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The Ring Builders
An extremely advanced, ancient, and very much extinct alien civilization responsible for creating the protomolecule and building the Ring Gates. Several eons ago, they aimed Phoebe — filled to the brim with protomolecule — at Earth in the hopes of expanding their galactic empire, but it was inadvertently caught in Saturn's gravitational field and became one of its many moons. Later, the Ring Builders themselves would come face to face with a hostile force hell-bent on wiping them out. The Builders began sealing off the Rings and destroying whole solar systems to "cauterize the infection". Despite the complete shut-down of the Rings, they were ultimately wiped out in the end.
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Ring Builders in General
- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: This is what Ilus is: one of the products of protomolecule terraforming. In fact, most of the planet is hollow, with the inside being what looks to be an enormous temple or facility. Or ship.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Trying to comprehend their way of thinking is next to impossible for a human, even just through bits and pieces of their remaining technology. As The Investigator put it, humans are monkeys while the Builders are Mozart. All they were interested in was terraforming planets and expanding their empire with the Rings. An analogy used in the books is that if monkeys encountered a microwave, they might assume it's just a box to put things in — not comprehending that it heats things, much less how the underlying technology works. Proven to be exactly on point when the protomolecule being used by factions in various petty and ill concieved political agendas like uncontroleable biological weapons, failed bio-enhancement and colony drops on enemy planets, ends up actually being a two-stage terraforming tool which transforms a solar systems otherwise unfit planets and then establishes a gateway leading to a portal network. Humanity found a tool capable of building a galaxy wide empire and instead used it to throw rocks at each other, mutate little children into weapons and commit multiple acts of genocide over petty squables.
- Higher-Tech Species: They died out billions of years ago, but their technology is still so much more advanced that it seems almost like magic.
- Hive Mind: The Builders had a collective consciousness. The hostile aggressors used this to their advantage to wipe them out.
- Monster Progenitor: They created the protomolecule, which would cause irreparable damage to humanity. Subverted somewhat though in that the Builders never intended for anything like that to happen — the protomolecule is merely terraforming technology that's incompatible with human biology.
- Reality Warper: The Protomolecule can just outright rewrite the laws of physics on a whim, so it's easy to infer the Builders were capable of much more.
- The Power of the Sun: The Nucleus at the heart of the Slow Zone is capable of wiping out entire solar systems by firing a high-energy beam at the system's star and blowing it up. So it's not so much they have the "power of the sun", but rather the power of several thousand suns.
- Precursors: If there is any accuracy to the age of the universe, it's likely the Builders are the first space-faring civilization. Their technology predates the Earth's very formation.
- Properly Paranoid: Nearly all of their technology is designed (or perhaps left in a red alert mode) to seriously overreact at even the slightest hint of perceived hostility. Given the circumstances of their final days and that they're now extinct, it's safe to say they weren't paranoid enough.
- Pure Energy: The electromagnetic pulse that generates the Nucleus's beam can wipe out an entire solar system. It's apparently made entirely of pure gamma radiation and is several thousand-fold more deadly than a natural gamma ray burst.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: They wiped out billions — if not trillions — of lives in their attempt to destroy the hostile entities that wanted them dead. If what Holden and Dr. Okoye glimpsed was even remotely true, the Builders had every right to cauterize star after star.
The Protomolecule
The Protomolecule
Insanely advanced — and terrifying — terraforming technology designed by the Ring Builders. Its main drive is to terraform biomes and make them more suitable for the Ring Builders, and eventually siphon resources from said planet to build a Ring and connect to the Ring Network. Within its core programming, it is capable of repurposing any nearby lifeforms it comes to contact with — to absolutely horrifying effect. While not an actual lifeform per se, it is sentient and extremely intelligent.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Perhaps because of extreme incompatibility with human biology, the protomolecule found on Phoebe can at times act... glitchy.
- The Corruption: While the protomolecule isn't actually malicious, it will relentlessly follow its directive to consume and repurpose any biological matter it encounters. This process often leaves said matter (e.g. humans) as little more than a mindless husk.
- Cosmic Horror Story: After making contact with the Ring-builder database at the end of Season 3, Holden comes to the realization that the protomolecule isn't trying to destroy humanity — it just doesn't care, one way or the other. It is just terraforming technology created by an incomprehensibly advanced and long-dead alien civilization, whose secondary purpose is to build Ring-gates to connect new star systems with wormholes. As Holden put it, the protomolecule's purpose is to build "roads" and it doesn't think about us any more than we care about destroying anthills when we're paving a new road.
- Eldritch Abomination: In its first appearance it's a squishy and cephalopodic Meat Moss surrounded by blue bio-luminescent spores that runs on Human Resources. Then "Critical Mass" proves it's also infectious via Mutagenic Goo, and by "Leviathan Wakes" it has full-on Combat Tentacles and can arrange its spores into a humanoid shape. And even ignoring all of that, it's frequently shown to be a complex lifeform that's only "alive" in a way humans can't normally understand it, and also completely violates the laws of physics whenever it shows up in the story.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The protomolecule came from an extrasolar object cast stuck in orbit around Saturn.
- Lost Technology: The protomolecule left behind on Phoebe was the only active bit of Builder technology lying around. Everything else was long dead or inert, at least until Holden and The Investigator started pushing buttons...
