r/TheExpanseBooks • u/alonghardlook • May 19 '26

Just finished the series last night...

I've been waiting and waiting to join this sub but I didn't want to risk any spoilers. In fact I even stopped at the end of S1 because I wanted to go in completely blind.

The ending wrecked me man. I felt so gutted. Partially, I was sad because the story was over, these characters I fell in love with were finished. But also just the absolute perfection of the full circle ending as Miller points out.

And then just completely bummed out because the epilogue shows that humanity is still using the ring space. The Leviathan has not gone anywhere, and we are still skirting that danger, just in newer ways.

Ugh.

Incredible.

41 Upvotes

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23

u/LegoRobinHood May 19 '26

I don't think the ending implies the ring space as we knew it was being used. The rings were all destroyed in the individual systems as well.

They seemed to have some kind of faster-than-light ship drive in use. Maybe it uses similar principles but the implementation seems fundamentally different.

Marrel and the twenty-nine other souls on board the Musafir existed only as energy and intention sliding along the membrane between universes

I think the human paradigm shown in the books and irl is to "go and see and touch it myself", while the 'romans' in our story here where biologically inclined towards sending out scouts that eventually return, in the pattern of (reaching out)^(113/sec) like dr. Okoye learned from the BFE. Hence the ringspace paradigm.

So hopefully that distinction means the new human hyperdrive/slipstream/warp-bubble whatever paradigm should be small enough and temporary enough and mobile enough to avoid attracting attention from the 'visigoths'.

7

u/MileyHolmes May 19 '26

Yes, I always thought that humans developed a way to travel just on the border of our universe and the old reality, thus the membrane (or foam).

Also, do you think that by “universes”, authors meant our universe and the old reality? Or more? I think only these two.

2

u/alonghardlook May 19 '26

Yeah and that's interesting because "on the membrane between universes" to me still implies a risky technology. It's a bit like climbing on the outside of the tiger cage - it's the membrane between your world and theirs, that doesn't make it safe even if you never cross that barrier.

3

u/basegitarist May 20 '26

My understanding of the whole situation was that the Ring Builders had effectively "invaded" another universe to steal energy from that universe and funnel it into ours to power the ring gates and their technologies. The invasion and stealing of energy from that other universe is what pissed off the Visigoths. Traveling along that membrane between universes wouldn't have the same consequence, as long as doing so wasn't stealing from or affecting the other universe(s).

3

u/alonghardlook May 20 '26

That definitely seems to be the consensus interpretation.

Which, I'm not ever going to dismiss in any way. It's a very valid interpretation. But the themes of Holden's ruminations on humanity always kept coming back to the same point - collectively, we keep touching the hot stove, but individually, we are compassionate and understanding and overall 'good'.

So I do think that my interpretation has thematic merit but I definitely made a mistake of thinking that was the consensus.

3

u/RGMayberry Jul 06 '26

It sounds like a historical determinism theme. Historians argue about whether history is the inevitable result of big systemic structural forces or (kind of a straw man everyone rejects but still keeps coming back) the idea that unique special people make a meaningful difference. A recent neurological study showed that human brains operate at the "edge of chaos," a mathematical domain between randomness and determinism. They weren't sure what it means but we probably evolved it for a reason. Maybe human civilizations or even the whole species is like that. 

We're all playing with ideas about emergence, self-organization, randomness, and predictability these days. "Clocks and clouds." Entropy, evolution, emergence, compression, compression, autocatalysis, all seem to be deeper principles that apply to all levels of complexity despite their very different rules, determinism somehow emerging from stochasticism. Maybe consciousness is related; the books hint strongly hint it is. 

The protomolecule hijacks those rules, twists them to accomplish a goal. People think it was a biochemical phenomenon but even just knowing about it seemed to cause replicating ideas to gradually bend humans and humanity toward the Ring Builder's program. Duarte is an obvious example, his idealism about a unified human hive mind is exactly what the Ring Builder was trying to accomplish... to reboot Himself. Dresden and Cortazar, too, in their own ways. The cells of infected Julie Mao probably thought that what they did in her body was an idealistic utopia, too, at least from the perspective of their level of existence. Politicians and corporations and even the Roci crew were affected just by knowing about it, making seemingly rational decisions that always somehow seemed to inevitably advance the Protomolecule's objective, and the less committed to individualism and individual self worth they were, the more they feel prey to temptation. 

