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* BeautyInAssimilation: the protomolecule-infested environment inside [[spoiler:Eros]] looks like a magical forest, and ground zero looks like a temple for [[spoiler:the resurrected Julie]].
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: {{Averted}}.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: {{Averted}}.
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* BeautyInAssimilation: the protomolecule-infested environment inside [[spoiler:Eros]] looks like a magical forest, and ground zero looks like a temple for [[spoiler:the resurrected Julie]].
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** Saturn's rings in "Dulcinea" provide a reasonably {{justified}} version of the denser conception, which is why the ''Canterbury'' is there to collect ice.
** Another {{justified}} and possibly {{invoked|trope}} example occurs in "Safe", in the form of an "abandoned asteroid mine": a small thicket implied to have been formed from the remnants of either a very large isolated asteroid or a number of smaller ones intentionally gathered into a vaguely stable gravitational system for more convenient processing.
** Another {{justified}} and possibly {{invoked|trope}} example occurs in "Safe", in the form of an "abandoned asteroid mine": a small thicket implied to have been formed from the remnants of either a very large isolated asteroid or a number of smaller ones intentionally gathered into a vaguely stable gravitational system for more convenient processing.
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** Saturn's rings in "Dulcinea" provide a reasonably {{justified}} {{justified|trope}} version of the denser conception, which is why the ''Canterbury'' is there to collect ice.
** Another{{justified}} {{justified|trope}} and possibly {{invoked|trope}} example occurs in "Safe", in the form of an "abandoned asteroid mine": a small thicket implied to have been formed from the remnants of either a very large isolated asteroid or a number of smaller ones intentionally gathered into a vaguely stable gravitational system for more convenient processing.
** Another
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* AuthoritySoundsDeep: Avasarala of course has Creator/{{Shohreh Aghdashloo}}'s trademark rasp, and Creator/ChadLColeman adds noticeable gravel to his already husky voice to portray Fred Johnson.
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* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Polyamorous marriages aren't considered unusual. Holden has eight parents (five fathers, three mothers) since he was conceived from a mixture of all eight genetic profiles, though Mother Elise is the one who actually carried him to term.
The series hasn't explored whether Holden's parents really are polyamorous or are just [[RulesLawyer using every trick at their disposal]] to keep the government from seizing their land[[note]]In the books, Holden's parents consist of a monogamous homosexual couple, a monogoamous heterosexual couple, and a polyamorous foursome, with no overlap in romantic attachments[[/note]].
The series hasn't explored whether Holden's parents really are polyamorous or are just [[RulesLawyer using every trick at their disposal]] to keep the government from seizing their land[[note]]In the books, Holden's parents consist of a monogamous homosexual couple, a monogoamous heterosexual couple, and a polyamorous foursome, with no overlap in romantic attachments[[/note]].
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* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Polyamorous marriages aren't considered unusual. Holden has eight parents (five fathers, three mothers) since he was conceived from a mixture of all eight genetic profiles, though Mother Elise is the one who actually carried him to term. \n The series hasn't explored whether Holden's parents really are polyamorous or are just [[RulesLawyer using every trick at their disposal]] to keep the government from seizing their land[[note]]In the books, Holden's parents consist of a monogamous homosexual couple, a monogoamous heterosexual couple, and a polyamorous foursome, with no overlap in romantic attachments[[/note]].
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** Marco Inaros, the main villain of the fifth book, is given a subplot while the show is still adapting Book 4 in order to better establish how the opening of the Ring gates has affected the main characters who aren't on the Rocinante.
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** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1. This is Justified in Season 3, which reveals that Sorrento-Gillis is ultimately a weak-willed person interested in nothing but his legacy and only really advocates for what the people closest to him want him to do at any given moment, suggesting that Errinwright was mostly using him as cover for what he wanted to do.
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** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1. This is Justified [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in Season 3, which reveals that Sorrento-Gillis is ultimately a weak-willed person interested in nothing but his legacy and only really advocates for what the people closest to him want him to do at any given moment, suggesting that Errinwright was mostly using him as cover for what he wanted to do.do during Season 1.
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** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1.
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** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1. This is Justified in Season 3, which reveals that Sorrento-Gillis is ultimately a weak-willed person interested in nothing but his legacy and only really advocates for what the people closest to him want him to do at any given moment, suggesting that Errinwright was mostly using him as cover for what he wanted to do.
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** Fred Johnson uses modified [=FedEx=] containers to make a [[JustForPun special delivery]] of boarding parties to take control of TheConspiracy's base on Thoth Station.
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** Fred Johnson uses modified [=FedEx=] containers to make a [[JustForPun special delivery]] "special delivery" of boarding parties to take control of TheConspiracy's base on Thoth Station.
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Anything That Moves is a disambiguation
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* AnythingThatMoves: Octavia cites "Bang every space-bucker I could find" as something a RebelliousPrincess might do on Ceres to [[DatingWhatDaddyHates piss off her father]], with the implication she did something similar once upon a time.
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* BloodySmile: In the season 4 finale, Amos does this after [[spoiler:[[BullyingADragon Murtry]] punches him, giving him the perfect excuse to KickTheSonOfABitch [[GoryDiscretionShot offscreen]] as revenge for Wei's death]].
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* BloodySmile: In the season 4 finale, Amos does this after [[spoiler:[[BullyingADragon Murtry]] punches him, giving him the perfect excuse to KickTheSonOfABitch [[GoryDiscretionShot offscreen]] [[AssholeVictim dispatch him]] as revenge for Wei's death]].
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'''A - E''' | [[TheExpanse/TropesFToM F - M]] | [[TheExpanse/TropesNToZ N - Z]] |
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A]]
* AbortedArc: Stealth technology found in the hands of the OPA is what kicks off the story for Chrisjen Avasarala on Earth, and initially leads her to believe that the OPA and Mars have entered into an alliance. During her investigation she learns that it is Protogen, not Mars, which is building a secret fleet of stealth warships as part of a massive conspiracy, and they are not supplying stealth technology to the OPA. After the reveal, how the OPA obtained those original samples -- or what they were going to be used for -- is never examined again. [[spoiler: WordOfGod says that those samples went to Marco Inaros, likely as part of his plan to use stealth rocks against Earth.]]
* AbsentAliens:
** {{Played with}}. The series starts with no aliens present in the solar system, but Dresden determines that the protomolecule is extra-solar in nature and is ecstatic that it's proof of alien life. [[spoiler:Season 3 reveals that it was created by a race of {{Precursors}} who used it to build and maintain their PortalNetwork before something wiped them all out]].
** Season 4 provides hard proof that at least some primitive alien life exists, with Ilus being home to some basic lifeforms.
** In season five, [[spoiler: it is revealed that the entities responsible for the destruction of the Builders still exist.]]
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Dialogue indicates that Belters as a whole are taller and thinner than Inners due to growing up in zero-g, and anti-belter slurs ("skinnies" and "long-bone") are based around this. Due to the impracticality of finding so many actors who fit that description, this is generally ignored when it comes to the actual body types portrayed onscreen.
* AcePilot:
** Julie Mao's most treasured possession is her space racing pinnace, the ''Razorback'', and she was an award-winning pilot at its helm.
** Alex Kamal flew with the Martian Navy for twenty years, [[SubvertedTrope but in all that time he was only on transports and even describes himself as a "glorified bus driver"]]. Once he [[FallingIntoTheCockpit fell into the cockpit]] of the frigate ''Rocinante'' [[DoubleSubverted he found his true potential]] and demonstrated exceptional skill.
* AccidentalDiscovery: Solomon Epstein was a hobbyist who tinkered with his used spaceship trying to get slightly better fuel efficiency. Instead he accidentally unlocked the secret to unlimited acceleration, making interplanetary travel a matter of days rather than weeks/months.
* ActionDad: {{Deconstructed}} by Alex, who's estranged from his ex-wife and son because he prefers the action of piloting spacecraft, even if it's fairly pedestrian ice-hauling. Ultimately, he admits that as much as he loves his family, he loves flying ''more'', and his wife files for divorce.
* ActionGirl:
** Julie Mao might be the richest heiress in the System, but she has [[RebelliousPrincess rejected her father's money]] and joined the OPA. With this experience comes respectable hand-to-hand fighting skills, and an iron determination that even bends the will of the protmolecule.
** Naomi Nagata [[DefiedTrope hates combat and often refuses to carry a weapon]], but her [[GadgeteerGenius engineering skills]] mean that she often comes out on top anyway.
** Gunnery Sergeant Bobbie Draper is a female Martian SpaceMarine capable of winning an arm-wrestle with her own PoweredArmor. ''Repeatedly''. The rest of the badass marines consider these events a spectacle.
** Camina Drummer would rather be an administrator than a fighter, but when administration fails she is one of the best fighters in the Belt.
* ActionSurvivor:
** The survivors from the ''Canterbury'' are functionally just a group of blue-collar workers. Holden was dishonorably discharged from the Navy after serving only a short period, and Alex went his entire 20-year career never seeing combat. Naomi Nagata once ran with the OPA, but only as a teenage gang member, not the sleeper operative that martians initially accuse her of being. Only Amos is comfortable or experienced with violence.
** In Season 2, Prax is a botanist, who barely escapes a collapsing dome on Ganymede and becomes just another refugee. He returns to the station with the ''Rocinante'' crew to search for his missing daughter.
* ActorAllusion:
** Elias Toufexis once again plays a [[VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution spy with cybernetic implants.]] Maybe he didn't ask for this either.
** This is not Shohreh Aghdashloo's first role as a [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 resolute authority figure who bends the rules to help her people]] [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 and save them from destruction in a science fiction franchise]].
** This is not the first time Creator/DanielKash has been a villain associated with the name [[Series/TheDresdenFiles Dresden]].
** Creator/FrancoisChau is once again [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown experimenting with alien technology]] although he's left his ethics behind.
** Creator/BurnGorman once again plays a [[Series/{{Forever|2014}} sociopathic killer]]. This also isn't his first time [[Series/{{Torchwood}} dealing with dangerous alien technology]].
* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade:
** In the books, the survivors from the ''Canterbury'' know each other fairly well and get along pretty much from the start, while the show makes them more distant and argumentative in the beginning. This gives them a collective Season one arc turning into FireForgedFriends.
** Avasarala's son was killed in a skiing accident in the books, but in the show he was a UNN soldier killed by the OPA, giving her an ItsPersonal interest in the OPA and understanding that WarIsHell.
** {{Inverted}} with Holden and Naomi's RelationshipUpgrade. In the novels, Naomi initially refuses Holden until he can prove she's a genuine LoveInterest rather than a LustObject because of his EthicalSlut past on the ''Canterbury''. In the show, this isn't an aspect of Holden's backstory and they get together without any qualms in "Safe".
** In the novels, Alex merely has an ex-wife to get over. In the series, they are still together and have a son, which makes Alex staying aboard the ''Rocinante'' an act of abandonment that tears their family apart.
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Alex and Amos are both younger, slimmer, and less bald than their literary counterparts.
* AdaptationalBadass: The ''Pella'', the flagship of Marcos Inaros, is given this treatment when it debuts in the fifth season. In the books, it was a ''Corvette''-class like the ''Rocinante''. In the TV show, it's upgraded to a full-blown light cruiser. WordOfGod admits that this was done to make the ship scarier.
* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance:
** Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't appear until the second book, but she's a major character from the first episode of the show in order to provide an Earth-perspective to political events.
** Bobbie Draper also doesn't appear until the second book, but she's brought into the show at the start of the second season in order to provide a Martian perspective on the destruction of Phoebe Station. [[spoiler:This also provides more development for her squad prior to their deaths.]]
** Camina Drummer doesn't appear until the fifth novel, but she is introduced in season two [[CompositeCharacter filling in for other characters]].
** Methodist pastor Anna Volovodov, a POV character in the third book, is given an AdaptationalBackstoryChange and a subplot in the first half of the third season. This better establishes her character and bridges the gap between the first and second halves of the season.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Klaes Ashford is an incompetent, borderline-crazy ship captain in the novels who is a problem to work with even ''before'' things go crazy. He's far more well-meaning and reasonable in the show. When he takes a directly antagonistic role at the end of season 3 he's a WellIntentionedExtremist that even his opponents recognize is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
* AdaptationalLateAppearance: In Season 3, the book character Carlos "Bull" de Baca was AdaptedOut and his role [[CompositeCharacter mostly given to]] an AdaptationalEarlyAppearance for Camina Drummer. However, by Season 5 AdaptationExpansion had moved Drummer beyond her Book 5 introduction as Fred Johnson's security chief, so Bull is introduced then and in that role instead.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: While generally quite faithful to the novels, Avasarala's more abrasive ScrewPolitenessImASenior and SirSwearsALot traits are {{downplayed}}. It's perhaps no coincidence that "Windmills", the first episode where she exclaims "Shit!", was penned by the guys who wrote the novels.
* AdaptationalVillainy:
** Not "villainy" per se, but in the first novel Holden is [[WideEyedIdealist idealistic]] [[ChronicHeroSyndrome to a fault]], whereas the show makes him a bit DarkerAndEdgier while still acting as the crew's voice for heroic idealism. He also reluctantly destroys a defenseless medical ship that threatens to expose his operation to destroy Eros in "Godspeed", while the closest thing he did in the book was threaten a UN science ship being escorted to Eros, and they backed off before he was forced to fire.
** Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't condone or oversee ColdBloodedTorture in the novels, while it is her [[EstablishingCharacterMoment second scene in the series]].
** Miller doesn't personally accept bribes in the book, and his internal narration explicitly describes the Julie Mao case as his first 'kidnap job'. In the series he takes bribes to overlook faulty maintenance (Although he does reverse once he sees the breakdown affects) and he doesn't dwell on the kidnap job when it is handed to him.
** In "Dulcinea", Capt. [=McDowell=] ignores the DistressCall and calls whoever leaked it a "piece of shit do-gooder." In the novel, Holden notes that if [=McDowell=] had really wanted to RefuseTheCall he'd have done so quietly, and his public discussion is just to set up himself and Holden as ''both'' being right in front of the crew.
** The crew of the ''Donnager'' is portrayed more antagonistically by seizing and roughly-handling Holden's crew rather than rushing to save them from the pursuing mystery ships. Holden also describes Lopez's interrogation as "surprisingly human" in the novel, unlike the steely interrogations of the show. The show also portrays the Martians as vindictive in dealing with the ''Xinglong'', while the books leave it ambiguous whether the incident was a suicidal gesture of defiance, an accidental shooting by antsy Martians, or both.
** Star Helix, while still very much LawEnforcementInc, at least ''attempts'' to act like a legitimate police force in the books rather than a gang of hired thugs. The same can be said of Dawes and his followers, who are explicitly members of OPA's security apparatus (and appear to operate within a chain of command and follow rules of their own) rather than just another gang on Ceres.
** The OPA, while disparaged by its opponents (Avasarala calls them "Hezbollah [[JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE of the vacuum]]" and "a rugby scrum with a currency"), are actually a functioning government with an established hierarchy, court system, currency, security apparatus, and foreign policy in the novels, capable of controlling piracy and delivering disaster relief without any assistance from the Inner Planets. The series tends to portray them as a street gang writ large throughout the first and second seasons, relying on real and implied threats to get their way.
** In the show, Bobbie Draper starts out as a BloodKnight who's [[WarHawk itching for a fight]] because of her serious grudge against Earth. In the books, she staunchly refuses to counteract the interests of her home-world but is otherwise a GentleGiant who struggles with [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]] rather than FantasticRacism. This is a part of her AdaptationalEarlyAppearance, as she shifts towards her book counterpart after the attack on Ganymede, which is where her book story began.
** In the books, Captain Martens is a calm chaplain who helps Bobbie deal with her PTSD. In the show, meanwhile, he's a FauxAffablyEvil [[ThePoliticalOfficer political officer]] [[spoiler: who's a part of the conspiracy around the protomolecule.]]
* AdaptationDistillation: In contrast to the 15 episodes spent adapting the first book and the 14 episodes spent adapting the second, only 7 episodes are used to adapt ''Abaddon's Gate'', meaning that many of the novel's subplots are either trimmed, skipped over or cut out entirely.
* AdaptationDyeJob:
** A minor point, but in the books Bobbie Draper's PoweredArmor is a distinctive red to camouflage against the Martian surface. In the show, it's a plain, sterile grey.
** Anna Volovodov in the books is a redhead, while here she's a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold blonde]].
* AdaptationExpansion: By taking 10 episodes to adapt just 400 pages of a nearly 600 page novel in Season 1 there's room for quite a bit of this.
** Chrisjen Avasarala, an IconicSequelCharacter from the second novel, is [[AdaptationalEarlyAppearance brought forward into Season 1]] with an all-new ThirdLineSomeWaiting plot of her own. This causes a bit of AdaptationDeviation once the show starts adapting her subplot from Book 2.
** Miller's investigation into Julie Mao is much more in-depth, with Anderson Dawes in particular taking on a much broader antagonist role.
** Holden's crew run into problems in Season 1 that they don't have in the first book, particularly the SinkingShipScenario in "The Big Empty" and everything to do with the stowaway spy [[CanonForeigner Kenzo]] in "Windmills". Also, the strict POV structure of the books means that whenever Season 1 separates Holden from his crew like in "CQB" or "Leviathan Wakes", one group or the other is acting out new material (Holden in "CQB", his crew in "Leviathan Wakes").
** Havelock [[AdaptedOut loses his post-Ceres involvement in the story]], but does get his own mini-arc on Ceres in the first few episodes.
** Some events only mentioned in the books, such as the destruction of Anderson Station and the ''Xinglong'', are dramatized on-screen.
** Bobbie Draper, like Avasarala, is only introduced in the second book, so her initial material in Season 2 is original since the show hasn't quite reached that point yet.
* AdaptationNameChange: Ade's last name is Nygaard rather than Tukunbo.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: Dresden describes what the protomolecule does to a human being as "incredible" and the victim as "fortunate" and "blessed"... while being [[TheHypocrite very careful not to infect himself, of course]].
* AdvertisedExtra: Florence Faivre (Julie Mao) is mostly relegated to photos and video clips except for a few memorable sequences in "Dulcinea", "Critical Mass", and "Home".
* AerithAndBob: There's Jim and Joe, Fred and Naomi... and then there's Praxidike and Sadavir.
* AfraidOfBlood: Alex doesn't deal well with seeing Amos' protruding leg bone in "Back to the Butcher".
* AfterActionPatchup:
** Amos suffers a compound leg fracture during the crew's escape from the ''Donnager'' that requires medical attention from Naomi and Holden at the start of "Back to the Butcher."
** Miller and Octavia have one that results in an awkward AlmostKiss after she saves his life in "Rock Bottom".
** Holden and Naomi share a quiet moment while she's setting the AutoDoc to treat his [[spoiler: radiation poisoning]] in "Leviathan Wakes".
* AgeLift: Nami, the daughter of [[HomosexualReproduction Anna and Nono]], is introduced as a baby or toddler in the novels; In the TV series, she's a few years older.
* TheAlcoholic:
** Miller shows signs of this, like many a fellow HardboiledDetective.
** Amos claims Holden can find the ''Canterbury'''s XO by following the reek of whiskey.
** The AsteroidMiner Mateo is mildly-to-completely soused throughout his entire OneShotCharacter story.
* AlienGeometries: The inhabitants of Ceres and Eros Stations live in miles and miles of tunnels that spiral beneath the asteroids' surface. "Down" is oriented outwards towards the outer crust because the stations' gravity is artificially created via [[CentrifugalGravity centrifugal force]] rather than the asteroids' mass. Ceres Station's introduction in the premiere episode provides some idea of how internal tunnels are oriented.
* AllForNothing: Mars has spent generations working on terraforming their planet, dedicating whole lifetimes to work that they will not live to see completed. When the ring gates opened the need to terraform a planet suddenly became irrelevant, and many Martians view all the previous work as pointless now.
* AlliterativeName: Naomi Nagata, Arjun Avasarala, and Mei Meng.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Bobbie and her squad are very hard on one of the squadmembers because he was born on Earth, rather than being native-born martian.
* AllThereInTheManual:
** It's never explained on-screen, but Miller rousing the CPM mercenaries to LetsYouAndHimFight by calling them "just meat for the machine" is ironic because CPM literally stands for ''C''arne ''P''or la ''M''achina ("meat for the machine"), which is doubly [[MeaningfulName appropriate]] since they're being left as ''literal'' meat for [[spoiler: the protomolecule]].
** It's implied during Avasarala's conversation with her grandson in "CQB", but the novels (and later seasons) make it explicit that the ColonyDrop is the new MutuallyAssuredDestruction between Earth and Mars.
* AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler: Lt. Lopez]] survives just long enough to turn over control of the ''Tachi'' to Holden's crew and is finished off by the extremely high-''g'' burn the ship makes to escape the battle.
* AlmostKiss: Miller and Octavia have one as he's comforting her about shooting two people to save his life. It takes the awkward silence route when Miller turns away.
* AlmostOutOfOxygen: The crew's main problem during the SinkingShipScenario in "The Big Empty", [[FromBadToWorse made worse]] when a broken airlock requires them to vent the ship to make repairs. Then it gets even worse when Alex's respirator craps out, forcing Shed to share with him, resulting in both suffering this ''inside'' their suits.
* AmbiguousSituation: Diogo is left DramaticSpaceDrifting by his uncle Mateo in "Rock Bottom", and isn't seen again until six episodes later when he shows up again as part of the OPA assault team in "Doors and Corners."
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Amos sports two Hebrew tattoos, though these are actor Wes Chatham's actual tattoos that the showrunners decided not to cover up. One along his outer forearm is Hebrew lettering that (although a little garbled) translates to "State your opinion." He also has "Timshel" written in Roman letters on the inside of his forearm, which means "thou shalt rule over it" in reference to sin, taken from the Cain and Abel story. Whatever Amos's background, he's almost certainly not a practicing Jew.
* AnArmAndALeg: The ice-hauler Paj loses his arm to a giant block of ice in "Dulcinea".
* AndStarring:
** Shohreh Aghdashloo (Avasarala) gets this.
** Beginning in Season 3, Creator/ThomasJane receives special billing on episodes he appears in.
* AndThisIsFor:
** This is clearly what's going through Holden's mind when he orders [[spoiler: the destruction of the ship that blew up Ade Nygaard and the ''Canterbury'']].
** When Miller shoots [[spoiler: Filat Kothari]] on Eros as revenge for impaling [[spoiler: his partner Havelock]].
* TheAntiNihilist: Holden knows he lives in a CrapsackWorld, but that never stops him from trying to make it better.
* AntiVillain: Anderson Dawes is a main antagonist in the Belt, but he's mostly just a WellIntentionedExtremist who wants a better life for his people.
* AnyoneCanDie: While not as blood-soaked as some other recent DarkerAndEdgier series, this one doesn't shy away from disposing of characters -- even ones who looked about to be major.
** The series premiere ends with Ade Nygaard and Captain [=McDowell=] getting vaporized along with the rest of the ''Canterbury'''s crew.
** [[spoiler: Shed Garvey]], one of the initial survivors of the ''Canterbury'', is [[BoomHeadShot decapitated]] by a railgun with absolutely [[KilledMidSentence zero warning]] in "CQB".
** [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] is dead by the time the ''Rocinante's'' crew finds her.
** Miller shoots [[spoiler: Dresden]] to stop him from giving up his information to Fred Johnson.
** [[spoiler: Miller]] makes a HeroicSacrifice to save Earth in "Home".
** [[spoiler:Sutton]] is set up as a foil to the HotBlooded Draper, only to be unceremoniously killed [[spoiler:during the battle over Ganymede, which also claims the lives of Draper's entire squad]].
** [[spoiler:Michael Iturbi and Col. Janus, along with the entire rest of the ''Arboghast'' crew]], when the ship is disassembled by the protomolecule in the atmosphere of Venus.
** [[spoiler:Admiral Souther]], a ReasonableAuthorityFigure in the UNN, is murdered by [[spoiler:[[InsaneAdmiral Fleet Admiral Nguyen]]]] [[KilledMidSentence while trying to conduct]] an AntiMutiny against him.
** [[spoiler:Cotyar, Avasarala's SarcasticDevotee]], pulls a TakingYouWithMe on the protomolecule that's infected him and the rest of the ''Agatha King'' by blowing up the entire ship, killing the aforementioned [[spoiler:Nguyen]] as well.
** Anna's friend [[spoiler:Tilly Fagan]] is one of the many casualties of all the ships' deceleration in the [[spoiler:Slow Zone of the Ring]], though the fact that [[spoiler:Clarissa]] was attacking and trying to kill her anyway at the time certainly didn't help.
** [[spoiler:Cohen Casti, Monica's blind cameraman]], is revealed to be another such casualty, having been KilledOffscreen by being sliced in half with a door.
** [[spoiler:Diogo Harari]] gets an elevator dropped on him by Naomi while trying to kill her, Holden, and Drummer.
** [[spoiler:Chandra Wei]], who becomes Amos's [[FriendsWithBenefits uncertain ally with benefits]] throughout Season 4, eventually has to choose between her feelings for him and her loyalty to her boss, [[MyMasterRightOrWrong and sides with the latter]], forcing Amos to kill her in self-defense.
** [[spoiler:Klaes Ashford]], while attempting to hunt down and kill Belter terrorist Marco Inaros, instead ends up being captured and ThrownOutTheAirlock by Marco and his son Filip (though not before [[DefiantToTheEnd flipping them both off]] and [[FaceDeathWithDignity singing up to his last breath as he's executed]] while also secretly warning the [=UN=] of Inaros' planned terrorist attack).
** In the Season 5 finale, [[spoiler:Alex Kamal strokes out after executing a high-g burn to save Naomi]].
** In the season six premier, it is revealed that Marco Inaros had [[spoiler:Anderson Dawes]] KilledOffscreen.
* AnythingThatMoves: Octavia cites "Bang every space-bucker I could find" as something a RebelliousPrincess might do on Ceres to [[DatingWhatDaddyHates piss off her father]], with the implication she did something similar once upon a time.
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:The alien station at the heart of [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Ring space]] has a WaveMotionGun capable of inflicting a ApocalypseHow/ClassX2, which it used on multiple star systems in a futile attempt to save its creators from... [[GreaterScopeVillain something]]. The climax of "Abbadon's Gate" has it charging to attack the Solar System after identifying humanity as a threat]].
* ApologeticAttacker:
** In "Assured Destruction", Cotyar reluctantly strangles Theo the electrician before they're picked up by the UNN, because he doesn't trust Theo not to reveal Avasarala's location if the UNN leans on him enough. He apologizes while doing it.
** In "Delta-V", Clarissa Mao apologizes to Ren before, during, and after murdering him to conceal her sabotage.
* AppliedPhlebotinum:
** A fusion drive that provides constant acceleration in order to allow CasualInterplanetaryTravel.
** The protomolecule is acknowledged in-universe to be capable of defying the laws of physics, making it even harder to cope with for the protagonists, who don't have this luxury.
