Ancillary Justice

Seivarden, a Radchaai officer born into the aristocratic house of Vendaai, once served as a lieutenant on Justice of Toren. The ship found her arrogant and unlikable, an embodiment of the worst Radchaai traits. When Seivarden is the captain of her own ship, Sword of Nathtas, she loses it and all aboard when a group of Garseddai delegates she is ferrying to a conference turn on their hosts. In the ensuing chaos, a subordinate thrusts Seivarden into a suspension pod, where she remains for about 1,000 years.

Returning from suspended animation, Seivarden finds herself adrift in a changed world. The house of Vendaai has gone extinct, her personal data has vanished, and she finds modern accents difficult to comprehend. She begins abusing a drug called kef, and at the beginning of the novel, Breq finds Seivarden on the remote planet of Nilt, passed out in the snow with no idea how she got there. After Breq rescues her, Seivarden is sullen and ungrateful, harping on her aristocratic origins and longing to numb herself again with kef. She slowly warms to Breq, becoming fiercely loyal to her after Breq saves her from falling off a bridge on Nilt. Despite her temperament, she begins to rethink her attitudes and learned beliefs.

In many ways, Seivarden goes through the same process Breq went through after the destruction of Justice of Toren. The parallels between Breq and Seivarden’s experiences lends weight to the book’s suggestion that human and artificial consciousness may not be fundamentally different. Seivarden, too, is dependent on her initial “programming” and struggles to find a sense of purpose when the structures supporting that programming disappear. At the end of the book, she has found a new identity as Breq’s faithful lieutenant.

Anaander Mianaai has been the absolute ruler of Radchaai space for 3,000 years. If Seivarden resembles Breq in her experience of losing her identity and purpose, Anaander Mianaai resembles Breq as Justice of Toren, in that she is a single consciousness operating through multiple bodies. Mianaai’s thousands of bodies are genetically identical but of many different ages, effectively rendering Mianaai immortal and making the loss of a specific body unimportant. While readers are not told how Mianaai first came to multiply herself, this event seems related to the circumstances in which Mianaai came to rule the Radch. Her initiation of annexations has allowed her empire to expand and grow rich.

However, Mianaai’s selves become divided against one another. Breq traces this development to Mianaai’s decision to annihilate the Garseddai. This course of action polarized Radchaai opinion and caused many to question the value of the Radchaai mission to “civilize” others. After Garsedd, the version(s) of Anaander Mianaai in visible control of the empire begin to move in the direction of reform, while other aspects of herself act secretly to subvert reform. The events on Shis’urna are part of this hidden civil war, which Breq’s subsequent actions drive into the open. Breq realizes that while Mianaai’s division has created opposing forces, these selves share the same goal: to maintain Mianaai’s power at any cost.

Lieutenant Awn is the commanding officer of Justice of Toren’s One Esk decade and the administrator in charge of the occupied territory of Ors on the planet Shis’urna. The daughter of a cook, she is acutely aware of her humble origins and of the scorn her origins inspire in many of her fellow officers. Intelligent and compassionate, she owes her position to recent reforms allowing people like herself greater access to positions of power. Awn is sensitive to any suggestion that she has not earned her position fairly on the basis of merit. On Shis’urna, she begins a sexual relationship with Lieutenant Skaaiat, which her insecurity over the difference in their backgrounds complicates.

During the occupation of Shis’urna, Lieutenant Awn’s background leads her to identify with the Orsians rather than with the local ruling caste, the Tanmind. The reactionary Anaander Mianaai schemes to give the Tanmind a reason to attack the Orsians, an event which she can then hold up as evidence of Awn’s incompetence to lead. However, the trust Lieutenant Awn has inspired in the Orsians causes the plan to fail, making her a target of the reactionary Anaander Mianaai’s wrath. Awn, meanwhile, has begun to question what right the Radchaai have to impose their vision of civilization on others and to use violence in doing so. Awn also questions the violence involved in the making of ancillaries, as the scene in which she comforts the newly attached segment of One Esk shows. Awn’s defiance of Radchaai norms leads to her death.

Lieutenant Skaaiat of the ancient house of Awer is present on Shis’urna as the commander of Justice of Ente Seven Issa. Skaaiat is the administrator of a territory adjoining Ors. Skaaiat was born into one of the oldest of all Radchaai houses, Awer, whose origins predate the rise of Anaander Mianaai and the era of annexations. Members of the house of Awer have a reputation for idealism and eccentricity, well known in Seivarden’s era as in Lieutenant Awn’s. Members of Awer are known for openly questioning Radch policies, which they can do because their social position shields them from any consequences. As Breq points out, they still benefit from the policies they criticize. In Ors, Skaaiat discusses Radchaai hypocrisy with an openness and cynicism that shocks Awn. Skaaiat finds the creation of ancillaries too inhumane to justify.

