posted
I've been thinking about these of late, particularly with regard to Ender because I truly think that the believability of the next Ender book will only work with convincing explanations of how the characters get from planet A to planet B in exactly the right time frame. Space travel time dilation can be manipulated, but it still isn't going to be easy to get it to be convincing, given what we know from previous books. What OSC said at his signing didn't allay my fears that he's actually got it figured out yet either.
OSC has asked in the past, about timelines with regards to Alvin Maker and other characters.
Maybe creating semi-official "character timeline" for the Enderverse would be a good thing. We've talked a lot of it out here before, but I don't know if OSC ever wrote them down or charted it out. Clearly they may not have been written down before if he was asking about relative ages and stuff.
I know they have some similar charts at the Encylopedia of Arda for Middle Earth. Of course the timelines there were mostly direct from Tolkein.
Am I being too fan-girl here? I'm betting Moose and Hobbesy have the timelines in their heads more or less. But I'm a person who would actually like to have it all charted out, cause I only hold it instinctively rather than.
Maybe OSC would find it too confining, but he's working himself into tighter and tighter timeline spots with his own writing. The times given in Investment Counsellor are probably going to be what gives him the most trouble in writing his next book.
Has someone been even more obsessive compulsive than me, and already done this?
posted
Cool, I'll have to talk to Taalcon then. Because the new books give a lot more details to fill in that timeline towards the bottom of it. But that's exactly what I was wondering, if someone had already made a start.
posted
Tolkien cared a great deal about the timeline of LOTR. He had two distinct plotlines going, and he made sure that the timelines worked together hour by hour and day by day.
i'm not like that. Not in my life, and not in my fiction.
Years have passed since Ender left Earth to govern a colony. But his years ON HIS COLONY match, more or less, the number of years covered by the Shadow Books prior to the departure of Bean and of a couple of other characters into space.
Figure that the location of Ender's first colony is corner B of a triangle, the other colony where Ender will go in Ender in Exile and where a couple of people already are is corner C, and Earth of course is A.
I will never specify exactly how long side AB is, or side AC, or side BC. Therefore, it is perfectly plausible that when Ender reaches colony C, he is whatever age i say he is, and they have been living in that colony for however long I say they have. As long as distances, speeds, and degree of time-dilation effect are unspecified, I can have it however I want it.
At the same time, I don't want a flat contradiction. So it would be lovely if someone were to create an accurate timeline, insofar as this is possible, of what I actually SAY in the books about when things happen and at what age Ender is (subjectively) when they do.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Banna, if only you had posted this a month ago, when I last reread the books. >_< I always regret not being in a position to help when projects like this come up.
Posts: 289 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
OSC, it's Investment Counsellor that is going to get you in massive amounts of trouble. You are pretty specific about how old Ender is at that point and how many earth years (It's either 300 or 400 I don't have the book in front of me) have taken place in that amount of time since the Xenocide.
You also have ages when Ender departs his first colony world implied somewhere too though I don't have chapter and verse. 19th birthday is in red on the the pweb timeline so it has to be a nailed down date that is significant though I'm not exactly sure what it means. You've got Starways Congress up and running already at the time of Investment Counselor, with very few fringe colony planets.
You've got possibly less than a year of Ender's chronological life to shoehorn the story in, from my estimation, because in the two years (I think) after they leave their first planet before he comes of age, he and Valentine have already travelled to quite a number of planets.
Otherwise you've got to put it 300-400 earth years out, and Ender and Valentine are implied to be the only two beings in the known universe who have spacetravelled that much to hopscotch that amount of time, even with the developing colony planets.
You also specific about where Ender is when he writes The Hedgemon, at the end of SotG. "On Valentine's colony something or other" (It made me raise an eyebrow bcause that was news to me) I think even that may be slightly contradictory to where it was implied he was when he wrote it the end of EG... unless Valentine's colony is also on the same planet but a different continent than Ender's colony....
posted
Also my impression (once again this is my instinct... I don't have verified chapter and verse yet) is that Ender is roughly 17-19 when he writes The Hedgemon and Peter is 90.
Ender seems a lot older, in the story where he actually finds the Hive Queen, even though it was written before the Hedgemon, but I don't think his exact age is given so you've got a loophole.
