New member and new reader of OSC's work; a friend recently give me Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide as gifts.
Anyway, on my read through of Ender's Game, I was enjoying the book up until the final chapter, when something felt very wrong. I had trouble reconciling what the Hive Queen(s?) communicated with Ender with the preceding chapter.
The Hive Queen tells Ender that the First and Second invasions were basically a great big misunderstanding, and if only it had known that there were sentient beings being killed in those ships and colonies it would have called the whole thing off. We also know that the Hive Queen learned about human sentience sometime between the Second and Third Invasions. Also, at the end of Ender's it is implied, and later in Speaker it is explicitly stated, that the Hive Queen knew it could not beat Ender. Assuming the above is true, that presents some serious problems for the description of the game that was not a game.
During the Third Invasion, the buggers resist the human fleet, killing more humans in the process. Now, against a human opponent, such a reaction is understandable as the issue of survival is at stake. However, no such existential threat exists for the buggers until the final battle. Up until then, it is simply the human fleet trying to trim the buggers' toenails. The nature of space travel means that those human ships that survive battles in anything except the buggers' home system are not going to be a threat for years to come, so destroying them is not a high priority, especially if the Hive Queens can be relocated. So, why shoot back in situations where a Hive Queen is not present?
Another problem; the notion that the Hive Queens have no way to communicate with Ender (not read his mind, but convey a message) is false. They have a very direct means of communication: the battles. If the Hive Queen knows that it cannot win the war, and the lives of the buggers on those ships are not intrinsically valuable, why not send a message to Ender by not behaving as if it is a battle? Recreate scenarios that Ender clearly remembers from Battle School. Line up the bugger fleet to echo Ender's practice of showing respect to the opposing team. Do something other than fight so that Ender thinks something is messed up with the computer and starts looking deeper.
Instead, the Hive Queen takes every opportunity in the Third Invasion to take as many human beings down with her. This leads me to believe that the Hive Queen knowingly and willfully committed murder. In order for me to reconcile "Ender's Teacher" with "Speaker for the Dead," I have to conclude that the Hive Queen lied to Ender. However, I don't see that solution playing out in the next two books. There was a possibility in Speaker when Ender entertained the possibility that the cocooned Hive Queen wasn't telling him the truth. However, that would mean that the Bible of Ender's humanist religion is based on a lie. Yet, through the scientific method of reading the back cover of the next book, that doesn't look like a plot twist that's coming down the pipe.
So, am I crazy? Did I miss something in Ender's Game? Keep reading and all will be revealed? Or is the Hive Queen acting out of character during the Third Invasion?
Posted by Catseye1979 (Member # 5560) on :
In a war you defend yourself, and just because it wasn't a queen at risk dosen't mean that the buggers on the ships and the other worlds weren't valuble. If someone was trying to cut off my arms I'd resist.
And for a race that has no experiance in outward communication they did the best they could figure out. I'm sure the remaining HIve Queen looking back could see lots that could've been done different, but the buggers did the best that they could do with what they knew at the time.
Also remember that the Hive Queen that Ender found is not the Hive Queen(s)that conducted the war, she was a baby that was given the memories of the other Queens and hidden to save them from complete destruction. The ones who conducted the war might not have even agreed with what to do.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
The work if OSC had established that the killing of drone buggers was still traumatic to the Hive Queens. However, in Speaker, it's stated that killing drones is simply another means of communication:
"The buggers had casually killed human beings, but only because they had a hive mind; to them, individual life was as precious as nail parings, and killing a human or two was simply their way of letting us know they were in the neighborhood." (Speaker, 37-38)
Also, as far as I've read, nowhere has the death of a bugger been equated to something akin to amputation. OSC always compares buggers to something that's easily replaceable. (I haven't even seen them compared to hair, as people can grow bald)
The idea that there was discord among the Hive Queens and that the Hive Queen Ender found was of the pacifist camp has some possibility, but it also has problems. If there was disagreement, Ender should have had a subset of his battles where the computer seemed to have gone stupid. Plus, it's likely that within a telepathic species that disagreement doesn't exist. Again, from Speaker we have the following:
"In all our life, you are the first person we've known who wasn't ourself. We never had to be understanding because we always understood. Now that we are just this single self, you are the only eyes and arms and legs we have." (Speaker, 70)
Reading that, I'm not seeing a space for disagreement in Hive Queen society.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
So you're suggesting that the Hive Queens should have let the humans wipe out all of their colonies and not bothered resisting until the fleet was at their home world? That doesn't make much sense to me. It's like not trying to eliminate cancer until it's on the verge of spreading to a vital organ.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Except, again, the Hive Queens knew that they would lose to Ender. So military resistance, in their minds, should have been nothing more than an exercise in futility. Also, there was no massed fleet. All of those ships were sent to different planets at different times so that they would all roughly end up at their locations within a few months of each other. Preventing the fall of any outpost would have no effect on the buggers' ability to defend the Hive Queens. So, the question is not should they have let the humans wipe out all their colonies: that was going to happen whether they fought Ender or not. The question is should they have put their resources to use finding an exit from the war.
Also, there is no reasoning with cancer. Cancer is not an intelligent being. The comparison would hold only if the Hive Queens remained oblivious to human sentience.
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
You've got an interesting perspective I hadn't considered, J. It doesn't make perfect sense, you're right...but I'd answer that Hive Queens don't think the same way we do. Maybe that's where the disconnect is.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: Except, again, the Hive Queens knew that they would lose to Ender. So military resistance, in their minds, should have been nothing more than an exercise in futility.
Who doesn't bother fighting if their life is on the line just because they don't think they can win? As Graff explained to Ender, evolution doesn't produce species that are capable of simply letting themselves be destroyed.
quote: Also, there was no massed fleet. All of those ships were sent to different planets at different times so that they would all roughly end up at their locations within a few months of each other. Preventing the fall of any outpost would have no effect on the buggers' ability to defend the Hive Queens. So, the question is not should they have let the humans wipe out all their colonies: that was going to happen whether they fought Ender or not. The question is should they have put their resources to use finding an exit from the war.
But why would they want humans to destroy their homes and box them in on one planet? Again, who wouldn't resist that, even if it seemed futile? What did they have to lose by fighting back? I'm pretty sure the humans were going to wipe them out regardless.
quote: Also, there is no reasoning with cancer. Cancer is not an intelligent being. The comparison would hold only if the Hive Queens remained oblivious to human sentience.
The Hive Queens were trying their asses off to communicate with Ender. They were no more successful than if they [i]had[/b] been trying to communicate with cancer. Being aware of human sentience isn't much help when they couldn't find a way to talk to us.
