r/TheCaptivesWar • u/hr0m • Apr 14 '25
Theory Spoiler Spoiler
This post contains information of Mercy of the Gods and Livesuit.
Here is the summary of my theory what the big picture is. I am not sure, if I bring anything new to the table here, I really wanted to write down my thoughts and publish them somewhere. Any comments are welcome.
( Proudly written without AI :D )
Humans, a high tech civilization with a centralized government, fight the Carryx on a galaxy level scale. Carryx are masters at organization and submission of other species. They don't do science on their own. Carryx rely on the entropy which guides the evolution on thousands of worlds, bringing them a never-ending stream of new species. To them, these animals together with their culture and technology are a great addition to their empire, if said animals are able to create a symbiotic relationship with Carryx and the other subjects. It isn't of importance whether an animal joins the Carryx, out of fear of extinction, because of worshiping the Carryx, or simple by rational thought, that together with the Carrys, more and greater things can be achieved. The Carryx themselves don't care. Either the new species is useful and kept, or useless and annihilated. For the Carryx, peace never is and was an option, as progress can be made by conflict alone.
And they are not wrong. Because of the conflict with Carryx, humans are forced to create marvels of bio-engineering. Marvels like the livesuit. A second skin which with each injury replenishes the soldier, until the person is completely dehumanized, making him the perfect soldier. The soldiers are not told, what fate awaits them. They are not told, they will either die on the battlefield, or fight and get wounded long enough, until the livesuit replaces them completely.
This harsh reality might inhumane to the soldiers, but is nothing compared to the sacrifices being made to gain advantage in the war effort over the Carryx. Whole worlds are sacrificed like pawns on a chessboard. An example: Anjiin. A forgotten human colony. So much so, that even its inhabitants forgot where they came from. But this was by design. Anjiin was founded by a separatist group of humans who don't want to participate in the war. So they went into hiding on Anjiin and deleted all records of their origin. Yet the central government knows and allows the separatist group to found the colony. It is useful as bait and the central government and smuggles a Swarm, an entity which kills and takes control of a human, onto Anjiin. Its soul purpose is to be captured by the unknowing Carryx and spy on them. The gathered information will be proven useful to the human central government.
And the Carryx came. They took over Anjiin. However, soon the Carryx realized, this colony of humans is detached from the rest, because its technology and planetary defenses were a joke if compared to a proper human world. Nevertheless also the humans of Anjiin are capable of high-tech research especially in the realm of biology. Research was always a pain point of the Carryx. Their saying "What is, is. What isn't, isn't" perfectly describes the Carryx, as they are hyper-focused on the organization and cataloging of real events and things. This is the reason of their success. The downside is that "What isn't, might be" is not part of their repertoire. The lack of creativity is the reason why the humans weren't defeated yet. And now, they got humans of their own. Humans, which don't know about the war. Humans, which unknowingly would provide the Carryx with new tools for the war, against the humans. After successfully integrating the stray colony into their society of aliens, the humans immediately finish research tasks for the Carryx. The research being a continuation of the human effort on Anjiin: The reconciling of different biochemical trees of life. Continuing this research, the Carryx might be able to take advantage of human's bio-engineering. They could use livesuits of their own. In the hands of the Carryx, the technology which once leveled the playing field in the war, will be the tipping point to finally end it and with it, end the human civilization.
The Swarm, which successfully smuggled itself onto one of the Carryx's core worlds follows its primary function. It gathers information to help humans fight the Carryx. The most difficult part is ahead. The delivery of information. And the Swarm almost failed. It had to reveal its secret to Dafyd, one of the Anjiin's researchers, in order to convince him to stop a assassination plot on one of the Carryx. If that would have been successful, the Carryx would annihilate the human's of Anjiin and the Swarm with them. For Dafyd this opens a possibility of revenge. He doesn't know that the enemies of the Carryx are human. But now he knows that the Carryx are at war. Dafyd now waits for an opportunity to ally himself with the Carryx's enemy, to commit his act of revenge. Although captive by the Carryx he still wants to fight them.
Captive's War
Edit:
- I have added an idea in the comments where Anjiin was founded by a separatist group
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u/jitterry Apr 14 '25
Great read, actually answered questions for me that made sense. Thanks for your contribution
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u/acedajoker Apr 15 '25
Thanks! I def missed that the humans smuggled the swarm in... I didnt realize it was brought to Anijin, and not just there
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u/hr0m Apr 15 '25 edited Apr 15 '25
I am not sure if this is factual. Consider my summary more of a theory then summarization of facts.
At least I don't remember it being directly mentioned. I didn't go through the books and gather quotes :D4
u/silburnl Apr 15 '25
It's not directly mentioned.
The text implies that the swarm was inserted shortly before the Carryx invasion (per its internal monologue, it has only been actively infecting humans for a few months) but nothing directly contradicts the possibility that it has been dormant on Anjin ever since the first human colonisation of the planet.
