The Expanse is an American science fiction television series developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby for the Syfy network; it is based on the series of novels of the same name by James S. A. Corey. Set in a future where humanity has colonized the Solar System, it follows a disparate band of protagonists – United Nations Security Council member Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), cynical detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), and ship's officer James Holden (Steven Strait) and his crew – as they unwittingly unravel and place themselves at the center of a conspiracy that threatens the system's fragile peace, while dealing with existential crises brought forth by newly discovered alien technology.
It received positive critical response, with particular praise for its visuals, character development and political narrative. It received three Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation out of six nominations, and three Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction Television Series. Syfy cancelled the series after three seasons. Amazon later acquired the series, producing three more seasons, with the series concluding with its sixth. The series premiered on December 14, 2015 on Syfy, with the series finale being released on Amazon on January 14, 2022.
Series overview
Setting Hundreds of years in the future, humanity has colonized the Solar System. The three largest powers are the United Nations of Earth and Luna, the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), a loose political confederation of colonies scattered across the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The United Nations is a capitalist society with authoritarian undertones, while the Martians have evolved into a militaristic, corporatist culture. Both ruthlessly exploit and oppress the "Belter" populations of the OPA to gain control of their valuable natural resources.
Season 1 UN Deputy Undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala works to prevent simmering tensions between the United Nations and Mars from erupting into all-out war. Ceres police investigator Josephus "Joe" Miller is tasked with finding a missing young woman, Julie Mao, who has ties to the OPA. The Canterbury, an industrial ice-harvesting ship, and the Martian Navy flagship Donnager are destroyed by unknown stealth ships. James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, and Amos Burton survive both attacks and escape in the Tachi, a Martian gunship. They rename the ship Rocinante, which becomes the main setting of the series. The crew of the Rocinante, with Miller's help, investigate and eventually discover a biohazard that kills off most of the humans on the asteroid spaceport Eros, including Julie. Chrisjen sends her family away after realizing that a faction within the UN is responsible for the demise of both ships.
Season 2 The crew of the Rocinante, along with members of the OPA, attack the station responsible for the biohazard on Eros. Learning that it is an extra-solar bio-weapon known as the protomolecule, they attempt to destroy Eros. Miller becomes trapped there and dies when it crashes into Venus. Martian Marine Bobbie Draper fights an inhuman figure on Ganymede and later, during peace talks between Earth and Mars, becomes a protégé of Avasarala. The crew tries to help a father, Prax, find his daughter. In the process, they encounter and kill a figure akin to the one that Draper fought, now known as a "protomolecule hybrid", developed by Jules-Pierre Mao. A research ship, sent to Venus to investigate the crash of Eros into the planet, is stopped dead in the atmosphere and dismantled by the protomolecule.
Season 3 The UN declares war, as Earth and Mars send science vessels to investigate what is happening on Venus. Political tensions soar as the OPA is recognized as the government of the Belters and Prax is reunited with his daughter. The protomolecule forms the Ring, a structure which takes an orbital position beyond Uranus, and all three governments race to send their ships through. After a Belter racing ship slingshots through the Ring at high speed, the ring believes the high speed humans and objects to be dangerous and activates defenses that threaten humanity. Through Holden, a projection of Miller dubbed the Investigator tries to shut off the defenses of the ring and convince the protomolecule that humanity is not a threat. The ring reveals itself to be a massive network of wormholes to other planetary systems, each containing a habitable earth-like planet.
Season 4 With hundreds of habitable star systems accessible via the Ring's wormholes, the balance of the Solar System is disrupted forever. Earthers begin demanding an organized exodus to solve the planet's overcrowding, while efforts to terraform Mars grind to a halt with the realization that naturally habitable worlds are available. Drummer reorganizes much of the OPA to become the custodians of "ringspace" so that colonization and communication can be controlled and stable. A ship runs Drummer's blockade, and Avasarala sends the Rocinante to investigate the situation on the exoplanet, called Ilus. While the rest of the crew try to ease tension between the colonists and an officially backed scientific expedition with private military support, Holden discovers ruins from the same civilization that built the Rings. With the help of the Investigator, Holden reactivates an ancient structure, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events.
Season 5 A deadly conspiracy threatens Earth, as the crew of the Rocinante pursue personal missions while their ship is in dry dock at Tycho Station. Draper and Avasarala investigate the Martian military's ties to a growing threat from a rogue faction of Belters. Marco Inaros, the rebel leader, assembles a Belter fleet and attacks Earth with stealth-shielded asteroids.
Season 6 Holden and the crew of the Rocinante fight alongside the Combined Fleet of Earth and Mars to protect the Inner Planets from Marco Inaros and his Free Navy. The combined fleet, allied with the ships of Camina Drummer and other Belter forces, defeats Marco and the Free Navy by antagonizing an unknown alien presence. On a distant planet, a young colonist discovers animals that can resurrect her dead sibling.
Cast and characters
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