The Big Empty story
On Ceres, Miller investigates water theft from a wealthy area of the station, now severely rationed due to the Canterbury's failure to return. In Mao's apartment, he finds clues placing her aboard the Scopuli. On Earth, Avasarala sends the suspected OPA captive to Luna for further interrogation after her superior, Undersecretary Sadavir Errinwright, disapproves of "gravity torture", but the captive dies by suicide en route. Stranded in the Belt, the Knight is damaged by debris from the ice hauler's destruction. Using the last of their air, the survivors build an improvised antenna to place a distress call, which is responded to by the Martian Congressional Republic Navy (MCRN) flagship Donnager. After Nagata identifies the distress transponder from the Scopuli as Martian military technology, Holden broadcasts a message across the Solar System implicating Mars in the destruction of the Canterbury as insurance against being killed as witnesses.
10 total · 5 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| compromising one's ethical principles vs. self-preservation | major | Against his crewmates' wishes, Holden decided to broadcast what had happened to them because it was the right thing to do, despite the fact that it would make them all a target of whoever had recently attacked them. |
| decision making in the face of uncertainty | major | The crew on the Knight repeatedly weighted whether broadcasting their situation would save them or make them targets. |
| law enforcement | major | In one storyline, Detective Miller continued his investigation into the disappearance of Julie Mao. In an unrelated happening, Miller chastised a young Belter (a "gutter punk" in Miller's estimation) for stealing "tunnel water", but ultimately showed the youth mercy by letting him go instead of putting him under arrest. |
| stranded in outer space | major | In one storyline, the crew of the Knight struggled to survive after becoming stranded in the asteroid belt with a rapidly dwindling air supply. They had to take the risky measure of depressurizing the ship before venturing outside to repair the communications antenna. |
| torture | major | In one storyline, Avasarala was determined to get the suspected OPA agent Heikki Sabong to spill the beans as to how he'd gotten his hands on restricted stealth technology. When she was forbidden from subjecting Heikki to more "gravity torture" on Earth, she set into motion a plan to send him to Luna where she could presumably torture him to her heart's content. Heikki denied her the opportunity by committing suicide on the launch from Earth. |
| speculative stealth technology | minor | Earth suspected Mars of having developed politically stabilizing stealth technology. |
| suicide | minor | The suspected OPA smuggler Heikki Sabong, whose body was adapted to the low gravity of Ceres, took his own life by surreptitiously avoiding his high-gravity injections and letting the intense g-forces during a launch form Earth to Luna crush him to death. |
| teenage rebellion | minor | Julie Mao had apparently had rejected her olgarchic father's dynastic plans for her. |
| terrorist or freedom fighter | minor | Earth was said to be oppressing the Belters. Various Belters resisted and Avasarala called Heikki Sabong "an OPA smuggler and a terrorist". |
| what if I found myself in a high gravity environment | minor | The suspected OPA smuggler Heikki Sabong, whose body was adapted to the low gravity of Ceres, needed to be kept in a water tank during his captivity on Earth. |