Jasper
Jasper is a type of quartz rock. The narrator’s father empties out about ten examples to which Petra responds that though they are all the same type, they all look different. He replies that they are not intended to be identical and that is the differences in colors which complement each other that creates the individual beauty of each rock. This description makes jasper a tactile symbol of the novel’s theme pitting individualism against the forces of conformity.
Downloadable Cognizance
A computer program called Downloadable Cognizance teaches the unconscious kept in suspended animation over the course of hundreds of years. This program is hacked by a group calling itself the Collective for the purpose of brainwashing the slumbering passengers into believing that a false history of humanity is true which benefits their ideological mission. The program and the hacking symbolize the way in which propaganda can be manipulated even to the point of making people believe a completely false narrative because they do not have—or will not engage—access to the factual history which challenges their beliefs.
Halley’s Comet
Halley’s Comet is an example of the dependable predictability of even astronomic events. The comet arrives for viewing over earth before disappearing into orbit for another seventy-five years until it circles back around. In this story, humanity is threatened with extinction when a solar flare nudges the comet out of its orbital path just enough to ensure a collision. The comet symbolizes the universal chaos that is capable even of transforming a predictably benign recurrence into an existential threat.
Names
When the children awake from suspended animation with the new false history implanted into their minds, they have new names. For instance, the narrator, Petra, has been named Zeta-1. Her brother Javier is named Epislon-5. The controlling philosophy of the Collective is the destruction of independent thought and the adherence to completely conformity. The Greek name and numbering system effectively destroys the independent self-image create by the non-conforming naming of children.
Storytelling
The Spanish in the title translates to the last storyteller. Petra is the only passenger who awakens from the suspended animation able to remember the actual history of humanity. She tells this history as stories to those whose memories have been purged. Eventually, the others begin to remember and realize that these stories are actually memories. Storytelling becomes a symbol of history. If one alters the story, then the recorded history is altered even though the actual facts have not changed.
