What are the motifs in Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi?

Fate and free will are an underlying, consistent idea found throughout the novel “Ship Breaker” by Paolo Bacigalupi. Both fate and free will affect the course of human events. The concept of fate is that people, no matter what they do, have no freedom, and are bound to follow certain paths or behave in certain ways. Free will contends that people do have the freedom to make their own decisions, chart their own courses, and change their lives.