The Expanse 9: Leviathan Falls [2] Quiz

Answer: The Lighthouse and the Keeper

The lighthouse was the Ring Station, and Duarte finally took control of it, becoming the keeper. He would keep the dark entities at bay, stopping their attacks and Dutchman events.

Answer: Kit Kamal, Alex's son

Kit was traveling to the Nieuwestad system with his wife, Rohi, and son, Bakari. They were going to start a new life in the colony. As they moved through the gate from the Sol system, the dark entities started moving through the matter of the ship, cutting holes and scattering it. When Duarte undid the event, it was likened to stirring the cream back out of coffee.

Answer: Everyone in Ring Space had a shared consciousness

During the event, people were aware of each other, as if all their minds were networked. After the event, even though they were no longer connected, they would recall memories that were not their own. This was particularly troubling for Tanaka. She was on a top-secret mission that could not be shared, but she also had her own long list of transgressions, each of which would get her executed if discovered by Laconia.

Answer: Elvi Okoye's experiments

Amos had been reanimated by the Laconian drones, just like Cara and Xan. Elvi was using Cara to "dive" into the BFE to read its contents. When this happened, Cara and Amos were aware of each other (and later, Duarte), even when separated by light-years. Sometimes the event would "spill over", giving Amos a seizure.

It was because of these seizures that Amos wanted to travel to Elvi and see what she was doing.

Answer: Network every human in a hive mind

The ring gate builders were a networked mind, which allowed them to advance and create fantastic tools. But they were also fragile; humans were more robust creatures. When the dark entities attacked the builders, they destroyed their minds. Those same attacks just knocked out human consciousness for a few minutes, and then humans would "reset".

Duarte found the tools that the builders had made to defend themselves, but they hadn't had the strength to wield them. By making humans closer to the builders (making a hive mind), that would allow Duarte to use the old tools and defeat the dark entities. Elvi wondered if Duarte wanted ants (which had a sense of self) or neurons (which did not).

Answer: Amos Burton told her to stop

Elvi and Fayaz both knew that their experiments were unethical, but decided to push through for the preservation of the human species. Once Amos had been on a dive himself, he told Elvi to stop, in a friendly, but deadly serious way. Cara had been growing fond of the dives, becoming unhealthily euphoric, and it was true that Winston Duarte had piggybacked one of the dives to learn "where the guns were," but neither of these had made Elvi reconsider future dives.

Answer: Naomi broadcast from Elvi Okoye's ship

Elvi was a friend of the Rocinante crew going back to "Cibola Burn", the fourth novel. Even as the head of the Laconian Science Directorate, she was secretly sending copies of her reports to Naomi. It was a tense moment when the Rocinante met up with the Falcon in the Adro system, but none of the crew betrayed Elvi.

Instead, Trejo didn't learn that Laconia's top scientist had been in league with his enemy until Naomi broadcast her agreement from Elvi's ship. Trejo responded to Naomi's agreement with a smile, but everyone who saw his message agreed that he had never been angrier.

Answer: In a different universe

The ring gates allowed instantaneous travel across the galaxy. The laws of physics still applied, so the ring gate builders put the hub of their network in a different universe, where the laws were different. That different universe was pressing to get the pocket space back out, and the ring gate network fed on that pressure/energy to power the gates.

Whenever the gates drew too much power, the entities of the other universe attacked, which is why ships went missing in "Dutchman events" during high traffic periods.

Answer: Holden injected himself with protomolecule

The first thing the heroes tried was having Theresa call to her father through speakers planted on the surface of the station. When that didn't work, they tried a dive with Amos in Ring Space. All that did was anger Duarte, who called reinforcements to start the final battle.

The last time Holden had been able to interact with anything made by the ring gate builders (in "Abaddon's Gate" and "Cibola Burn", books three and four), it had been the protomolecule ghost of Miller who had helped. There had been a small protomolecule remnant on the Rocinante that had maintained the link, which Holden had incinerated. So to try to get Miller back (and with not much time for finesse), Holden stole some protomolecule from the Catalyst on the Falcon and injected it into himself. He was lucky that Miller reappeared and was able to open the station.

Answer: They took drugs

On Gewitter Base, Tanaka saw a psychiatrist to help her with the new invasive memories. She opted for the quick solution, which meant medication. The doctor gave her pills that suppressed spontaneous firings of neurons.

When Tanaka left for Ring Space, she cleaned out Gewitter Base of all the pills they had, and all similar medications. During the final battle, Naomi's forces were taking the pills at regular intervals to reduce Duarte's ability to influence them.

Answer: No

Theresa pleaded with her father, but he would not change his mind. It was the only way he saw to save the human race. Theresa, in her grief, tried to rip him free of from his connection to the station, which triggered the sentinel robots.

Answer: Aliana Tanaka, Laconian colonel

Duarte was not abandoning his plans to network all of humanity, so Tanaka reached for violence to stop him. She had to eject out of her armour, which was being held by the station's defences, to reach Duarte, and beat him to death (a simple snapped neck was not even enough) while the station's systems attacked her back. Tanaka won, just barely.

Her last thought before succumbing to her wounds was disappointment that Holden and Theresa were still alive, and she didn't have a side arm to change that.

Answer: No

Duarte had been holding the dark entities at bay. When he died, they started pushing in again. Holden took Duarte's place as the keeper of the lighthouse, but instead of holding off the entities forever by creating a hive mind, he ordered that the Ring Space be evacuated so it could be shut down.

The last to go were the Rocinante and the Falcon. It took a lot of effort to hold back the dark entities, even for a few hours, but once everyone was out Holden relaxed, and the Ring Space was pushed back out of the alternate universe, shutting down the rings, and stopping the attacks.

Answer: Alex Kamal, pilot

With the ring gate network shutting down, ships would be stuck in their systems for the rest of their lives. The Rocinante and Falcon had both decided to go to Sol, but then Alex remembered that his son and grandson had moved to the Nieuwestad system.

He asked to go there, instead. Naomi, Amos, Theresa, and Muskrat (her dog), transferred over to the Falcon, leaving Alex as the last person on the Rocinante.

Answer: Amos Burton

The epilogue for "Leviathan Falls" took place a thousand years later. Humans from the Dobrydomov system had developed faster-than-light travel, and had launched an expedition to their homeworld, Earth. Setting down on Earth, Marrel, the linguist, met Amos. The Laconian repair drones apparently also granted immortality.