The Expanse 9: Leviathan Falls [1] Quiz

Answer: She had secret transgressions

Laconia had harsh punishments (the death penalty was applied more widely than on other colonies). Tanaka figured the two ways to survive in such a society were to either buy in completely, or to allow some hidden transgressions. Tanaka went with the second option, taking great pride in her ability to appear like an ideal Laconian officer.

Her personal transgressions were affairs with junior officers.

Answer: Find High Consul Duarte

In the previous novel, Winston Duarte was reduced to simpleton during an attack by the dark beings that had destroyed the ring gate builders. In the prologue of "Leviathan Falls", Duarte put himself back together, then left the Laconia state building (just walked off the grounds).

Trejo tasked Tanaka with finding the High Consul. She was given Omega Status, which gave her access to all information and let her enlist the aid of any ships or resources she wanted. She had the largest blank cheque possible. She tried following Duarte's trail on Laconia, but it disappeared. Tanaka decided to track down Theresa Duarte, his daughter, to use as bait instead.

Answer: He became a grandfather

In the thirty-ish years between "Babylon's Ashes" and "Persepolis Rising", Alex got married, had a child, and then divorced. Now his son Kit was a young man who had just finished his higher education and got married. Kit's wife Rohi gave birth to a son, Bakari.

Answer: The Catalyst

In "BFE", the B stood of "Big" and the E for "Emerald". Elvi's husband Fayaz was a geologist and hated the name because it was technically a green diamond, not an emerald.

Answer: Dreamers

The first few interludes were just "The Dreamer", but later Amos joined Cara. In "Cibola Burn", a previous novel, the protomolecule version of Detective Miller had viewpoint interludes called "The Investigator".

Answer: The Grandmothers

The interludes described the grandmothers as laughing and pointing things out to Cara during the dives. They were not real personalities, and would gladly share their information with anyone who asked. When Amos met Cara and Xan, his nicknames for them were "Sparkles" and "Little Man".

Answer: Space Jellyfish

The history of the ring gate builders sounded like a creature that had evolved near oceanic thermal vents. Elvi hypothesized that they were neutral buoyancy organisms, like sea slugs or jellyfish.

Answer: Modifying physical constants

The most noticeable events were the loss of consciousness events, which were getting longer, and could strike colonies at random, but they were not the only things happening. There were constant other attacks, like changes in the speed of light, the mass of electrons, or the strength of the gravitational constants.

These other attacks would last seconds or minutes, but were not noticeable in normal everyday life. The dark beings were, according to Elvi, "rattling all the windows looking for a way to make us die."

Answer: Theresa never attended the school

The school was run by a cousin of Theresa's late mother, who had no love for Winston Duarte. She could be trusted to not reveal Theresa's identity. Tanaka also found out about this cousin, and suspected what Jim would do (was surprised that he hadn't dropped Theresa off at the school sooner). So when the Rocinante went to New Egypt to send Theresa to school, Tanaka was there waiting for them.

The situation became a gunfight, and Theresa fled the planet on the Rocinante, never actually attending classes.

Answer: Holden shot Tanaka in the face

Tanaka and her backup had power armour, but did not use guns because they did not want to risk hurting Theresa. Holden and the Rocinante did not have the same concerns.

After a brief fight, Tanaka was on the ground, presumed dead. When Jim and Amos turned their backs, she shot Amos in the torso. Jim reacted with an attempted lethal shot, shooting Tanaka in the cheek.

Tanaka would try to tough it out with minimal medical attention, but the scars had an emotional toll. She eventually pursued facial reconstruction surgery on Gewitter Base.

Answer: Akari slapped Tanaka

Tanaka became an orphan when her mother committed a murder-suicide. She grew up with her aunt, who was in the Martian military. One day at school a boy slapped her. When her aunt found Tanaka crying, she asked which cheek had been slapped, and then slapped that same cheek herself. Akari asked, "Are you sad, or are you angry?" and kept slapping Tanaka until she answered the question. Tanaka was angry. Akari was happy with the answer because "she could work with angry."

Akari's question would resurface in Tanaka's mind every now and then. Tanaka was always angry.

Answer: Offer Naomi an alliance

Without Medina Station coordinating ring gate traffic, the chances of a Dutchman event were massive. Naomi had developed a protocol that could be used to mitigate the danger, but no one was using it. Trejo offered to ally with Naomi and put the Laconian military at her disposal to enforce the new protocol, to stop the fighting.

Naomi declined Trejo's offer because it was in bad faith. The Laconians were still the open power in the network. If they wanted to stop the killing, all they had to do was stop attacking or threatening the colonies. Shifting the blame of their violence to Naomi was an abuser's tactic, which she was too familiar with.

Answer: Jillian Houston, the underground military commander, contacted the Laconians

The Laconians were in the Freehold system threatening the colony for the location of Draper Station. Trejo changed the offer soon after the Rocinante arrived: blanket amnesty for the underground, an alliance, and Freehold's safety in exchange for just Theresa Duarte.

Even though the Rocinante crew could detect the disingenuous offer, it was too good for Jillian, whose family was on Freehold. She called the Laconians, giving them the location of Draper Station (and Theresa). For her part, Theresa agreed with Jillian.

Answer: Aliana Tanaka, Laconian colonel

Tanaka, in her power armour, met Jillian and the underground guards at Draper Station's dock. Jillian tried to open negotiations with Tanaka, but Theresa and Naomi were still locked in their room.

Tanaka remembered how poorly her last attempt to capture Theresa had gone, and ascribed it to not reaching for violence soon enough. Tanaka figured she could probably find Theresa in the station just fine on her own, and if she started shooting, Jillian might even lead the way. Tanaka decided to "do the obvious thing."

Answer: They did not know the results of their attacks

The ring gate builders were a networked intelligence, so when the dark entities destroyed one system, the builders knew right away and stopped sending ships. The sudden drop in traffic to the dead system was proof that the attack had worked.

For humans, the traffic was not stopping, even when the attacks were successful. Tn the San Esteban system the dark entities increased the strength of ionic bonds, which shut down neuron function, killing every human there. But because no news was flowing between gates, no one knew until a ship transited into the system after the attack. As far as the dark ones were concerned, the attack had failed, so they moved on to something new.