I'll have to check if you gave the age of the kid that accompanied him on that trip, because I think it says the kid was actually born on the colony planet.
I'll get the books out in front of me tonight, and start making notes. Probably use this thread as my scratch pad so everyone else can double check.
posted
Shackespear colony, not Valintine's colony.
I believe he leaves his colony when hes 16 not when hes 18 and remember space travel seems like 2 weeks generally.
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posted
Ender supposedly lives at the colony for seven to eight years, according to EG, "...an eleven-year-old boy named Abra; he had been only three when the colony was founded..."
So technically, if Ender left for the colony at twelve, after the two years of voyaging he'd be fourteen, and another seven or eight years would put him in his early twenties. And at the end of EG, "when Valentine was twenty-five years old..." she sent the last bugger wars history with the Hive Queen attached. Ender is what, about three years younger than her (?) so the end of EG puts him at the age of 22.
But there are contradicting facts in books that OSC wrote later. Investment Counselor in particular: Ender turns 20... and this is after 400-odd years of travel. It implies that he left the colony in his late teens. So, on the next book, I would assume OSC will just make Ender whatever age is most convenient to the plot of the story. As long as he's not younger than 17 or so or so old it's unbelievable, I'll go along with it.
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posted
OK, so I should have asked you guys about timelines BEFORE writing Investment Counselor.
i regard that story as changeable. I refuse to be bound by it. Except it IS about coming of age. So I can't have him be 23 or 25, unless I make it so his trust comes under his control at that age ...
So the change REALLY should be in the age of Abra. Let's make him six when the colony was founded. Everybody get out your Liquid Paper and make the change, please.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
I think you are going to probably have to let the details in EG be the ones that fade into the dim and hazy memory which will upset the canon purists.
Investment Counsellor.... have the water warped pages of First Meetings in front of me:
First sentence:
Andrew turned 20 the day he reached the planet Sorelledolce.
2nd paragraph: ...the other pertinent fact-that 400 and some odd years had passed since the day he was born, back on Earth...
Planetary travels working backwards Sorelledolce-20 (newer colony only 100 years old) Helvetica- failed Jung and Calvin colonies
Hmm skimming the pages, you've also got Valentine at 25 years old (subjective age) in Investment Counsellor too.
"They had scarecely lost 2 years of life in the past 300 years of realtime"
Bendetto traces Valentine "with only a few voyages ... back three hundred years to the very dawn of the colonizing age"
Ten weeks after their arrival Andrew and Valentine left Sorelledolce.
posted
In EG pg 311 adult paperback version: Ender and Valentine talking: "It's 50 years to get there-" "Only 2 years if your're aboard the ship" Val is 14 at the start of the voyage to the first colony.
"Ansible brought word a new colony ship was only a year away" (Colony ship to add to the population of that planet, not a new world...) "Near enough to trade but far enough apart that they could be governed separately"
Then we have Abra at 11, only 3 when colony founded, which would make the age of the colony 8 years. Even if we change him to 6, that means the colony is 5 years old.
Ender is 12 on Eros, Val is 14
On Sorcelledolche Ender is 20 Val is 24-25.
How far apart in age were they *supposed* to be?
If ender is 12+ 2 years space travel = 14 plus 5 colony years= 19 when he *finds* the Hive Queen... not even written either book yet! (and if we take the 8 years given originally from Abra's age... he's 22.)
Whoops, but he turns 20 on Sorcelledolce and was space-time jumping for the previous 2 years which means he left his first colony at 18.
Reading on in the last chapter of EG... only takes "weeks" after finding the Hive Queen to write "The Hive Queen"
Continuing on in EG
"When Valentine was 25 years old she finished the last volume of her history on the bugger wars. She included at the end the complete text of Ender's little book....
"By ansible she got an answer from the ancient Hegemon, Peter Wiggin, 77 years old with a failing heart..."
How old was Peter W. when Val left earth? She was 14... he was what? 16 or 17? If you work backwards...77 earth years - 50 earth years of spaceflight= 27. If Peter was 17 when Val left earth, then the colony would have to be 10 years old... even longer than the original 8 year Abra measurement, though 2 years could have elapsed between the time Ender found the hive queen and the time Val wrote her last volume. (In fact this 2 year time period would make sense with the original story, and would keep the original EG internally consistent with itself)
(That's everything out of EG)- I realize I've reiterated some of what you said above CRash... you are absolutely correct, I was just working it out for myself with the book in hand.
posted
From SotG last chapter... remember according to EG Peter is 77.
