The Expanse 1: Leviathan Wakes [1] Quiz

Answer: Havelock was an Earther.

People who grew up in low gravity were often taller and slimmer than those who grew up "down the well". When a shorter, stockier Earther went to a place like Ceres station, they stood out, and often suffered both quiet and overt racism. A lot of Earthers were also racist towards Belters, but Belters could not easily travel down to Earth's surface.

Havelock was from Earth, but his boss, partner, and the people he was charged to protect were all Belters. Shaddid did not care for anyone from the inner planets, and it did not help that Star Helix was an Earth-owned company. She gave Havelock the worst assignments, did not offer any opportunity for career advancement, and partnered him with the detective who nobody else wanted to work with. Havelock was a good, hard-working detective, but had never been systemically disenfranchised before.

Answer: Send Julie back to her parents

Julie's father was Jules-Pierre Mao, one of the richest men in the solar system. He was a co-owner of Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile, owned property on every inhabited planet and rock, and was a major share-holder in Star Helix.

Julie was his eldest child. After growing up in a plush life, she ran away from home to fight for the rights of Belters. Her parents dismissed it as her "activism phase", and were confident that she would come back on her own once she realized how difficult life could be without the financial cushion from her parents. Except she didn't come home, and Jules-Pierre was concerned that something bad was going to happen in the Belt soon. He pulled strings to have Julie found and sent home to Earth before she got hurt.

Miller didn't like the idea of working a "kidnap job", but was obligated to at least pay it lip service. Once he started getting interested in the assignment, though, he was ordered to drop it. His refusal to do so would later get him fired.

Answer: An ice hauler

The Pur'n'Kleen Water Company supplied the Asteroid Belt with water from Saturn's ice rings. Apart needing water to live, it was also important as propellant, and could be broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen.

The Canterbury was originally a colony ship used to get humans from Earth and Mars to new settlements in the Belt, and then converted to an ice hauler. It had a reputation for being the last place a ship crew could still get a job without a thorough background check. James Holden had been dishonourably discharged from the United Nations Navy, which destroyed his career prospects everywhere else.

Answer: The Scopuli's distress beacon was off.

No one wanted to stop for the Scopuli. Changing course with a cargo hold full of ice would burn fuel, cause damage, and be difficult on the Belter members of the crew who could not withstand the same forces Earthers could. Holden was the Executive Officer of the Cant, so he got to do a verbal dance with Captain McDowell. The captain would want to ignore the signal, and Holden would insist on following the rules. Each would be respected for their decisions, and the resentment from the crew would be split between them. Holden optimistically suggested that there might be salvage.

McDowell order Holden to not be a hero, and to come back immediately if anything looked suspicious. When Holden and his team got to the Scopuli, the hole in its side that looked like the result of a breaching charge was apparently not enough. It wasn't until he was on the bridge that he found out that the distress beacon had not actually been activated. There was, however, a small box stuck under a console transmitting something. Holden ordered his team back, but it was too late. The Canterbury was already under attack.

Answer: The Martian Congressional Republic Navy (MCRN)

The device Holden found on the Scopuli was a nondescript black box. He figured it was a second transmitter that was designed to send a signal once it had been tampered with, letting the attacking ships know when someone had fallen into their trap.

After the Canterbury was destroyed, Holden disassembled the device and found batteries stamped with "MCRN", the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. Holden knew that having MCRN batteries did not mean that Mars was behind the attack, and assumed everyone would have the same understanding. He broadcast to the solar system the details of the attack on the Canterbury and mentioned the batteries. The Belt immediately assumed Mars was guilty. Mars denied the allegations and called on Earth to announce continued support for the Earth-Mars Alliance. Earth remained silent.

Answer: The police riot gear was missing.

With Holden's broadcast, the Belters on Ceres started rioting, attacking Martians and Earthers. It was Star Helix's job to stop the riots, and Miller was put in charge of one of the teams. When Miller went to arm his crew, he discovered that Star Helix's riot gear was missing.

It was a mystery that would have to be solved another time. Miller instead gave some of his crew lethal weapons, and left the police station without any armour. All things considered, Miller and his team did an admirable job of quelling most of the rioting and taking into custody a man who had killed a Martian crew woman on leave.

He would find the missing riot gear later.

Answer: Protogen

Even after the initial riots on Ceres had calmed down, the station was tense. Havelock, the Earther, spent most of his days inside the police station processing paperwork, away from the Belter crowds outside. He also started job hunting, and ended up getting a position with Protogen's private security devision.

It paid well and was really high tech, but also a bit intimidating. This move would end up being both beneficial and dangerous.

