Luna

Overview

Luna is Earth's Moon and one of the most politically significant locations in The Expanse universe. In the centuries since humanity expanded into the solar system, Luna grew from a scientific outpost into a sprawling center of governance, diplomacy, and naval construction. Its largest settlement, Lovell City, functions as the effective capital of the United Nations and houses the New Hague government complex. Luna's low gravity, roughly one-sixth of Earth's, makes it a practical meeting ground for diplomats from Earth, Mars, and the Belt, since visitors from any faction can move comfortably on its surface.

In The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Luna is a visitable social hub where players navigate political intrigue, bureaucratic maneuvering, and factional diplomacy. The game's official account has described Luna as "the most valuable political hub of the solar system," and the Steam store page lists it alongside Mars as one of the "imperious political bastions" players will visit between missions.

Key Facts

Lovell City

Lovell City is Luna's largest settlement and its de facto capital. The city is built primarily underground, spreading outward from the primary lunar spaceport into a network of tunnels, chambers, and excavated caverns. Very little of the city is visible from the surface. Inside, artificial skies are projected onto the ceilings of its vast caverns to simulate daylight, giving the underground metropolis a sense of openness that belies its subterranean construction.

The city contains warehouses, commercial centers, office complexes, convention centers, hotels, residential areas, and schools. Short-range travel within the city is handled by pedicabs that carry passengers through the tunnels, while mass transit tube stations connect the more distant districts. The architecture is polished compared to Belt stations, with wide promenades and government buildings that reflect Earth's wealth and political influence.

The city may be named after James A. Lovell Jr., the astronaut who commanded the Apollo 13 mission, which famously lost its service module en route to the Moon and had to return to Earth without landing.

Aldrin Docks and the Spaceport

Lovell City's spaceport is one of the most distinctive in the solar system. Its docks were excavated directly out of the lunar surface, creating enclosed bays large enough to house entire ships. Aldrin Docks, named in the tradition of lunar exploration history, serve as the main point of entry for visitors arriving by ship. Tugs guide vessels in and out of the docks, managing the flow of traffic in the low-gravity environment. The spaceport handles both civilian and military traffic, connecting Luna to the broader solar system.

New Hague

New Hague is a district within Lovell City that houses the United Nations complex on Luna. The complex includes administrative offices, courtrooms, and government facilities. It exists to provide availability for officials and citizens who are unwilling or unable to travel to the main UN headquarters in New York City on Earth. During the events of The Expanse, New Hague grows in importance as political situations make Earth itself less stable.

The Outer Planets Command and the Outer Planets Governing Board are both based on Luna's surface, making Lovell City the primary administrative center for UN operations beyond Earth. This concentration of governmental authority is one of the reasons Luna holds such strategic value.

Political Role

Luna is the diplomatic crossroads of the solar system. Its low gravity makes face-to-face meetings practical for representatives from all three major factions: Earthers accustomed to 1g find the lighter gravity comfortable, Martians from 0.38g feel at ease, and Belters, who often struggle under full Earth gravity, can move without discomfort on Luna. This physical accessibility has made Luna the preferred neutral ground for cross-faction negotiations.

The inhabitants of Luna are full United Nations citizens, and the moon's population of roughly 100 million people participates in UN governance. Luna's political identity is closely tied to Earth's, but the moon has its own local concerns and perspectives shaped by the realities of life at one-sixth gravity.

Military Significance

Luna is a critical military asset for the United Nations Navy (UNN). The Bush Naval Shipyards, located in Luna's orbital space, are responsible for building a significant portion of the UNN's warships. The shipyards produce destroyers, light cruisers, and the powerful Truman-class dreadnoughts that form the backbone of Earth's fleet. A separate civilian division, the Bush Orbital Shipyards, builds passenger shuttles, transport ships, yachts, and racing vessels.

Luna Base is a training facility for UN marines, who use the low-gravity environment to prepare for operations in vacuum and reduced gravity conditions. The UNN Home Fleet is also commanded from Luna, with flag officers maintaining their headquarters on the moon's surface. This combination of shipbuilding capacity, training infrastructure, and fleet command makes Luna one of the most heavily defended locations in the inner solar system.

Relationship to Earth

Luna and Earth share a tight political and economic bond. The Earth-Luna run is one of the busiest transit routes in the solar system, with shuttles carrying passengers, cargo, and government officials between the two bodies on a constant schedule. Luna's economy depends on this connection: it receives supplies and immigrants from Earth while providing shipbuilding services, government facilities, and a lower-gravity alternative for Earthers seeking relief from 1g living.

