The Investigator (Books)

This page is about the  books character. For the TV incarnation, see The Investigator (TV).

Books character	TV character

The Investigator
Alias(es)	Proto-Miller
Appearance and affiliations
Gender	Male (using Miller's persona)
Home	None

The Investigator is a programmed construct of the Ring Station, designed to investigate what happened to the Ring Builders, the civilization that built the gate network, and what may have caused their disappearance. The Investigator is broad in its powers and its mandate is broad in its scope. In pursuing this mandate, the construct dedicates part of its processing capacity to neurally mimicking Detective Miller's persona in the mind of James Holden, doing this through subtle and delicate but incredibly complex manipulations of the electrical signals firing in his synapses, so that it might interact with him and thereby be able to influence the material level of reality.

Biography

Abaddon's Gate

At some point, the protomolecule decides to allocate resources toward the replication of Miller, who was a talented detective and could further the protomolecule's search for the Ring Builders.

The Investigator first appears to Holden at the end of Caliban's War after the Ring Gate has made it to its objective location past the orbit of Uranus. The Investigator, taking the form of Detective Miller, mysteriously warns Holden about "Doors and Corners". Three days later, Holden finds out about the Ring Gate getting breached by a rogue Belter, who uses gravity assists of planets to gain the required speed to slingshot out to the Ring Gate.

Initially, The Investigator shows himself to Holden in a confusing state where he makes little sense, using non-sequitur phrases which do nothing but scare Holden into believing he is getting manipulated by the protomolecule. This is further exacerbated by the blind sound engineer giving a 3D model rendering of Clarissa Mao, who is mistaken for her sister, Julie Mao.

The first coherent conversation between Holden and The Investigator occurs during Holden's solo approach to the Ring Station. Still confused as to where The Investigator comes from and why he is there, Holden asks why he is being framed by Julie Mao. The Investigator replies: "She's dead kid, I don't want to talk about it". The Investigator also explains, that he was unaware of appearing to Holden before in a more confused state, stating that it "scares the shit of him". The Investigator later explains, that when he becomes powerful within the protomolecule construct, it will kill him, and he is reborn within the construct. He says he's "good at dying".

After arriving on the Ring Station, The Investigator opens up the pathways in the Ring Station. Once Holden arrives in the room with the console, that only physical entities like Holden can approach and not The Investigator. After seeing the recap of the end of the civilization that was the Ring Builders, The Investigator explains he can shut down the Ring Station's security protocols if Holden can get the fleet of ships to lower its power output enough.

Once all the fleet ships and finally the Behemoth shut down their reactors, The Investigator shows Holden one of the planets on the other side of the gates, while in the hallucination, which seems quite real to Holden, The Investigator explains there is a habitable planet on the other side of every gate.

It is soon revealed that The Investigator permanently shuts down the dampening field, affecting the speed of the ships in the Slow Zone, while also opening up the unopened gates. This is effectively the second time Miller saved the Sol system.

The Investigator explains to Holden that he wants to continue to explore and see what really happened to the Ring Builders.

Cibola Burn

Due to events not related to the protomolecule, the crew of the Rocinante make their way to Ilus to help mediate an issue between the Royal Charter Energy, or "R.C.E.", the colonists, and the Belter squatters. When the Rocinante's crew arrives, unknowingly to Holden the "Miller Ghost" causes the planet's Ring Builder assets to begin to wake up, like a key turning on a car. In orbit, this causes the ship's reactors to shut down, forcing them to rely on battery power. On the planet, they first see nearly broken protomolecule scarab robots that have been activated but are succumbing to their age. Then, the reactors deep under the sea, inactive for billions of years, blow up causing a massive planet-wide storm which forces the people at First Landing to retreat hastily to the nearby towers built billions of years before.

While this all happens, The Investigator insists that Holden goes to a northern Ilus crater, that is hundreds of miles away, to investigate what is in that crater, because he can't see within its depths unlike the rest of the planet.

After Elvi Okoye found a remedy for the Green Blindness, Holden, who has been defending the camp from death slugs, passes out in a sleeping bag after a multiple-day toil. In his sleep, The Investigator insists that Holden goes deeper into the tower and enters Ilus planet-wide transit network. After a little cajoling, Holden makes his way to the network, where he passes out.

After a long trip to the mysterious crater, Adolphus Murtry side-tracked Holden's attempt to enter that crater and his attempt shut down the weapon inside. Murtry has made his way up to the crater in a land vehicle. Eventually, Holden finds Elvi, to whom he delegates the task of shutting down the weapon with The Investigator, now operating "Miller Bot".

After some instruction on where to go from Elvi, "Miller Bot" starts the shutdown process of the protomolecule network on Ilus. He explains, that anything that is part of the protomolecule's race will instantly die if it enters the circle in the middle of the room. Soon, local defenses come to try and stop "Miller Bot" and Elvi. While Elvi successfully avoids dying, the "Miller Bot" is severely damaged and The Investigator is forced to unhinge itself from "Miller Bot". By eventually doing so, she reveals that inside the "Miller Bot" is a heavy oblong-shaped egg creature. The Investigator asks Elvi to pick up the heavy egg and place it within the circle, essentially destroying it and all the protomolecule assets he can find, thus it destroys this instance of him.

Holden, after returning to the orbit of Ilus, decides to look through the area where the protomolecule hybrid was digging into the ship, and finds a polyp the size of a fingertip. This part of the protomolecule had been how the protomolecule always seemed to follow Holden.

The Investigator's primary mission was to search for Ring Builders. The Investigator was largely indifferent toward the survival of the human race, other than Holden who is needed as a human conduit for the search. The construct of The Investigator only helps Holden while it serves the protomolecule's programming. The Investigator explains that he chose Holden because Miller liked him.

Leviathan Falls

The Investigator manifests himself to Holden once more when the latter infects himself with the protomolecule. Unlike his previous iterations, this investigator is always visible to Holden, even when he is accompanied by other people, due to being directly linked with Holden's brain. Holden uses the Investigator to gain access to the Ring Station and get the station's drones to stand down.

See also

• Detective Miller