The Expanse is a sci-fi book series, adapted to TV.
It’s got politics, mystery, space battles, space Mormons, and a looming alien threat
– and it’s mostly based in realistic science and technology.
The Expanse is set “Hundreds of years in the future”, when “humans have colonized
the solar system”.
Earth is “overpopulated” and environmentally stressed, and it’s governed by the United
Nations.
Mars is an independent power, with advanced technology and military, working to terraform
the red planet.
While Earth and Mars are the big political powers, the asteroid belt is a dangerous new
“frontier”.
Millions of people live on Ceres, Eros, and other rocks, mining the belt for resources.
A political network called the OPA fights for the rights of the belt against Earth and
Mars.
Beyond the belt, Jupiter’s moons of Ganymede and Europa grow food in greenhouses.
There are resorts on Saturn’s moon Titan, and labs on the moons of Uranus and Neptune
– “the farthest outpost[s] of human civilization”.
Earth, Mars and the belt each have distinct cultures and histories.
Earth is controlled by the United Nations because some time ago, Earth had a terrible
environmental “collapse”.
The ice caps melted, and the sea level rose, causing mass displacement and chaos.
In the face of “extinction”, the nations of Earth were forced to unite under one government.
There are still some places resisting the UN, but most of the planet’s under control.
Of course, within that government there’re factions and conflicts.
One major character, UN politician Avasarala, fights for peace amidst the politics.
So Earth is powerful, “But it's an empire in decline”.
It’s way overpopulated, relying on recycling machines to keep it from “drowning in its
own filth”.
About half the planet is unemployed, living off welfare called “basic”.
Basic provides food and shelter, but no money – and not much freedom to make your own
choices.
So Earth feels stagnant, bureaucratic and “bloated”, but it’s still the only place
where humans can stand beneath an open sky, and breathe free air.
It’s the birthplace of humanity, and it’s not giving up yet.
Mars was settled by some of Earth’s best scientists and engineers.
They built cities underground and in domes, developed the best spaceships and science,
and soon they decided they didn’t want to serve Earth any more.
Mars wanted independence, which almost caused war with Earth.
But then, a Martian called Solomon Epstein invented the Epstein drive, a rocket technology
that made spaceships fly far faster and further than before.
Solomon’s test drive accelerated so fast that it killed him – and a hundred n thirty
years later, you can still see his ship shooting into deep space – “The best, longest funeral
in … history”.
Mars recovered Epstein’s design, and shared the drive with Earth in return for independence.
So now Mars has its own government and military, and stands as a rival superpower to Earth.
But while Earth is bloated and slow, Mars is driven and focussed on one goal – to
terraform Mars, “to turn a lifeless rock into a garden”.
This shared purpose unites Martians from many different backgrounds.
The Mariner Valley was settled by East Indians, Chinese and Texans – so you get Martians
like Alex Kamal, who looks Indian, but speaks in a Texan drawl.
Mars brings together some of humanity’s best and brightest with the shared goal of
transforming the red planet.
But Mars’ technology and military makes their rivalry with Earth dangerous – war
could bring disaster on both planets.
People born in the asteroid belt are called Belters.
Since they grow up in low gravity, Belters are tall and thin, with weak bones – so
some can’t even survive the gravity of Earth.
They’ve become a separate people, with their own culture, adapted to space.
They have their own language, and hand gestures to communicate through spacesuits.
In the show, they have special tattoos – old spacesuits used to burn Belters’ necks,
so they’d tattoo to cover the scars.
Now, even unburned Belters get the tattoos as marks of cultural identity.
These are a people who ventured into the darkness of space to explore, find fortune and freedom.
But the Belt is still mostly controlled by the inner planets – Earth and Mars.
Inner governments and corporations own Belt stations and mines, imposing heavy taxes,
tariffs, and unfair laws.
Some inners are racist against Belters, seeing them as no longer human because of their differences.
In response to this oppression, the Outer Planets Alliance, or OPA, fights for Belter
rights.
