Review: Lazarus #24

Welcome, as ever, to our ongoing annotations of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus. As Cull continues, we delve into Lazarus #24, if a little belatedly.

The following are more annotations and reflections on the emerging narrative and world of Lazarus than reviews, providing an “enhanced” reading experience. These pieces touch on details, thematic connections and other areas to read and explore – sometimes with comments from the creators themselves. Though we recently collaborated with the creative team on the Sourcebook: Carlyle, which delved into life under the Carlyle regime, the views that follow are entirely our own. If you’re keen on an insight into the creative process, you can find our interviews with the creators of Lazarus here, here and here.

As always, spoilers abound for the current issue within! Enough chit-chat! On with the book!

The Modular Person

In the close of first issue of Lazarus, Eve is presented with a text message that repeats here, years later, in Issue #24:

“He is not your father. This is not your family.“

Ever since, our protagonist has been forced to wrestle with existential questions. Her entire identity, purpose and frame of reference were predicated on the certainty of family, and with that underpinning gone, she has had to try make sense of the world. As readers, we face the problem from the opposite perspective. What for Eve is earth-shattering (that her kin-ties may be fabrications, that her feelings are not of her own making) is for us unexceptional information. Not because we cannot sympathise, but because we are introduced to Eve at the moment of praxis. What is a change to the world she understood is the only truth we have known.

Inversely, Eve’s everyday truths (that she has replaced her brainmatter after a bullet to the head without loss of memory, that she is implanted with electronic devices that interface with her cognition, that she will not die) are still capable of astonishing, even after 24 issues.

We’ve known for a long time that Eve is not quite human and so, after a fashion, has she. The depths to which that represents an ontological (What is human?) or epistemological (How do we know what humanity is?) shift, however, are still being plumbed. There is a difference between knowing a thing and feeling a thing, and there’s something undeniably visceral – for her and for us – about seeing Eve as a collection of parts, waiting in vats. She is a modular person.

How can you have a modular person?

Is The Whole The Sum of Its Parts?

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars…”

You’ve perhaps heard this one before…

“…and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”
If you don’t enjoy Plutarch, the Grandfather’s Axe paradox is shorter: if over the years, if the handle is replaced, and at other times the blade is replaced, is it still your grandfather’s axe?

These are both versions of a classic paradox – perhaps the classic paradox – about identity. What makes a thing the thing it is? It isn’t an easy question.

No lesser mind than Bertrand Russell considered the question so irresolvable as to create an entirely new frame of reference centred around it. Scholastic philosophy attempts to answer the question by separating out the quiddity (or quiddities) of a thing (its essentials) with its haecceity (the quality of being itself, its “thisness”). It’s a quiddity of fire that it’s hot, but only one fire is burning in Robert’s fireplace as he writes this paragraph.

That in itself is a useful illustration. Who wrote this essay? Some lines were written by Robert. Others were written by David. But we all accept that it’s one essay, not two that have been interspersed – not to mention that it has been rewritten and revised, so no sentence is entirely its own. We write about a comic that has thousands of instances across various media, and is itself is an instance from within a wider series, and is worked on by countless hands.

Haecceity is exactly the kind of philosophical term that seems abstract, until you look around and see practical examples everywhere. If a country changes its government, its borders, its politics and its capital, to what extent is it the same country? Is an adopted person’s “real” name the name their biological parents gave them, or their adoptive? Are you employed in the United States if you digitally contract to a company in Uruguay?

Future shock is, by many accounts, a degradation of the ability to comfortably distinguish quiddity from haecceity in the ever-changing model of the world we keep in our heads. In the digital sphere, people lead at least one (or more) extra lives in the virtual spaces. We create worlds that replicate (HTC Vive) or overlay (Pokemon Go) our own. Questions of diverse and historically underrecognised intersectional identities shift to the fore of political discourse. We can shape our very selves – change faces and replace body parts – as never before.

It is because the world marches on and turns previously theoretical problems into concrete concerns that contemplation of these questions makes up a good portion of science fiction. Clones, immortality, digital consciousness, virtual realities, alternate universes, teleporters and time travelers all play in Plutrach’s sandbox. From Frankenstein to p-zombies, Theseus’ ship sails through the heart of our speculative storytelling, and why not? What more important questions are there to deal with than identity, mortality, cognition and change?

