u/Aster_Te

spoilers for EVERYTHING

I'm kind of confused about the ring gates because from persepolis rising onward, they say the rings remain stationary relative to their sun. but in the show it shows the rings definetly moving, and before I read persepolis rising, I vividly remember the rings definetly moving. like I'm pretty sure manéo had to account for the movement of the ring during his transit? and post tiamath's wrath, naomi start tying repeaters to the gate, but I swear that before they would just match orbits before? I mean I don't think it was outright stated, but I think it was heavily implied in the first 6 books, or at least not mention till the last 3 books. am I miss-remembering, or did they retcon this for the finale of leviathan falls?

edit: whenever I say "move" I mean relative to the sun, like I'm asking if the rings orbit. they do not in the book. they do in the show

I really love the title for the epilogue of leviathan falls, the linguist because I think langauge really embodies one of the major themes of the final book. the question, should we become one to save us all, if it means we lose something that makes us human? I think we've all at least heard of the question, "why is there no universal language?" and you probably got some sort of response that, "it'd be too hard to get everyone on board" or "english is already kind of a universal langauge" but I think the real root of the problem, is that we shouldn't have one at all. langauge is one of the most varied things on the planet. from some polynesian that don't use left or right, but cardinal direction(north, south, east, and west) for describing direction, to romance langauges that have genders articles and nouns, to that one japanese word that describes how the beautiful way the light shines through the leaves. we can't have all of this in one langauge, so to have a universal langauge would mean to lose all the other aspects that make langauge interesting and unique. if we choose english, that would mean all those other things I described before would be gone forever. this is one of the major reasons I love the expanse so much. it brings up a mirror to all humanity, and shows us war, fighting, and death on a scale we've never seen before, and asks is all this worth it? is all this worth all the diversity that the human species has to offer? yes, yes it is for ballet a dance form that hurts your feet, for morracan tea that's poured in from a height to create foam on the top of the cup to protect it from sand, to golgo and bhangra in the belt. it is worth it.

I also really like that the linguist doesn't offer a universal langauge to amos, but just a common langauge. it shows that in the future humanity really HAS learned from the mistakes of the past. trying to bridge the differences between culture not with uniformity, but with understanding. it's an inspiring message, showing us that humankind can change, and change for the better. that over the many millennia we lived we have learned something. and we didn't even need a god emperor to do it. we did it in our own way

I also really wish laconia had tried to force at least some kind of universal langauge onto the human galaxy, but it would contridict with some other themes, and ideals of laconia, so it makes sense why the author's didn't. but it would have been really good for this post!