Despite their close relationship, Luna is not simply an extension of Earth. The moon's residents have developed their own identity over generations. Living at one-sixth gravity produces subtle physical differences over time, and the enclosed underground environment of Lovell City creates a distinct urban culture. Lunarians view themselves as part of the inner planets but not identical to Earthers, a nuance that surfaces in political discussions and social interactions.

Role in the Expanse: Osiris Reborn

In The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Luna is one of several major social hubs that players can visit between missions. The game's Steam store description refers to "the imperious political bastions of Mars and Luna" as destinations alongside Ceres Station, the gardens of Ganymede, and bunker complexes in the Asteroid Belt.

Unlike the teeming slums of Ceres or the military strongholds of Mars, Luna is presented as a center of political gameplay. Concept art revealed in early 2026 hinted at political intrigue and bureaucracy as gameplay elements specific to this location. The implication is that Lovell City is not primarily a combat zone but a place where the player navigates UN politics through dialogue, skill checks, and factional maneuvering. The choices and consequences system tracks how the player interacts with UN officials, diplomats, and other political figures encountered on Luna.

The city's architecture is described as more polished than Belt stations, with wide promenades and government buildings that stand in sharp contrast to the cramped, industrial corridors of Eros Station or the dark tunnels of Ceres. Players visiting Luna will find gear shops, NPC interactions, and companion downtime activities, as with every major hub location.

The player's origin and factional alignment likely influence how Luna's inhabitants respond. An Earther player character may receive a warmer reception in the corridors of New Hague, while Belters and Martians could face subtle resistance or outright suspicion from UN loyalists.

Trivia

The official game account posted concept art of Luna alongside the statement: "Luna is a key territory for the UN. are UNN ships built here and Luna's low gravity makes it possible for diplomats from different factions to meet face to face, making Luna the most valuable political hub of the solar system."

In the game's Location Summary table on the Locations page, Lovell City on Luna is categorized as an "Underground metropolis" with "artificial skies, UN capital, political gameplay" as its notable features.

Luna in the Closed Beta Era

The closed beta build of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn does not visit Luna directly. Beta play takes place entirely on Pinkwater Four Station and in the EVA corridors immediately outside it, shortly after the Eros incident. Luna is named by the development team as one of the confirmed destinations the full game intends to reach, alongside Ceres Station, Ganymede, Mars, and asteroid-belt bunker complexes. The closed beta therefore establishes Luna only as a planned future stop on the player's solar-system tour, not as a hands-on location yet available to early testers.

This section collects what has and has not been confirmed about Luna as of the closed-beta preview window. The goal is to make it easy to tell established Expanse universe lore apart from concrete game content, and to mark honestly where the beta leaves blanks that the full release will eventually fill.

Role in the Full-Game Destination List

Per the developer's own statements and presentations around the beta window, the campaign is not confined to a single station. Luna sits on the inner-system end of a roster of locations the team has committed to visiting. The presence of Luna on that list, alongside the Martian and Belter destinations, is part of how the studio has framed the political geometry of the game: the Earth, Mars, and Belt axis that defines the story and setting reaches into Luna because Luna is Earth's administrative and military staging ground and cannot be avoided if Earth itself is going to have a political voice in the campaign.

What the beta confirms is only that Luna is on the itinerary. The specific mission structure, the NPCs the player will meet on Luna, the shape of any Luna hub area, and the enemy forces (if any) the player will fight there are all still unannounced. Nothing in the current build visits Luna, and no playable Luna content has been shown. The beta's position is: Luna is promised, not yet delivered.

Luna as an Earth-Aligned Hub

Within the beta's own systems, the strongest tie-ins to Luna are political rather than spatial. Luna is historically Earth's seat of political and military power in the source material, and the game leans on that alignment to give the Earther background its thematic shape. The Earther origin in character creation and progression carries a +1 Athletics personal passive, rooted in the 1g environment and physical culture of Earth-descended characters. A player who intends to stay close to Luna's political register for narrative reasons is most directly served by the Earther origin, because it ties the player's starting social and physical profile to the same Earth axis that Luna represents.

