The Expanse 3: Abaddon's Gate [1] Quiz

Answer: When Holden was alone

The protomolecule still had a link to Holden, and would try to alter his perception to make Miller appear to him. The protomolecule was struggling just to get its version of Miller to be coherent to Holden, and its program would "crash" once someone else was in the room. It could not map on to two people, or accommodate the added input from another human.

The result was that the protomolecule would only try to make Miller appear when Holden was alone, and if someone else showed up, Miller would immediately vanish. Holden was spooked by the visits and tried to spend time near other people as often as possible to prevent them.

Answer: Bull was from Earth.

The Outer Planets Alliance was becoming a political and military force in its own right. Fred Johnson, the nominal head of the OPA, was already from Earth, which was not great for optics. So when they got their first battleship, the Behemoth, they wanted Belters to be running it.

Captain Ashford was a Belter, and Bull was supposed to be his second-in-command, but for optics, they decided to make Ashford's second a Belter, as well. Michio Pa stepped into the role, and Bull was moved to Chief Security Officer.

Answer: Superhuman reflexes

Clarissa had special glands implanted in her that could be activated with her tongue. When she did, the world slowed and grew quiet, and she stopped feeling the physical limitations she usually did, allowing her to hit harder and faster than usual.

The problem was that it only lasted a few moments, and the crash afterwards could leave her tired, vomiting, or unconscious for five minutes, which was why militaries did not use such implants.

Clarissa would not use her glands if she could avoid them, but if she ever got into a tight spot, they could help.

Answer: Pastor

Anna was a Methodist Pastor who was surprised to be asked to go to the alien Ring gate as part of a delegation of religious leaders, artists, actors, writers, poets, and musicians. She had only a small congregation on the moon of Jupiter, unlike the other religious leaders selected for the voyage.

Over the course of the novel, Anna would set up a small congregation among the UN Navy crew she flew with, and would be an advocate for peace among the three uneasy fleets meeting at the Ring gate.

Answer: Interviews with the crew

Since "Leviathan Wakes", the Rocinante had become one of the most famous ships in the solar system, but not much was known about her crew. Holden was the face of the operation, but the rest of the crew were more private. They had all started on the Canterbury, the last place available for ship crews, because they had things they didn't want to share.

When Monica showed up and started asking prying questions, the rest of the crew became resentful, and started avoiding Monica's group. Holden was put out front to provide a story and draw attention away from the others on the ship.

Answer: Melba Koh, electrochemical technician

Melba Alzbeta Koh was an only child with deceased parents. She led a small team of technicians on the Cerisier: Stanni, Ren, Soledad, and Bob, all of whom were more qualified than she was. She overheard her team complaining about her on a private channel, and asked her second, Ren, for help.

By the end of the journey out to the Ring, which took months, she had earned the respect of her team. She was always slower than everyone else, but she was also more thorough because her training was more recent.

Answer: Bull put the man out an airlock.

Alexi Myerson-Freud was supplying the crew of the Behemoth with pixie dust. Bull caught him during his work shift, punched him in the nose, and drove a cart with Alexi on the back to an airlock. He explicitly took a long route with lots of opportunity to be seen. Without hesitation or conversation, Bull sent Alexi out into vacuum. Then, after the airlock had repressurized, Bull left the drugs he had found in the airlock. He let the gathered crowd know that he was going to space the drugs in sixteen hours, and if anymore happened to end up in the airlock before then, he wouldn't ask any questions.

Captain Ashford was livid with Bull's decision. Bull explained that, had the Behemoth been a space station, he would have taken Alexi to the brig (if they'd had a brig). But the Behemoth was a battleship, and Bull was enforcing military discipline with Belter characteristics. Alexi had endangered the ship, so he got to hitchhike back to where there was air, as was Belter custom.

Answer: Clarissa killed Ren.

Sensor readings from the Seung Un were picking up particles of Clarissa's explosive, and Ren was smart enough to figure out that it was not some kind of equipment failure. He naturally took the issue to his superior, Melba. He hadn't told security first.

As Ren explained his findings, Melba realized that there was no way she would be able to explain it away. She needed the Seung Un to blow up, and Ren could not be deterred. Ren had to die. She distracted Ren and used the strength from her implants to kill him. She hid his body in a storage locker, encased in sealant foam to hide the smell.

Answer: Tilly Fagan, socialite

Tilly Fagan was the wife of one of the richest men in the solar system, who made frequent campaign contributions to Esteban Sorrento-Gillis, the UN Secretary General. Tilly was openly rude and blunt, which Anna did not always know how to deal with, but was also one of the more authentic people in the delegation heading to the Ring, which appealed to Anna.

