Leviathan Falls - spoilers tagged on first page only

[Jace, Extat]

What the hell are we arguing about again? I'm sure I started it, whatever. 

Sorry, tough week. Tough year. Been a lot of those lately, I shouldn't add to the Despiser's woes. 

I also wondered that Filip might reappear, but it made sense to me that his effort to emulate Naomi's achievement of breaking away from his family means he doesn't reappear. Sure, we want him to show up because we're interested in him and his fate. But really the happier ending is that he got away from it all for good. Maybe he fell off a treadmill and broke his neck, or had six kids and one of them killed him over a crooked dice game, or maybe he lived happily ever after. The ending they seemed to want to give the character was that whatever happened to him, he got the chance to start over. That blank slate ahead of him is more important, I think, for what it represents than a cheap cameo return. 

Just my thoughts.

[Kyll.Ing.]

The other characters I was hoping to see again would be the father-daughter pair of Praxidike and Mei Meng.

Prax was last seen shortly after the attack on Earth, before the time skip. He leaked the genome sequence of his super-modified yeast and effectively saved billions on Earth from starvation. For this he got into some trouble with the Free Navy, but was released after they misunderstood his confession. The Free Navy ceased to exist shortly after. Whatever became of Prax after that?

Previously, his daughter Mei had been involved with the protomolecule at a very young age. Presumably not in direct contact, but still, she has to have known how close she came to infection. How did that affect her, growing up? After the time skip she'd be a woman in her early thirties, probably starting a career around the time the Laconians invaded ... I think her perspective would have been interesting to witness, even though she might not have had any influence on the events that unfolded.

Likewise, Annushka Volovodov was last seen boarding a colony ship headed for the ring worlds. Her daughter Nami would have been able to provide another interesting POV of the Laconian war from the perspective of a colony world.

... or perhaps it would just have extended the book further without adding anything to the story, I guess. Half the trick of writing good fiction is to leave the audience wanting more, after all.

[Kyoshi]

i also wanted more prax, but more just because i really liked the character, i didn't care if he would add anything to the series. i just wanted a "keeping up" sort of thing. "where are they now?" same with avasarala's family. at least one throwaway line about how her descendants are doing.

i think if kit's chapters went to mei and nami, i might have actually cared more for them, as opposed to slogging through just because i understand that something huge will result from them. maybe establish that kit is living on that other world through convos on the ship and that would be enough to justify alex leaving sol; also establish alex hasn't kept in touch with kit, build up the guilt throughout the book until at the end he has no choice but to follow his son, even though we never meet kit so to speak. imho we really didn't need kit's chapters. mei and nami forever woohoo!

[sifth]

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

i also wanted more prax, but more just because i really liked the character, i didn't care if he would add anything to the series. i just wanted a "keeping up" sort of thing. "where are they now?" same with avasarala's family. at least one throwaway line about how her descendants are doing.

i think if kit's chapters went to mei and nami, i might have actually cared more for them, as opposed to slogging through just because i understand that something huge will result from them. maybe establish that kit is living on that other world through convos on the ship and that would be enough to justify alex leaving sol; also establish alex hasn't kept in touch with kit, build up the guilt throughout the book until at the end he has no choice but to follow his son, even though we never meet kit so to speak. imho we really didn't need kit's chapters. mei and nami forever woohoo!

Yea, most of the Kit chapters really didn't add anything to the story.

[Rhom]

Finished today.  Loved every minute of it.  They stuck the landing.  Can’t believe it’s over I guess.  I started reading LW after attending a book signing in Lexington.  They had a table set up with recommended other works.  The guy near the table sold me on it when I asked if they would ever get Dan Abraham to come sign.  For the life of me, I don’t remember if that was GRRM for Dance or Brandon Sanderson for WoT.   

I tend to agree with Bubble Bobble.  (Loved that game… what with the cute dinosaurs in the bubbles and whatnot…)  Did part of me want the satisfaction of a Felip cameo?  Probably. Did the story need it?  No.  And as far as the other cameos mentioned here; I tend to think back to a common complaint I see about fiction.  Having all the important events happen to the random person who always turns back up makes the world feel smaller.  It’s a big galaxy out there; use it. I think they did that well with this series.