I think that the Buggers were fully justified in fighting tooth and nail for every one of their worlds, and humans were equally justified in launching a fleet to destroy them.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
But my argument is that they did not try their asses off to communicate with Ender; they ignored the most straight forward means of communication they had at their disposal. It comes down to the following: the Hive Queens had to choose between communication and fighting. They chose to fight. Fine. I can understand that choice. However, given that choice, I cannot accept the Kumbaya message they leave for Ender. There is a serious disconnect at the end of EG in this respect.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon:
quote: Also, there is no reasoning with cancer. Cancer is not an intelligent being. The comparison would hold only if the Hive Queens remained oblivious to human sentience.
The Hive Queens were trying their asses off to communicate with Ender. They were no more successful than if they [i]had[/b] been trying to communicate with cancer. Being aware of human sentience isn't much help when they couldn't find a way to talk to us.
But as J pointed out, the Hive Queen could have directly communicated with Ender through the simulation but chose not to.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
How does a species that has never had to resort to anything but direct mind-to-mind communication even recognize what we who aren't blessed with telepathy would consider "straightforward" communication? Besides, who ever said that the Queens were aware of the battles that he fought in Battle School? They knew about what he saw in the fantasy game because that was something more personal, and the bridge that they built to Ender's mind/aiua (Jane) became attached to that program as well. That wouldn't give them knowledge of what occurred in the battle room.
I think that they were trying their best, but they weren't about to sit there and let there workers and colonies be destroyed while they worked it out.
quote:It comes down to the following: the Hive Queens had to choose between communication and fighting. They chose to fight.
The whole point is that they were trying both all the while knowing that they were probably equally futile, but what else could they do?
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
It's straightforward in that it's a means of communication that is intrinsic to corporeal existence: physical interaction. Now, if the buggers were actually energy beings or purely spiritual entities or whathaveyou, where contact with matter occurs only through accident, then I would admit that my suspension of disbelief is sufficient to the task of accepting creatures for which said interaction is completely meaningless and even unknown. The buggers, unfortunately, including the Hive Queens, do possess bodies that are very much physical. Plus, there's the fact that they are aware enough of this physical interaction to modify their strategies to cope with such things as Dr. Device. If they know enough to learn from interaction, then they possess all they need to be aware of the potential for communication through it. Yes, there is a threshold at which the alien-ness of a creature cannot be used to justify contradictions in their behavior.
And the bugger's knew a surprising amount about Ender, not just limited to the fantasy program. They knew he was a military genius, they knew that he didn't know the simulations were real, they knew that he was being used as a tool. When they admit to knowledge that is outside the scope of a single program, it indicates to me a much more pervasive access to Ender's life experiences. But you're right, they might have been ignorant of the battle school. So what? That just means they might have to be an ounce more creative in coming up with a "don't shoot back" strategy.
quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon: The whole point is that they were trying both all the while knowing that they were probably equally futile, but what else could they do?
I think the answer to that is the point of this thread.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Most foolish of the Formids, in my opinion, was the fact that they put all queens on one planet. Why? Distance didnt matter in communication, so why? I think I found an explanation. Maybe they just wanted to lose and to leave one last hive queen to Ender, so he could find the way to reestablish their civilisation without (further) war. Queens knew what was coming (defending homeland was like an unconditional reflex.) and lost to stop the war, knowing perfectly well, that their civilisation still lasts with a single one hive queen. So they left it to him because they knew he'll do everything to undo his sins.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
JSchuler,
First of all, given later behavior by the Hive Queen, it would seem that her integrity is pretty solid. So we shouldn't necessarily start from the assumption that she is being duplicitous.
quote:During the Third Invasion, the buggers resist the human fleet, killing more humans in the process. Now, against a human opponent, such a reaction is understandable as the issue of survival is at stake. However, no such existential threat exists for the buggers until the final battle. Up until then, it is simply the human fleet trying to trim the buggers' toenails. The nature of space travel means that those human ships that survive battles in anything except the buggers' home system are not going to be a threat for years to come, so destroying them is not a high priority, especially if the Hive Queens can be relocated. So, why shoot back in situations where a Hive Queen is not present?
The problem with this reasoning is that even though the individual (as much as that term can apply to the workers) Formics weren't facing death, their culture still certainly was. The writing was definitely on the wall: humanity was going to keep coming and coming and coming until the Formics were all dead. It was a pattern of attack we were committed to at the time in that story, and would attempt to repeat more than once further down the line.
The human fleets weren't just 'trying to trim Formic toenails', they were (for an example) trying to snatch the food off the Formic plate. The Formics didn't colonize other planets for fun, after all. They needed the resources those planets provided, aside from strategic considerations.
quote:Another problem; the notion that the Hive Queens have no way to communicate with Ender (not read his mind, but convey a message) is false. They have a very direct means of communication: the battles. If the Hive Queen knows that it cannot win the war, and the lives of the buggers on those ships are not intrinsically valuable, why not send a message to Ender by not behaving as if it is a battle? Recreate scenarios that Ender clearly remembers from Battle School. Line up the bugger fleet to echo Ender's practice of showing respect to the opposing team. Do something other than fight so that Ender thinks something is messed up with the computer and starts looking deeper.
It's not false. Communicating through those battles would hardly be 'direct'. It's not as though the Formics could position their ships to spell words 'Humans, we come in peace!' or something. The communication going on between Ender and the Formics during those fights was of a much murkier sort.
As for knowing they couldn't win, just because someone knows they can't win in a life-or-death situation does not mean they won't try.
quote: Instead, the Hive Queen takes every opportunity in the Third Invasion to take as many human beings down with her. This leads me to believe that the Hive Queen knowingly and willfully committed murder. In order for me to reconcile "Ender's Teacher" with "Speaker for the Dead," I have to conclude that the Hive Queen lied to Ender. However, I don't see that solution playing out in the next two books. There was a possibility in Speaker when Ender entertained the possibility that the cocooned Hive Queen wasn't telling him the truth. However, that would mean that the Bible of Ender's humanist religion is based on a lie. Yet, through the scientific method of reading the back cover of the next book, that doesn't look like a plot twist that's coming down the pipe.
The first sentence is not remotely accurate. If you'll recall to the 'simulations' Ender endured under the false tutelage of Mazer Rackham, the battles he fought went something like this: Ender's forces arrived at a theater of battle, where the Formics could be found. I can't recall a single time when the situation was reversed.
Humanity was coming for the Formics, not the other way around.
quote:So, am I crazy? Did I miss something in Ender's Game? Keep reading and all will be revealed? Or is the Hive Queen acting out of character during the Third Invasion?