Answer: Ubiquitous

Once Holden stepped onto the Donnager, there was no telling what might happen to him. He broadcast his plans to board the battleship before he arrived, so if he just disappeared, it would make Mars look suspicious. In case Holden was forced to broadcast a new statement, Fred wanted a way to determine its validity. Holden eventually contacted Fred, agreeing that their "enemies were ubiquitous."

In the TV adaptation of "The Expanse," Fred never asked Holden to use a codeword. However, there was a similar scene added later in the story. In that scene, Holden and his crew had to bluff their way past a Martian corvette. The former Martian Navy member knew that covert operations forces had a list of words they could transmit over open communications to warn away friendly forces. In the show, the three words used were "Ubiquitous," "Mendacious," and "Polyglottal."

Answer: Shed Garvey, the medic

When the stealth ships began their attack on the Donnager, Holden and his crew were moved to a holding room. During the battle, a railgun round shot cleanly through the room, catching Shed Garvey's head on its way through.

The story of "Leviathan Wakes" started as a custom role-playing game campaign run by Ty Frank, one of the two authors. Jim Holden and his surviving crew were the original player characters. Early on in the campaign, the player for Shed had to drop out, which is why the character was suddenly killed off.

Detective Miller's story was originally a special campaign run by Ty Frank for Daniel Abraham, the other author of "The Expanse." "Leviathan Wakes" had two point-of-view characters: Holden and Miller. Ty Frank wrote the Holden chapters and Daniel Abraham wrote the Miller chapters.

Answer: Rocinante

"Don Quixote" was a Spanish novel published in 1605. The tital character pursued a romantic image of knighthood and chivalry in the face of the harsh reality he lived in. He famously attempted to joust a windmill. Don Quixote's horse was name Rocinante, which translates as "retired workhorse." In "Leviathan Wakes," the Roci started as a Martian corvette, and helped Holden and crew escape the attack on the Donnager.

After the battle, they claimed the ship as salvage (a pretty flimsy argument that would haunt them later).

Answer: Mormons

The Mormons had commissioned a new generation ship to fly thousands of people out into the stars to find a new world to call their own. It was the first project to settle anything outside the solar system. The flight was meant to last multiple lifetimes, with the original travellers, and many generations after them never seeing the final destination. The ship had a massive drum in its centre that would spin to provide artificial gravity, and allow the colonists to have real farms. It was also covered in elaborate paintings of angels and Christian imagery.

Because of the long voyage without any opportunities for resupply, the margins for error on the Nauvoo were much smaller than other starships.

Answer: It was registered as a gas hauler moving between two gas consumers.

Fred hired the crew of the Roci because it was a fast ship, but they couldn't be seen as a scary Martian warship when they got to Eros. They welded on some cosmetic gas storage tanks to disguise the profile, and registered a flight plan as a gas hauler. Everything was above board, but neither Tycho station nor Eros produced gas, so it did not make economic sense for a gas hauler to travel directly between the two.

Answer: "Meat for the machine"

Protogen used to have the security contract for Eros, but they had pulled out in the last few months to be replaced by Carne Por la Machina. CPM was a lot less professional than Protogen, filled with thuggish personal who liked to abuse their authority.

CPM acted like criminals because they were criminals. Miller would later recognize some CPM employees as people he had arrested on Ceres. They were also wearing suspiciously familiar riot gear. CPM's orders were to act tough and authoritative when herding the population of Eros when the time came. What they didn't know was that they too were part of the experiment that was being prepared. "Meat for the machine" indeed.

Answer: Miller helped Holden in a firefight.

Polanski had checked into a flophouse on Eros. Fred wanted to use the Rocinante to send a team to Eros, and Holden didn't want to be cooped up on Tycho, so they reached an agreement in which Fred hired Holden.

Eros was kind of like Macau in space, known for its casinos. Once docked, everyone had to walk through the casino floor to go anywhere else on the station. Miller saw Holden, and followed him to the flophouse (but not discretely enough that Amos didn't notice him). In the lobby, Holden was searching for Polanksi in the registry when someone pulled a gun on him and tried to usher him away. A bunch of heavily armed people also appeared on the second floor overlooking the lobby. Even though no one wanted things to get messy, someone got jumpy and fired the first shot, turning the lobby into a war zone. Miller stepped in to help Holden's crew take down some of their attackers.

Answer: Julie was dead.

Despite just meeting, Miller had helped Holden in the firefight, so they decided to work together. When they got to Julie's room, they had to force their way in. Holden found her body in the washroom, covered in grey slime; a new disease that none of them recognized. She had managed to get to Eros, check in and send a message to Fred, and then succumbed.

They did not want to contract what Julie had, so after a brief search of her personal belongings and files, they left the apartment and reported her death to the authorities. Unfortunately, the authorities did not have Eros' best interests at heart. They were able to resume their plans.