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Released in 2014, ''Cibola Burn'' is the first of nine novels in ''Literature/TheExpanse'' series.
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Released in 2014, ''Cibola Burn'' is the first fourth of nine novels in ''Literature/TheExpanse'' series.
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!! ''Cibola Burn'' contains examples of:
* AscendedExtra: Havelock and Basia. Havelock appears, briefly, as Miller's partner in Leviathan Wakes, and Basia appears for a single scene in Caliban's War. Here, however, they are both POV characters who play a major role in the story.
* AssholeVictim:
** Coop masterminded the bombing of the landing pad, which led to the shuttle crashing and killing most of the RCE science team. Unlike the other Belters, he not even slightly remorseful, so it's hard to feel particularly sad when he tries to intimidate Murtry and gets his brains blown out.
** Chief Engineer Koenen repeatedly forces the ''Edward Israel'''s engineering team to fight in zero-G, despite their inexperience, and attacks the ''Rocinante'' when Naomi, Alex, and Basia try to save the deorbiting ''Barbapiccola''. Alex eventually gets fed up and snipes him, and not even his engineering team is upset.
%% * ColonelKilgore: Murtry.
* DeathWorld: Ilus was already difficult enough, with the settlers having to import soil to grow crops in. [[spoiler: After the reactor explodes and inundates the planet's surface with a super-tsunami, slugs that secrete an immediately lethal neurotoxin combined with microorganisms that colonize the vitreous humors of the eye and blind the colonists make matters even worse. And that's ''before'' the super-advanced alien defense technology shuts down the fusion plants of the ships in orbit, making escape or resupply impossible. And then the alien technology starts to break down...]]
-->[[spoiler: "Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here.”]]
* DivertingPower: {{Discussed|Trope}} when the ''Rocinante'' is forced to operate on battery-power. The ship's [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon keel-mounted]] [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] has its own very substantial set of batteries and capacitors which were already topped off, and they have to consider tapping into those to keep other systems powered. However, the power is only designed to flow ''into'' the railgun system, not back ''out of'' it into the rest of the ship ([[OverclockingAttack for cogent safety reasons]]) and they do not have the time to [[ReversePolarity effect a workaround]], so they abandon that plan in favor of [[RecoilBoost a different solution using the railgun]].
* DyingTown: Its suggested by the end of the book that [[spoiler: Mars]], and possibly various habitats in the Belt will become examples in the near future - with all the habitable worlds outside the Ring network, all with staggeringly abundant resources, they may just become redundant and irrelevant.
* ExactTimeToFailure: Subverted The ''Rocinante'''s computer calculates exactly how long it will take for [[spoiler:the ''Barbapiccola'' to hit the atmosphere and disintegrate...only for it to recalculate halfway through and shave off three days. Basia does not find this reassuring]].
* EyeScream: An alien organism starts taking up residence in the Ilus settlers' eyes, turning their vitreous humor green and blinding them.
* FromBadToWorse: Things start off badly, with Holden struggling to investigate the bombing while keeping the colonists and RCE security from killing each other. They get worse when the planet starts waking up [[spoiler:and the surface is devastated by a massive explosion. Then the moons shut down fusion power, stranding everyone on the planet. Then come the death slugs, and the blindness plague...]]
* GaussianGirl: As part of the aftereffect of the EyeScream organism that blinded her, Elvi notes that the world is still blurry, and thinks that it makes Fayez look like a movie star.
* GeniusLoci: [[spoiler:After shutting down all of Ilus' technology, The investigator's task is complete, and Miller and all the people assimilated by the protomolecule on Eros become the planet's consciousness.]]
* GravitySucks: {{Downplayed|Trope}} to realistic levels. The ships orbiting Ilus / New Tera are in a very low orbit for practical reasons, low enough that there is a ''very'' minor amount of drag from the near-vacuum vestiges of the upper atmosphere. But this is normally a non-issue, as any ship with a functioning Epstein drive just needs to do some minor correction burns every few orbits to make sure it stays on station. [[spoiler:Unfortunately when the [[{{Precursors}} protomolocule-civilization]] planetary security system simply ''causes nuclear fusion to cease to function'' around the planet, falling toward the planet becomes a mathematical certainty.]]
* InnocentAwkwardQuestion: Avasarala hears of a development involving the [[EldritchAbomination protomolecule]] and shouts, "Son of a whore!", apparently forgetting there's a five-year-old present. The kid turns to her dad and asks, "Daddy, what's a whore?" He tells her it's [[ExactWords a type of frost]].
* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Holden finally confronts Elvi about her crush on him...[[spoiler:after she's slept with Fayez and finally gotten it out of her system]]. The moment is so awkward they both agree it's best not to talk about it.
* MadnessMantra: 113 times per second it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out...
* MacGyvering: Basia and [[TheEngineer Naomi]] do this several times, in their efforts to save [[spoiler: the Belter freighter Basia's daughter is on.]]
** They design and build a tethering cable [[spoiler:to drag the ship into a more stable orbit.]]
** They design an improvised EscapePod by combining two emergency airlocks [[spoiler: to rescue the crew when the ship starts to enter the atmosphere.]]