Yup, you missed something. You missed the notion that the Formics would automatically stop fighting just because they knew they couldn't win in a life-or-death struggle. You also missed the notion that if the Formics had somehow stopped fighting and tried some form of 'direct' communication with Ender, who might then back down...well, Ender wasn't the one in charge. He wasn't calling the shots. What if he did stop fighting? They would use a different, inferior commander - or Bean - and the cycle would continue.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Szymon: it wouldn't necessarily be foolish as the Hive Queens could control all of their drones anywhere in the galaxy from any point. Until the human fleet arrived, they really had no need to move anywhere. Of course, the fact that the Second Invasion included a Hive Queen throws that explanation out the window. But, I didn't want to get into the military tactics, as by that logic why the heck did the humans only send a handful of their oldest ships against the buggers' homeworld? Why not have the first demonstration of Dr. Device occur at a time when its successful utilization would be most decisive, instead of at some peripheral colony? Why not hit the homeworld first, an act which would eliminate the outposts as well? Lots of strategic errors all over the place, but I'm willing to forgive OSC on these; his skill and trade is not in planning successful military campaigns, it is in creating believable characters.
Rakeesh: So, if the Formics required those colonies for food, then they were already dead before Ender arrived at their homeworld. All the more reason to try to put a stop to the fighting early. Yes, it is irrational to pursue a hopeless military victory when there are other avenues to survival. By asserting that the only way to win a life-or-death struggle is to kill the other guy first, you are thinking very much "in the box." I'm not saying that they should give up all pursuit of self-preservation. I am saying that they should have pursued self-preservation in a means that fits with their character as described in the later books.
And yes, I recall the "simulations." I also recall that the Hive Queens first learned of the Third Invasion when a human fleet showed up at the doorstep of one of their colonies. I also recall that Ender's Game is not set in the Star Trek universe, and no one has warp drives, thus making it physically impossible for the buggers to ever go on the offensive. Thus, their only opportunities to take down human beings were determined by when the human fleets attacked. So, my sentence is very much accurate; opportunities that do not exist are not opportunities, and there were no opportunities for the buggers to go on the offensive.
As for if the humans would use a different commander if Ender and the buggers did manage to communicate, that is pure speculation. At no point in Ender's Game do we come across anyone who indicates that they are dead set on the destruction of the Formics no matter what. Grazz and Mazer both point out that the lack of communication and the uncertainty in the buggers' intention that it engenders is why they are conducting the Third Invasion, and they're the closest insights we have to the thinking of the military. There is a lot of room in which to maneuver on the human side for peace to be worked out. In the end, it could play out as you describe, but nothing in the book makes that outcome predetermined.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: Szymon: it wouldn't necessarily be foolish as the Hive Queens could control all of their drones anywhere in the galaxy from any point. Until the human fleet arrived, they really had no need to move anywhere. Of course, the fact that the Second Invasion included a Hive Queen throws that explanation out the window. But, I didn't want to get into the military tactics, as by that logic why the heck did the humans only send a handful of their oldest ships against the buggers' homeworld? Why not have the first demonstration of Dr. Device occur at a time when its successful utilization would be most decisive, instead of at some peripheral colony? Why not hit the homeworld first, an act which would eliminate the outposts as well? Lots of strategic errors all over the place, but I'm willing to forgive OSC on these; his skill and trade is not in planning successful military campaigns, it is in creating believable characters.
These points have been explained as well. There was a Queen with the second invasion because they were looking to colonize, and a Queen needs to actually be there to get things started. The older ships were sent to the home world because it was the most distant target, so if the the third invasion was to be pulled off as a synchronized assault, the ships sent there would have to leave decades before the ships sent to the closer (to Earth) colonies. Also, I doubt that the humans knew that all the Queens would be on the home world, so they may not have even known that the decisive battle would take place there. Had they known that the Bugger's defensive strategy was to gather all the Queens there and concentrate the vast majority of their defenses to protect them, the third invasion might have been designed differently. There would have been no point in sending fleets anywhere but the home world. Then again, do we know that there weren't Queens on the colony worlds? They could have been found and killed after each battle.
Why not hit the home world with the M.D. device first? Don't you remember the response Ender got when he asked about blowing up the planet? The guys in charge didn't necessarily want to destroy the planet. It was a last resort. Notice that they didn't tell Ender that his objective in that "simulation" was to use the M.D. device on the planet. When Ender brought it up, they got uncomfortable and reminded him that the Buggers never knowingly attack a civilian target. In fact, Ender considered it to be "against the rules" to destroy the planet. It really was just a last resort.
quote: Yes, it is irrational to pursue a hopeless military victory when there are other avenues to survival.
I don't think that you've named a viable one yet, and you have the advantage of being able to think like a human.
quote: As for if the humans would use a different commander if Ender and the buggers did manage to communicate, that is pure speculation. At no point in Ender's Game do we come across anyone who indicates that they are dead set on the destruction of the Formics no matter what.
I thought that "Ender's Shadow" made it clear that Bean was on deck to take over if Ender was no longer able to perform for any reason. They weren't going to stop the invasion half way. As far as they knew that would have been suicide. Having still not achieved communication with the Buggers, they had to assume that if they left them with any capacity to retaliate they'd wipe us out. (Just like what would have happened to Ender if he'd left Stilson or Bonzo with any capacity to retaliate).
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
The idea that the Hive Queen would of been able to communicate to Ender through the battles doesn't make sense at all. The Hive Queen was trying its first attempt at communication with another sentient being in its attempts to contact Ender the only way they knew how and that was through his dreams. Then once they realized the idea of communication through physical interaction they only could get idea from the connection made with Ender's memory.
Even more so, there is no sensible way that even if the Formics didn't fight that Ender would take that as a sign. He would of thought (probably with some relief) that Mazer was giving him a break for the day and to have some fun killing enemies. Even if they took some formation from Ender's time at battle school, he could not be able to tell that it was a message. He though he was playing a game and therefore the Bugger's could not possible communicate with him through it.
Therefore she decided that if she couldn't communicate with him, she was not going to let the civilization disappear without trying to prevent it. Therefore the Formics take three strategies. The first is trying to fight the war and see if they can save their civilization that way. Second they try to sabotage ender and go through his head to stop him from coming to kill them. (I believe that is said by the Hive Queen but I'm not certain.) After they learn that they can't stop him and that they can't go through Ender and control him, they decide to make it so their civilization can survive the attack by ender and get a Hive Queen to survive.
In the end it makes perfect sense why the Hive Queen would still fight since even though she knew that the Formics were going to lose, she also knew they could not succeed in stopping the war from continuing. Therefore she will still try just in case there is still a hope of not being killed.
Sorry about any grammatical errors in my writing. Its late at night.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
Another point that should be made about communicating with Ender is that he found the battle room horrible depressing, he hated it, and a Hive Queen would have realised this, steering clear as not to anger him. Also they were communicating, his "dreams" seeing buggers, trying to chew off his own hand, those were working, unfortuiantly not fast enough.
In what way did they not fit their charecter? Trying to communicate with Ender? Protecting themselves? Or do you not really understand their charecter beacuase you have not finished the series?
