A while back people on the board had this discussion...but never really came to a conclusion...so I was just curious what you thought (since you did write the books).
In Ender's Game Dr. Device is always referred to as a beam weapon (a bunch of beams aim at an object and it is destroyed). However, in the other books (both Ender's shadow and in the Ender sequel books) it is referred to as a missile weapon.
I was just curious, if that was a glitch...or if you did it on purpose (ie: it was some sort of deception on the part of the military).
I was just wondering if there was some sort of significance to the description of the weapon, since the characters do frequently have issues with the truth.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
It's a missile carrying a beam weapon that creates a relatively small field. Thus the missile must be used to carry it close enough for the beam to set up the field within the mass of the target object.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
thanks Posted by Hyperfried (Member # 7892) on :
Ah, that explains a lot... I'd always wondered how you'd "launch" the MD Device if it was basically just setting up a certain field or whatever..
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
Was that how you always envisioned it, or did that change over time? I always pictured the MD device as a beam until Children of the Mind, since Ender's game seemed to hint that it was mainly a bean weapon.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)