While the Company’s motto is “We Make the World” (191), The Last Contract of Isako offers a deeply critical examination of this relentless pursuit of progress. The novel argues that in a corporate-run society, technological advancements like synthetic life extension and planetary terraforming function as tools to consolidate power for a detached elite, rather than humanity as a whole. This progress is achieved through deep moral compromises, the exploitation of the vulnerable, and the deliberate suppression of foundational truths, ultimately questioning whether a future built on such a corrupt foundation is desirable.

The development of synthbodies is the most prominent example of technology creating and reinforcing a rigid social hierarchy. The elite second stagers, or “jarbrains,” like Minto and the Executive, have purchased immortality, allowing them to rule for generations from luxurious, isolated environments. This technological divide creates a ruling class that is physically and emotionally disconnected from the mortal populace, viewing organic life as a disposable resource. This detachment allows Minto to ruthlessly manipulate Isako and enables the Board of Directors to treat the fate of humanity as a political game. Far from a universal benefit, life-extension technology serves only to make the powerful permanent.

The narrative’s central conspiracies reveal that this progress is built upon layers of deception. The gravest is the secret of the Great Silence: The Board of Directors has known for two centuries that Earth has been trying to reestablish contact with the human colony on Aquilo, but the Board themselves has suppressed this truth to protect the terraforming agenda and maintain social control. The whole endeavor of the terraformist agenda is predicated on a lie: that life in the final frontiers of the universe is better than life on humanity’s original home. Lee underscores this idea in the naming of her characters. All the characters’ given first names, like Isthmus, River, Sandbar, Dragonfly, and Wolf, are taken from natural or geographical features that harken to humanity’s past on the Earth. The atiers shed these names for monikers that emphasize their identities as corporate instruments: Quickblade, Strikebreaker, and Ronin Killer. By having the characters shed one name for another, the culture on Aquilo drives the preference for utility in a synthetic dystopia over a shared humanity that stems from the same home planet. On a more intimate scale, Uchi’s plot to have his atier, Martim, secretly replace him via recorporalization represents the ultimate perversion of synthtech. He uses a life-extending technology to steal an identity for political gain. In this world, technology is a primary tool for manufacturing and controlling reality itself.

Lee consistently illustrates that the human cost of this technologically driven progress is staggering. The Field 93 disaster is the most brutal example: To protect his division’s production goals and break a workers’ strike, Uchi sacrifices over a hundred lives as collateral damage. Their deaths are framed as a tragic but necessary price for the greater good of terraforming. Martim’s fate is a parallel sacrifice; his organic life and identity are consumed to preserve Uchi’s political legacy. Even Thea’s “second chance” at life through synthtech comes at the cost of her bodily autonomy, turning her into her client’s property. Ultimately, the novel portrays a future where technological progress has created more sophisticated systems of control, widening the chasm between the powerful, immortal few and the expendable many.