I thought we got just the perfect amount of knowledge about the space jellyfish and the mysterious Dark Gods.  I liked how the slow life reached up and cracked the ice roof and then naturally just saw the dark of space as another roof to reach up and crack.

Someone in the thread here said something along the lines of the builders throwing the proto molecule out through the gates.  Minor quibble, but that is incorrect.  They threw their seeds out into the Galaxy the old fashioned way.  Those seeds then co-opted local life to build a ring to connect with later.

I also love Amos, dark and disturbed Amos, as the ultimate moral compass once again.

Really nice work.

[Rhom]

You know one thing that did bug me though?

I know a common complaint is that the early book moves too slowly… but I really thought everyone was getting places entirely too quickly compared to the prior books.  It takes weeks or months to get places in system in other books; but I felt like they went from place to place in the blink of an eye relatively.  Certainly thought they got from New Egypt to Draper Station without feeling like it had been months.  And then when Tanaka needed to come from Bara Guon back to the ring space, it similarly felt like it happened too fast.

Dont get me wrong, narratively I’m glad they didn’t spend that time with them… just felt like the timescale was adjusted to fit the urgency.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Been thinking about the way that different series deal with alien life and think that the Expanse did a pretty great job with it.  The Romans remind me a lot of the way that alien life works in some Peter Watts stuff, especially in The Things.

 

[Consigliere]

The first half or so was a bit of a slog to get through. Kit's chapters were filler and the cat and mouse between Tanaka and the Roci crew became tiresome but it did eventually come together and the 2nd half of the book was much better and with a satisfying ending.

 

On 12/7/2021 at 7:36 AM, Leofric said:

Amos' survival made me wonder if the dogs made anymore like Amos, Cara, and Xan on Laconia in the 1,000 years since the gates closed.  

Would the dogs even be working anymore once the ring space was destroyed? I think proto Miller mentioned that the gates as well as all of the artifacts drew their energy from the other universe so once the energy source was cut off I'd have assumed that they'd cease to function.

[Leofric]

27 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Would the dogs even be working anymore once the ring space was destroyed? I think proto Miller mentioned that the gates as well as all of the artifacts drew their energy from the other universe so once the energy source was cut off I'd have assumed that they'd cease to function.

That is unclear. 

Was the power being pulled from the Goth universe through the ring space and being fed to the various systems through the gates?  So once the ring space is closed, no more power from the Goth universe.  

Or did every Builder device draw power directly from the Goth universe, but the ring space and gates were such a huge draw that it left a gaping, noticeable wound, while all the smaller devices were barely pinpricks?  So the Goths were satisfied with the destruction of the rings and didn't react to the smaller power drains continuing in the future.

 

[Consigliere]

19 minutes ago, Leofric said:

That is unclear. 

Was the power being pulled from the Goth universe through the ring space and being fed to the various systems through the gates?  So once the ring space is closed, no more power from the Goth universe.  

Or did every Builder device draw power directly from the Goth universe, but the ring space and gates were such a huge draw that it left a gaping, noticeable wound, while all the smaller devices were barely pinpricks?  So the Goths were satisfied with the destruction of the rings and didn't react to the smaller power drains continuing in the future.

 

I read it as the alien station was drawing energy from the other universe and the ring gates as well as all the artifacts were getting their energy from the alien station. Once Holden destroys the station and collapses the ring space, the gates and all the other artifacts are cut from their power source.

[Kalbear]

My understanding based on Ilus was that they were not powered in the general sentse by the gates and the goth universe and the only things that were powered that way were the truly miraculous things. The goths didn't care about, for instance, Laconia building ships or ilus waking up. They do care about things like the gates being used or the magnetar cannon. Some systems woke up with the protomolecule being used as a way to start it back up - it was dormant - but once its been turned on I don't think it'll just go off again. 

Another point of evidence is that without an active gate Eros was able to fly with zero inertia, create massive changes in local physics and take apart things via telekinesis. It was also able to communicate alocally.  Based on those items from the first two books I would say much of Roman tech would still work just fine. 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Kalsandra

[karaddin]

I think that's a pretty solid interpretation of what we've seen ^.

I am curious what there was on Ilus that warranted a specific shot being fired there, if it was simply the usual process of killing off a space jellyfish system then the system would have been cut off or burnt. We didn't get an explanation on that did we?

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think that's a pretty solid interpretation of what we've seen ^.