But it’s a loose decentralised network that includes criminal and terrorist elements.
OPA leader Fred Johnson tries to unite and legitimise the OPA – even though Fred was
originally a military leader for Earth.
At the same time, Fred runs an engineering company that’s building a giant spaceship
for Mormons who wanna colonise distant space.
So The Expanse has all these different competing factions, whose cultures and conflicts are
shaped by the physics of space.
Like, in space, there’s almost no gravity, which is a problem – because your muscles
waste away, your drinks spill everywhere, and the VFX goes over budget.
A lot of sci fi shows get around this by inventing some ‘gravity plating’ that magically
gives ships gravity.
But The Expanse is more realistic, cause its spaceships use acceleration, or thrust, to
make gravity.
It’s like how accelerating a car pushes you back in your seat.
By accelerating constantly, a spaceship can use that pushback as gravity, pulling you
down towards the thruster.
The faster you accelerate, the stronger the gravity – so flying at one g is Earth gravity,
while two g is double Earth gravity, making you weigh twice as much.
When you’re in a hurry, or in combat, ships might fly at five or six gs.
The Expanse has a drug called the juice which helps people survive this – but too much
g force will kill you.
An Epstein ship can accelerate constantly for the first half of a trip, then flip around
and thrust in the other direction, to decelerate for the rest of the trip.
That way, it slows to a stop at the destination, keeping thrust gravity the whole time.
Real-world rockets aren’t fuel-efficient enough to do this.
But with the Epstein drive, the physics of thrust gravity makes sense.
Sometimes, though, you want gravity without having to accelerate somewhere.
So another method is to rotate an object so the centrifugal force pushes you outwards.
This looks nauseating, but from your perspective inside the object, you’re standing still
– and you’ve got gravity.
It’s like the Gravitron, that spinning carnival ride that pushes you against the walls.
Spin up a whole space station, and that force is your gravity – it’s like in 2001: A
Space Odyssey.
But in The Expanse, they don’t just spin up stations.
They take planetoids like Ceres that are too small to have their own gravity, and they
artificially spin the whole rock to give it centrifugal force.
The spin gravity pushes outwards, so people live on the inside of Ceres, underground.
This spin gravity in Ceres and Eros is a third as strong as Earth’s gravity – which causes
the tall thin bodies of Belters – like main character Detective Miller.
So the people and cultures of The Expanse are shaped by real-world physics – and by
communication technology.
You can’t send a message faster than the speed of light, so it can take seconds or
minutes to send messages to distant planets.
You can’t talk in real time.
This creates tension and strategy in conflicts, but it also has emotional impacts.
The comm delay separates people from those they love, making space feel truly remote.
Technology also changes families – main character James Holden was born in Montana
to a family of three mothers and five fathers, who each contributed to Holden’s DNA.
Sharing one child between eight gave tax breaks to Holden’s family on overpopulated Earth.
So The Expanse makes some stuff up, like the Epstein drive.
But it also uses real science and technology to shape its people and worlds.
The story of The Expanse begins with Holden, who gets into danger on an ice hauler; Detective
Miller, who searches for a lost girl on Ceres; and Avasarala, who navigates UN political
intrigue.
They’re all drawn in to a mystery and conspiracy that threatens everything.
We’re working on a video about this story – but in the meantime, check out the first
book, Leviathan Wakes.
You can get it on audiobook for free today by signing up for a trial at audible.com/asx.
Members get a free book each month, and if you cancel, you keep the books.
Audible has all the main series Expanse books.
So next time you’re driving, put on Leviathan Wakes, and accelerate – to feel the gs of
artificial gravity.
Sign up at audible.com/asx, or text asx to 500-500.
Thank you to Expanse author Daniel Abraham for help with this script.
Thank you for watching, and thanks to the Patrons, including Steven Cook, Or Avziz,
Eagle23, comtrend, and DJ Arruda.
Cheers.