CHAPTER SEVEN
It’s finally explained why money is no object for Henri despite moving around the country a couple times a year: Lorien was a planet “rich with natural resources.” So even though the Mogadorian invasion was sudden and overwhelming they apparently had sacks of precious gems lying around and the foresight to remember that they have value on Earth, even though they probably have little value on Lorien if you can get them anywhere.
This is just a Hand Wave to explain why Henri can afford all these new houses and surveillance equipment without ever getting a job, but it has the effect of making Lorien sound like the most goddamn awesome planet ever. It’s a Mary Sue planet inhabited by Mary Sues. But more on that later.
The next day at school, Four accuses Mark of stealing his phone. In front of Sarah. He gets all worked up and his powers activate, so he has to wear gloves the rest of the day. You’re digging yourself a hole, mate.
Sarah tells Mark to stop being a dick, and they sit together in Astronomy every day for some reason. I also have to mention that Four still doesn’t know Sam’s name at this point and he’s still called “the kid with the NASA T-shirts” every time he shows up.
Four’s thoughts absentmindedly turn to Lorien and now is a good time to cover this planet’s society and all the problems I have with it:
Four tells us that there are eighteen life-sustaining planets in the universe, although he doesn’t think Mogadore deserves to be one of them. Lorien is ten times smaller than Earth, so it must be really dense for its inhabitants to be able to do stuff on Earth like run faster than cars and swim without breathing. It’s also “a hundred times older than Earth” which would make it hundreds of billions of years older than the universe. Who edited this shit? This is technically science fiction; you shouldn’t just be frivolous with physics and timescales.
Four says Lorien used to have all the problems Earth had, like overpopulation and global warming. One day, the people of Lorien decided to get rid of everything bad like pollution and weapons. After awhile, the planet decided to give some of them superpowers. How nice of it.
Here’s how Four explains Loric society:
- On Lorien there were two types of citizens, those who develop Legacies, or powers, which can be extremely varied, anything from invisibility to the ability to read minds, from being able to fly to using natural forces like fire, wind or lightning. Those with the Legacies are called the Garde, and those without are called Cêpan, or Keepers. I am a member of the Garde. Henri is a Cêpan. Every Garde is assigned a Cêpan at an early age. Cêpans help us understand our history and develop our powers. The Cêpan and the Garde — one group to run the planet, the other group to defend it.
Let’s go over that again. One group on Lorien has every conceivable superpower between them all, while the other is a caste of muggle nannies who know their place is to do all the boring stuff that doesn’t involve superpowers. One has to wonder how the Keepers ended up in that position, and it’s probably because the Garde (Guard, GEDDIT?!?) beat the crap out of them thousands of years ago until they did what they were told. Obviously, the Garde couldn’t keep up their end of the social contract by “defending” Lorien anyway, despite the fact that some of their superpowers are literally only useful if you have to do battle with intergalactic space aliens.
By the way, the government of Lorien is a permanent council of elders made up of only the Garde. So now we’re in this awkward position of being told, over and over again, why Lorien was the perfect planet, basically what Earth would be if humans stopped fucking up the environment, but also hearing that it had an extremely corrupt fascist society that toppled almost instantly once attacked. This is possibly intentional in terms of the story, but it's still uncomfortable to hear them talk about how amazing Lorien used to be when the society they're promoting is so troubling.
My guess is that the writers wanted the story to be about a lonely teenage survivor and that they should come up with an adult character who fathers him and eventually dies so the protagonist can become a man. Then they decided afterward that their whole alien society would work that way. But I can’t help but see the Keepers an an oppressed minority that do what they’re told because they aren’t supermen.
They also seem redundant once Four explains Loric family structure. Children are raised by their grandparents and their Keeper while their parents go off doing whatever it is superheroes do in a society with no crime. Four therefore doesn’t remember his parents. The book says everyone mates for life and has children between 25 and 35, and it’s not mentioned if this is a physiological thing so I’m gonna assume it’s state-mandated.
What’s with the whole mating for life thing in YA novels anyway? It’s like they don’t want to tell teens that it’s absolutely normal to have more than one partner in your lifetime.
Recapping briefly, Lorien is a magic planet, if you respect the environment you will grow superpowers, either that or you’ll belong to a useful minority of servants and DONT QUESTION IT, and love is forever. Icky.
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