The Expanse 7: Persepolis Rising [1] Quiz

Answer: Three decades

The time skip between "Babylon's Ashes" and "Persepolis Rising" was the largest in the series, at about three decades. Humanity experienced mostly peace between the two books, letting Earth rebuild itself after Marco's attacks, and letting the new colonies develop. The Rocinante's pilot, Alex Kamal, got married, had a child, and got divorced in those thirty years. His son, Kit, was 20 years old, entering upper university, and was looking to make Alex a father-in-law.

More than any other colony, Laconia built its technology and its military, but they did so in secret. They were finally ready to rejoin the rest of humanity as its new leader.

Answer: Monster

Elsa was Singh's infant daughter, named after his grandmother. When she was three months old and not sleeping through the night, an exasperated mother said that that monster would kill her, and the new nickname was born.

Answer: Singh had reported the infractions of a superior officer.

Singh's first captain out of the academy was Captain Iwasa. When a new code of conduct was issued, Iwasa thought it was too strict, and did not enforce it. When he was asked about it by Admiral Goyer, Iwasa lied while Singh was present. More than anything, it was Iwasa's lying to a superior officer that prompted Singh to file a report, even though he personally liked Iwasa very much.

It was this strict adherance to the code of conduct and a sense of duty above personal feelings (and that Singh had written a paper analyzing Duarte's own theories on empire building) that made Singh stand out to Duarte.

Answer: Hand over the Freehold governor for a trial

The Transport Union's job was to regulate trade between the systems, and to coordinate traffic through the Ring Gates. If not monitored, ships could be disappeared when traveling through the gates (called "going Dutchman").

A ship from the Freehold system flew through their gate without warning and left through the Auberon gate, all with their transponder disabled. Ships in the queue for gate transit had to make hard breaking burns to make sure they didn't disappear, and the entire schedule was messed up.

Drummer wanted to cut off Freehold from the network for three years. That was a death sentence for a small colony like Freehold, which was not yet self-sufficient. Holden brainstormed an alternative that would leave everyone equally unhappy.

Answer: Payne Houston

"Payne Houston" was a name so ridiculous to Drummer that she suspected he gave it to himself.

The colony of Freehold hogtied and presented Payne Huston to the Rocinante so they would not be cut off from trade. The Rocinante was a gunship without a proper brig so they kept him in a locked crew cabin. On the return trip Houston managed to escape and cause a minor incident trying to blow up the ship, but was ultimately put back.

Answer: Bobbie Draper, the weapons tech

After Captain Holden and Executive Officer Naomi, Bobbie Draper was the best qualified leader on the ship. The entire crew agreed. Bobbie would become captain at the end of the current trip to Medina Station. Unfortunately Bobbie's first mission as captain of the Rocinante would be greeting the Laconians, right before the ship was impounded.

Answer: Clarissa had not made any plans with Holden.

During the trip from Freehold back to Medina, Bobbie started making the rounds of the ship in preparation for her captaincy. She promised Clarissa to honour any end-of-life plans she'd already made with Holden, and was stunned (and a bit angry) to find out that no plans had been made. Bobbie wasn't going to change too much about how the Rocinante was run, but she could see there were a few things she was going to do differently.

Answer: The Tori Byron was turned into dust.

After thirty years of isolation, no one knew how the Laconians were faring. Most suspected that it was a failing colony, and at most they would be dealing with an ancient Martian battleship. Instead the Heart of the Tempest, carrying High Admiral Anton Trejo, was one of three new Laconian Magnetar-class ships, the most advanced ships any human had ever built.

The magnetic "beam" of the Tempest was immensely powerful and had never been seen before, so no one knew what to expect or how to defend against it. The Tempest ripped apart the Byron near the atomic level and then destroyed the rail gun defenses around Ring Station, all without suffering a scratch.

Answer: Chrisjen Avasarala, the former leader of the U.N.

Laconia returning was the first crisis in the solar system in thirty years. Avasarala, the leader during the last crisis, came to support Drummer, offer guidance, and even offer a few resources of her own such as a way to communicate with Medina Station without the Laconians detecting anything.

Answer: Saba was Drummer's spouse.

Saba was Drummer's spouse and the captain of a ship. While Drummer was tied to the Sol system for her job, Saba still flew cargo through the network. It was bad luck that he happened to be on Medina when the Laconians arrived.

Answer: Holden showed up

Holden was the famous captain of the Rocinante. When Bobbie took on that role, she thought she would have a degree of the same respect, but the underground treated her as an unknown quantity. It was Holden who had the reputation, not the ship. When Holden showed up and vouched for Bobbie, she and the rest of the crew were welcomed into the underground. Bobbie would bristle that Holden was unintentionally undermining her fresh captaincy just by being famous. Even her own crew would still call Holden "Cap" sometimes. Later, when Bobbie had a plan for an operation, she had Holden present it so it would be more readily accepted.

Answer: There was a gamma ray burst through the Rings.

When Heart of the Tempest used its magnetic weapon, Ring Station lit up for a few seconds, and a gamma ray burst was sent through all the rings. A couple of crews on ships near the rings were killed. No one else noticed during the battle or the capture of Medina Station, but it was standard practice to record everything during a battle and analyze it later.

Singh realized that this gamma ray burst effect could be used to defend Ring Space, the nexus of the entire human colony network. It meant High Admiral Trejo would not have to stay at Medina to defend it, and could move up the timetable for the next phase of plan: subjugating the Sol system.

Answer: Singh relieved Tanaka from her position.

Colonel Tanaka was nearly twenty years older than Singh, and had served in the Martian military before joining Duarte on Laconia. Singh felt that she only acted as respectful as she needed to, but otherwise treated him like a junior officer, even though he was in charge of Medina Station. Tanaka had experience working with Belters and warned Singh about their disposition against centralized authority - the antithesis of Laconia's power structure.

One of the earliest acts of resistance to Laconian occupation was when Sighn was ambushed by a group of Belters while walking through the station. Singh and his security detail were unharmed, but Lieutenant Kasik, his aide, and all the attackers were killed. Singh wanted to impose a curfew, checkpoints, and a few other measures to prevent future attacks, but Tanaka warned against a crackdown, saying it would worsen the situation. Singh insisted, Tanaka refused, and so Tanaka was relieved as head of security and transferred to the Heart of the Tempest.

In a later conversation with Admiral Trejo, Singh learned that Tanaka had been picked as his head of security to guide the inexperienced younger officer. Laconia had few experienced officers, and a lot of new officers who had never left home. They needed to get as much field experience as fast as they could. Before Tanaka left, Singh called her and apologized, owning his mistake.

Answer: The Association of Worlds

Carrie Fisk was the president of the Association of Worlds, a new forum with representation from every colony, similar to the U.N. on Earth. Drummer was dismissive of Fisk, not wanting to give up any of the Transport Union's authority. Singh tried to co-opt the Association to smooth the transition to Laconian rule, using it mostly for political theatre and press releases.

He even considered renaming it the Laconian Congress of Worlds.

Answer: Just one battleship

High Admiral Anton Trejo took only the Heart of the Tempest Magnetar-class battleship to the Sol system. It would prove to be more than enough, shrugging off full attacks from the combined fleets of Earth, Mars, and the Belt, while destroying countless ships in return. Trejo did not rush to capture the inner planets.

The long journey gave leaders plenty of time to consider their options (and to feel the pressure from their constituents to surrender).