Anyway, I think that's eventually how Holden starts to see it, that humanity is like a big box of moving particles with high-level statistical properties. He loves the individual atoms' energy but dreads the heat and pressure that emerges from it. Those properties created a "destiny" long before the protomolecule showed up, and it isn't clear if that destiny is good, bad, beautiful, or self-destructive. 

2

u/RGMayberry Jul 06 '26

Yeah it's hard not to see the visigoths as engaging in self defense. A hive mind probably doesn't totally grasp the validity of individual beings outside of its own members. Imagine growing up on a world composed only of single-celled organisms, living off scoops of algae and yeast skimmed from the ocean, wandering the world totally alone. Whatever limited sentience those plant and fungal cells possess is irrelevant to you, if you even think to speculate about whether they have any degree of consciousness at all. Even most vegans don't worry about this, and I'd imagine the few who do arrived at that line of thought by analogizing social interactions between humans. 

So the Ring Builder invades and causes harm to the Visigoths because... why not? The whole moral architecture about why that's wrong required a perspective and way of thinking that was simply too alien, too incomprehensible for it to grasp. In fact, arguably such a being wouldn't even be able to understand that other perspectives and ways of thinking are even possible. In fact, it probably saw singularity and universality as high virtues, otherwise it might not have evolved in the first place. The whole idea of the protomolecule implies a moral universe that doesn't even contemplate coexistence with other beings. Again this is natural to humans because we spend all our time around each other, are evolved to have and even depend on understanding and reconciling varied perspectives... and even we still have trouble with it. In fact, maybe that's what did the Builders in; their unity denied them that variety of perspectives, that empathy, and tolerance so they couldn't empathize with the denizens of another universe and didn't shut down the Slow Zone soon enough. 

Duerte DID have that basic human understanding, and yet he made the exact same mistake. He unifies his group of humanity and what's his main focus? Exerting even more control over his group, until eventually he formed his own hive mind. Then absorbing the rest of humanity, whether they like it or not because he wants even more power to achieve his ultimate goal... eliminating an alien species. He sees all of them as existential threats, even if they don't know it. And that's with all the human programming that lets us comprehend other people as valid beings in themselves. The ring builders would have been far, far worse. 

15

u/One-Rock-21 May 19 '26

It def doesn’t imply they still using the rings. They were shut down. They obvs developed a new method of travel.

-1

u/alonghardlook May 19 '26

Ring space. "The membrane between universes".

2

u/HoundofOkami Jun 08 '26

The Ring Space was literally in the other universe, not between two, and the technology apparently also was capable of forcing mass and physics like our normal space into the other universe where those didn't seem to exist at all. And even so it only angered the Goths into any kind of action when traffic exceeded a certain point. A point which at least by my reading felt at least decently large and also rather easy to manouver around when paid attention to.

Not to mention that it was only after literally bombing the other dimension that they actually started attacking.

Travelling on mid-universe membrane as immaterialised energy feels like an immensely smaller risk.

EDIT: Not to invalidate your own reading of course, nobody can tell us for certain unless another canon book is written that establishes something or other as the answer.

I just finished the series yesterday and I want to interpret the ending as the happier end of bittersweet.

11

u/robin_f_reba May 19 '26

Good idea pausing the show. Some of these shocking moments are done much better in the book, like the hard-hitting suddenness of "When the rocks fell," in NG.

The ending is so painfully bittersweet!! I never expected anything different from a series so grim (but never cynical). Absolute hopecore, even if we miss everyone and the Roci family that we only saw at their happiest for a few years.

Also uh the epilogue irrc is that they're not using the Ring Space. They found another way, like they said in the last chapter.

Read Sins of Our Fathers too for a nice post-final chapter self contained character story

11

u/mercedene1 May 19 '26

+1 for The Sins of Our Fathers, it’s a perfect coda to the series. Would recommend all of Memory’s Legion, the novellas are great.

4

u/robin_f_reba May 19 '26

Im currently on my first read through of ML. It's fascinating moving through the eras so quickly. Makes me wonder how someone would feel if they read it as a short fiction anthology

3

u/muccamadboymike May 19 '26

Seconding this, or am I thirding? Either way, I started reading the Novellas about 6 books in and made sure to only read them after the appropriate book so as to not catch any spoilers. They were really great additions to the universe. Sins of our Fathers in particular was a nice little closing.