* ArchnemesisDad: Jules-Pierre Mao to his daughter Julie, [[spoiler: who ultimately dies fighting to stop his NGOSuperpower from killing millions of Belters. Unfortunately, Julie's body yields enough protomolecule samples to go ahead as planned.]]
* ArcSymbol: The OPA monogram ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything which resembles an anarchist A]]) appears more and more frequently as the organization gains power and support in the Belt.
* ArcWords:
** "Remember the ''Cant''!"
** "''Milowda na ányimals!''" (Belter for "We are not animals!")
** "(When) the blood's on the wall..."
** [[MadnessMantra "The work must be finished..."]]
** "Doors and corners"
* ArmCannon: Unlike Earth's ground forces and regular Martian Marines with their more conventional rifles, MMC Special Forces like Draper's unit wield miniature [[GatlingGood miniguns]] mounted to the lower right arm of their PoweredArmor.
* ArmiesAreEvil: Neither the United Nations (Earth) or Martian navies are portrayed in a particularly positive light. The UNN has a track record of [[spoiler: blasting stations full of families open to vacuum when their workers mutiny rather than let them surrender]], and the MCRN is shown to be very hostile and abusive to {{Asteroid Miner}}s whose ships they inspect in the wake of [[spoiler: the destruction of the ''Donnager'']].
* ArmorIsUseless:
** No matter how huge a space warship is, ''any'' ship-to-ship weapon goes through its hull like a hot knife through butter, and more powerful ones like railguns usually punch clean through the entire vessel without slowing down. It appears that, similar to today's seabound warships, armor has fallen out of favor as a protective measure, and the best (and only) thing you can do to avoid damage is to not get hit in the first place.
** Completely averted by Martian Goliath-class PoweredArmor. These hulking suits are ImmuneToBullets and highly resistant to most other forms of damage. It requires heavy weapons or similarly massive trauma to inflict serious damage on them.
** Also averted during Holden's and Miller's mad dash to the ''Roci'' in "Leviathan Wakes". The body armor they took off the dead mercs was intact before they got into the shootout near the docks, but shows multiple bullet impacts afterwards that would've been lethal without the plating's protection.
** Played completely straight in Season 4. Some characters wear body armor, others don't, but they all die the same when shot.
* ArtificialGravity:
** Ships simulate gravity by having the decks arranged vertically relative to the engines, with the thrust providing the gravity whenever the engines are active.
** In "Home", [[spoiler:the protomolecule is able to maintain Eros' normal gravity in spite of completely changing its spin and momentum, in addition to providing InertialDampening that prevents anyone still on it from being killed by the forces involved]].
* ArtificialLimbs: {{Discussed}}. Many Earthers and Martians can afford to have lost limbs regrown from bio-gel, but many Belters have to make due with advanced prosthetics that can sense heat and pressure. Some even [[CulturalPosturing take pride]] in preferring "a good Belter-built fake."
* ArtificialMeat: In "Salvage", Kenzo offers a line on a place that sells "vat-grown ribs".
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Getting impaled through the solar-plexus should result in death ''very'' quickly given the number of important arteries in the region as well as the nerves and tissues that control breathing that make it very close to a real life version of an InstantDeathBullet. Hyper-advanced medical treatment doesn't mean much when you should be dead long before you could receive any.
* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Gunnery Sergeant Draper leads a four-man fireteam (sometimes incorrectly called a "squad", itself a common misconception in fiction since a military "squad" refers to a unit of multiple fireteams). Assuming a gunnery sergeant is an E-7 in the Martian Marine Corps as it is in the US Marine Corps, Draper should be the senior NCO (an advisor/staff member to the commanding junior officer) of an entire platoon of around 50 personel, a job that takes about nine years of service to make, for which someone in their early twenties looks ''really'' young. Corporal or just plain Sergeant Draper would be a much more fitting rank for the job she's shown doing.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
** Used intentionally and often {{lampshaded}} and {{discussed}}. The show is hard Sci-Fi by television standards, but it's acknowledged in-universe that the protomolecule doesn't play by the laws of physics, and the fact it can do things the characters simply can't is a major source of drama.
---> '''Holden:''' [[OhCrap Uh, okay, so we broke a few laws of physics here.]]
** ''Accidentally'' invoked in "Here There Be Dragons": Alex's method of reaching Ganymede without alerting MCRN ships is scientifically sound... except that one of the moons he passes (Cyllene) is way too far from Ganymede to make sense. [[http://www.danielabraham.com/2017/04/04/guest-post-losing-science-drama-finding-drama-science/ According to one show runner]], this was only caught after the scene had been shot and couldn't be changed.
* ArtisticLicenseSpace:
** The explanation for Dawes' scar is solar radiation heating up the metal components of the old space suits to the point they burn. In reality, most of that radiation energy would bleed off as infrared long before it got hot enough to sear flesh.
** Given how much the series makes of the dangers of radiation and of its importance to the Protomolecule, it oddly completely ignores how much radiation there is in space just from the Sun when you do not have a planetary magnetic field pushing high-energy particles aside.[[note]]To give some point of reference, spending one year on the International Space Station would expose a person to almost ten times what the U.S. Department of Energy recommends as the maximum annual radiation exposure for people working with radioactive materials.[[/note]] Radiation exposure is currently the greatest single health risk associated with extended stays in space.
* AscendedExtra: Several characters are given more material than their book counterparts.
** Anderson Dawes is a relatively minor character in the books, while the show embellishes him into a moderate antagonist, first for Miller and later for Holden/Johnson.
** Havelock is a minor satellite character to Miller in the first novel, but the show gives him his own subplot.
** Gia, the HookerWithAHeartOfGold who befriends Havelock, is an unnamed, single-scene extra in the books.
** Holden calls his family once or twice in the books, but nothing with the depth of Avasarala's visit to their farm in "Windmills".
** Cotyar, a very minor character who acts as head of Avasarala's security detail in ''Caliban's War'', shows up much earlier here and assists in her investigation into the U.N. conspiracy.
* AspectRatioSwitch: In Season 4, scenes set on and around Ilus[=/=]New Terra are shot in anamorphic widescreen rather than 16:9 like the rest of the series.
* AssholeVictim:
** Filat Kothari, the Belter thug who attacked Havelock.
** [[spoiler: Dresden]], the MadScientist who massacred [[spoiler: all of Eros]] ForScience. Generally any member of TheConspiracy that gets their comeuppance one way or another, which by the end of Season 3 means [[spoiler:[[EarnYourHappyEnding every single one, no exceptions]]]].
* AssimilationBackfire: The protomolecule uses [[spoiler:Julie Mao]], the first thing it absorbed on Eros, as the central node for all the growth on Eros. This allows Miller to [[spoiler:talk Julie into diverting Eros into Venus, rather than hitting Earth as originally intended.]]
* TheAssimilator: The protomolecule, given the way Dresden speaks of "letting it learn" by [[spoiler: infecting all of Eros Station]] in "Critical Mass". Not only does it infect living tissue, it mimics the structures it infects. [[spoiler:Julie Mao was killed by the protomolecule, then it completely mimicked her -- memories and all -- to use as a "brain" of sorts.]]
* AsYouKnow:
** This exchange in "Dulcinea":
---> '''Ade Nygaard:''' We're obligated to check it out.\\
'''Capt. [=McDowell=]:''' (annoyed) I'm well-aware of the statute, Miss Nygaard.
** Lampshaded in "Safe":
--->'''Admiral:''' Due to light-speed delay, it will be two hours until we get a response--\\
'''Avasarala:''' I know how the fucking thing works!
* AsteroidMiners: A major occupation for Belters, with the poorest of them living as "rock-hoppers" who spend their lives moving from asteroid to asteroid struggling to harvest enough valuable material to survive while corporations like Pur-N-Kleen use freighters like the ''Canterbury'' to harvest ice from Saturn's rings.
* AsteroidThicket:
** {{Averted}} in the Belt, where asteroids are realistically distributed and reasonably well-charted.
** Saturn's rings in "Dulcinea" provide a reasonably {{justified}} version of the denser conception, which is why the ''Canterbury'' is there to collect ice.
** Another {{justified}} and possibly {{invoked|trope}} example occurs in "Safe", in the form of an "abandoned asteroid mine": a small thicket implied to have been formed from the remnants of either a very large isolated asteroid or a number of smaller ones intentionally gathered into a vaguely stable gravitational system for more convenient processing.
* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: The OPA employs demagogues and later video announcements to get their anti-Inner message out to the public.
* TheAtoner:
** Fred Johnson's motivation for joining the OPA after what he did to Anderson Station.
** [[spoiler:Clarissa is haunted by the blood she's spilled in her quest for vengeance against Holden. At the end of the third season, she attempts a heroic self-sacrifice, but survives]].
* AuthorFilibuster: {{Parodied}} in "Doors and Corners" when Alex's angst about not saving more people from Eros turns into a rant that threatens to BreakTheFourthWall as the camera presses in closer and closer... until he looks over to find Amos has already bailed and offered to buy a random girl drinks if she'll listen to Alex instead.
* AutoDoc: Military ships come equipped with these while civilian ones like the ''Canterbury'' seem to lack them. Holden and Miller are very grateful for the one on the ''Rocinante'' when they get extreme radiation poisoning in "Leviathan Wakes", though Amos struggles to override the devices when they keep trying to default over to "hospice mode".
* AwesomeByAnalysis: Fred Johnson neatly demolishes Holden's bluff when they first meet in "Rock Bottom":
--> '''Johnson:''' That's a ''Corvette''-class Martian frigate that typically crews thirty. I only see two of you. That tells me that you're trying hard to hide your numbers. Tactically, if there were more, as a show of force, you would've brought them out. I'm guessing there are two to four people left on your ship, and I'm confident there's no Martian Navy on board. If they were, they'd be out here speaking with me now. ''You'' walked off that ship because ''you're'' in charge. At least you think you are...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* {{Backstory}}:
** The interrogations in "Remember the Cant" provide a lot of info on Holden's past, some key insights into Naomi's and Alex's, a crucial lowlight from Shed's, and [[MysteriousPast absolutely nothing about Amos]].
** "Back to the Butcher" actually dramatizes the decade-old incident that earned Fred Johnson the titular epithet "TheButcher of Anderson Station" and prompted him to become a DefectorFromDecadence.
* BadassBoast:
** Capt. Yao of the ''Donnager'' is very confident before battle in "CQB":
--->"Well, whoever they are and whatever they've come to do, it's just become a suicide mission. They started this fight, and we're going to finish it."
** Avasarala gives an epic, long-winded one in "Paradigm Shift", explaining exactly how she'll tear apart the Mao family if they don't hand over Jules-Pierre Mao to pay for his part in TheConspiracy while also giving a veiled threat to Erringwright how she knows that he's part of the protomolecule conspiracy. See the quotes under MegaCorp below for the whole thing.
** Holden delivers one to the MCRN blockade over Ganymede in "The Monster and the Rocket".
--->"This is the warship ''Rocinante''. You're aware of our capabilities more than anyone. We're escorting a vessel of refugees away from your AO. Any ship that opens fire on us will feel the sum total of our state-of-the-art Martian arsenal ''rammed up its ass.'' We'll all die together. This is your only and final warning."
* BadassBureaucrat: Chrisjen Avasarala has never been elected to anything but is currently Number 3 in the government of Earth and knows all the gambits to get information out of her opponents.
* BadassCreed: When preparing for a drop, Bobbie Draper psyches up her Martian Marines with a call-and-response:
-->'''Bobbie''': Who's going to feast on Earth's sky and drink their rivers dry? (MMC!) Who's going to stomp their mountains into fine Martian dust? (MMC!) 'Til the rains fall hard on Olympus Mons, ''who are we?'' (MMC!) I can't hear you! (''MMC!'') ''Who are we?!'' ('''''MMC!''''')
* BadassCrew: The ''Rocinante'' crew.
* BadBoss:
** TheConspiracy abandons many of their HiredGuns on Eros [[spoiler: as fodder for the protomolecule]].
** Anderson Dawes never responded to Julie Mao's DistressCall when she was captive on the ''Anubis'' or stranded on Eros, either because [[YouHaveFailedMe she failed him]] or because he considered her [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness not worth the effort]].
* BadGuyBar: Miller confronts Dawes in one full of OPA members in "Windmills" and tries to start a BarBrawl.
* TheBadGuysAreCops: CPM, Eros' LawEnforcementInc, are this since they are mainly gangsters and mercenaries hired by TheConspiracy.
* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: Prax is ready to kill [[spoiler:Dr. Strickland]], but Amos convinces him that he's [[IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim not that guy]]. Once Prax leaves, Amos turns around and says "I am that guy." before doing the deed himself.
* BadToTheLastDrop: 99% of coffee in the Belt would appear to be this. The other 1% is brought there aboard Inner Planets naval ships. That the Belter Creole word for "coffee" literally translates into "shitwater" should tell you everything you need to know.
* BagOfKidnapping: Miller gets grabbed this way leaving Julie Mao's apartment in "Back to the Butcher".
* BaitTheDog: Sematimba seems at first like a reasonable guy given his affinity for Miller, but then he kills an Eros survivor for slowing him down and threatens to shoot Naomi if she doesn't abandon Holden and Miller.
* BandOfBrothels: Prostitution is common and well-policed, and when Amos warns a prostitute that a prospective client is packing a knife, Alex asks, "Are you their union rep?" in a tone that implies he's only partially joking.
* BarBrawl: Miller tries to start one in "Windmills".
* BathOfPoverty: Although Miller has a functioning shower, it cuts off before he can rinse because water is strictly rationed in the Belt. He later takes the opportunity to finish his shower at Julie Mao's apartment, since she has unlimited water due to her wealth.
* BatmanGambit: In "Remember the Cant", Avasarala "leaks" just enough information to her old friend Ambassador Frank [=DeGraaf=] to prompt him to send a panicked message to the Martian government, and deduces from the Martian government's own panicked reaction that they really didn't destroy the ''Canterbury''.
* BatteringRam: Holden summarizes Miller's plan in "Godspeed" as using [[spoiler: the ''Nauvoo'']] as one of these, though in this case, they're not trying to open the target, they're trying to HurlItIntoTheSun.
* TheBattlestar: MCRN ''Donnager'' carries an arsenal of torpedoes and railguns capable of fighting off a small fleet by herself, as well as a large hangar bay housing smaller vessels such as the frigate ''Tachi''.
* BeardOfSorrow: Miller always has PermaStubble, but it becomes one of these for a couple episodes after escaping Eros until he shaves in "Static".
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: {{Averted}}.
** In "The Big Empty", Miller and Octavia discuss why Julie Mao would retain a scar in an era that averts ScarsAreForever, with Miller even calling it a "[[DefiedTrope badge of defiance]]."
** [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] is the focus of the worst BodyHorror in Season 1.
* BeforeIChangeMyMind: Miller tells Diogo this after deciding to take over the DeadManSwitch in "Godspeed".
* BeingGoodSucks: Answering a DistressCall always carries the danger of being LuredIntoATrap.
* BeingWatched: Miller feels this way as he pushes deeper into the protomolecule's GeniusLoci in "Home", and doesn't buy it when Naomi suggests it's because she's watching him from MissionControl on the ''Rocinante''.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Miller and Octavia until around the time she saves his life in "Rock Bottom".
* BerserkButton:
** Amos is very protective of people that he terms are "his", primarily Naomi. He is also protective of children in general. Threatening somebody that he has claimed or a child will push him to an almost immediate homicidal rage.
** Chrisjen Avasarala really does not like it when people make cracks about her age or imply in any way that she's old. [[{{Troll}} Which is why]] [[VitriolicBestBuds Cotyar likes doing it]].
* BetterThanSex: Diogo claims space-walking is this, though Miller is skeptical that he has the experience necessary to make that comparison.
* BigBadassBattleSequence:
** "CQB" contains one between TheBattlestar MCRN ''Donnager'' and six advanced stealth fighters, which is interspersed with a running gun battle as Holden's crew attempts to escape.
** The joint OPA and ''Rocinante'' assault on Thoth Station in "Doors and Corners".
* BigDamnHeroes:
** In "Salvage", Miller saves the ''Rocinante'' crew from a UN black ops team that was trying to assassinate them.
** In "Caliban's War", just as Mao's men are about to kill Cotyar and Avasarala, Bobbie returns after leaving to get her PowerArmor and [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomps]] all of them easily.
** Anna tasers Clarissa from behind before the latter can finish throttling Naomi to death in "Fallen World" .
* BigDumbObject: The protomolecule turns [[spoiler:Eros]] into one of these, capable of defying the laws of physics to propel itself on a course towards Earth. [[spoiler:It ends up crashing into Venus instead and begins constructing a new one, which ultimately becomes The Ring at the edge of the system]].
* TheBigGuy: Amos is naturally the largest and strongest of the ''Rocinante'' crew, and growing up on Earth only increases this by also making him a HeavyWorlder. His rough upbringing and emotional detachment also make him the most comfortable with violence.
* BilingualBonus: Belter Creole is entirely unsubtitled. Most of the time, the Creole is limited to a few words or the odd phrase that viewers can guess. Sometimes, lines will be spoken entirely in Creole and the only way viewers will be able to understand is if they learn the ''patois'' themselves.
* BilingualDialogue: Miller occasionally converses with Belters this way, though usually they each throw in some of the other's language as well.
* BioAugmentation:
** Implants of various sorts are common. Communications devices and organ augmentation are mundane while identity scramblers are expensive and illegal.
** Belters have to resort to drugs or hormones just to maintain reasonable health and well-being (if injuries haven't reduce them to [[AnArmAndALeg outright prosthetics]]), and these treatments don't always work well. Miller, for instance, has spurs on his spine where the vertebrae didn't quite grow properly because of "cheap bone-density juice when he was a child."
** Martian marines have communications systems and other implants to augment the equipment in their battle armor. Amos taunts one such marine by insisting castration is a mandatory part of the process.
** Season 3 features a documentary cameraman who has extensive augmentations visibly implanted beneath his skin. He's also blind but can use his implanted tech to see through drone cameras.
* BioluminescenceIsCool: The protomolecule's MeatMoss and [[spoiler: skin lesions as TheVirus]] crackle with blue light very reminiscent of electricity and give off radiant blue spores. It's creepy as all hell.
* BiotechIsBetter: This is used to establish class disparities. After a hauler on the ''Canterbury'' loses his arm below the elbow to an ice block, he's told he could go for the bio-gel that regrows limbs. He opts to go for a prosthetic limb because he's been with Pur-n-Kleen long enough for the company to provide him with a deluxe model featuring pressure feedback and hot-and-cold sensors.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: The heroes might not be paragons (though some like Holden certainly try), but several villains are utter monsters.
* BlackMarketProduce: A major cottage industry in the belt. Dairy products are held in particularly high regard: while expensive, vegetables and fruit can be grown hydroponically both legally and illegally with minimal fuss. Small livestock like chickens likewise can be raised or smuggled fairly easily, and even the tank-grown ArtificialMeat is a passable substitute for the real thing. Dairy, however, requires either maintaining at least one large female livestock animal in orbit, or moving dense wheels of cheese from the ground into space and law enforcement swiftly cracks down on "curd cartels". Cheese, in fact, is such a prized commodity that the troubles on Ceres noticeably quieted down when one such cartel began selling genuine cheddar on the station.
* BlackSite: Avasarala travels to one of the UN's a couple of times to interrogate a Belter caught smuggling stealth tech.
* BlatantLies: [[spoiler:Errinwright's claims that Fred Johnson is framing Earth]].
* BloodKnight: Bobby Draper is just itching for a fight with Earth, until she gets a taste of real combat on Ganymede and decides that WarIsHell.
* BloodySmile: In the season 4 finale, Amos does this after [[spoiler:[[BullyingADragon Murtry]] punches him, giving him the perfect excuse to KickTheSonOfABitch [[GoryDiscretionShot offscreen]] as revenge for Wei's death]].
-->'''Amos''': Thank you. ''(initiates beatdown)''
* BoardingPod:
** What the unknown enemies use to seal the fate of the ''Donnager'' after the latter blows away four of six of the attacking ships. [[spoiler: The ''Donnager'' [[SelfDestructMechanism self-destructs]] to prevent a successful capture.]]
** Fred Johnson uses modified [=FedEx=] containers to make a [[JustForPun special delivery]] of boarding parties to take control of TheConspiracy's base on Thoth Station.
* BodyguardBetrayal: Avasarala's escort ship leaves her to die on Jules-Pierre Mao's ship in "Caliban's War", under orders from [[spoiler:Errinwright]], and even fires five missiles at it just to be sure.
* BodyHorror: One of the book authors once noted that, "If I wrote greeting cards, they'd probably have a {{squick}} factor." The TV adaptation lives up to everything that implies.
** Cutting her way into the cargo bay of a GhostShip in "Dulcinea", Julie Mao finds a giant, glowing MeatMoss EldritchAbomination in the process of [[TheAssimilator assimilating]] a [[HumanResources human torso]].
** Some of the negative traits a lifetime in low-''g'' has spawned among the Belters, especially their low bone and muscle densities that leave them unable to even ''breathe'' back on Earth.
** In "Salvage", Miller and the ''Rocinante'' crew find [[spoiler:Julie Mao has been killed by the protomolecule infection in her shower. Blue-black lesions cover her pallid remains from head to toe, sprouting spines like anemones, and crystalline structures have grown straight out her left eye and mouth, while a gossamer webbing has rooted her to the shower]].
** Miller and Holden's slow degradation from radiation poisoning. Holden's descriptors "melt from the inside out," and, "bleeding out of places you don't even want to know about," don't help.
** Katoa gradually starts to look more inhuman and horrifying as [[spoiler:he's turned into a Hybrid by the protomolecule growth in his body]]. And in one of the worst examples in the whole series, he ''completely rips apart'' his nurse offscreen; we see the man's insides and guts strewn out all over the floor.
** Manéo Jung-Espinoza gets this when he travels into the Ring, entering the Slow Zone. The Ring defenses forcibly decelerate his ship to a dead stop, but '''not''' Manéo. His inertia no longer matching the ship causes him to rocket forward with such force that his skeleton tears free of his body, causing his head to fly off and his bones to jut out of his flesh, leaving him as nothing more than a [[MemeticMutation red splat]] in a pilot suit.
** Inside the Ring Station, the leader of [[spoiler:Bobbie's platoon]] throws a grenade that leaves a dent in the floor. The commander is then lifted into the air by the station, ''disassembled'', and ''broken down into his constituent matter'' to refill this dent.
* BookEnds:
** Season 1 begins and ends with a character encountering the protomolecule, showing how it's changed.
** At the end of Season 2, Dr. Strickland is whistling the same tune that Amos was at the start of the season.
* BoomerangBigot: Despite being a native Belter who's never left Ceres, Miller dresses like an Earther, works for an Earth-based LawEnforcementInc, and generally acts superior to other Belters because of it. He's even the first character to hurl the FantasticSlur "longbone" at another Belter.
-->'''Miller:''' I am nothing like you, longbone. Take your OPA bullshit back to the Medina, and wait for the revolution with all the rest of the victims.
* BoomHeadshot:
** The fate of [[spoiler: Shed Garvey]], whose head simply ''[[YourHeadAsplode disappears]]'' thanks to an unlucky railgun round.
** How Miller takes revenge on [[spoiler: Filat Kothari, the thug who impaled his partner]]. Bonus points for [[BaitAndSwitch covering the guy's retreat]] first only to put one between his eyes once he got a little closer.
** In "Doors and Corners", the boarding party is taken by surprise when one of their group is shot in the head and a big red splash appears. After the shooting stops, Miller realizes he was actually hit by a non-lethal gel round which didn't even penetrate his space suit helmet, as the minimal crew weren't expecting boarders and were only armed to the extent necessary to disable the prisoners they were watching over.
** Played straight in the same episode, where Miller pops [[spoiler:Dresden]] in the head then shoots him [[DoubleTap twice more]] for good measure.
** Drummer does this to the Belters who shot her in an attempt to force missile launch codes out of her and Fred Johnson in "Pyre".
** Amos delivers this to [[spoiler:Strickland]] in "Immolation", though we only get the perspective of the blood splatter against the airlock door.
** Murtry doing this to the belligerent but unarmed Belter thug Coop on Ilus is what sends the already fragile RCE-Belter relations into a rapid downward spiral.
* BornLucky: Diogo just happens to get caught stealing water by the comparatively merciful Joe Miller rather than a more aggressive cop or serious gangster, then he's ThrownOutTheAirlock far from anywhere but is picked up by a passing ship before his air runs out, and then gets [[BoomHeadshot shot in the face]] but survives because his opponent was only equipped with non-lethal ammunition.
* BorrowedBiometricBypass: In "Down and Out", the guards at the prison have biometrically-locked guns that only respond to their individual users. When deprived of her gun against a prisoner with mods that make him super-strong, the guard grabs the gun of a dead colleague and uses his hand to fire it.
* BossSubtitles: A couple government officials get these with their name and position, including [[ThirdLineSomeWaiting third-line]] protagonist Chrisjen Avasarala ''after'' she's already been on-screen for over a minute.
* BottomlessMagazines:
** Miller gets better-than-expected mileage out of his six-shot cylinder despite a closeup at the start of "Leviathan Wakes" that proves that's exactly how many bullets it holds[[note]]the show's propmaster tried to HandWave it away by saying that in their universe one bullet could equal a thousand shots[[/note]].
** Averted in the case of the ''Rocinante'' itself, which runs low on ammo on a semi-regular basis. At one point the crew resorts to raiding a Martian debris field to restock.
* BreadAndCircuses: Lt. Lopez claims in "CQB" that, "The only thing Earthers care about is government handouts: free food, free water, [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement free drugs]] so you can forget the aimless lives you lead."
* BreakoutCharacter: Camina Drummer after her BoomHeadshot moment in Season 2.
* BrickJoke: When they part ways in "Home", Miller tells Diogo to get himself laid. The next episode, he's seen walking hand in hand with a prostitute saying, "Miller, this one's for you."
* BringNewsBack: Holden and (at his insistence) his crew are escorted off the ''Donnager'' by a squad of Martian marines because they're the only ones truly capable of testifying that Mars did ''not'' destroy the ''Canterbury''.
* BrokenAesop:
** Anderson Dawes tells Miller one about how he had to MercyKill his sister in order to keep his family alive. Miller points out that Dawes didn't sacrifice himself and that just proves him a coward.
** Happens again when Sutton talks about how Mars avoided a war with Earth in the nick of time through diplomacy to talk about the value of peace, only for Draper to state that led to a SpaceColdWar where Mars was delayed a century in its terraforming efforts.
* BrokenPedestal: At least two in Season 3.
