this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Great. More places for the protomolecule to hang out.
I've seen the expanse 3 times and I'm STILL confused how the protomolecule tjrns frona fungus type thing monster to a wormhole gate lol. Maybe the books will explain it better.
expanse was one of the very rare instances where the show was better than the books. And in reading the books you really get the sense that they were written to be a script.
The books (and ultimately the show) were based on a TTRPG idea, so, yeah, they were kind of the script. Also, you can see some D&D character archetypes show through (looking at you, Jimbo "sad paladin" Holden)
agreed, the show really covered up some of what I felt was amateurish character development in the books. I actually put one of the books down for a bit when it occurred to me that itd transitioned to "zombies in space". I also wasnt too keen on the authors describing the belters as "hezbollah" at one point early in the series. But, at the end I liked them, they passed the time, and I was glad I had read them. Not great works of art, but a good space opera.
It basically needs critical mass.
The monsters were humans trying to engineer with thr molecule, that sample of protomolecule was not bound to become the ring.
On Eros, it was let loose specifically so that it could get enough mass to do what it was going to do. Think of it like a transistor- a few transistors can get you a NAND gate, but a LOT of them can give you a processor.
Once it had the critical mass and went to Venus, it was big enough that it could assimilate whatever it wanted into itself and gain the necessary mass to form the ring.
I view it like It’s a tool. Think “monolith” from 2001.