The Expanse Complete Timeline Through Season 5 Explained

more than two billion years before the proto-molecule was discovered in our solar system it was created by an advanced civilization we refer to as the ring builders capital r capital b we don't know what planet the ring builder civilization developed on or what their home system is but we do know that over what is probably a very long period of time they became much more technologically advanced than humans they mastered space flight they gained an understanding of wormholes and were able to utilize those for faster than light travel from there they started building a massive network of ring gates which connected several systems inside the milky way which all had at least one habitable planet this allowed their civilization to thrive and in the process of building that network using the proto molecule for the construction of the ring gates they sent what was essentially an icy rock loaded with protomolecule on a trajectory towards earth long before advanced life had developed this got caught in saturn's gravity and stayed there for a couple billion years it looked like a moon we named it phoebe and it just sat there in orbit full of proto-molecule just waiting to be discovered the fact that it got captured may have been necessary for human life to develop in this scenario and while it was stuck there the ring builder civilization that sent it were completely wiped out somehow they got themselves in the sights of an even more advanced civilization which we refer to as the unknown aggressors this may be related to the ringgate network that they created but we don't know for sure by the end of the fifth book or the fifth season of the television show we just know that something set the unknown aggressors off and they did end the ring builder civilization so as far as humanity's concerned the expanse happens in our solar system in the future there's no point of divergence or something like that basically the history we know still exists there's nothing to contradict that but it takes place in the 24th century so i guess just for context when i say that phoebe's been trapped for two billion plus years if we think about humans modern humans first showed up about 200 000 years ago so the protomolecule and the ring builder stuff was happening way before we existed when we think of the present in the story pinning down the years always been a little bit murky they never mention dates in the books and there's this weird thing where they put the 23rd century in the text crawl in the first episode of the series which is weirdly probably not right so this is what i'm going to do the best theory has always been that the show starts in the year 2350 because that was the name given to the role playing game this was developed from in season 5 we do see some dates for the first time on a time lapse in the opening credits and it ends with 23.55 so that would fit with the 23.50 time passes a little bit faster in the tv show so that would mean that it's been about five years since the series started compared to something like 10 in the books either way that's the way i'm gonna do it so the canterbury say happens in 2350. and in that they're just estimations and so we can move around and think about how things relate to each other and it's easier than using a before protomolecule after protomolecule scale because that's discovered eight years before the series gets started not long after our present the colonization of mars gets underway in the expanse universe over the next hundred years or so the population of earth continues to swell ecological and climate disasters compound and the damage to the ecosystem of earth starts to reach critical levels this leads to a shift in the development of space travel technologies and this is probably when development on luna really started to take off during this period the united nations becomes earth's unified government after a few generations of being a u.n colony the people on mars who were largely self-sufficient by that time started to push for independence there were actually tensions here and there was a real chance for war it's kind of similar to the events of the american revolution the american colonies in great britain and there may have been actual fighting if it weren't for a man named solomon epstein sometime around 2213 he makes a breakthrough and develops what will become to be known as the epstein drive it's a modified fusion drive and it makes it possible for humanity to start to colonize the solar system as you can imagine this was really valuable technology and mars decides to exchange the epstein drive share it with the un in exchange for independence from there the martian congressional republic is formed in the next few generations the un and mars start to spread out into the solar system they go to the asteroid belt they start to extract resources and over the years colonization continues to expand places like ganymede show up at this time to become an agricultural center for the outer planets and in those generations we start to see differences appear in the bodies of people who are developing in low gravity this is where we get the differences between inners and belters there starts to be a slight difference between earthers and people who grew up on mars as well it's in this period where the division lines between the three factions in our story become clearly defined earth is the birthplace of humanity it's the home world it's the superpower in the system they've got a lot of problems on the planet itself but they still have incredible power mars has embarked on a generations long terraforming project but something like that is just so far down the road to counteract some of that power that earth has in their superpower status mars has set out to build a powerful navy of their own and of course some advanced military tech and some badass marines to go with it and out in the belt a lot of the people who went out there to try to strike it rich are finding themselves as an exploitable class of labor the fact that these anatomical differences start to happen when you can visibly see a difference in someone who grew up in the outer planets that makes it even easier for them to be otherwise they might be people but they're not earthers or even martians for that matter so a life in the belt is one that's defined by oppression this leads to the creation of the outer planet's alliance at around the turn of the 24th century at around 2330 timmy becomes amos and leaves earth around that same time filipinaros is born and not long after that the august and gemara is destroyed by marco and his fledgling faction of radical opa at this time alex would be doing his 20 years that he did in the navy christian avasarala would be moving her way up the ranks through the un government and in the late 2330s james holden will join the un's navy and leave earth in 2339 u.n marine colonel fred johnson led a raid on anderson station to retake it from striking workers a lot of people died including civilians who lived there and he became infamous earning the