posted
Hi, I've been "reading" the Ender series on audiobook, by which I mean I'm reading the one that follows his life, not the shadow series. I realized a thing that has me baffled, How is it that in Ender's Game they told Ender that the little doctor is not a missile but a "beam" if you will, they said that he couldn't shoot around corners. But in Children of the mind they repeatedly said that it was a missile. What's with that?
P.S. I apologize if someone already saw this and commented on it, but I didn't see anything indicating that.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
But did he ever mention anything abut it transforming from a beam to a missile? That's really what I'm asking and not to undermine him, more to clarify with myself
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
This has actually been discussed several times on the other side. I think he actually changed his mind about how Dr. Device worked because in Ender's Shadow it definitely sounds like a missile as well. They definitely talk about "launching" it, and it doesn't seem reasonable to "launch" a beam.
Maybe that'll be another change he makes in the next edition as well.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hope so, it really seems like a glaring oversight to me, but of course I'm one person. I guess it gets hard to keep things like that straight when you're writing several books and out of order in some cases.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
A given type of weapon can be deployed in a variety of ways. In a fast fighter ship, you would probably use it like a Star Trek Phaser; a beam weapon. But in a larger battle ship, it would probably be a long range launchable weapon like a missile.
In missile form, it could fire inward on itself, by concentrating the beam on an internal mass that then breaks apart and begins the chain reaction that spreads to other nearby matter.
posted
The only problem with that is that Ender specifically asks if he can shoot around corners and Mazer says no. Since he has several large ships in each battle - shouldn't they have had missiles? Additionally, in Ender's shadow they talk about "launching" the little doctor from a small fighter.
Still, maybe you're on to something there.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I haven't read Ender's Shadow yet, so I don't know about that, but yes he did ask Mazer that exact question, and even before that Mazer told him that is was not a missile and that is what prompted the question. But over time it would make sense that they would make it into a missile, but I think that the mistake is in Ender's game because that would be easiest to to fix as there are complete paragraphs about how it's a missile in COTM. But it's not that big a deal.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Here's the thing: if it were a missile, a lot of Ender's battles would have been moot.
Heck, a lot of the technology out there, if applied in another way, makes those battles moot. Why not remotely fly the fighters, for example, if you had ansible technology? That way, no pilots actually need to die; you could just put a skeleton crew on the battleships, and let the cream of Earth's pilots fly the ships from the safety of home.
But the Little Doctor in missile form would have dramatically changed Ender's battlefield, so it's a good thing it wasn't a missile until Peter needed to sit on one for dramatic effect.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
But at the time it wasn't a missile, which is my point, you can't just transform something that is that important to the story line unless you say that you're doing it and explain that there was new tech that they didn't know about before or something
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is a good chance that they did not know what it was, they stole the idea from the Formics, and it could have been something they didn't necessarily understand.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Pennie-Lain: Hi, I've been "reading" the Ender series on audiobook, by which I mean I'm reading the one that follows his life, not the shadow series. I realized a thing that has me baffled, How is it that in Ender's Game they told Ender that the little doctor is not a missile but a "beam" if you will, they said that he couldn't shoot around corners. But in Children of the mind they repeatedly said that it was a missile. What's with that?
P.S. I apologize if someone already saw this and commented on it, but I didn't see anything indicating that.
In fact, no, go back and reread the passage, because it almost certainly says something like: "It sets up a field between two beams, that, when they cross, stops matter from holding together." That doesn't exclude the possibility of a missile, and in fact if you were going to set up such a field, (and supposing the beams needed to cross at a focal point very close to their origin) then a missile would be required. A missile is the form the MD takes in Children of the Mind as well.
quote: I hope so, it really seems like a glaring oversight to me, but of course I'm one person. I guess it gets hard to keep things like that straight when you're writing several books and out of order in some cases.
About 98% of "discrepancies" are just rigid assumptions that readers make, and are unable to reexamine upon receiving further information. You have no evidence to suggest that the MD doesn't take different forms... and in fact it is explicitly stated that different versions of the device exist on the different generations of ships.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Here's the thing: if it were a missile, a lot of Ender's battles would have been moot.
