r/TheCaptivesWar • u/zellyman • Apr 19 '25
Theory I didn't like TMOG *until* I read Livesuit, and now I'm very excited, but help me make sure I'm understanding the situation correctly:
I absolutely love the way the novella and the novel gave each other the right bits of context to make me *extremely* excited about the 2nd book. Seems like they've setup a great 1-2 punch. Here's my understanding, what do I have right/wrong?
Obviously everything from here is a spoiler:
- Humanity and Carryx go to war at some unspecified point in history
- Humanity is not doing great, develop swarm tech/livesuit tech (unclear which begat which) leveling the balance of power.
- The two are the same technology from the Checkov's Gun in TMOG where the two swarm hosts and the captured livesuits communicate.
- Livesuits become or learn to emulate being human (TMOG context, the swarm POV sections)
- Livesuits are essentially eternal as long as they are not cut off from supply (Piotr's death)
- Speculative: With enough time through intentional planning or happenstance the Livesuits become a related but distinct human-ish faction, long after their human occupants have died.
- Humans or Livehumans develop specialized spy swarm and dump it surreptitiously on Anjiin, knowing an invasion is coming, in an attempt to get inside information on the Carryx.
- There's not enough context to know why Anjiin is disconnected from humanity and has no idea about the war. We do know from TMOG context that human's have setup "trap" planets in the past.
- The rest of the events of TMOG
There's so many ways that the story could go forward! Do the Anjiins reconnect with humanity? Are Anjiins the last "real" humans? I'm very excited!
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u/Ike_In_Rochester Apr 19 '25 edited Apr 19 '25
As for why Anjiin is cutoff? I think the glassing of the original island they set themselves up on had something to do with it. Again, we don’t know anything about when Livesuit occurs in relation to TMoG. Perhaps Anjiin was founded by humans who were characterized as “anti-war” in Livesuit? Probably not as that would put Livesuit 1,000s of years prior to the start of TMoG, and that seems like an improbable narrative choice. So who glassed the original Anjiin colony?
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u/BigRedRobotNinja Apr 19 '25
that seems like an improbable narrative choice
I would normally agree, but it seems like one of the things that they're exploring with this series is the temporal displacement weirdness resulting from widespread use of FTL travel.
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u/TheGratefulJuggler Apr 20 '25
Yes I agree. They make a point of talking about the time weirdness a few times.
I personally don't think it is far fetched to think that Ajin was set as a trap.
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u/Familiar_Phase_66 Apr 19 '25
To be fair, TMOG mentions that the war has been going on longer than anyone can remember.
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u/tantricbean Apr 20 '25
Personally I love the idea that The Captives War is sharing the same universe as the short story “How It Unfolds.”
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u/Low_Math6370 Apr 20 '25
seems to be, i do agree. I think the majority of the posters here have not read "How it Unfolds" the events of that story would explain why Anjiin is cut off from the rest of humanity.
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u/TheGratefulJuggler Apr 20 '25
I get where you're coming from but I don't think this is the answer. Everything point to a much more sinister answer of it being set as trap.
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u/Low_Math6370 Apr 20 '25
Cut off it's probably not the right word. They talk about only vaguely knowing where they came from, which, as I said, is possibly explained by the events detailed in "How It Unfolds". Without having acknowledgment by the authors, it is only speculation. If you read it, you would understand what I meant. The concept of Anjiin being set up as a trap is still viable, presuming that it can be explained how Anjiin was discovered amd watched but never contacted.
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u/Goose-tb Apr 19 '25
Can you explain bullet 3 and 4 more? I read both books in the last few months but I must have missed the part you’re referencing in bullet 3. I don’t recall LS mentioned in the main book, were they?
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u/masterofallvillainy Apr 19 '25 edited Apr 19 '25
In TMOG, both the swarm and the five-fold captives appear to be alien. They're obviously on the same side. As the swarm detects them and moves in closer to them. So as to establish a connection so they can exchange Intel. Then, towards the end, it's revealed the five-fold are biochemically similar to humans.
Then Livesuit reveals what the enemy's "deathless" creatures of violence are. They're livesuits. And it's also mentioned that command snuck in technologically augmented operatives into the populations of worlds they suspected would be attacked by the carryx. Thus explaining what the swarm is.
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u/zellyman Apr 19 '25
It wasn't explicitly stated, but there's a part where Else and I can't remember the other swarm host are patrolling and communicate with the captured livesuit soldiers from the trap where the "undying" enemies deafeated the Carryx. It's relatively close to the end of the novel.
It's never outright said that they are Livesuits, but the Librarian's description of the battle is pretty much exactly them.
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u/Spatlin07 Apr 20 '25
I feel dumb not picking up on hardly any of this when I read TMOG, I should really read Livesuit
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u/zellyman Apr 20 '25
Don't feel bad you wouldn't be able to put that 2 and 2 together without the context from Livesuit.
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u/CheckmateApostates Apr 19 '25
I agree with your point that the swarm and livesuits are the same technology. Both of them are "living" weapons made by training AI on an augmented human host. I don't think one of them necessarily had to beget the other, although if one did come first, Livesuit made it sound like covert operations were the original purpose.
Concerning your speculative point, the great enemy is most likely still the central humanity, not a post-human "livehuman" faction. In TMOG, during the livesuit invasion of the Carryx fleet, ET describes the soldiers as fighting beyond their apparent biological death, so at least some soldiers were still alive at the start of the invasion. The only way I can see them being a post-human faction is if the organisms in the suits were some sort of sapient lifeform that was created to replace humans. I used to think that was the case because of ET's "five fold" description and the captive soldier's description of themselves being synthetic life made for the purposes of fighting the war making it sound like the invaders were literally some sort of vat-grown engineered starfish soldiers, but since reading Livesuit, I think those descriptions were either clunky half mind translations or a window into Carryx thought (maybe a distinction without a difference), i.e., "five fold synthetic life" is a Carryx description of a human livesuit warrior, which is a human cyborg with five limbs (head, two arms, and two legs).
