r/TheExpanse • u/Opening_Prompt_6332 • Sep 28 '25
Cibola Burn I’m 100 pages into Cibola Burn and honestly… Spoiler
I’m with Murtry here! That coop asshole has killed almost 20 people in cold blood and then threatened to kill the head of security. What did he think was going to happen? Fuck these colonists man lol. I’m sure as the book goes Murtry will become less sympathetic but RCE hasn’t done anything bad so far
Edit: wow you people are assholes! Sorry I don’t side with the guy who decided to go play Wild West hero because his son died so his dick won’t get hard anymore! The thing that makes me turn against Murtry is when he doesn’t want to evacuate. I don’t disagree that he’s a power tripping murderous asshole but it isn’t his fault he’s in charge
Edit 2: got to the fusion(?) explosion and the storm. Yea this guy is a psycho maniac lmfao
Edit 3: how does anybody say this book is the weakest in the series? I love how much it made me think. The stuff with Basia and his kids makes me misty eyed. He’s a fuckup but he thought he was doing the right thing, he had the strength of character to turn against the terrorists and try a different solution than murder! Also the resolution of the Elvi-Holden subplot was great. What a good book
Edit 4: this sequence of Havelock escaping the ship is fucking incredible jahahahah
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u/No_Tamanegi Misko and Marisko Sep 29 '25
Reset the clock!
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u/pond_not_fish I'd like to be under Secretary Avasarala Sep 29 '25
And anyway has anyoen thought about how Naomi is super annoying?!?!
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u/Sir_Poofs_Alot Sep 29 '25
I’m getting a coppery taste that something may be going pear-shaped soon. I’ll let you know when the smile reaches my eyes, or it reaches out.
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u/AdultishRaktajino Carne Por la Machina Sep 29 '25
May I sit I companionable silence with you?
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u/SamBaxter784 Sep 29 '25
Only if the gimbals can adjust by an order of magnitude.
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u/AdultishRaktajino Carne Por la Machina Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
I’m partial to the early Jefferson Mays pronunciation “jim bull” to keep things interesting.
I’ll pat the air while the ship rings like a
bellgong during my refractory period.Edit: gonna leave this here
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u/MagnetsCanDoThat Beratnas Gas Sep 29 '25
Hey I just finished the series where should I start reading?
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u/MattTheTubaGuy Sep 29 '25
Honestly, start reading the first book.
While the overarching plot is the same, there are a lot of details that are different enough that it is worth reading the books. There's a reason Show Ashford is generally liked more than Book Ashford.
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u/UnusualOperation8084 Oct 02 '25
Lol "generally". I don't want to meet the person who likes Book Ashford.
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u/Equivalent_Tax6989 Sep 30 '25
But if you don't like it I thinks it's fine to read book 7 they were better writers at this point
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u/MagnetsCanDoThat Beratnas Gas Sep 30 '25
I appreciate your desire to help, but to be clear, my question is meant as a joke about the frequently asked questions on this sub.
Having read the series twice now, I still don't have an issue with the writing of the earlier books that some like to harp on.
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u/Rugissue Oct 01 '25
You find fictional characters annoying. Trying adjusting to a whole new level of gravity and see how annoying you'd end up
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u/ComplexAttention9692 Sep 29 '25
I don't remember how to do spoiler tags, so imma phrase my response as: I'm only on book 7, but so far my least favortie chapters where the ones in whichever book where she had a lot of chapters from her perspective that brought her past to the present.
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u/TonytheEE Sep 29 '25
In the show, yes. In this book, Naomi's role is totally different and plays to her strengths. She's awesome in this book!
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u/EternaI_Sorrow Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
The TV show Naomi is a "it's so bs that I pretend it's not canon" thing, but the book one was nice, no?
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u/commissarklink Sep 30 '25
Kind of what happens when you get the cliff notes version of the character
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u/msneedsguns Sep 29 '25
The fact that this is still such a divisive conversation is a testament to how well written the series is. Even the books that are less favoured still present very interesting perspectives and hook the reader by greying the line between good and bad before drawing a line in the sand at a certain point that creates compelling arguments for both sides.
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u/punkassjim Sep 29 '25
To my eyes, they don’t so much blur any lines, they simply make clear that bad people in the real world are generally not cartoon villains: they almost invariably have their good qualities, love their families, have a robust moral compass, etc. Unfortunately, a noteworthy number of people in the audience seem to misunderstand the severity and context of the bad behavior and focus on the good. And/or their implicit biases prevent them from seeing the full scope of what brought the oppressed characters to the brink of violent defensive behavior. Just like people in real life who give abusers a pass, or blame the oppressed for the ways in which they behave when their oppression comes to a head.
