History Literature / TheExpanse

* BookEnds: On the immediate level, the first and last book being called ''Leviathan Rises'' and ''Leviathan Falls'', respectively. [[spoiler:''Leviathan Rises'' explores humanity's first contact with alien technology whose consequences it barely understands, while ''Leviathan Falls'' brings its greater influence to a close as the ring space created by said technology is shut down by Holden to save mankind from extinction.]]

* ''[[Literature/CalibansWar Caliban's War]]'' (2012)
* ''[[Literature/AbaddonsGate Abbadon's Gate]]'' (2013)

* ''[[Literature/BabylonsAshes Babylon's Ashes]]'' (2016)

* ''[[Literature/TiamatsWrath Tiamat's Wrath]]'' (2019)

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist, with as much or more power than the planetary governments. Some, like Protogen or Mao-Kwikowski, verge on NGOSuperpower [[spoiler: until they run afoul of the ''real'' powers of Earth and Mars, and get dismantled]]. Others, like RCE, are somewhat more ethical [[spoiler: although in RCE's case one [[{{Sociopath}} sociopathic security chief]] makes life difficult for everyone--the company included--in ''Cibola Burn'']]. The extent to which the corporations are in charge is so great that the setting's MirandaWarning includes a provision for a union representative as well as (or in place of) a lawyer for a suspect upon arrest.

* GenreThrowback: The authors describe the series as a renewal of old school SpaceOpera with with both the science and the tropes updated for the 21st century.

* MurderByProxy: Marco Inaros was only a teenager when he started manipulating people into dirtying their hands for him, most notably giving his girlfriend a small programming challenge to pass time during pregnancy, producing a seemingly innocuous code whose purpose -- as she finds out too late -- was to sabotage spaceships to make them explode during transit through a hard-to-detect bug, killing all their crew in an instant. Marco hoped her guilt would make her susceptible to further manipulation; she wasn't, so he instead denied her custody of their son, raising him into a ChildSoldier believing [[RejectionProjection his mom abandoned him and her fellow Belters]].