Also I would like to see yout try, using twenty ships, knowing full well i only can understand a random ancient language.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
JSchuler,
quote:Szymon: it wouldn't necessarily be foolish as the Hive Queens could control all of their drones anywhere in the galaxy from any point. Until the human fleet arrived, they really had no need to move anywhere. Of course, the fact that the Second Invasion included a Hive Queen throws that explanation out the window.
Maybe they wanted to eat directly special food grown on a planet. Maybe they liked 'breathing room'. You're not considering that just as there was no reason to move anywhere for the Formic Queens, there was no reason NOT to. And once there was a reason to move somewhere - defensive - they did so.
quote:But, I didn't want to get into the military tactics, as by that logic why the heck did the humans only send a handful of their oldest ships against the buggers' homeworld? Why not have the first demonstration of Dr. Device occur at a time when its successful utilization would be most decisive, instead of at some peripheral colony? Why not hit the homeworld first, an act which would eliminate the outposts as well? Lots of strategic errors all over the place, but I'm willing to forgive OSC on these; his skill and trade is not in planning successful military campaigns, it is in creating believable characters.
Mighty generous of you to forgive OSC those 'errors', especially since nothing you've posted here suggests a greater understanding of military thinking than he has.
Case in point: it was explained why they sent their oldest fleets against the most distant targets: necessity. As soon as they could after the invasions, they launched a counterattack. Naturally as time passed technology improved, so ships could travel faster and reach certain nearer targets sooner despite having left later.
That was made quite obvious in the book. Explicitly explained, in fact.
As for why they didn't use Dr. Device at some 'strategic' time, it was because the policy was eradication, not just victory. The strategy was killing all of the Formics, not forcing a surrender.
Hitting the homeworld first was not possible given humanity's perceived needs and limitations at the time: an immediate counterattack, the distance to the homeworld, and the inferiority of the earliest technology of the counter-invasions.
And attacking the homeworld first would not have eliminated the Formics, because the Formics didn't have their all queens at the homeworld to start with, or if they did humanity had no way of knowing it.
quote:So, if the Formics required those colonies for food, then they were already dead before Ender arrived at their homeworld.
This is not quite what I meant. The Formic race did not need that food to surive, and if they lost it they would all die. The 'Formic Empire' for lack of a better term, though, DID. They didn't colonize those planets for fun.
quote:Yes, it is irrational to pursue a hopeless military victory when there are other avenues to survival.
It was not clear that there were other avenues to survival. You say there were, but your reasoning is not rock-solid to say the least. And anyway, there's always hope. It's unclear when the Formics decided there was no hope. Presumably it happened at some point after Ender actually started attacking them-and by then it was too late.
quote:I am saying that they should have pursued self-preservation in a means that fits with their character as described in the later books.
And they did. Their war was defensive. Just because they made a sincere, non-malicious mistake that started the war by no means obligated them to cede their holdings entirely to humanity. And they could have launched counter-attacks against humanity's one little planet, but they didn't, did they?
Once they knew they understood something of what started the war, they stopped attacking.
quote:I also recall that Ender's Game is not set in the Star Trek universe, and no one has warp drives, thus making it physically impossible for the buggers to ever go on the offensive.
Wrong. Stick a queen in a fleet, send that fleet to Earth. That would definitely be the offensive.
quote:At no point in Ender's Game do we come across anyone who indicates that they are dead set on the destruction of the Formics no matter what. Grazz and Mazer both point out that the lack of communication and the uncertainty in the buggers' intention that it engenders is why they are conducting the Third Invasion, and they're the closest insights we have to the thinking of the military.
Did you skip the part where humanity's military and political leadership tricked Ender into destroying the Formic homeworld, JSchuler? At several points it is clear xenocide was intended.
You need to re-read the story, this time while consciously questioning your assumptions.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
neo-dragon: Point taken on the older ships. However, it could have still been arranged for them to arrive at the homeworld before any other fleet. Even if they did not know how many queens were on that planet, the likelihood was it would be the largest concentration, and thus represented the most important C&C target in the war. Of course, you'll also notice that I did not, in my post, say that Dr. Device should have been used on the planet; if the homeworld was likely to have a large population of queens, it was at least as likely to have the largest concentration of ships. Eliminating the homeworld fleet would leave humans in command of the homeworld. What happes from there depends on whether genocide was actually the goal to begin with, or whether you want to find some way to create a treaty.
It was also rather interesting to see the notion of civilian applied to a race such as the buggers. When you consider that killing the generals must result in the killing of the entirety of the population, civilian seems to be a ill-applied human concept. I took it as simply another statement that showed how no one else besides Ender understood the buggers.
And the means of communication I have identified is a whole lot more viable than messing around with dreams, where you have no idea what the symbols actually mean. A battle field is much better, with an already established language of violence and fewer variables, and it's certainly offers a more certain means of showing that you do not war. Besides, somehow through battle the humans were able to communicate to the buggers that humans were intelligent. You can't have communication occur through a medium and then claim later that such communication is unthinkable.
Instead, what the buggers attempted was little different than trying to communicate with bats through bright, flashing lights. If they didn't know that, then I assert that they are too unimaginative or oblivious to have ever figured out spaceflight. I do expect intelligent species to exhibit some intelligence.
Geekazoid99: But the idea that a species would have only a single way to communicate requires a construction so simplistic that it would be hard to describe it as intelligent. As long as an intelligent species possesses a sensory organ, it requires a very good excuse to explain why that species never thought to use it to communicate. Like with neo-dragon's argument, this implies a species so woefully lacking in imagination that you have to wonder how they ever got out of orbit.
And the sensible way for Ender to take these strange occurances as a sign is that he has an empathetic ability that borders on the superhuman. He's supposedly a genius, and it would have been nice for him to have had an opportunity to act like one in the book.
And does OSC ever explain how the Hive Queen knew that Ender would go to that particular planet? If I recall, during the Third Invasion Ender was expecting to go home, and Valentine was the one who picked their destination while Ender was busy learning to be a mechanic. If communication through fighting is such a long shot as not worth attempting, I'd hate to calculate the odds of the plan the Hive Queens ultimately decided on succeeding.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Maybe they wanted to eat directly special food grown on a planet. Maybe they liked 'breathing room'. You're not considering that just as there was no reason to move anywhere for the Formic Queens, there was no reason NOT to. And once there was a reason to move somewhere - defensive - they did so.
Ok, I'm going to ask you. Why is anyone attempting to argue with me on this point, when all I stated was that it would not be irrational for a hive mind, that is not limited by light speed communication, to stay on their homeworld? Why do I have a couple people arguing with me as if I stated that the buggers were stupid for sending Hive Queens across the galaxy?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Case in point: it was explained why they sent their oldest fleets against the most distant targets: necessity.
