James Holden

**James "Jim" Holden** was a human adventurer in the 22nd century, unwittingly caught up in events that would reshape the history of the Sol system.

## History

James Holden was born in Montana in the United States of America on Earth. He was the child of eight parents -- part of a genetic collective. He was the sole heir to the undeveloped land owned by his parents, one of the last undeveloped places left on Earth. At 18 cycles old, one his mothers -- Elise Holden -- confessed that he had been conceived to fight a losing battle and that he should run away the first chance he had.

Holden subsequently joined the United Nations Navy in 2280 CE. He served as first lieutenant aboard the UNN *Zheng Fei*, until he had a conflict with his superior officer. Holden moved to punch the officer in the face -- the officer ducked and Holden broke his hand on the bulkhead. Afterwards, he was given a general court-martial and discharged from the service. Rather than return to Earth, Holden took a contract with Pur'n'Kleen and became the executive officer of the *Canterbury*.

### The Eros Incident

After the *Canterbury* attempted to ignore a distress call, Holden -- feeling guilty -- anonymously logged the call so it would need to be investigated. He selected Naomi Nagata, Amos Burton, Shed Garvey, and Alex Kamal for this mission. Aboard the abandoned *Scopuli*, they discovered the distress signal was planted. However, before they could return to their ship they watched it be destroyed by advanced stealth ships. His lover, Ade Nygaard, was still aboard at the time.

Shocked and running out of oxygen, Holden and his team piece together what they know -- concluding that because the distress transponder was of MCRN origins that Martians must have destroyed the *Canterbury*. As they are approached by a Martian warship, the *Donnager*, Holden released a public broadcast blaming the Martian Congressional Republic for the destruction of the *Canterbury*. The *Donnager* took Holden and his compatriots aboard, interrogating them to determine who was responsible for the destruction of the *Canterbury* and trying to divide the crewmates loyalties, all while trying to convince Holden to rescind his public broadcast.

And then the *Donnager* fell under attack by stealth ships. Martian marines got the *Canterbury* survivors -- except for Shed -- aboard a fighter ship called the *Tachi*, and the survivors escaped just before the *Donnager* was destroyed. They renamed the ship the *Rocinante* after agreeing to take refuge with Fred Johnson. Fred revealed he had chartered the *Scopuli*, and tasked Holden with tracking down the ship's sole survivor under the code name "Lionel Polanski." The other survivors of the *Canterbury* agreed to stick together until they had answers about who had destroyed their ship.

This lead led Holden and his crew to the *Anubis*, which they realized is the ship that destroyed the *Canterbury* and they find full of a strange substance. Tracing the *Anubis*' tracks, the crew of the *Rocinante* journeyed to Eros. There, they join up with Josephus Miller and discover the "Lional Polanski" is none other than Julie Mao -- and that she is dead, infected with the same substance they found on the *Anubis*. Holden and Miller narrowly escaped the lockdown of Eros, where the asteroid and its population were used as an experiment for the substance. After being treated for radiation poisoning, and beginning an anti-cancer medication regimen he would need to stay on for the rest of his life, Holden and his cohorts determined they would go after Antony Dresden -- the scientist responsible for the catastrophe they had witnessed.

On their way back to Tycho Station to regroup, Holden and his crewmate Naomi Nagata began a romantic and sexual relationship. Once aboard the station, the crew hatched a plan to get rid of the protomolecule altogether, and set out -- with the help of a team of Outer Planets Alliance operatives -- for Thoth. Dresden, once cornered, began explaining the experiments -- until Miller shot him, killing him. Naomi agreed with Miller, putting her at odds with Holden, though they put their disagreement aside to try, with Amos, to extract information from the sole survivor of Thoth, Paolo Cortazar.

Johnson and Holden, meanwhile, hatched a plan to use the *Nauvoo* as a battering ram to send the asteroid Eros into the sun, hoping to utterly destroy the protomolecule. As they set the plan in motion, they discovered a Belter ship -- the *Marasmus* -- had infiltrated Eros. Rather than allow them to infect more of the Sol system, Holden ordered the ship destroyed. Then, they launched the *Nauvoo* at the asteroid, which promptly defied every law of physics by dodging the ship and then launched itself at Earth.

### The Ganymede Incident

Thanks to Miller, Eros redirected and crashed into Venus. In the aftermath, Holden tried to convince Fred Johnson to return control of the missiles the United Nations had tried to use to defend itself back to Earth but to no avail. Meanwhile, Holden and his crew decide to destroy the sample of protomolecule that they have in their possession. Holden believes the task is done.

Soon afterwards, a political scuffle between Fred Johnson and Anderson Dawes leads to Cortazar being removed from Tycho Station. Trying to track down the scientist, Holden and the rest of the *Roci* crew are eventually led to Ganymede by Praxideke Meng, who is searching for his daughter. They sneak aboard the moon on the *Weeping Somnambulist*. After negotiating with a hacker named Roma, the crew are led into the bowels of Ganymede where they engage in a shootout with associates of Dr. Lawrence Strickland. Coming out the other side of the conflict, Holden caught sight of a protomolecule-human hybrid escaping the lab and running out onto the moon's surface without a vacuum suit.

Holden donned a vacuum suit and went into pursuit of the creature, determined to destroy it until MCRN ships blockade Ganymede. He abandons the chase, returning to the *Rocinante* but unaware that the creature he hunted had actually latched on and begun burrowing into the ship's hull. Upon discovering the creature's infiltration, Holden confronted it in the cargo bay -- but soon found himself pinned by a cargo box. Fortunately, Prax and Naomi lured the creature outside with the nuclear core of a missile. After Holden was freed, Naomi admitted to him that she had lied and given the *Rocinante*'s protomolecule sample to Fred Johnson instead of destroying it.

Despite Naomi's insistence that they regroup at Tycho Station, Holden -- having uncovered a lead to the whereabouts of Prax's daughter on Io -- determined that the *Rocinante* honor their commitment to Prax and find her.

## Appearances

James Holden appears in every episode of *The Expanse*. For canon information, please visit The Expanse Wiki.