The Expanse Profiles: Winston Duarte

Today is my last profile that I plan to write for The Expanse storyline. I couldn't find any illustrations of him online, and thus far in the series, he hasn't been cast. But he's really the biggest bad guy of the entire series because of what he ends up doing with stolen protomolecule technology.

We first meet Winston Duarte in Nemesis Games. He's formerly an admiral of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy, and he has the soul of a dictator/strong man the same as others of that ilk who are alive and oppressing people in today's modern world. In Nemesis Games, he is commander on Hecate Base, and he kind of gets mixed up in arming Marco Inaros' Free Navy, however, he does not directly reveal any involvement with all that as the distractions that Inaros' is affecting throughout Sol system draw eyes away from the stuff that he's doing.

Duarte has his own long-term goal with regard to the emergence of the Ring Gates: he basically wants to become the first emperor of a galactic-level civilization. To do this, he pilfers some ships and military tech from Mars, and then he finds a system within the Ring Gate complex that offers a planet with what looks like ship-building facilities in orbit around the planet (built by aliens). He then sails into that ring, names it Laconia, and tells people to leave him alone (under pain of death). Unfortunately, that's exactly what the people of Sol System do. They leave him alone for thirty years.

In that time, he experiments on people with a protomolecule sample that he stole from a safe in Fred Johnson's room at Tycho Station, basically turning them into vomit zombies. It's very reminiscent of the stuff you hear that Nazi's did to Jewish people held in concentration camps during World War 2. In the thirty year span where he and his cronies are left entirely to themselves, he institutes a totalitarian government where, if you are guilty of any crimes, then you get turned over to the doctors who are free to experiment on your flesh with protomolecule stuff. It's quite grotesque and ensures almost total obedience.

Additionally, the scientists on Laconia construct three new warships from protomolecule/alien technology. By the time they are done, these things are so advanced that nothing that the Sol system has can even deal with them should they go to war. And that's exactly what happens. One of Duarte's hand-picked commanders takes a battleship into the Medina Station Slow Zone and vaporizes a ship as an example to anyone else that would possibly attack him. When they don't listen, and attack this new warship, all of their weapons are completely useless. It's the same as throwing small rocks and sticks at a modern tank. There's just nothing they can do. And the weapon that the new warship employs uses powerful magnetic fields...so powerful that they can spaghettify hydrogen atoms. So yeah...nothing survives.

Well, the warship (having conquered Medina Station and the slow zone space) sails on into the Sol System. All of Earth's fleet, the Martian fleet, and the Belter Fleet attack the new warship. They even hit it with a nuclear weapon. Nothing...nada. Then it destroys a few ships and asks for a system-wide surrender. Being smart, the President of the O.P.A. stands down. And that's basically how Duarte conquers everything and forges the "Laconian Empire." It's not like anyone can say no to him and expect to live. His one warship can destroy an entire planet with billions of people on it the same as one person stepping on a bug. It's kind of ridiculous, and it holds many parallels to the uphill battle all the people without dragons face in A Game of Thrones by HBO. The dragons are basically super weapons that no army can deal with. That's what's going on here. Duarte has the "dragons" of The Expanse universe.

Also, Duarte has the same hubris that a lot of authoritarian leaders seem to share. In Persepolis Rising, he's using protomolecule technology developed by his scientists to give him everlasting life, and (at least from Holden's perspective when he sees him at the end of the book because he's taken prisoner) Duarte doesn't even look human anymore. I think Captain Holden says something like, "You're using that shit on yourself? What happened to you?" So yeah...there's that.

Here's a few great quotes from Persepolis Rising, which is the book where Winston Duarte really gets going:

"We have expended two-thirds of our rail-gun ammunition," the weapons tech announced. "Shall I maintain fire?" "Yes," Drummer said. "Then start putting chairs in the launcher. We hit that thing until we're down to pillows and beer."

"I'm as surprised as you are," Avasarala said. "Though I feel like I shouldn't be. I actually read history. It's like reading prophecy, you know."

"Prepare us for what?" Holden asked. "To poke gods with a sharp stick?" "No, Captain Holden. No sticks," Duarte said. "When you fight gods, you storm heaven."