In her current circumstances, it is clear that for Forever Carlyle, the question of what makes someone essentially them has definitively ceased to be an abstract one. It’s not a fireside chat or a clever intellectual exercise. It’s the question that defines her existence, and her (and her Family’s) immediate political choices. Who is she?

Behold Leviathan

The first pillar of Eve’s self-definition is that she is a Carlyle. A member of a dynastic clan of rulers. But what does that mean? Jo describes Eve as the Carlyle’s heart, and Luka Rausling’s death is described as his Family losing their head and dying. While we recognise these as metaphors, aren’t Families simply extended metaphors that take action on the world? Within the world of Lazarus, people believe that despite the sheer overwhelming scale of the entities under discussion, Families are something with clear boundaries, and something that – being understood – can be killed.

Family is group of people connected by blood, parents and children et cetera descended from a common ancestor. This is the quiddity, the definition. But zoom out. Go far back enough, and we’re all crossbred. If science can demonstrate one in two hundred men are descended from Genghis Khan, and the bloodlines in power in X + 64 go back over half a century, how many people must share Carlyle blood? Minetta? The Rausling line has been a matter of historical record since the seventeenth century! Blood is clearly not sufficient a characteristic.

So change focus. In Lazarus, a Family must per force be a political entity, a leviathan, a massive and stretching beast with thousands of parts. No polity this size is made up of just four or five at the top of the tree. Senior administrators, ranked officers, privileged scientists and so on, with varying degrees of autonomy, power and prestige must (and do) exist.

The Rauslings are merchant bankers-turned-crony capitalists-turned-privatised state, the perfect example of the influence that propelled the Families to authority. The Piketty theory of economic inequality suggests that its nigh-inevitability comes not from the creation of value but the tendency of capital to accumulate over time in the absence of moral restraints. The Rauslings (Luka’s monocle and all) are emblematic of how the Rausling bloodline need not have had a single exceptional member in hundreds of years and yet still inherit the world.

While the key members of the Family – those that merited mention in the backmatter entry – claim ownership of the entire means of production, creation and distribution, they are not unto themselves the polity, or even the system, of their Territory. The king is not, and has never been, the land. For the Rausling factory operator, or entertainer, or dependent, what changes in the moment Sonja’s sword strike’s Luka’s neck?

And because the feudal power – these mindless collective masses of privileged people who actually run things – don’t die when the king dies, the idea of a Family is always at risk of being resurrected. While we are speaking about the world of Plutarch and the swing of axes, the example of the post-Alexandrian Wars of Diadochi and of the middle Roman Empire spring to mind as proof that empires don’t just go away peaceably when the last king dies. Indeed, Caligula – from whom, lest we forget, the Carlyles take their words – was a Claudian, inheritor to the Julians through means other than blood. In a monarchy, inclusive of a neo-feudal one, there is always someone else ready and able to vie for the throne. There is no such thing as the “last branch of a dead Family” when the answer to “what’s in a name?” is a crown. It may be Carlyle and Bittner boots on the ground that make the area conquered for now, rather than because of a handful of executions, but regime change requires something else.

Now, there are reasons of scale and scope that mean we are unlikely to see our story focus on the way (our) Germany, Italy and Austria redefine themselves in the new world. Whatever the Reconstruction, revolution or pacification in store are, they are not necessarily part of Eve’s journey, or our own (barring, perhaps, an insightful sourcebook or two). However nerdy we may all like to get, it is unreasonable and undesirable to ask Michael to draw every inch of the globe. The truth of the above assertions will likely live in implication and in the margins.

But where the fall of Rausling is still telling is when we return to consider what Family means to Eve, and Eve to Family, as they grapple with practical applications of Theseus’ Ship. Eve may not be human-as-we-know-it, but Eve never defined herself by humanity or human capability. It is much more important for her to know whether, given what she is and how she was made, is she part of the Carlyle Family? Is she Malcolm’s daughter? Is she a daughter at all?

In discussing the lies behind Eve’s origin, despite his decree in the room, Malcolm says to Eve “If your mother had carried you nine months, or if we had adopted you instead of engineering you, you would still be my daughter…”, and, conditioned as we are by modern, relational, aspirational perspectives of family, this falls easily on our ears. It may be true, or false, but either way, it sounds plausible.

