This is topic How long (in Ender's Game) in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
For a story being developed for the new magazine, I need to know: How many years between the launch of the FIRST fleet to go against the hive queen worlds and the arrival of the fleets at all the hive queen worlds? My vague memory says fifty years, but then another memory says 75. Which is about how well I do at remembering my own age ...
 
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
 
So far I've found reference to them having travelled for 70 years when Ender is on his way to Eros.
 
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
 
Page 265, Ender to Mazer:

quote:
"Why aren't you dead?" Ender asked him. "You fought your battle seventy years ago...
"The miracle of relativity," Mazer said. "They kept me here for twenty years after the battle, even though I begged them to let me command one of the ships they launched against the buggers"...

I'll let you know if I find anything else.
 
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
 
quote:
"Maybe they gave up and they're planning to leave us alone."

"Maybe. You've seen the videos. Would you bet the human race on the chance of them giving up and leaving us alone?"

Ender tried to grasp the amounts of time that had gone by. "And the ships have been traveling for seventy years-"

"Some of them. And some for thirty years, and some for twenty...."

From pg. 250 of the YA paperback of EG. That was between Graff and Ender. Now we need to figure out how long it was between that conversation and the start of the "games."
 
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
 
From the timeline at Philotic Web it looks like about a year passes between his flight and the end of the third invasion.
 
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
 
pg 266 of YA paperback of EG:
quote:
"So they sent you out in a starship, got you up to relativistic speed-"

"And then I turned around and came home. A very dull voyage, Ender. Fifty years in space. Officially, only eight years passed for me, but it felt like five hundred. All so I could teach the next commander everything I knew."

From CRash's quote, we see that he was on Eros for 20 years, and from this we can add another 50 for when he was in space. Though to him, it was only 28 years total.
 
Posted by Macery (Member # 8251) on :
 
http://print.google.com/print?id=tPWeGXw0XxgC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=turned+around&sig=FoC6A-z_dl-QbT_DTO_p17iJXto
 
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
 
I didn't know Google had one of those, too. I've been using Amazon's "Search inside the book" feature.
 
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
 
I was flipping through my copies and typing in what I found.... [Blushing]
 
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
 
I do that when I can find my copies...

Right now I'm loaning out both EG and ES, so I'm stuck with the Internet. It does have a better memory of where to find certain words than I do, which is nice. But I also like flipping through books. I did that on another thread with Investment Counselor today.
 
Posted by Macery (Member # 8251) on :
 
would have done that, but i try not to keep my books here at the office.
 
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
 
"Because in the eighty years since the last war, they've had as much time to prepare as we have."

So it's been 80 years since the second invasion, and it's reasonable to assume that they may have taken 10 years to prepare the fleet before they sent it off.

Also,

""We knew then that it was possible to communicate faster than light. That was seventy years ago,"

Of course, they couldn't have sent the fleet until they were equipped with ansibles, so if they were invented 70 years ago, that's probably when the first fleet departed.

And the most convincing piece of evidence,

"the ships have been traveling for seventy years--"

nuff said. Sorry for the lack of page references, but I found them all electronically
 
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
And you're 54 years old.
 
Posted by Sparky (Member # 8446) on :
 
Hm. I think it's thirty to thirty five. Or it might be fifty. But not 75. Too long.
 
Posted by Sparky (Member # 8446) on :
 
Hm. I think it's thirty to thirty five. Or it might be fifty. But not 75. Too long.
 
Posted by LB Bry (Member # 8309) on :
 
Its definitly 70 years since the FIRST ships left for the furthest planets...and then as they built new ships they sent them out to the closer planets so that they would all arrive at about the same time.
 
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
What amazes me is how all these numbers from Ender's Game are actually internally consistent [Smile]

Way to go, OSC!
 
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Yeah EG is internally consistent with itself... but not with the later stories.

AJ
 
Posted by Hamson (Member # 7808) on :
 
Spiffy Google thing, didn't know about that.
 


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