- Made of Indestructium: Nearly. The stuff is notoriously difficult to destroy. Not only does it survive an asteroid impact on Venus, but it also outright rewrites the laws of physics and begins building the Ring inside the crater. The hellish heat, pressure, and acidity mean nothing to it once it has established itself. Though it can be destroyed, this is usually only in cases where it hasn't had a chance to perpetuate itself. Small protomolecule samples and the hybrids can be incinerated by extreme heat, and it's a safe bet that dumping an asteroid full of it into Sol would have worked. Once the protomolecule has grown to the point it can start forming structures, nothing within the realm of man has the power to get rid of it.
- Manipulative Bastard: It is intelligent, it has purpose, and it will do anything to achieve that purpose. Including recreating dead friends as avatars inside people's heads.
- Portal Network: The second purpose of the programming. Once a planet has been suitable terraformed, it will connect its solar system to the Network by building its own Ring Gate that functions like a wormhole, though Slow Zone isn't precisely a wormhole, but rather a pocket space that bends dimensions every which way.
- Sentient Phlebotinum: Humans keep attempting to use the protomolecule to achieve their own ends (ranging from science project to Super Serum to Synthetic Plague), but the protomolecule very much has a will of its own and will pursue its goals relentlessly, regardless of how it is repurposed, modified, or shackled.
- Terraform: The first purpose of the programming. It terraformed Ilus, and if Elvi Okoye is to be believed, it likely wiped out all other lifeforms in the process. The ruins on Ilus predate the lifeforms she studied, meaning its current biome developed long after the structures were built.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: From the Builders' perspective anyway. It's programmed to terraform and build Ring Gates and not much more, all other lifeforms be damned. If the protomolecule ends up being deadly to them, well, they're shit out of luck. This is not so much malice as it is unexpected encounters; the Builders likely never had to contend with other sapient life when colonizing.
The Hybrids
The Hybrids / Project Caliban
The Hybrids were children who were experimented on by Protogen with the protomolecule to create near indestructible super-soldiers to sell to the highest bidder. Despite the project being mostly a success by those parameters, the Hybrids were still directly communicating with the Ring that was being built on Venus.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Two-fold. Hybrids are loyal to whoever made them and purchased them, but to also the protomolecule itself; they are no longer innocent children, or even human, and thus their actions tend to be purely destructive towards their prior species.
- Healing Factor: They can heal away most wounds within moments.
- Made of Indestructium: Terrifyingly hard to kill. Holden and his crew were only able to destroy one in the Roci's drive plume because their weapons simply couldn't harm it. Bobbie was able to kill a newly formed hybrid by completely blowing away its brain stem with her arm-mounted gatling gun, and she only got that chance because it got distracted by the Ring Gate's completion on Venus.
- Madness Mantra: When poor Katoa neared his completion as a Hybrid, he became directly connected to the Ring Network, and repeatedly cried "Can't stop the work!"
- One-Man Army: Their entire appeal to governments is that just one experimental Hybrid can easily take down two platoons of highly skilled marines. Just a handful of perfected Hybrids can lay waste to an entire planet.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The only way to create a Hybrid is to expose a child with a rare genetic disorder to the protomolecule. Their compromised immunosuppressive response allows the protomolecule to assimilate more easily and without damaging the host.
- Tragic Monster: It doesn't get more tragic than this. At one point, they were all children crippled by a genetic disease. Now, they are nothing more than super-zombies controlled by Mao and the protomolecule.
Unknown Aggressors
Unknown, hostile entities that destroyed the Ring Builders empire and were responsible for much of their technology becoming inert. After Holden activated the Ring Network and humanity started flocking through the gates, they seemingly "awakened" this hostile force.
Unknown Aggressors in General
- Absolute Xenophobe: The "technology" left behind by the aggressors is downright deadly to anything and everything connected to the Builders. A human who touches the Void Bullet briefly loses consciousness, yet protomolecule technology that comes into contact with it renders all networked technology instantly inert and dead. For all intents and purposes, the hostile force hounded the Builders like a plague until it ultimately wiped them out.
- Apocalypse How: If the planet Ilus is any indication, the war between the Aggressors and the Builders wiped out most multicellular life in the entire galaxy around two billion years ago — or at least, on any planets the vast Ring-builder empire considered worth colonizing. Earth got spared at the time because it was an insignificant rock that didn't have an active Ring yet (single-celled life began on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, but multi-cellular life only began 600 million years ago). On Ilus, for example, in the past 2 billion years life only had time to evolve from bacteria back to having primitive forms similar to slugs, lizards, birds, etc.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Their Void Bullet is fatal to the Builders and protomolecule technology in general, but humans can pass through it and just see visions of the beings that sent it.
- Eldritch Abomination: If the visions that Holden and Okoye had are actually indicative of what the hostile aliens look like, then they're something akin to a sentient virus cloud.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Holden sees glimpses of them each time he passes through the gates, suggesting they have an extradimensional origin. They can also devour ships that pass through the rings, with barely a hint as to what happened beyond the ship simply not showing up on the other side.
- Leave No Survivors: Seeing as all the Builders have been dead for billions of years, it's safe to say mission accomplished.
- Nothing Is Scarier: May be the single most understated use of this trope on the entire site. These things destroyed a galaxy-spanning civilization and left no traces behind save for some lost technology. And nothing is known about them. They're so enigmatic that by the end of Season 5, absolutely no-one but the people who had direct contact with them even believe they still exist.
- Outside-Context Problem: These aliens are so beyond understanding that even the Ring Builders couldn't stop them. All they could do was burn their own solar systems in a desperate attempt to stave off death, and it was for nothing.
- Precursor Killers: They wiped out the Builders so thoroughly that only the protomolecule itself is left, and their technology is so hostile that even the leftover remnants can still kill humans.