** [[spoiler: Naomi]] becomes this to [[spoiler: Amos]] after it is revealed that [[spoiler: she gave the protomolecule to Fred Johnson. Lampshaded by Amos, who starts to instead look to first Prax and later Anna as his new [[MoralityPet "moral compasses"]].]]
** [[spoiler: Camina Drummer]] feels deeply betrayed after [[spoiler: Fred Johnson]] tells her that [[spoiler: he has struck an [[EnemyMine unholy alliance]] with Anderson Dawes not long after an attempted mutiny by OPA sympathizers on Tycho which almost left both of them dead.]]
* BrokenMasquerade: After investigating the disabled stealth ship in "Godspeed", Avasarala has it pushed into the nearest UNN patrol route so it will be discovered and reveal the connection between the stealth ship attacks and Protogen (and hence Jules-Pierre Mao). Mao is good enough to wriggle out of any personal liability, but it definitely puts a dent in his plans and sours his partnership with Errinwright.
* BrutalHonesty: When Miller asks if he really just saw [[spoiler: his old friend Sematimba]]'s body at the end of "Leviathan Wakes", Amos bluntly answers, "Yes. I shot him."
** Amos lives this trope, often to the disgust, anger or unsettlement of other characters. The main crew gets used to it after a while.
* BulletproofHumanShield: Rare example of played straight, done a lot, AND justified. In zero-g, bodies, especially with grav boots on tend to remain standing. People in general are easier to pick up. The bullets themselves need low penetration to avoid punching holes in the ship’s hull, out into space. This creates a lot of scenarios where dead bodies can be used as temporary cover, or someone can be grappled onto and used to absorb low penetration rounds.
* BulletSparks: All over the place during the dash to the ''Tachi'' in "CQB".
* BurialInSpace: Miller gives [[spoiler: Sematimba]] this at the end of "Safe" by ejecting his body bag [[ThrownOutTheAirlock out the airlock]].
* TheButcher: Fred Johnson is called "The Butcher of Anderson Station" after he brutally put down a worker revolt on Anderson Station eleven years before the series proper, despite the workers' own pleas to surrender. By the current time period [[TheAtoner he is working on behalf of the OPA to redeem himself]], but he is willing to lean on his reputation if necessary to get the compliance of others. [[spoiler:Season two reveals that he didn't know Anderson Station was trying to surrender, and learning the truth is what spurred him to defect]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:C]]
* CallBack:
** Diogo reintroduces himself to Miller in "Doors and Corners" by shouting, "Stay away from the aqua," recalling Miller's parting warning to him in "The Big Empty".
** While infiltrating Eros in "Home", Miller returns to the pachinko parlor he and Holden hid out in for awhile in "Leviathan Wakes".
* CallingTheOldManOut: Miller finds a video message of Julie Mao doing this:
--> '''Julie:''' You're so blind and so condescending, and you're never going to change. If you won't take yourself seriously as an adult then why should I care about being your child? You wanna sell the ''Razorback'', do it. You can't buy me off or control me anymore. Maybe what you hate about me the most is that [[TooMuchAlike I remind you of yourself]].
* CameraSpoofing: When Anderson Dawes kidnaps [[spoiler:Cortazar]], he loops the camera feeds in that section of the station so no one realizes until he's well on his way out.
* TheCameo: The season 2 finale features a brief onscreen appearance by Creator/AdamSavage.
* CanonForeigner:
** The UN's ambassador to Mars, Franklin [=DeGraaf=].
** Kenzo, the corporate espionage spy from Tycho Station.
* CantStopTheSignal:
** Despite talk in "The Big Empty" about the ''Donnager'' already being in jamming range when Holden sends out his message, events on Earth and Ceres in the next episode revolve around reactions to his broadcast, so it clearly got out.
** In the titular {{Flashback}} in "Back to the Butcher", some Belter protesters transmit a signal to anyone listening when it becomes clear the UN just intends to kill them all without further negotiation.
** In "Critical Mass", Fred Johnson beams out a transmission containing evidence pinning all the recent strife on [[spoiler: Earth]], and since the culprits cannot stop him they waste no time manufacturing evidence pointing right back at him.
** Subverted in "Godspeed". When the crew of the ''Rocinante'' catches a humanitarian group investigating Eros, they jam long-range comms. The group tries to break for signal range by going around the asteroid, so Holden reluctantly blows up their ship.
* TheCaptain:
** Holden on the ''Rocinante'', despite Amos' initial insistence that he isn't.
** Captain Yao of the ''MCRN Donnager'', and Captain Kirino of the ''MCRN Hammurabi''.
** Fred Johnson for Tycho Station.
** Camina Drummer, Johnson's NumberTwo, becomes this for the repurposed [[spoiler:''Nauvoo'']] (now the ''OPAS Behemoth'') as of "Delta-V". This causes some tension with [[spoiler:Klaes Ashford, her First Officer from Dawes's faction. When Drummer is seriously injured in "Fallen World" and temporarily out of commission, Ashford replaces her as captain.]]
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: Lt. Sutton and [=GySgt.=] Bobbie Draper.
* CasualDangerDialogue: When Miller starts doing this in "Home", Naomi tells him, "Hey, don't get all [[PersonAsVerb Holden]] on me: weird and chatty under pressure."
* CasualInterplanetaryTravel: An AppliedPhlebotinum fusion drive allows this.
* CategoryTraitor: Miller is viewed as a traitor (''welwala'' in Belter Creole[[note]]It also means someone who's obsessed with the Inner Planets[[/note]]) by other Belters because he dresses like an Earther and works for Ceres' Earth-based police force, Star Helix Security.
* TheCavalryArrivesLate: In "Reload", some rescued Martians try to seize the ''Rocinante''. Holden and Bobbie manage to talk them down, at which point Amos shows up and immediately lampshades his tardiness.
-->'''Amos:''' Did I miss it?
* CentralTheme:
** ThePowerOfTrust and our emotional connections with each other.
** No matter our different backgrounds and philosophies, [[MirrorCharacter we're all far more similar to each other than we'd ever like to admit]].
** Even into the (relatively) far future, [[HumansAreFlawed humanity will change relatively little]] while our technology does by leaps and bounds.
* CentrifugalGravity:
** Belter stations like Ceres and Eros are asteroids that have been artificially "spun up" to create gravity through centrifugal force. The show occasionally shows how liquid and dust fall in unusual ways due to the high rate of spin required to achieve the effect.
** Tycho Station is a roving construction yard that has rotating habitat sections to provide inhabitants with gravity while maintaining gravity-free construction space.
** The GenerationShip ''Nauvoo'' is capable of generating rotational gravity through a massive drum that dominates the habitable section of the ship. This comes in handy in "Fallen World", [[spoiler:when the Ring Station has frozen every other ship in the vicinity, making the rechristened ''Behemoth'' the only ship capable of generating gravity for the proper treatment of wounds]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** BoomerangBigot Miller has a minor epiphany in "Static" when he catches himself using the word "us" to refer to all Belters, including himself. He also becomes significantly more altruistic and selfless after [[spoiler:discovering Julie Mao's corpse]], to the point of [[spoiler:performing a HeroicSacrifice by convincing the resurrected Julie to have Eros crash into Venus instead of Earth]].
** Holden becomes more and more accepting of the fact that he lives in a [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Solar System]] and even takes a certain level in cynicism, [[KnightInSourArmor but still never lets go of trying to make]] the Solar System a better place for everyone.
** Amos starts to develop the vestiges of an internal moral code for himself after he gains a BrokenPedestal for Naomi and forms an OddFriendship with Prax.
** Both Alex and Naomi find themselves DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife aboard the ''Rocinante'', with Alex quickly realizing that he's at his happiest as the ''Roci'''s pilot. Meanwhile, Naomi takes time off to [[spoiler:help work with the [=OPA=] on the ''Behemoth'']] before figuring out that she truly misses being with her friends aboard the ''Roci'' more than anything else.
** Bobbie Draper starts out as a typical gun-ho Martian Marine, but the [[TraumaCongaLine massacring of her entire squad]] and the realization of [[spoiler:TheConspiracy within the [=MCR=] government]] has her defect to the [=UN=]. Furthermore, she starts to better understand how many lies she's been fed her entire life and strives to earn her own independence from Mars, to the point where she both forms an IntergenerationalFriendship with Chrisjen (even serving as her ''bodyguard'' for most of the first half of Season 3) and even becoming [[spoiler: a crew member aboard the ''Rocinante''.]]
* ChekhovsGun:
** Julie Mao's animatronic gerbil, which turns out to [[spoiler: conceal the data chip with information on the Phoebe incident that led her to the ''Anubis'']].
** Julie's racing sled, the ''Razorback'', is a big one for Seasons 2 and 3.
*** In "Home", Miller realizes that [[spoiler:Eros is heading for Earth because it's assimilated Julie, who thinks she's flying the ''Razorback'' home]].
*** And in the Season 3 premiere, [[spoiler:Bobbie and Avasarala use the ''Razorback'' to escape Jules-Pierre Mao's yacht right before a missile strike destroys it]].
** The GenerationShip ''Nauvoo'' is revealed to be one when Miller incorporates it into his new plan in "Static". And again in Season 3 when [[spoiler:Fred Johnson has it recovered and retrofitted into a Belter warship rechristened the ''Behemoth'']].
** Part of Melba Koh's introduction in Season 3 consists of her getting lectured on how ''not'' to install an electrical component lest it shut down the entire ship in a DisasterDominoes effect. This knowledge comes in very handy in the season finale.
** Holden's cancer. Or specifically, the medication he's been taking for it all the way since the Eros incident ends up being able to kill the [[spoiler: blinding micro-organisms caught by everyone on Ilus inside the protomolecule structure.]]
** Early in Season 5, Holden uses an injector to re-oxydize Monica Stuart's blood so she doesn't die oxygen deprivation. Later in the season, [[spoiler:Naomi uses a similar injector to survive jumping through the vacuum of space without protective gear.]]
* ChekhovsSkill:
** {{Subverted}} by Havelock's practice with Belter Creole and gestures. Worse than useless, it's ''comical'' to the thugs who ambush him in "Remember the Cant".
** Played straight by Bobbie being strong enough to arm-wrestle her own PowerArmor. [[spoiler:When she battles the Hybrid!Katoa on Io in "Immolation", they both fall from a great height that damages her armor, leaving it as nothing more than dead weight around her. She uses this skill to lift her arm up high enough to shoot the Hybrid before it can kill her.]]
* TheChessmaster: Avasarala tries to manipulate every given situation to come out her way.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Holden has it.
--> '''Naomi:''' It's not your problem. It's not your fault! None of it is.\\
'''Holden:''' Okay, but now I'm ''making'' it my problem.
* ChildrenAreInnocent:
** The three-year-old girl outside Miller's apartment with her pet bird in "Dulcinea".
** Avasarala's grandson doesn't understand his grandmother's fear of an interplanetary war resulting in a ColonyDrop.
---> '''Grandson:''' ''Nobody'' could throw rocks that big. It just happens sometimes because, you know, gravity.
* CityMouse: Miller notes that he's "more of a city Belter" when asked why he's never done a space-walk before in "Godspeed".
* CivilWarVersusArmageddon: The Earth-Mars Coalition breaks down into interplanetary war and the Belters openly rebel against both planets due to the machinations of a MegaCorp experimenting with -- and failing to control -- the alien Protomolecule that threatens to consume all life in the solar system.
* TheCityNarrows: The Medina district, located at the innermost part of Ceres Station, where CentrifugalGravity is weak and property is cheap.
* CivilWar: Although Earth, Mars, and the Belt are increasingly independent, many still consider a potential war between them to be this within a united humanity.
* {{Cliffhanger}}:
** "The Big Empty" ends with Holden's crew being captured by [[spoiler: the Martian Navy]].
** "Remember the Cant" ends with [[spoiler: Havelock]] being ambushed and impaled.
** "Leviathan Wakes" (and therefore Season 1) ends with Holden's crew picking up the villains' transmission back to their base, and the protomolecule evolving.
** "Godspeed" ends as the protomolecule [[spoiler: begins ''moving'' Eros]], with Miller trapped aboard manning a DeadManSwitch.
** "Caliban's War" ends with Fred Johnson [[spoiler:finding the protomolecule that Naomi left for him, and Naomi revealing to Holden that she did so (and essentially betrayed his and the rest of the crew's trust)]], then cuts off before showing much of Holden's reaction to this.
** "Immolation" ends with the protomolecule growth on Venus launching a jellyfish-like structure into space for purposes unknown.
** "Dandelion Sky" ends as the Ring Station [[spoiler:slows the "speed limit" in the Slow Zone down greatly, jolting every spaceship there to a grinding halt that injures or kills hundreds of people, and shows Holden things that happened in the past]], leaving him in a HeroicBSOD.
** "Abaddon's Gate" has this same station [[spoiler:open up numerous other portals, leading to some ''1300'' habitable systems for humanity to explore. The ''Rocinante'' crew, now back together, decides to head through one of them to begin investigating what happened to the race of {{Precursors}} who built the Ring portal system]].
** "Cibola Burn" ends Season 4 with [[spoiler:ArcVillain Inaros [[ThrownOutTheAirlock spacing]] Klaes Ashford before launching the last of six stealth-coated asteroids at Earth, with none of the protagonists being aware of the impending ColonyDrop. However, Ashford managed to broadcast a warning before dying, setting the stage for Season 5.]]
* ClearMyName: The Rocinante crew are forced to make a run for the Ring Gate in Season 3 after [[spoiler:Clarissa Mao]] frames James Holden for a politically motivated act of sabotage, and are fired upon. Holden is later detained by the MCRN and must convince those in command that he is neither a terrorist nor insane.
* CloseUpOnHead: The series' opening scene builds outward from an extreme closeup of Julie Mao's face, which writer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3zQyV6HzIE Hawk Ostby says]] they did to [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] the StandardEstablishingSpaceshipShot.
* CodeName:
** Julie Mao's OPA operative code name is "[[GenderBlenderName Lionel Polanski]]".
** Avasarala's security code name is "Archangel".
* ColdBloodedTorture: Avasarala does this to a Belter caught smuggling illegal stealth tech simply by exposing him to Earth's gravity; because his body is [[SpacePeople not adapted to it]], he suffers tremendously. Avasarala gets chewed out for this but isn't punished, and the smuggler goes on to use gravity itself as his CyanidePill by wrestling out treatment for a multi-g transit to Luna, proving it [[TortureIsIneffective wasn't going to work]] no matter how long they left him on those hooks. [[TrashTalk She even taunts him when she visits him to hear who he's working for]]:
-->'''Chrisjen Avasarala:''' I'm sorry the gravity of a ''real'' planet hurts, but it's appropriate: you wish to hurt Earth, the Earth that is now crushing your ''weak'' Belter lungs and your ''fragile'' Belter bones.
* ColdEquation:
** {{Averted}} when Shed chooses to save Alex from suffocation by sharing his air supply with him in "The Big Empty".
** Anderson Dawes describes facing this choice with his ill sister Athena when recalling his backstory in "Rock Bottom".
* ColonelBadass: Fred Johnson was one when he still served the UN. Avasarala still calls him by this rank to appeal to his old allegiance when she secretly reaches out to him in "Static".
* ColonizedSolarSystem: Humanity has yet to expand beyond, and only Mars and the Asteroid Belt are heavily settled, with a couple outposts at least as far out as the Saturnine moon Phoebe (where the protomolecule was discovered).
* ColonyDrop:
** Given Avasarala's reaction to her grandson's talk about the dinosaur-killer and her worry about "people who throw rocks" in "CQB", this trope is the new MutuallyAssuredDestruction.
** In "Rock Bottom" Diogo's Uncle Matteo attacks a Martian patrol skiff using his cargo (a small asteroid) as an improvised weapon.
** "Godspeed"/"Home" has [[spoiler:Eros pushed out of orbit by the protomolecule]] and set on a collision course with Earth. Given it's three-times bigger than the rock which took out the dinosaurs, stopping it is of vital importance. [[spoiler:Thanks to Miller, it ends up hitting Venus with an impressive boom.]]
** The [[spoiler: crisis on Ganymede is caused by the destruction of an orbital solar mirror which impacts on a large part of the surface colony, the fallout of which renders the rest of the colony uninhabitable.]]
** The season finale of season 4 has [[spoiler: Marco launching asteroids outfitted with Martian stealth technology at Earth]], which make impact three episodes into season 5. [[spoiler:Three hit Earth before the UN catches on and retasks their satellites to detect and destroy the remaining rocks, which is more than enough for Marcos to make his case that the rest of the solar system should fear retribution by the Belt.]]
** He repeats the trick in the season 5 finale, [[spoiler:engineering a stealthed meteorid storm on the fleet guarding the Sol Ring at the same time his own fleet moves into attack position. It turns what would have been a CurbStompBattle against him into an almost complete rout. Marco only loses a few skiffs to the damaged capital ships, aided by a fleet of defecting Martians]].
** Season 6 opens with Marco launching small asteroids daily at Earth. They're easily shot down, but Marco has the resources to keep it up for months, and Earth can't afford to move their fleet without potentially allowing additional impacts.
* ColorWash: Scenes aboard ships get a heavy blue filter.
* CombatTentacles: Season 1 ends with the protomolecule seizing a character with these.
* ComicallySmallDemand: PlayedForLaughs in "Home" when Fred Johnson's response to being called "the most powerful man in the System right now" is a sardonic, "Oh really? Then [[YouGetMeCoffee go get me a cup of coffee]]." Instead, Drummer just smirks and [[FlippingTheBird flips him off]].
* CommieNazis: A downplayed variant with the Martian Congressional Republic. While their heavy nationalism, [[FantasticRacism habitual disregard for Earthers and Belters]], and insistence that ''they'' are the future of humanity [[PuttingOnTheReich comes across as disturbingly similar to Nazi Germany]], their SpaceColdWar with the United Nations on Earth and other cultural attributes (such as government-planned economics being responsible for their terraforming efforts) bear more similarities to the Soviet Union.
* CommitmentIssues:
** Ade Nygaard just wants to stay a FriendWithBenefits to Holden, who's disappointed but understanding.
** Holden himself has been the acting XO of the ''Canterbury'' for months, but refuses the captain's offer [[RankUp to make it permanent.]]
* CompanionCube: Alex develops a ''very'' personal connection to every ship he pilots, and he falls absolutely head-over-heels in love with the ''Rocinante''.
* CompanyTown: Ceres and the other large Belt settlements are run as such, which is why the OPA is becoming popular.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In the novels, it's a Martian InnocentBystander named Enrique Dos Santos rather than [[spoiler: Havelock]] who gets impaled by angry Belters.
** The show's Lieutenant Lopez takes on the roles of two Martian lieutenants from the novels: the selfsame Lt. Lopez who interrogates Holden, and marine Lt. Kelly who helps Holden's crew escape.
** In the books, Octavia Muss takes over as Miller's partner after Havelock leaves Ceres at Miller's urging, and Miller has an ex-wife named Candace who is mentioned a few times. In the show, Octavia is one of Miller's colleagues and has a quasi-romantic relationship with him (or at least did once).
** Cotyar of the show fills the roles of both Cotyar of the books as Avasarala's head of security, and also of Soren, Avasarala's much put upon personal assistant who dutifully absorbs the majority of her vitriol.
** Camina Drummer takes on the roles of many different characters at different times. In Season 2, she serves the roles of both her namesake (Fred Johnson's security chief) and Sam Rosenberg (Tycho's top engineer and friend of the ''Roci'' crew). In Season 3, she [[DecompositeCharacter shares the role]] of Michio Pa (XO of the ''Behemoth'') with Klaes Ashford, as well as filling that of Bull de Baca (Fred Johnson's protogee who's [[spoiler: paralyzed by the hard deceleration]]). In Season 4, her material is basically [[AdaptationExpansion entirely new]]. Then Season 5 sees her back in Michio Pa's new role as the polyamorous space-pirate who [[spoiler: defects from the Free Navy]].
** [[DecompositeCharacter Inverted]] with Col. Janus, who doesn't appear in the books, but exists in the show as a counterpoint to Dr. Iturbi, providing the viewer with an interesting character dynamic instead of just stale reports to Avasarala.
* TheConfidant: Holden will discuss things with Naomi that he won't with the rest of the crew.
* ConLang: Belters speak "Belter Creole", a ''patois'' featuring words from Russian, Turkish, German, etc. and integrates hand gestures [[AllThereInTheManual for communicating in spacesuits]]. They also continue to speak English (using an accent that sounds vaguely Afrikaans) and Chinese (which is heard in station announcements).
* ConnectedAllAlong: Julie Mao's disappearance, the attacks on the ''Canterbury'' and ''Donnager'', the ruin of Phoebe Station, the bio-weapon on the ''Anubis'', it all leads to [[spoiler: the release of the protomolecule on Eros]].
* ContinuousDecompression: Played fairly realistically in "CQB" when a railgun blows two fairly large holes in the room the crew are in, and they have to quickly but calmly patch the holes. Naomi also notes afterward that since air was rushing out both sides, they're now trapped in a room surrounded by hard vacuum.
* TheConscience:
** In addition to being TheCaptain, Holden is often his crew's voice of morality, though he himself turns to Naomi if he's having doubts about something.
** Amos doesn't seem to have much of a sense of morality, but he usually has a pretty good idea of what Naomi would or wouldn't approve of and uses that to guide his actions.
* ConspicuousConsumption: A summit between the UN and MCR takes place on Earth in a large, mostly empty hall with big windows that let in plenty of sunlight. There are also large flower arrangements and a buffet featuring plenty of fresh fruit on clear display. This is all done so that the UN can thumb its nose at the MCR delegation, showing the Martians that, in spite of their superiority complex over Earth, none of them will ever get to see such luxuries on Mars in their lifetimes.
* TheConspiracy: The ultimate culprit for everything in Seasons 1, 2, and the first half of 3 is one of these involving [[spoiler:billionaire Jules-Pierre Mao and UN Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright]].
* ContrivedCoincidence: Miller and Holden's storylines finally intersect in "Salvage" when their respective investigations lead them to the same hotel on Eros at the same time, with Miller arriving [[BigDamnHeroes just in time]] to save Holden and his crew from [[spoiler: a UN hit squad]], though its {{downplayed}} by the fact they've been WorkingTheSameCase.
* ConvenientlyTimedAttackFromBehind:
** Octavia saves Miller this way in "Rock Bottom".
** Similarly, Anna saves Naomi from Clarissa like this in "Fallen World".
* CoolStarship:
** The ''Rocinante'' is fairly plain on the outside, but the inside is pretty sleek and awesome.
** LDSS ''Nauvoo'', the only true starship in the series so far, is a GenerationShip and the largest vessel humanity has ever built. It also fully averts StandardHumanSpaceship, what with it being a cathedral as well as a ship. [[spoiler:Becomes even cooler once the OPA hijack it and turn it into the warship ''Behemoth'']].
* CopKiller: Filat Kothari and his goons become attempted ones in "Remember the Cant". Star Helix Security is not impressed.
* CorruptCop:
** Miller to an extent, though he has more boundaries than many LawEnforcementInc employees in the Belt.
** In Season 4, Esai Martin turns out to be one. Although a reasonably decent man at heart, he abuses his position and connections to get rich by stealing valuable tech from the Martian government.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Jules-Pierre Mao.
* CorruptPolitician:
** Miller justifies being a moderately CorruptCop by noting that his bosses are bribed even better.
** [[spoiler: Sadavir Errinwright]] is part of TheConspiracy.
* CosmicHorrorReveal: [[spoiler:The protomolecule, its effects, and the unknown intelligence behind it are less ''Film/IndependenceDay'' and more "Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace".]]
* CostumePorn: Avasarala seems to wear a different intricately-made and vibrantly-coloured sari in every scene.
* CrapsackWorld: Things are better than they are in the 21st century in certain respects, but the more things change the more things stay the same. [[WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture Advanced medical technology]] and [[FutureFoodIsArtificial synthetic foods]] may have made [[ThePlague disease]] and [[ReducedToRatburgers hunger]] less of an issue than any previous era, but they've been overshadowed by [[OverpopulationCrisis overpopulation]], [[SlobsVersusSnobs class warfare]] and [[GreenAesop extreme environmental damage]]. Each nation (Earth, Mars, and the Belt) is consumed by their own problems for their inhabitants.
** Although Earthers have an average life expectancy of ''123'', a total population of 30 billion and a dramatic rise in sea levels has led to job shortages and most remaining land being heavily developed, so most people live on some sort of government assistance. People on "Basic Assistance" live in cardboard boxes, without access to medical care or clean drinking water, and can spend decades waiting for job training to even have the chance of getting off Basic. Private property is heavily regulated to the point that a 22-acre farm in Montana[[note]]An average 21st-century family-owned farm in the United States is 441 acres[[/note]] is considered extravagant and the government would like nothing better than to seize it.
** The life expectancy on Mars is even higher than Earth's due to its superior tech base - but it's also a hardline military dictatorship, with [[TheDictatorship all that implies]]. We see emphasis placed on order and discipline even above self-preservation, and Martian soldiers are callously disposed of by superiors if it can be justified for the 'good of Mars'. For civilians, civil liberties appear to be easily revoked when we see police actions in season four. And though Mars has an infamously low unemployment rate up through season three -- so low that Bobbie Draper cannot even recall the last time she even saw an unemployed person -- it lacks any sort of large-scale social safety net so it is completely unprepared to help people when unemployment drastically rises after the Rings open.
** The average Belter life expectancy is ''68''. Low- or zero-gravity takes its toll on muscle and bone growth, hypoxic environments stunt child development, cops are often just thugs with badges, and general poverty and organized crime reign. Most Belters die a ''lot'' sooner due to the screwed-up infrastructure of their stations, let alone the rampant crime and corruption as well as strict water and air rationing. Drug use and slumlording is ignored while water theft—''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greywater greywater]]'' theft—is harshly punished. The Belter working class are stuck in highly dangerous jobs and forced to live in tight quarters. Earther and Martian corporations run operations in the Belt and outer moons with virtually no oversight and often [[NoOSHACompliance pay only lip service to employee safety and health benefits]], while paying next to nothing. Various outer moons, asteroids, and space stations are ostensibly governed, if at all, by Earth or Mars, but it’s obvious to Belters that the "Inners" don’t give a shit about them.
* CreatorProvincialism:
** A minor point, but despite the UN's OneWorldOrder, the half of Earth's interplanetary nuclear arsenal that actually gets launched in "Home" appears to come solely from the continental United States.
** Bobby Draper, a 23rd-century SpaceMarine from Mars, is awarded the Purple Heart when she's wounded.
* CreepyCleanliness: Downplayed with the Martians and Earthers. The MCRN flagship ''Donnager'' is dark but clean and sterile, the elite levels of Ceres Station are a spotless white with islands of perfectly groomed green, and the UN headquarters in New York border on a [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas crystal spire]]. There's nothing really ''wrong'' with them being clean, except it serves to contrast their luxury with the Belters who are forced to live in squalor.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
** The OPA courier who had been captured by Avasarala killed himself by slipping his slender neck between the safety restraints during a shuttle launch from Earth. It is unclear whether what ultimately killed him was avoiding the drugs intended to mitigate physiological damage from high-G acceleration, or simply having his airways collapse under the weight of his head.