- Val wrote 7 volumes on the Bugger Wars "Ender was right there with her in Shakespeare colony" (I guess that can be the name of Ender's original colony, but I thought it was called something else somewhere else)
- Theresa Wiggin is still alive and lucid (not acutally terribly relevant)
-"Peter lived for some time after that, despite his weak heart. Hoping the whole time that Ender might write the book he wanted. But when he died, the book was still unwritten"
* How long is "some time" and each bit of "some" time adds to the length of Ender's duration on Shakespeare, before flying off to travel with Val.
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posted
Hmm, more details from EG, earlier in that last chapter. He was on Eros for a "year" after the war, and they still hadn't brought him home.
There were hordes of future colonists staging on Eros, that Ender was hiding from. However Ender actually left on the first colony ship.
In EG, the first colony world is referred to in capitals as "Ender's World"... not Shakespeare
Val was publishing her 7th volume in EG *before* Ender found the Hive Queen. This means there would have had to have been an 8th volume to be the "last" for her add the HQ onto the end of the book (but before the index).
posted
the next step is to plow through Speaker through CotM and trace all previous planets visited that were mentioned anectotally and how many thousand years elapsed before Val married Jakt. Don't think that is as critical though.
posted
Wow, BannaOj, nice scan-through. You covered the whole colony-timespan! That's on its way to being a multi-book timeline.
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What if Ender left the colony at some point, did some FTL travel, and then returned? (Maybe he changed his mind and came back?)
Might that not take care not only of his age, but also explain how Valentine (who stayed) is now 5 years older instead of 2?
Although I do have a vague memory that when Ender leaves Valentine on Trondheim, it says something like it's the first time they'd been apart that long since they left Earth. I think . . .
I'd look it up, but my books will be in storage for a couple more weeks.
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posted
I don't think that Ender and Val can leave Shakespeare Colony/Ender's World temporarily and come back. It just wouldn't work with the story that's already there. I agree with rivka's recollection, though don't have chapter and verse. (Getting through the last 3 books of the original Ender quartet is probably going to be postponed for a couple of weeks minimum, so anyone else feel free to jump in!!!)
Virlomi is still alive when Peter is 77, because she's responding to history critics.
I'm not writing the book, and I don't know the story that OSC wants to tell. But, the instantaneous ansible communication, might be the way to get some of the characters involved, without having to shuffle them physically across planets, much like in SotD and Xenocide.
There's also the 2nd colony option on Ender's World. Need to check exactly what Graff says to the Battle Schoolers in SotG. Does he promise them separate planets or separate colonies? That could be perhaps revised or spun giving the necessity of enough population on any given planet that you could put two Battle schoolers on different continents of the same planet, because the populations aren't exactly going to be warring for resources...at least for a while.
You can't do instantaneous travel because that doesn't happen until Jane figures it out in Xenocide and CotM.
posted
Was the "she" referring to Jane? Rov... Sorelledolce... same difference...
At least OSC's alive to determine what he's going to use as "canon" though he could just leave it totally ambiguous and confuse sci-fi scholars for centuries after his death.
posted
*bumpity* since OSC appears to be posting... Taalcon is more than willing to update the pweb timeline... however we need some sort of semi-official reconciliation from OSC before we could actually do it given the conflicts as they exist now.
So OSC, let us know if you work out anything more to reconcile things. I don't think that just altering the age of Abra will cut it. You've got to decide how old Val is too, and how many years actually pass on the first colony planet before Val and Ender take off planet hopping. You've got to decide whether you want to keep EG itself internally consistent and be constrained by your original writing or not.
Your characters are always convincing enough (like in Investment Counsellor) to pull off the immediate story. But your universe will fall apart in the long run, if you don't straighten these quirks out now.
posted
the main contridiction i see is the second to last page of ender's game. It says valentine is 25 which would make ender around 20. This age is specified as before he writes the Hegemon and if you look at teh bottom of the page ender tells valentine that they should travel the stars and live forever. and then: "So they boarded a starship and went from world to world." and just before that is says: "We have to go. I'm almost happy here." This all implies that they had not even left the fist colony that they originally went to untill Valentine was 25 or older. Makeing Ender 20 or older.
