The Expanse 5.5: The Vital Abyss Quiz

Answer: Basic

Basic Assistance (often called "basic") was the UN's welfare program for people who did not want to work, or who could not find work. Minimal housing, sustenance, and medical care were provided, and people on basic filled their time with entertainment feeds and games.

If a UN citizen wanted to pursue higher education, they needed at least one year of work credits to prove their work ethic and ambition so educational resources would not be "wasted" on people who would not use them. Even though the technology existed to automate most jobs, human servers, chefs, and bartenders were still prevalent because young people were getting their work credits.

Answer: Cortázar had no father

People on basic were not allowed to be parents; they were forced to use contraception. Cortázar's mother, apparently at God's behest, applied to many programs and worked long hours to legally buy a license for a child. She used a sperm donor because she did not like any of the men in her housing complex.

Cortázar's mother would say that Cortázar got his intelligence and drive from his donor father. Cortázar would argue the point, but later realized his mother probably wanted to hear someone praise her. If he got his intelligence from the sperm donor, Cortázar reasoned he got his emotional manipulation from his mother; something he valued just as much.

Answer: Nanoinformatics

Growing up on basic put Cortázar at a disadvantage when it came to higher education. He got into upper university through an uplift program, and was convinced to get a degree in nanoinformatics. It was cutting edge technology and an interdisciplinary field that could be applied to any number of future job prospects. Most schools did not even have a nanoinformatics program.

After graduating, Cortázar struggled to explain his novel degree to advisors and employers. It turned out having a rare degree that no one understood was not actually good for job security, and Cortázar was almost forced to go back on basic.

Answer: Animal testing

Antony Dresden asked if Cortázar was developing a treatment for horses, would he start by testing on pigeons? Cortázar said that he would just start with horses. Dresden asked why the same logic was not applied to humans. He made the argument that humans were not special, and that animal testing should be skipped when developing treatments for humans. Humans might suffer a bit more, but the overall amount of suffering by all living participants would decrease.

Cortázar was uncomfortable with the line of reasoning, but continued the interview. He was given a proprietary drug that "reduced fixity," (the state of being unchanging or permanent), which he described as "superhuman clarity." When asked a second time if it was ethical to skip straight to human testing, Cortázar found the question so funny he could only laugh. He agreed to make the change to his brain permanent and was immediately hired.

Answer: It was named after the company Cortázar worked for

The research team on Phoebe, Saturn's moon, was a joint effort between the Martian Naval Scientific Service and Protogen. The Martians had found the alien technology and invited Protogen to help. The Protogen team named the technology the "protomolecule" in a branding move that irritated the Martian scientists.

Answer: The Martians were killed

Looking at the protomolecule on its own was fascinating, but Antony Dresden decided that more data could be gleaned by watching its effects on large scale structures. During a regular shift, the Martian crew was locked in the lab and deliberately infected with the protomolecule. This let Cortázar study more of the protomolecule, and removed the inconvenient Martian contingent.

Protogen could not let their experiment progress too far in an uncontrolled environment. They packed up their lab and moved to Protogen's secret Thoth station, burning all of trace of their Phoebe lab when leaving.

Answer: Eros was infected with the protomolecule ("Leviathan Wakes", book 1)

In the first "Expanse" novel, "Leviathan Wakes", the crew of the Rocinante attacked Thoth station. Cortázar was not named, but he was one of the scientists working there during the raid. He was taken prisoner by the Belter attackers.

More than being imprisoned, Cortázar was most devastated when he was not allowed any updates on the protomolecule's progress on the infected Eros. The captured Protogen scientists were deprived of any outside news while they languished in prison, having no idea about the Earth-Mars war, the new protomolecule structures on Venus, or the opening of the ring gates.

Answer: Martians

These Martians were actually defectors of the Martian Navy led by Winston Duarte. A fifth of the Martian fleet defected, under the cover of Marco Inaros' war. Duarte supplied Inaros with Martian ships to outfit the new Free Navy in exchange for Fred Johnson's protomolecule sample, and one of the captured Protogen scientists.

Answer: It was an egg

Cortázar used Brown's own biases against him. Brown was inclined to believe that biological structures had biological uses, so when Cortázar said the data described a protomolecule as an "egg," Brown was ready to accept the narrative.

What Brown didn't catch, which Cortázar did, was that the structures only looked biological because they used biological matter as building material. The protomolecule could start with any material to build its higher-order structures.

The real use of the structure was a way to break the speed of light; a way to ignore locality so information or maybe even matter could be sent great distances. This is indeed what it was, considering the protomolecule ended up building the Ring Gate, which humans were now using to colonize new planets light-years away.

Answer: Michio Pa

Michio Pa was a character in the third book, "Abaddon's Gate", where she was the Executive Officer on the OPA battleship Behemoth. She showed up in this novella representing Marco Inaros' OPA faction, and became a viewpoint character in the next novel, "Babylon's Ashes".

Winson Duarte also spoke to Cortázar in "The Vital Abyss", but he was never mentioned by name. The description of "the Martian" matched Duarte's in all other "Expanse" books.