I am curious what there was on Ilus that warranted a specific shot being fired there, if it was simply the usual process of killing off a space jellyfish system then the system would have been cut off or burnt. We didn't get an explanation on that did we?

Thanks. And no, I don't think we got an explanation. We never saw any magic bullet on any other planet in any of the other systems, though how much they were looking for it is probably low. 

My bet is that Ilus was the last one. The other magic bullets were in systems that were wiped out entirely. Ilus may have been a home of last resort or the actual home system of the Romans, or maybe they got fired on because the tech that turned off nuclear fusion was a bit much. 

Though that doesn't make a lot of sense given that it was turned on and another bullet wasn't fired. So I would more likely bet on it being the last bullet. 

Its possible also it was the only effective bullet. The romans started getting hit by bullets but much like with the humans, they tried things. They would put bullets in systems and see what worked, and the roman response was to wipe out that system. Goths kept doing it until the gates stopped transiting, which happened when ilus hit and killed everything. 

I still think it makes the most sense for ilus to be the homeworld given how the bullets worked largely locally (ie, the blackout from the magnetar was in sol system only), but its possible that they did Ilus first, saw it worked for a while, and then did a global version of it. 

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Kalsandra said:

My bet is that Ilus was the last one. The other magic bullets were in systems that were wiped out entirely. Ilus may have been a home of last resort or the actual home system of the Romans, or maybe they got fired on because the tech that turned off nuclear fusion was a bit much. 

I still think it makes the most sense for ilus to be the homeworld given how the bullets worked largely locally (ie, the blackout from the magnetar was in sol system only), but its possible that they did Ilus first, saw it worked for a while, and then did a global version of it. 

Yeah that's what I was starting to think when I asked the question. In the absence of a definitive answer, I think that's probably as good a head canon as any.

Ilus is the only planet left in its system as well right? So at the very least it fits with it being a system they've been in for a very long time to fully break down and repurpose all the other planets/asteroids etc. That would also be true for Adro with the diamond. I don't think the one they booby trapped to go nova would have been an important system though.

Maybe Dan's going to read the thread and give us a throwaway bit of information? Unlikely. But thanks for the wonderful book series if you do read this!

[Rhom]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

Maybe Dan's going to read the thread and give us a throwaway bit of information? Unlikely. But thanks for the wonderful book series if you do read this!

I tried to tag him in my post earlier but it didn’t pull up.  His username was just his name wasn’t it?

[Rippounet]

42 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I tried to tag him in my post earlier but it didn’t pull up.  His username was just his name wasn’t it?

Yes. First name + Family name. No space in-between.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Rippounet

[mcbigski]

10 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

 

My bet is that Ilus was the last one. The other magic bullets were in systems that were wiped out entirely. Ilus may have been a home of last resort or the actual home system of the Romans, or maybe they got fired on because the tech that turned off nuclear fusion was a bit much.

It was theorized by someone in CB, probably Fayez,  that Ilus was optimized for a mining system, for what that's worth.

[karaddin]

4 hours ago, Rhom said:

I tried to tag him in my post earlier but it didn’t pull up.  His username was just his name wasn’t it?

I noticed the same thing. Maybe he's got special "you can't ping me" privileges haha

[Kalbear]

Thinking on it more I do think Ilus was the last bullet, and it wasn't specifically targeting anything. Just like San Esteban wasn't being targeted for a specific reason. It was just the last experiment.

My theory on the attacks against the Romans were that they started showing up at some point - probably quite a while after - the gate network came online. The Romans knew about those entities and how they were fighting against the gates, but they didn't think that anything could come of it while the station used their own energy against them. They built and trafficked and continued to go along their merry way for a long time - the building of all the different things and experiments and weird stuff all come into play here.

Then the Goths start eating ships. The mass to energy transfer that the gates allow is a very high-energy action, and as we've seen with the station when it uses more energy it weakens its ability to keep out the Goths. This takes a while, and likely the Romans mitigate it somewhat the same way Naomi figures it out. Or they don't care that much because the gate system is largely used for matter transportation, not for communication or personal exploration. They continue with weird experiments like Adro and giant snowflake fractals as art projects and all sorts of things. It is a nuisance to them, but not especially risky, any more than stubbing your toe in the dark is risky.