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: The series in general]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Leviathan Wakes]]
* AllOfThem
--> '''Naomi''': We’ve got ships on their way from all over the system.
--> '''Holden''': How many are coming?
--> '''Naomi''': At a guess? All of them.
* AwesomeMcCoolname: When Miller is trying to find the ''Rocinante'' through data analysis, one of the ships he comes across is the freight hauler ''Badass Motherfucker'' owned by the Luna company "MYOFB Corporation" (the acronym likely means, judging by the name of the ship, "Mind Your Own Fucking Business"). In the same breath, however, Miller notes that it's AwesomeButImpractical since a ship with a name like that simply begging for a bored port official to bust their chops for kicks.
* BlobMonster: The first Protomolecule creature we see is one of these. It's sucking on the ''Scopuli'''s fusion reactor and [[AndIMustScream shrieking "help me!" over and over]] with the half-assimilated head floating in it. When it's seen later, freeze-dried, it's still got floaters—a colon and a spine are mentioned by name, showing that its an extreme case of BodyOfBodies.
* BrickJoke: The legal dispute over the colonization rights to Venus has been in the courts for over eighty years with no sign of resolution in sight. [[spoiler: Then the protomolecule-infected Eros is deliberately rammed into Venus, seeding that planet with alien life and making any further litigation over its fate moot. Holden's comments at the end of the book indicate that Venus may become [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Planet]] in the long run, but at least for now humanity is safe and can plan for that contingency.]]
%% * ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: The Nauvoo]]. When the [[spoiler:Protomolecule takes over Eros]] they try to use it to [[spoiler:ram Eros into its sun.]]
* CrapsackWorld: AllOfThem, to varying extents. Earth is severely overpopulated[[note]] A farm of a dozen acres is described as being the size of a national park; there is population control with "unlicensed" kids having no right to governmental support; and even most legal citizens are basically "surplus to society" and live on food stamps because there is no work for them; higher education is reseverved for those who prove that they ''will'' work in their profession afterwards and who can find an already working sponsor to write them a letter of recommendation.[[/note]] and recovering from the environmental damage of the 20th and 21st century. Mars is better by comparison but implied to be a military dictatorship in all but name, and the kids are put through ''enormous'' performance stress in school.[[note]]In the ''Gods of Risk'' novella, the teenage protagonist does such advanced and long-hour lab work in school that you only realize he's still in puberty (not a particularly immature [=PhD.=] student) when his age is stated towards the end. And he and his equally stressed classmates are not supposed to be exceptionally gifted special cases or anything.[[/note]] The exploitation of the people of the Belt and the outer worlds is severe enough to drive a revolutionary faction, the Outer Planets Alliance, to open violence against Earth and Mars interests. Living standards in the Belt are not much different than a developing country on Earth--with the exception that even developing countries don't need to worry about losing their air or water supply on a daily basis.
* DidYouJustHaveSex While the ''Rocinante'' crew are dining together in the galley, all it takes to clue Amos in on the fact that Holden and Naomi are sleeping together is the former asking the latter to pass the salt in an overly-formal manner.
* ForScience: [[spoiler: {{Enforced|Trope}} by Protogen on their science personnel by modifying them into high-functioning sociopaths. As long as they are given an interesting problem to solve, they will be [[TheUnfettered completely unfettered]], never running into moral crisis about the things they are asked to research.]]
%% * GenerationShip: the ''Nauvoo''.
%% * GeniusLoci: [[spoiler:Eros Station]] after it's turned into an incubator for the protomolecule.
%% * HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Miller and Julie.]]
* HurlItIntoTheSun: [[spoiler:At Miller's suggestion, the OPA eventually adopts this plan for Eros to keep the Protomolecule out of everyone's hands, by crashing the ''Nauvoo'' into it unmanned on a long acceleration trajectory.]]
%% * HumanityIsInfectious: [[spoiler:How Julie is able to retain control over Eros]].
%% * IKnowYouAreInThereSomewhereFight: [[spoiler:Miller to Julie]] at the end.
* ImaginaryFriend: [[spoiler:Miller starts having conversations with a hallucinatory Julie Mao.]]
* KansasCityShuffle: Holden's plan to intercept the missiles involves pulling this kind of con on the UN.
--> '''Holden''': We'll tell them we're going to trick them so they stop listening, and once they're not listening, we'll trick them.
* LaserGuidedKarma: The evil, corrupt MegaCorp Protogen, an NGOSuperpower with enough political connections to let them push Earth to [[spoiler: attack Mars]], is seemingly invincible. [[spoiler: Nope. They get outed as being responsible for Eros and go down almost ''immediately'']].
%% * LawEnforcementInc: Star Helix Security.
%% * LoveBeforeFirstSight: Miller to Julie Mao.
* MeaningfulName: Several, to wit:
** Holden consciously names his ship ''Rocinante'' after Don Quixote's horse, and explains to Naomi that the choice was deliberate.
** Security on Eros is handled by an outfit called CPM (short for ''Carne Por La Machina'', or ''Meat For The Machine''). At first it just looks like a crude joke about the [[WeHaveReserves disposability of its personnel]], who are all former gang members recruited from throughout the Belt. [[spoiler: Given that the protomolecule devours them along with everyone else, the name turns out to be more than appropriate.]]
* NGOSuperpower: Protogen, having [[spoiler: enough firepower to bring down the Martian flagship with ease]]. But reality bites when [[spoiler: Earth and Mars learn they're responsible for Eros, and tear the company apart almost immediately.]]
* OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap: Miller relates a story to the crew about how he disbanded a cheese smuggling ring that was assassinating its rivals. While drugs, prostitution, and synthetic food substitutes are readily available, genuine cheese comes only from Earth or Mars and a single shipment can cost easily as much as the ship transporting it. A single block of Vermont cheddar is considered a sizeable bribe for a cop. Miller's remarks indicate that all non-synthetic food products are considered valuable luxury items in the Belt.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The protomolecule uses them to vomit brown goo to further spread the infection.
* PopulationControl: When being interrogated on the ''Donnager'', Holden says that Earth has a population of 30 billion and thus being the only child of an eight-person group marriage entitled them to enough tax credits for justify a 22-acre farm.[[note]]The average size of a North American farm today is 441 acres. Holden mentions that his family's holdings are considered 'practically a national park' by the standards of that era.[[/note]]
%% ** The Mormons' reason for building a GenerationShip.
%% * PottyFailure: Julie Mao in the prologue.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure:
** A nameless Martian officer who [[spoiler: learns about the protomolecule on Phoebe responds to it by immediately nuking the moon to atoms so no one else can use the damned thing]].
** The ''Donnager'' crew in general, but particularly Lieutenant Kelly, Holden's interrogator aboard the ''Donnager'', is a professional doing a job--he's not brutal at all, just asking questions, [[spoiler: and gives his life to make sure Holden and his people make it out with their information. His sacrifice--and those of his crewmates--is not unnoticed. Holden (via Fred Johnson) ensures that Kelly's body is returned to Mars and accorded full military honors]].
%% * SelfDestructMechanism: Used by the ''Donnager'' after it is boarded.
* ShoutOut:
** {{Film/Citizen Kane}}:
--->"''Razorback''", Naomi said. "What's that?"
--->"It's a sled," Miller replied.[[note]]This is a double shout-out. The term ''sled'' in racing circles is shortened from ''lead sled'', which denotes a very fast vehicle. What was the ''Razorback''? A racing star-ship.[[/note]]
** {{Franchise/Dune}}:
--->'''Julies's notes:''' ''Panic doesn't help. It never helps. Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. Fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.''
** {{Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy}}
---> The food dispensers aboard ship can give you something that is not entirely unlike coffee.
%% * TheSociopath: Several Protogen executives and staff are surgically altered into sociopaths to get past any thought of ethics when experimenting with the protomolecule.
* UselessSpleen: When Holden is performing a sustained high-g burn, he complains about his spleen.
--> '''Holden''': My spleen is collapsing. Hurry up.
%% * WhamLine: [[spoiler: Eros shouted.]]
* WhatTheHellHero:
** Holden gets these pretty often from just about everybody, as he tends to publically broadcast whatever everyone else is trying to keep secret and is personally responsible for two open conflicts as a result.
** Miller also gets one when he [[spoiler:shoots Dresden]], an act which results in Holden disliking and distrusting him for the remainder of the novel.
* ZombieApocalypse: [[spoiler:Breaks out in Eros following the introduction of the protomolecule and lots and lots of radiation to the general populace.]]
* ZombiePukeAttack: [[spoiler:The standard method in which the zombies spread the protomolecule to others]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Caliban's War]]
* AmazonianBeauty: Bobbie Draper is described as more than two meters tall (approx 6'7"), and as someone that ''"couldn't be more than thirty and looked like a comic book illustration, complete with muscles on her muscles"''. Alex seems very smitten with her, and Bobbie appears to know that she attracts the look of lovers of big, solid women, a development she doesn't seem to like much.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Bobbie's suit gun fires 2 mm rounds at "more than a thousand meters per second", which is treated as something awesomely powerful and being able to penetrate an entire ship. In reality, it's actually firing ''tiny'' bullets at a normal rifle velocity - the rounds would have roughly an order of magnitude lower momentum and kinetic energy than a modern assault rifle's.
-->'''Cotyar''': "Would the bullets even slow down as they went through both of the ship's hulls and let all the air out?"
-->'''Bobbie''': "Nope"
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Avasarala is able to unravel almost the entire conspiracy simply by noticing [[spoiler: Soren biting the inside of his cheek]] and extrapolating from there.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: As if the mass of protomolecule on Venus shooting off into space as a gigantic tendril to become who knows what isn't enough, the last moment of the book is a previously thought-to-be dead character showing up on the Roci to give Holden a cryptic "we need to talk."
* ConvenientTerminalIllness: [[spoiler:When Holden boards the protomolecule-infested ''Agatha King'', he meets a survivor named Lawson. Half a chapter later, Lawson gets exposed to the protomolecule, so he volunteers to stay behind and blow the reactor while Holden escapes]].
* DramaticGunCock: Deconstructed when Prax accidentally turns a MexicanStandoff into a BlastOut by cocking his gun, which he just thought was the appropriate thing to do in the situation from what he'd seen in movies.