** TheVirus slowly consumes whoever it infects, keeping them alive as it eats them. You only get to die when its growth stops something important, like breathing, [[spoiler:and even then that may not be the end of you]].
** Several individuals are [[spoiler: disassembled into their component organs by the Protomolecule]], becoming HumanResources.
* CultColony: In Season 1, the Mormons are financing humanity's first GenerationShip, and Miller gets to know one of their colonists on his transit to Eros. [[spoiler:Developments with the protomolecule see their ship hijacked, first as a massive bullet against Eros to knock it out of orbit and then repurposed as a Belter warship after that plan falls through.]]
* CulturalPosturing:
** The Belters take pride in how they manage to survive with so much less than the Inners. The ice-hauler Paj refuses even the idea of regenerating a lost arm by declaring, "Screw the Inners and their magic Jell-O! [[PresentCompanyExcluded No offence, Holden.]] I'd rather a Belter-built fake any day!"
** Martians believe that their planet-wide commitment to terraforming makes them superior to Earthers (Who they view as lazy) and Belters (Who they view as greedy).
* CultureClash:
** Earthers vs. Martians vs. Belters.
** Havelock (an Earther) is a complete FishOutOfWater on the Belter station of Ceres.
* CurbStompBattle:
** The Martian Navy is regarded as the preeminent military force in the system, and they are used to curb-stomping all opposition when it comes to an out-and-out fight. This leads to a severe shock to Captain Yao in "CQB" when [[SubvertedTrope it turns out that this fight is much more two-sided than anything she expected]]. The ''Donnager'' does manage to take out four of the six attacking ships, but the remaining two get close enough to launch boarding craft and Captain Yao has to self-destruct the ship to prevent a takeover.
** In a moment of frustration and anger, Alex makes the mistake of getting physical with Amos, who easily overpowers him. It doesn't turn into a real fight, but Amos makes damn sure Alex knows it is a very bad idea to pick one with him.
---> '''Amos:''' I don't want to fight you, Alex. Please don't make me. 'Cause if we do, who's going to fly the ship?
** At the climax of season two, [[spoiler:when Bobbie Draper gets her PowerArmor she ''walks'' through the gunmen attempting to kill her, Avasarala, and Cotyar.]]
* CuttingTheKnot: The ''Rocinante'' is held in place by docking clamps and none of the codes the crew knows works. Alex gets around this problem by breaking off some clamps through sheer force and then simply jettisoning the fake gas tanks the remaining clamps were holding onto.
-->'''Alex:''' ''You'' are a gunship and ''I'' am a Navy pilot, so... to ''hell'' with this "gas-hauler" bullshit!
* CyanidePill: The Belter smuggler subjected to gravity torture on Earth uses ''gravity itself'' as this by wrestling out of his gravity-coping treatment during his multi-g transit to Luna, thus avoiding further interrogation and proving it wasn't going to work no matter how long they left him on those hooks.
* CyberPunk: With a bit more emphasis on the "punk" than the "cyber".
* TheCynic: Miller.
* CynicismCatalyst: Anderson Dawes's ill sister Athena didn't just die, Dawes himself had to kill her [[ColdEquation to save the rest]] of the family, including his three other sisters.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* DaChief: Captain Shaddid of Star Helix Security is a female example.
* DaddyIssues: Neither of the Mao sisters had a healthy relationship with their father. Julie, despite benefiting from ParentalFavoritism, chafed under his hypocrisy and impossible expectations, which drove her to forsake her family and run away to the belt. Clarissa was TheUnFavorite despite being devoted to their father, who never appreciated a single thing she did. This drove a wedge between Clarissa and Julie and became Clarissa's FreudianExcuse for much worse things.
* DarkAndTroubledPast:
** It's stated multiple times that anyone who signs up as crew for a ship like the ''Canterbury'' is probably running from something in their past. Holden left Earth because, "everything I loved was dying," and the UN Navy because he didn't want to be an oppressor. Alex is a washed-up divorcee, Shed is hiding from debts to drug dealers, and Naomi has some kind of OPA affiliation but [[NotInThisForYourRevolution doesn't believe in causes]].
** Miller's badly-fused vertebrae are described as the mark of a ward of the state who was given cheap medication as a child, and he later tells Holden he and Sematimba were {{Street Urchin}}s who stole chips from pachinko parlors and joined LawEnforcementInc Star Helix to hand out beatings instead of taking them.
** Amos is secretive about his rough background on Earth. He makes oblique references to having grown up around prostitution and crime, including child trafficking, and in season three the only records a reporter can find about the name "Amos Burton" at all are related to some sort of mob boss. [[spoiler: In Season 5, we learn that all of Amos' hints were accurate, and he murdered the mob boss 'Amos Burton' to save a friend and used his identity to leave Earth.]]
** During his time as a UN Marine colonel, OPA leader Fred Johnson destroyed a station full of Belter mutineers and their children even though they were trying to surrender, earning himself the epithet "TheButcher of Anderson Station".
* DarkerAndEdgier: The novels are by no means all fluffy bunnies and sunshine, but the show definitely takes a darker interpretation of the material.
* DarkReprise: A much more somber version of the main theme plays over the montage that ends "[[WhamEpisode Immolation]]". Ironically, this was the first episode to air after Syfy announced the series' cancellation, which makes the sequence [[HarsherInHindsight far sadder than was intended]] (luckily, Creator/PrimeVideo picked up the show for a fourth season a few weeks later).
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Octavia cites this as a common form of rebellion, implicitly from personal experience.
* DavidVsGoliath: In "Doors and Corners", the crew has to outfight the stealth ship that both outsizes and outguns the ''Rocinante'' to protect two {{Boarding Pod}}s attempting to breach the station the ship is protecting. It takes some fancy maneuvering around the station's habitat ring, the ''Rocinante'' takes a decent beating, and they lose a pod when the station reveals it has a functioning anti-asteroid gun, but they manage to disable both the stealth ship and the station's defences.
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:The civilzation that built the protomolecule and the ring network turns out to have been wiped out by an unknown party long ago.]]
* DeadlyEuphemism: In "Windmills", Errinwright activates a black-ops team to "take Holden off the board."
* DeadManSwitch: A rain of shrapnel damages the last of the massive explosive charges being planted by Miller and Diogo in "Godspeed", triggering the 60-second timer and forcing someone to hold their finger on a reset button to keep it from detonating. Naomi offers to remotely shut it down, but since they're short on time, [[spoiler: Miller]] decides to stay behind and detonate it himself. Events conspire to keep him from having to go through with it... at least immediately.
* DeadpanSnarker:
** Miller.
*** When asked why he wears his distinctive hat, Miller claims "It keeps the rain off my head," which would be snarky even if he wasn't a lifelong inhabitant of an artificial biosphere who's never even ''experienced'' rain.
*** When told that the bomb he's holding the DeadManSwitch on needs extra work to disarm in "Home", Miller remarks, "Yep, my bomb has to be special," and once the plan changes he declares, "I'm gonna take my pet nuke for a walk."
** In "The Big Empty", Naomi doesn't take well to everyone's hesitation: "I'm sorry, does anyone need a back rub first?"
** Chrisjen Avasarala, full-stop. Just a few gems from her:
--->"No, I wasn't murdered in the last 30 seconds."\\
"I find it hard to believe that a Martian Marine would be fatigued from sitting in a chair."\\
"This is going to be very tedious if you remain this dim."
** Her bodyguard Cotyar Ghazi as well, to the point that most of his conversations with Avasarala are SnarkToSnarkCombat.
--->'''Chrisjen''': So, what do you think?\\
'''Cotyar''': Why do you pretend that you care about my opinion?\\
'''Chrisjen''': Indulge me.\\
'''Cotyar''': That's a fuckin' trap.\\
'''Chrisjen''': Oh, you're so predictable.\\
'''Cotyar''': Yeah, so are you.
* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Sematimba, Admiral Souther, Cotyar, Tilly, Diogo, and Alex]] all bite the dust, unlike their novel counterparts.
* DeathGlare: Holden gives Naomi one when she locks him out of control of the ''Knight'''s so he can't chase stupidly after an extremely dangerous ship in "The Big Empty".
* DeathOfAChild:
** In the backstory in "Back To the Butcher", the station nuked to bits by Fred Johnson had entire families on board, and there's a shot of a dead father holding his daughter's corpse as they float through space.
** In the Season 1 finale "Leviathan Wakes", [[spoiler:the entire population of Eros station is [[HumanResources consumed]] by the protomolecule]], which is implied to include a little girl Naomi couldn't convince to leave the station with her.
* DealWithTheDevil: Naomi worries they're doing this by accepting Fred Johnson's invitation in "Back to the Butcher".
* DecontaminationChamber: The ''Roci'''s airlock doubles as one in "Salvage".
* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] has all the potential to be a main character but turns up dead instead.
* DefectorFromCommieLand: While Mars is not specifically communist [[spoiler:Bobby Draper escaping from the Martin embassy]] is styled directly after incidents and locations from West Berlin and the Korean DMZ.
* DefectorFromDecadence:
** Despite her father being one of the wealthiest men in the System, Julie Mao is fundamentally committed to opposing the Inner Planets' oppression of the Belt.
** In the eleven years since he blew up Anderson Station, Fred Johnson has transitioned from a colonel of UN SpaceMarines into a leader of the OPA. His reasons fit the trope even more once "Doors and Corners" reveals [[spoiler:his nickname and reputation are based on a lie: Anderson Station's transmissions were being jammed the entire time, and he had no idea they had surrendered.]]
* DemotedToExtra:
** Basia Merton has a brief apperance in Season 2, but does not return in Season 4, which adapts the book where he is a main character in. His role in the Ilus arc is given to his wife Lucia Mazur.
** Although Miller's partner Havelock was given [[AscendedExtra a larger role]] in Season 1 than in the first novel, when it came to adapting the Ilus arc where he's a viewpoint character, he's AdaptedOut entirely.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: While threatening the Martians in "The Monster and the Rocket", Holden warns them that ''"this is our only, and final, warning"''.
* DesignerBabies: Reasonably common, since Lt. Lopez describes Holden as such like it's a mundane fact in "Remember the Cant", though their dialogue implies a "full genetic mix" from eight people is more peculiar.
* DetonationMoon: The Martians destroy [[spoiler:the Saturnine moon Phoebe]] to keep Earth from investigating it first. In retaliation, Earth blows up [[spoiler:Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons]], reasoning that the base there is lightly staffed and of little strategic significance. Avasarala and Souther protest that this will seriously piss off the Martians, but are overruled.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: Holden and Miller bear the brunt of the storytelling together throughout Season 1 and the first half of Season 2, with Avasarala and others providing a ThirdLineSomeWaiting. Afterwards, other major characters, such as Bobbie, Prax, and Anna, have their own storylines and become deuteragonists and tritagonists to the ''Rocinante'' crew.
* DiedStandingUp: Due to a combination of magnetic boots and lack of gravity, most people killed on a spaceship tend to be left floating in a standing position, which makes hallways full of bodies that much creepier.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: [[spoiler:Fred Johnson]] is shot dead by Sakai during the Free Navy raid on Tycho, whereas in the books he dies from a stroke caused by a combination of old age (being much older in the books) and poorer quality "juice" to cope with prolonged high g-force maneuvers. His death also comes an entire book/season earlier than in the books where the killer maneuvers happen during the ''Rocinante'' vs. ''Pella'' battle adapted in Episode 6.03 "Force Projection".
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Holden's initial reaction to the loss of the ''Canterbury'' is to chase down the enemy ship, never remembering he's in a leaky lifeboat. The others have to restrain him until he calms down.
** Solomon Epstein, inventor of the Epstein drive which all current spaceships use, was tinkering with his prototype and disabled the voice recognition software because it was acting up (mainly because he didn't speak Chinese). Doing this killed him, because once he started up the drive, the g-forces pinned him to his seat, preventing him from shutting it off.
* DirtyCop:
** Star Helix is the closest thing to law on Ceres, but is generally accepted to care more about [[LawEnforcementInc profits]] than the law, and even Miller is not averse to bribes and brutality. Later, [[spoiler: their chief, Captain Shaddid, is revealed to be working for OPA boss Anderson Dawes when she fires Miller to cover up what Julie Mao was doing for the OPA.]]
** CPM is even worse than Star Helix. The majority of their officers are former gang members, and are easily bought by the PrivateMilitaryContractors working for TheConspiracy, showing no remorse in [[spoiler: exposing the citizens of Eros to the protomolecule and lethal radiation]].
** Pinkwater, the private police force that guards Winnipesaukee Island. After [[spoiler:the rocks fall and their employers abandon them]], Pinkwater shakes down the servants who maintain the Island's facilities for supplies and murder them if they refuse to hand them over. Erich laughs at their transparently obvious racket and they're forced to back down when confronted with actual criminals, though they come back in greater numbers.
* DisabilityImmunity: The children Protogen kidnapped from Ganymede possess a rare genetic defect that inhibits the growth of the protomolecule, keeping it from asserting its own will as it does in everything else it infects. However, this resistance isn't perfect, ultimately only slowing the transformation.
* DisappearedDad: Alex is one to his son.
* DisappearingBullets:
** In "Leviathan Wakes," [[spoiler: Amos]] shoots [[spoiler: Sematimba]], spattering Naomi with blood from the exit wound, but the bulkhead and panels next to her are unscathed.
** In "Doors and Corners," members of Miller's boarding party surround a group of Protogen scientists using a strange computer interface in a small room. When they react violently to being disconnected from it, the Belters panic and mow them down with full-automatic fire. As in, ''guys standing in a circle facing inward spray bullets at other guys in the middle, with their own guys just a few feet behind the targets''. Miraculously, they manage to avoid friendly fire, though Miller cringes and tries to get them to hold fire. Played somewhat for dark humor, as Miller is clearly herding cats as he tries to lead the eager but inexperienced OPA fighters.
* DisposableSexWorker:
** {{Inverted}} in "Dulcinea" when a brothel patron killed by some other thugs is simply disposed of while Miller gently reassures the sex worker witness Gia, who goes on to become a minor character via PlatonicProstitution with Havelock.
** Also inverted in "Rock Bottom" when Amos makes a point of telling a male prostitute that a potential patron is packing a knife.
* DisposableVagrant: TheConspiracy behind the protomolecule seem to consider ''all Belters'' this, since they infect [[spoiler: the ''entire population'' of Eros]] with the protomolecule just to see what happens.
* DistinguishingMark: Anderson Dawes has a prominent scar on his neck where a faulty EVA suit caused electrical burns. It's shared by a generation of older Belters including founding members of the OPA, and later generations (including Naomi) have similar marks tattooed on their necks as a sign of solidarity or allegiance.
* DistressCall: Holden's storyline in "Dulcinea" centres around the ''Canterbury'' receiving one from a ship called ''Scopuli''. Captain [=McDowell=] tries to pretend they never received it until Holden secretly logs it officially, leaving them legally required to respond.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** The OPA monogram is a circular O containing an A that's jagged enough to also pass for a P... kinda like some versions of the Anarchist A.
** The cry of "Remember the Cant!" deliberately echoes "Remember the Maine!", another ship who's destruction [[UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar triggered a war]].
** The stencil of Holden used by OPA members bares more than a little resemblance to the famous stencil of Che Guevara. Indeed Holden is mythologized as a freedom fighter and/or terrorist just like Guevara, even though Holden has no real political agenda.
** As aggressively nationalistic as they are, as much as they look down on Earthers and Belters, as much as they insist that ''they'' are the future of mankind, you could be forgiven for expecting the Martian Marines to start goose-stepping at any time.
** The SpaceColdWar between the United Nations on Earth and the Martian Congressional Republic doesn't even ''try'' to avoid looking like the historical UsefulNotes/{{Cold War}}. In fact, the "Vesta Blockade" mentioned in the backstory where the cold war nearly went hot can be seen as an allusion to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
** The struggles of the Belter colonies for their independence bear many parallels with those of various native resistance and independence movements seen during the height and decline of European imperialism.
* DomedHometown:
** Martians live under domes.
** Ganymede is the breadbasket of the Belt, and features large greenhouse domes that use enormous orbital mirrors to provide sufficient light.
* DoomedHometown:
** The ''Canterbury'' gets destroyed in the first episode, soon after Captain [=McDowell=] points out that it's effectively been Holden's home for the last five years.
** [[spoiler:Amos's hometown of Baltimore is devastated when Marco drops asteroids on Earth.]]
* DoubleTap: When Miller shoots [[spoiler:Dresden]] in the head, he follows it up with a couple more after the man has hit the floor just to make sure.
* DueToTheDead:
** Former soldiers Holden and Fred Johnson agree on the need to return [[spoiler: Lt. Lopez]]'s body to Mars in "Rock Bottom".
** Anderson Dawes describes leaving his dead little sister in a bauxite cave they found together.
** Miller gives [[spoiler: his old friend Sematimba]] a BurialInSpace near the end of "Safe".
** Holden gives a heartfelt last farewell to [[spoiler:Miller]] in "Cibola Burn". [[spoiler:Due to the real Miller being long dead by then, he uses the Protomolecule sample that was projecting him into his head as a substitute before launching it into the Sun.]]
* TheDulcineaEffect: {{Lampshaded}}. "Dulcinea" is literally the title of the series premiere, and in it Joe Miller develops a fascination with his subject Julie Mao, and to a lesser extent James Holden (an avid Cervantes fan) wants more from his FriendWithBenefits Ade Nygaard.
* DramaticIrony: The audience knows Kenzo is Avasarala's spy from the moment he first appears on screen, but Holden doesn't realize it until he betrays them on Eros two episodes later.
* DramaticSpaceDrifting:
** The embracing bodies of a father and daughter get this treatment after the destruction of Anderson Station in the titular sequence in "[[{{Flashback}} Back]] to TheButcher".
** AsteroidMiner Mateo leaves his nephew Diogo this way in "Rock Bottom", instead of taking him on his SuicideAttack.
** Much like in "Back to the Butcher", this is used in "Pyre" to emphasize the horror of some Belters having some innocent Earthers and Martians ThrownOutTheAirlock.
** Ashford's death scene.
* DrawingStraws: In "Home", Avasarala immediately proposes a lottery system for evacuating Earth.
* DreamIntro: The second episode opens with a dream that Jim has of the time he met his recently-deceased girlfriend while he was actually dozing off for a brief moment.
* DrillSergeantNasty: Although they [[DownplayedTrope sometimes display good camaraderie]], Bobbie Draper spends at lot of her screen-time shouting angrily at her squad and having [[WarHawk hawkish]] disagreements with her superior.
* DrivenToSuicide:
** The Belter smuggler who commits suicide during his transfer from Earth to Luna to avoid further interrogation using Earth's own gravity as his CyanidePill.
** Lt. Nemeroff, a crew member of the ''Thomas Prince'' who has a crisis of faith after the ship passes through the Ring and [[AteHisGun eats his gun]].
* DrivingQuestion: As in any good mystery story.
** "Who destroyed the ''Canterbury?''" and "What happened to Julie Mao?" in Season 1.
* DressingAsTheEnemy:
** Alex spends several episodes wearing an MCRN uniform, which is justified since he ''is'' ex-Martian Navy and wearing the uniform while piloting an obvious MCRN vessel to Tycho Station would allay suspicions if they were hailed.
** Holden and Miller swipe the uniforms of a pair of guards they kill on Eros so they can avoid trouble from other patrols.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In the fifth season finale, [[spoiler:Alex abruptly suffers a fatal stroke from being at a hard burn for too long. This is due to Cas Anvar being fired after the season had been filmed.]]
* DudeNotFunny: In "Paradigm Shift", Alex catches Amos "fixing" the Martian flag on the ''Roci'' (painting out [[spoiler:Deimos, which the UN destroyed two episodes prior]]). He's far from amused, since seventeen Martians died in that event and Mars lost a significant cultural icon. [[ContinuityNod Bobbie is similarly unamused]] when she actually gets a good look at it in "Assured Destruction" after [[spoiler:she and Avasarala temporarily join the ''Rocinante'']].
* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: Holden chooses to force the ''Canterbury'' to investigate a DistressCall rather than ignore it, which he knows will cost them their punctual delivery bonus.
* DyingAlone:
** In "Critical Mass", we learn [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] died a horrific, agonizing death all alone in a dark hotel room as TheVirus ate them from the inside out.
** {{Subverted}} in "Godspeed" when Miller is all set to do this, even turning off his radio so he can listen to the protomolecule's babbling broadcast in peace, until events conspire to keep him alive.
** Solomon Epstein is unable to call for help after becoming immobilized by a high-g burn, and winds up dying in his chair when he suffers a stroke as a result.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:E]]
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The first episode features a Belter who is extremely tall and fragile due to being raised in low gravity, which is explicitly described as being the standard Belter body type. Dialogue continues to describe Belters as such throughout the series, but the rest of the actors cast as Belters match normal human body types.
** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1.
* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Despite its many problems, Earth remains the only naturally habitable planet for humans [[spoiler:until the discovery of the Ring network]] and still commands the largest and most capable navy in the entire system. Both Mars and the Belt see themselves as independent of the home planet, though they are ultimately dependent on Earth for survival: it is still the largest supplier of food in the system, and provides the biomatter that makes offworld farming possible.
* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: Earth is rapidly heading in this direction, as ecological disaster, overpopulation, internal corruption, and political infighting chip away at its dominant position in Sol.
* EiffelTowerEffect: The opening credits use the Statue of Liberty to show rising sea levels on Earth. Then a new facility is constructed to raise it back to sea level.
* EldritchAbomination:
** The protomolecule. In its first appearance it's a squishy and cephalopodic MeatMoss surrounded by [[OccultBlueEyes occult blue]] bio-luminescent spores that runs on HumanResources. Then "Critical Mass" proves it's also [[TheVirus infectious]] via MutagenicGoo, and by "Leviathan Wakes" it has full-on CombatTentacles 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 [[OutsideContextProblem completely violates the laws of physics]] whenever it shows up in the story.
** First described in season three, then explored more in season four, are [[spoiler:the forces implied to have wiped the protomolecule's creators out. It is uncertain if they are actually lifeforms in any sense of the word. The only hints to their existence are through mysterious spatial anomalies that are essentially holes in space. They have the power to disable protomolecule-based technology and disintegrate anything transiting Ring space.]]
* ElectronicEyes:
** The corporate spy Kenzo has one that's featured in several POV shots in Season 1.
** Cohen the documentary camerman is blind, and sees ''through'' his cameras.
* EmergencyCargoDump: This is standard procedure when facing SpacePirates given Holden's desperate plea for ''Canterbury'' to eject its load of ice when attacked in "Dulcinea".
* EmptyChairMemorial: In "Home", the crew of the ''Rocinante'' pour Ganymede gin and raise a glass toward the empty chair where [[spoiler: Miller]] once sat.
* EmptyQuiver: When Earth launches half their nuclear arsenal to [[spoiler:stop Eros]], circumstances require them to hand over guidance to Fred Johnson. When the nukes prove unnecessary and Earth sends the abort codes to detonate them, Johnson manages to save and appropriate nearly 30 as an insurance policy.
* EnemyMine: In "Static", Avasarala reaches out to Fred Johnson, hoping he has solid proof of the conspiracy which he'd be willing to share. He transmits back the location of the derelict stealth ship which his team disabled in the previous episode.
* EnergyAbsorption: The protomolecule feeds on energy, as shown in "Salvage" when it's found wrapped around a deactivated reactor, and in "Critical Mass" when [[spoiler: Julie Mao smashes all her electronics in an attempt to slow its infection of her]].
* TheEngineer: Naomi and Amos' role on the ''Canterbury'' and the ''Rocinante''.
* EpicLaunchSequence: The ''Nauvoo'' is launched in "Godspeed" [[spoiler:after being hijacked by the OPA to destroy [[EldritchAbomination Eros]]]]. Being a GenerationShip, it's so big that hundreds of smaller drone-ships have to dock with it and fire their engines to help it maneuver.
* EpicTrackingShot: The series premiere, "Dulcinea", show off two of them:
** The EstablishingShot of Ceres Station begins with [[StandardizedSpaceViews ships in orbit]] before using everything from ventilation shafts to public transit to progress continuously from floor to ceiling down through the docks, the wealthy district, and the working-class districts before finally emerging from the ceiling of the slummy marketplace at the very heart of the asteroid. This establishes not only the station's layout, but that [[AlienGeometries "down" is out]] and gravity influences property value.
** Aboard the ''Canterbury'', Holden has a WalkAndTalk with Naomi and Amos that carries them down a hallway from just outside the galley, into an elevator, up several levels, down another hallway, and onto the bridge where Holden starts up another conversation with Alex in a single take that lasts for over a minute.
* EscapePod: ''Knight'' is technically a shuttle with other primary uses (like investigating a DistressCall 20,000 km out), but it serves this purpose for Holden's crew in "The Big Empty".
* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** Holden's decision to log the ''Scopuli'''s distress signal, committing the ''Canterbury'' to a dangerous rescue mission even though it could easily be a pirate trap, establishes him as the resident KnightInSourArmor.
** Avasarala is introduced tickling her grandson before hopping on a transport to oversee the ColdBloodedTorture of a tech smuggler, establishing her pretty solidly as a pragmatic anti-hero.
** Fred Johnson's first direct meeting with Holden consists of him effortlessly {{Sherlock Scan}}ning his way through Holden's bluff of having half a platoon of pissed off Martian marines on the ''Rocinante''.
* EstablishingShot: Used frequently, along with a TitleIn.
* EurekaMoment: Going through the data-broker's workshop Miller spots a [[spoiler: half-constructed robotic gerbil]] and immediately tears out of the room. It turns out [[spoiler: Julie Mao hid secret data from the broker inside a similar device]].
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Deep down, Jules-Pierre Mao does on some level love his daughter Julie. In fact, despite Julie's defiance, he nonetheless [[ParentalFavoritism favored her]] over her sister Clarissa.
** Esai Martin, while not nearly as messed-up as the above example, is a CorruptCop who sells Martian government property on the BlackMarket to make enough money for his family of four to purchase tickets on the colony ships lining up to settle the newly discovered Ring worlds.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: PlayedWith by Anderson Dawes, who professes disgust at Filat Kothari's ambush of [[spoiler:Havelock]] and offers the man's hiding location to Miller, but however real his revulsion might be what he's really looking for is leverage over Miller.
* EverybodyKnewAlready: When Holden and Naomi reveal their relationship to Amos and Alex, they cheer and groan respectively. Both had long since figured it out and were betting on when it started, a bet Alex lost.
* EveryManHasHisPrice: Anderson Dawes believes this and probes for Miller's. He's quite disappointed when Miller doesn't take up his offer of Filat Kothari's whereabouts.