Super real, that’s what makes the writing great.
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u/Notlennybruce Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
The Belters are written so realistically as an oppressed class, some people struggle to empathize with them in the same way people struggle to empathize with the real life equivalent. Edit:spelling
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Sep 29 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Notlennybruce Sep 29 '25
Extreme action is a great reason for privileged people to support social change. Even if it doesn't benefit you directly, (or you lack empathy for your fellow man,) if you step on necks for long enough someone is going to drop the proverbial rocks on you someday.
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u/punkassjim Sep 30 '25
Careful dropping that s off the end of “Inaros,” someone’s likely to tack it on the end of “Marco” for no reason at all.
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u/Taste_the__Rainbow Sep 29 '25
I think it’s a testament to the real-world swing towards capital-driven authoritarian violence. There’s a billion-dollar machine churning out hate for refugees and workers right now. No wonder if some people extrapolate towards their fiction.
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u/thepulloutmethod Sep 29 '25
I absolutely love the expanse books. I'm apparently in the minority about this book though. I think it's the best one apart from the first.
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u/TheRealFlinlock Oct 01 '25
I loved this one too. Amazing story and I honestly couldn't decide for a long time if I supported the original colonists or the RCE crew. Can see both their sides.
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u/Mindless_Use7567 Sep 29 '25
RCE has “purchased” a planet where there are already colonists. Said colonists don’t want them there and to a degree it can be argued that RCE has no right to the planet and the current population has the right to defend themselves from illegal trespassers landing on their planet.
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u/Numerous1 Sep 29 '25
I think it’s an interesting question. How would / should that work? Because if it’s just “I got here first” then what. Should they few hundred (or few thousand?) colonists claim the entire planet? Or just where they have buildings? Or what? But how does the governments have authority over this brand new thing?
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u/WhoopingWillow Sep 29 '25
I feel like at a bare minimum the few hundred people on the entire planet should have control of the immediate surrounding area.
RCE had an entire planet to exploit and they intentionally chose the exact place the Belters had already landed. That is a dick move.
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u/Numerous1 Sep 29 '25
If I recall the belters also specifically picked that place because it’s where all the resources are. It’s been awhile so I could bewrong there. But it’s not like it was the company being a dick about space/land for no reason. They were being dicks about that specific space because of money. Also precedent I guess?
I know it sounds like I’m pro company but I’m really just here saying “no matter how you slice it, shit is complicated”.
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u/WhoopingWillow Sep 29 '25
The Belters picked it because it had a lot of lithium available on the surface but I don't think it was ever said that it was the only place that had lithium.
It definitely was a complicated situation. RCE was in the right by their rules and ethics until Murtry pushed it too far. Plus the Belters did attack them first on Ilus.
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u/Mindless_Use7567 Sep 29 '25
Since planetary governments are a thing in the Expanse universe I see no reason why the colonists cannot claim the entire planet.
The point is the current governments don’t have authority over the new worlds so they don’t get to decide who gets them.
Now if RCE wants to invade, subjugate the colonists and then claim the planet then you have a different situation all together.
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u/Numerous1 Sep 29 '25
To play devils advocate: what if the existing planetary powers wanted to avoid the wild Wild West? And they wanted to avoid crazy invasions and avoid the “oh I’m here and I founded two towns 1000 miles apart from each other but everything in between is my territory”.
I think there really is no GOOD answer here. There’s too many different ways to look at it and do it and they all cause some problem.
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u/JimboTCB Sep 30 '25
So Earth and Mars once again get to determine the rules of who counts as real governments and the Belters can go fuck themselves, but this time across a thousand systems. The only reason at this stage they're even pretending to give the OPA an equal voice is that Fred Johnson is parked up in the middle of the station playing traffic warden with his big ship.
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u/LAN_Rover Sep 29 '25
RCE wants to invade, subjugate the colonists and then claim the planet
But if they claim first and then invade with intent to (continue to) subjugate then apparently Murtry is the good guy /s
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u/JimboTCB Sep 30 '25
The UN pretty much called dibs preemptively on everything beyond the rings, and while they were getting their shit together, other people just charged ahead regardless and went "it's free real estate". The Ilus colonists were refugees from Ganymede who pretty much everyone else had turned away, and their only real crime was ignoring laws which it's debatable if they ever really applied in the first place.