* EnemyMine: The UN and Mars marines on Ganymede are in a tense standoff when [[spoiler: one of the monsters attacks the UN patrol. Bobbie and her patrol immediately attempt to reinforce them, but are themselves wiped out. Unfortunately Bobbie's radio is damaged in the fight, and she's unable to tell her superiors or the ships in orbit about the changed situation on the ground.]]
* ExplosiveLeash: The protomolecule-monsters are fitted with them. However, after the first one explodes, [[spoiler:the others figure out how to remove them]].
* GenderBlenderName: In a highly obscure example, Prax is named after Jupiter's moon Praxidike, which his parents didn't realize was named after a Greek goddess.
%% * GlowingEyesOfDoom: The protomolecule monsters.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Admiral Nguyen's ship gets taken over by one of the protomolecule-monsters he launched at Mars]].
* ImmuneToBullets: The protomolecule-monsters. Bullets pass right through them, and they heal immediately afterwards.
* PaperThinDisguise: Holden grows a beard in an attempt to disguise himself. It fools exactly no one.
--> '''Avasarala''': What happened to his face?
--> '''Soren''': The reporting officer suggested the beard was intended as a disguise.
--> '''Avasrala''': Well, thank God he didn't [[ClarkKenting put on a pair of glasses]], we might never have figured it out.
%% * PoweredArmor: Bobbie's Goliath suit.
%% * PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler: The protomolecule monsters.]]
* SirSwearsALot: Avasarala. When she gets through an entire phone conversation with her boss without swearing, [[OoCIsSeriousBusiness he knows something is badly wrong]].
* StarshipLuxurious: Jules-Pierre Mao's private yacht, [[spoiler: which serves as a GildedCage for Avsarala and her entourage via Errinwright's orders to keep her off the board.]]
%% * SuperSoldiers: The protomolecule monsters.
%% * WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The protomolecule monsters.]]
%% * WeaponizedExhaust: Used by the ''Rocinante''.
%% * WeHardlyKnewYe: When Holden boards the Agatha King near the end of the book, he runs into Larson, presumed to be the last person on board who hasn't succumbed to the protomolecule. He's around for half a chapter before he reveals he's made accidental contact with the goo and volunteers to blow up the ship.
* WhamLine: As Prax is reading through his mail after [[spoiler:crowdfunding Mei's rescue campaign]], he finds this, which is the first clue that ''someone'' wants him silenced:
-->'''YOU ARE A SICK, SICK, SICK MOTHERFUCKER, AND IF I EVER SEE YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL KILL YOU MYSELF'''.
* WrongAssumption: After Holden realizes the protomolecule was involved in the events on Ganymede, he immediately leaps to the conclusion that Fred Johnson must be behind it, as he had given him the last sample of the stuff for safekeeping. He ends up angrily confronting Fred, who, understandably [[TranquilFury upset]] at being accused of atrocities he had nothing to do with, promptly [[GetOut fires him]]. (It's somewhat justified by the fact that the alternative -- that there is ''more'' protomolecule out there in God-knows-whose hands -- is simply too horrifying for Holden to contemplate. Unfortunately, it's also correct.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Abaddon's Gate]]
* ApocalypseHow: The Ring Station is capable of Stellar/Physical Annihilation.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The OPA dreadnought ''Behemoth'' - formerly the generation ship ''Nauvoo''. The biggest spaceship ever built, turned into a giant battleship bristling with weapons ("the biggest, baddest weapons platform in the solar system"). Unfortunately, the frame of the ship is too fragile to support the rail guns, and firing ''one torpedo'' causes a shipwide blackout.
-->"Apart from painting teeth on her and welding on an apartment building–sized sharkfin, nothing could have been more clearly or effectively built to intimidate. Which was good, because she was a retrofitted piece of crap, and if they ever got in a real fight, they were boned."
* BungledSuicide: A political activist en route to the Ring attempts to set himself on fire, only for the Navy ship's fire-suppression system to douse him in fire retardant before the flames can do much more than singe his hair and cloths. Navy security personnel had him cuffed and escorted out under guard within thirty seconds of the incident.
* ChekhovsSkill: [[spoiler:Early on, Ren teaches Clarissa about how incorrectly installing a brownout buffer can bring down the whole power grid. This becomes a vital lesson for her in the ending.]]
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Hector Cortez comes across as a slimy, cowardly celebrity televangelist using his fame to play politics, in stark contrast to [[GoodShepherd Anna]]. However, [[spoiler:when Clarissa intervenes to stop Ashford from firing the improvised laser, he knocks out Ashford with a taser and takes charge of the security team]].
* DisabilitySuperpower: The way Cohen perceives the world through his sonar glasses gives him an extraordinary ability to perceive and model 3D objects.
%% * GoodShepherd: Anna.
%% * HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Clarissa]] and, to a lesser extent, [[spoiler:Michio Pa]].
%% * HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Clarissa]].
%% * HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Bull]]'s sacrifice, in the form of a YouShallNotPass.
* ImprovisedWeapon: The ''Nauvoo'' was equipped with a communications laser large and powerful enough to communicate with the Sol system across a distance of light years. When the "Slow Zone" activates, the crew of the ''Behemoth'' realize they can reconfigure it into an impromptu EnergyWeapon. Considering how projectile-dependent most human military tech is (whether magnetic or self-propelled) this makes it one of the only effective weapons in that environment, [[GracefulInTheirElement regardless of how impractical it would be outside that]].
* LowSpeedChase: The Ring Station limits the speed of any object in its vicinity ("The Slow Zone") to a hard limit. This leads to a number of painfully slow (for spaceships) chases, as as any object going above the speed limit is instantly decelerated (see NotTheFallThatKillsYou below).
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Bull's first big act aboard the ''Behemoth'' is to [[ThrownOutTheAirlock space]] an otherwise harmless drug dealer. Just to "frame the issue" for the Belters.
* MassOhCrap: When [[spoiler:Ashford's loyalists commandeer four suits of Martian power armor]], all the mutineers realize their situation just got a lot worse.
* TheMutiny: Happens on board the ''Behemoth''. Several times, in fact.
--> "So this is a coup," Monica said.
--> "Counter-countercoup, technically," Bull said.
* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: Averted. The effects of sudden deceleration are expanded upon in gruesome detail.
%% * OutOfClothesExperience: Holden is naked in the mental projection created by Miller.
%% * PortalNetwork: The Rings.
* RestrainingBolt: The leg cuff put on Clarissa to stop her from using her combat implants.
%% * ShoutOut: Electrochemical technicians [[Series/GameOfThrones Ren, Stanni, and Bob]].
* StealthPun: After waking up on [[spoiler:The Behemoth]], Alex asks "Were we arrested?". Technically, that's exactly what happened when [[spoiler:The Slow Zone lowered the speed limit again]]
* TooAwesomeToUse: Alex' rationale for recommending that the ''Roci'' have a [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon keel-mounted]] [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] installed is that, while their torpedo launchers are a lot more flexible and often more deadly, Martian-built military-grade torpedoes are understandably hard to come by outside of the Martian military. Hence it would be useful to have comparable anti-capital weapon that was easier to keep the magazine stocked for.
%% * TragicVillain: Clarissa. Which Anna is trying to change.
%% * VirtualGhost: Miller.
* WhamLine:
-->'''Sam:''' Bull! [[spoiler:Can you feel anything - I mean ''anything'' - lower than your tits?]]
* WritersCannotDoMath: When [[spoiler: the Slow Zone's speed limit changes]], several ships undergo rapid deceleration which causes all sorts of death and horrific injury. This makes sense for the worst-off ships: 600m/s to 0 in 5 seconds is about 120m/s/s or 12G of acceleration. That could certainly do serious damage to a human body, though still highly unlikely to turn anyone into chunky salsa. However, it mentions that [[spoiler:the Behemoth]] was doing about 10% of that at the time. A few seconds of 1.2G of acceleration is nowhere near enough to do any serious damage to anyone. It's highly unlikely that there'd be anything worse than a few minor fall injuries from people caught offguard and landing awkwardly.
** In a large open space (such as Behemoth's drum area), that acceleration still propels you forward at 60 m/s. Which is pretty much fatal unless you're lucky enough to be near the front bulkhead or can grab and hold to something.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cibola Burn]]
* AscendedExtra: Havelock and Basia. Havelock appears, briefly, as Miller's partner in Leviathan Wakes, and Basia appears for a single scene in Caliban's War. Here, however, they are both POV characters who play a major role in the story.
* AssholeVictim:
** Coop masterminded the bombing of the landing pad, which led to the shuttle crashing and killing most of the RCE science team. Unlike the other Belters, he not even slightly remorseful, so it's hard to feel particularly sad when he tries to intimidate Murtry and gets his brains blown out.
** Chief Engineer Koenen repeatedly forces the ''Edward Israel'''s engineering team to fight in zero-G, despite their inexperience, and attacks the ''Rocinante'' when Naomi, Alex, and Basia try to save the deorbiting ''Barbapiccola''. Alex eventually gets fed up and snipes him, and not even his engineering team is upset.
%% * ColonelKilgore: Murtry.
* DeathWorld: Ilus was already difficult enough, with the settlers having to import soil to grow crops in. [[spoiler: After the reactor explodes and inundates the planet's surface with a super-tsunami, slugs that secrete an immediately lethal neurotoxin combined with microorganisms that colonize the vitreous humors of the eye and blind the colonists make matters even worse. And that's ''before'' the super-advanced alien defense technology shuts down the fusion plants of the ships in orbit, making escape or resupply impossible. And then the alien technology starts to break down...]]
-->[[spoiler: "Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here.”]]
* DivertingPower: {{Discussed|Trope}} when the ''Rocinante'' is forced to operate on battery-power. The ship's [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon keel-mounted]] [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] has its own very substantial set of batteries and capacitors which were already topped off, and they have to consider tapping into those to keep other systems powered. However, the power is only designed to flow ''into'' the railgun system, not back ''out of'' it into the rest of the ship ([[OverclockingAttack for cogent safety reasons]]) and they do not have the time to [[ReversePolarity effect a workaround]], so they abandon that plan in favor of [[RecoilBoost a different solution using the railgun]].
* DyingTown: Its suggested by the end of the book that [[spoiler: Mars]], and possibly various habitats in the Belt will become examples in the near future - with all the habitable worlds outside the Ring network, all with staggeringly abundant resources, they may just become redundant and irrelevant.
* ExactTimeToFailure: Subverted The ''Rocinante'''s computer calculates exactly how long it will take for [[spoiler:the ''Barbapiccola'' to hit the atmosphere and disintegrate...only for it to recalculate halfway through and shave off three days. Basia does not find this reassuring]].
* EyeScream: An alien organism starts taking up residence in the Ilus settlers' eyes, turning their vitreous humor green and blinding them.