* EvilutionaryBiologist: Dresden, again. As he explains in "Doors and Corners", he sees the protomolecule as the key to humanity's future, as it could allow all humans to [[MasterOfYourDomain adapt to any environment]], even hard vacuum. Therefore, he sees every horrible act he's committed as merely the price of progress.
* EvolvingCredits:
** Starting in Season 2, the credits change to reflect in-universe developments such as [[spoiler:the destruction of Deimos, the departure of the ''Nauvoo'' from Tycho Station, the protomolecule spreading across Venus, the nuclear attack on South America, the opening of the Ring gates and the asteroids hitting Earth]].
** In Season 6 there is also [[spoiler: an element of foreshadowing, as you can see the Ring Station having some kind of construction taking place, by Episode 5 it looks complete and in that episode, the construction is revealed to be a set of gigantic railguns that annihilate an attacking MCRN fleet.]]
* ExactWords: Faced with "unequivocal" orders that "under no circumstance" is he to let Phoebe Station fall into UNN hands, Lt. Sutton opts to [[spoiler:destroy the entire moon rather than waste his marines' lives contesting it]].
* TheExile: In "Pyre", Fred Johnson threatens this to Holden when he chooses to [[spoiler:head for Ganymede to destroy the new source of protomolecule that has popped up. Holden isn't deterred, partly because Fred may very well no longer be in command of Tycho Station by the time Holden gets back]].
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Polyamorous marriages aren't considered unusual. Holden has eight parents (five fathers, three mothers) since he was conceived from a mixture of all eight genetic profiles, though Mother Elise is the one who actually carried him to term.
The series hasn't explored whether Holden's parents really are polyamorous or are just [[RulesLawyer using every trick at their disposal]] to keep the government from seizing their land[[note]]In the books, Holden's parents consist of a monogamous homosexual couple, a monogoamous heterosexual couple, and a polyamorous foursome, with no overlap in romantic attachments[[/note]].
* ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: Montana is said to be located in the North American Trade Zone, presumably an expanded union of the USA, Canada and Mexico. It makes sense, given that Earth is essentially united in a OneWorldOrder run by the UN, that individual countries no longer have the same sovereignty they once did.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Miller has this reaction to meeting Holden.
--> '''Miller:''' Half the system thinks your some kind of outlaw hero, but you're really kind of clueless, aren't you?
* EyeScream:
** Not that they're alive to feel it, but victims of the protomolecule tend to sprout crystalline structures from their eyes.
** In Season 4, Holden has to take a sample of his own vitreous humor by jabbing a camera-guided syringe in his eye.
[[/folder]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A]]
* AbortedArc: Stealth technology found in the hands of the OPA is what kicks off the story for Chrisjen Avasarala on Earth, and initially leads her to believe that the OPA and Mars have entered into an alliance. During her investigation she learns that it is Protogen, not Mars, which is building a secret fleet of stealth warships as part of a massive conspiracy, and they are not supplying stealth technology to the OPA. After the reveal, how the OPA obtained those original samples -- or what they were going to be used for -- is never examined again. [[spoiler: WordOfGod says that those samples went to Marco Inaros, likely as part of his plan to use stealth rocks against Earth.]]
* AbsentAliens:
** {{Played with}}. The series starts with no aliens present in the solar system, but Dresden determines that the protomolecule is extra-solar in nature and is ecstatic that it's proof of alien life. [[spoiler:Season 3 reveals that it was created by a race of {{Precursors}} who used it to build and maintain their PortalNetwork before something wiped them all out]].
** Season 4 provides hard proof that at least some primitive alien life exists, with Ilus being home to some basic lifeforms.
** In season five, [[spoiler: it is revealed that the entities responsible for the destruction of the Builders still exist.]]
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Dialogue indicates that Belters as a whole are taller and thinner than Inners due to growing up in zero-g, and anti-belter slurs ("skinnies" and "long-bone") are based around this. Due to the impracticality of finding so many actors who fit that description, this is generally ignored when it comes to the actual body types portrayed onscreen.
* AcePilot:
** Julie Mao's most treasured possession is her space racing pinnace, the ''Razorback'', and she was an award-winning pilot at its helm.
** Alex Kamal flew with the Martian Navy for twenty years, [[SubvertedTrope but in all that time he was only on transports and even describes himself as a "glorified bus driver"]]. Once he [[FallingIntoTheCockpit fell into the cockpit]] of the frigate ''Rocinante'' [[DoubleSubverted he found his true potential]] and demonstrated exceptional skill.
* AccidentalDiscovery: Solomon Epstein was a hobbyist who tinkered with his used spaceship trying to get slightly better fuel efficiency. Instead he accidentally unlocked the secret to unlimited acceleration, making interplanetary travel a matter of days rather than weeks/months.
* ActionDad: {{Deconstructed}} by Alex, who's estranged from his ex-wife and son because he prefers the action of piloting spacecraft, even if it's fairly pedestrian ice-hauling. Ultimately, he admits that as much as he loves his family, he loves flying ''more'', and his wife files for divorce.
* ActionGirl:
** Julie Mao might be the richest heiress in the System, but she has [[RebelliousPrincess rejected her father's money]] and joined the OPA. With this experience comes respectable hand-to-hand fighting skills, and an iron determination that even bends the will of the protmolecule.
** Naomi Nagata [[DefiedTrope hates combat and often refuses to carry a weapon]], but her [[GadgeteerGenius engineering skills]] mean that she often comes out on top anyway.
** Gunnery Sergeant Bobbie Draper is a female Martian SpaceMarine capable of winning an arm-wrestle with her own PoweredArmor. ''Repeatedly''. The rest of the badass marines consider these events a spectacle.
** Camina Drummer would rather be an administrator than a fighter, but when administration fails she is one of the best fighters in the Belt.
* ActionSurvivor:
** The survivors from the ''Canterbury'' are functionally just a group of blue-collar workers. Holden was dishonorably discharged from the Navy after serving only a short period, and Alex went his entire 20-year career never seeing combat. Naomi Nagata once ran with the OPA, but only as a teenage gang member, not the sleeper operative that martians initially accuse her of being. Only Amos is comfortable or experienced with violence.
** In Season 2, Prax is a botanist, who barely escapes a collapsing dome on Ganymede and becomes just another refugee. He returns to the station with the ''Rocinante'' crew to search for his missing daughter.
* ActorAllusion:
** Elias Toufexis once again plays a [[VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution spy with cybernetic implants.]] Maybe he didn't ask for this either.
** This is not Shohreh Aghdashloo's first role as a [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 resolute authority figure who bends the rules to help her people]] [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 and save them from destruction in a science fiction franchise]].
** This is not the first time Creator/DanielKash has been a villain associated with the name [[Series/TheDresdenFiles Dresden]].
** Creator/FrancoisChau is once again [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown experimenting with alien technology]] although he's left his ethics behind.
** Creator/BurnGorman once again plays a [[Series/{{Forever|2014}} sociopathic killer]]. This also isn't his first time [[Series/{{Torchwood}} dealing with dangerous alien technology]].
* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade:
** In the books, the survivors from the ''Canterbury'' know each other fairly well and get along pretty much from the start, while the show makes them more distant and argumentative in the beginning. This gives them a collective Season one arc turning into FireForgedFriends.
** Avasarala's son was killed in a skiing accident in the books, but in the show he was a UNN soldier killed by the OPA, giving her an ItsPersonal interest in the OPA and understanding that WarIsHell.
** {{Inverted}} with Holden and Naomi's RelationshipUpgrade. In the novels, Naomi initially refuses Holden until he can prove she's a genuine LoveInterest rather than a LustObject because of his EthicalSlut past on the ''Canterbury''. In the show, this isn't an aspect of Holden's backstory and they get together without any qualms in "Safe".
** In the novels, Alex merely has an ex-wife to get over. In the series, they are still together and have a son, which makes Alex staying aboard the ''Rocinante'' an act of abandonment that tears their family apart.
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Alex and Amos are both younger, slimmer, and less bald than their literary counterparts.
* AdaptationalBadass: The ''Pella'', the flagship of Marcos Inaros, is given this treatment when it debuts in the fifth season. In the books, it was a ''Corvette''-class like the ''Rocinante''. In the TV show, it's upgraded to a full-blown light cruiser. WordOfGod admits that this was done to make the ship scarier.
* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance:
** Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't appear until the second book, but she's a major character from the first episode of the show in order to provide an Earth-perspective to political events.
** Bobbie Draper also doesn't appear until the second book, but she's brought into the show at the start of the second season in order to provide a Martian perspective on the destruction of Phoebe Station. [[spoiler:This also provides more development for her squad prior to their deaths.]]
** Camina Drummer doesn't appear until the fifth novel, but she is introduced in season two [[CompositeCharacter filling in for other characters]].
** Methodist pastor Anna Volovodov, a POV character in the third book, is given an AdaptationalBackstoryChange and a subplot in the first half of the third season. This better establishes her character and bridges the gap between the first and second halves of the season.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Klaes Ashford is an incompetent, borderline-crazy ship captain in the novels who is a problem to work with even ''before'' things go crazy. He's far more well-meaning and reasonable in the show. When he takes a directly antagonistic role at the end of season 3 he's a WellIntentionedExtremist that even his opponents recognize is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
* AdaptationalLateAppearance: In Season 3, the book character Carlos "Bull" de Baca was AdaptedOut and his role [[CompositeCharacter mostly given to]] an AdaptationalEarlyAppearance for Camina Drummer. However, by Season 5 AdaptationExpansion had moved Drummer beyond her Book 5 introduction as Fred Johnson's security chief, so Bull is introduced then and in that role instead.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: While generally quite faithful to the novels, Avasarala's more abrasive ScrewPolitenessImASenior and SirSwearsALot traits are {{downplayed}}. It's perhaps no coincidence that "Windmills", the first episode where she exclaims "Shit!", was penned by the guys who wrote the novels.
* AdaptationalVillainy:
** Not "villainy" per se, but in the first novel Holden is [[WideEyedIdealist idealistic]] [[ChronicHeroSyndrome to a fault]], whereas the show makes him a bit DarkerAndEdgier while still acting as the crew's voice for heroic idealism. He also reluctantly destroys a defenseless medical ship that threatens to expose his operation to destroy Eros in "Godspeed", while the closest thing he did in the book was threaten a UN science ship being escorted to Eros, and they backed off before he was forced to fire.
** Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't condone or oversee ColdBloodedTorture in the novels, while it is her [[EstablishingCharacterMoment second scene in the series]].
** Miller doesn't personally accept bribes in the book, and his internal narration explicitly describes the Julie Mao case as his first 'kidnap job'. In the series he takes bribes to overlook faulty maintenance (Although he does reverse once he sees the breakdown affects) and he doesn't dwell on the kidnap job when it is handed to him.
** In "Dulcinea", Capt. [=McDowell=] ignores the DistressCall and calls whoever leaked it a "piece of shit do-gooder." In the novel, Holden notes that if [=McDowell=] had really wanted to RefuseTheCall he'd have done so quietly, and his public discussion is just to set up himself and Holden as ''both'' being right in front of the crew.
** The crew of the ''Donnager'' is portrayed more antagonistically by seizing and roughly-handling Holden's crew rather than rushing to save them from the pursuing mystery ships. Holden also describes Lopez's interrogation as "surprisingly human" in the novel, unlike the steely interrogations of the show. The show also portrays the Martians as vindictive in dealing with the ''Xinglong'', while the books leave it ambiguous whether the incident was a suicidal gesture of defiance, an accidental shooting by antsy Martians, or both.
** Star Helix, while still very much LawEnforcementInc, at least ''attempts'' to act like a legitimate police force in the books rather than a gang of hired thugs. The same can be said of Dawes and his followers, who are explicitly members of OPA's security apparatus (and appear to operate within a chain of command and follow rules of their own) rather than just another gang on Ceres.
** The OPA, while disparaged by its opponents (Avasarala calls them "Hezbollah [[JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE of the vacuum]]" and "a rugby scrum with a currency"), are actually a functioning government with an established hierarchy, court system, currency, security apparatus, and foreign policy in the novels, capable of controlling piracy and delivering disaster relief without any assistance from the Inner Planets. The series tends to portray them as a street gang writ large throughout the first and second seasons, relying on real and implied threats to get their way.
** In the show, Bobbie Draper starts out as a BloodKnight who's [[WarHawk itching for a fight]] because of her serious grudge against Earth. In the books, she staunchly refuses to counteract the interests of her home-world but is otherwise a GentleGiant who struggles with [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]] rather than FantasticRacism. This is a part of her AdaptationalEarlyAppearance, as she shifts towards her book counterpart after the attack on Ganymede, which is where her book story began.
** In the books, Captain Martens is a calm chaplain who helps Bobbie deal with her PTSD. In the show, meanwhile, he's a FauxAffablyEvil [[ThePoliticalOfficer political officer]] [[spoiler: who's a part of the conspiracy around the protomolecule.]]
* AdaptationDistillation: In contrast to the 15 episodes spent adapting the first book and the 14 episodes spent adapting the second, only 7 episodes are used to adapt ''Abaddon's Gate'', meaning that many of the novel's subplots are either trimmed, skipped over or cut out entirely.
* AdaptationDyeJob:
** A minor point, but in the books Bobbie Draper's PoweredArmor is a distinctive red to camouflage against the Martian surface. In the show, it's a plain, sterile grey.
** Anna Volovodov in the books is a redhead, while here she's a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold blonde]].
* AdaptationExpansion: By taking 10 episodes to adapt just 400 pages of a nearly 600 page novel in Season 1 there's room for quite a bit of this.
** Chrisjen Avasarala, an IconicSequelCharacter from the second novel, is [[AdaptationalEarlyAppearance brought forward into Season 1]] with an all-new ThirdLineSomeWaiting plot of her own. This causes a bit of AdaptationDeviation once the show starts adapting her subplot from Book 2.
** Miller's investigation into Julie Mao is much more in-depth, with Anderson Dawes in particular taking on a much broader antagonist role.
** Holden's crew run into problems in Season 1 that they don't have in the first book, particularly the SinkingShipScenario in "The Big Empty" and everything to do with the stowaway spy [[CanonForeigner Kenzo]] in "Windmills". Also, the strict POV structure of the books means that whenever Season 1 separates Holden from his crew like in "CQB" or "Leviathan Wakes", one group or the other is acting out new material (Holden in "CQB", his crew in "Leviathan Wakes").
** Havelock [[AdaptedOut loses his post-Ceres involvement in the story]], but does get his own mini-arc on Ceres in the first few episodes.
** Some events only mentioned in the books, such as the destruction of Anderson Station and the ''Xinglong'', are dramatized on-screen.
** Bobbie Draper, like Avasarala, is only introduced in the second book, so her initial material in Season 2 is original since the show hasn't quite reached that point yet.
* AdaptationNameChange: Ade's last name is Nygaard rather than Tukunbo.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: Dresden describes what the protomolecule does to a human being as "incredible" and the victim as "fortunate" and "blessed"... while being [[TheHypocrite very careful not to infect himself, of course]].
* AdvertisedExtra: Florence Faivre (Julie Mao) is mostly relegated to photos and video clips except for a few memorable sequences in "Dulcinea", "Critical Mass", and "Home".
* AerithAndBob: There's Jim and Joe, Fred and Naomi... and then there's Praxidike and Sadavir.
* AfraidOfBlood: Alex doesn't deal well with seeing Amos' protruding leg bone in "Back to the Butcher".
* AfterActionPatchup:
** Amos suffers a compound leg fracture during the crew's escape from the ''Donnager'' that requires medical attention from Naomi and Holden at the start of "Back to the Butcher."
** Miller and Octavia have one that results in an awkward AlmostKiss after she saves his life in "Rock Bottom".
** Holden and Naomi share a quiet moment while she's setting the AutoDoc to treat his [[spoiler: radiation poisoning]] in "Leviathan Wakes".
* AgeLift: Nami, the daughter of [[HomosexualReproduction Anna and Nono]], is introduced as a baby or toddler in the novels; In the TV series, she's a few years older.
* TheAlcoholic:
** Miller shows signs of this, like many a fellow HardboiledDetective.
** Amos claims Holden can find the ''Canterbury'''s XO by following the reek of whiskey.
** The AsteroidMiner Mateo is mildly-to-completely soused throughout his entire OneShotCharacter story.
* AlienGeometries: The inhabitants of Ceres and Eros Stations live in miles and miles of tunnels that spiral beneath the asteroids' surface. "Down" is oriented outwards towards the outer crust because the stations' gravity is artificially created via [[CentrifugalGravity centrifugal force]] rather than the asteroids' mass. Ceres Station's introduction in the premiere episode provides some idea of how internal tunnels are oriented.
* AllForNothing: Mars has spent generations working on terraforming their planet, dedicating whole lifetimes to work that they will not live to see completed. When the ring gates opened the need to terraform a planet suddenly became irrelevant, and many Martians view all the previous work as pointless now.
* AlliterativeName: Naomi Nagata, Arjun Avasarala, and Mei Meng.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Bobbie and her squad are very hard on one of the squadmembers because he was born on Earth, rather than being native-born martian.
* AllThereInTheManual:
** It's never explained on-screen, but Miller rousing the CPM mercenaries to LetsYouAndHimFight by calling them "just meat for the machine" is ironic because CPM literally stands for ''C''arne ''P''or la ''M''achina ("meat for the machine"), which is doubly [[MeaningfulName appropriate]] since they're being left as ''literal'' meat for [[spoiler: the protomolecule]].
** It's implied during Avasarala's conversation with her grandson in "CQB", but the novels (and later seasons) make it explicit that the ColonyDrop is the new MutuallyAssuredDestruction between Earth and Mars.
* AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler: Lt. Lopez]] survives just long enough to turn over control of the ''Tachi'' to Holden's crew and is finished off by the extremely high-''g'' burn the ship makes to escape the battle.
* AlmostKiss: Miller and Octavia have one as he's comforting her about shooting two people to save his life. It takes the awkward silence route when Miller turns away.
* AlmostOutOfOxygen: The crew's main problem during the SinkingShipScenario in "The Big Empty", [[FromBadToWorse made worse]] when a broken airlock requires them to vent the ship to make repairs. Then it gets even worse when Alex's respirator craps out, forcing Shed to share with him, resulting in both suffering this ''inside'' their suits.
* AmbiguousSituation: Diogo is left DramaticSpaceDrifting by his uncle Mateo in "Rock Bottom", and isn't seen again until six episodes later when he shows up again as part of the OPA assault team in "Doors and Corners."
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Amos sports two Hebrew tattoos, though these are actor Wes Chatham's actual tattoos that the showrunners decided not to cover up. One along his outer forearm is Hebrew lettering that (although a little garbled) translates to "State your opinion." He also has "Timshel" written in Roman letters on the inside of his forearm, which means "thou shalt rule over it" in reference to sin, taken from the Cain and Abel story. Whatever Amos's background, he's almost certainly not a practicing Jew.
* AnArmAndALeg: The ice-hauler Paj loses his arm to a giant block of ice in "Dulcinea".
* AndStarring:
** Shohreh Aghdashloo (Avasarala) gets this.
** Beginning in Season 3, Creator/ThomasJane receives special billing on episodes he appears in.
* AndThisIsFor:
** This is clearly what's going through Holden's mind when he orders [[spoiler: the destruction of the ship that blew up Ade Nygaard and the ''Canterbury'']].
** When Miller shoots [[spoiler: Filat Kothari]] on Eros as revenge for impaling [[spoiler: his partner Havelock]].
* TheAntiNihilist: Holden knows he lives in a CrapsackWorld, but that never stops him from trying to make it better.
* AntiVillain: Anderson Dawes is a main antagonist in the Belt, but he's mostly just a WellIntentionedExtremist who wants a better life for his people.
* AnyoneCanDie: While not as blood-soaked as some other recent DarkerAndEdgier series, this one doesn't shy away from disposing of characters -- even ones who looked about to be major.
** The series premiere ends with Ade Nygaard and Captain [=McDowell=] getting vaporized along with the rest of the ''Canterbury'''s crew.
** [[spoiler: Shed Garvey]], one of the initial survivors of the ''Canterbury'', is [[BoomHeadShot decapitated]] by a railgun with absolutely [[KilledMidSentence zero warning]] in "CQB".
** [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] is dead by the time the ''Rocinante's'' crew finds her.
** Miller shoots [[spoiler: Dresden]] to stop him from giving up his information to Fred Johnson.
** [[spoiler: Miller]] makes a HeroicSacrifice to save Earth in "Home".
** [[spoiler:Sutton]] is set up as a foil to the HotBlooded Draper, only to be unceremoniously killed [[spoiler:during the battle over Ganymede, which also claims the lives of Draper's entire squad]].
** [[spoiler:Michael Iturbi and Col. Janus, along with the entire rest of the ''Arboghast'' crew]], when the ship is disassembled by the protomolecule in the atmosphere of Venus.
** [[spoiler:Admiral Souther]], a ReasonableAuthorityFigure in the UNN, is murdered by [[spoiler:[[InsaneAdmiral Fleet Admiral Nguyen]]]] [[KilledMidSentence while trying to conduct]] an AntiMutiny against him.
** [[spoiler:Cotyar, Avasarala's SarcasticDevotee]], pulls a TakingYouWithMe on the protomolecule that's infected him and the rest of the ''Agatha King'' by blowing up the entire ship, killing the aforementioned [[spoiler:Nguyen]] as well.
** Anna's friend [[spoiler:Tilly Fagan]] is one of the many casualties of all the ships' deceleration in the [[spoiler:Slow Zone of the Ring]], though the fact that [[spoiler:Clarissa]] was attacking and trying to kill her anyway at the time certainly didn't help.
** [[spoiler:Cohen Casti, Monica's blind cameraman]], is revealed to be another such casualty, having been KilledOffscreen by being sliced in half with a door.
** [[spoiler:Diogo Harari]] gets an elevator dropped on him by Naomi while trying to kill her, Holden, and Drummer.
** [[spoiler:Chandra Wei]], who becomes Amos's [[FriendsWithBenefits uncertain ally with benefits]] throughout Season 4, eventually has to choose between her feelings for him and her loyalty to her boss, [[MyMasterRightOrWrong and sides with the latter]], forcing Amos to kill her in self-defense.
** [[spoiler:Klaes Ashford]], while attempting to hunt down and kill Belter terrorist Marco Inaros, instead ends up being captured and ThrownOutTheAirlock by Marco and his son Filip (though not before [[DefiantToTheEnd flipping them both off]] and [[FaceDeathWithDignity singing up to his last breath as he's executed]] while also secretly warning the [=UN=] of Inaros' planned terrorist attack).
** In the Season 5 finale, [[spoiler:Alex Kamal strokes out after executing a high-g burn to save Naomi]].
** In the season six premier, it is revealed that Marco Inaros had [[spoiler:Anderson Dawes]] KilledOffscreen.
* AnythingThatMoves: Octavia cites "Bang every space-bucker I could find" as something a RebelliousPrincess might do on Ceres to [[DatingWhatDaddyHates piss off her father]], with the implication she did something similar once upon a time.
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:The alien station at the heart of [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Ring space]] has a WaveMotionGun capable of inflicting a ApocalypseHow/ClassX2, which it used on multiple star systems in a futile attempt to save its creators from... [[GreaterScopeVillain something]]. The climax of "Abbadon's Gate" has it charging to attack the Solar System after identifying humanity as a threat]].
* ApologeticAttacker:
** In "Assured Destruction", Cotyar reluctantly strangles Theo the electrician before they're picked up by the UNN, because he doesn't trust Theo not to reveal Avasarala's location if the UNN leans on him enough. He apologizes while doing it.
** In "Delta-V", Clarissa Mao apologizes to Ren before, during, and after murdering him to conceal her sabotage.
* AppliedPhlebotinum:
** A fusion drive that provides constant acceleration in order to allow CasualInterplanetaryTravel.
** The protomolecule is acknowledged in-universe to be capable of defying the laws of physics, making it even harder to cope with for the protagonists, who don't have this luxury.
* ArchnemesisDad: Jules-Pierre Mao to his daughter Julie, [[spoiler: who ultimately dies fighting to stop his NGOSuperpower from killing millions of Belters. Unfortunately, Julie's body yields enough protomolecule samples to go ahead as planned.]]
* ArcSymbol: The OPA monogram ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything which resembles an anarchist A]]) appears more and more frequently as the organization gains power and support in the Belt.
* ArcWords:
** "Remember the ''Cant''!"
** "''Milowda na ányimals!''" (Belter for "We are not animals!")
** "(When) the blood's on the wall..."
** [[MadnessMantra "The work must be finished..."]]
** "Doors and corners"
* ArmCannon: Unlike Earth's ground forces and regular Martian Marines with their more conventional rifles, MMC Special Forces like Draper's unit wield miniature [[GatlingGood miniguns]] mounted to the lower right arm of their PoweredArmor.
* ArmiesAreEvil: Neither the United Nations (Earth) or Martian navies are portrayed in a particularly positive light. The UNN has a track record of [[spoiler: blasting stations full of families open to vacuum when their workers mutiny rather than let them surrender]], and the MCRN is shown to be very hostile and abusive to {{Asteroid Miner}}s whose ships they inspect in the wake of [[spoiler: the destruction of the ''Donnager'']].
* ArmorIsUseless:
** No matter how huge a space warship is, ''any'' ship-to-ship weapon goes through its hull like a hot knife through butter, and more powerful ones like railguns usually punch clean through the entire vessel without slowing down. It appears that, similar to today's seabound warships, armor has fallen out of favor as a protective measure, and the best (and only) thing you can do to avoid damage is to not get hit in the first place.
** Completely averted by Martian Goliath-class PoweredArmor. These hulking suits are ImmuneToBullets and highly resistant to most other forms of damage. It requires heavy weapons or similarly massive trauma to inflict serious damage on them.
** Also averted during Holden's and Miller's mad dash to the ''Roci'' in "Leviathan Wakes". The body armor they took off the dead mercs was intact before they got into the shootout near the docks, but shows multiple bullet impacts afterwards that would've been lethal without the plating's protection.
** Played completely straight in Season 4. Some characters wear body armor, others don't, but they all die the same when shot.
* ArtificialGravity:
** Ships simulate gravity by having the decks arranged vertically relative to the engines, with the thrust providing the gravity whenever the engines are active.
** In "Home", [[spoiler:the protomolecule is able to maintain Eros' normal gravity in spite of completely changing its spin and momentum, in addition to providing InertialDampening that prevents anyone still on it from being killed by the forces involved]].
* ArtificialLimbs: {{Discussed}}. Many Earthers and Martians can afford to have lost limbs regrown from bio-gel, but many Belters have to make due with advanced prosthetics that can sense heat and pressure. Some even [[CulturalPosturing take pride]] in preferring "a good Belter-built fake."
* ArtificialMeat: In "Salvage", Kenzo offers a line on a place that sells "vat-grown ribs".