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Your characters are always convincing enough (like in Investment Counsellor) to pull off the immediate story. But your universe will fall apart in the long run, if you don't straighten these quirks out now.
AJ
It's worth mentioning that Asimov, who is widely considered one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time and whose books STILL inspire (crappy) movies, had enormous, ENORMOUS contradictions between his novels. To use his recently repopularized robot novels as an example, there are glaring points of plot contradiction between the second and third robot novels, and to make it worse, the point in question is undoubtedly central to solving the central mystery in both cases.
My point, I suppose, is that the nitpickers are always going to have a field day with minor inconsistencies, but most people will happily ignore them. If your writing is good enough (as Asimov's is, and I believe OSC's is as well), most people will happily ignore the major inconsistencies, too.
I've read every Ender/Shadow book upwards of 50 times and I can honestly say that while I caught some of the inconsistencies (e.g. Jane on Rov vs Sorelledolce), most of them went completely unnoticed until this thread because they simply don't matter. What does it matter if Valentine is 24/25 when Ender is 20, or if she's 22? For all intents and purposes, the difference between 22 and 25 is nonexistant in the context of the story. All we, as readers, need to know is that Valentine is slightly older than Ender subjectively (even though by the time the Ender series is done, Ender is older, and then younger again). I can't imagine the Enderverse falling apart because of a few nitpicky age contradictions.
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posted
Hmm for me, I truly wasn't intending to be nitpicky. But on finishing SotG, I was left with a disturbing uneasiness because it just didn't instinctively jive, with what I already knew happened in the future. That vague uneasiness only got worse over time and hearing OSC in person didn't allay the fears. I had no idea that the timeline discrepancies were so large until I actually sat down with the books and wrote the above posts.
(Your point about Asimov is well taken. Just leaving them there is certianly an valid option and artist's perogative. )
posted
Upping this topic over a year later because I have been going through the Enderverse again after having some discussions on some other boards. I have also found some problems with the timeline that have been pointed out here. This is what I have:
- Val & Ender leave for the colony at ages 14 & 12 respectively - After 2 years at lightspeed (needs to be 52 years real time), they arrive at the colony (aged 16 & 14) - They are on the colony for 8 years, based on Abra's age, before Ender find's the Hive-Queen (aged 24 & 22) - Val writes the final volume of her history of the wars at age 25 (Ender, 23) when Peter, at 77 (16 + 52 + 9), contacts her and says he knew Ender wrote "The Hive-Queen"
The timeline in EG works perfectly. The only problem is "Investment Counselor" which clearly states in the first sentence that Ender is 20. If that can be changed to 25 then everything would be ok. That also means that Ender has to be between 23 and 25 in the new book. The only way Ender can be 20 in IC is if the whole last chapter of EG is re-written (along with some of SotG).
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posted
I like the story "Investment Counselor", but I have to agree that there area at least two inconsistencies which arise from it. 1)There is the age/time problems whic are listed above. 2)The second one I've noticed is how in IC, Valentine learns about Jane, and asks if she can use her from time to time. But in Xenocide or CotM (I forget which), when Jane is controling Valentine essay submissions through the ansible, Valentine thinks "Jane" is a network of people.
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posted
Val & Jane isn't a big deal, you could just easily say that Val forgot about Jane since it's been like 50 "years" since Ender first discovered her (or since Jane revealed herself, as it were). Besides, if Val thought Jane was just an accounting program she'd have no reason to think it's the same thing/person/program/whatever.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
There is of course another solution to this. Change the length of a year.
I'm actually serious. Assume that a year on Ender's colony is only 300 days. The people there decide to adjust their calendar to the planetary cycle so that months correspond to seasons, etc. Or because heavier gravity makes them age faster or less gravity extends their lives. That means every "Ender year" is two months shorter than an "Earth year." Ergo, you lose an "Earth Year" every six "Ender Years."
That means that when Abra says he is 11 he is really one year and four months younger - nine years old on the Earth calendar.
This would make things confusion, so there would probably be a "standard age" for everyone. Thus, someone could be 20 years old in standard, which is based on the length of an Earth year, yet be significantly older or younger by their own method of measurement.
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