* FromBadToWorse: Things start off badly, with Holden struggling to investigate the bombing while keeping the colonists and RCE security from killing each other. They get worse when the planet starts waking up [[spoiler:and the surface is devastated by a massive explosion. Then the moons shut down fusion power, stranding everyone on the planet. Then come the death slugs, and the blindness plague...]]
* GaussianGirl: As part of the aftereffect of the EyeScream organism that blinded her, Elvi notes that the world is still blurry, and thinks that it makes Fayez look like a movie star.
* GeniusLoci: [[spoiler:After shutting down all of Ilus' technology, The investigator's task is complete, and Miller and all the people assimilated by the protomolecule on Eros become the planet's consciousness.]]
* GravitySucks: {{Downplayed|Trope}} to realistic levels. The ships orbiting Ilus / New Tera are in a very low orbit for practical reasons, low enough that there is a ''very'' minor amount of drag from the near-vacuum vestiges of the upper atmosphere. But this is normally a non-issue, as any ship with a functioning Epstein drive just needs to do some minor correction burns every few orbits to make sure it stays on station. [[spoiler:Unfortunately when the [[{{Precursors}} protomolocule-civilization]] planetary security system simply ''causes nuclear fusion to cease to function'' around the planet, falling toward the planet becomes a mathematical certainty.]]
* InnocentAwkwardQuestion: Avasarala hears of a development involving the [[EldritchAbomination protomolecule]] and shouts, "Son of a whore!", apparently forgetting there's a five-year-old present. The kid turns to her dad and asks, "Daddy, what's a whore?" He tells her it's [[ExactWords a type of frost]].
* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Holden finally confronts Elvi about her crush on him...[[spoiler:after she's slept with Fayez and finally gotten it out of her system]]. The moment is so awkward they both agree it's best not to talk about it.
* MadnessMantra: 113 times per second it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out...
* MacGyvering: Basia and [[TheEngineer Naomi]] do this several times, in their efforts to save [[spoiler: the Belter freighter Basia's daughter is on.]]
** They design and build a tethering cable [[spoiler:to drag the ship into a more stable orbit.]]
** They design an improvised EscapePod by combining two emergency airlocks [[spoiler: to rescue the crew when the ship starts to enter the atmosphere.]]
* MercyKill: At the end of the book, [[spoiler:the recreated Miller incorporates all the consciousnesses trapped by the protomolecule before diving into the dead zone, which finally allows them to die]].
* MoodWhiplash: For most of the book, the Investigator interludes are pure NightmareFuel, with the minds of those "eaten" by the protomolecule subjected to a horrifying AndIMustScream scenario. Then the protomolecule makes an (accidental) pun, and we get a hilarious moment of the mind of an old woman rolling her metaphorical eyes at it...
* MundaneUtility: The ''Rocinante'''s railgun gets repurposed as [[RecoilBoost an ersatz thruster]], to stabilize their orbit.
* NamingYourColonyWorld: The refugees from Ganymede name it "Ilus" while the RCE charter names it "New Terra." Neither party is particularly fond of the other party's name choice.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: The "Dead Zone", described by Elvi as "the eye of an angry god." To humans, it appears as a small dark area in space with seemingly infinite depth, surrounded by a halo of 'light' that illuminates nothing. Protomolecule constructs, such as [[spoiler:Miller's robot body]], can't even perceive it, and can only deduce its existence by the effect it has on them. [[spoiler:It is immediately fatal to the protomolecule, but humans only suffer altered consciousness when they touch it. Miller exploits this to shut down Ilus' defense systems and free the people trapped by the protomolecule]].
* NoBiochemicalBarriers: {{Averted|Trope}}, the biosphere on Ilus / New Tera might superficially resemble some Earth analogues but their protein structures are completely different. The colonists there cannot eat any of the local flora or fauna, and likewise some of the local biting insects promptly drop dead when they try to take a tiny nip out of humans. [[spoiler:Of course while they may be ''biologically'' incomparable both still operate on the same laws of ''chemistry'' and thus [[SubvertedTrope humans might be subject to infection by]], say, algae-analogues that thrive in warm saline solutions, such as are found in human eyeballs.]]
* PhonyVeteran: In the prologue, a homeless Martian is panhandling on the tram, asking if someone can spare change for a veteran of Ganymede. Unfortunately for him, the one he asks is [[ActionGirl Bobbie Draper]], who served on (and lost comrades on) Ganymede:
-->'''Bobbie''': "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Find. Another. Story.]]"
* PunchClockVillain: Wei is a perfectly nice person. Too bad she works for Murtry, and believes in the importance of doing her job...
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Bobbie's first scene in the book involves her scaring off a beggar trying to pass himself off as veteran of Ganymede, which as a Ganymede survivor herself, she probably took way more offence to than she implies. The last three words she says to him before he scurries away:
-->"'''Find. Another. Story.'''"
* RagnarokProofing: Both played straight and averted. Straight in that Ilus still has a mostly working orbital defense network, underground transport system and structurally sound above-ground skyscraper ruins after two billion years, averted in that most of the tech works barely if at all, and some of it fails ''spectacularly''.
--> "What is that?"
--> "One of the moons."
--> "What's it doing?"
--> "Melting."
* RapidFTLProliferation: [[spoiler:Avasarala sends Holden to New Terra in hopes that he'll stave this off. Instead, he proves that colonization of planets on the other side of the Rings is viable and everyone starts rushing through them. Depopulating Mars.]]
* SpaceWestern / SettlingTheFrontier: The overall theme of the book. The central location is a small shanty town of cobbled-together buildings, and the main (human) villain is a thug with a badge who thinks of himself as a frontier sheriff and acts accordingly.
* SpringtimeForHitler: [[spoiler:Avasarala and Fred Johnson's reason for sending Holden as the ambassador in the New Terra conflict was for him to be the SpannerInTheWorks they knew him to be; i.e, to show what a mess the whole space colonizing business to be. Instead, the colonization efforts prove successful, and now everyone's flocking to the wormholes and seeking their fortunes on other Earth-like planets; this in turn will lead to the collapse of Mars and the terraforming project they heavily invested in. And the one valuable resource that the Mars government has that they'll be able to sell to recoup their losses is their massive stockpile of nuclear weapons.]]
* StarfishRobots: The tunneling robots left behind by the Protomolecule civilization have a variety of arms mounted to a central platform, all of which can be reconfigured quickly to perform whatever specific task needs to be done.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Later in the story, Alex shoots [[AssholeVictim Chief Engineer Koenen]] with a ship-to-ship railgun. The kinetic energy of the slug vaporizes him ''instantly''.
* WhamLine:
-->'''Elvi:''' [[spoiler:In about four days everyone in the colony is going to be blind]].
* WritersCannotDoMath:
** [[spoiler:A 2kg slug shot out of the railgun at 5000 m/s will impart a net recoil on the firing ship of 10,000/[weight of ship in kg]. Which is to say, essentially nothing.]]
* ZergRush: [[spoiler:When Miller links himself to every system on the planet, the protomolecule immediately realizes that he's about to plunge into the dead zone, and sends ''every functioning robot on the planet'' to destroy him]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Nemesis Games]]
* ApocalypseHow: Planetary/Societal Collapse. [[spoiler:The Earth]] is subjected to a ColonyDrop that devastates much of the surface and starts an impact winter, effectively making the planet unlivable outside [[DomedHometown domed cities]].
* AxeCrazy: Konecheck, a prisoner in The Pit, who is strong enough to bend steel plating with his bare hands and is ''just'' sane enough [[spoiler:to work with Amos and the guards to escape]].
* BathhouseBlitz: {{Exploited|Trope}} by Amos' when he takes a cheap passenger ship to Earth. A shipboard gang shakes down the passengers, and he refuses their demands [[MoralityPet on behalf of a couple of men with a young daughter]]. He deduces that the gang is operating on "prison rules" and will only likely beat people who fail to pay their protection money in the communal showers, since that's the only place where security cameras won't be watching. Amos is correct, and when they come for him in the showers, he's ready for them but [[MuggingTheMonster they weren't ready for him]].
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted. [[spoiler:Decompression injuries, exhaustion, dehydration, and solar radiation burns take a toll on Naomi]].
* ColonyDrop: Marco [[spoiler:drops a number of high-speed radar-shielded rocks on Earth, killing billions.]]
* TheConscience: Holden is revealed to be this for Amos, and Naomi realizes she's in trouble when [[ImaginaryFriend an imaginary]] ''Amos'' becomes her inner voice of reason.
* TheCoup: The radical attacks divide [[spoiler:the OPA]] into two major factions: [[spoiler:Fred Johnson's government, which holds Tycho Station, and the Belter Free Navy, which holds Medina Station and a large pirate fleet in the outer belt.]]
* CrazySurvivalist: Amos and Clarissa run into one after [[spoiler:the rocks fall on Earth]].
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:At the very end, Naomi realizes that while many of the missing military ships can be accounted for among the Free Navy, none of the civilian ships can. Then, Sauveterre has a front-row seat to his own ship disappearing, and glimpses ''something'' in the confusion...]]
* ExplosiveDecompression: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] when [[spoiler:Naomi]] purposefully ejects herself [[ThrownOutTheAirlock out of an airlock]] without a spacesuit. She had been planning for it and knew how vacuum would affect her body. She even brings along a specialized emergency device Belters developed specifically for explosive decompressions: a self-injecting vial of oxygenated blood that gives you a few more seconds of consciousness in order to get to safety (or at least drifting in that general direction before passing out). She survives but the effects of prolonged exposure to the vacuum of space take a debilitating toll on her.
* ExtranormalPrison: "The Pit", a subterranean supermax prison for the [[BioAugmentation bio-augmented]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Miller's VirtualGhost constantly warning Holden over the past three books to check "doors and corners" takes on a whole new meaning when [[spoiler:the crew realizes that ''something'' is devouring ships as they pass through the Gates.]]
* FriendlyEnemy: Amos and Erich spend most of the book fully prepared to kill one another if either of them makes a move, but they help each other more often than not and are on decent enough terms by the end.
* GreatEscape: Amos and Clarissa make one from the Pit. [[spoiler: Subverted in that the guards assist them, as the facility has become unsafe due to the asteroid bombardment. Also, the greatest threat to the escape plan comes not from the prison staff--whose lives are also in jeopardy if they remain--but from another, dangerously psychotic prisoner.]]