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Getting impaled through the solar-plexus should result in death ''very'' quickly given the number of important arteries in the region as well as the nerves and tissues that control breathing that make it very close to a real life version of an InstantDeathBullet. Hyper-advanced medical treatment doesn't mean much when you should be dead long before you could receive any.
* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Gunnery Sergeant Draper leads a four-man fireteam (sometimes incorrectly called a "squad", itself a common misconception in fiction since a military "squad" refers to a unit of multiple fireteams). Assuming a gunnery sergeant is an E-7 in the Martian Marine Corps as it is in the US Marine Corps, Draper should be the senior NCO (an advisor/staff member to the commanding junior officer) of an entire platoon of around 50 personel, a job that takes about nine years of service to make, for which someone in their early twenties looks ''really'' young. Corporal or just plain Sergeant Draper would be a much more fitting rank for the job she's shown doing.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
** Used intentionally and often {{lampshaded}} and {{discussed}}. The show is hard Sci-Fi by television standards, but it's acknowledged in-universe that the protomolecule doesn't play by the laws of physics, and the fact it can do things the characters simply can't is a major source of drama.
---> '''Holden:''' [[OhCrap Uh, okay, so we broke a few laws of physics here.]]
** ''Accidentally'' invoked in "Here There Be Dragons": Alex's method of reaching Ganymede without alerting MCRN ships is scientifically sound... except that one of the moons he passes (Cyllene) is way too far from Ganymede to make sense. [[http://www.danielabraham.com/2017/04/04/guest-post-losing-science-drama-finding-drama-science/ According to one show runner]], this was only caught after the scene had been shot and couldn't be changed.
* ArtisticLicenseSpace:
** The explanation for Dawes' scar is solar radiation heating up the metal components of the old space suits to the point they burn. In reality, most of that radiation energy would bleed off as infrared long before it got hot enough to sear flesh.
** Given how much the series makes of the dangers of radiation and of its importance to the Protomolecule, it oddly completely ignores how much radiation there is in space just from the Sun when you do not have a planetary magnetic field pushing high-energy particles aside.[[note]]To give some point of reference, spending one year on the International Space Station would expose a person to almost ten times what the U.S. Department of Energy recommends as the maximum annual radiation exposure for people working with radioactive materials.[[/note]] Radiation exposure is currently the greatest single health risk associated with extended stays in space.
* AscendedExtra: Several characters are given more material than their book counterparts.
** Anderson Dawes is a relatively minor character in the books, while the show embellishes him into a moderate antagonist, first for Miller and later for Holden/Johnson.
** Havelock is a minor satellite character to Miller in the first novel, but the show gives him his own subplot.
** Gia, the HookerWithAHeartOfGold who befriends Havelock, is an unnamed, single-scene extra in the books.
** Holden calls his family once or twice in the books, but nothing with the depth of Avasarala's visit to their farm in "Windmills".
** Cotyar, a very minor character who acts as head of Avasarala's security detail in ''Caliban's War'', shows up much earlier here and assists in her investigation into the U.N. conspiracy.
* AspectRatioSwitch: In Season 4, scenes set on and around Ilus[=/=]New Terra are shot in anamorphic widescreen rather than 16:9 like the rest of the series.
* AssholeVictim:
** Filat Kothari, the Belter thug who attacked Havelock.
** [[spoiler: Dresden]], the MadScientist who massacred [[spoiler: all of Eros]] ForScience. Generally any member of TheConspiracy that gets their comeuppance one way or another, which by the end of Season 3 means [[spoiler:[[EarnYourHappyEnding every single one, no exceptions]]]].
* AssimilationBackfire: The protomolecule uses [[spoiler:Julie Mao]], the first thing it absorbed on Eros, as the central node for all the growth on Eros. This allows Miller to [[spoiler:talk Julie into diverting Eros into Venus, rather than hitting Earth as originally intended.]]
* TheAssimilator: The protomolecule, given the way Dresden speaks of "letting it learn" by [[spoiler: infecting all of Eros Station]] in "Critical Mass". Not only does it infect living tissue, it mimics the structures it infects. [[spoiler:Julie Mao was killed by the protomolecule, then it completely mimicked her -- memories and all -- to use as a "brain" of sorts.]]
* AsYouKnow:
** This exchange in "Dulcinea":
---> '''Ade Nygaard:''' We're obligated to check it out.\\
'''Capt. [=McDowell=]:''' (annoyed) I'm well-aware of the statute, Miss Nygaard.
** Lampshaded in "Safe":
--->'''Admiral:''' Due to light-speed delay, it will be two hours until we get a response--\\
'''Avasarala:''' I know how the fucking thing works!
* AsteroidMiners: A major occupation for Belters, with the poorest of them living as "rock-hoppers" who spend their lives moving from asteroid to asteroid struggling to harvest enough valuable material to survive while corporations like Pur-N-Kleen use freighters like the ''Canterbury'' to harvest ice from Saturn's rings.
* AsteroidThicket:
** {{Averted}} in the Belt, where asteroids are realistically distributed and reasonably well-charted.
** Saturn's rings in "Dulcinea" provide a reasonably {{justified}} version of the denser conception, which is why the ''Canterbury'' is there to collect ice.
** Another {{justified}} and possibly {{invoked|trope}} example occurs in "Safe", in the form of an "abandoned asteroid mine": a small thicket implied to have been formed from the remnants of either a very large isolated asteroid or a number of smaller ones intentionally gathered into a vaguely stable gravitational system for more convenient processing.
* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: The OPA employs demagogues and later video announcements to get their anti-Inner message out to the public.
* TheAtoner:
** Fred Johnson's motivation for joining the OPA after what he did to Anderson Station.
** [[spoiler:Clarissa is haunted by the blood she's spilled in her quest for vengeance against Holden. At the end of the third season, she attempts a heroic self-sacrifice, but survives]].
* AuthorFilibuster: {{Parodied}} in "Doors and Corners" when Alex's angst about not saving more people from Eros turns into a rant that threatens to BreakTheFourthWall as the camera presses in closer and closer... until he looks over to find Amos has already bailed and offered to buy a random girl drinks if she'll listen to Alex instead.
* AutoDoc: Military ships come equipped with these while civilian ones like the ''Canterbury'' seem to lack them. Holden and Miller are very grateful for the one on the ''Rocinante'' when they get extreme radiation poisoning in "Leviathan Wakes", though Amos struggles to override the devices when they keep trying to default over to "hospice mode".
* AwesomeByAnalysis: Fred Johnson neatly demolishes Holden's bluff when they first meet in "Rock Bottom":
--> '''Johnson:''' That's a ''Corvette''-class Martian frigate that typically crews thirty. I only see two of you. That tells me that you're trying hard to hide your numbers. Tactically, if there were more, as a show of force, you would've brought them out. I'm guessing there are two to four people left on your ship, and I'm confident there's no Martian Navy on board. If they were, they'd be out here speaking with me now. ''You'' walked off that ship because ''you're'' in charge. At least you think you are...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* {{Backstory}}:
** The interrogations in "Remember the Cant" provide a lot of info on Holden's past, some key insights into Naomi's and Alex's, a crucial lowlight from Shed's, and [[MysteriousPast absolutely nothing about Amos]].
** "Back to the Butcher" actually dramatizes the decade-old incident that earned Fred Johnson the titular epithet "TheButcher of Anderson Station" and prompted him to become a DefectorFromDecadence.
* BadassBoast:
** Capt. Yao of the ''Donnager'' is very confident before battle in "CQB":
--->"Well, whoever they are and whatever they've come to do, it's just become a suicide mission. They started this fight, and we're going to finish it."
** Avasarala gives an epic, long-winded one in "Paradigm Shift", explaining exactly how she'll tear apart the Mao family if they don't hand over Jules-Pierre Mao to pay for his part in TheConspiracy while also giving a veiled threat to Erringwright how she knows that he's part of the protomolecule conspiracy. See the quotes under MegaCorp below for the whole thing.
** Holden delivers one to the MCRN blockade over Ganymede in "The Monster and the Rocket".
--->"This is the warship ''Rocinante''. You're aware of our capabilities more than anyone. We're escorting a vessel of refugees away from your AO. Any ship that opens fire on us will feel the sum total of our state-of-the-art Martian arsenal ''rammed up its ass.'' We'll all die together. This is your only and final warning."
* BadassBureaucrat: Chrisjen Avasarala has never been elected to anything but is currently Number 3 in the government of Earth and knows all the gambits to get information out of her opponents.
* BadassCreed: When preparing for a drop, Bobbie Draper psyches up her Martian Marines with a call-and-response:
-->'''Bobbie''': Who's going to feast on Earth's sky and drink their rivers dry? (MMC!) Who's going to stomp their mountains into fine Martian dust? (MMC!) 'Til the rains fall hard on Olympus Mons, ''who are we?'' (MMC!) I can't hear you! (''MMC!'') ''Who are we?!'' ('''''MMC!''''')
* BadassCrew: The ''Rocinante'' crew.
* BadBoss:
** TheConspiracy abandons many of their HiredGuns on Eros [[spoiler: as fodder for the protomolecule]].
** Anderson Dawes never responded to Julie Mao's DistressCall when she was captive on the ''Anubis'' or stranded on Eros, either because [[YouHaveFailedMe she failed him]] or because he considered her [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness not worth the effort]].
* BadGuyBar: Miller confronts Dawes in one full of OPA members in "Windmills" and tries to start a BarBrawl.
* TheBadGuysAreCops: CPM, Eros' LawEnforcementInc, are this since they are mainly gangsters and mercenaries hired by TheConspiracy.
* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: Prax is ready to kill [[spoiler:Dr. Strickland]], but Amos convinces him that he's [[IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim not that guy]]. Once Prax leaves, Amos turns around and says "I am that guy." before doing the deed himself.
* BadToTheLastDrop: 99% of coffee in the Belt would appear to be this. The other 1% is brought there aboard Inner Planets naval ships. That the Belter Creole word for "coffee" literally translates into "shitwater" should tell you everything you need to know.
* BagOfKidnapping: Miller gets grabbed this way leaving Julie Mao's apartment in "Back to the Butcher".
* BaitTheDog: Sematimba seems at first like a reasonable guy given his affinity for Miller, but then he kills an Eros survivor for slowing him down and threatens to shoot Naomi if she doesn't abandon Holden and Miller.
* BandOfBrothels: Prostitution is common and well-policed, and when Amos warns a prostitute that a prospective client is packing a knife, Alex asks, "Are you their union rep?" in a tone that implies he's only partially joking.
* BarBrawl: Miller tries to start one in "Windmills".
* BathOfPoverty: Although Miller has a functioning shower, it cuts off before he can rinse because water is strictly rationed in the Belt. He later takes the opportunity to finish his shower at Julie Mao's apartment, since she has unlimited water due to her wealth.
* BatmanGambit: In "Remember the Cant", Avasarala "leaks" just enough information to her old friend Ambassador Frank [=DeGraaf=] to prompt him to send a panicked message to the Martian government, and deduces from the Martian government's own panicked reaction that they really didn't destroy the ''Canterbury''.
* BatteringRam: Holden summarizes Miller's plan in "Godspeed" as using [[spoiler: the ''Nauvoo'']] as one of these, though in this case, they're not trying to open the target, they're trying to HurlItIntoTheSun.
* TheBattlestar: MCRN ''Donnager'' carries an arsenal of torpedoes and railguns capable of fighting off a small fleet by herself, as well as a large hangar bay housing smaller vessels such as the frigate ''Tachi''.
* BeardOfSorrow: Miller always has PermaStubble, but it becomes one of these for a couple episodes after escaping Eros until he shaves in "Static".
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: {{Averted}}.
** In "The Big Empty", Miller and Octavia discuss why Julie Mao would retain a scar in an era that averts ScarsAreForever, with Miller even calling it a "[[DefiedTrope badge of defiance]]."
** [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] is the focus of the worst BodyHorror in Season 1.
* BeforeIChangeMyMind: Miller tells Diogo this after deciding to take over the DeadManSwitch in "Godspeed".
* BeingGoodSucks: Answering a DistressCall always carries the danger of being LuredIntoATrap.
* BeingWatched: Miller feels this way as he pushes deeper into the protomolecule's GeniusLoci in "Home", and doesn't buy it when Naomi suggests it's because she's watching him from MissionControl on the ''Rocinante''.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Miller and Octavia until around the time she saves his life in "Rock Bottom".
* BerserkButton:
** Amos is very protective of people that he terms are "his", primarily Naomi. He is also protective of children in general. Threatening somebody that he has claimed or a child will push him to an almost immediate homicidal rage.
** Chrisjen Avasarala really does not like it when people make cracks about her age or imply in any way that she's old. [[{{Troll}} Which is why]] [[VitriolicBestBuds Cotyar likes doing it]].
* BetterThanSex: Diogo claims space-walking is this, though Miller is skeptical that he has the experience necessary to make that comparison.
* BigBadassBattleSequence:
** "CQB" contains one between TheBattlestar MCRN ''Donnager'' and six advanced stealth fighters, which is interspersed with a running gun battle as Holden's crew attempts to escape.
** The joint OPA and ''Rocinante'' assault on Thoth Station in "Doors and Corners".
* BigDamnHeroes:
** In "Salvage", Miller saves the ''Rocinante'' crew from a UN black ops team that was trying to assassinate them.
** In "Caliban's War", just as Mao's men are about to kill Cotyar and Avasarala, Bobbie returns after leaving to get her PowerArmor and [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomps]] all of them easily.
** Anna tasers Clarissa from behind before the latter can finish throttling Naomi to death in "Fallen World" .
* BigDumbObject: The protomolecule turns [[spoiler:Eros]] into one of these, capable of defying the laws of physics to propel itself on a course towards Earth. [[spoiler:It ends up crashing into Venus instead and begins constructing a new one, which ultimately becomes The Ring at the edge of the system]].
* TheBigGuy: Amos is naturally the largest and strongest of the ''Rocinante'' crew, and growing up on Earth only increases this by also making him a HeavyWorlder. His rough upbringing and emotional detachment also make him the most comfortable with violence.
* BilingualBonus: Belter Creole is entirely unsubtitled. Most of the time, the Creole is limited to a few words or the odd phrase that viewers can guess. Sometimes, lines will be spoken entirely in Creole and the only way viewers will be able to understand is if they learn the ''patois'' themselves.
* BilingualDialogue: Miller occasionally converses with Belters this way, though usually they each throw in some of the other's language as well.
* BioAugmentation:
** Implants of various sorts are common. Communications devices and organ augmentation are mundane while identity scramblers are expensive and illegal.
** Belters have to resort to drugs or hormones just to maintain reasonable health and well-being (if injuries haven't reduce them to [[AnArmAndALeg outright prosthetics]]), and these treatments don't always work well. Miller, for instance, has spurs on his spine where the vertebrae didn't quite grow properly because of "cheap bone-density juice when he was a child."
** Martian marines have communications systems and other implants to augment the equipment in their battle armor. Amos taunts one such marine by insisting castration is a mandatory part of the process.
** Season 3 features a documentary cameraman who has extensive augmentations visibly implanted beneath his skin. He's also blind but can use his implanted tech to see through drone cameras.
* BioluminescenceIsCool: The protomolecule's MeatMoss and [[spoiler: skin lesions as TheVirus]] crackle with blue light very reminiscent of electricity and give off radiant blue spores. It's creepy as all hell.
* BiotechIsBetter: This is used to establish class disparities. After a hauler on the ''Canterbury'' loses his arm below the elbow to an ice block, he's told he could go for the bio-gel that regrows limbs. He opts to go for a prosthetic limb because he's been with Pur-n-Kleen long enough for the company to provide him with a deluxe model featuring pressure feedback and hot-and-cold sensors.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: The heroes might not be paragons (though some like Holden certainly try), but several villains are utter monsters.
* BlackMarketProduce: A major cottage industry in the belt. Dairy products are held in particularly high regard: while expensive, vegetables and fruit can be grown hydroponically both legally and illegally with minimal fuss. Small livestock like chickens likewise can be raised or smuggled fairly easily, and even the tank-grown ArtificialMeat is a passable substitute for the real thing. Dairy, however, requires either maintaining at least one large female livestock animal in orbit, or moving dense wheels of cheese from the ground into space and law enforcement swiftly cracks down on "curd cartels". Cheese, in fact, is such a prized commodity that the troubles on Ceres noticeably quieted down when one such cartel began selling genuine cheddar on the station.
* BlackSite: Avasarala travels to one of the UN's a couple of times to interrogate a Belter caught smuggling stealth tech.
* BlatantLies: [[spoiler:Errinwright's claims that Fred Johnson is framing Earth]].
* BloodKnight: Bobby Draper is just itching for a fight with Earth, until she gets a taste of real combat on Ganymede and decides that WarIsHell.
* BloodySmile: In the season 4 finale, Amos does this after [[spoiler:[[BullyingADragon Murtry]] punches him, giving him the perfect excuse to KickTheSonOfABitch [[GoryDiscretionShot offscreen]] as revenge for Wei's death]].
-->'''Amos''': Thank you. ''(initiates beatdown)''
* BoardingPod:
** What the unknown enemies use to seal the fate of the ''Donnager'' after the latter blows away four of six of the attacking ships. [[spoiler: The ''Donnager'' [[SelfDestructMechanism self-destructs]] to prevent a successful capture.]]
** Fred Johnson uses modified [=FedEx=] containers to make a [[JustForPun special delivery]] of boarding parties to take control of TheConspiracy's base on Thoth Station.
* BodyguardBetrayal: Avasarala's escort ship leaves her to die on Jules-Pierre Mao's ship in "Caliban's War", under orders from [[spoiler:Errinwright]], and even fires five missiles at it just to be sure.
* BodyHorror: One of the book authors once noted that, "If I wrote greeting cards, they'd probably have a {{squick}} factor." The TV adaptation lives up to everything that implies.
** Cutting her way into the cargo bay of a GhostShip in "Dulcinea", Julie Mao finds a giant, glowing MeatMoss EldritchAbomination in the process of [[TheAssimilator assimilating]] a [[HumanResources human torso]].
** Some of the negative traits a lifetime in low-''g'' has spawned among the Belters, especially their low bone and muscle densities that leave them unable to even ''breathe'' back on Earth.
** In "Salvage", Miller and the ''Rocinante'' crew find [[spoiler:Julie Mao has been killed by the protomolecule infection in her shower. Blue-black lesions cover her pallid remains from head to toe, sprouting spines like anemones, and crystalline structures have grown straight out her left eye and mouth, while a gossamer webbing has rooted her to the shower]].
** Miller and Holden's slow degradation from radiation poisoning. Holden's descriptors "melt from the inside out," and, "bleeding out of places you don't even want to know about," don't help.
** Katoa gradually starts to look more inhuman and horrifying as [[spoiler:he's turned into a Hybrid by the protomolecule growth in his body]]. And in one of the worst examples in the whole series, he ''completely rips apart'' his nurse offscreen; we see the man's insides and guts strewn out all over the floor.
** Manéo Jung-Espinoza gets this when he travels into the Ring, entering the Slow Zone. The Ring defenses forcibly decelerate his ship to a dead stop, but '''not''' Manéo. His inertia no longer matching the ship causes him to rocket forward with such force that his skeleton tears free of his body, causing his head to fly off and his bones to jut out of his flesh, leaving him as nothing more than a [[MemeticMutation red splat]] in a pilot suit.
** Inside the Ring Station, the leader of [[spoiler:Bobbie's platoon]] throws a grenade that leaves a dent in the floor. The commander is then lifted into the air by the station, ''disassembled'', and ''broken down into his constituent matter'' to refill this dent.
* BookEnds:
** Season 1 begins and ends with a character encountering the protomolecule, showing how it's changed.
** At the end of Season 2, Dr. Strickland is whistling the same tune that Amos was at the start of the season.
* BoomerangBigot: Despite being a native Belter who's never left Ceres, Miller dresses like an Earther, works for an Earth-based LawEnforcementInc, and generally acts superior to other Belters because of it. He's even the first character to hurl the FantasticSlur "longbone" at another Belter.
-->'''Miller:''' I am nothing like you, longbone. Take your OPA bullshit back to the Medina, and wait for the revolution with all the rest of the victims.
* BoomHeadshot:
** The fate of [[spoiler: Shed Garvey]], whose head simply ''[[YourHeadAsplode disappears]]'' thanks to an unlucky railgun round.
** How Miller takes revenge on [[spoiler: Filat Kothari, the thug who impaled his partner]]. Bonus points for [[BaitAndSwitch covering the guy's retreat]] first only to put one between his eyes once he got a little closer.
** In "Doors and Corners", the boarding party is taken by surprise when one of their group is shot in the head and a big red splash appears. After the shooting stops, Miller realizes he was actually hit by a non-lethal gel round which didn't even penetrate his space suit helmet, as the minimal crew weren't expecting boarders and were only armed to the extent necessary to disable the prisoners they were watching over.
** Played straight in the same episode, where Miller pops [[spoiler:Dresden]] in the head then shoots him [[DoubleTap twice more]] for good measure.
** Drummer does this to the Belters who shot her in an attempt to force missile launch codes out of her and Fred Johnson in "Pyre".
** Amos delivers this to [[spoiler:Strickland]] in "Immolation", though we only get the perspective of the blood splatter against the airlock door.
** Murtry doing this to the belligerent but unarmed Belter thug Coop on Ilus is what sends the already fragile RCE-Belter relations into a rapid downward spiral.
* BornLucky: Diogo just happens to get caught stealing water by the comparatively merciful Joe Miller rather than a more aggressive cop or serious gangster, then he's ThrownOutTheAirlock far from anywhere but is picked up by a passing ship before his air runs out, and then gets [[BoomHeadshot shot in the face]] but survives because his opponent was only equipped with non-lethal ammunition.
* BorrowedBiometricBypass: In "Down and Out", the guards at the prison have biometrically-locked guns that only respond to their individual users. When deprived of her gun against a prisoner with mods that make him super-strong, the guard grabs the gun of a dead colleague and uses his hand to fire it.
* BossSubtitles: A couple government officials get these with their name and position, including [[ThirdLineSomeWaiting third-line]] protagonist Chrisjen Avasarala ''after'' she's already been on-screen for over a minute.
* BottomlessMagazines:
** Miller gets better-than-expected mileage out of his six-shot cylinder despite a closeup at the start of "Leviathan Wakes" that proves that's exactly how many bullets it holds[[note]]the show's propmaster tried to HandWave it away by saying that in their universe one bullet could equal a thousand shots[[/note]].
** Averted in the case of the ''Rocinante'' itself, which runs low on ammo on a semi-regular basis. At one point the crew resorts to raiding a Martian debris field to restock.
* BreadAndCircuses: Lt. Lopez claims in "CQB" that, "The only thing Earthers care about is government handouts: free food, free water, [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement free drugs]] so you can forget the aimless lives you lead."
* BreakoutCharacter: Camina Drummer after her BoomHeadshot moment in Season 2.
* BrickJoke: When they part ways in "Home", Miller tells Diogo to get himself laid. The next episode, he's seen walking hand in hand with a prostitute saying, "Miller, this one's for you."
* BringNewsBack: Holden and (at his insistence) his crew are escorted off the ''Donnager'' by a squad of Martian marines because they're the only ones truly capable of testifying that Mars did ''not'' destroy the ''Canterbury''.
* BrokenAesop:
** Anderson Dawes tells Miller one about how he had to MercyKill his sister in order to keep his family alive. Miller points out that Dawes didn't sacrifice himself and that just proves him a coward.
** Happens again when Sutton talks about how Mars avoided a war with Earth in the nick of time through diplomacy to talk about the value of peace, only for Draper to state that led to a SpaceColdWar where Mars was delayed a century in its terraforming efforts.
* BrokenPedestal: At least two in Season 3.
** [[spoiler: Naomi]] becomes this to [[spoiler: Amos]] after it is revealed that [[spoiler: she gave the protomolecule to Fred Johnson. Lampshaded by Amos, who starts to instead look to first Prax and later Anna as his new [[MoralityPet "moral compasses"]].]]
** [[spoiler: Camina Drummer]] feels deeply betrayed after [[spoiler: Fred Johnson]] tells her that [[spoiler: he has struck an [[EnemyMine unholy alliance]] with Anderson Dawes not long after an attempted mutiny by OPA sympathizers on Tycho which almost left both of them dead.]]
* BrokenMasquerade: After investigating the disabled stealth ship in "Godspeed", Avasarala has it pushed into the nearest UNN patrol route so it will be discovered and reveal the connection between the stealth ship attacks and Protogen (and hence Jules-Pierre Mao). Mao is good enough to wriggle out of any personal liability, but it definitely puts a dent in his plans and sours his partnership with Errinwright.
* BrutalHonesty: When Miller asks if he really just saw [[spoiler: his old friend Sematimba]]'s body at the end of "Leviathan Wakes", Amos bluntly answers, "Yes. I shot him."
** Amos lives this trope, often to the disgust, anger or unsettlement of other characters. The main crew gets used to it after a while.
* BulletproofHumanShield: Rare example of played straight, done a lot, AND justified. In zero-g, bodies, especially with grav boots on tend to remain standing. People in general are easier to pick up. The bullets themselves need low penetration to avoid punching holes in the ship’s hull, out into space. This creates a lot of scenarios where dead bodies can be used as temporary cover, or someone can be grappled onto and used to absorb low penetration rounds.
* BulletSparks: All over the place during the dash to the ''Tachi'' in "CQB".
* BurialInSpace: Miller gives [[spoiler: Sematimba]] this at the end of "Safe" by ejecting his body bag [[ThrownOutTheAirlock out the airlock]].
* TheButcher: Fred Johnson is called "The Butcher of Anderson Station" after he brutally put down a worker revolt on Anderson Station eleven years before the series proper, despite the workers' own pleas to surrender. By the current time period [[TheAtoner he is working on behalf of the OPA to redeem himself]], but he is willing to lean on his reputation if necessary to get the compliance of others. [[spoiler:Season two reveals that he didn't know Anderson Station was trying to surrender, and learning the truth is what spurred him to defect]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:C]]
* CallBack:
** Diogo reintroduces himself to Miller in "Doors and Corners" by shouting, "Stay away from the aqua," recalling Miller's parting warning to him in "The Big Empty".
** While infiltrating Eros in "Home", Miller returns to the pachinko parlor he and Holden hid out in for awhile in "Leviathan Wakes".
* CallingTheOldManOut: Miller finds a video message of Julie Mao doing this:
--> '''Julie:''' You're so blind and so condescending, and you're never going to change. If you won't take yourself seriously as an adult then why should I care about being your child? You wanna sell the ''Razorback'', do it. You can't buy me off or control me anymore. Maybe what you hate about me the most is that [[TooMuchAlike I remind you of yourself]].
* CameraSpoofing: When Anderson Dawes kidnaps [[spoiler:Cortazar]], he loops the camera feeds in that section of the station so no one realizes until he's well on his way out.
