Imago is the third and final book in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis series, also known as the trilogy Lilith’s Brood. Butler (1947-2006) was the recipient of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and the first science fiction author to receive the MacArthur Fellowship. Her fiction explores racial injustice, gender and sexuality, climate crisis, and colonialism. She is regarded as a foundational author of Afrofuturism. Published in 1989, Imago focuses on the journey of Jodahs, the first ooloi born from human and alien Oankali parents. Jodahs’s ooloi skills of genetic engineering and shapeshifting are advanced yet unpredictable. The Oankali fear Jodahs may endanger life with a single touch, and human “resisters” remain hostile to anyone not fully human. As Jodahs learns to control its powers, the novel addresses the themes of The Nature of Autonomy and Consent in Alien/Human Relationships, Reproduction and Sexual Freedom as Forms of Female Agency, and The Ethics of Genetic Engineering and Posthumanism. 

This guide refers to the 2023 Grand Central Publishing e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include discussions of rape, incest, and suicide.

Plot Summary

The novel takes place a century after the events in the first book, Dawn (1987), where the Oankali, tentacled aliens, salvaged Earth and the last human survivors of a nuclear war. The Oankali exist for genetic “trade” and believe humans are genetically flawed for self-destruction. They give the humans two options: mate with the Oankali and produce “constructs” (alien/human hybrids) or be sterilized and live extended lifespans without further interference. Lilith Iyapo, the protagonist of Dawn, comes to accept her union with the Oankali and has produced many children over the decades with her human partner, Tino Leal, and three Oankali mates. In Adulthood Rites (1988), her child, Akin, successfully institutes the Mars colony project, giving humans the third option of emigrating to the all-human planet with their fertility restored.

The story begins with the unanticipated metamorphosis of Jodahs, Lilith’s child and the first-person narrator. Oankali constructs are unsexed as children and typically develop into males or females after their metamorphosis. Jodahs unexpectedly changes into an ooloi, the Oankali third sex, and is the first ooloi with human genes. The ooloi are responsible for genetic engineering and reproduction and use their bodies to assemble the DNA of their human and Oankali mates to produce “constructs.” Jodahs is still an ooloi subadult and will not fully mature until its second metamorphosis. However, its present skills are advanced and unpredictable. The family fears the Oankali will deem Jodahs too dangerous to remain on Earth. According to law, any ooloi construct must be exiled to the homeship for surveillance and possible sedation or experimentation.

Nikanj, Jodahs’s ooloi parent, assures its child that it is new but not flawed. Nikanj monitors Jodahs as it adapts to its new skills. No genes are dormant in Jodahs’s body, and it can shapeshift and alter genetic sequences in anything it touches. Jodahs inadvertently creates sores and tumors on its body, in other Oankali, and on the platforms of the village (a living entity called Lo). The Oankali and Lo can correct themselves, but humans and other organisms on Earth risk devastating consequences from genetic alterations. Jodahs refuses to be sent away to the ship, and the family opts for exile from the community. They live in the forest in isolation until Jodahs learns to control its body.

The family encounters hostile attacks from “resisters,” groups of sterilized humans who refuse to accept the Oankali. On two separate occasions, Jodahs saves a resister who is injured, and the humans struggle to reconcile their fear and hatred for the Oankali with Jodahs’s ability to heal and care for them. Jodahs unknowingly alters its appearance and releases chemicals that lull humans to accept its help. Through its tentacles, Jodahs alters their genes to heal their injuries and gives them sensual pleasure. Jodahs also discovers that physical contact with humans has stabilized its body, and the humans develop a bond with the ooloi, a mixture of chemical influence and genuine love, desire, and trust. When the two resisters choose to emigrate to Mars, Jodahs feels intense loss and reverts to creating sores and tumors on itself and others.

Jodahs’s younger sibling, Aaor, goes through its metamorphosis and also becomes an ooloi. The family lives in the forest to allow Aaor to complete its months-long metamorphic sleep undisturbed. With two potentially dangerous ooloi in existence, the Oankali will force them into exile on the homeship when Aaor awakes. Jodahs wanders the forest and unknowingly changes its body to reflect its environment, developing green skin, webbed hands and feet, and scales. Without humans, Jodahs feels painfully alone.

Jodahs encounters two humans, a brother and sister, and is drawn to their genetic complexity. Tomás and Jesusa have a genetic condition that causes damaging tumors on their bodies and faces. To Jodahs’s shock, the siblings are also fertile. Jodahs alters its appearance to appear more human, and the siblings eventually accept Jodahs’s offer to remove their tumors. Jodahs’s closeness with the humans stimulates its desire for mates and triggers its second metamorphosis. The siblings agree to care for Jodahs during its transformative sleep and build a raft to bring Jodahs home.

Tomás and Jesusa become chemically bonded to Jodahs when it reaches maturity and become its mates. The siblings reveal that they belong to a hidden mountain village where humans have been fertile for a century, but they face genetic conditions and high mortality rates due to enforced inbreeding. Tomás finds the village oppressive and refuses to return, but Jesusa feels obligated to help her fellow humans. She refuses to reveal their location but changes her mind when she learns that Aaor may die if it does not find human mates. Aaor has awakened from its first metamorphosis. It has difficulty stabilizing its body and continues to transform into less complex organisms. Without humans, eventually Aaor’s body will dissolve into individual cells. Jodahs informs Jesusa that all resister villagers will eventually collapse. The Oankali plan to depart Earth in a few centuries, leaving behind a barren planet. Jesusa has seen enough death in her village and tries to save her people and Aaor.

Jodahs returns Tomás and Jesusa’s bodies to their previous conditions so the siblings can return to their village and find potential mates for Aaor. Many of the villagers have become disillusioned with the elder leaders and forced unions, and Aaor finds a willing couple in the village outskirts to be its mates. Tomás and Jesusa are discovered and imprisoned as traitors. Jodahs encounters a village elder named Francisco who is shocked to learn about the Mars colony. Because of their isolation, the villagers don’t know of this other way to live without Oankali interference. Jodahs informs him that the Oankali will send a shuttle to collect them. They have the option to join the Oankali, emigrate to Mars with their fertility restored, or be sterilized if they want to remain in their village.

Francisco becomes an ally, but most of the elders and villagers despise Jodahs and threaten to kill it. Aaor and its mates are captured, and the elders detain the ooloi siblings to bargain for their people’s safety when the Oankali shuttle arrives. Aaor, Jodahs, and their mates live in a guarded house, and the oolois’ pheromones calm the people and render them more accepting. Previously hostile villagers and elders visit Aaor and Jodahs to have their genetic conditions treated. By the time the shuttle arrives, the people have agreed to live with Oankali mates. The Oankali arrivals determine that Aaor and Jodahs may remain in the isolated mountain village and be monitored as their new population grows. More ooloi constructs have been born, and they are sent to the mountains instead of exiled on the homeship. Jodahs chooses a single cell from its body and plants it like a seed into the soil to nourish its new home.