Charles Lyell is an Earth science vessel en route to the Eros asteroid escorted by the UNN Ravi, an old phantom-class corvette.
History
Fred Johnson posited that the vessel was re-routed on the way back to Earth after an asteroid mapping mission with the UN government seeking to acquire a sample of the protomolecule. It is the approach of this vessel that prompts Fred Johnson send Rocinante as a deterrent to ships attempting to dock with Eros.
Notes
- While the Charles Lyell never reached Eros in Leviathan Wakes, in the TV adaptation "Godspeed" (S02E4), a humanitarian medical relief vessel named Marasmus did gain access and encountered Rocinante on the way out.
Trivia
- Charles Lyell was a British Geologist, who proposed the theory of "Uniformitarian", as in "The present is the key to the past", as illustrated in his seminal work "Principles of Geology". He proposed that the forces molding the planet today have operated continuously throughout its history. At the time of its writing, it was quite controversial because it went counter to the beliefs of time, namely that unique catastrophes or supernatural events -- such as Noah's flood -- shaped Earth's surface. According to this view, a once-tumultuous period of change had slowed to today's calmer, more leisurely pace.[1]
- Lyell's work inspired scientists after him like Charles Darwin who extended that principle to biology. Species, like geologic features, evolved gradually or died out gradually. Like the forces Lyell talked of, the shifting and rising and falling of land, Darwin held that the forces seen today in the biologic world -- reproduction, inheritance, and competition -- gradually produced the whole diversity of life on Earth.
References