Fan Theories Confirmed!! | Livesuit Review | The Captive's War | James S.A. Corey
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2025
- We asked questions, and sooner than I think anyone expected-we got answers! Quick fan theory discussion video around James S.A. Corey's newest short story in the Captive's War Series. ALL THE SPOILERS!
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I also loved Livesuit and what it did for Mercy of the Gods, and I am so excited and happy that i left Captives War 1 feeling optimistic, because reading livesuit was like a I KNEW IT moment in all the best ways.
Agreed, this is how it made me feel as well. I'm 10x more hyped for The Captive's War now because of Livesuit, which I personally enjoyed more than The Mercy of Gods itself, lol.
Yes. Awesome. Great vid!
Just read this straight through in one sitting. Mind absolutely blown 🤯
This video just further blew my mind 😅
It’s really cool that Anjin was so isolated from the rest of humanity.
Can’t wait for future short stories in this world.
Random question - where did you get that bookshelf over your right shoulder?
Aha, I know right! I have so many questions!
And it's just off Wayfair, so not the best. 6 tier corner bookshelf I think should get you there.
Did not expect them to break the world wide open in a short story like this. It really adds to the mercy of gods. I hope people don’t miss it.
Great video! Love seeing other content creators cover this. I thought it blows the doors off the series. I'm nodding my head in agreement with you the whole time 😊 -Amber
Yeah I was floored at how much key, critical information was contained in a short story. Really enjoyed it. And makes me keen to keep reading the series. Feel for folks who skip this though, it feels pretty required tbh.
The Relativistic Effect plot points reminded me alot of Forever War by Joe Haldeman, though I think the sort of nihilistic abstraction that occurs in this book is probably closer to what ftl soldiers would probably experience
100% - you're definitely not the only one to make the comparison. Feels like it was a pretty clear inspiration.
To me it seemed that the livesuit was some part or form of the swarm. The black parts of the body where damage was repaired. The fact that Piotr was dead and was still functioning, just like the swarm in Mercy of the gods. The way they were in constant communication with each other. I have a feeling the swarm captives in Mercy of the gods were ex livesuit humans who had been completely transformed, or something along those lines. I’m sure we will find out more in the next books.
This was such a great read
Getting some of The Forever War for this.
Absolutely. Seems to be a pretty heavy inspiration for this novella at minimum, and we'll see how much of the series as a whole. The idea that over the course of the war humanity "evolves" into this new livesuit species (exaggerated by relativity) and the people they were fighting for no longer exist. Very clear parallels.
@@Paul_Todkillhey man, in regards to the disconnect you are speaking on at 2:14 - We were all talking about this exact thing on the mercy of gods subreddit and Daniel Abraham(1/2 the author lol) actually commented on that specific post about “how could the carryx not know humans are the great enemy” and replied something along the lines of, “interesting question, isn’t it”? So we are definitely supposed to be asking this question!
Oh heck yeah. I definitely need to join that subreddit. Didn't know there was one.
I had the exact same thought - if they have previously captured, how do the lobsters NOT know what humans are when they roll in to Ajjin??
The authors have commented on this on the subreddit and basically said "wait and see". So it's clearly a plot point.
I guess it just depends on how often livesuits and humans are seen functioning together? You'd think the ships would be the big giveaway but I guess it's possible different humans in different places have very different levels of technology and disparate culture which makes it seem like it's not them??? That's my biggest question for sure (other than the origin of Anjiin).
Thanks for making this video. I found this story so tedious that I was about to DNF it around 60%. After seeing your video I'm going to finish it. The idea seems super cool, but I'm very surprised that the authors of the Expanse, which excels at character building, are making this series so completely devoid of any memorable characters (at least so far).
Yeah I'm not sure what's happened between the Expanse and now. But Mercy of Gods especially I found the characters extremely weak. They all kinda blended together tbh. Dafyd was really the only one that I connected with at all. The world building is really what's keeping me going with the Captive's War so far. I just want to know how it all fits together.
It seems to me that, potentially, the Carryx are representative of the apex of evolution...maybe the natural(ish) way, and humans are the first species to figure out combing life with technology, similar to their combing two life trees on anjin...somehow that ability grabbed the attention of both "the swarm" and the Carryx?
Could Anjin have been intentional in a sense?
Didn't it say in TMotG "the swarm" originally navigated ships of some sort?
How many species has the "swarm" touched?
In the Novella I seem to remember a throwaway line of the livesuits dropping into an atmosphere like "a swarm" so the allusion is there...but the light speed travel clouds things with which came first...is "the swarm" the betrayer of the livesuits?
I am of the mind right now that "humans" sre potentially the betrayers, and that, that betrayal is choosing technology over natural evolution as a short cut which leads to the enslavement of the universe's new apex species. That could lead ro the attempted subordination or culling of all life through using the human livesuits to do it... once an artificial super intelligence gets involved things get real wild, potential wise 😂
I mean the Swarm are a human creation. They're clearly the same tech as the livesuits as they communicate with them and both are tools of "the enemy" which we know to be humanity. In the novella it's even mentioned that humanity has agents trying to infiltrate the carryx (the swarm). The question is is it tech we came by naturally or was it from an outside source?
