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If you get people to accept it, they’ll make it more complicated, more open to interpretation, more mystical, and more comforting.

While Lauren has a clear and uncomplicated vision for Earthseed, Bankole warns her in Chapter 21 that, should the doctrine survive, it will inevitably change with time. Future community members and descendants will expand it or add elements of mysticism, which Lauren wishes to avoid. While Lauren knows that others might seek to change Earthseed, she hopes to continue to shape and guide the community based on her own vision. However, Bankole raises an important concern: Earthseed is subject to the same laws of change as everything else, and once Lauren is gone, Earthseed could become something entirely different from—and even antithetical to—its original purpose.

“We’ve all lost someone,” he said. “You and I seem to have lost everyone. That’s a bond, I suppose.”

As the Earthseed community slowly comes together, it’s clear that every member has suffered loss and trauma. Lauren’s losses are particularly severe, as every single member of her family has been killed. Bankole’s wife died due to health complications brought on by an attack, and later, his entire neighborhood was killed in a similar manner as Lauren’s. Their bond is that they are both entirely alone in the world in a way that many of their companions are not. However, when Bankole speaks these words in Chapter 21, he has no idea how true they really are. He hasn’t quite lost everyone yet, as he’s traveling north to find his sister and her family. Little does he know that, when he arrives, he will find them dead, and their home destroyed.

Bring your church. Bring your congregation. I doubt they care any more about the stars than I do, but bring them. I like them, and there’s room for them.

This quote from Chapter 22 reflects how Bankole loves Lauren so much that he is willing to allow the entire Earthseed community to join him on his family land. While he may not entirely believe in Earthseed or in Lauren’s vision, he does recognize that there is something different and special about Lauren. This specialness has attracted him, but it has also attracted many other friends and followers. Through Lauren, Bankole has found a community of people that he likes and that he can trust. Thus, marrying Lauren also means marrying a visionary leader, and Bankole accepts both Lauren the individual and Lauren the pioneer.

Human beings will survive of course. Some other countries will survive. Maybe they’ll absorb what’s left of us. Or maybe we’ll just break up into a lot of little states quarreling and fighting with each other over whatever crumbs are left.

At the end of the novel in Chapter 25, Bankole predicts that, despite the terror and uncertainty of the present, human beings will always find a way to survive. However, he’s pessimistic about his and his community’s prospects. He foresees a future in which the United States collapses and is either conquered by other countries or split into a chaotic group of disjointed sovereign states that fight each other for resources. Whatever happens, Bankole’s prediction is clear: the United States as we know it will not survive the crisis. This bleak image of the future hints at how fragile our seemingly untouchable systems and structures truly are.

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