Yes, it was. So why are you wasting time writing it again before I'd even responded?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: As for why they didn't use Dr. Device at some 'strategic' time, it was because the policy was eradication, not just victory. The strategy was killing all of the Formics, not forcing a surrender.
Which explains why Mazer did not state that the planet was the objective, and which still does not explain why you show all of your cards at the first available opportunity.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Hitting the homeworld first was not possible given humanity's perceived needs and limitations at the time: an immediate counterattack, the distance to the homeworld, and the inferiority of the earliest technology of the counter-invasions.
An immediate counterattack was impossible, given the non-existence of warp drives. The question is was giving the fleet a few more years to be put together worth adding 5% more time to the ETA.
As for the rest, read my last post.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It's unclear when the Formics decided there was no hope. Presumably it happened at some point after Ender actually started attacking them-and by then it was too late.
And to think that at the end of this you're going to tell me to re-read the book:
"As if in answer, he saw the first of all his battles with bugger fleets... He felt then what the hive-queen felt, watching through her workers' eyes as death came to them too quickly to avoid, but not too quickly to be anticipated. There was no memory of pain or fear, though. What the hive-queen felt was sadness, a sense of resignation. She had not thought these words as she saw the humans coming to kill, but it was in words that Ender understood her: The humans did not forgive us, she thought. We will surely die." (319-320).
Tell you what, if you don't mock me for forgetting a sentence in the book, I won't mock you for forgetting a paragraph. Deal?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Just because they made a sincere, non-malicious mistake that started the war by no means obligated them to cede their holdings entirely to humanity.
I do love how everything must be all or nothing. Here I am, arguing that the Hive Queens never attempted to communicate with Ender with the most straight forward means at their disposal, and suddenly I find myself arguing that the entire "Empire" must be handed over. And yet, all I can really think of is some ancient Greek that kept talking about a golden mean.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: And they could have launched counter-attacks against humanity's one little planet, but they didn't, did they?
Well, now you have logistics to consider. Did the buggers' Second Invasion happen because a Hive Queen woke up one morning and decided that today would be a great day to fly sixty light years away, or did it take years or even decades to put together? If it requires significant effort to put together, then, seeing as how the Third Invasion was no more than three years long (I'm being very generous here, as Ender leaves Battle School at nine and the next time we find out his age the war is over, Earth's at peace and he's 12), it's likely that anything the buggers sent would be annihilated without much trouble when it arrived sixty years later. Again, though, we don't really know what their capabilities are.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Wrong. Stick a queen in a fleet, send that fleet to Earth. That would definitely be the offensive.
Wow. Considering my statement was in response to why we didn't see the buggers on the offensive during any of the simulations, this would mean that the bugger homeworld was less than three light years away. So, why not send the new ships?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Did you skip the part where humanity's military and political leadership tricked Ender into destroying the Formic homeworld, JSchuler? At several points it is clear xenocide was intended.
Is that the part where they leave it up to Ender to decide whether the planet should be destroyed or not?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: You need to re-read the story, this time while consciously questioning your assumptions.
I had no assumptions when I read it a few days ago. I uncritically accepted everything I was told until the final few pages. That's why I'm here.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Remember that Formics had many more than one planet inhabited. So the fact that ALL queens were on their homeland means that they flew there deliberatly. It was indispencible for them to have at least one queen on a planet- simply to have an ability to create more workers- fighters. Either they werent aware of the vast power -which, by the way, they should have been, for its been used against them at least once - of DrDevice or they wanted to die. The first alternative also includes an option that they could not imagine someone attacking their queen. But I dont belive it.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
JSchuler,
quote:Ok, I'm going to ask you. Why is anyone attempting to argue with me on this point, when all I stated was that it would not be irrational for a hive mind, that is not limited by light speed communication, to stay on their homeworld? Why do I have a couple people arguing with me as if I stated that the buggers were stupid for sending Hive Queens across the galaxy?
Because it would have been irrational. Prior to their discovery of humanity, the Formics thought they were alone in the universe. It would be highly irrational to put all their eggs in one basket by keeping all the Hive Queens on their homeworld.
Disaster could strike in the form of plague, natural disaster, meteor strike, massive earthquakes, all sorts of things. Dangers which are mitigated (towards the species as a whole) if the Hive Queens are dispersed.
quote:Yes, it was. So why are you wasting time writing it again before I'd even responded?
Because you seem to have missed that part. It certainly didn't play any role in your initial analysis.
quote:Which explains why Mazer did not state that the planet was the objective, and which still does not explain why you show all of your cards at the first available opportunity.
Given Ender's mood at the time, do you imagine that he would have attacked the planet if Mazer told him to? He was instructed not to attack the planet. You remember why he did, right? Defiance.
As for showing all of their cards at the first opportunity, it bears mentioning that this final campaign in the war didn't take very long at all. It was a series of battles led by Ender that lasted...what, weeks? Months, maybe? Insufficient time to strategically respond to Dr. Device.
quote:An immediate counterattack was impossible, given the non-existence of warp drives. The question is was giving the fleet a few more years to be put together worth adding 5% more time to the ETA.
Why do you keep bringing up warp drives? It's kind of odd.
Anyway, since you're being so particular, I'll amend to 'the immediate launching of a counterattack', alright? And to answer your question about '5% more time' (how do you know that, anyway?), clearly humanity's leadership didn't think so. But then, they neglected to consult your strategic genius:)
quote:Tell you what, if you don't mock me for forgetting a sentence in the book, I won't mock you for forgetting a paragraph. Deal?
Very gracious of you:) OK, so it's established when the Formics felt defeat was inevitable. That was still a very short time before their near-annihilation, remember. And they didn't discover how to communicate with Ender until well after that fact as well.
So, re-read the book but like I said: question your assumptions. (Incidentally I did remember that paragraph, though not precisely-I was just not sure when in the timeline the Formics felt that way. And it remains unclear, since we don't know how long that final campaign took)
quote:Here I am, arguing that the Hive Queens never attempted to communicate with Ender with the most straight forward means at their disposal, and suddenly I find myself arguing that the entire "Empire" must be handed over.
It's baffling that you insist you understand what the Hive Queens would regard as 'most straightforward'. They did try to communicate with Ender in the most straightforward means they knew of: the way they spoke to each other.
quote:Well, now you have logistics to consider. Did the buggers' Second Invasion happen because a Hive Queen woke up one morning and decided that today would be a great day to fly sixty light years away, or did it take years or even decades to put together? If it requires significant effort to put together, then, seeing as how the Third Invasion was no more than three years long (I'm being very generous here, as Ender leaves Battle School at nine and the next time we find out his age the war is over, Earth's at peace and he's 12), it's likely that anything the buggers sent would be annihilated without much trouble when it arrived sixty years later. Again, though, we don't really know what their capabilities are.