* LetsSplitUpGang: Five chapters into the book Alex has headed off to Mars, Amos to Earth and Naomi to Ceres, with Holden left alone on Tycho Station. This turns out to be less than helpful when a lot of plot suddenly starts happening all at once...
* LastStand: Defied and played for laughs. Alex thinks Bobbie is about to make one when she realizes there isn't enough room in the ''Razorback'' for both of them as well as Prime Minister Smith -- but she was just thinking of tearing out one of the crash couches so she'd fit, and is a little freaked out when she realizes Alex's assumption.
* TheManBehindTheMan: Discussed; once it becomes public that Marco is responsible for the attacks, Fred comments that he wouldn't have expected Marco to be capable of this kind of planning, and speculates that he probably has a puppet master somewhere. In the epilogue, [[spoiler: we learn that he was right; everything was orchestrated by a rogue faction of the Martian Navy, led by Commander Duarte.]]
* MeaningfulName: Somewhat YMMV, requires GeniusBonus. The title "Nemesis Games" can be seen as {{Foreshadowing}} (spoiler alert!). We're not talking of the Greek goddess of vengeance here, that would be too generic, but [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(hypothetical_star) ''this'']] Nemesis.
** The most basic interpretation is it refers to Marco as Naomi's nemesis and his actions drive the plot.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Lightly subverted. Most of the novel is set amidst the backdrop of a cataclysmic terrorist attack. While the protagonists ''are'' clearly affected, they all have more immediate concerns, and the handwringing is kept to a minimum. Naomi is probably the most affected. [[spoiler: And, playing with the trope, it's because of her relationship with the perpetrators of the attack, rather than the victims.]]
* MissingMom: [[spoiler:Naomi]] abandoned her son, Filip, as a baby in order to escape Marco's control. Though, to be fair, this was done after she realized what an extremist Marco was. When she decided to leave him, Marco ''kidnapped'' Filip and used him as a bargaining chip to keep her around, while also spreading lies to everyone that [[spoiler:Naomi]] was dangerous and unstable.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: Everyone, including himself, is shocked to see Holden actually ''keeping'' secrets instead of broadcasting them to the entire world.
* PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny: "Free Navy" sounds nice, but unfortunately, they're a bunch of terrorist pirates who killed billions of people using [[ColonyDrop stealth-painted asteroids]] against Earth.
%% * RevealingCoverUp: The attack on Tycho station is just a cover to [[spoiler:steal the protomolecule]].
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The Free Navy cares more about avenging the Belters' treatment than about creating a stable, sustainable future for the human race [[spoiler:as evidenced by their catastrophic attack on Earth, the only body truly capable of sustaining human life over generations without assistance]].
* RocketRide: [[spoiler:When Alex and Bobbie realize the ''Chetzemoka'' is rigged to blow if another ship approaches, Bobbie surfs on a laser-guided missile to save Naomi]].
* ShallowCannotComprehendTrueLove: At one point, Naomi confronts her ex-boyfriend [[spoiler:--the incredibly charismatic yet horribly antisocial Marco Inaros--]] asking him what he thinks is the reason she chose James Holden over him. All he can mumble in response is that Jim is a handsome "Inner"[[note]]I.e. born on Earth, home to powerful corporations that treat [[SpacePeople Belters]] like Naomi as cheap disposable labour that can be crushed with the might of {{U|nitedNationsIsASuperpower}}NN whenever they demand better treatment.[[/note]] fellow; Naomi responds to that with a well-aimed [[SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan "He IS what you PRETEND to be."]]
* SmokescreenCrime: The purpose of the Free Navy [[spoiler:dropping asteroids on Earth]] is to draw everyone's attention away from them also stealing the only known [[LostTechnology protomolecule sample]] and seizing control of the [[PortalNetwork Medina station]] [[spoiler:as part of the deal with a fleet of renegade Martians who called dibs on an alien planet possessing some ''interesting'' {{precursor|s}} technology]].
%% * ThrownOutTheAirlock: [[spoiler:Naomi]] launches ''herself'' out of an airlock without a space suit.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: How [[spoiler: many Martians]] react to the opening of new habitable worlds via the Ring network. [[spoiler: Mars has become politically unstable as a result, which is how a good portion of the Martian Navy ends up in the hands of Marcos' faction of the OPA.]]
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Towing a ship out of a decaying orbit by using the ''Rocinante'''s railgun as an improvised thruster was an awesome bit of MacGyvering. It also bent the ship's frame so badly that it has to be stripped down and rebuilt.
* UngovernableGalaxy: The political structure of the system that had mostly stabilized over the course of the first four books (Earth, Mars, OPA, colony worlds) falls all to hell.
%% * UnresolvedSexualTension: Between Alex and Bobbie.
%% * WellIntentionedExtremist: Marco and the rest of the Free Navy
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** By the end of the book, Marco and his crew remain at large and play no part in the final leg of the story.
** The fate of Lydia's widower Charles, whom Amos helped to avoid eviction, is left unresolved after the Free Navy's attack, but given the destruction one assumes the worst. There are only a few perfunctory lines from Erich and Amos to show that neither of them even care.
* WorkingTheSameCase: Alex, Naomi, and Holden all end up looking into the same mysterious missing spaceships for totally different reasons. (Amos's plot doesn't intersect theirs until everything becomes a lot less mysterious, though...)
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Some of the radical Belters' grievances against the inner planets are legitimate, and they frame their attacks as an uprising.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Babylon's Ashes]]
* AnalogyBackfire: Marco re: Fred Johnson:
--> '''Marco''': He is my white whale, and I will hunt him to the end of time.
--> '''Rosenfeld''': Didn't finish reading [[Literature/MobyDick that book]] did you?
* AscendedExtra: Michio Pa is promoted to a POV character.
* BatmanGambit: During a dogfight between the ''Rocinante'' and the ''Pella'', [[spoiler:the ''Pella'' figures out how to dodge railgun fire. Bobbie manages to trick the ''Pella'' into dodging directly into a cloud of PDC fire]].
* DoomedMoralVictor: [[spoiler: Fred Johnson]] dies while en route to a conference to unify the OPA and end the faction fighting that has allowed Marco's Belter Free Navy to disrupt the entire system. [[spoiler: Marco's forces attempted to intercept the ''Rocinante'' but lost the battle; however, Fred suffered a severe stroke while under high-g boost.]]
* GracefulLoser: [[spoiler:Anderson Dawes]]. After [[spoiler:Fred Johnson]]'s death and being excluded from power, he secretly convinces the rest of the OPA cabal to join forces with [[spoiler:Holden]] as his final act.
* HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Filip]] belatedly realizes what he has done and who [[spoiler:Marco]] is and goes AWOL on Callisto.
* KarmaHoudini:
** [[spoiler: Pa and her crew do not only escape any responsibility for their raiding innocent supply ships but she ends up the head of the Trade Union.]]
** [[spoiler:Filip Inaros, who stole the stealth paint for the asteroids, also got away with aiding his father in the deadliest terrorist attack ever without punishment by going AWOL and changing his name.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nico Sanjrani explains to Michio Pa that the Free Navy, in plunging Earth into an impact winter, has vastly overestimated the capabilities of non-Earth agriculture, and that without Earth to feed the rest of the system, there won't be enough supplies to last 4 years.
* ShoutOut:
** ''Literature/TheMartian'' and ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'': Two of the ships in Michio Pa's fleet are named after these books' protagonists:
---> In the middle column, the colony ships she and her fleet had taken: the ''Bedyadat Jadida'', out of Luna. The ''John Galt'' and the ''Mark Watney'', out of Mars.
** Another ship is named the [[Literature/HoratioHornblower Hornblower]]
** Two characters make literary references, one to ''Literature/MobyDick'' and another to the "How can man die better" passage from the Horatius poem of Lays of Ancient Rome.
** Holden wants to call the [[spoiler:new Belter government]] the [[{{Franchise/Dune}} spacing guild]]
* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler:Marco's victories over the combined Earth-Mars-OPA fleets cost him significantly, losing him ships, territory, supplies, and support from the remaining Free Navy captains. Marco, being Marco, is too wrapped up in himself to realize this]].
* SummonBiggerFish: [[spoiler:Trapped in the slow zone and faced with Marco Inaros' superior fleet, Naomi reviews Medina Station's flight logs and devises a plan to overload the ring network. When Marco tries to cross, his entire fleet gets eaten by [[EldritchAbomination something dark and sinuous]]]].
* WeAREStrugglingTogether: Marco's Belter Free Navy with respect to Fred Johnson's more moderate OPA, and Pa's fleet in relation to Marco's Belter Free Navy. The OPA itself is little more than a coalition of disparate factions with few unifying factors other than a hatred of Earth and Mars.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:PersepolisRising]]
%% * AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Singh]] was an invader who subjugated the people of Medina on behalf an authoritarian empire. He had it coming.
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:{{Subverted|Trope}} after Holden allows himself to be captured in order to ensure his mission succeeds. The underground has every intention of rescuing him, but he ends up getting transferred off station and out of reach before they can initiate their effort.]]
* BoardingParty: [[spoiler:Bobbie leads one with Amos and a bunch of underground fighters to scuttle the Laconian destroyer the ''Gathering Storm'' after Alex uses the ''Rocinante'' to lure it away from the station (and the possibility of it being reinforced during the attack.)]]
* CacophonyCoverUp: Double, during the resistance's plan to steal the Laconians' decryption keys. The keys will be useless if the Laconians realize they have them - so the resistance plans to blow up a sizeable chunk of the station to cover up the theft. After realizing that the guards have alarms that would tip them off anyway, Holden starts setting off every alarm he can find so that the real alarm gets lost in the noise.
%% * CoolShip: The ''Rocinante'' is not so cool any more 30 years later, [[spoiler:so the heroes steal the ''Gathering Storm'', a top notch Laconian ship]].
* CurbstompBattle: One Laconian ship vs the ''entire combined military forces'' of Sol System. It's not even a contest. [[spoiler: The Laconians mop the floor with the Sol forces in ''minutes''.]]
* DayOfTheJackboot: Laconia announces via communication that they are ready to rejoin the wider scope of human civilization after three decades of self-imposed exile... only for their two "diplomatic" ships to refuse protocol on arriving and invade and occupy Medina Station [[CurbStompBattle almost effortlessly]] within hours of their gate transit. The occupation is (relatively) benign but they demand submission, tolerate no interference, and reserve the final say on any matter.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:At the end of the book, the Laconians have subjugated humanity, Clarissa is dead, and Holden is Duarte's prisoner.]]
