herself.. it doesn't weaken the book for me, just make for interesting speculation..

 

[sifth]

I'm a little disappointed we never got to directly contact with the Goths. I know, I know they're beyond us, but I wish we were given a little bit more on who or what they were, aside from things from another universe, that hated the Romans and later humanity, for draining energy from their universe. So I predicted the ending pretty early into the book and it was a rather good one, though I sort of hated all of the Kit chapters; since they felt like filler for the most part. Tanaka was an alright villain, but you have to over look the fact that she's basically "evil Bobbie", which they even reference in the book directly at one point. To be honest I wish the conflict with Laconia got resolved much sooner, so more focus could be given the threat the Goths were to our universe. By the halfway point, I was sort of laughing at all of the infighting that was still going on, in the face of extinction.

My favorite part was when Miller returned though and thought it was only fitting that Holden and Miller should go down together. Still a lot of plots get unresolved at the end and certain characters get written out of the story completely, like Trejo, which just felt weird. Overall I thought this was a solid ending for these characters, but not really for this universe and hope there is more at some point.

[Kalbear]

6 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

How about the fact that he did not reappear in the text after emulating his mother's quest for anonymity and escape from his misdeeds? Maybe he was trying to follow her example, not her literal life path.

How's that for an interpretation? 'Cause that's what was written, not what I wanted to be written.

Well, if we are going for what is written- he did a shitty job of wanting to go away from both of his parents legacies by choosing that name. 

We do know Naomi believes him to be dead and assumes she effectively kills him by being dutchmanned. That explains why she'd stop looking (though to be clear she stopped looking before that too, when she left the first time). My personal interpretation is that Filip felt profound guilt at what he did and felt his mother was right, but he could not bear to tell her that - so it was better to just let it all drop. But not because he didn't want to go the same way she did or have anything to do with her.

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

Well, if we are going for what is written- he did a shitty job of wanting to go away from both of his parents legacies by choosing that name. 

We do know Naomi believes him to be dead and assumes she effectively kills him by being dutchmanned. That explains why she'd stop looking (though to be clear she stopped looking before that too, when she left the first time). My personal interpretation is that Filip felt profound guilt at what he did and felt his mother was right, but he could not bear to tell her that - so it was better to just let it all drop. But not because he didn't want to go the same way she did or have anything to do with her.

Yeah, dude. He's following her example of getting lost in decent, everyday, contribution to society and leaving the crimes he was manipulated into committing behind.

Like his mom did.

Which is why he uses her name. 

And then disappears... 

Naomi didn't intend to become a savior of the galaxy or reunite with her dysfunctional family, she just wanted to disappear.

And that's what Filip did. 

I mean, I don't understand the confusion.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Babblebauble said:

Yeah, dude. He's following her example of getting lost in decent, everyday, contribution to society and leaving the crimes he was manipulated into committing behind.

Like his mom did.

Which is why he uses her name. 

And then disappears... 

Naomi didn't intend to become a savior of the galaxy or reunite with her dysfunctional family, she just wanted to disappear.

And that's what Filip did. 

I mean, I don't understand the confusion.

Think the confusion is about saying he wanted to go away from Naomi's legacy and what she was about...and then took her name. 

Sounds to me like he emphatically did not want that, but wanted to show connection with her even if he couldn't face her again. 

[karaddin]

Yeah I'm mostly similar, although I think it's primarily shame at what he'd done rather than not wanting to tell her she was right that kept him away.