Yes, we don't know what their capabilities are-something you should remember. But we do know that they had an enormous remainder of ships at the last fight, the one over their homeworld.
The point is they didn't try. Your analysis that they were trying to take as many humans with them as they could is therefore incorrect.
quote:Wow. Considering my statement was in response to why we didn't see the buggers on the offensive during any of the simulations, this would mean that the bugger homeworld was less than three light years away. So, why not send the new ships?
I don't understand what you mean. Three light years from where? The other planet of battle? That was another destination reached by slightly less inferior ships.
quote:I had no assumptions when I read it a few days ago. I uncritically accepted everything I was told until the final few pages. That's why I'm here.
*shrug* Alright. But you've been posting an awful lot about your (flawed) assumptions.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
My method of communication would be to have a ship like shoot clearly wide in a pattern, or like 2 times, then 3 then 5 then 7 (prime numbers). At every battle ground you have one ship assigned to do this.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
I think we are all missing the clear point here.
welcome to hatrack JSchuler, your wrong.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
Also, they did try to communicate in exactly the way you are saying they should. Do you remember the final battle? They didn't attack, they didn't defend, they just waited and wanted to see what they would do.
And guess what, they all died, seems like your aguement went down the hole.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'm not sure where the idea comes from that the Formics should have tried some other method of communication, and because they didn't must mean they were 'out of character'.
They tried to communicate with Ender by talking to him, the only way they knew how. Humanity were their first aliens, too.
Posted by Steve_G (Member # 10101) on :
What would Ender have thought when the simulation he was playing started acting weird ie trying to communicate with him? He'd of thought Rackham was screwing with him once again or that the computer was hopelessly stupid and not very random and he could beat it with his eyes closed.
By the way JSchuler welcome to hatrack. I like to see discussion of this sort (even if its wrong)
One thing I always thought was odd was the fatalistic attitude of the buggers. My money would have been on the buggers for the last battle given the stacked odds. The buggers had a fighting chance and had to know that the humans were spread extremely thin.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Rakeesh: The problem is, the dreams were not the only means of communication they knew:
"The buggers had casually killed human beings, but only because they had a hive mind; to them, individual life was as precious as nail parings, and killing a human or two was simply their way of letting us know they were in the neighborhood." (Speaker, 37-38)
The fact is, the buggers were not alien enough to overlook physical interaction. They knew it was a form of communication, and the First Invasion was their first message. Not only was it their first message, but once they knew the nature of the beings they were dealing with, they had the imagination to know why humans responded as they did: "We are like you; the thought pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again."
So, there are the two of the three necessary and sufficient conditions for communication: awareness of a medium and the ability to understand how signals may be received. The third condition, a means to send a message, is provided by the human attack.
Xann: You may very well be correct that I'm not getting the Hive Queens because I haven't read all the books. But I'm going to play anyway, because so far I'm not getting hit by surprising facts from books I have not read.
Also, I remember the final battle: "The enemy, far from trying to repel him, welcomed him in, so he could be thoroughly entrapped before they destroyed him... Finally the enemy began to close in on him too tightly... But now they were on the far side of one of the enemy's most formidable groups; they had, with terrible losses, passed through..."
For some reason I don't think that Ender's fleet would take "terrible losses" from an enemy that didn't attack or defend.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
But Rackham and the other generals would realize something was going on. And Ender could view it as an extra challenge- what would a general do if the enemy started trying to communicate, possibly surrender? That's a fair question I would ask of future generals.
Posted by Xann. (Member # 11482) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler:
Also, I remember the final battle: "The enemy, far from trying to repel him, welcomed him in, so he could be thoroughly entrapped before they destroyed him... Finally the enemy began to close in on him too tightly... But now they were on the far side of one of the enemy's most formidable groups; they had, with terrible losses, passed through..."
For some reason I don't think that Ender's fleet would take "terrible losses" from an enemy that didn't attack or defend.
You left out the entire part where Ender tricked them by weaving around without trying to seem he wasn't heading to the planet. And that they did not start attacking until they realised his plan, and that they were too late even then.
If they meant to attack him, they would have just sent a couple ships to desroy him. They tried, to communicate that they were unbeatable, but failed.
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: Rakeesh: The problem is, the dreams were not the only means of communication they knew:
"The buggers had casually killed human beings, but only because they had a hive mind; to them, individual life was as precious as nail parings, and killing a human or two was simply their way of letting us know they were in the neighborhood." (Speaker, 37-38)
The fact is, the buggers were not alien enough to overlook physical interaction. They knew it was a form of communication, and the First Invasion was their first message. Not only was it their first message, but once they knew the nature of the beings they were dealing with, they had the imagination to know why humans responded as they did: "We are like you; the thought pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again."
So, there are the two of the three necessary and sufficient conditions for communication: awareness of a medium and the ability to understand how signals may be received. The third condition, a means to send a message, is provided by the human attack.
But they were missing a very crucial 4th condition. That the humans would listen to the message.
quote: "As if in answer, he saw the first of all his battles with bugger fleets... He felt then what the hive-queen felt, watching through her workers' eyes as death came to them too quickly to avoid, but not too quickly to be anticipated. There was no memory of pain or fear, though. What the hive-queen felt was sadness, a sense of resignation. She had not thought these words as she saw the humans coming to kill, but it was in words that Ender understood her: The humans did not forgive us, she thought. We will surely die." (319-320).
This quote that you used clearly shows that Formics believed that the humans were fully bent on destroying them. Based on you other quotes, they had figured out how the fact that every human was their own individual after the Second Invasion. Yet at that time they had not yet figure out how to communicate with them so they were trying anything.
Your idea that they would communicate in the battle doesn't make sense in the fact it would be a very stupid move military standpoint. They had no idea how their message would be perceived because they had not yet figured out fully our forms of communication just that each of us was an individual. Therefore their attempt at communication that they use is their Main Form of communication which is talking through the mind. Even more so based on your quote above, their only other form of communicating was killing which gives no proof that they knew how to fully communicate physically.
Also just a note on this
quote: Geekazoid99: But the idea that a species would have only a single way to communicate requires a construction so simplistic that it would be hard to describe it as intelligent. As long as an intelligent species possesses a sensory organ, it requires a very good excuse to explain why that species never thought to use it to communicate. Like with neo-dragon's argument, this implies a species so woefully lacking in imagination that you have to wonder how they ever got out of orbit.
First of all if you can communicate entirely through thought it would be very easy to see any type of external sensory organ becoming mostly vestigial from lack of use. Why would a species need to use more than one from if that one form could work for all? The only reason we as humans don't only use speech for communication is that we have many dialects and the language can't go very far. The language of the Formics is entirely internal, understood by all of their race (the only one they know until they meet the humans) and can be used to communicate interstellar distances. Why would they need any other form to communicate? Also of course this species lacks imagination, Its a hive mind and therefore their is only one opinion. You can't have a vast imagination being the only thing that can think that you know of.