When tragedy struck, Anna and Tilly sought each other out and helped one another.

Answer: Broadcast a message

Clarissa had created a fake image of Holden and a voice synthesizer. She then created a message for her fake Holden to broadcast, claiming responsibility for the destruction of the Seung Un, and control of the Ring.

She loaded a virus onto the Rocinante that would, on her command, broadcast the message from the ship to make it look authentic, and power up the Rocinante's weapons. The virus took control of the Rocinante's transmitter, so the real Holden could not even broadcast a correction. The goal was to be so absurd as to ruin Holden's reputation, and to goad someone else into killing him.

Upon closer inspection, the message could be seen as a fake, but in the heat of the moment, nobody was looking too closely.

Answer: The Outer Planets Alliance

Clarissa Mao's fabricated message from Holden had claimed control of the alien Ring in the name of the OPA. Some members of the Behemoth were happy for their perceived assertion of dominance, but Bull saw the oncoming public relations storm, and tried to stop it. Holden's actions could not be condoned by the OPA, and the Behemoth had to demonstrate that immediately to the nearby UN and Martian fleets. Bull pleaded with Captain Ashford to fire on the Rocinante.

The Behemoth was the only ship to fire a torpedo at the Rocinante. The Rocinante tried to break the lock by hiding behind a Martian ship, but the Martian ship reacquired a lock for the missile (without firing one of their own). As a last-ditch effort, the Rocinante ran through the alien Ring gate.

Embarrassingly, the Behemoth lost power when it attacked. It was a big, scary-looking ship, but it was not designed as a warship, and hadn't been fully tested. It was telling that once they had to actually fight, they were rendered helpless after launching one measly torpedo.

Answer: Bull started to do the job himself.

The Behemoth lost power after firing just one torpedo. After that, the entire engineering team was working extra hard to get the ship up and running again.

As head engineer, Sam was coordinating the recovery, and she did not have time for petulant engineers. She called Bull in for help. Bull heard the engineer out, and then surprised him by agreeing. Bull asked for help getting into the engineer's welding rig. He said that he had been going to catch some rest on his off-shift, but that he could lay conduit if it needed doing, and promised to get the engineer a ride back sunward on one of the UN or Martian ships. The Earther head of security using his off-shift to do menial work embarrassed the Belter engineer enough that he stopped his complaining and did as ordered.

Answer: The slow zone

The space beyond the Ring had a speed limit of about 600 m/s. The first ship to go through was the Y Que, a rock hopper piloted by Maneo Jung-Espinoza. He had gone through at high speed using a slingshot maneuver, and on the other side of the Ring had been instantly killed by a 99g deceleration to the speed limit.

Anything that moved slower than the speed limit was free to move under its own power. Anything that moved faster was stopped by unseen forces and pulled into orbit around a small anomaly near the centre of the slow zone dubbed Ring Station. The space beyond the Ring was called "the slow zone" for this speed limit, which was painfully low for spaceships.

Holden didn't like the name, and had preferred Alex Kamal's suggestion of "Dandelion Sky" in reference to the 1373 Ring gates evenly distributed in a sphere on the other side of the Ring, but the name hadn't caught on.

Answer: Cohen, the sound technician

Cohen was a blind man who was a genius with sound. He could even build 3D representations of what he perceived with sound so others could "see" what he did.

Naomi had known there was a memory leak on the Rocinante even during the trip to the Ring, but hadn't been able to find it. After Clarissa's virus struck, Naomi knew the leak was responsible. In the slow zone, after hours of trying and failing to find the source, Holden ordered his crew to take up other tasks to give their minds a break. It was during this work that Amos was fixing a light in the head (bathroom) and found a device hooked into its power. This meant that someone on Monica's team was the mole. Amos was ready to start spacing them one-by-one until someone confessed. Cohen stepped forward. He said he hadn't known what Clarissa's intentions were, and would not have gone along with the plan if he'd known he'd have died. He was all too eager to help.

Answer: Julie Mao

Cohen, the blind sound technician of Monica's team, told the Rocinante crew about being hired by Clarissa (but he didn't have her name). He used his sonic perceptions of her to recreate her face, which looked similar enough to her sister's that Holden jumped to that conclusion.

Holden was sure that Julie Mao, first victim of the Eros incident, and human template for the protomolecule, was trying to guide him to the Ring. Getting the Martians to dispute the Rocinante's salvage claim, being forced to hire Monica and her team, and then broadcasting a fake message to push him through the gate was too much to be a coincidence. Holden was partially right, except it had been Clarissa Mao who had been manipulating him.