* EldritchStarship: [[spoiler:Downplayed. Laconian technology is derived from an abandoned set of shipyards in orbit over Laconia. The ships ''look'' alien, with the ''Magnetar''-class battleships being described as "a self-repairing flying vertebra", but inside, they're laid out very similar to Martian military ships]].
* TheEmpire: Laconia, a defecting offshoot of the Martian military, reestablishing contact with the rest of humanity after a thirty-year self-imposed exile... with Protomolecule technology and an intention to establish a permanent centralized government.
%% * EnemyMine: The various Belter factions with Earth and Mars versus Laconia, as well as [[spoiler: the crew of the ''Rocinante'' with the Freehold Colony--whose governor they had arrested at the beginning of the book]].
* FateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler:Being used as a protomolecule cultivation substrate in the Pen]].
* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Inverted and exploited; when Amos isn't right, he deliberately picks a fight with the one person he thinks he will lose to ([[spoiler:Bobbie]]) in order to get a hold of himself.
-->'''Amos''': If I want to beat someone up, I have an entire station of people out there to pick from. But if I want to get beaten up? It's pretty much down to just you.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** [[spoiler:Clarissa Mao dies using one last burst of her BioAugmentation in a body already wracked frail from its long-term side effects.]]
** [[spoiler:James Holden, as he often does, goes off on a suicide mission. He survives, but is taken captive by Laconia and shipped off-station and back to Laconia itself before he can be rescued.]]
* HumanResources: [[spoiler:Laconia punishes slips in discipline among its own population by sentencing them to be [[TheVirus used as substrate for breeding more Protomolecule cultures]].]]
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: After the ''Heart of the Tempest'' destroys the ''Tori Byron'' and the railgun emplacement with two shots, Holden and Bobbie realize that they're completely outmatched and encourage everyone aboard Medina Station to surrender.
** Later, [[spoiler:Camina Drummer surrenders to Admiral Trejo after she realizes that the ''Heart of the Tempest'' is more than a match for the Transport Union's fleet]].
* LostTechnology: [[spoiler: The Martian breakaway fleet settled in Laconia because of the presence of apparent ancient shipyards established there by the Protomolecule civilization. Using the Protomolecule sample stolen for them by Inarios' forces, they were able to reactivate the shipyards and use them to construct new starships using ancient Protomolecule tech that is centuries more advanced than anything humanity previously had access to.]]
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: [[spoiler:In his final appearance, Governor Singh orders Major Overstreet to massacre most of the Medina Station population, to send a message to the rest of the galaxy. Overstreet promptly makes an example of ''him'', executing him and making knowledge of his plan public]].
* MeaningfulEcho: Clarissa often thinks of a poem she wrote in prison where she says she knows she is not a monster because a monster would not be afraid. [[spoiler:As she is dying, she tells Naomi "I am a monster" to signify that she is not afraid to die. Sadly, Naomi doesn't know the context and assumes she died hating herself.]]
* MeaningfulName:
** "Laconia" is the name of a region in classical Greece that was centered on Sparta and part of the Spartan domain of influence. It's also the name of the system in which a very militant culture premised on discipline and martial superiority arise to enforce its will over its neighbors across human space.
** {{Invoked|Trope}} by Drummer, who plans to intercept the ''Heart of the Tempest'' and dubs the intercept point "Point Leuctra". Leuctra was an ancient Greek village where the Spartans lost a decisive battle, which destroyed their hold over the other Greek city-states. [[spoiler:It doesn't work]].
* NewEraSpeech: Several Laconian characters give these, most notably [[NobleDemon Admiral Trejo]].
* NukeEm: At Point Leuctra, the Transport Union fleet tries to nuke the ''Heart of the Tempest''. [[spoiler:It doesn't work]].
* RaceAgainstTheClock: The heroes and their allies must get out of Medina before [[spoiler:the ''Eye of the Typhoon'' arrives]].
* RightWingMilitiaFanatic: The Freehold Colony. Three-hundred firearms enthusiasts who aren't big on unelected, supergovernmental bodies like the Transport Union, and don't feel obligated to follow their rules. They don't get a very charitable treatment [[spoiler:until the end, when it turns out they're exactly the sort of people willing to hide the ''Rocinante'' from the Laconians]].
-->'''Alex:''' Oh, they're not so bad, [[BanOnPolitics so long as you avoid conversations about the nature of sovereignty]].
* SelfHealingPhlebotinum: The Protomolecule-assembled materials used in Laconian ship hulls, in addition to being highly resilient, shows an apparent ability to seal itself rapidly after undergoing any kind of rend or puncture. Anti-ship railgun shots pass right through it with minimum apparent damage and even Amos' attempts to cut through it with a torch are frustrated because it closes itself barely slower than the rate he can trim it away.
* ShoutOut:
** Saba captains a ship named the ''Malaclypse'', and at some point he refers to not liking to be "under the authority of the authorities". This will certainly be familiar to any reader of the [[Literature/PrincipiaDiscordia Principia Discordia]].
** The Laconian marines wear [[Characters/Warhammer40000AstartesChapters bright blue power armor with an eagle symbol across the chest]].
* TenMinuteRetirement: Holden and Naomi decide to retire and sell the ''Roci'' to Bobbie. Before they can even finish the paperwork, Laconia finally decides to invade.
* TimeSkip: Thirty years have passed since ''Babylon's Ashes''.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: Payne Houston seems like an obnoxious blowhard, but he manages to escape his cell, disable the ''Rocinante'', and even holds his own against ''Bobbie'', briefly.
* WaveMotionGun: The Magnetar-class capital ships fielded by Laconia are [[MeaningfulName aptly named]], as their primary armament is a magnetic field beam of a strength similar to that of the magnetic field of a magnetar neutron star, which is to say strong enough to distort the shape of the electron clouds of atoms, causing anything hit by it to [[DisintegratorRay instantly come apart at the molecular level]]. Needless to say, this is [[CurbStompBattle decisive in fleet engagements]].
* WhamLine:
-->'''Major Overstreet:''' Yes, sir. Only, I have other orders. Sir.
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: A running theme in the novels, but never as strongly as here, where several of the 'good guys' are members of the Voltaire Collective, a motley gang of terrorists and psychos who didn't join Inaros' crew because he ''wasn't hardline enough''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tiamat's Wrath]]
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:"Stellar" scope, "Physical Annihilation" severity. The neutron star at the center of the Tecoma system is so massive it is just on the edge of collapse, while the rest of the system is unnaturally clear of mass. All it takes is a relatively small addition of mass to the star to cause it collapse, emitting such high energy rays that ''the gate'' linking to it and the gate ''on the opposite side of slow zone from it'' and ''everything in a line between them'' besides the spherical station are all reduced to atoms.]]
* AttackAttackAttack: The Laconian strategy to deal with [[spoiler: the PrecursorKillers is to keep trying to hit them back, regardless of the damage that has been done to them in response. Even after the counterattack against them destroys an entire star system, two gates, and then annihilates every human ship and structure in the slow zone, the Laconians keep looking for a way to hit back and don't consider backing down.]]
* BackFromTheDead: The repair drones on Laconia occasionally resurrect the dead as protomolecule zombies. [[spoiler:This happens to Amos after Ilich kills him. Fortunately, he seems to be the same old Amos, just with a otherworldly skin tone and some new knowledge from the protomolecule builders.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: Amos comes ''out of nowhere'' to [[spoiler:save Holden, Teresa, and Muskrat from a furious Colonel Ilich and his escort]].
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The Underground destroys the Magnetar construction yards, preventing Laconia from maintaining their domination over mankind and the surviving members of the ''Rocinante'' crew reunite. However, Bobbie is dead, Amos might be a [[CameBackWrong a protomolecule meat puppet that is very good at impersonating the original Amos]], millions of innocents have been killed by the aliens's retaliation and the aliens are now intent on wiping out humanity.]]
* CameBackStrong: [[spoiler:Amos, who earlier had [[RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain the entire top half of his head removed]] by [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill multiple gunshots at short range]], comes back to rescue Teresa and Holden as they wait for rescue. In doing so he takes multiple pistol rounds to his bare torso without slowing down.]]
* DavidVersusGoliath: A recurring motif explicitly called out in the text itself, as a metaphor for Bobbie's crusade against Laconia. She has command of one of their smaller ships, which is powerful on its own, but would be little more than an annoyance to one of Laconia's Magnetar-class battleships in direct combat. [[spoiler:When her crew intercepts some of the Laconian-produced antimatter and replacement parts that suggest one of those battleships has a sensor blindspot, "David" finds a way to make his slingshot fatal.]]
* DroppedABridgeOnHim:
** [[spoiler:Chrisjen Avasarala]] died of natural causes four months before the events of the book.
** Subverted when [[spoiler:Ilich and his men gun down Amos with little ceremony. [[BackFromTheDead Death can't keep Amos down.]]]]
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Bobbie, having released her anti-matter charge and knowing she won't have the delta-v or thrust to OutrunTheFireball, decides that the best thing she can to is to distract her target from firing at her crew on ''The Gathering Storm''. She dies facing down the deadliest battleship known to humanity in only her PoweredArmor. The characters who mourn her after agree this was probably exactly how she wanted to go.]]
* EmptyRoomUntilTheTrap: Tecoma System is noted as being almost completely empty, with a massive neutron star at the center. When the Laconians cause a bomb ship to go dutchman, quantum effects go off the scale and start generating hydrogen ions, which adds just enough mass to the neutron star for it to collapse and fire a gamma ray burst through the slow zone.
* ExplainExplainOhCrap: After the experiment in Tecoma System, the crew of the Falcon is fascinated by the sudden uptick in quantum activity and the generation of hydrogen ions, until they realize that the ions are adding mass to a neutron star that was ''already'' on the verge of collapse.
* GildedCage: Discussed between Holden and Teresa. Holden is kept in a very comfortable room at the Laconian State Building, given free run of the grounds, and generally treated as an honored guest who isn't allowed to leave. [[spoiler:Gets a lot less gilded after Ilich finds Amos camping out on the nearby mountain, though]].