Second and really just a side point: I consider the fact that the Formics developed space-flight even though they only had a hive minded community to be very simple proof that they must have existed as a culture and species much longer than we have. I know there are other proofs to this as well but this just gives another one.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xann.: You left out the entire part where Ender tricked them by weaving around without trying to seem he wasn't heading to the planet. And that they did not start attacking until they realised his plan, and that they were too late even then.
I left that part out because it isn't in Ender's Game. There's no tricking of the Bugger fleet. Ender simply uses a seemingly random pattern to maneuver closer to the planet, trying to avoid being trapped. The buggers were engaging him the entire time.
As for why they didn't send ships out to meet him, remember that they are fighting in a gravity well. Thus, Ender held the high ground.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: But they were missing a very crucial 4th condition. That the humans would listen to the message.
That condition applies to Ender's dreams as well. Be aware that if this is what your argument hinges upon, that the buggers did not believe that humans would listen, it transforms their intrusion into Ender's dreams into a form of psychological warfare (which it seems was being effective, who knows how long Ender could have lasted if the war dragged on). That just accentuates the disconnect between "Ender's Teacher" and "Speaker for the Dead."
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: Yet at that time they had not yet figure out how to communicate with them so they were trying anything./[quote] No, they weren't. That's the entire problem I'm having.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Geekazoid99: Your idea that they would communicate in the battle doesn't make sense in the fact it would be a very stupid move military standpoint.
From a military standpoint their outer colonies were lost causes, being that they are likely to be the least developed and they are receiving the newest human ships in the greatest concentrations. Also, from a military standpoint, battles that occur forty years away are not important when the war is going to be decided in a year. From a military standpoint, the elimination of these colonies was far more important to human beings, who did not know that every hive queen was on the homeworld and which wanted to eliminate the bugger threat, than their preservation was to the buggers who would never be able to use their ships to reinforce their homeworld and would never again have to face the surviving human ships. Thus, why waste those resources pursuing worthless military victories?
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: They had no idea how their message would be perceived because they had not yet figured out fully our forms of communication just that each of us was an individual. Therefore their attempt at communication that they use is their Main Form of communication which is talking through the mind. Even more so based on your quote above, their only other form of communicating was killing which gives no proof that they knew how to fully communicate physically.
So, in other words. A Hive Queen finds a person on the street, and begins talking to him. The conversation continues, rather one sidedly, until she finds out that the person she's talking to is deaf. Upon realizing this, the Hive Queen's solution is to talk louder. You're doing a very good job at demonstrating that the Hive Queens really aren't intelligent at all. Cockroaches have been around for much longer than we have, and yet I don't see them building rockets.
Also, in the event you didn't know, killing happens to be a very physical activity. Just FYI.
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: First of all if you can communicate entirely through thought it would be very easy to see any type of external sensory organ becoming mostly vestigial from lack of use.
Except, of course, that the Hive Queens used the sensory organs of their drones to perceive the world. See, you're thinking of the Hive Queens as these beings of pure thought. They aren't. They're simply the brain of a massive organism, and like every brain, they must receive data from physical sensors to perceive the world. Those sensory organs are very much active, while their telepathy is there to let them aggregate the data. Really, the only difference between humans and buggers is that buggers see through a million more eyes than we do, touch through a million more hands, and hear through a million more ears.
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: Why would a species need to use more than one from if that one form could work for all? The only reason we as humans don't only use speech for communication is that we have many dialects and the language can't go very far. The language of the Formics is entirely internal, understood by all of their race (the only one they know until they meet the humans) and can be used to communicate interstellar distances. Why would they need any other form to communicate?
Sorry, "telepathy" is not an argument, not when there are cases showing that buggers do communicate through other means. In order to claim the above, you are stating that there are errors in the Ender's series, that as written the Hive Queen is inconsistent. In which case, welcome to my side, nice to have you on the team.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:So, in other words. A Hive Queen finds a person on the street, and begins talking to him. The conversation continues, rather one sidedly, until she finds out that the person she's talking to is deaf. Upon realizing this, the Hive Queen's solution is to talk louder. You're doing a very good job at demonstrating that the Hive Queens really aren't intelligent at all. Cockroaches have been around for much longer than we have, and yet I don't see them building rockets.
I don't know... I see the analogy more like, trying to explain to an angry deaf man that you deliberately punched him in the face twice before because you didn't realize he was actually a person, all the while he's madly swinging a machete at you. But even that's easier than what the Hive Queens had to do because presumably you and the deaf man will have some shared knowledge of visual cues and gestures. ie. putting you hands up would be recognized as a sign of surrender. Humans and Hive Queens, on the other hand, had absolutely no common medium through which to communicate.
Besides, the Queens did more than just "talk louder", as you put it. As is explained in "Xenocide", they tried to make a "bridge" to Ender's mind. To continue the metaphor, they tried to build the deaf man a hearing aid.
quote:Sorry, "telepathy" is not an argument, not when there are cases showing that buggers do communicate through other means.
I must be slipping, because I can't recall any examples of Buggers communicating non-philoticly...
Hypothetical situation: let's turn this around. If during the second invasion humans had figured out why Buggers were attacking us, how would we have told them to stop, bearing in mind that they have no verbal, written, or tactile language?
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Ah, neo-dragon, it would be nice for you to recall my posts, for I quote an instance where they do communicate non-philoticly. I've quoted it a couple times, in fact.
But maybe that one instance is not enough for you. Very well, I shall give you millions of cases. For the buggers most definitely have some form of written, or tactile language (I'm scratching verbal as I remember that it was a sense they apparently lacked). You forget that they have indeed been communicating with non-philotic entities for several millennia. In fact, this entity would serve as a very useful basis for communications with humans, because humans have also had to learn to communicate with it, long before the buggers were even known. I am, of course, talking about machines. The buggers pilot ships. At some point, the buggers must be able to tell those ships what to do, and to receive input from the ships as to what is being done and what is happening around them.
Sometimes in books, it is what is not stated that is most interesting. In all the discussions about the buggers during the Third Invasion, not once did Mazer find the ship interface to be remarkable enough to mention. Communication equipment was remarkable because of its absence, and so Mazer drew great conclusions from that. However, one would think that a lack of consoles or screens would also be astounding. But, Mazer is not astounded at this, and the most likely conclusion is that those things existed on the ship. The buggers had to be able to understand what the computers on board the ship were telling them, and for that they could not use philotic communication. Instead, being a visual species, the most likely way they communicated with their computers is the same way I'm communicating with you right now: text. While writting may not have been useful as a storage medium, the buggers certainly had need of it.