And then, one day, the Goths figured out how to reach past the gates into systems. (Holden describes them attempting to do this at one point while he's holding them off, and how he was just barely able to push them out). They probably started somewhat small at first, and they didn't affect actual behaviors of the Romans at that point. Changes to c, entropy, ionic and covalent bonding, etc. This, of course, freaked out the Romans and caused them to obliterate anything that happened. This makes them think that if they hit back hard enough with things like Tecoma, they can possibly push back or make the Goths suffer. Have a system that when the Goths shoot at it, like they have so many other systems, it'll shoot back of its own accord. 

But then the Goths figure it out. They shoot the bullet at Ilus and it hits at least one Roman entity, and that causes all of their consciousnesses to tear themselves apart. Because their sense of self is largely quantum and photonic - a wave function across the galaxy of neuronic activity with no actual physical nerves to save it - when that consciousness EMP hits, there is no save file to restore. The entire mind is wiped out, the wave function collapsing and only multitudes of various symbiotic life carrying on as itself with no guiding mind to tell it what to do. Slugs, slime molds, jellyfish, all the types of life they adopted and interacted, all the different types of life forms as cells - completely cut off from a nervous system they didn't even know they had. Perhaps the Romans had the last desperate effort to shut off the gate system and close all the gates and prevent the Goths from doing more attacks, but it didn't matter. They were dead, a spasming of a muscle severed from its body, all chickens with heads cut off and never to be replaced.

Then, billions of years later, the gates come back on. The goths hate it, but nothing they have ever done was able to stop it, so it continues. Perhaps they start shooting bullets in systems, but we don't detect them (and aren't looking for them at this point), but I bet they don't. And with so much traffic moving in so many gates all at once, they don't know where to start. They can destroy more ships, at least for a little bit. Then even that stops thanks to Naomi's equations, so all there is is the old wound.And for a little bit there isn't that much pain - just the dull ache of a long-existing wound, but not much else. At this point, the Goths probably think that perhaps that traffic was just a glitch or a one-off thing and they ignore it.

For 30 years.

Until the magnetar uses effectively the same gate tech to smash a hole in the Goth universe for a short period of time. Now the Goths know that their ancient enemy is back, that same unmistakeable pain and terrorism that they caused previously with their gate tech and their plundering of their more real universe. So they pull out the weapon that worked last time - the exact same distortion used on Ilus, shot with unerring precision at the center of that new wound. 

But unlike last time it doesn't stop gate traffic, and the Goths know that something is different. Their old enemy has evolved or altered their plan, or the infection has become more resistant to their version of universe-altering antibodies. No more magnetars are fired, but they're hyperaware of it being an issue, and they step up their alertness.

Then the prisoner dilemma at Tecoma happens. Now, they have something new that occurs - a significantly painful event in some way, or at least an interesting one. They do the same basic thing they did with Sol and Ilus - another bullet somewhere in Tecoma. And that causes the most interesting thing to happen in 2 billion years. 

The gate network takes a blast so powerful that for a short period of time, the Goths can actually enter that space. They can clean that abscess of horrible universe, enter that space in a way they've never been able to. For the first time in 2 billions years, they have a glimmer of a cure, a cosmological chemotherapy that may finally work. They're able to reach out to ALL the systems on the gates and use their bullet on all of them. 

This fails, too. But now they know they have the ability to do more, and for whatever reason they aren't nearly as stoppable as they were previously. Their enemy is weak, unable to stop their intrusions on our universe. And they go back to work, trying cure after cure in system after system.

And that almost works completely, until their enemy restores - and then some - the strength of the gate machine. Now not only are they thwarted at their probes, they're thwarted at even the high-energy system abilities they had. They're getting pushed back. They must be absolutely terrified that the cancer they thought they had fought and may cure now may be not only coming back, but spreading. They spend as much effort as they can to break those barriers, all to no avail.

Then Duarte dies, the hive mind stops, and they are able to rush in as if the other team stopped playing tug of war.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

Then, billions of years later, the gates come back on. The goths hate it, but nothing they have ever done was able to stop it, so it continues.

We have no idea if the Goths ever have any sense of the passage of time… or if their passage of time was anything like ours.  They’re in a different universe after all.  Maybe all the reactions are literally them just scratching an itchy spot… we’ll never know.