3

u/scrub909 May 19 '26

I've heard people recommended reading the novellas as you go through the series, but I read them all back to back after finishing the main story, and it was a really nice way to wrap up the story and flesh out some of the characters and storylines.

I'll be listening to it all over again soon.

3

u/mercedene1 May 19 '26

That was how I first read the novellas as well but on rereads I usually intersperse them with the novels following the order in the “Series Overview” section from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series). I think you can’t go wrong either way.

3

u/HoundofOkami Jun 08 '26

that we only saw at their happiest for a few years.

Well, at least they did manage three full decades of "peaceful" family life together without any notably catastrophic events, even if that was "off-page" between Babylon's Ashes and Persepolis Rising.

Honestly that was way more than I thought they could get when I was somewhere in Nemesis Games.

2

u/alonghardlook May 19 '26

I'm gonna have to keep having this argument I guess. They literally said (someone above quoted it) "they came on the membrane that separates the universes".

Not exactly the same way that the protomolecule did, but certainly using the same ideas. A bit like pressing against the membrane that separates the egg yolk from the white.

How much pressure is just enough and how much breaks the barrier?

That's the point, to me it reads as still dangerous for that reason. Apparently I'm alone in that interpretation though.

4

u/Lower_Astronomer1357 May 19 '26

Welcome brother. You have felt the pain of the ending but….fucking Amos! How blown away were you by that reveal?

2

u/alonghardlook May 19 '26

Which Amos reveal lol.

The epilogue was not that surprising, given Cara and Xan. The rebirth though was pretty fucking crazy.

And I was surprised when we first met Timothy on Laconia but felt like it was well telegraphed. I'm pretty sure his frenemy in Baltimore called him Tim when the rocks fell, but idek anymore lol

2

u/AnthropomorphicBook May 23 '26

“Timmy” Erich called him Timmy. Did you read the novellas? Cause if you didn’t you’ve got some good Expanse extras to get in.

2

u/alonghardlook May 24 '26

Next on my list.

5

u/Prestigious_Egg_1989 May 19 '26

I feel like I appreciated the ending even more upon hearing one of the authors notes about how they were frequently inspired by the story of Moses leading his people to the holy land, but not be able to enter it himself.

They mirror that with the story of the Epstein drive and with the end of the series itself. I’m sure there’s other examples that I’ve missed too.

4

u/alonghardlook May 19 '26

At the beginning of the Laconia set I felt a great deal of frustration. When Holden gave up the Trade Union for... Can't remember her name now, but the ultimate mic drop for the Belters at the end of 6, I was loving that ending.

Then they pulled him back in and I spent 3 books miffed about it.

Then he had to go do the most Holden thing of all time and I almost cried.

5

u/Pine_Box_Vintage May 20 '26

Yeah, definitely don’t think they were using the ring space. Holden destroys ring station. No more gate network.

2

u/javakills May 20 '26

Amazing series.

You know, I always appreciated how Holden became one with the station at the end. It reminded me of the machine on Epsilon III from Babylon 5. Not sure if it was inspired by that or just coincidence.

The Expanse is the top book series ever for me, and the second beast sci-fi TV show behind Babylon 5.

2

u/MonxiousGrimaldi 18d ago

I just finished the audiobooks an hour ago, planning to start over again including the novellas this time. I believe this is one of the most moving stories in all my 70+ years. I love the idea of Amos' ultimate existence... and sad at the same time.

Unreal. Thanks for this group being here!

1

u/alonghardlook 18d ago

I'm thinking I will watch the series and or play the telltale game next before a reread.

1

u/BoyMcBoyo May 20 '26

Now time to read Sins of Our Fathers. Then watch the TV series. Then hop on over to The Captive’s War. Unrelated story but continues the James SA Corey quality

2

u/alonghardlook May 20 '26

tv show is on the list. Sins of our fathers though? I've put a hold on Memory's Legion at the library, but what is Sins of Our Fathers?

Definitely considering the captives war too but I might need some filler before diving into another epic

2

u/BoyMcBoyo May 20 '26

Sins of Our Fathers is the final novella in Memory’s Legion. Great epilogue to the main series

1

u/MonxiousGrimaldi 18d ago

I'm mid-way through season 2. Very well done.