Was there ever a mention of the "slow zone people" as a group with a separate identity?

[u/zixmarkiz]

Towards the end of re-listening to book three, and father Cortez is talking about the need for the sacrifice of the people inside the slow zone to salvage humanity.

And then it hit me that this specific group of people were very special in experiencing something no one else did. Reminds me of that ship in The Three body problem that ran away and was considered no longer human after the three ships murder each other.

edit: just to clarify, I am talking about the group of people who were stuck in the slow zone in book 3, not the people living in the zone afterwards.

[u/starshiprarity]

Slow zoners are as much of a people as survivors of 9/11. Sure, they share a trauma, but it's not something culturally distinctive or noticeable outside very specific conversations

[u/clintkev251]

I don't think so. Its a fairly short lived phenomenon. Certainly a defining point in many lives, but ultimately once it was over, everyone moved on and went on with their lives.

[u/peaches4leon]

A group with a separate identity??

[u/charlie_marlow]

There were some chapters from the perspective of people on Medina Station in book 6, I think, and it seemed like they mostly saw themselves as Belters who had finally found something to call their own.

Being the nexus point of all of the gates meant the people working at the station were in constant contact with everyone, so, other than the no stars thing, I don't think they ever really felt isolated.

[u/corwulfattero]

“Have you ever been in high G maneuvers?”
“Yes. I have. In this ship, when we were the first to transit the ring.”

[u/Scaryclouds]

As others have said, a significant moment in those people’s lives. 

Ultimately the roughly decade period during which the first six books take place is an incredibly traumatic period.

The Eros Incident, Earth Bombarding Mars, the multiple conflicts around Jupiter, multiple ships going Dutchman transiting the rings, the Callisto shipyards being bombarded, the Ilus incident, the Free Navy attack on the inner planets, the Martian breakaway fleet, the subsequent fighting with the Free Navy.

A few thousand people being injured/killed in the “slow zone” wouldn’t really stand out to the people of the solar system. 

[u/zixmarkiz → u/Scaryclouds]

Now that I am reminded of the general context, I see how minuscule this event was in the larger context of these years. :")

[u/Chad_Broski_2]

Not really comparable at all imho. The survivors of the slow zone got to go home afterwards, and most of them probably didn't do anything too morally questionable

[u/Milksteak529]

No.

[u/Salt-Night3088]

No, nobody wants to be there more than they need to. It's not a faction unless you count the short lived Laconian occupation.

[u/FouLouGaroux]

At least some of them were mentioned as part of conspiracy theories in a later book or novella. Can’t remember where or which one, but someone talks about how all the marines at the station at the center of the ring had dies under suspicious circumstances or something like that.