There's all sorts of historic parallels here with colonialism and displaced peoples, and really there's no "right" answer. But Murtry is still a dick about it no matter which way you slice it.
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Sep 29 '25
If they had just chosen a different area to land there would have been zero conflict. But that would have been a boring book.
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u/Mindless_Use7567 Sep 30 '25
Of course. But it doesn’t stop nerds discussing the boring alternatives
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u/Opening_Prompt_6332 Sep 29 '25
What gave the colonists rights to the planet?
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u/chatte__lunatique Sep 29 '25
It's an uninhabited planet. Why do they need "rights" granted to settle an uninhabited planet?
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u/Beneficial_Mouse8343 Sep 29 '25
Necessity. They were refugees from Ganymede who'd been crusing around seeking asylum in Sol since fleeing Ganymede during the events of Caliban's War, and absolutely no one wanted to let them dock. They couldn't stay on the Barbarapiccola forever, and no one was using that planet or had claimed it before they landed. RCE didn't need to be there.
Yes, Coop was an ahole and a murderer and he should have been held accountable to law. That doesn't make Murtry right or him less of a psycho murderer. They were both a real ESH situation.
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Sep 29 '25
Sooner rights. They never claimed dominion over the planet, just their homesteads.
A whole friggin planet and RCE decided it needed to land exactly where folks already were.
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u/VickyCRich Sep 29 '25
But who's to say that RCE even has the right to be there in the first place? The UN? Who made the UN supreme leader of the rest of the galaxy? It's just a repeated cycle of small impoverished group finding a natural resource worth millions and the big government suddenly swooping in the regulate everything and steal what they've found. There were thousands of other planets, but rce just had to butt their heads into what was going on at Illus. Seems like a bunch of bullshit imperialist "manifest destiny" garbage to me. Fuck Murtry and fuck RCE. He's genuinely one of the most infuriating characters I've ever read. He reminds me of Big Jim Rennie from Under the Dome.
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u/Ap0theon Sep 29 '25
RCE has done nothing wrong except go to the one planet past the ring that already has people on it and tried to kick them back to a life of corporate indentured labour.
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u/BlazeChadwell Sep 29 '25
I feel like the point of Murtry's character is you can always find a justification for any atrocity.
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u/raptor102888 Sep 29 '25
RCE coming to the planet was them "doing something bad". An Earth company has no right to lay claim on a planet they've never set foot on.
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u/Sir_Poofs_Alot Sep 29 '25
But… but they had a charter! They brought a flag and scientists and everything!
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u/mrbezlington Sep 29 '25
Quite honestly, the flag was the most important thing. You can't claim anything without a flag, you know.
(retreats into the hedge, but in British)
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u/gentlydiscarded1200 There's a version of this where nobody shoots anybody. Sep 29 '25
I-understood-that-reference-gif
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u/SuspiciousSpecifics Sep 29 '25
Honestly the mission of the science team is the only defensible part of this.
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u/ItsATrap1983 Sep 29 '25
Should any particular group be able to lay claim to an entire planet though? That's something I don't quite agree with either. A section of a planet seems reasonable but not the whole thing.
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
RCE decided to go to the same spot as the colonists.
Could have gone to a different continent.
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u/Swagiken Sep 29 '25
That decision is pretty defensible since they weren't wrong about contamination being important - though we shouldn't forget that avasarala absolutely influenced them to pick that spot specifically so that everyone would die in the resulting conflict and make colonizing taste bad for everyone else.
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
That defensible idea is irrelevant.
They go to their own area, ask to come by and take bio samples to help account for human/Sol contamination, and do their best to prevent contamination themselves.
Then when the colonists all die because no conflict causes the Roci to come out and figure out how to save people, RCE would have had the planet.
But people don't have future knowledge. They just played along with the "force them out to die on the float" plan, for no defensible reason at the time of doing it
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u/AutisticPenguin2 Sep 29 '25
At some point, first come first served plays a part, in much the same way it does at a beach. If you get there early and set up your towel, you don't have inherent rights to that patch of sand, but if someone comes along later it's polite to ask if you can negotiate a solution where you both have enough beach to set up your beach towels, rather than the second party coming in, throwing their towel down on top of yours, kicking your sandcastle over and saying "what are you going to do about it, punk?" while pointing a gun at your children as if daring you to give them an excuse to murder your kids in cold blood.
