Trillium #4

chapter 4:  entropy

by Jeff Lemire

In Lemire's desperate future, it turns out men are just as brutal to each other as they have always been.  Nika may intercede for the men in the Peruvian jungle against William, who's a little (perhaps justifiably) inclined to judge them after their assault on his traveling party—"Savages?  They're human, William.  Like us." (Trillium #4: 6)—but her commander wastes no time or conscience before ruthlessly beating William's brother Clayton because he doesn't speak her language despite also being undeniably human.

Commander Pohl is rapidly emerging as Trillium's primary antagonist, a callous militarist with minimal foresight, little regard for the larger consequences of her actions, and no concern for the well-being of anyone or anything beyond her myopic objective.  Circumstances for her civilization are doubtlessly exigent, with a sentient virus threatening to overwhelm what little remains of the human race, but she lacks any perspective or compassion.  She is, in other words, the last person in Lemire's sci-fi fable who should be giving orders, but it seems she's the only one authorized to do so.  By the end of "Entropy," she has by her reactionary, shoot-first philosophy perhaps precipitated the end of the world.

However frustrating the apocalyptic politics of Nika's world and infuriatingly Euro-centric the explorational impulse of William's, the mythology of Trillium is continually more impressive.  It's a love story, no doubt.  It's a survival thriller, absolutely.  But more than that, Trillium is an archaeological mystery with a mystical nucleus.  Nika and William may be scientists and explorers, but the secret-keepers of the time-portal pyramids are believers.  It's not the sense of the scientific explanations, but the sense of magic in it—the "mouth of god" rather than a black hole—that carries the series.

[January 2014]