title the butcher of anderson station after learning that his superiors set him up he resigns and eventually is recruited into the opa by anderson dawes so in 2342 mars surveys phoebe and discovers the proto-molecule they partner with a corporation called protogen in order to set up a long-term facility to investigate what this substance that they found is a couple years later james holdren is dishonorably discharged from the navy after that he goes and gets himself a job with the pure and clean water company and about five years later where the series starts he's working on an ice hauler called the canterbury before we get into the timeline of events of the main story i just want to say that of course they play out a little bit differently between the books and the show in this video i'm gonna lean more towards the show because that's what people are more familiar with but with the caveat that while the details are different they both end up in the same place overall so at the beginning of the story the future crew of the rasanante are all working on the canterbury at the same time julie mao boards a ship called the scopuli and they go looking for a ship called the anubis because she believes a weapon her father's working on is on that ship she thinks if they can get a hold of that they can make sure that this weapon is never used against the belters when they find the anubis they're surprised to learn that it's a stealth ship which they have no chance against and the scopuli basically has to surrender julie's taken prisoner and she's put in a room while the crew of the anubis tries to figure out what to do with her protogen then uses the scopula to send out a fake distress signal which the canterbury responds to holden naomi alex amos and shed take a shuttle called the knight to investigate while they're doing that the anubis arrives and destroys the canterbury protogen is doing this in a plan to increase tensions between earth and mars so that they can continue to do their proto-molecule research without any interruption because of the anubis stealth tech and the distressed call coming from a martian made beacon everyone on the night begins to believe that mars may be behind the attack on the cant when the mcrn donager responds to the night's distress call holden sends out a message saying that there was martian naval tech planted on the scopuli so he inadvertently plays into protogen's plan the survivors on the night are picked up by the martian vessel it's attacked by more stealth ships but they're able to escape on a frigate that's stalked inside that's named the tachi the martian marine who helped them escape dies shortly after and so now holden naomi alex and amos have their own ship fred johnson from the opa reaches out to them and tells them that they can come to taiko station in that process the tachi becomes the rasanante timeline wise season one happens pretty fast space travel does take time but in julie's flashback episode we learned that the scopulae encountered the anubis seven weeks prior to the rossi crew and detective miller discovering her on eros after her body's discovered protogen moves forward with their plan to conduct an experiment with the proto-molecule on a large population they intentionally contaminated the citizens of eros and exposed them to radiation to speed up the effects season one of the show ends with them setting up the experiment where they can observe what'll happen when the proto-molecule has that much biomass to work with there's no time jump in between seasons because season one doesn't complete the first book i'm glossing over the political and military tensions and engagements between the three factions because they're somewhat different books to show but we do see phoebe station destroyed by mars in the beginning of season 2. in the big picture things are working out for protogen and jules pierre mao up until the crew of the rossi detective miller and fred johnson launch a raid on toss station this is where anthony dresden was coordinating the aeros experiment and after the raid is completed miller executes dresden from there they make a plan to push eros into the sun using the mormon colony ship the navoo as a battering ram they also plan to rig eros with explosives and in the process of that miller gets stuck there just before the naboo crashes into eros it's able to move out of the way and then it starts accelerating towards earth this leads to the un firing off a bunch of missiles in its direction but on eros miller goes looking for julie because he's been hearing her voices in the sounds of the protomolecule in the station he's able to find what is basically her consciousness in a body made out of proto-molecule and he's able to communicate convincing her to guide eros into venus instead of earth the station crashes to the surface of the planet and this is where josephus miller dies this is the end of the first book but it happens in the middle of season two of the show and this is where the timeline of the show starts to get condensed and they diverge in the first chapter of the second book it says it's been 18 months since eros in the show it seems somewhat seamless as there isn't an indication of a lot of time passing the same things happen though kids start to go missing project caliban is going on they're testing protomolecule human hybrids and eventually one of those is released leading to the conflict at ganymede there one of the hybrids engages with un and mcr forces on the ground and that leads to engagement in space where the orbital mirrors that focus light on the planet are damaged and start to fall to the surface compromising the agricultural domes this leads to an armistice summit on earth bobby becomes disillusioned with mars in relation to the handling of her reports about the hybrid and ends up working with abasarala they meet with jules pierre mao on his yacht and eventually escape on the razorback this eventually brings them in contact directly with the rosinante crew and that's when they all meet for the first time on venus the science vessel the arbor gas is deconstructed and absorbed into what the proto-molecule is building there hostilities break out around io where work on the proto-molecule hybrids is continuing this will turn out to be the last stand of jules pierre mal and the people who are loyal to him there's an attempt to launch proto-molecule hybrids at mars which is stopped and jules pierre mao is taken into custody after that the protomolecule project on venus emerges from the planet and launches itself towards the outer planets just beyond uranus it becomes a ring gate and this event brings the inner planets back together as all efforts are focused on trying to understand what it is this is the transition between the second and third books again the condensing of the timeline is a little vague here sometimes should have passed while it was traveling from venus to uranus and then also for the next event which is the ek slingshotting into the ring in the show we see that it takes the fleet going to investigate the rings more than six months after it