"The sad fact of the human species that High Consul Duarte understood so well was that you could never overcome tribalism and jingoism with an argument. Tribalism was an irrational position, and it was impossible to defeat an irrational position with a rational argument. And so, instead of presenting a logical plan for why humanity needed to give up the old national and cultural divides and become a single unified species, the high consul obeyed the old forms that everyone would understand, and went to war. Thankfully, a brief one.”

“It’s the reward of old age,” Avasarala said. “You live long enough, and you can watch everything you worked for become irrelevant.”

I'll be back to my regular random topics on blogs this Monday. Thanks for reading and sharing my passion for The Expanse.

The Expanse Profiles: Bobbie Draper

At right is a fanart picture drawn by JujuFei on DeviantArt of the character Bobbie Draper in The Expanse series. HERE is a link to the page where I took the art from. In the book, the authors describe Bobbie Draper as being of Samoan heritage, and they use this as one reason for her being incredibly tall and strong. I guess we are all used to thinking of Dwayne Johnson whenever anyone says "Samoan" so it's a pretty effective racial stereotype as it leaves little need to explain anything. I'm also not positive on how "true" it is, but it definitely works for the character as she's a kind of female version of all Dwayne Johnson's roles wound into one.

Bobbie is a Martian marine and former Gunnery Sergeant. The low gravity of Mars hasn't affected her because of the intense training that she puts herself through. Additionally, the books go out of their way to point out that Bobbie wears an older model of the Martian power armor because it fits really well (unlike the newer ones). It seems somehow appropriate in this particular illustration that she be wrapping her hands with the kind of tape you see boxers using. Her character is essentially about fighting and killing and she's a weapons expert as well as a damn good detective and overall leader. She spots everything. When she goes to work for Chrisjen Avasarala, she figures out pretty early that Chrisjen's assistant is up to no good, tracks him to a clandestine meeting, and then exposes him to Avasarala who promptly fires him.

The actress who plays Bobbie Draper in the television series is Frankie Adams. I think she does a pretty good job of playing the rather stoic and incredibly athletic Martian soldier, and she does come across as a badass, which (I think) is the most important aspect of this character. In Persepolis Rising, there's a fight between Amos and Bobbie that almost kills both of them when Amos turns to Bobbie and says, "Babs, when did you become such a pussy?" She promptly begins to put the smack down on Amos (who is trying to kill her) until he's bleeding and has got nothing left to even pick himself up off the floor.

In The Expanse books (and some in the series), Bobbie is either in the right place at the right time, or she accomplishes some incredible feats. Here's a rundown of things I noted:

1) She faces down and destroys single-handedly a protomolecule monster.
2) She takes over as Captain for The Rocinante when Holden retires, and later she becomes captain of a Laconian ship stolen from Medina Station.
3) She beats up Amos, which no one has ever been able to do.
4) She's the person who first realizes that Fred Johnson is dead during the high G maneuvers in Nemesis Games.
5) She saves Chrisjen Avasarala's life when the yacht she's in (owned by Jules Pierre Mao) takes her prisoner.

I look forward to seeing what Bobbie Draper does with her new "protomolecule" designed space ship when the next book in The Expanse, called Tiamat's Wrath, comes out in March.

Coming up on Friday: Profile of Detective Josephus Miller

The Expanse Profiles: Amos Burton

When I'm explaining the character of Amos to friends who ask me about The Expanse, I refer to him as the lovable but psychopathic engineer. Because The Expanse authors (they write under the name James S.A. Corey) are kind of light on description preferring instead to let the dialogue and other people's observations of a character carry through in their point-of-view, I've got a simultaneously vivid idea of what he should look like and a vague-ish idea of what he should look like. At right is an artist sketch, and it differs from what you'll see of Amos in the SyFy/Amazon television adaptation. However, he's got the crazy eyes, which (to the credit of the artist) is pretty amazing. The artist, by the way, is named Tabitha Drambel and you can see her DeviantArt page HERE.

In the SyFy series (and I assume they are keeping the same casting for the Amazon series) the role is played by actor Wes Chatham. Here's a picture of him so you can see that he also channels the "crazy eyes" rather well. So who is this guy? Well he's a really good engineer and he knows how to keep The Rocinante in really good shape as it flies through space going from place to place and getting into dogfights with other ships depending on where you are in the storyline.