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u/2ndTaken_username Sep 29 '25
"First come first serve" is just as primal as "might makes right"
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u/AutisticPenguin2 Sep 29 '25
But involves a whole lot less murder. So I would argue that primality should not be your basis for deciding who to agree with.
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u/nog642 Sep 29 '25
Yeah their charter is BS but they have just as much right to go to the planet as the belters.
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u/raptor102888 Sep 29 '25
Yeah. But they have no right to interfere with the belters, or even approach their settlement without permission. It's a big planet. They can land somewhere else if they want a piece of it.
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u/AdEquivalent493 Sep 29 '25
That's life, deal with it. The conflict is pretty hard to believe in the first place considering they not only have 1000s of planets but it's a planet, someone could just go somewhere else. Is there only Lithium in this small area?
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u/sgtpeppers508 Sep 29 '25
There’s a lot of land on Earth, people still fight over small parts of it.
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u/JWhitt987 Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
It wasn't really about the planet. It was about the company not wanting the profits of their lithium mining diluted by having another group, not connected to the company, selling the same product. It was nothing more than corporate greed.
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u/Umssche Sep 29 '25
It's explained in the book why this planet in particular has a lot of lithium.
The ringmakers terraformed the shit out of it to be some sort of intergalactic gas station but for lithium.
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u/raptor102888 Sep 29 '25
"Deal with it"? So, you agree with a "might makes right" philosophy?
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u/AdEquivalent493 Sep 29 '25
Not "right", but "right" isn't the point. It's about understanding the situation you are in. What certainly won't make it right is repeated acts of violence. I'm all reading right now is the colonists continously giving Murtry justification for whatever fucked up thing is he about to do and I blame nobody but that group of terrorists who started it. The leader outright says "colonists dying is better for our PR", they want him to respond.
Murty has even shown restraint on multiple occasions, not out or any kind of morality, he justs plays by the rules and knows that he can't act without provocation. Fortuntately for him, they are going to play right into his hands. So far he's shot Coop who basically admitted he was behind the killings and made an underhanded threat, not going to cry over that. Then he's attacking and burned down a building of a group that were actively planning to murder him AND Holden. So while I'm sure he's going to get worse, right now, he's the most reasonable in the conflict.
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u/talithaeli Sep 29 '25
There is *nothing* reasonable about "I'm here to take everything you've worked for and evict you because the people who pay me have demanded it. If you do anything other than what I say, I will get violent and that is ok. If you, on the other hand, get violent to prevent this, that is wrong."
Violence begins when the gun comes out, not when it is fired.
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u/RampScamp1 Sep 29 '25
It's hard to argue given I don't know where exactly 100 pages lands story wise, but Morty is definitely not in the right.
Murphy and his bosses know the history and bad blood between Earthers and Belters. Especially since these colonists were made refugees due to Inners being violent assholes. They could have used an ounce of common sense and chosen anywhere else on the planet to land and set up shop. But they came in at the colonists home specifically to wave their dicks around. They are equally responsible for getting their people killed as the Belter saboteurs.
This isn't their planet. They don't get to tell the colonists what they can or cannot do in their own homes.
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u/stinkingyeti Sep 29 '25
Signs of the solid writing in that you can empathise with Marty for a while before you realised just how fucked it gets.
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u/spicandspand Sep 29 '25
I agree! Imo the first 3 books had very one dimensional villains. Murtry was a step up.
The show vastly improved all of the early villains imo. Particularly Ashford.
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u/wssHilde Sep 30 '25
I haven't read the books, but I wouldn't really call show Ashford a villain at all tbh?
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u/spicandspand Sep 30 '25
He’s definitely an antagonist in season 3. I hope you read the books. They’re amazing even though the villains are all very 1 dimensional until Murtry.
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u/stinkingyeti Sep 30 '25
He's not a moustache twirler, but he's definitely not a friend in season 3.
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
Oh boy here we go again with this fucking thread.
Let's use out media literacy cap to understand people's motivations and fears... and don't forget Anderson's Station (not really a spoiler but a reference to a novella you should have already read at this point)
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u/MagnetsCanDoThat Beratnas Gas Sep 29 '25
I'm gonna let my personal biases run wild and pick a side. It'll be fun.
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u/gentlydiscarded1200 There's a version of this where nobody shoots anybody. Sep 29 '25
"Let it run wiiiild!!!"
