10 Things You Didn't Know About The Expanse
1. The Names
Any reader of the original book series is well aware of its less-than-usual titles. The curious name choices; Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, no doubt helped the early books get noticed to the point where the Amazon series we know and love today could be made.
The show runners haven’t forgotten this either, and each episode that bears the title of its literary forebear lives up to the drama and action these names promise. However, the reasons behind the naming conventions go much deeper than just eye-grabbing style.
The Leviathan, a sea-serpent of Jewish mythology, is a clear stand-in for the protomolecule and the extinction threat it represents to the human race. Likewise, Caliban’s War references the half-human from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with the search for the hybrids that tore apart Bobbie Draper’s marines and the war around them defining the second season.
Abaddon, a Hebrew word meaning destruction, ended the previous status-quo with the exploration of the ring gate that took up the third season, as well as being the gate that opened the way for the destructive forces of whatever killed the protomolecule builders.
Cibola, like El Dorado, was a mythical city of gold in Central America, the quest for which claimed the lives of many explorers. Ilus, the golden city for the Belter refugees who colonise it, burns at the end of the fourth season, but from its ashes is determined to rise again with the death of the protomolecule systems.
With titles such as Babylon’s Ashes, Persepolis Rising and Tiamat’s Wrath still to come, we can be sure that these future episodes have some big moments in store for us.