Heck, a lot of the technology out there, if applied in another way, makes those battles moot. Why not remotely fly the fighters, for example, if you had ansible technology? That way, no pilots actually need to die; you could just put a skeleton crew on the battleships, and let the cream of Earth's pilots fly the ships from the safety of home.
But the Little Doctor in missile form would have dramatically changed Ender's battlefield, so it's a good thing it wasn't a missile until Peter needed to sit on one for dramatic effect.
Ender uses the MD in the first battle, but following that, as far as I know, (and backed up by comments from Bean in Shadow) he uses it very little, or not at all. There are probably multiple weapons in play- which is how things are in the EG short story.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Ender uses the MD in the first battle, but following that, as far as I know, (and backed up by comments from Bean in Shadow) he uses it very little, or not at all.
That would be even MORE idiotic. If that were really the case, Ender should have been advised very, very strongly not to use the Little Doctor until far, far later in the war.
I really hate the idea that they somehow stole the tech from the Buggers, too. *grumbles something inaudible about the Shadow books*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Here's the thing: if it were a missile, a lot of Ender's battles would have been moot.
Heck, a lot of the technology out there, if applied in another way, makes those battles moot. Why not remotely fly the fighters, for example, if you had ansible technology? That way, no pilots actually need to die; you could just put a skeleton crew on the battleships, and let the cream of Earth's pilots fly the ships from the safety of home.
But the Little Doctor in missile form would have dramatically changed Ender's battlefield, so it's a good thing it wasn't a missile until Peter needed to sit on one for dramatic effect.
Ender uses the MD in the first battle, but following that, as far as I know, (and backed up by comments from Bean in Shadow) he uses it very little, or not at all. There are probably multiple weapons in play- which is how things are in the EG short story.
I don't believe that is true. It specifically says that the best results he got from it were in the first battle, as the buggers DIDN'T KNOW about it, and what it could do....but then it was effective, but not as effective. I thought ti was pretty much the weapon of choice for most of the war. Hell, it even has a part about how the first fighters to reach their home world were the oldest, and the ranges on the weapons (and the capabilities of the fighters) were at their most limited.
So it WAS used all the war, AND I doubt it was a bugger weapon to start with.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
With the revelations in Shadows in Flight this seems pretty clear. The MD device was adopted from the design of the Formic's engines. Ender used it in the first battle when they were clustered together and weren't expecting it, and being as it was their own technology, they immediately avoiding concentrating their forces in such a way as to leave them vulnerable to the device. The rest of the war it wasn't used until Ender got the chance to zap a planet. Neh?
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: Heck, a lot of the technology out there, if applied in another way, makes those battles moot. Why not remotely fly the fighters, for example, if you had ansible technology? That way, no pilots actually need to die; you could just put a skeleton crew on the battleships, and let the cream of Earth's pilots fly the ships from the safety of home.
But the Little Doctor in missile form would have dramatically changed Ender's battlefield, so it's a good thing it wasn't a missile until Peter needed to sit on one for dramatic effect.
Plausibility savers might include:
MD device is too massive and/or expensive to encapsulate into missiles at first. Later improvements in miniaturization might change this, or the expense of a single MD device missile is acceptable 3000 years later.
Perhaps the early ansible links didn't contain enough bandwidth for the telemetry for multiple fighter ships.
I think the stories are just vague enough to allow for these rationalizations, if one cares enough. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: So it WAS used all the war, AND I doubt it was a bugger weapon to start with.
Bean specifically states in ES, "Ender hasn't let us use [the MD] in a long time." That before the last battle. So when they stopped using it? Who knows.
As for whether the buggers ever actually developed the device- I sort of took this as a symbol for the nuclear option among human societies. Perhaps the buggers had evolved to the point where a certain destructive capability was simply NOT on the table, no matter the stakes. Or perhaps their minds were so different from ours that the thought of using the device as a weapon was totally alien to them. Another theory I've had is that the queens were grouped together not for mutual defense, but for reasons of political stability. Since the MD is the most powerful weapon in existence, no Queen may leave the home planet- and thus no queen may fight another successfully. The whole arrangement could be a pact for mutual piece. Perhaps the buggers were not as cooperative as once believed.
I don't know- I hope it's a question that is resolved somewhere in a forthcoming book.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
might include: 