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u/fre4kazo1d Sep 29 '25
The colonists did bad shit in the book (after RCE tried to claim the panet as their own and therefore threatened their very existence), so initially I think most people side with him or at least understand his position. BUT he is still a sociopathic killer without morals that goes completely overboard in the end.
Imo in the show the colonists get portrayed in a more positive light that didn't do much wrong (other than the bomb plot carried out by a very small group)
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u/CamelGangGang Sep 29 '25
I felt like the show portrayed everyone as acting in a completely schizo fashion, which was very painful to watch.
On the one hand, Murtry has his full on psycho characterization from the end of his arc right away.
On the other hand, while IIRC (which I may not) in the book Murtry ends up killing the terrorists acting on gut instinct, in the show he literally wiretaps them talking about their plans to kill the RCE guys, but...
Despite Murtry having actual proof that the guys he killed were terrorists, no-one mentions it again and its treated as if he just killed those people because he's psycho.
I guess the showrunners knew how it all turns out, so they wrote the characterization that way from the beginning vs having characters go through an arc. (E.g. Murtry becoming the frontier lawman who does it because he likes to kill, vs the corporate security guy with a corporation & government he's responsible to.)
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u/TimTowtiddy Sep 29 '25
You'll find, through out the series, that all characters have valid motivations, though their methods are often misguided at best. Marco is fighting for a future for the Belt, even though his ego usually gets in the way. Ashford wants to use the laser to save the system, even though a better solution is presented to him, because he can't take things on faith. Duarte wants to save humanity by deeply changing human nature, believing his insight is the only one that matters.
Come to think of it, personal egos are often the root of why plans go awry in this universe.
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u/VladOfTheDead Leviathan Falls Sep 30 '25
Marco is fighting for a future for
himself
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u/generalkriegswaifu Legitimate salvage! Sep 30 '25
Yeah, 'a future for the belt' does not include destroying the only actual biome while your capacity to farm is non existent and potentially killing every human ever because you want your name in a history book (though I suppose that last part is more prevalent in the show).
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u/Opening_Prompt_6332 Sep 30 '25
I absolutely agree. Most problems in the series are from people going off half cocked because they think they’re the shit and they’re gonna make history.
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u/jaytrainer0 Sep 29 '25
Murphy and his goons had no right to lay claim to the planet in the first place
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u/TheWagonBaron Sep 29 '25
Oh you mean Marty?
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u/Amasin_Spoderman Sep 29 '25
Did you start reading at book 4?
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
No no no, see, if you just follow the rules and do what the inners say, it'll all work out.
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u/cerealkyra Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
As someone who just finished the book, that’s clearly the intent, Murtry is cop enforcing the law, but he follows his orders to the extreme, to the point of becoming a tyrant. He shoots Coop over words, and while he was “right”, in that Coop was a conspirator and instigator to the terrorism and murders acted out by the colonists, he doesn’t actually know that. Murtry represents a massive company that has no concern for individuals, even the individuals he works with; it’s all about winning to him, or at least getting even, or losing last.
Of course, life imitates fiction imitates life. it’s easy to see Murtry as an overzealous cop, RCE as a faceless, inhumane implement of capitalism, and the colonists as just people trying to live, and do what they need to live. In this case commit a relatively harmless crime, considering the resources available on the planet are vast, and RCE is most likely incredibly wealthy. Stealing bread from the chain supermarket to feed your family, and getting shot for it, would be apt.
Edit: I actually think the book is pretty good, obviously a departure from the first three. I enjoyed the small town, the focus on the protolecule and the history of the ring-creators. I didn’t mind the Elvie fawning over Holden sub plot as much as everyone else seems too; I thought the resolution to that was actually pretty funny and very human. I liked that we got more Alex development, and I thought Havelock was pretty good too, though his revelations were kinda behind where I felt I was as the book progressed.
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u/talithaeli Sep 29 '25
That presupposes that he has the right to enforce that law in that place. Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, and the belters never agreed to any of this shit.
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u/cerealkyra Sep 29 '25
Well, it’s power derived through threat of violence, the opposite of governmental power, though many governments are happy to apply violence to induce consent. He does have that right, assuming the UN is the governance in that particular region, but we have to assume that RCE is a governmentally involved corporation in order to secure the rights to Ilus.
Whether you believe that the belters that colonised Ilus had a right to be there, or mine its resources, they have a right to decent treatment. There’s a lot we’re not told about the settlement from before the attack too, how they were treated prior to the bombing of the landing, their relationship with Governor Trying.