The authors are careful to describe Amos as "the last man standing." What they mean by this is that in any catastrophe, Amos is so tough that he would be the last one still alive while everyone else is dead. He also knows that he's a monster, having little or no feelings about anyone or anything, and he latched onto Captain Holden, because he is smart enough to know that on his own, he is capable of doing a lot of evil. Captain Holden has a very strong moral compass, and Amos willfully acquiesces to Holden's judgement because he knows (and believes strongly) that Holden will always do the right thing. Thus far in the books, he has not been wrong.

Amos really starts to shine in the book Nemesis Games. This is where I first noticed him getting a lot of his own chapters, and they are used to follow him as he visits Earth (where he hasn't been for many years) and to honor someone that he cared for that had died. He also reconnects briefly with some thugs and a drug kingpin that he worked alongside in Baltimore many years prior (Amos still has a formidable reputation). The drug kingpin is holed up in a sizeable arcology, which is a futuristic structure that supports a city-sized population all within one building.

While on Earth, Amos also visits with Clarissa Mao in prison (his nickname for Clarissa is "Peaches.") It isn't really clear if he loves her, but I kind of think that he loves Clarissa just about as much as a psychopath is able to do. To you and I, it wouldn't seem like love. But it's written in such a way as to hint rather strongly that there is a tremendous bond between them that goes beyond respect. In many ways, Clarissa is just as much a monster as Amos (if not more so), so maybe it's a bond that comes from being a fellow psychopath. When the rocks start falling on Earth, and the apocalypse starts, we get to see how Earth is affected through Amos's point of view. Escaping Earth is harrowing and there are many edge-of-your-seat moments that I can't wait to see in the television adaptation.

I think the funnest Amos chapter, however, happened in Persepolis Rising. Late in the book, Amos calls Bobbie (a Martian warrior) a "pussy," and it starts off a fist battle between the huge Samoan woman and Amos that is clearly "to the death." But she's so powerful and strong that he can't kill her no matter how hard she tries, and she eventually beats the crap out of him to the point that he can barely move. It's super therapeutic for Amos, because he realizes that maybe he's not the last one standing in any fight. Additionally, it pretty much solidifies Bobbie Draper as the incredible character that she's built up to be throughout the entire series. Yeah, I love Bobbie Draper. She's just too cool.

Monday: Profile of Alex Kamal

The Expanse Profiles: James Holden

At left is some fan art by artist dana-redde on DeviantArt. It depicts what they think is Captain James Holden and his OPA (Outer Planetary Alliance) girlfriend, Naomi Nagata. I know I'm going to talk about Naomi on Wednesday, but I might as well mention that she's frequently described as being tall and kind of stretched out...a result of having lived her whole life in almost null gravity. At most, she's been exposed to spin gravity on stations like Tycho, Ceres, and Eros. As far as real gravity wells are concerned, she's probably only been exposed to Luna Station, Ganymede Station, and the resort built on Titan.

Anyway, we first get to know Captain James Holden--who is the primary protagonist of all seven books thus far--in the first few chapters of Leviathan Wakes (the first book in The Expanse series). As depicted in this illustration at right, the artist kind of gets the look of James Holden. I didn't quite picture him so small and cutesy, but his one consistent character vice in all of the novels is that he's constantly looking for a cup of coffee. As far as depictions go, the television series produced by the SyFy channel did a pretty decent job of casting an actor that I thought (retroactively applied since I watched the t.v. series first) did a swell job of filling out the role of Holden. A picture of him is included at left.

The actor that plays him is Steven Straight. In the book, he comes from Montana, and he is the only child to eight parents (it sounds a lot like a polygamist Mormon family, but without all of the kids that are normally associated with that). However, they never say that his parents are Mormon. Perhaps he's an only child because the Earth's population is already at 30 billion and no one wants to have kids.

At the time The Expanse takes place, the solar system is pretty much a colonized and functioning place. There are a billion people living on Mars and millions going back and forth to different stations throughout the outer planets. There are so many people, in fact, that stations like Eros have a population of 15 million or so.