* MercyKill: At the end of the book, [[spoiler:the recreated Miller incorporates all the consciousnesses trapped by the protomolecule before diving into the dead zone, which finally allows them to die]].
* MoodWhiplash: For most of the book, the Investigator interludes are pure NightmareFuel, with the minds of those "eaten" by the protomolecule subjected to a horrifying AndIMustScream scenario. Then the protomolecule makes an (accidental) pun, and we get a hilarious moment of the mind of an old woman rolling her metaphorical eyes at it...
* MundaneUtility: The ''Rocinante'''s railgun gets repurposed as [[RecoilBoost an ersatz thruster]], to stabilize their orbit.
* NamingYourColonyWorld: The refugees from Ganymede name it "Ilus" while the RCE charter names it "New Terra." Neither party is particularly fond of the other party's name choice.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: The "Dead Zone", described by Elvi as "the eye of an angry god." To humans, it appears as a small dark area in space with seemingly infinite depth, surrounded by a halo of 'light' that illuminates nothing. Protomolecule constructs, such as [[spoiler:Miller's robot body]], can't even perceive it, and can only deduce its existence by the effect it has on them. [[spoiler:It is immediately fatal to the protomolecule, but humans only suffer altered consciousness when they touch it. Miller exploits this to shut down Ilus' defense systems and free the people trapped by the protomolecule]].
* NoBiochemicalBarriers: {{Averted|Trope}}, the biosphere on Ilus / New Tera might superficially resemble some Earth analogues but their protein structures are completely different. The colonists there cannot eat any of the local flora or fauna, and likewise some of the local biting insects promptly drop dead when they try to take a tiny nip out of humans. [[spoiler:Of course while they may be ''biologically'' incomparable both still operate on the same laws of ''chemistry'' and thus [[SubvertedTrope humans might be subject to infection by]], say, algae-analogues that thrive in warm saline solutions, such as are found in human eyeballs.]]
* PhonyVeteran: In the prologue, a homeless Martian is panhandling on the tram, asking if someone can spare change for a veteran of Ganymede. Unfortunately for him, the one he asks is [[ActionGirl Bobbie Draper]], who served on (and lost comrades on) Ganymede:
-->'''Bobbie''': "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Find. Another. Story.]]"
* PunchClockVillain: Wei is a perfectly nice person. Too bad she works for Murtry, and believes in the importance of doing her job...
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Bobbie's first scene in the book involves her scaring off a beggar trying to pass himself off as veteran of Ganymede, which as a Ganymede survivor herself, she probably took way more offence to than she implies. The last three words she says to him before he scurries away:
-->"'''Find. Another. Story.'''"
* RagnarokProofing: Both played straight and averted. Straight in that Ilus still has a mostly working orbital defense network, underground transport system and structurally sound above-ground skyscraper ruins after two billion years, averted in that most of the tech works barely if at all, and some of it fails ''spectacularly''.
--> "What is that?"
--> "One of the moons."
--> "What's it doing?"
--> "Melting."
* RapidFTLProliferation: [[spoiler:Avasarala sends Holden to New Terra in hopes that he'll stave this off. Instead, he proves that colonization of planets on the other side of the Rings is viable and everyone starts rushing through them. Depopulating Mars.]]
* SpaceWestern / SettlingTheFrontier: The overall theme of the book. The central location is a small shanty town of cobbled-together buildings, and the main (human) villain is a thug with a badge who thinks of himself as a frontier sheriff and acts accordingly.
* SpringtimeForHitler: [[spoiler:Avasarala and Fred Johnson's reason for sending Holden as the ambassador in the New Terra conflict was for him to be the SpannerInTheWorks they knew him to be; i.e, to show what a mess the whole space colonizing business to be. Instead, the colonization efforts prove successful, and now everyone's flocking to the wormholes and seeking their fortunes on other Earth-like planets; this in turn will lead to the collapse of Mars and the terraforming project they heavily invested in. And the one valuable resource that the Mars government has that they'll be able to sell to recoup their losses is their massive stockpile of nuclear weapons.]]
* StarfishRobots: The tunneling robots left behind by the Protomolecule civilization have a variety of arms mounted to a central platform, all of which can be reconfigured quickly to perform whatever specific task needs to be done.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Later in the story, Alex shoots [[AssholeVictim Chief Engineer Koenen]] with a ship-to-ship railgun. The kinetic energy of the slug vaporizes him ''instantly''.
* WhamLine:
-->'''Elvi:''' [[spoiler:In about four days everyone in the colony is going to be blind]].
* WritersCannotDoMath:
** [[spoiler:A 2kg slug shot out of the railgun at 5000 m/s will impart a net recoil on the firing ship of 10,000/[weight of ship in kg]. Which is to say, essentially nothing.]]
* ZergRush: [[spoiler:When Miller links himself to every system on the planet, the protomolecule immediately realizes that he's about to plunge into the dead zone, and sends ''every functioning robot on the planet'' to destroy him]].