Other question is why is THIS swarm reacting, what I assume is differently to this particular crop of humans. Is it something about them being isolated on Anjiin? There is mentioned to be some kind of fungus on the planet, did that maybe alter them? Or are "regular" humans in the broader society now so different?
The place I feel like this is going is that "The Enemy" that advanced version of humanity that gave themselves up (both ethically and literally, as livesuits) isn't capable of beating the Carryx. It's the truly HUMAN way of thinking the humans on Anjiin have that will eventually make the difference.
I was immediately excited when I finished the Mercy of Gods because I could kinda already see what they're going for with it. And Livesuit only confirmed my suspisions. I predict that the second book in the series is gonna make a huge time skip and from these humble beginnings we're gonna be in for some Dune-scale epicness.
Oh yeah, hard agree. I still am not the biggest fan of the overall writing/pacing, but the worldbuilding has me absolutely hooked.
@@Paul_Todkill I have a theory that they're using this first novel as a kind of a stepping stone. Remember their (especially Ty's) reasoning behind the whole scientific plausibility they were praised for so much in the Expanse. At the end of the day it wasn't there for it's own sake, or to please the nerds. It was a narrative tool, only there to ground the reader in a particular sense of reality, in order to then sell them on the scale of what comes after. For the scale to have more of an impact. That's what I think they're going for, just in a different format, because Ty really doesn't like doing things that already been done. Which is, of course, kind of ironic considering the amount of sci-fi works they're pulling their inspirations from, but hey. We're all pulling from them to a certain extent, consciously or otherwise.
I think your first thought about them not knowing that humans are the enemy is a matter of the timing of when this novella is set and i would not be shocked if that leads into the big question from the first book of how did humans end up on Anjiin with no history, are they from the group that was revolting against what the people in the suits were becoming. Was that colony a long form trap for the carryx that nobody could know about, to inject the swarm into their empire.
How did humanity react when it realised what was being created in the Livesuits? What happened over decades/centuries as those people became more a new thing. Was there an evolution into a new thing?
God knows! I trust them to tie it all together in a manner i love. What I do know is that was a damn good novella that I couldnt put down and will prob read again within a couple of months 😂😂 EDIT - Wrote this in the first couple of minutes hahah
Ahahah YES. Love that we basically came to essentially the exact same few possible outcomes. Agree. Really all depends on time with this. I love the idea of a war where time basically ceases to matter because so much of it is spent at relativistic speeds. Talk about an absolute trip. So excited to see where this goes.
Are we just taking the authors’ word for it that these stories are completely unrelated to “The Expanse” universe? The whole time I was reading both of these books, I just had it in my head that these human civilizations were remnants from the colonists that settled the ring gate systems. It makes total sense. You could have clusters of humans all over the galaxy, and they don’t even need to know about one another. The Anjiin could be completely unrelated to the livesuit humans, since the livesuit group has either FTL travel, or maybe near-light speed travel, so they could cross distances that the Anjiin could not. Also, The Expanse takes place around 200 years in our future; the Anjiin (and whatever other human remnants exist across the universe) are at least 3500 years after that. 3500 years ago, we were building the pyramids, so it’s not all that crazy to think that even a colony cut off from humanity could achieve a lot in 3500 years.
I mean. Sure, they could be lying to us, but why would they? It makes no sense from a business perspective to write a series people need to read 10 books to fully grasp. That's very daunting for a lot of people. They're starting from scratch in a new universe to give people a fresh entry point into their writing. Take them at their word, you have no reason to do otherwise. Theirs is the only word that matters.
@@Paul_Todkill Well, it seems to me like they might have said "it doesn't take place in The Expanse universe" specifically because they didn't want people to feel like they needed to read the other 9 books + 10 novellas to understand it. And as The Captive's War is so far, there is no need to read The Expanse. But that doesn't mean they aren't connected, and I think maybe the publisher just wanted them to say they weren't connected to keep from scaring people away. But I suspect they're connected.
@@craigmhamm They have explicitly stated they aren't.
@@Paul_Todkill Yes they have and I think they’re lying. 😉
Its all just continued from The Expanse, thats why humans are out in places and forgot how they got there everyone that was far is still disconnected from the earth humans or '30 world' humans. Not sure this is a prequel story, early on it mentions they were now killing populations instead of enslaving them because of inflations from the enemy(is that the Swarm?).
My far out theory is I expect Amos at some point.
I would be very surprised if that's the case. Seems to be pretty different tech vs what we see in the expanse. The livesuit tech being based on the protomolecule might be possible? But I highly doubt we'll see any specific characters from The Expanse.
Ty and Daniel said they're done with the expanse and want to do something different. this is that something
@@johnathanhelton to get any fan theory correct you have to cast a wide net. Different, so far this seems like another space opera in a universe much like the expanse was left in, but after much time hence my theory.
@@AkaBigWurm77 sure. Except the authors directly said they were done and moving on. So I guess if you choose to ignore what the creators say, you got a chance of being zero percent correct.
I get it. It's fun to let the imagination run wild and speculate. But you can't contradict the source or creators. Once you do. You're no longer a fan theory. You're a fan fic
@@johnathanhelton Guess I am not allowed head cannon anymore QQ for me, thanks for 'Splaining' it to me sir 🤣