One way or the other, though, this position, offered by Malcolm Carlyle, is horrific. We spoke back in our annotations of issue #6 about family as a constructed entity, and how feudalism at its heart kills that modern perspective in favour of the blood dynasty. For the man most responsible for linking duty with blood in Eve’s world, and defining justice as obedience by virtue of said blood links, to describe familiality as something elective is to place the very meaning of “Family Above All” into existential doubt. Rosales, upon being executed, said back in the first issue that Eve had no idea what family really is. Now, Malcolm has ensured that this is true. If the borders of what makes a Family is not rigid, what then justifies those who are excluded? What justifies Eve’s own inclusion? And if the idea is a nonsense, what justifies the things Eve has done in the Family name?

Inhumanity

What do Eve’s parts make her part of? If the identity as a Carlyle is less solid, and her connection with that bloodline more tenuous, is there perhaps something to be said for the idea of Eve as “a Lazarus”? There is certainty to the engineering behind Eve’s existence. Eve may be “the” Lazarus, but she’s not the only Lazarus. Ask Thomas, the Armitage Lazarus: “We’re Lazari, and that makes us different from everyone else in ways they will never understand.” (Lazarus #13). We talked about the Lazari as a confraternity, or surrogate support group before. They could certainly serve as a framework for perceiving an order of being.

Eve’s fundamental inhumanity – or perhaps transhumanity – may be the stuff of the reader’s dreams and nightmares, but for her, it’s a simple truth. She is in effect, if not in principle, a creation of science and a work of engineering. This is not to underestimate the shock she may feel after being shown the vats, or in considering what it may imply, but while Eve’s reaction to the organ bank is lost to shadow, her earlier words – “I should’ve known, and I think maybe I did” – must surely apply here. Spare legs, after all, don’t grow on trees.

If Eve is not human, what qualities – what quiddities – define the Lazari? Certainly, Joacquim is not like Eve, who in turn is clearly not like Jiaolong. As Greg mentioned in the letter column, the Minetta may have a half-dozen of their Lazari, and Joacquim’s classic cyberpunk specials may be something the Morray deploy to varying degrees at will (even if his best ware is bespoke, why would you do the R&D to design a cyberarm and give it to only one person?).

Regardless of the exact nature and spread of the technologies that have been classified as “for a Lazarus” in-setting, untrammelled iterative prototyping on living and deployed warriors puts a gap in quality, if not in concept, between them and us. Like the tip of the spear, the pattern of viable technology suggests throughout all human history that the process will become cheaper, better and more commonplace, finding new uses irregardless of the intent and disposition of the ruling powers. Speaking of cyberpunk, the street – by which we mean the world – does inevitably find its own uses for things, and this goes for top secret milspec just as much as it does for turntables.

Lazarus #24 shows us how different this future might be in stark relief. In a display reminiscent of his “act of god” in issue 16, page 3 shows us Joacquim falling upon Luka Rausling and his entourage from on high. Predator and prey, Michael captured the inhuman precision with which his strikes a moving target, like a hawk on a fieldmouse. And in the aftermath of the assassination of one of the most powerful men in existence, a king over a sixteenth of the world, Sonja and Joacquim they are utterly unfazed, moving to joking and chatting.

Luka Rausling is unimpressive as a head of family. Puffing, wild hair, the suggestion of a minor physical disability. While the presence of the monocle echoes European aristocracy, in a world where there are ads for cybereyes, it suggests he has been left behind by a change in the balance of power. Lazari – and the coming wave of science they represent – create power in ways merchant banking and capital accrual no longer do. If one can accept the Rauslings as emblematic of the power of the Families at the time of the Maccau Accords, then the means and mechanism of Luka’s death – not just the visually compelling moment, but stretching back to the death of his second-class superhuman as well – make it very apparent that wealth cannot prevent a vulnerable man, stripped of all exterior signs of authority, being  hunted by the products of biomechanics and genetics. If the Rausling empire does really fall, rather than because of a handful of executions, it may be because they were only equipped to fight yesterday’s war.

Maybe the Families have it right, but they just have the categories wrong. This is the world of the Lazarus. All others are waste.

Humanity

It is to the credit of the issue that the inhumanity of the apex predators stands in stark contrast with the quintessential – and fallible – humans who populate the issue. There is a rich tapestry of little details that point to the imperfections in the human condition: Casey’s awkward break in the middle of sex to mention that Michael is leaning a shade too heavily on her arm, Jo overbalancing when wrestling with Eight and hurting her back, Malcolm’s ever-present cane prominently featured in the foreground of his dialogue with Eve. These are not ideal genetic specimens. They are flawed and fallible.