** Teresa Duarte is the daughter of Winston Duarte, who loves her with all his heart and plans to make her immortal. She's provided with a top-notch education and virtually anything her heart desires. [[spoiler:When Winston Duarte gets rendered catatonic by the aliens, she learns that her father was the only one who cared about her, and everyone else is interested only in using her to keep up images, not caring how stressful she finds it]].
* HermitGuru: "[[RealNameAsAnAlias Timmy]]", an older man who lives by himself in a cave on the mountainside overlooking the Laconian Palace. Teresa visits him when she sneaks out, where he dutifully listens to her and delivers unfiltered wisdom whenever she asks. [[spoiler:He is of course, Amos, and is using his mountain hideaway to reconnoiter the Palace for the Underground.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Bobbie gives her life to destroy the ''Heart of the Tempest''.]]
* LeftForDead: Being shot several times in a close range firefight that literally removes the top of a person's head is generally a good way to ensure they are DeaderThanDead, which happens to [[spoiler:Amos after Teresa accidentally leads Ilich and his men to him. But bodies left around Laconian-native repair drones [[BackFromTheDead don't tend to stay dead]]...]]
* MadeOfIndestructium: The sphere at the center of the Slow Zone is directly hit by a gamma ray burst from a collapsing neutron star, a beam which is sufficient to even annihilate the ring gate it came through ''and'' the ring gate on the opposite side of the Zone. However, the sphere suffers no damage, successfully absorbing all the energy directed upon it. It does take several weeks to disperse all that energy though, during which time it glows like a sun before gradually fading.
* NoSell: While humans are resistant to the [[spoiler:consciousness-breaking super-weapon of the PrecursorKillers, the enemy has shown an ability to begin adapting the weapon to more effectively break human minds. On the other hand, the humans whose corpses were rebuilt by the repair drones seem to be entirely immune to the effect.]]
* OutOfFocus: Holden, who has been one of the main POV characters in every prior novel, is only the POV character of the prologue, epilogue, and a single intermission chapter. [[spoiler:This is to prevent the audience from learning that Holden tricked Cortazar into attempting to murder Teresa until Elvi and Teresa learn this on their own.]]
* PerilousPowerSource: The [[WaveMotionGun magnetic beams]] on Laconia's ''Magnetar''-class battleships require an immense amount of energy to fire (understandably as their output is on-par with a small pulsar neutron star.) This energy is provided by a matter/anti-matter reaction, with the anti-matter produced in their Protomolocule-driven shipyards. [[spoiler:It would be a shame for them if the underground got their hands on some of it...]]
* PinkMist: [[spoiler: Duarte's developing abilities with the protomolecule cause him turn Cortazar into this, despite his mind being damaged by the alien attack, [[PapaWolf due to the threat the latter represented to Teresa]].]]
* RealNameAsAnAlias: [[spoiler:The pseudonym Amos uses when talking to Teresa, Timothy, is actually his birth name.]]
* TheSiege: [[spoiler:The Underground lays siege to the Laconian system towards the end of the book]].
* TimeSkip: Roughly five years have passed since ''Persepolis Rising''.
* WaveMotionGun: The ultra-high magnetic field projectors on Laconia's ''Magnetar''-class ships return, and are then thoroughly outclassed when [[spoiler:the Goths collapse a neutron star to fire a gamma ray burst through the ring system. Two [[MadeofIndestructium gates]] are destroyed by the blast.]]
* WhamLine:
** The opening line of the book:
--->[[spoiler:Chrisjen Avasarala was dead.]]
** When the reader learns exactly why everyone's been having trouble communicating with the slow zone:
--->[[spoiler:They found out why the repeater on the slow zone of the gate wasn't responding. It was gone, and so were all the other repeaters like it. And the ''Eye of the Typhoon''. And Medina Station and all the ships that had been quarantined inside the ring space. Only the alien station at the center remained, glowing bright as a tiny sun.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Leviathan Falls]]
* AmbiguousEnding: A lot of the ending is up to the reader to interpret. [[spoiler:Alex's final chapter ends with alarms going off on the ''Rocinante'' and him unsure whether the ship will last long enough to reunite him with his family in the Nieuwestad system. Thirty colonies are able to discover a safer form of faster-than-light travel and form an alliance, but it's unclear if this is all that remains of humanity or just one nation of many. Earth appears to be the only inhabited planet in the Sol system and Amos mentions that Earth has had "a rough millenium", but what actually happened is unknown.]]
* AssimilationPlot: [[spoiler:Duarte decides to turn all of humanity into a hive mind controlled by him so he can become capable of operating the weapons the ring builders created to keep their enemies out of the universe. WordOfGod states that this was actually part of the Ringbuilder's plan to bring themselves back by hijacking more resilient lifeforms, with Duarte being their first victim.]]
* BigDumbObject: The BFE, a planet-sized diamond created by the Gate Builders. [[spoiler:Cara, and later Amos, can interact with it given the right equipment, and it tells them the history of the race that built it]].
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Duarte is dead, and his AssimilationPlot is foiled, but Holden is forced to destroy the ring network to stop the dark gods, and dies in the process. Everyone in the slow zone is able to evacuate, but any colonies that aren't self sufficient ''will'' die of starvation. Alex leaves to be with his son's family in the Nieuwestad system, but the aging ''Rocinante'' starts having reactor trouble as he transits, and it's unclear if he reaches his destination. Naomi, Amos, Elvi, and Teresa return to Earth aboard the ''Falcon'' and watch the rings disintegrate, with Naomi thinking that one day, humanity will return to the stars]].
* DeadlyUpgrade: Holden deliberately [[spoiler: infects himself with the protomolecule so that he can talk to Miller and convince him to give them a way into the Ring Station.]]
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler:After being betrayed by Colonel Tanaka, the crew of the ''Gathering Storm'' refuses another offer of surrender, choosing to destroy the ''Sparrowhawk'' and go down fighting a hopeless fight against the ''Derecho'']].
* DisneyDeath:
** Amos once again gets shot and survives, this time because his transformation has made him immortal.
** Holden shoots Tanaka in the head, but he misses her vitals and a medic is able to treat her wounds.
** [[spoiler:Kit and his family get dutchmanned, only for Duarte to intervene and bring them all back.]]
* DistantFinale: The epilogue [[spoiler:takes place a thousand years after the events of the previous chapter, where a linguist from the Thirty Colonies meets Amos on an expedition to Earth]].
* EndOfAnEra: [[spoiler:The ring station and the gates are shut down and destroyed, removing the threat posed by the aliens, but ending humanity's expansion and dooming potentially ''hundreds'' of worlds]].
* ExtradimensionalPowerSource: [[spoiler:The ring station is revealed to draw power from what is described as 'an older, more primitive universe'. Unfortunately, that universe is full of extremely hostile...[[EldritchAbomination things]] with RealityWarper powers that don't take kindly to its existence]].
** It's also revealed that the ''Magnetar''-class battleship's WaveMotionGun runs on a similar principle, which explains the event in Sol system in ''Persepolis Rising''.
* FirstNameBasis: A more meta example than most. After eight books of the narration calling James Holden by his last name, in this book he is almost always referred to as "Jim", highlighting his vulnerability after years of being a Laconian prisoner.
* HearingVoices: [[spoiler:As Duarte's plan proceeds, ''everyone'' starts hearing other people's internal monologue as their consciousnesses are merged]].
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Holden injects himself with the protomolecule so he can get Miller's help to access the alien station, knowing full well that he has condemned himself to a slow and painful death. What ultimately kills Holden is a second sacrifice, where he shuts down the ring space while he is the only person inside it to save humanity.]]
* HiveMind: The {{Precursors}} are confirmed to be one. [[spoiler:Duarte tries to turn humanity into one to destroy the Dark Gods, and very nearly succeeds]].
* HumansAreCthulhu: Discussed. [[spoiler:The San Esteban system is completely killed off by one of the dark gods' experiments that interfered with the functions of neurons. Elvi and Fayez theorize that the only reason they didn't do this to every human world is that humans are as incomprehensible to them as they are to humans. Unlike the builders who came before them, killing the San Esteban system didn't stop humans from continuing to use the gate, which from the perspective of the dark gods means what they tried didn't change anything.]]
* HumansAreSuperior: Duarte, and later [[spoiler:Miller]] say that humans would make a better [[spoiler:HiveMind than the gate builders ever did, due to having robust physical bodies]]. How true this is is left unclear.
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: The POV character for the epilogue is [[spoiler:Marrel, a linguist from thousand years after the previous chapter.]]
* LastStand: [[spoiler:At the end of the book, the last non-altered humans make a stand at the ring station, trying to hold off the hive mind's fleet long enough to stop Duarte]].
* LovecraftLite: The dark gods are incomprehensible, immensely powerful, and virtually unstoppable, [[spoiler:but all they want is the destruction of the ring station. Once Holden destroys it, they're content to leave the universe in peace]].
* MindRape: [[spoiler:Duarte forcibly merging the consciousness of humanity]] is compared to an unstoppable, unavoidable, endless sexual assault.
* NearVillainVictory: Duarte successfully [[spoiler:merges the consciousness of everyone outside the slow zone, and then sends hundreds of ships, including the virtually-indestructible ''Voice of the Whirlwind'', into the slow zone to kill off the last unaltered humans]].
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: [[spoiler:Colonel Tanaka kills Duarte in the most brutal fistfight in the series]].
* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler:Duarte's HiveMind falls apart as soon as he's killed, and his victims suffer nothing more than confusion and lost time]].
* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler:As long as the ring gates exist, the [[EldritchAbomination dark gods]] will keep trying to find a way to destroy humanity. Either use the ring station to transform humanity into a HiveMind that can fight back, or shut down the rings for good, cutting every system off from each other and dooming any colonies that aren't self sufficient. Duarte attempts the former, while Holden chooses the latter]].
* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:As Duarte's AssimilationPlot progresses, every human outside the slow zone begins to share memories and consciousness with each other. Most characters don't take this well at all]].
* ShoutOut:
** To Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin: there's a ship called ''[[Literature/AWizardOfEarthsea Sparrowhawk]]'' and Fayez compares Elvi's experiments on Cara to ''Literature/TheOnesWhoWalkAwayFromOmelas''.
** The last thing [[spoiler:Tanaka]] does before dying is to make finger guns at Holden and yell "[[Anime/CowboyBebop Bang]], motherfucker."
* TheStinger: [[spoiler:A thousand years into the future, a group of humans from the Thirty Worlds reach Earth with an FTL drive. They are greeted by Amos Burton, who offers them some beer]].
* TeamPet: Muskrat, to the crew of the ''Rocinante'', and later the ''Falcon''.
* VestigialEmpire: Laconia can still project a great deal of power, but it's clear right from the start that the galaxy-spanning Laconian Empire is dead.
* WhamEpisode: "The Lighthouse and the Keeper", where [[spoiler:the ''Preiss'' gets dutchmanned and then '''comes back''']].
[[/folder]]

