Ancillary Justice

Linked to the issue of consciousness and individuality is the idea of free will. As a ship and its ancillary bodies, Justice of Toren One Esk was programmed to obey orders. But during the massacre in the temple in Ors, a segment of One Esk, temporarily isolated from the whole by Anaander Mianaai’s jamming device, glimpses the possibility of disobedience. It wonders if it could shoot Lieutenant Awn if the lieutenant refused Mianaai’s order to kill the Tanmind.

Lieutenant Awn and the human soldier at Ime both struggle with the question as to whether it is right to disobey an unjust order, suggesting that humans as well as ships and ancillaries struggle with the notion of free will. In both cases, they pay for their disobedience with their lives. Justice of Toren justifies letting one of its ancillary bodies shoot Lieutenant Awn by telling itself that resisting would alert Mianaai to the ship’s knowledge of Mianaai’s undisclosed civil war. Breq later rejects this interpretation: “I was compelled to obey this Mianaai, in order to lead her to believe that she did indeed compel me. But in that case she did compel me” (247). Even at the end, as Anaander Mianaai’s “armed and independent” (375) conscience, Breq questions whether she is still a weapon obeying its programming.

The history of the Radch also raises questions about what uses of power are justified and whether violence can or should be used to bring about a beneficial result. The prayers and rituals of Radchaai religion instill in Radchaai officers a powerful sense that in carrying out annexations, they are serving the will of Amaat and spreading justice, benefit, and peace to new worlds. Breq explains to Strigan that the annihilation of the Garseddai shocked many Radchaai because it “[c]ut off irrevocably any chance of good coming from what they had done” (157). Similar moments of questioning on the part of the Radchaai occur at Ime and at Ors when Lieutenant Awn hesitates to carry out the massacre in the temple. Lieutenant Skaaiat openly questions Radchaai violence, including the violence involved in the creation of ancillaries, but continues to indirectly benefit from it. Lieutenant Awn, who identifies more closely with non-Radchaai, including those used to make ancillaries, is more troubled by these questions.

The victims of Radchaai violence do not see any difference between kinds of violence. After the massacre, the Divine of Ikkt tells One Esk that some Orsians “had forgotten what you are. Now they are reminded” (143). Breq seems, in the end, to hold a similar position when she claims that it makes no difference which version of Anaander Mianaai rules, as people will suffer under both. Yet she herself is willing to use violence to achieve what she believes to be a worthwhile end when she shoots Mianaai and triggers a civil war.

Social class plays a significant part in the Radchaai way of life and in the identity of individual characters. Seivarden’s belief that she is born to rule contrasts strongly with Lieutenant Awn’s self-doubt, as she navigates an officer class she was not born into and overhears the comments of those who believe that she is, by reason of her birth, unfit to hold her position. Lieutenant Skaaiat carefully describes the assumptions underlying the self-belief of those born into noble houses in Chapter 4.

Many traditional Radchaai question the wisdom of the reforms that have allowed people like Lieutenant Awn to become officers. They argue that the aptitudes, the testing process by which Radchaai citizens are assigned a career path, have been corrupted rather than made fairer. Lieutenant Skaaiat argues that such tests, by their nature, are not neutral but designed to bring about a particular result. Lieutenant Awn—who relies on the aptitudes’ confirmation of her own abilities to withstand the snobbery and discrimination she regularly faces—finds this idea deeply threatening.