In each case, the scenes emphasise a degree of vulnerability. Casey and Michael’s time together is disrupted by a recall to active service, for a dangerous assignment. Johanna suffers an (albeit minor) injury in the course of some easy bonding with a pre-teen. Malcolm’s cane is emblematic of a degree of humanity in the Carlyle patriarch we’ve remarked upon before. Vulnerability notwithstanding, from Casey’s clear post-coital satisfaction, to the raw joy with which Johanna takes her lumps when Eight lets her have it, there’s a suggestion that these imperfections and accidents can be a source of great joy even as they increase our risks and make us less than the Lazarus are in perfect vision.

This contrast between the human condition and what we could become is not at all a new idea for science fiction to ruminate upon. The 1950s-1960s jet-age fantasies of moon-cities and space-rockets we spoke of last month gave way to moodier reflections (there’s more than one book that details how the ‘New Wave’ of science fiction in the 1970s mirrored social abandonment of ’50s and ’60s idealism). The transhuman question became more critical as science-fiction engaged more directly with race and sex and economics. The future of medicine gave rise to “organ panic” movies like Coma, or Parts: The Clonus Horror (later remade as The Island by Michael Bay), and the Cybermen terrified with the possibility that replacement could equal death. These are the high-watermarks  of a fictional tradition stretching from Frankenstein to Blindsight, and a real world strain of thinking found in prohibitions against organ transplants or in enforced gender essentialism – that human quiddity is fragile, and easily lost.

This is not to say that Lazarus is preaching either that the transhuman wave is robbing us of our unique human perspective or even that it is an inevitable and beneficial transition. Instead, it is the story’s focus on our ability to empathise with Eve, who cries and hurts and wants as much as anyone else, that grounds the story.

The Ineffable Self

While Eve struggles with whether she is Carlyle and whether she is human, we as readers – and her so-called family – must yet wrestle with the more complex question of whether she is Eve. Or at least whether she is exclusively so.

There is a correlative principle to the idea of haecceity that is developing within the Lazarus narrative. Known as “Leibniz’s law” it refers to the identity of indiscernibles. Essentially, if haecceity is the unique property that makes a thing itself, Leibniz’s law is that any two things with all their properties in common cannot be distinguished from each other. If everything is identical, than there can be no differentiation.

Is there something unique to s(Eve)n that Eight can’t replicate? Malcolm has cast his vote in the negative – Eve may be daughter he wanted, but from his perspective, is he even losing her? Forever Young has been raised not only in the same circumstances, but by the same people as the prior incarnations, deliberately aiming for essentially the same results. She is now at roughly the same age Eve herself was when she made her public debut, given she met Joacquim for the first time when she was 14.  Nature and nurture correlate. The twinned science fiction principals of longevity and cloning create a situation where history can literally repeat – and where those repetitions can be continually tweaked and refined.

This issue is haunted by the spectre of Six (or an earlier generation). Malcolm, Beth, even Johanna are all reacting to a previous iteration that somehow went “wrong”. Became “lost”. Have all these reactions, these entreaties and endearments, been played out before? Is the Forever we know not breaking from her previous path, but following it? If so, we cannot rule out the possibility that Johanna is not shaking up the status quo out of feeling for either her “sister” or even in defiance of her father, but in a deliberate attempt to shake up the pattern of history repeating itself.

It is a fitting dramatic irony that the indiscernables of the people deciding Eve’s fate may be opposite those of Eve herself. By virtue of having become effectively immortal, the people deciding the fate of the Eves have come to see themselves as more themselves, more ineffable, than other humans. Where the Waste are definitionally disposable, those that live forever garner to themselves more and more specificity and become harder and harder to replicate. This is why Hock striking at Malcolm was so effective, and why when Johanna – notionally the Head of Family – makes a call regarding Eve’s fate, she is nonetheless overruled by a father that holds no governmental post. In living forever, they become icons.

But, closing the loop, if Johanna is right and Eve is the heart of the Family (whatever a Family may truly be), then it is she, and not they, that is truly the haecceity of the Carlyle Family. And if that is true, then it may be Malcolm’s hubris alone that makes him believe anything in the world is a decision in his hands.