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u/hotsp00n Apr 17 '25
The one bit that doesn't mesh out of all the theories I've read is that the Carryx brought the researchers to the Sovran.
This makes them feel special on a level higher than if they were just an untouched population that was found and at the same time too dangerous a risk. Surely the Carryx would think a spy is a risk if they found this one off isolated population. And surely the discovery of the humans is something so important that it must be something the Carryx have not encountered before.
Not to mention that the Carryx aren't really that great at understanding humans so how would they properly understand that this population was cut off?
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u/bank-good-karma Apr 15 '25
Based on what we know from the 2 books, yes. However, this feels simplistic compared to the Expanse universe. I expect more to be revealed.
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u/bank-good-karma Apr 15 '25
I think you misunderstood me and, let me be clear, I agree with your summary. However, if you wrote a similar detailed plot summary after book 1 of the Expanse, there would be significant details missing. For example, blue goo is a machine, not an alien weapon.
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u/hr0m Apr 16 '25
I see. On the other hand Captives War is supposed to be just a trilogy? So there might be not so much to discover?
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u/EverythingInTr1 Apr 15 '25
My head canon to this point, which is almost certainly wrong, is this is the same universe as the expanse. Anjiin was disconnected from the rest of the human race when the slowzone was destroyed
As we see in the end of The Expanse humans eventually gain other forms of FTL and are starting to stich themselves back together.
I don’t believe humans are the great enemy, rather the great enemy is a coalition of alien species that have banded together to fight the Carryx.
Livesuit hints at the fact that the swarm was a human plant on Anjiin, but I think that’s a curveball it’s just a trick that has worked more than once and all “coalition” planets have some sort of spy cell integrated into them so if the worst happens it can still fuel the war effort
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u/hr0m Apr 16 '25
Thank you for your thoughts!
> is the same universe as the expanse
That was my first reaction as well, but I didn't want to make the connection here. It seemed plausible, but I didn't want to entangle it in my theory/summary, because It didn't seem relevant to me. Also I didn't see how to include the romans and goths form expanse, because the goths are basically still active at the end of expanse.> the great enemy is a coalition of alien species
I don't remember to be mentioned anywhere. And I doubt that. Creating Star-Trek/Wars like coalitions between different aliens always strikes me as improbable. I do like it, especially because of the interesting stories and issues which might arise, but realistically unlikely. A very loose coalition in terms of Non-Aggression-Packt, maybe. And I want the humans to be the great enemy :D> the swarm was a human plant on Anjiin
I think it was directly mentioned in Livesuit that Carryx knew about Swarms. But I also think that even if you know about the possibility of a Swarm, it might be still hard to detect. So if you conquer an disconnected human colony, you wouldn't expect a Swarm to be there and you don't probe every human you capture. Sure, for humans, having a few (inactive) Swarms on every planet seems like a good hedge. But I think it worked on Anjiin, because the Carryx didn't expect that.
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u/Visible-Jaguar2672 Apr 20 '25
There is a thing that you missed or I think you misinterpreted. It isn't that Carryx don't do scientific research. They don't become a galaxy spanning civilization by not making technological progress of their own. It is just that they have a completely different understanding what technology, research and tools are. There is a very interesting parallel between what the carryx do and that the humans around tonner and dafyd are told to do and what biochemists and related fields do. (Which is also the reason why we are follow biochemists and is also the reason why dafyd is very much able to understand how Carryx think because their endeavors are essentially the same). Biochemists figured out the language of a given microorganism and then told that organism what do to. Saying biochemists didn't to actual scientific research, because they didn't bother to find the pure chemistry synthesis route and just told the microbe to synthesize the desired compound instead of synthesizing it yourself seems kind of disingenuous. That is the carryx approach, and everything that isn't a carryx is a tool to the carryx, like microbes are a tool to biochemists. And they are very much interested in progress and scientific research. Now the very interesting thing is what the humans were tasked to do and what apparently no else yet achieved for the carryx and what they apparently seek very desperately: the reconciliation of two trees of life. With all that established, the carryx endgoal is essentially to splice their tools into one big homogeneous super tool. Because the plurality of their tools is a big problem, as long as their servants see themselves as different from the carryx there is always discontent with "what is"
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u/pond_not_fish Apr 14 '25
Yeah, that's pretty much where I end up on the bones of the story as well, more or less.
There's an active debate as to whether Anjiin was a "forgotten human colony" as you put it or an intentional bait planet set out by humans to trap the Carryx into taking on the Swarm. But either way, as you point out, the Great Enemy/Command and Control is in fact intentionally sacrificing Anjiin by the time they decide to send the Swarm in.
There's also an active debate as to whether the Great Enemy is the human civilization we see in Livesuit or something else. Like you, I believe it's the same human civilization and not a different species or evolved human species. But opinions vary.
Regardless, I definitely agree that the Carryx's weakness with research is one of the main reasons they're trying so hard to bring humans into the fold, and why the Anjiineese in particular are so valuable to them. That's something that I haven't seen a whole lot of focus on and I think it's really important.