* [[Literature/CalibansWar ''Caliban's War'']] (2012)
* [[Literature/AbaddonsGate ''Abbadon's Gate'']] (2013)

* [[Literature/BabylonsAshes ''Babylon's Ashes'']] (2016)

* [[Literature/TiamatsWrath ''Tiamat's Wrath'']] (2019)

* ''Literature/CalibansWar'' (2012)
* ''Literature/AbaddonsGate'' (2013)

* ''Literature/BabylonsAshes'' (2016)

* ''Literature/TiamatsWrath'' (2019)

* ''LeviathanWakes'' (2011)
* ''CalibansWar'' (2012)
* ''AbaddonsGate'' (2013)
* ''CibolaBurn'' (2014)
* ''NemesisGames'' (2015)
* ''BabylonsAshes'' (2016)
* ''PersepolisRising'' (2017)
* ''TiamatsWrath'' (2019)
* ''LeviathanFalls'' (2021)

* ''Caliban'sWar'' (2012)
* ''Abaddon'sGate'' (2013)

* ''Babylon'sAshes'' (2016)

* ''Tiamat'sWrath'' (2019)

* ''Leviathan Wakes'' (2011)
* ''Caliban's War'' (2012)
* ''Abaddon's Gate'' (2013)
* ''Cibola Burn'' (2014)
* ''Nemesis Games'' (2015)
* ''Babylon's Ashes'' (2016)
* ''Persepolis Rising'' (2017)
* ''Tiamat's Wrath'' (2019)
* ''Leviathan Falls'' (2021)

* BlobMonster: The first Protomolecule creature we see is one of these. It's sucking on the ''Scopuli'''s fusion reactor and [[AndIMustScream shreiking "help me!" over and over]] with the half-assimilated head floating in it. When it's seen later, freeze-dried, it's still got floaters—a colon and a spine are mentioned by name, showing that its an extreme case of BodyOfBodies.