The Belter and Martian backgrounds are not locked out of a Luna-focused playthrough. The character system has no rigid classes, Belter and Martian crews can move comfortably on Luna's low-gravity surface in the established Expanse universe lore, and the game has been designed to let every combination of origin and skill investment handle any destination. The Earther origin simply carries the tightest political thread back to Luna's Earth-aligned institutions.

News broadcasts playing on screens around Pinkwater Four Station touch on Earth-side events adjacent to the Eros incident, not merely the Belt's reaction to it. Those broadcasts seed the sense that Earth's administrative apparatus is tracking and responding to the same events the twins just lived through, which in turn implies that the storyline reaches up into Luna by extension. Luna hosts the United Nations-facing side of that apparatus in the established universe, and the beta's broadcast chatter is the first in-game hook that connects Pinkwater Four to that register.

Potential Mission Framing

The player's ship, the Gemini, crosses from Jupiter-space toward the inner system over the course of the opening act. That trajectory makes Luna a plausible waypoint near Earth for Pinkwater Security-contracted work later in the campaign, especially if any of the twins' contracts involve UN-side clients. The developers have not spelled out the exact mission that will bring the Gemini to Luna, and this article will not guess. What the beta does establish is that the systems carrying the player to Luna in the full game are already in motion during the opening mission.

Companion reactivity persists across destinations. The per-companion approval system introduced in the beta, where choices like ignoring a squadmate's recommended airlock carry long-term consequences, is a global mechanic rather than a Pinkwater Four novelty. Any Luna mission in the full game is expected to feed the same choices and consequences record that the beta is already tracking. Protogen pressure is likewise a campaign-wide force rather than a single-station one. If the twins' pursuers follow them off Pinkwater Four, nothing in the beta rules out that pursuit extending as far as Luna.

The Earth-MCR-Belt triangle that defines the beta's political factions layer carries forward as well. Luna is one of the axes of that triangle in the source material, and the game's stated intent is to preserve those tensions on the political hub locations the full campaign will cover. The beta does not yet show how that plays out on Luna's surface, but it shows the framework clearly enough on Pinkwater Four that its later application to Luna is a natural extension rather than a new set of systems.

What Has Not Been Confirmed

A number of specifics about Luna remain unconfirmed as of the closed-beta window. This article flags them explicitly so that readers can tell promised-but-delivered content apart from speculative content:

• No named Luna NPCs have been confirmed. No vendor, director, contact, or antagonist on Luna has been revealed by name or role.

• No specific Luna missions have been confirmed. Quest structure, objectives, and branching on Luna are all unannounced.

• No confirmed enemy faction has been revealed for Luna operations. The beta's opposition forces are Protogen mercenaries on Pinkwater Four; no corresponding opposition has been named for Luna.

• No skill-gated Luna content has been confirmed. The checks demonstrated in the beta (Engineering door openings, Athletics traversal, Perception reticle holds, Cyber Sabotage hacking puzzles) are system-level and are expected to carry over, but specific Luna-side applications are unannounced.

• No Luna hub layout has been shown. Any description of streets, plazas, government complexes, or transit systems on Luna draws on established Expanse universe lore rather than from in-game art or gameplay footage.

The honest posture on Luna is that the studio has committed to visit, has tied the political geometry of the campaign to Luna's Earth-aligned identity, and has declined to show the location in the beta. Expect more concrete information as later previews and the full release open up the inner-system portion of the campaign.

Tone and Narrative Posture

The developer's stated tone target for the game is political intrigue and grounded science-fiction tension rather than space-opera setpieces. Luna fits that register by design. It is framed as one node on the political triangle of Earth, Mars, and the Belt, rather than as a spectacle destination. Where Pinkwater Four is the working-class mercenary outpost that opens the game, and the Belt hosts the tighter-industrial locations, Luna is expected to carry the administrative, diplomatic, and military-command end of the story. The Earth-aligned institutions implied by the beta's broadcast chatter are the kind of content Luna is likely to host.

Readers who want to line up a Luna-focused playthrough can use the beta's confirmed systems to prepare the ground for it. The Earther origin's Athletics passive is the background with the tightest political thread to Luna. Social skills built around Persuasion, Perception, and Analysis will plug naturally into an administrative hub's conversation-heavy beats. Companions whose personal storylines touch on Earth or on UN-adjacent institutions will carry additional weight in those scenes if the full game continues the per-companion reactivity pattern the beta establishes. The rest of this article's description of Luna's political and military importance still applies; the closed beta simply leaves its hands-on realization for a later build.