“It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyze every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers. These were the words of Xerxes, Persia’s king of kings ..”
— Admiral Emil Sauveterre, Season 5, Ep 2: Churn

Multi-planetary humans

When I think of a few of my favorite Sci-fi TV Series / Books - Battlestar Galactica, Foundation, Dune, Expanse - all of these (and more) created universes where humans are multi-planetary. They also they tend to point out that how much ever we accelerate forward technologically, the political, religious, economic and spiritual struggles continue. The worst human social issues of today - bigotry, racism, poverty, despotism, inequality, mass killing, etc. existed thousands of years ago and will most probably exist in the future too.

The fight between ‘good’ and ’evil’ is many times the fight against the unknown. As they say, history is penned by the survivors (winners mostly) and what gets romanticized and told over again (in fact and fiction) are stories of small armies winning against large ones.

The Expanse S5 Episode 4 - Gaugamela

In Season 5, Episode 4 of The Expanse, perhaps this is what Marco envisioned as his legacy. A small army winning and taking control. A renegade faction of the Belters (residents of asteroid belt, laborers who are mainly involved in mining and other activities for resources that people on Earth and Mars need) who are generally viewed as second-class citizens by the rest of the world, launch an attack on the superpowers like Earth and Mars. When everything is in shambles and disarray, we hear Marco Inaros’ speech claiming responsibility for the attacks.

The Speech¹

The facade of charisma

Marco makes a grand speech that displays a lot of selflessness but we the audience that it is not the case. He is selfish and cunning and puts his personal agenda above the belter’s cause, though the people who follow him don’t know this. It is quite tough to be not swayed by charismatic leaders with excellent oratory skills. People put them on a pedestal and are willing to follow every word that they say. So the betrayal that is felt when the duplicitous nature of a charismatic leader is revealed, is deep. Here is a quote from Drucker on the dangers of purely relying on charisma of a leader.

“The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.”
~ Peter F. Drucker

The Expanse

Though what prompted me to write this post was me thinking about the destructive capabilities of charismatic leaders, I realize that I could write at length about the series itself. The whole series is super inspirational and captivating. Working and walking in space, living in outer planets or asteroids, space flight, etc. are shown with a lot of authenticity.

At the core of the story is the human urge to be pioneers, to go where no one has gone before, to beat the odds and emerge victorious. It starts off at a time where humanity has already terraformed Mars, are mining minerals and other resources from the asteroids and have settlements in the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. But the terrain and the separation in space make people evolve into different cultures who increasingly view others with the lens of “us vs them”. There is a cold war between the super powers - Earth & Mars and it feels like war and total destruction is imminent. There is a huge resentment that has been building up over decades between the Belters and the people of Earth and Mars, since they feel that they have been oppressed and exploited.

Into this tense situation “protomolecule”, a virus-like alien technology, gets out of hand. After lying dormant for millions of years in one of Saturn’s moon’s, it is discovered by some scientists doing research. It is extremely deadly and kills anyone it comes in contact with. The entire population of the asteroid Eros get decimated when protomolecule infects just a few people. We later come to know that killing half a million people was intentional and it was a controlled experiment! On the surface, people from all the planets want to completely destroy it and yet want to retain some portion of it in a lab as a weapon against others.

But the experiment to study this ‘virus’ goes awry and people learn that protomolecule has something like a hive mind of its own. It takes control of the asteroid including the communication systems and starts moving by itself. It crashes into Venus, comes out and builds into a large gateway outside of Saturn’s orbit creating doorways to millions of other planets. That creates a huge gold rush of sorts where people are eager to go through the gates to explore new planets.

Here is a great quote from one of the books in the series. A lot to think about.

“It killed humans, therefore it was a weapon. But radiation killed humans, and a medical X-ray machine wasn’t intended as a weapon. Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. So here the monkeys were, poking the shiny box and making guesses about what it did.”

• James S.A. Corey, Abaddon’s Gate

Quotes from the TV series

“You can tell a lot about a place by how they treat their people.”
— Amos Burton. Season 1, Ep 6: Rock Bottom

“Usually, when a man is about to lose everything, he realizes what mattered to him most. He sees it clearly for the first time.”
— Anderson Dawes. Season 1, Ep 7: Windmills

“Trust your gut before your head gets in the way.”

• Joseph Miller. Season 1, Ep 8: Salvage

“None of us can change the things we’ve done. But we can all change what we do next.”
— Fred Johnson. Season 1, Ep 9: Critical Mass

“Never listen to what people say. Just watch what they do.”
— Chrisjen Avasarala. Season 2, Ep 1: Safe

“Good and bad, don’t get distracted by that. It will just confuse you. Good men do bad things. And bad men do things believing it’s for the good of all mankind.”
— Anderson Dawes. Season 2, Ep 7: The Seventh Man

“As long as we’re living and breathing, there’s more we can do. We just have to be strong enough.”
— Jim Holden. Season 2, Ep 8: Pyre

“When parents fight, the child has a crisis of loyalty.”
— Chrisjen Avasarala. Season 2, Ep 12: The Monster and the Rocket

“A kid needs at least one person who never gives up on them, no matter what.”
— Amos Burton. Season 3, Ep 2: IFF

“Guilt is like salt. You put a little on, and it hides all the bitterness.”
— Commander Klaes Ashford. Season 3, Ep 9: Intransigence

“Individuals can be divided and conquered, but symbols… Symbols endure.”
— Commander Klaes Ashford. Season 3, Ep 11: Fallen World

“Hate is a burden. You don’t have to carry it with you.”
— Anna Volovodov. Season 3, Ep 13: Abaddon’s Gate

“You just have to believe that what you’re doing really matters, and then the fear can’t control you.”
— Bobby Draper. Season 4, Ep 1: New Terra

“The war does not end when people put down their guns. It ends when they reconcile. Until then, the war has only paused.”
— Chrisjen Avasarala. Season 4, Ep2: Jetsam