* TheCameo: The season 2 finale features a brief onscreen appearance by Creator/AdamSavage.
* CanonForeigner:
** The UN's ambassador to Mars, Franklin [=DeGraaf=].
** Kenzo, the corporate espionage spy from Tycho Station.
* CantStopTheSignal:
** Despite talk in "The Big Empty" about the ''Donnager'' already being in jamming range when Holden sends out his message, events on Earth and Ceres in the next episode revolve around reactions to his broadcast, so it clearly got out.
** In the titular {{Flashback}} in "Back to the Butcher", some Belter protesters transmit a signal to anyone listening when it becomes clear the UN just intends to kill them all without further negotiation.
** In "Critical Mass", Fred Johnson beams out a transmission containing evidence pinning all the recent strife on [[spoiler: Earth]], and since the culprits cannot stop him they waste no time manufacturing evidence pointing right back at him.
** Subverted in "Godspeed". When the crew of the ''Rocinante'' catches a humanitarian group investigating Eros, they jam long-range comms. The group tries to break for signal range by going around the asteroid, so Holden reluctantly blows up their ship.
* TheCaptain:
** Holden on the ''Rocinante'', despite Amos' initial insistence that he isn't.
** Captain Yao of the ''MCRN Donnager'', and Captain Kirino of the ''MCRN Hammurabi''.
** Fred Johnson for Tycho Station.
** Camina Drummer, Johnson's NumberTwo, becomes this for the repurposed [[spoiler:''Nauvoo'']] (now the ''OPAS Behemoth'') as of "Delta-V". This causes some tension with [[spoiler:Klaes Ashford, her First Officer from Dawes's faction. When Drummer is seriously injured in "Fallen World" and temporarily out of commission, Ashford replaces her as captain.]]
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: Lt. Sutton and [=GySgt.=] Bobbie Draper.
* CasualDangerDialogue: When Miller starts doing this in "Home", Naomi tells him, "Hey, don't get all [[PersonAsVerb Holden]] on me: weird and chatty under pressure."
* CasualInterplanetaryTravel: An AppliedPhlebotinum fusion drive allows this.
* CategoryTraitor: Miller is viewed as a traitor (''welwala'' in Belter Creole[[note]]It also means someone who's obsessed with the Inner Planets[[/note]]) by other Belters because he dresses like an Earther and works for Ceres' Earth-based police force, Star Helix Security.
* TheCavalryArrivesLate: In "Reload", some rescued Martians try to seize the ''Rocinante''. Holden and Bobbie manage to talk them down, at which point Amos shows up and immediately lampshades his tardiness.
-->'''Amos:''' Did I miss it?
* CentralTheme:
** ThePowerOfTrust and our emotional connections with each other.
** No matter our different backgrounds and philosophies, [[MirrorCharacter we're all far more similar to each other than we'd ever like to admit]].
** Even into the (relatively) far future, [[HumansAreFlawed humanity will change relatively little]] while our technology does by leaps and bounds.
* CentrifugalGravity:
** Belter stations like Ceres and Eros are asteroids that have been artificially "spun up" to create gravity through centrifugal force. The show occasionally shows how liquid and dust fall in unusual ways due to the high rate of spin required to achieve the effect.
** Tycho Station is a roving construction yard that has rotating habitat sections to provide inhabitants with gravity while maintaining gravity-free construction space.
** The GenerationShip ''Nauvoo'' is capable of generating rotational gravity through a massive drum that dominates the habitable section of the ship. This comes in handy in "Fallen World", [[spoiler:when the Ring Station has frozen every other ship in the vicinity, making the rechristened ''Behemoth'' the only ship capable of generating gravity for the proper treatment of wounds]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** BoomerangBigot Miller has a minor epiphany in "Static" when he catches himself using the word "us" to refer to all Belters, including himself. He also becomes significantly more altruistic and selfless after [[spoiler:discovering Julie Mao's corpse]], to the point of [[spoiler:performing a HeroicSacrifice by convincing the resurrected Julie to have Eros crash into Venus instead of Earth]].
** Holden becomes more and more accepting of the fact that he lives in a [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Solar System]] and even takes a certain level in cynicism, [[KnightInSourArmor but still never lets go of trying to make]] the Solar System a better place for everyone.
** Amos starts to develop the vestiges of an internal moral code for himself after he gains a BrokenPedestal for Naomi and forms an OddFriendship with Prax.
** Both Alex and Naomi find themselves DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife aboard the ''Rocinante'', with Alex quickly realizing that he's at his happiest as the ''Roci'''s pilot. Meanwhile, Naomi takes time off to [[spoiler:help work with the [=OPA=] on the ''Behemoth'']] before figuring out that she truly misses being with her friends aboard the ''Roci'' more than anything else.
** Bobbie Draper starts out as a typical gun-ho Martian Marine, but the [[TraumaCongaLine massacring of her entire squad]] and the realization of [[spoiler:TheConspiracy within the [=MCR=] government]] has her defect to the [=UN=]. Furthermore, she starts to better understand how many lies she's been fed her entire life and strives to earn her own independence from Mars, to the point where she both forms an IntergenerationalFriendship with Chrisjen (even serving as her ''bodyguard'' for most of the first half of Season 3) and even becoming [[spoiler: a crew member aboard the ''Rocinante''.]]
* ChekhovsGun:
** Julie Mao's animatronic gerbil, which turns out to [[spoiler: conceal the data chip with information on the Phoebe incident that led her to the ''Anubis'']].
** Julie's racing sled, the ''Razorback'', is a big one for Seasons 2 and 3.
*** In "Home", Miller realizes that [[spoiler:Eros is heading for Earth because it's assimilated Julie, who thinks she's flying the ''Razorback'' home]].
*** And in the Season 3 premiere, [[spoiler:Bobbie and Avasarala use the ''Razorback'' to escape Jules-Pierre Mao's yacht right before a missile strike destroys it]].
** The GenerationShip ''Nauvoo'' is revealed to be one when Miller incorporates it into his new plan in "Static". And again in Season 3 when [[spoiler:Fred Johnson has it recovered and retrofitted into a Belter warship rechristened the ''Behemoth'']].
** Part of Melba Koh's introduction in Season 3 consists of her getting lectured on how ''not'' to install an electrical component lest it shut down the entire ship in a DisasterDominoes effect. This knowledge comes in very handy in the season finale.
** Holden's cancer. Or specifically, the medication he's been taking for it all the way since the Eros incident ends up being able to kill the [[spoiler: blinding micro-organisms caught by everyone on Ilus inside the protomolecule structure.]]
** Early in Season 5, Holden uses an injector to re-oxydize Monica Stuart's blood so she doesn't die oxygen deprivation. Later in the season, [[spoiler:Naomi uses a similar injector to survive jumping through the vacuum of space without protective gear.]]
* ChekhovsSkill:
** {{Subverted}} by Havelock's practice with Belter Creole and gestures. Worse than useless, it's ''comical'' to the thugs who ambush him in "Remember the Cant".
** Played straight by Bobbie being strong enough to arm-wrestle her own PowerArmor. [[spoiler:When she battles the Hybrid!Katoa on Io in "Immolation", they both fall from a great height that damages her armor, leaving it as nothing more than dead weight around her. She uses this skill to lift her arm up high enough to shoot the Hybrid before it can kill her.]]
* TheChessmaster: Avasarala tries to manipulate every given situation to come out her way.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Holden has it.
--> '''Naomi:''' It's not your problem. It's not your fault! None of it is.\\
'''Holden:''' Okay, but now I'm ''making'' it my problem.
* ChildrenAreInnocent:
** The three-year-old girl outside Miller's apartment with her pet bird in "Dulcinea".
** Avasarala's grandson doesn't understand his grandmother's fear of an interplanetary war resulting in a ColonyDrop.
---> '''Grandson:''' ''Nobody'' could throw rocks that big. It just happens sometimes because, you know, gravity.
* CityMouse: Miller notes that he's "more of a city Belter" when asked why he's never done a space-walk before in "Godspeed".
* CivilWarVersusArmageddon: The Earth-Mars Coalition breaks down into interplanetary war and the Belters openly rebel against both planets due to the machinations of a MegaCorp experimenting with -- and failing to control -- the alien Protomolecule that threatens to consume all life in the solar system.
* TheCityNarrows: The Medina district, located at the innermost part of Ceres Station, where CentrifugalGravity is weak and property is cheap.
* CivilWar: Although Earth, Mars, and the Belt are increasingly independent, many still consider a potential war between them to be this within a united humanity.
* {{Cliffhanger}}:
** "The Big Empty" ends with Holden's crew being captured by [[spoiler: the Martian Navy]].
** "Remember the Cant" ends with [[spoiler: Havelock]] being ambushed and impaled.
** "Leviathan Wakes" (and therefore Season 1) ends with Holden's crew picking up the villains' transmission back to their base, and the protomolecule evolving.
** "Godspeed" ends as the protomolecule [[spoiler: begins ''moving'' Eros]], with Miller trapped aboard manning a DeadManSwitch.
** "Caliban's War" ends with Fred Johnson [[spoiler:finding the protomolecule that Naomi left for him, and Naomi revealing to Holden that she did so (and essentially betrayed his and the rest of the crew's trust)]], then cuts off before showing much of Holden's reaction to this.
** "Immolation" ends with the protomolecule growth on Venus launching a jellyfish-like structure into space for purposes unknown.
** "Dandelion Sky" ends as the Ring Station [[spoiler:slows the "speed limit" in the Slow Zone down greatly, jolting every spaceship there to a grinding halt that injures or kills hundreds of people, and shows Holden things that happened in the past]], leaving him in a HeroicBSOD.
** "Abaddon's Gate" has this same station [[spoiler:open up numerous other portals, leading to some ''1300'' habitable systems for humanity to explore. The ''Rocinante'' crew, now back together, decides to head through one of them to begin investigating what happened to the race of {{Precursors}} who built the Ring portal system]].
** "Cibola Burn" ends Season 4 with [[spoiler:ArcVillain Inaros [[ThrownOutTheAirlock spacing]] Klaes Ashford before launching the last of six stealth-coated asteroids at Earth, with none of the protagonists being aware of the impending ColonyDrop. However, Ashford managed to broadcast a warning before dying, setting the stage for Season 5.]]
* ClearMyName: The Rocinante crew are forced to make a run for the Ring Gate in Season 3 after [[spoiler:Clarissa Mao]] frames James Holden for a politically motivated act of sabotage, and are fired upon. Holden is later detained by the MCRN and must convince those in command that he is neither a terrorist nor insane.
* CloseUpOnHead: The series' opening scene builds outward from an extreme closeup of Julie Mao's face, which writer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3zQyV6HzIE Hawk Ostby says]] they did to [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] the StandardEstablishingSpaceshipShot.
* CodeName:
** Julie Mao's OPA operative code name is "[[GenderBlenderName Lionel Polanski]]".
** Avasarala's security code name is "Archangel".
* ColdBloodedTorture: Avasarala does this to a Belter caught smuggling illegal stealth tech simply by exposing him to Earth's gravity; because his body is [[SpacePeople not adapted to it]], he suffers tremendously. Avasarala gets chewed out for this but isn't punished, and the smuggler goes on to use gravity itself as his CyanidePill by wrestling out treatment for a multi-g transit to Luna, proving it [[TortureIsIneffective wasn't going to work]] no matter how long they left him on those hooks. [[TrashTalk She even taunts him when she visits him to hear who he's working for]]:
-->'''Chrisjen Avasarala:''' I'm sorry the gravity of a ''real'' planet hurts, but it's appropriate: you wish to hurt Earth, the Earth that is now crushing your ''weak'' Belter lungs and your ''fragile'' Belter bones.
* ColdEquation:
** {{Averted}} when Shed chooses to save Alex from suffocation by sharing his air supply with him in "The Big Empty".
** Anderson Dawes describes facing this choice with his ill sister Athena when recalling his backstory in "Rock Bottom".
* ColonelBadass: Fred Johnson was one when he still served the UN. Avasarala still calls him by this rank to appeal to his old allegiance when she secretly reaches out to him in "Static".
* ColonizedSolarSystem: Humanity has yet to expand beyond, and only Mars and the Asteroid Belt are heavily settled, with a couple outposts at least as far out as the Saturnine moon Phoebe (where the protomolecule was discovered).
* ColonyDrop:
** Given Avasarala's reaction to her grandson's talk about the dinosaur-killer and her worry about "people who throw rocks" in "CQB", this trope is the new MutuallyAssuredDestruction.
** In "Rock Bottom" Diogo's Uncle Matteo attacks a Martian patrol skiff using his cargo (a small asteroid) as an improvised weapon.
** "Godspeed"/"Home" has [[spoiler:Eros pushed out of orbit by the protomolecule]] and set on a collision course with Earth. Given it's three-times bigger than the rock which took out the dinosaurs, stopping it is of vital importance. [[spoiler:Thanks to Miller, it ends up hitting Venus with an impressive boom.]]
** The [[spoiler: crisis on Ganymede is caused by the destruction of an orbital solar mirror which impacts on a large part of the surface colony, the fallout of which renders the rest of the colony uninhabitable.]]
** The season finale of season 4 has [[spoiler: Marco launching asteroids outfitted with Martian stealth technology at Earth]], which make impact three episodes into season 5. [[spoiler:Three hit Earth before the UN catches on and retasks their satellites to detect and destroy the remaining rocks, which is more than enough for Marcos to make his case that the rest of the solar system should fear retribution by the Belt.]]
** He repeats the trick in the season 5 finale, [[spoiler:engineering a stealthed meteorid storm on the fleet guarding the Sol Ring at the same time his own fleet moves into attack position. It turns what would have been a CurbStompBattle against him into an almost complete rout. Marco only loses a few skiffs to the damaged capital ships, aided by a fleet of defecting Martians]].
** Season 6 opens with Marco launching small asteroids daily at Earth. They're easily shot down, but Marco has the resources to keep it up for months, and Earth can't afford to move their fleet without potentially allowing additional impacts.
* ColorWash: Scenes aboard ships get a heavy blue filter.
* CombatTentacles: Season 1 ends with the protomolecule seizing a character with these.
* ComicallySmallDemand: PlayedForLaughs in "Home" when Fred Johnson's response to being called "the most powerful man in the System right now" is a sardonic, "Oh really? Then [[YouGetMeCoffee go get me a cup of coffee]]." Instead, Drummer just smirks and [[FlippingTheBird flips him off]].
* CommieNazis: A downplayed variant with the Martian Congressional Republic. While their heavy nationalism, [[FantasticRacism habitual disregard for Earthers and Belters]], and insistence that ''they'' are the future of humanity [[PuttingOnTheReich comes across as disturbingly similar to Nazi Germany]], their SpaceColdWar with the United Nations on Earth and other cultural attributes (such as government-planned economics being responsible for their terraforming efforts) bear more similarities to the Soviet Union.
* CommitmentIssues:
** Ade Nygaard just wants to stay a FriendWithBenefits to Holden, who's disappointed but understanding.
** Holden himself has been the acting XO of the ''Canterbury'' for months, but refuses the captain's offer [[RankUp to make it permanent.]]
* CompanionCube: Alex develops a ''very'' personal connection to every ship he pilots, and he falls absolutely head-over-heels in love with the ''Rocinante''.
* CompanyTown: Ceres and the other large Belt settlements are run as such, which is why the OPA is becoming popular.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In the novels, it's a Martian InnocentBystander named Enrique Dos Santos rather than [[spoiler: Havelock]] who gets impaled by angry Belters.
** The show's Lieutenant Lopez takes on the roles of two Martian lieutenants from the novels: the selfsame Lt. Lopez who interrogates Holden, and marine Lt. Kelly who helps Holden's crew escape.
** In the books, Octavia Muss takes over as Miller's partner after Havelock leaves Ceres at Miller's urging, and Miller has an ex-wife named Candace who is mentioned a few times. In the show, Octavia is one of Miller's colleagues and has a quasi-romantic relationship with him (or at least did once).
** Cotyar of the show fills the roles of both Cotyar of the books as Avasarala's head of security, and also of Soren, Avasarala's much put upon personal assistant who dutifully absorbs the majority of her vitriol.
** Camina Drummer takes on the roles of many different characters at different times. In Season 2, she serves the roles of both her namesake (Fred Johnson's security chief) and Sam Rosenberg (Tycho's top engineer and friend of the ''Roci'' crew). In Season 3, she [[DecompositeCharacter shares the role]] of Michio Pa (XO of the ''Behemoth'') with Klaes Ashford, as well as filling that of Bull de Baca (Fred Johnson's protogee who's [[spoiler: paralyzed by the hard deceleration]]). In Season 4, her material is basically [[AdaptationExpansion entirely new]]. Then Season 5 sees her back in Michio Pa's new role as the polyamorous space-pirate who [[spoiler: defects from the Free Navy]].
** [[DecompositeCharacter Inverted]] with Col. Janus, who doesn't appear in the books, but exists in the show as a counterpoint to Dr. Iturbi, providing the viewer with an interesting character dynamic instead of just stale reports to Avasarala.
* TheConfidant: Holden will discuss things with Naomi that he won't with the rest of the crew.
* ConLang: Belters speak "Belter Creole", a ''patois'' featuring words from Russian, Turkish, German, etc. and integrates hand gestures [[AllThereInTheManual for communicating in spacesuits]]. They also continue to speak English (using an accent that sounds vaguely Afrikaans) and Chinese (which is heard in station announcements).
* ConnectedAllAlong: Julie Mao's disappearance, the attacks on the ''Canterbury'' and ''Donnager'', the ruin of Phoebe Station, the bio-weapon on the ''Anubis'', it all leads to [[spoiler: the release of the protomolecule on Eros]].
* ContinuousDecompression: Played fairly realistically in "CQB" when a railgun blows two fairly large holes in the room the crew are in, and they have to quickly but calmly patch the holes. Naomi also notes afterward that since air was rushing out both sides, they're now trapped in a room surrounded by hard vacuum.
* TheConscience:
** In addition to being TheCaptain, Holden is often his crew's voice of morality, though he himself turns to Naomi if he's having doubts about something.
** Amos doesn't seem to have much of a sense of morality, but he usually has a pretty good idea of what Naomi would or wouldn't approve of and uses that to guide his actions.
* ConspicuousConsumption: A summit between the UN and MCR takes place on Earth in a large, mostly empty hall with big windows that let in plenty of sunlight. There are also large flower arrangements and a buffet featuring plenty of fresh fruit on clear display. This is all done so that the UN can thumb its nose at the MCR delegation, showing the Martians that, in spite of their superiority complex over Earth, none of them will ever get to see such luxuries on Mars in their lifetimes.
* TheConspiracy: The ultimate culprit for everything in Seasons 1, 2, and the first half of 3 is one of these involving [[spoiler:billionaire Jules-Pierre Mao and UN Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright]].
* ContrivedCoincidence: Miller and Holden's storylines finally intersect in "Salvage" when their respective investigations lead them to the same hotel on Eros at the same time, with Miller arriving [[BigDamnHeroes just in time]] to save Holden and his crew from [[spoiler: a UN hit squad]], though its {{downplayed}} by the fact they've been WorkingTheSameCase.
* ConvenientlyTimedAttackFromBehind:
** Octavia saves Miller this way in "Rock Bottom".
** Similarly, Anna saves Naomi from Clarissa like this in "Fallen World".
* CoolStarship:
** The ''Rocinante'' is fairly plain on the outside, but the inside is pretty sleek and awesome.
** LDSS ''Nauvoo'', the only true starship in the series so far, is a GenerationShip and the largest vessel humanity has ever built. It also fully averts StandardHumanSpaceship, what with it being a cathedral as well as a ship. [[spoiler:Becomes even cooler once the OPA hijack it and turn it into the warship ''Behemoth'']].
* CopKiller: Filat Kothari and his goons become attempted ones in "Remember the Cant". Star Helix Security is not impressed.
* CorruptCop:
** Miller to an extent, though he has more boundaries than many LawEnforcementInc employees in the Belt.
** In Season 4, Esai Martin turns out to be one. Although a reasonably decent man at heart, he abuses his position and connections to get rich by stealing valuable tech from the Martian government.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Jules-Pierre Mao.
* CorruptPolitician:
** Miller justifies being a moderately CorruptCop by noting that his bosses are bribed even better.
** [[spoiler: Sadavir Errinwright]] is part of TheConspiracy.
* CosmicHorrorReveal: [[spoiler:The protomolecule, its effects, and the unknown intelligence behind it are less ''Film/IndependenceDay'' and more "Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace".]]
* CostumePorn: Avasarala seems to wear a different intricately-made and vibrantly-coloured sari in every scene.
* CrapsackWorld: Things are better than they are in the 21st century in certain respects, but the more things change the more things stay the same. [[WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture Advanced medical technology]] and [[FutureFoodIsArtificial synthetic foods]] may have made [[ThePlague disease]] and [[ReducedToRatburgers hunger]] less of an issue than any previous era, but they've been overshadowed by [[OverpopulationCrisis overpopulation]], [[SlobsVersusSnobs class warfare]] and [[GreenAesop extreme environmental damage]]. Each nation (Earth, Mars, and the Belt) is consumed by their own problems for their inhabitants.
** Although Earthers have an average life expectancy of ''123'', a total population of 30 billion and a dramatic rise in sea levels has led to job shortages and most remaining land being heavily developed, so most people live on some sort of government assistance. People on "Basic Assistance" live in cardboard boxes, without access to medical care or clean drinking water, and can spend decades waiting for job training to even have the chance of getting off Basic. Private property is heavily regulated to the point that a 22-acre farm in Montana[[note]]An average 21st-century family-owned farm in the United States is 441 acres[[/note]] is considered extravagant and the government would like nothing better than to seize it.
** The life expectancy on Mars is even higher than Earth's due to its superior tech base - but it's also a hardline military dictatorship, with [[TheDictatorship all that implies]]. We see emphasis placed on order and discipline even above self-preservation, and Martian soldiers are callously disposed of by superiors if it can be justified for the 'good of Mars'. For civilians, civil liberties appear to be easily revoked when we see police actions in season four. And though Mars has an infamously low unemployment rate up through season three -- so low that Bobbie Draper cannot even recall the last time she even saw an unemployed person -- it lacks any sort of large-scale social safety net so it is completely unprepared to help people when unemployment drastically rises after the Rings open.
** The average Belter life expectancy is ''68''. Low- or zero-gravity takes its toll on muscle and bone growth, hypoxic environments stunt child development, cops are often just thugs with badges, and general poverty and organized crime reign. Most Belters die a ''lot'' sooner due to the screwed-up infrastructure of their stations, let alone the rampant crime and corruption as well as strict water and air rationing. Drug use and slumlording is ignored while water theft—''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greywater greywater]]'' theft—is harshly punished. The Belter working class are stuck in highly dangerous jobs and forced to live in tight quarters. Earther and Martian corporations run operations in the Belt and outer moons with virtually no oversight and often [[NoOSHACompliance pay only lip service to employee safety and health benefits]], while paying next to nothing. Various outer moons, asteroids, and space stations are ostensibly governed, if at all, by Earth or Mars, but it’s obvious to Belters that the "Inners" don’t give a shit about them.
* CreatorProvincialism:
** A minor point, but despite the UN's OneWorldOrder, the half of Earth's interplanetary nuclear arsenal that actually gets launched in "Home" appears to come solely from the continental United States.
** Bobby Draper, a 23rd-century SpaceMarine from Mars, is awarded the Purple Heart when she's wounded.
* CreepyCleanliness: Downplayed with the Martians and Earthers. The MCRN flagship ''Donnager'' is dark but clean and sterile, the elite levels of Ceres Station are a spotless white with islands of perfectly groomed green, and the UN headquarters in New York border on a [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas crystal spire]]. There's nothing really ''wrong'' with them being clean, except it serves to contrast their luxury with the Belters who are forced to live in squalor.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
** The OPA courier who had been captured by Avasarala killed himself by slipping his slender neck between the safety restraints during a shuttle launch from Earth. It is unclear whether what ultimately killed him was avoiding the drugs intended to mitigate physiological damage from high-G acceleration, or simply having his airways collapse under the weight of his head.
** TheVirus slowly consumes whoever it infects, keeping them alive as it eats them. You only get to die when its growth stops something important, like breathing, [[spoiler:and even then that may not be the end of you]].
** Several individuals are [[spoiler: disassembled into their component organs by the Protomolecule]], becoming HumanResources.
* CultColony: In Season 1, the Mormons are financing humanity's first GenerationShip, and Miller gets to know one of their colonists on his transit to Eros. [[spoiler:Developments with the protomolecule see their ship hijacked, first as a massive bullet against Eros to knock it out of orbit and then repurposed as a Belter warship after that plan falls through.]]
* CulturalPosturing:
** The Belters take pride in how they manage to survive with so much less than the Inners. The ice-hauler Paj refuses even the idea of regenerating a lost arm by declaring, "Screw the Inners and their magic Jell-O! [[PresentCompanyExcluded No offence, Holden.]] I'd rather a Belter-built fake any day!"
** Martians believe that their planet-wide commitment to terraforming makes them superior to Earthers (Who they view as lazy) and Belters (Who they view as greedy).
* CultureClash:
** Earthers vs. Martians vs. Belters.
** Havelock (an Earther) is a complete FishOutOfWater on the Belter station of Ceres.
* CurbStompBattle:
** The Martian Navy is regarded as the preeminent military force in the system, and they are used to curb-stomping all opposition when it comes to an out-and-out fight. This leads to a severe shock to Captain Yao in "CQB" when [[SubvertedTrope it turns out that this fight is much more two-sided than anything she expected]]. The ''Donnager'' does manage to take out four of the six attacking ships, but the remaining two get close enough to launch boarding craft and Captain Yao has to self-destruct the ship to prevent a takeover.
** In a moment of frustration and anger, Alex makes the mistake of getting physical with Amos, who easily overpowers him. It doesn't turn into a real fight, but Amos makes damn sure Alex knows it is a very bad idea to pick one with him.
---> '''Amos:''' I don't want to fight you, Alex. Please don't make me. 'Cause if we do, who's going to fly the ship?
** At the climax of season two, [[spoiler:when Bobbie Draper gets her PowerArmor she ''walks'' through the gunmen attempting to kill her, Avasarala, and Cotyar.]]
* CuttingTheKnot: The ''Rocinante'' is held in place by docking clamps and none of the codes the crew knows works. Alex gets around this problem by breaking off some clamps through sheer force and then simply jettisoning the fake gas tanks the remaining clamps were holding onto.
-->'''Alex:''' ''You'' are a gunship and ''I'' am a Navy pilot, so... to ''hell'' with this "gas-hauler" bullshit!
* CyanidePill: The Belter smuggler subjected to gravity torture on Earth uses ''gravity itself'' as this by wrestling out of his gravity-coping treatment during his multi-g transit to Luna, thus avoiding further interrogation and proving it wasn't going to work no matter how long they left him on those hooks.