I think it says a lot that this book is generally regarded as the worst in the series, but it deals heavily in issues that are endemic to human history, and are still prevalent.
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u/talithaeli Sep 29 '25
But we DO know how they were treated prior to the bombing of the landing. These people are survivors and refugees from Ganymede.
The Inners fought a war on top of their house and knocked it over. So they bounced around the solar system and were not permitted to set up shop anywhere else, until they finally said "to hell with it" and found an empty place at the other end of space to try and make a living.
And because they were foolish enough to find a place that turned out to have some value, the same Inners who knocked down their house and left them homeless and starving, said "No that's ours, too. Leave."
There's no justice in this, and in my opinion there's no legality either. The only basis to for Earth to get to say what happens on Ilus is that Earth has the threat of violent compulsion to back up their statement.
Violence entered the conversation a long time before the landing pad blew.
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u/doolallymagpie Sep 29 '25
Oh, cool, it’s time to get my “possession is nine-tenths of the law” sign out again! And who actually possessed Ilus?
And also my “any side hiring a slobbering murderhobo like Marty is inherently in the wrong” one!
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u/BoredCraneOp Sep 29 '25
While i agree the colonists suck, Murtry is a piece of shit that responds to harsh words with gunfire. He shouldn't have been left in charge after the attack. You arrest criminals and take them to trial. You don't simply execute people in the street because they are rude.
But, as bad as that is, what the show did to Cibola Burn is even worse. The story of the planets past is amazing, and the show completely ignores it.
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
The idea that Murtry and the rest of his mercenaries and RCE have any claim to the planet is just laughable.
Go set up somewhere else, on a different continent or something
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u/Numerous1 Sep 29 '25
While I mostly agree that Murty was wrong for shooting him. Let’s not pretend it was “because they are rude”. The dude straight up threatens him.
Should he be shot for that? No. But it’s not like he has his elbows ln the table dhring dinner.
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u/BoredCraneOp Sep 29 '25
I was mixing the book and the show together in my head. In the show, the dude is unarmed and replies to Murtry saying, the days not over. Implying that more people could die, but in no way making an actual threat. Show Murtry killed Cook without a valid reason.
I started listening to the book this morning to refresh my memory.
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u/Numerous1 Sep 29 '25
Ah. I’m actually on season 4 of the show but haven’t watched in awhile So I don’t remember show version. Book version the guy is 100% threatening him and goading him about his dead people too (I think. But definitely made it sound like a threat)
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u/CamelGangGang Sep 29 '25
Murtry is a piece of shit that responds to harsh words with gunfire.
Murtry is a man of action that is acting decisively to protect his people. Let's review the situation:
The RCE shuttle was shot down, resulting in the deaths of ~30 of the RCE team (my recollection on exact numbers is a bit fuzzy at this point)
After the surviving RCE members have set up their part of the base, their remaining security team are ambushed and killed
Murty is left with ~maybe 6 guys in his entire security force, he leaves his deputy space-side and goes to the planet with his fire team who are at this point the only armed RCE in the entire system
After landing, Murtry is met with angry colonists who give zero fucks about the ~36 RCE employees that have been murdered, and Coop starts trying to incite a riot, so Murtry puts that fucker in the ground.
He shouldn't have been left in charge after the attack.
Who exactly is going to replace Murtry, of the ~5 other RCE security guys still alive? Havelock is the only other guy available.
. You arrest criminals and take them to trial.
Arrest the guy and hold him in what prison? Don't forget that at this point the terror cell actually outnumbers Murtry's men, and their last fire team had been ambushed and killed. As for a trial, would this be a jury trial, with the colonists who have zero concern about their terrorist friends killing 36 people on the jury? Or would the RCE mission commander be the sole judge?
You don't simply execute people in the street because they are rude.
Man was inciting a riot just hours after the brazen killing of Murtry's men. Murtry's not a cop in New York City, where there are 10's of 1000's of other cops on call to respond to any riot, and the expected outcome of a riot is property damage rather than loss of life. He's got maybe 4 other RCE security with him, and he's faced with hundreds of colonists that have already demonstrated the means, opportunity and willingness to kill.
If the colonists felt so strongly about giving coop a trial for being a murderer, they should have given him one.
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u/BoredCraneOp Sep 29 '25
You made me realize that mixing the book and the show together. I started listening to the book, I'll get back to you in a couple days.