Breq encounters Skaaiat again, on Omaugh Palace station, where Skaaiat now serves as Inspector Supervisor on the docks. Skaaiat wears a simple memorial pin commemorating Lieutenant Awn on her cuff, where she can constantly see it, suggesting that Skaaiat continues to feel the loss of Awn deeply. Daos Ceit, the former temple attendant of Lieutenant Awn’s house on Ors, lives with Skaaiat on the station and provides Skaaiat with another link to the past. The older Skaaiat has become far more serious and thoughtful but maintains a skeptical detachment from the structures of Radchaai power. At the end of the novel, Skaaiat expresses understanding of and sympathy with Breq’s motivations in attacking Anaander Mianaai.

Often referred to simply as the head priest, the Divine of Ikkt presides over the temple of Ikkt in the city of Ors and functions as the leader of the Orsians. A revered and authoritative figure who is nevertheless deeply pragmatic, it is the Divine who negotiates her people’s surrender to the Radchaai and later requests that Lieutenant Awn stay on in the city as administrator. The Divine does not trust the Radchaai but recognizes that Lieutenant Awn treats the Orsians more humanely than most Radchaai administrators would. Similarly, the Divine finds ancillaries disturbing but appreciates that they are not prone to outbursts of violence as human soldiers are. She is horrified but not surprised by the massacre in the temple and quickly perceives Anaander Mianaai’s true role.

Daos Ceit first appears as a small child in Ors who serves as a flower bearer in Lieutenant Awn’s household chapel. She may be the one who teaches One Esk the song beginning “My heart is a fish” (24). Daos Ceit later reappears on Omaugh Palace station as Skaaiat’s adjunct and lover. During the outbreak of hostilities, Daos Ceit attempts to block Anaander Mianaai’s escape holding only a stun stick and openly blames her for the deaths in the temple and the death of Lieutenant Awn. At the end of the novel, Breq learns Daos Ceit was badly injured in the fighting.

As a doctor working on a remote non-Radchaai station, Strigan built up a considerable collection of artifacts and antiquities from many cultures, including some rare Garseddai artifacts. As Breq figures out, these include the only Garseddai gun Mianaai did not seize and destroy. Realizing that possession of this powerful gun puts her in danger, Strigan fled to a remote house on the tundra of Nilt, where Breq eventually tracks her down. Strigan makes clear her contempt for the Radchaai, whom she sees as a single brain-washed mass. She deduces that Breq is a Radchaai ancillary (or “corpse soldier”) and is surprised to find that Breq is more than a killing machine. Strigan engages Breq in several long conversations about the Radchaai, challenging Breq to disprove her preconceptions, before finally agreeing to sell Breq the gun.

On Nilt, Breq befriends an unnamed girl from a family of herdsman who brings her injured uncle to Strigan for treatment after a snow devil attack. The humanity Breq shows in dealing with the girl and her mother surprises Strigan. Breq meets the girl and her mother again in Therrod, where their helpful behavior towards Breq stands in contrast to the suspicion of strangers displayed by most Nilters. Breq’s interactions with the girl reveal a more human aspect to Breq.

Rubran of the house of Osck is the captain of Justice of Toren during events on Shis’urna. She does not inspire the devotion that Lieutenant Awn does and seems detached from the political and emotional currents swirling around her. The versions of Anaander Mianaai that board the Justice of Toren complain that her political sympathies are impossible to detect.

A cousin of Captain Rubran Osck, Vel is captain of Mercy of Kalr. Vel invites Breq and Seivarden to tea, apparently because she finds Seivarden’s aristocratic birth and status as a survivor of an earlier era of Radchaai history intriguing. She and her friends express open opposition to current reforms, which they expect Seivarden to share. When the conflict between Anaander Mianaai’s selves erupts, Captain Vel acts openly on behalf of the reactionary side. She is arrested as a result, and at the end of the book, Breq takes her place as captain of Mercy of Kalr.

The artificial intelligence animating the Omaugh Palace station, known simply as Station, keeps Breq under close surveillance from the time she arrives. Breq converses directly with Station on several occasions, and recognizes Station as being similar to herself as Justice of Toren. Station continues to obey the prevailing version of Anaander Mianaai and blames Breq for the outbreak of war.