In being the central pivot figure of The Expanse, James Holden is involved with everything. As the second officer on The Canterbury, which is a doomed ship that he sees attacked and destroyed relatively early in Leviathan Wakes, he follows his moral compass (which is very paladin-like) to report to everyone what he sees with the most transparency as possible. It ends up starting the biggest war mankind has ever seen, involving the Belters, Earth, and Mars (because of the attack on this one water hauler). He manages to come out of it smelling like a rose by commandeering (along with his small crew) a Mars gunnery ship that he renames The Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse. It's a fitting symbolism because Captain Holden is forever tilting at "windmills" just like Don Quixote throughout this entire series.

Naturally, his fate gets entwined with a Detective Miller who is looking for the missing daughter of a mega-rich sociopathic scientist by the name of Jules Pierre Mao. Unbeknownst to anyone, the missing daughter, Juliette Mao, is the last survivor of a doomed crew that got infected by an alien virus called the protomolecule (because it was being studied by a bunch of psychopathic scientists who discovered the two billion year old strain in some ice around Saturn). I get the impression that Julie's crew was infected intentionally, and Juliette Mao (unaware of the danger her infection brings) flees to Eros station where Holden and Miller find her in the bathroom of her suite basically disintegrating into blackened tentacles as the protomolecule consumes her. From there, the whole of Eros station of 15 million are doomed and Holden and Miller barely make it off alive. They are both exposed to lethal radiation, but because of fantastic strides in medicine, Holden just has to take some cancer meds to keep the radiation from creating fatal cancers in his body.

One of the things that I think is brilliant with regard to the plotting of these novels (and story at large) is how every detail is never too small not to factor into a bigger plot point. Those cancer meds, which Holden swallows every day, end up factoring into the story of Cibola Burn, the fourth novel in the series. In that particular plot following the opening of the ring gates which lead to 1300 plus solar systems with habitable worlds, the first settled world called Ilus, comes to be very challenging for a bunch of colonists. There's this algae that floats in the clouds above the planet's surface, and when it rains, the algae can infect bodies of saline water (which it loves to multiply inside because that's its perfect environment). The colonists on Ilus get their eyeballs infected with this stuff which makes them all go blind...all except for Holden, who is on cancer meds that keep things from propogating out of control. So these cancer medications ends up being the cure that they can use to solve one of the many problems that the colonists encounter on their first visit to a truly alien world. It's brilliant writing, and a great example of having high stakes for characters to create tension.

Additionally, Holden's continued association with the protomolecule and what it creates extends way beyond the first book, Leviathan Wakes. After Miller dies by being on Eros as it crashes into Venus (all fifteen million people on board are dead by this point and the asteroid is being piloted by Julie Mao's consciousness whom Miller is in love with), Holden sees a projection of Miller created by a remnant of the protomolecule left on The Rocinante. This projection communicates with him and advises him on events happening both with the creation of the Ring Gates and on the events that transpire on Ilus. Holden eventually gets rid of that remnant of the protomolecule on The Rocinante, which ends his visions of Miller, but he is kind of forever linked with it. In the latest of the published books entitled, Persepolis Rising, Holden instantly recognizes the Laconian technology for being grown from the stolen protomolecule sample taken from Tycho station 30 years earlier, and he also recognizes the thing that appears on the Laconian battle cruiser The Typhoon as having originated from the same place as whatever killed the makers of the protomolecule two billion years ago.

And that's what's really chilling. The makers of the protomolecule were such an advanced civilization, that they colonized 1300 worlds and created wormholes that could bridge space itself. Yet Holden saw a vision that (at the end of their civilization), the makers of the protomolecule encountered something that they tried to defeat by destroying entire star systems. And it didn't work. Whatever it was, wiped them out completely. The first time the Laconian Battle Cruiser employs its magnetic weapon (created from protomolecule technology) in Earth space, an artifact from the destroyers of the protomolecule civilization appears and causes everyone in the entire Earth system to lose three minutes of time simultaneously.   

Having read nearly all the published material available for The Expanse, I can honestly say that Captain Holden ended up being a fine protagonist through which the story kind of unfolds just by living his life. Those are the best kinds of stories, are they not? 

Coming up on Wednesday: Profile of Naomi Nagata.