The Datura Object: Symbol of Alien Agency and Transformation in In Ascension
What Is the Datura Object?
The Datura object is an artificial interstellar artifact that appears early in the novel as the catalyst for the Oort cloud mission. First detected five years before the story's present, it initially seemed to be an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. This assessment proved false: it was not an asteroid, and its trajectory was not threatening. The object measures 1.3 kilometres in diameter and 1.7 kilometres in height, with a dark red colour suggesting billions of years of cosmic radiation exposure. Its most striking feature is the network of carved markings covering its surface: massive parallel ridges, fainter vertical lines forming a grid, and sixteen ovals ranging from 30 to 200 metres in diameter. The ovals’ ratios mirror the object itself, creating a self-referential writing system that appears to continue in a near-infinite regress.
The object moves at 112 kilometres per second, but its acceleration is non-gravitational, without outgassing or solar radiation thrust. This unknown propulsion technology drives the human mission to the Oort cloud, where the crew hopes to intercept or understand Datura. However, before any mission can be launched, Datura disappears, leaving only its legacy.
Where the Datura Object Recurs
The presence of Datura reverberates through the novel even after its physical disappearance. Leigh first encounters it in a private auditorium at the ICORS facility, where her boss Uria reveals the object and its implications. The revelation triggers a cascade of connections in Leigh’s mind: she links the object’s oval shape to the Cassini oval of the deep-sea vent crater from the Endeavour expedition, to the egg she holds while making breakfast, and to the symbiotic archaea that enable the algae food crop. The Datura plant itself, a hallucinogenic desert flower, gives the object its name and becomes a metaphor for altered perception.
Though Datura vanishes, its influence continues to shape the narrative. The mission proceeds toward the Oort cloud not to visit the object but to investigate where it was last seen. In the final chapter, Helena discovers a hidden cottage on Ascension Island that contains marine biology books, suggesting Leigh’s continued obsession with the deep-sea origins that Datura echoed. The object recurs thematically in the crew’s discussions about the purpose of the carved markings and in Leigh’s visions of symbiosis and merging.
How Its Meaning Changes
Initially, Datura represents pure alien agency – an undeniable sign of non-human intelligence. Its carved grids and ovals imply intentionality, a message, or a map. For Leigh, it validates her lifelong feeling of being drawn toward something beyond ordinary existence, a feeling born from her near-drowning childhood vision and her work on Endeavour.
When Datura disappears, its meaning shifts from a concrete artifact to an absent catalyst. The object becomes a symbol of the unknowable, of what drives humanity to explore even when the target is gone. The mission continues because the encounter – even a missed one – transforms those who pursued it. In the Oort cloud, the crew experiences phenomena (radiation events, altered constellations, hypergrowth of algae) that seem connected to Datura’s lingering presence, suggesting the object’s meaning is not in its physical form but in its ability to trigger transformation.
By the end, Datura merges with the deep-sea imagery. Leigh’s final vision of returning to a submerged Earth and diving into the ocean echoes the object’s oval shape and the ovals of the carved markings. The symbol becomes one of circularity and symbiosis: the vent, the object, the cell, the egg, the planet itself all share forms that invite connection across scales.
Character and Theme Connections
The Datura object is intimately tied to multiple characters and themes.
Leigh Hasenbosch – Her entire journey, from the Endeavour expedition to the Nereus mission, traces back to what Datura represents. She is the primary interpreter of its meaning, seeing links between the object and her own traumatic childhood (her father’s violence, her mother’s retreat into mathematics). For Leigh, Datura offers a chance to transcend personal history through cosmic significance.
Uria – As the director of ICORS, Uria reveals Datura to Leigh and later informs her of its disappearance. Uria embodies institutional knowledge and caution. She resists Leigh’s desire to immediately launch a mission, representing the tension between wonder and pragmatism.
Helena – Leigh’s sister never sees Datura directly, but her investigation in the final chapter – finding the cottage with marine microbiology books – suggests that Datura’s meaning extends beyond those who encountered it. Helena represents the terrestrial perspective, the familial connection that Leigh prioritised over, creating conflict.
Themes:
- Oceanic versus cosmic exploration – Datura bridges these two realms through its oval shape, which echoes the deep-sea vent crater. The novel suggests that the deepest ocean and the farthest stars may hold similar truths.
- Symbiosis and transformation – The object’s carved ovals mirror the symbiotic joining of two cells. Datura itself becomes a catalyst for transformation, both in the crew’s biology and in Leigh’s psychology.
- Family trauma and memory – Leigh’s obsession with Datura is partly an escape from her past. The object represents a clean break, but the novel ultimately forces her to integrate cosmic discovery with her personal history.
- Environmental collapse and circularity – The submerged ending and the object’s self-referential carvings point toward a cyclical view of life, where beginnings and ends are indistinguishable.
Four Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does the author choose the name “Datura” for the interstellar object?
The name comes from the desert plant that blooms at night and collapses at dawn, known for strong hallucinogenic properties. Leigh researches the plant and learns of its use in ancient religious ceremonies. The connection is twofold: the plant alters perception, just as the object alters Leigh’s worldview, and the plant’s shape – a large lavender-tinted flower – echoes the oval form of the object. The name therefore links the earthly and the cosmic, suggesting that altered states of consciousness may be relevant to understanding alien intelligence. This is supported by the text’s description of the plant’s transformative effects and its historical use.
2. How does the Datura object connect to the Endeavour expedition?
Leigh draws a direct connection between the deep-sea vent crater and Datura. Both are ovals – the crater described as resembling a Cassini oval, and Datura itself is oval-shaped. The vent crater also has a grid-like structure around it, and Leigh speculates that Datura is a kind of mirror image of the deep-sea environment. Furthermore, the archaea discovered at the vent becomes crucial to the algae crop that feeds the space mission. The novel thus presents the ocean and the cosmos as two manifestations of the same underlying pattern, with Datura serving as the cosmic counterpart to the terrestrial vent.
3. Why does Datura disappear, and what does this imply about its purpose?
The text offers no definitive explanation, only three speculative options: concealment, combustion, or displacement (temporal or spatial). Uria refuses to entertain theories, saying they merely require further explanation. The disappearance suggests that the object is not a static artifact but an active intelligence with its own agenda. Its vanishing forces the human characters to confront their own motivations for exploration – they continue the mission even without a clear target. This implies that Datura’s purpose was never to be studied directly but rather to set in motion a chain of events that transforms human understanding. The absence becomes more significant than presence.
4. How is the Datura object related to the theme of symbiosis?
The carved ovals on Datura are self-referential, each oval containing smaller ovals in an infinite regress. Leigh explicitly connects this to the symbiotic relationship that gave rise to multicellular life: two cells, two ovals intertwined, folding into each other. The algae garden aboard Nereus experiences hypergrowth, suggesting a similar symbiotic breakthrough. Datura thus embodies the principle of symbiosis at a cosmic scale. The object is not merely a message but a demonstration of how life – whether terrestrial or alien – evolves through merging and mutual dependence. Leigh’s final vision of merging with the ocean waters is the human equivalent of this symbiotic transformation.