#laurent zai

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The "I need therapy but instead I got this lousy command/spaceship/space station" club. An oddly common occurrence in science fiction.

Featuring Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek TNG), Captain Laurent Zai (The Risen Empire - Scott Westerfeld), Commander Ash Tyler (Star Trek Discovery) and Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Babylon 5).

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Some more Risen Empire meme-ing (with a corrected Laurent).

Poor XO Hobbes.

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Nara and Laurent, when everything is over, going on a beautiful romantic date on a beach. They watch the sunset and cuddle in a beach chair – but Laurent has to pull sand out of his prostheses up to a week afterwards

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Disabled4Disabled ships spotlight for Disability Pride Month ➤ Senator Nara Oxham and Captain Laurent Zai from “The Risen Empire” by Scott Westerfeld

Going into this book I had no idea just how much disability representation is in this space opera (there also is a third character I focus on another time).

Laurent, despite his prostheses being more like his original limbs than todays prostheses are, for example he has tactile feedback to some degree, does not fall into most of the bad amputee rep pitfalls. They still very much are different to what he was used to, and the ten years in the past storyline shows how he still needs to get used to them.

He has internalized ableism, and this also plays into some already existing body image issues. He is shown having to do maintenance on his prostheses, and there is one scene where they just straight up do not work anymore due to some space battle interference stuff. It is only mentioned once, but he also does not have super strength, not because it is impossible for the technology, but because the power translation would massively fuck up his residual limbs. It subtly, but visibly affects his gait.

And there are a few scenes where he takes them off. One is an incredibly beautiful fade to black sex scene where he worries he is too broken for intimacy, and Nara reassures him being broken is okay, and he lets her take off his prostheses.

Because he lost his limbs through torture by an anti-Empire faction, he also has psychological problems, being passively suicidal, and starts to doubt his conservative, pro-Empire upbringing more and more. Unlike as giving him the prostheses and teaching him how to use them, the Empire completely refuses to do anything about his trauma.

Nara is a bit of a grey area, as her disability is completely fictional, but also I saw so much of myself in her symptoms.

Nara is a telepath, but the way it is written feels like an allegory for neurodivergence, especially autism. Yes, it helps her to come up with strategies in her political struggles against conservative politicians and finally the Emperor, but more often than that, it overwhelms her.

She has to take medication pretty much all the time to be able to function around other people, though it is administered through injections of a wristband, not pills. Even like this, feeling their presence and emotions is very overwhelming for her.

Without the medication or even if there are too many people for too long, she has violent meltdowns, which made her end up in a psych ward as an early teen, where she spent most of her youth.

Her family even abandoned her for it, and the media and her political enemies call her the mad senator. Despite that fearmongering, Nara is one of the most morally upstanding and powerful characters in the book.

Their romance feels real and tender and not gendered in a way fictional romances, especially romances between a man and a women, hardly ever do.

Laurents ethnicity is a bit unclear; in the German translation he is described as being black, so I originally assumed he was, but in the English original it is a bit more unclear. Nara is canonically brown though.

The novel deals with a few fairly dark topics, has several brutal and triggering scenes, and also the language is very technological, and the switch between the many POV characters can be confusing in the beginning. But if you can stomach that, I would very much recommend it.

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Satellite, shine on me tonight I will be your gravity I will stay and never leave My satellite, are you here tonight? Shine your light and set me free ("Satellite" - Starset)

Captain Laurent Zai and Senator Nara Oxham from "The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfeld

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Just wanted to draw them in summer clothes being cute and free of worries

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Just doing that typical thing of mine where I draw my blorbos in fancy clothes

Finding a elegant dress for Nara was easy, but for Laurent I dithered between wanting to draw him in a dress because he would look amazing in one and knowing that, with his body image issues, his body image issues about his prostheses, and coming from an conservative planet, he would not do it, and finally settled for a compromise.

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Laurent Zai is such an interesting protagonist. His trauma and body dysphoria about his prosthesis, and how tactically smart and creative he is... He reminds me quite a lot at Jeffrey Sinclair from Babylon 5.

Also how cool is it to not just have a black man as the protagonist in a space opera whoes ethnicity is never an plot point or concern at all, but also who is lanky and physically weak and vulnerable both emotionally and physically, and who instead has as his strength that he is a compassionate and intelligent leader?