8 Things That Happen After The Expanse (According To Its Sequel)

Published Jul 30, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT Tom is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, with expertise covering everything from hilarious sitcoms to jaw-dropping sci-fi epics. Initially he was an Updates writer, though before long he found his way to the TV and movies team. He now spends his days keeping Screen Rant readers informed about the TV shows of yesteryear, whether it's recommending hidden gems that may have been missed by genre fans or deep diving into ways your favorite shows have (or haven't) stood the test of time. Tom is based in the UK and when he's not writing about TV shows, he's watching them. He's also an avid horror fiction writer, gamer, and has a Dungeons and Dragons habit that he tries (and fails) to keep in check. When The Expanse concluded with season 6 in 2022, many fans immediately turned to the novels to discover what happened next. However, the next book in the series, Persepolis Rising, begins after a dramatic 30-year time jump, skipping over the immediate aftermath of the Free Navy War. That left one of the franchise's most fascinating periods almost entirely unexplored, with only scattered references hinting at how humanity rebuilt after Marco Inaros' defeat. Fortunately, BOOM! Studios' 2023 comic The Expanse: Dragon Tooth fills in many of those missing years. Written by Andy Diggle with oversight from The Expanse authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (who write under the pen name James S.A. Corey), the comic serves as an official sequel to the TV show. It follows the crew of the Rocinante while revealing how the new galactic order struggled to survive, and in doing so completely reshapes everything fans thought they knew about the years before Persepolis Rising. Humanity Almost Enters A Dark Age Marco Inaros' defeat at the end of The Expanse only marked the end of one crisis. Dragon Tooth makes it clear that humanity remained perilously close to complete societal collapse for years afterward. The comic visualizes a level of devastation that the novels mostly summarize, revealing how fragile civilization became across both Earth and Mars after the Ring Gates opened. Earth, still reeling from Marco's asteroid strikes, suffers catastrophic ecological damage, leaving billions dependent on the Transport Union's shipping network. At the same time, Mars enters an astonishing economic death spiral as its best and brightest abandon the once-proud military power for habitable colony worlds beyond the Ring Gates. Entire cities are emptied once terraforming Mars becomes irrelevant compared to planets that are already capable of supporting life. Rather than depicting a triumphant postwar era, The Expanse: Dragon Tooth presents a civilization desperately trying to avoid slipping into a new dark age. The Rocinante Crew Become Privateers The crew of the Rocinante spent much of The Expanse operating outside traditional governments, working freelance jobs while becoming reluctant heroes. Dragon Tooth introduces a significant new status quo by formally integrating the famous gunship into Camina Drummer's newly formed Transport Union. Their role evolves from independent adventurers into official protectors of interstellar commerce. Rather than policing space alone, the Rocinante crew now work as part of a wider fleet in The Expanse: Dragon Tooth. Their first major assignment sees them dispatched to rescue a massive freight hauler attacked by rogue factions, drawing them into the larger Dragon Tooth conspiracy. This shift reflects the changing political landscape after the Free Navy War. Humanity has entered an era requiring organized peacekeeping, and the Rocinante becomes one of the Transport Union's most trusted military assets rather than simply another heavily armed independent vessel. The Truth Of The Ring Gates Starts To Take Shape One of The Expanse's greatest mysteries has always been exactly how the Ring Gates function. While the novels gradually explore the Builders' technology, Dragon Tooth introduces one of the franchise's most fascinating scientific theories through Dr. Elvi Okoye, offering a potential explanation for the Protomolecule. Okoye theorizes that Ring Gate transit does not transport ships in the conventional sense. Instead, vessels and their occupants are completely disassembled into energy before being reconstructed at their destination. If correct, this would explain how the Protomolecule repeatedly preserves fragments of consciousness throughout the series. Characters in The Expanse like Joe Miller continue to exist because the Ring Network effectively stores remnants of their personalities within its own operating system. The theory also reframes humanity's casual use of the gates. Every crossing may involve destruction and recreation rather than simple travel, making the alien technology even stranger, and more existentially terrifying, than previously imagined. The Weaponization Of The Protomolecule Begins The 7th The Expanse novel, Persepolis Rising, introduces readers to the terrifying military advancements achieved by the Laconian Empire decades after the television series ends. Dragon Tooth, however, reveals those breakthroughs did not emerge overnight. Instead, the comic shows that research into weaponizing the Protomolecule had already begun almost immediately after the Free Navy War concluded. Various secret organizations continue hunting for surviving Protomolecule samples