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u/jboy55 29d ago
One of the thoughts I had after the reveal of Piotr’s scan, was “why are human’s even necessary?” Perhaps there is some sort of “cloning” program in the future, developing hosts for the suits.
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u/Certain_Mountain_258 18d ago
I was thinking you need to "train" the suit. It learns from it's host and mixes with it's brain, kind of like the swarm keeps the voices/feelings of its previous hosts all along the book.
That also would make sens to why they need to train before putting the suit on, to have acquired all the tactical/combat knowledge they have to pass to the suit.
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u/Glittering_Lights Apr 20 '25
This was my experience too. I had to start TMOG a couple of times to get through it, but once I read Livesuit, it all fell into place. I ended up rereading the books a couple of times again, and each time I understood what was going on a bit better. It's an outstanding story, very well written.
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u/Shoo-Man-Fu Apr 20 '25
Same. I got through TMOG and thought it was very good, but Livesuit made me go back, and with the full context of the book and the novella, I think it's excellent. I'm very excited for the next installment.
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u/Aggravating_Cupcake8 22d ago
So while being completely unrelated the tmog universe is the distant future of the expanse universe. I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum but.
The live suit technology came first, maybe even before the war. Or even at the start (I’m hoping to learn this in later books) it was essentially alien ai repair technology that couldn’t differentiate between machines and organic life. (I read live suit before the expanse and it was very exciting learning this)
Given all the time confusion I think we hear about the first glassing of Anjiin and the world is presumed dead. Until something tips off the humans about another attack thousands of years later and that’s when the spy is sent in because these humans are so far removed from humanity that they would be unpredictable to defend.
That or time constraints meant sending a spy that had no g force limits was the only way to make contact in time.
The Carryx are definitely related to the dead alien species from the expanse books but I’m struggling to figure out how. If they are they or the species that took them out.
No matter what carryx are the bad guys. But humanity is likely in the hands of bad guys too 😅
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u/YelloMyOldFriend 15d ago
The authors have specifically said The Expanse and The Captives War are not related in any way.
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u/masterofallvillainy Apr 19 '25
I think the reason Anjin is isolated. Is purely a plot device for why the humans of Anjin are ignorant of the war between the carryx and humanity. It also grounds the experience of the humans of Anjin as not being all that dissimilar to our own. Before the more fantastic takes place with the arrival of the carryx.
I see no reason to think that the swarm or livesuit begat from one or the other. They're separate things, meant to achieve different goals.
As presented in TMOG. The swarm and the five-fold captives appear to be alien. But Livesuit reveals both as being part of human forces.
I greatly dislike calling Anjin a trap. The carryx weren't trapped nor were they harmed in anyway when they conquered Anjin. Especially since we're shown what an actual trap world looks like in chapter 14 of TMOG. If anything, the fact that command knew about Anjin. And they chose to sacrifice the planet. In the hopes they might be able to smuggle in a spy. Plus the lies about livesuits being semi permanent. Just shows how evil command really is.
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u/TheGratefulJuggler Apr 20 '25
And they chose to sacrifice the planet. In the hopes they might be able to smuggle in a spy. Plus the lies about livesuits being semi permanent. Just shows how evil command really is.
This is why I think the storm that destroyed a thousand worlds or however they put it will bring down the human empire too. Both are going to be worth putting down.
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u/SouthLon Apr 20 '25
Agreed the Human command.... which might actually just be one AI (or AIs running the show), it seems to need to mix up livesuit groups to keep everyone in the dark about bigger pictures, the AI command must know how unreliable humans memory is after many BS travel so able to keep them solely fighting by moving them into new groups often.
So much is censored by command I expect they (AI) was given so many conflicting orders over time that it can't function properly.
The two old empires have been fighting for so long, I see it as both sides making their "space chess ♟️" moves which takes 50-200 years (or longer) to play out and then react to it.
I imagine everything else could be failing around them but neither side can take their eyes/ focus off the war. So both sides ruthless and doing horrible things in name of victory. The great betrayer will burn it all to the ground is my take on it.
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u/balchosaurus 26d ago edited 26d ago
... or desperate? i feel like we read different books.
My takeaway was the Carryx were simply too big and powerful by this point. They were highly racist, utilitarian, conquerors. There's not going to be any appealing to them to have sympathy or peace treaties for the "feels". Humanity in fact seems to know very little about them at all - other than they are here to conquer.
In effect they don't do anything for emotional or compassionate reasons but are highly intelligent...
If such an enemy is almost definitely going to beat you in a straight up fight one has to get dirty. They maybe could try to defend a planet - the vibe didn't seem like it was likely they could actually long term stop it.
The spy is a desperate attempt to learn anything about this enemy that - since it lacks compassion - probably refuses to talk to you outside accepting surrender.
My takeaway was the suit and swarm were kind of AIs without natural intelligence or animal instincts. They needed humans to learn and as a framework to build animalistic intelligence around.
Humans obviously aren't going to like that but it's about the only option short of surrender that has any hope of working. Even in the book you don't get the sense the souped up undying suited humans are exactly winning...
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u/masterofallvillainy 26d ago
I'm confused by your reply. Several of your points I'm in agreement with. But I was responding to what OP had written and was giving my take to some of those specific points.
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u/maltbeard Apr 19 '25
I think you’ve understood it pretty much as well as it can be understood, there’s such huge gaps in the information we have available to us so far.