appeared to get there when they do the ring is opened after the ek has flown into it clarissa mao sets her plan in motion to set up holden by blowing up the sung yoon the rosannante becomes the first ship to enter the ring and survive as they're being chased down by a torpedo from the behemoth and then all the ships outside the ring gate follow after entering the ring space ever since the ring assembled holden has been seeing visions of the investigator what looks like detective miller he convinces him to go to the ring station and go inside to help him access the records while he's there they both learn about what happened to the ring builder civilization how they were wiped out in an instant by the unknown aggressors while they were going to the center of the station they were being pursued by martian marines and through acting like a threat they caused the speed limit outside to be slowed down again this set up a situation where all the ships need to power down so they no longer appear as a threat to the security system on the station and after they do that the investigator is able to turn off the system eliminating the speed limit in the slow zone this is the end of the third book and the third season and the ross ante agrees to transport clarissa mao back to luna so she can be arrested for her crimes this is a months-long journey and this is where amos and clarissa form their friendship moving into season four this is the first time we see a one-to-one adaptation as season four just covers the fourth book more or less in the books a lot of time passes because these are long journeys but the show again seems to condense things a little the time they spend on illus isn't very long most of the time that goes by would have happened on their trip there in the way back what happens is a group of refugees from ganymede run the blockade on the rings and make it to the surface of a planet which they call illus abasarala is trying to stop a mad rush through the ring gates because that will essentially destabilize mars so she sends the rasanante to act as a mediator between the belters that already are there and an earth corporation that has a charter to extract lithium from the planet secretly she hopes that things will fall apart hold and being there won't help anything and he'll actually broadcast how precarious things are whenever you try to rush out to one of these worlds but that doesn't work out back when the hybrid was on the rossi it left behind some active proto-molecule and that's what was acting as a node on the network making it possible for the investigator to appear to hold it so when the rossi went to illis the investigator was able to activate all the protomolecule tech on the planet in the process of that he realized that there was a magic bullet left behind from the unknown aggressors and that was a weapon they used against the ring builder civilization he's able to use that to deactivate everything he turned on an avert crisis for everyone on the planet before he does that he tells holden to destroy the active proto-molecule on the rossi to make sure something like that doesn't happen in the future so on ellis things did get pretty bad but almost everyone survived this is the opposite of what abasarala was hoping would happen seeing that the situation was survivable and that the belters had a ship full of lithium that they'll be bringing back to cell only increased enthusiasm for people wanting to colonize the planets on the other side of the ring gates by destroying the active proto-molecule on the raw seed this trip marks the end of holden's connection to the blue goo so from there we get into season five and the fifth book and the rossi returns the soul system where the ship will have to be repaired and that's going to take about six months the crew splits up at this time and so if we look at the timeline you could make it work that this is 2355 like it showed on the opening screen at the end of season 4 we saw the free navy get stealth tech and put the plan to throw rocks at earth in motion but we don't know when that happened in relation to the rossi's return trip to soul system in other words some time may have passed between when ashford was spaced and when they launched the rocks and i mentioned that because at the beginning of season five we see that it's been nearly six months after the rocks have been launched from there the events that happen in season five happen pretty quickly in the books they say that it takes amos and clarissa about 14 days to get from the prison to baltimore and everything else happens concurrently so the rocks hit earth tycho station is attacked fred johnson is killed the breakaway martian fleet burns towards the ring and at the end of the fifth season we have the battle for soul gate and the bar keith disappearing as it passes through the laconia ring in the show's version of events we lose our first rossi crew member too when alex strokes out after a hygiene maneuver this hasn't happened in the books yet the actor who portrayed him was fired by the show after more than 40 allegations of abuse and harassment made by fans and co-workers so they decided to kill him off three major things happen in season five the asteroid attack against earth the breakaway martian fleet taking fred johnson's protomolecule sample and passing through the ring gates to the laconia system where they planned to start their own civilization using the protomolecule to help them advance and the rise of the free navy and soul system where they took control of medina station which means they now have control of any traffic going through the rings by the end of working on this i can say i understand why the authors chose to keep the timeline vague when they developed the story there aren't many examples of blatant discrepancies in the timelines of the books things mostly make sense when you look at it closely but there is a lot of discussion about whether some of the travel times that show up there are correct or not and i'm not a math guy so that's beyond my skill set one of the first things i noticed when i started looking at the timeline in the past is that most of what happens inside any of the books happens pretty quickly and then the real time passes in between when they're traveling or if there's just down time between where one book ends and the next one picks up based on the obvious markers i think the timeline of the books through number five is between eight to eleven years and the show seems to condense that into a five-year span and i think that is a great place to leave things we can continue the conversation in the comments so make sure to let me know what you think what do you think of the timeline do you think it should take longer like it did in the books or do you like how the show condensed things down please like this video if you enjoyed it please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already thanks for watching i'll talk to you soon

Channel: Pete Peppers

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Id: 8OJf0-r7sZ0

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021