* CyberPunk: With a bit more emphasis on the "punk" than the "cyber".
* TheCynic: Miller.
* CynicismCatalyst: Anderson Dawes's ill sister Athena didn't just die, Dawes himself had to kill her [[ColdEquation to save the rest]] of the family, including his three other sisters.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* DaChief: Captain Shaddid of Star Helix Security is a female example.
* DaddyIssues: Neither of the Mao sisters had a healthy relationship with their father. Julie, despite benefiting from ParentalFavoritism, chafed under his hypocrisy and impossible expectations, which drove her to forsake her family and run away to the belt. Clarissa was TheUnFavorite despite being devoted to their father, who never appreciated a single thing she did. This drove a wedge between Clarissa and Julie and became Clarissa's FreudianExcuse for much worse things.
* DarkAndTroubledPast:
** It's stated multiple times that anyone who signs up as crew for a ship like the ''Canterbury'' is probably running from something in their past. Holden left Earth because, "everything I loved was dying," and the UN Navy because he didn't want to be an oppressor. Alex is a washed-up divorcee, Shed is hiding from debts to drug dealers, and Naomi has some kind of OPA affiliation but [[NotInThisForYourRevolution doesn't believe in causes]].
** Miller's badly-fused vertebrae are described as the mark of a ward of the state who was given cheap medication as a child, and he later tells Holden he and Sematimba were {{Street Urchin}}s who stole chips from pachinko parlors and joined LawEnforcementInc Star Helix to hand out beatings instead of taking them.
** Amos is secretive about his rough background on Earth. He makes oblique references to having grown up around prostitution and crime, including child trafficking, and in season three the only records a reporter can find about the name "Amos Burton" at all are related to some sort of mob boss. [[spoiler: In Season 5, we learn that all of Amos' hints were accurate, and he murdered the mob boss 'Amos Burton' to save a friend and used his identity to leave Earth.]]
** During his time as a UN Marine colonel, OPA leader Fred Johnson destroyed a station full of Belter mutineers and their children even though they were trying to surrender, earning himself the epithet "TheButcher of Anderson Station".
* DarkerAndEdgier: The novels are by no means all fluffy bunnies and sunshine, but the show definitely takes a darker interpretation of the material.
* DarkReprise: A much more somber version of the main theme plays over the montage that ends "[[WhamEpisode Immolation]]". Ironically, this was the first episode to air after Syfy announced the series' cancellation, which makes the sequence [[HarsherInHindsight far sadder than was intended]] (luckily, Creator/PrimeVideo picked up the show for a fourth season a few weeks later).
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Octavia cites this as a common form of rebellion, implicitly from personal experience.
* DavidVsGoliath: In "Doors and Corners", the crew has to outfight the stealth ship that both outsizes and outguns the ''Rocinante'' to protect two {{Boarding Pod}}s attempting to breach the station the ship is protecting. It takes some fancy maneuvering around the station's habitat ring, the ''Rocinante'' takes a decent beating, and they lose a pod when the station reveals it has a functioning anti-asteroid gun, but they manage to disable both the stealth ship and the station's defences.
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:The civilzation that built the protomolecule and the ring network turns out to have been wiped out by an unknown party long ago.]]
* DeadlyEuphemism: In "Windmills", Errinwright activates a black-ops team to "take Holden off the board."
* DeadManSwitch: A rain of shrapnel damages the last of the massive explosive charges being planted by Miller and Diogo in "Godspeed", triggering the 60-second timer and forcing someone to hold their finger on a reset button to keep it from detonating. Naomi offers to remotely shut it down, but since they're short on time, [[spoiler: Miller]] decides to stay behind and detonate it himself. Events conspire to keep him from having to go through with it... at least immediately.
* DeadpanSnarker:
** Miller.
*** When asked why he wears his distinctive hat, Miller claims "It keeps the rain off my head," which would be snarky even if he wasn't a lifelong inhabitant of an artificial biosphere who's never even ''experienced'' rain.
*** When told that the bomb he's holding the DeadManSwitch on needs extra work to disarm in "Home", Miller remarks, "Yep, my bomb has to be special," and once the plan changes he declares, "I'm gonna take my pet nuke for a walk."
** In "The Big Empty", Naomi doesn't take well to everyone's hesitation: "I'm sorry, does anyone need a back rub first?"
** Chrisjen Avasarala, full-stop. Just a few gems from her:
--->"No, I wasn't murdered in the last 30 seconds."\\
"I find it hard to believe that a Martian Marine would be fatigued from sitting in a chair."\\
"This is going to be very tedious if you remain this dim."
** Her bodyguard Cotyar Ghazi as well, to the point that most of his conversations with Avasarala are SnarkToSnarkCombat.
--->'''Chrisjen''': So, what do you think?\\
'''Cotyar''': Why do you pretend that you care about my opinion?\\
'''Chrisjen''': Indulge me.\\
'''Cotyar''': That's a fuckin' trap.\\
'''Chrisjen''': Oh, you're so predictable.\\
'''Cotyar''': Yeah, so are you.
* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Sematimba, Admiral Souther, Cotyar, Tilly, Diogo, and Alex]] all bite the dust, unlike their novel counterparts.
* DeathGlare: Holden gives Naomi one when she locks him out of control of the ''Knight'''s so he can't chase stupidly after an extremely dangerous ship in "The Big Empty".
* DeathOfAChild:
** In the backstory in "Back To the Butcher", the station nuked to bits by Fred Johnson had entire families on board, and there's a shot of a dead father holding his daughter's corpse as they float through space.
** In the Season 1 finale "Leviathan Wakes", [[spoiler:the entire population of Eros station is [[HumanResources consumed]] by the protomolecule]], which is implied to include a little girl Naomi couldn't convince to leave the station with her.
* DealWithTheDevil: Naomi worries they're doing this by accepting Fred Johnson's invitation in "Back to the Butcher".
* DecontaminationChamber: The ''Roci'''s airlock doubles as one in "Salvage".
* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] has all the potential to be a main character but turns up dead instead.
* DefectorFromCommieLand: While Mars is not specifically communist [[spoiler:Bobby Draper escaping from the Martin embassy]] is styled directly after incidents and locations from West Berlin and the Korean DMZ.
* DefectorFromDecadence:
** Despite her father being one of the wealthiest men in the System, Julie Mao is fundamentally committed to opposing the Inner Planets' oppression of the Belt.
** In the eleven years since he blew up Anderson Station, Fred Johnson has transitioned from a colonel of UN SpaceMarines into a leader of the OPA. His reasons fit the trope even more once "Doors and Corners" reveals [[spoiler:his nickname and reputation are based on a lie: Anderson Station's transmissions were being jammed the entire time, and he had no idea they had surrendered.]]
* DemotedToExtra:
** Basia Merton has a brief apperance in Season 2, but does not return in Season 4, which adapts the book where he is a main character in. His role in the Ilus arc is given to his wife Lucia Mazur.
** Although Miller's partner Havelock was given [[AscendedExtra a larger role]] in Season 1 than in the first novel, when it came to adapting the Ilus arc where he's a viewpoint character, he's AdaptedOut entirely.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: While threatening the Martians in "The Monster and the Rocket", Holden warns them that ''"this is our only, and final, warning"''.
* DesignerBabies: Reasonably common, since Lt. Lopez describes Holden as such like it's a mundane fact in "Remember the Cant", though their dialogue implies a "full genetic mix" from eight people is more peculiar.
* DetonationMoon: The Martians destroy [[spoiler:the Saturnine moon Phoebe]] to keep Earth from investigating it first. In retaliation, Earth blows up [[spoiler:Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons]], reasoning that the base there is lightly staffed and of little strategic significance. Avasarala and Souther protest that this will seriously piss off the Martians, but are overruled.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: Holden and Miller bear the brunt of the storytelling together throughout Season 1 and the first half of Season 2, with Avasarala and others providing a ThirdLineSomeWaiting. Afterwards, other major characters, such as Bobbie, Prax, and Anna, have their own storylines and become deuteragonists and tritagonists to the ''Rocinante'' crew.
* DiedStandingUp: Due to a combination of magnetic boots and lack of gravity, most people killed on a spaceship tend to be left floating in a standing position, which makes hallways full of bodies that much creepier.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: [[spoiler:Fred Johnson]] is shot dead by Sakai during the Free Navy raid on Tycho, whereas in the books he dies from a stroke caused by a combination of old age (being much older in the books) and poorer quality "juice" to cope with prolonged high g-force maneuvers. His death also comes an entire book/season earlier than in the books where the killer maneuvers happen during the ''Rocinante'' vs. ''Pella'' battle adapted in Episode 6.03 "Force Projection".
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Holden's initial reaction to the loss of the ''Canterbury'' is to chase down the enemy ship, never remembering he's in a leaky lifeboat. The others have to restrain him until he calms down.
** Solomon Epstein, inventor of the Epstein drive which all current spaceships use, was tinkering with his prototype and disabled the voice recognition software because it was acting up (mainly because he didn't speak Chinese). Doing this killed him, because once he started up the drive, the g-forces pinned him to his seat, preventing him from shutting it off.
* DirtyCop:
** Star Helix is the closest thing to law on Ceres, but is generally accepted to care more about [[LawEnforcementInc profits]] than the law, and even Miller is not averse to bribes and brutality. Later, [[spoiler: their chief, Captain Shaddid, is revealed to be working for OPA boss Anderson Dawes when she fires Miller to cover up what Julie Mao was doing for the OPA.]]
** CPM is even worse than Star Helix. The majority of their officers are former gang members, and are easily bought by the PrivateMilitaryContractors working for TheConspiracy, showing no remorse in [[spoiler: exposing the citizens of Eros to the protomolecule and lethal radiation]].
** Pinkwater, the private police force that guards Winnipesaukee Island. After [[spoiler:the rocks fall and their employers abandon them]], Pinkwater shakes down the servants who maintain the Island's facilities for supplies and murder them if they refuse to hand them over. Erich laughs at their transparently obvious racket and they're forced to back down when confronted with actual criminals, though they come back in greater numbers.
* DisabilityImmunity: The children Protogen kidnapped from Ganymede possess a rare genetic defect that inhibits the growth of the protomolecule, keeping it from asserting its own will as it does in everything else it infects. However, this resistance isn't perfect, ultimately only slowing the transformation.
* DisappearedDad: Alex is one to his son.
* DisappearingBullets:
** In "Leviathan Wakes," [[spoiler: Amos]] shoots [[spoiler: Sematimba]], spattering Naomi with blood from the exit wound, but the bulkhead and panels next to her are unscathed.
** In "Doors and Corners," members of Miller's boarding party surround a group of Protogen scientists using a strange computer interface in a small room. When they react violently to being disconnected from it, the Belters panic and mow them down with full-automatic fire. As in, ''guys standing in a circle facing inward spray bullets at other guys in the middle, with their own guys just a few feet behind the targets''. Miraculously, they manage to avoid friendly fire, though Miller cringes and tries to get them to hold fire. Played somewhat for dark humor, as Miller is clearly herding cats as he tries to lead the eager but inexperienced OPA fighters.
* DisposableSexWorker:
** {{Inverted}} in "Dulcinea" when a brothel patron killed by some other thugs is simply disposed of while Miller gently reassures the sex worker witness Gia, who goes on to become a minor character via PlatonicProstitution with Havelock.
** Also inverted in "Rock Bottom" when Amos makes a point of telling a male prostitute that a potential patron is packing a knife.
* DisposableVagrant: TheConspiracy behind the protomolecule seem to consider ''all Belters'' this, since they infect [[spoiler: the ''entire population'' of Eros]] with the protomolecule just to see what happens.
* DistinguishingMark: Anderson Dawes has a prominent scar on his neck where a faulty EVA suit caused electrical burns. It's shared by a generation of older Belters including founding members of the OPA, and later generations (including Naomi) have similar marks tattooed on their necks as a sign of solidarity or allegiance.
* DistressCall: Holden's storyline in "Dulcinea" centres around the ''Canterbury'' receiving one from a ship called ''Scopuli''. Captain [=McDowell=] tries to pretend they never received it until Holden secretly logs it officially, leaving them legally required to respond.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** The OPA monogram is a circular O containing an A that's jagged enough to also pass for a P... kinda like some versions of the Anarchist A.
** The cry of "Remember the Cant!" deliberately echoes "Remember the Maine!", another ship who's destruction [[UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar triggered a war]].
** The stencil of Holden used by OPA members bares more than a little resemblance to the famous stencil of Che Guevara. Indeed Holden is mythologized as a freedom fighter and/or terrorist just like Guevara, even though Holden has no real political agenda.
** As aggressively nationalistic as they are, as much as they look down on Earthers and Belters, as much as they insist that ''they'' are the future of mankind, you could be forgiven for expecting the Martian Marines to start goose-stepping at any time.
** The SpaceColdWar between the United Nations on Earth and the Martian Congressional Republic doesn't even ''try'' to avoid looking like the historical UsefulNotes/{{Cold War}}. In fact, the "Vesta Blockade" mentioned in the backstory where the cold war nearly went hot can be seen as an allusion to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
** The struggles of the Belter colonies for their independence bear many parallels with those of various native resistance and independence movements seen during the height and decline of European imperialism.
* DomedHometown:
** Martians live under domes.
** Ganymede is the breadbasket of the Belt, and features large greenhouse domes that use enormous orbital mirrors to provide sufficient light.
* DoomedHometown:
** The ''Canterbury'' gets destroyed in the first episode, soon after Captain [=McDowell=] points out that it's effectively been Holden's home for the last five years.
** [[spoiler:Amos's hometown of Baltimore is devastated when Marco drops asteroids on Earth.]]
* DoubleTap: When Miller shoots [[spoiler:Dresden]] in the head, he follows it up with a couple more after the man has hit the floor just to make sure.
* DueToTheDead:
** Former soldiers Holden and Fred Johnson agree on the need to return [[spoiler: Lt. Lopez]]'s body to Mars in "Rock Bottom".
** Anderson Dawes describes leaving his dead little sister in a bauxite cave they found together.
** Miller gives [[spoiler: his old friend Sematimba]] a BurialInSpace near the end of "Safe".
** Holden gives a heartfelt last farewell to [[spoiler:Miller]] in "Cibola Burn". [[spoiler:Due to the real Miller being long dead by then, he uses the Protomolecule sample that was projecting him into his head as a substitute before launching it into the Sun.]]
* TheDulcineaEffect: {{Lampshaded}}. "Dulcinea" is literally the title of the series premiere, and in it Joe Miller develops a fascination with his subject Julie Mao, and to a lesser extent James Holden (an avid Cervantes fan) wants more from his FriendWithBenefits Ade Nygaard.
* DramaticIrony: The audience knows Kenzo is Avasarala's spy from the moment he first appears on screen, but Holden doesn't realize it until he betrays them on Eros two episodes later.
* DramaticSpaceDrifting:
** The embracing bodies of a father and daughter get this treatment after the destruction of Anderson Station in the titular sequence in "[[{{Flashback}} Back]] to TheButcher".
** AsteroidMiner Mateo leaves his nephew Diogo this way in "Rock Bottom", instead of taking him on his SuicideAttack.
** Much like in "Back to the Butcher", this is used in "Pyre" to emphasize the horror of some Belters having some innocent Earthers and Martians ThrownOutTheAirlock.
** Ashford's death scene.
* DrawingStraws: In "Home", Avasarala immediately proposes a lottery system for evacuating Earth.
* DreamIntro: The second episode opens with a dream that Jim has of the time he met his recently-deceased girlfriend while he was actually dozing off for a brief moment.
* DrillSergeantNasty: Although they [[DownplayedTrope sometimes display good camaraderie]], Bobbie Draper spends at lot of her screen-time shouting angrily at her squad and having [[WarHawk hawkish]] disagreements with her superior.
* DrivenToSuicide:
** The Belter smuggler who commits suicide during his transfer from Earth to Luna to avoid further interrogation using Earth's own gravity as his CyanidePill.
** Lt. Nemeroff, a crew member of the ''Thomas Prince'' who has a crisis of faith after the ship passes through the Ring and [[AteHisGun eats his gun]].
* DrivingQuestion: As in any good mystery story.
** "Who destroyed the ''Canterbury?''" and "What happened to Julie Mao?" in Season 1.
* DressingAsTheEnemy:
** Alex spends several episodes wearing an MCRN uniform, which is justified since he ''is'' ex-Martian Navy and wearing the uniform while piloting an obvious MCRN vessel to Tycho Station would allay suspicions if they were hailed.
** Holden and Miller swipe the uniforms of a pair of guards they kill on Eros so they can avoid trouble from other patrols.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In the fifth season finale, [[spoiler:Alex abruptly suffers a fatal stroke from being at a hard burn for too long. This is due to Cas Anvar being fired after the season had been filmed.]]
* DudeNotFunny: In "Paradigm Shift", Alex catches Amos "fixing" the Martian flag on the ''Roci'' (painting out [[spoiler:Deimos, which the UN destroyed two episodes prior]]). He's far from amused, since seventeen Martians died in that event and Mars lost a significant cultural icon. [[ContinuityNod Bobbie is similarly unamused]] when she actually gets a good look at it in "Assured Destruction" after [[spoiler:she and Avasarala temporarily join the ''Rocinante'']].
* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: Holden chooses to force the ''Canterbury'' to investigate a DistressCall rather than ignore it, which he knows will cost them their punctual delivery bonus.
* DyingAlone:
** In "Critical Mass", we learn [[spoiler: Julie Mao]] died a horrific, agonizing death all alone in a dark hotel room as TheVirus ate them from the inside out.
** {{Subverted}} in "Godspeed" when Miller is all set to do this, even turning off his radio so he can listen to the protomolecule's babbling broadcast in peace, until events conspire to keep him alive.
** Solomon Epstein is unable to call for help after becoming immobilized by a high-g burn, and winds up dying in his chair when he suffers a stroke as a result.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:E]]
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The first episode features a Belter who is extremely tall and fragile due to being raised in low gravity, which is explicitly described as being the standard Belter body type. Dialogue continues to describe Belters as such throughout the series, but the rest of the actors cast as Belters match normal human body types.
** In the first season, UN Secretary-General Sorrento-Gillis is TheGhost and Undersecretary-General Sadavir Errinwright relays all of his off-screen orders personally. Come Season 2 and onwards, Sorrento-Gillis is a significant onscreen character who sometimes overrules Sadavir's desires and doesn't always take his advice, making it weirder in hindsight that Errinwright had as much autonomy as he did with the decisions he made in Season 1.
* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Despite its many problems, Earth remains the only naturally habitable planet for humans [[spoiler:until the discovery of the Ring network]] and still commands the largest and most capable navy in the entire system. Both Mars and the Belt see themselves as independent of the home planet, though they are ultimately dependent on Earth for survival: it is still the largest supplier of food in the system, and provides the biomatter that makes offworld farming possible.
* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: Earth is rapidly heading in this direction, as ecological disaster, overpopulation, internal corruption, and political infighting chip away at its dominant position in Sol.
* EiffelTowerEffect: The opening credits use the Statue of Liberty to show rising sea levels on Earth. Then a new facility is constructed to raise it back to sea level.
* EldritchAbomination:
** The protomolecule. In its first appearance it's a squishy and cephalopodic MeatMoss surrounded by [[OccultBlueEyes occult blue]] bio-luminescent spores that runs on HumanResources. Then "Critical Mass" proves it's also [[TheVirus infectious]] via MutagenicGoo, and by "Leviathan Wakes" it has full-on CombatTentacles 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 [[OutsideContextProblem completely violates the laws of physics]] whenever it shows up in the story.
** First described in season three, then explored more in season four, are [[spoiler:the forces implied to have wiped the protomolecule's creators out. It is uncertain if they are actually lifeforms in any sense of the word. The only hints to their existence are through mysterious spatial anomalies that are essentially holes in space. They have the power to disable protomolecule-based technology and disintegrate anything transiting Ring space.]]
* ElectronicEyes:
** The corporate spy Kenzo has one that's featured in several POV shots in Season 1.
** Cohen the documentary camerman is blind, and sees ''through'' his cameras.
* EmergencyCargoDump: This is standard procedure when facing SpacePirates given Holden's desperate plea for ''Canterbury'' to eject its load of ice when attacked in "Dulcinea".
* EmptyChairMemorial: In "Home", the crew of the ''Rocinante'' pour Ganymede gin and raise a glass toward the empty chair where [[spoiler: Miller]] once sat.
* EmptyQuiver: When Earth launches half their nuclear arsenal to [[spoiler:stop Eros]], circumstances require them to hand over guidance to Fred Johnson. When the nukes prove unnecessary and Earth sends the abort codes to detonate them, Johnson manages to save and appropriate nearly 30 as an insurance policy.
* EnemyMine: In "Static", Avasarala reaches out to Fred Johnson, hoping he has solid proof of the conspiracy which he'd be willing to share. He transmits back the location of the derelict stealth ship which his team disabled in the previous episode.
* EnergyAbsorption: The protomolecule feeds on energy, as shown in "Salvage" when it's found wrapped around a deactivated reactor, and in "Critical Mass" when [[spoiler: Julie Mao smashes all her electronics in an attempt to slow its infection of her]].
* TheEngineer: Naomi and Amos' role on the ''Canterbury'' and the ''Rocinante''.
* EpicLaunchSequence: The ''Nauvoo'' is launched in "Godspeed" [[spoiler:after being hijacked by the OPA to destroy [[EldritchAbomination Eros]]]]. Being a GenerationShip, it's so big that hundreds of smaller drone-ships have to dock with it and fire their engines to help it maneuver.
* EpicTrackingShot: The series premiere, "Dulcinea", show off two of them:
** The EstablishingShot of Ceres Station begins with [[StandardizedSpaceViews ships in orbit]] before using everything from ventilation shafts to public transit to progress continuously from floor to ceiling down through the docks, the wealthy district, and the working-class districts before finally emerging from the ceiling of the slummy marketplace at the very heart of the asteroid. This establishes not only the station's layout, but that [[AlienGeometries "down" is out]] and gravity influences property value.
** Aboard the ''Canterbury'', Holden has a WalkAndTalk with Naomi and Amos that carries them down a hallway from just outside the galley, into an elevator, up several levels, down another hallway, and onto the bridge where Holden starts up another conversation with Alex in a single take that lasts for over a minute.
* EscapePod: ''Knight'' is technically a shuttle with other primary uses (like investigating a DistressCall 20,000 km out), but it serves this purpose for Holden's crew in "The Big Empty".
* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** Holden's decision to log the ''Scopuli'''s distress signal, committing the ''Canterbury'' to a dangerous rescue mission even though it could easily be a pirate trap, establishes him as the resident KnightInSourArmor.
** Avasarala is introduced tickling her grandson before hopping on a transport to oversee the ColdBloodedTorture of a tech smuggler, establishing her pretty solidly as a pragmatic anti-hero.
** Fred Johnson's first direct meeting with Holden consists of him effortlessly {{Sherlock Scan}}ning his way through Holden's bluff of having half a platoon of pissed off Martian marines on the ''Rocinante''.
* EstablishingShot: Used frequently, along with a TitleIn.
* EurekaMoment: Going through the data-broker's workshop Miller spots a [[spoiler: half-constructed robotic gerbil]] and immediately tears out of the room. It turns out [[spoiler: Julie Mao hid secret data from the broker inside a similar device]].
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Deep down, Jules-Pierre Mao does on some level love his daughter Julie. In fact, despite Julie's defiance, he nonetheless [[ParentalFavoritism favored her]] over her sister Clarissa.
** Esai Martin, while not nearly as messed-up as the above example, is a CorruptCop who sells Martian government property on the BlackMarket to make enough money for his family of four to purchase tickets on the colony ships lining up to settle the newly discovered Ring worlds.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: PlayedWith by Anderson Dawes, who professes disgust at Filat Kothari's ambush of [[spoiler:Havelock]] and offers the man's hiding location to Miller, but however real his revulsion might be what he's really looking for is leverage over Miller.
* EverybodyKnewAlready: When Holden and Naomi reveal their relationship to Amos and Alex, they cheer and groan respectively. Both had long since figured it out and were betting on when it started, a bet Alex lost.
* EveryManHasHisPrice: Anderson Dawes believes this and probes for Miller's. He's quite disappointed when Miller doesn't take up his offer of Filat Kothari's whereabouts.
* EvilutionaryBiologist: Dresden, again. As he explains in "Doors and Corners", he sees the protomolecule as the key to humanity's future, as it could allow all humans to [[MasterOfYourDomain adapt to any environment]], even hard vacuum. Therefore, he sees every horrible act he's committed as merely the price of progress.
* EvolvingCredits:
** Starting in Season 2, the credits change to reflect in-universe developments such as [[spoiler:the destruction of Deimos, the departure of the ''Nauvoo'' from Tycho Station, the protomolecule spreading across Venus, the nuclear attack on South America, the opening of the Ring gates and the asteroids hitting Earth]].
** In Season 6 there is also [[spoiler: an element of foreshadowing, as you can see the Ring Station having some kind of construction taking place, by Episode 5 it looks complete and in that episode, the construction is revealed to be a set of gigantic railguns that annihilate an attacking MCRN fleet.]]
* ExactWords: Faced with "unequivocal" orders that "under no circumstance" is he to let Phoebe Station fall into UNN hands, Lt. Sutton opts to [[spoiler:destroy the entire moon rather than waste his marines' lives contesting it]].
* TheExile: In "Pyre", Fred Johnson threatens this to Holden when he chooses to [[spoiler:head for Ganymede to destroy the new source of protomolecule that has popped up. Holden isn't deterred, partly because Fred may very well no longer be in command of Tycho Station by the time Holden gets back]].
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Polyamorous marriages aren't considered unusual. Holden has eight parents (five fathers, three mothers) since he was conceived from a mixture of all eight genetic profiles, though Mother Elise is the one who actually carried him to term.
The series hasn't explored whether Holden's parents really are polyamorous or are just [[RulesLawyer using every trick at their disposal]] to keep the government from seizing their land[[note]]In the books, Holden's parents consist of a monogamous homosexual couple, a monogoamous heterosexual couple, and a polyamorous foursome, with no overlap in romantic attachments[[/note]].
* ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: Montana is said to be located in the North American Trade Zone, presumably an expanded union of the USA, Canada and Mexico. It makes sense, given that Earth is essentially united in a OneWorldOrder run by the UN, that individual countries no longer have the same sovereignty they once did.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Miller has this reaction to meeting Holden.
--> '''Miller:''' Half the system thinks your some kind of outlaw hero, but you're really kind of clueless, aren't you?
* EyeScream:
** Not that they're alive to feel it, but victims of the protomolecule tend to sprout crystalline structures from their eyes.
** In Season 4, Holden has to take a sample of his own vitreous humor by jabbing a camera-guided syringe in his eye.
[[/folder]]
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