despite humanity's repeated catastrophes involving the alien substance. These efforts remain hidden from the wider public, but the groundwork for future Laconian technology is clearly being established. This revelation makes Admiral Winston Duarte's future empire feel far less sudden. The military revolution that dominates the later novels was quietly taking shape throughout the decades skipped by The Expanse books, with multiple groups competing to harness the Protomolecule for military supremacy. Belter Culture Undergoes A Huge Shift The Belt wins unprecedented political influence after the Free Navy War, but Dragon Tooth demonstrates that victory creates entirely new divisions within Belter society. Camina Drummer's leadership of the Transport Union brings stability, yet many Belters believe she has abandoned the revolutionary ideals that once united the Outer Planets Alliance. Rather than accepting cooperation with Earth and Mars, extremist groups argue that the Ring Gates belong exclusively to the Belt. After the ending of The Expanse, military hardware left behind after the war is salvaged and transformed into increasingly sophisticated pirate fleets. These organizations evolve beyond opportunistic raiders into ideological movements that reject the Transport Union's authority altogether. The Expanse comic paints Belter society as fragmented instead of unified, with old resentments continuing beneath the surface despite Marco Inaros' defeat. It adds far greater nuance to the political situation leading into Persepolis Rising, showing that peace remained fragile even after the largest war in human history officially ended. Admiral Duarte's Abandoned Fleet Become Pirates It’s not only Belter society that starts to dabble in piracy after the events of The Expanse. The novels explain that Admiral Winston Duarte defected to Laconia with a large portion of the Martian fleet, but Dragon Tooth reveals the enormous consequences of the forces he left behind. His departure was far messier than previously understood, stranding elite personnel throughout the Sol System after the Laconia gate unexpectedly closed. Camina Drummer uncovers the existence of Operation Dragon Tooth, a secret Martian Special Forces program composed of highly trained low-gravity operatives originally intended to join Duarte's new civilization. Locked out of Laconia, the abandoned soldiers of Operation Dragon Tooth refuse to surrender. Instead, they transform into a sophisticated pirate shadow fleet that wages a covert campaign against the Transport Union. Motivated by betrayal as much as ideology, these former Martian patriots become dangerous veterans equipped with advanced military training, creating one of the greatest security threats humanity has ever faced. The Extent Of Duarte's Political Machinations Become Known Season 6 briefly introduces Admiral Winston Duarte, and those who’ve read The Expanse novels know he will eventually become one of the franchise's greatest villains. However, Dragon Tooth dramatically expands his role by revealing that his long-term plans extended far beyond secretly building a colony on Laconia. The Expanse: Dragon Tooth uncovers just how deep Duarte’s extensive covert networks operating inside both the Martian government and the Transport Union truly are. Admiral Duarte spent years planting loyal agents while allowing the wider Sol System to remain distracted by the chaos of the Free Navy conflict. Rather than merely escaping with advanced technology, he carefully manipulated events to weaken his future enemies before openly declaring his empire. This makes Duarte an even more calculating strategist than the television series initially suggested. Many of the foundations for Laconia's power by the time of Persepolis Rising have already been quietly established decades earlier. The War At Medina Station Perhaps the biggest revelation in The Expanse: Dragon Tooth is the existence of a major conflict that neither the TV show nor the novels fully depict. During the years skipped by Persepolis Rising, Medina Station becomes the center of a brutal war that determines whether the fragile Transport Union can survive its infancy. It's the focal point of an all-out conflict when the stranded Dragon Tooth faction launches a devastating offensive that threatens to destabilize humanity's entire colonial network. The Rocinante, now an aging but still formidable Martian gunship, is pushed to its absolute limits alongside Medina's powerful railguns to repel the insurrection. The battle ultimately secures the Transport Union's authority over the Ring network and prevents interstellar civilization from descending into chaos. Although the novels largely skip these events because of the 30-year time jump, Dragon Tooth reveals that one of humanity's most important wars occurred entirely between the end of The Expanse TV show and the beginning of Persepolis Rising. Release Date 2015 - 2022-00-00 Network SyFy, Prime Video Showrunner Naren Shankar, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby Cast Dominique Tipper Naomi Nagata Directors Breck Eisner, Jeff Woolnough, David Grossman, Kenneth Fink, Rob Lieberman, Terry McDonough, Thor Freudenthal, Bill Johnson, David Petrarca, Jennifer Phang, Mikael Salomon, Sarah Harding, Marisol Adler, Anya Adams, Nick Gomez, Simon Cellan Jones Writers Georgia Lee, Robin Veith, Hallie Lambert, Matthew Rasmussen, Ty Franck, Naren Shankar, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Daniel Abraham, Dan Nowak Franchise(s) The Expanse