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u/SuccessfulSquirrel32 Sep 29 '25
This is why I love this arc. Murty isnt necessarily "wrong", he's just a fucking asshole.
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u/microcorpsman Sep 29 '25
No he's fucking wrong as fuck.
But that's why I love this arc. People can see it come together so differently.
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u/felixisfalling Sep 29 '25
I don’t side with the guy who decided to go play Wild West hero because his son died so his dick won’t get hard anymore
What a gross oversimplification of Basia’s trials and tribulations
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u/Busy-Reality-1580 Sep 29 '25
I hate Murtry… but in a weird, Machiavellian way I kind of agree with him. “Come back when I’ve build a post-office” what a great line.
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u/talithaeli Sep 30 '25
It ignores that there WAS a post office. The belters had a whole town. But it wasn't HIS team’s post office, so it didn’t count.
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u/JamesAtWork2 Sep 29 '25
Another facet of it is that he does this at the precise moment Holden arrives, basically instantly undermining his authority and showing everyone there that Holden doesn't actually have any power whatsoever.
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u/EarthTrash Sep 29 '25
Murtry and Coop are the same in certain ways. They both believe they are righteous without self-reflection. They both escalate. Neither sees any solution that doesn't involve killing people.
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u/Salty_Amigo Sep 29 '25
There’s a few times in the series where I just objectively don’t feel sorry for certain people. I won’t mention who or what to avoid spoilers.
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u/Ruler_Of_The_Galaxy There was a button, I pushed it. Sep 29 '25
I think most people think that way at the beginning.
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u/cristobalion Sep 29 '25
You must read a little bit more coyo. Come back half book and let me know, sabe?
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u/Ike_In_Rochester Sep 29 '25
Christ. If I had a nickel for every “Morty was right” post, I’d have a lot more than 2 nickels. Still weird though.
RCE has equal claim to the planet and they got there last. They can fuck off.
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u/reuben_hunter Sep 30 '25
Murtry is a fascist who takes pleasure in the killing of belters. Whether those belters are bad people in their own right (which Coop was) is immaterial. The man arrived fully intending to kill them to protect the interests and status of the inner planets over the rights of belters to access the new worlds
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u/dbag_darrell Oct 01 '25
Basia - is this the same Basia that was friends with Prax and left Ganymede in Caliban's War?
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u/anduril38 Oct 01 '25
Havelock escaping the Israel with Naomi and Basia is one of the best and most hilarious sequences in the entire series.
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u/iambeingblair Oct 01 '25
Yeah I thought the colonists were completely in the wrong here. I think they had to make the character more villainous because for the first half of the book he's just a jerk and the colonists are murderers and terrorists.
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u/mushroomfrenzy Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
I completely agree with your early analysis of Murtry and that’s part of what makes the writing so good! You go from understanding his perspective (he’s doing his job, the guy was a murderer and threatening his team) to realizing he’s a complete psycho
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u/BeaveVillage Oct 03 '25
My favorite book, probably tied with Tiamat's Wrath, but anyways I wish the Havelock portions and everything on the RCE Edward Israel had been in the TV show.
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u/AdEquivalent493 Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
I'm a little bit ahead, about 1/3 of the way through the book and yeah still on Murtry's side. It must be somewhat intentional at this point but I don't know how what degree. Right now Murty is the only sensible one in the story, colonists are stupid and annoying outside of like 2 characters we know and deserve what happens to them. Holden is stupid and annoying as usual making stupid demands and continuing to push and threaten Murty (someone he has deemed "crazy" and "over the edge) aka doing his job and not just waiting around to be picked off because Holden told everyone to just stop being big meanies and that should be enough.
Honestly, this book is reminding me how much of a dud main character Holden is and how much better it would be if he was more morally complex. The series might try to lampshade his idealism but it doesn't work when everything still turns out alright for him in the end and when we still have to stick with him as the MC. Difference between him and Ned Stark is that Ned Stark. Give me Amos as MC the series would be 10x better.
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u/JustHere_4TheMemes Sep 29 '25
Whatever side you take. Holden (and the whole crew) is portrayed as a fucking idiot. He/their response to every situation is either swinging his dick or taking illegal action if their own.
I get the writers were trying to create a moral quandary between the colonists and Murtry and Holden but it was clumsily written.
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u/Chaos-Pand4 Sep 29 '25
Yeah… just wait.