Now, perhaps I will grant you that I've got this wrong, and that during the Second Invasion the buggers had the ability to communicate with the ships philoticly. Mazer was just so astounded at the lack of communications that the lack of other things was easily overlooked. However, I will state that this capability could not have emerged fully formed from the forehead of the Hive Queen. It had to be developed. At some point in their past, buggers were mucking around with basic machine language, working on bridging the gap between logic and telepathy. Since they had done that, they had the means to communicate with human beings. Again, there is no hiding behind telepathy, as telepathy does not allow one to interact with the world.
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: That condition applies to Ender's dreams as well. Be aware that if this is what your argument hinges upon, that the buggers did not believe that humans would listen, it transforms their intrusion into Ender's dreams into a form of psychological warfare (which it seems was being effective, who knows how long Ender could have lasted if the war dragged on). That just accentuates the disconnect between "Ender's Teacher" and "Speaker for the Dead."
The books actually describe that the original goal for trying to get into Ender's mind was to sabotage him and prevent them from fighting. I don't remember the quote but what your saying there is exactly right. They were trying to make Ender into a mindless drone for them, though not in the way you think.
quote:So, in other words. A Hive Queen finds a person on the street, and begins talking to him. The conversation continues, rather one sidedly, until she finds out that the person she's talking to is deaf. Upon realizing this, the Hive Queen's solution is to talk louder. You're doing a very good job at demonstrating that the Hive Queens really aren't intelligent at all. Cockroaches have been around for much longer than we have, and yet I don't see them building rockets.
Also, in the event you didn't know, killing happens to be a very physical activity. Just FYI.
No actually its more like The Hive Queen tries to take over Ender's brain and make him into a servant. When that fails they use the conduit they already made to Ender to learn about humanity and thats when they start building the models from Ender's dream.
Also, yes I do understand the killing is a physical activity, but my point was that fact that the killing in the quote you gave was there attempt at communicating with something that they did not understand and so they used something that would work on getting the human's attention. It was by no means actually supposed to imply that they were trying more killing to talk to humans again.
quote: Except, of course, that the Hive Queens used the sensory organs of their drones to perceive the world. See, you're thinking of the Hive Queens as these beings of pure thought. They aren't. They're simply the brain of a massive organism, and like every brain, they must receive data from physical sensors to perceive the world. Those sensory organs are very much active, while their telepathy is there to let them aggregate the data. Really, the only difference between humans and buggers is that buggers see through a million more eyes than we do, touch through a million more hands, and hear through a million more ears.
That is where you are completely wrong. The organs are active in sensing but not in communicating. That is the key to what were talking about is communication. They see through more eyes and they hear through more ears but they don't speak to one another except through the mind. Every single conversation that anyone has with the Hive Queen takes place through the mind. They don't have a voice and therefore their communication is not physical in the least. The whole point is that they developed into sentient being that are nothing like humans even down to how they think through problems.
quote:Sorry, "telepathy" is not an argument, not when there are cases showing that buggers do communicate through other means. In order to claim the above, you are stating that there are errors in the Ender's series, that as written the Hive Queen is inconsistent. In which case, welcome to my side, nice to have you on the team. [/QB]
Other than the killing case mentioned, give one example of a way of communicating between the Formics and humans that was not conducted through thought. Give an example of where they used physical communication to explain a complex ideas like "Lets make peace". The Formics were not a social race and spent much time in solitude. (this is proven by the idea of how each Hive Queen is usually at a different planet.) From my knowledge there is no example of them using any physical communication. Though if you give me a quote from the book to that extent then I will stand corrected. Yet without that proof, the idea that they weren't trying to communicate is stupid since they were new to this kind of communication and therefore couldn't figure it out in time.
quote: No, they weren't. That's the entire problem I'm having.
From a military standpoint their outer colonies were lost causes, being that they are likely to be the least developed and they are receiving the newest human ships in the greatest concentrations. Also, from a military standpoint, battles that occur forty years away are not important when the war is going to be decided in a year. From a military standpoint, the elimination of these colonies was far more important to human beings, who did not know that every hive queen was on the homeworld and which wanted to eliminate the bugger threat, than their preservation was to the buggers who would never be able to use their ships to reinforce their homeworld and would never again have to face the surviving human ships. Thus, why waste those resources pursuing worthless military victories?
No civilization will ever willing let themselves be destroyed. And since this is most likely the first defensive war that the Formics have ever fought in their entire history, there is a probable chance that it could be stupid planning on their part. It is never implied that they are very good at strategy. Their only goal is to try to stop and protect themselves from a group of people clearly bent on destroying them. Since they could not communicate,(see above) they simply try and defend themselves and not think in terms of just letting an enemy in to destroy them. I know that part of your premise is that they knew they were going to lose, but who would stop fighting just because they are going to lose anyway. They still have hope that they will succeed in surviving even though they're sure they're going to lose. In the battle that they are fighting, stopping fighting (your suggested way of communication) would lead to death since their enemies goal is to destroy them.
I hope I'm making any sense.Sorry if I'm not.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Ok, I'll take a shot.
Jschuler, you may want to consider that your interpretation of the events is central to your point, and that other people interpreting events in a different light might indicate that yours is not the only valid interpretation.
Insisting that the Formics would do something that they, in fact, did not do is not a proof of your interpretation. This is because characters in fiction are defined by what they do, and what we're told about what they think. There is room, in this case, to construe their actions more than one way.
It's established - in a casual, possibly not *accurate* way - that the Formics use gross gestures like killing a few people to announce their presence. Assuming this is meant to be an accurate description of why they killed some people on the first invasion, it does not prove they have the ability/knowledge for subtle forms of physical interaction such as sending a message of surrender through actions in battle.
It's also established that the Formics understand machinery. This *also* does not show that they have an understanding of subtle physical communication with sentient beings. Furthermore, it's not clear that they think humans are sentient in a way that would be amenable to subtle physical communication. Let's break this down into two scenarios:
1) They understand humans have sentience at least somewhat comparable to their own, but assume it must be based on some sort of direct mental communication. Why would they attempt communicating through physical means? (Because you think that's what they should have done is not much of an answer.)
2) They think humans are sentient but view communicating with humans as a task similar to controlling a machine. Where's the "we surrender" button? Show a pattern of ships to a purpose-built machine, what happens? Nothing.
To be clear, I think your interpretation of events is interesting and points up a potentially valid contradiction. However, I also think you've been answered with equally valid interpretations of events, and I think I'm detecting a bias for your own interpretation in your insistence that you are correct.
Personally, I doubt that Card thought through this particular question as thoroughly as either you have, or the people who disagree with you on this thread have. However, I think the events made sense from his point of view, as well as the people he relied on for pre-publication feedback. It also seems, from the evidence here, that in the way that most people interpret the events of the story, they make enough sense and withstand enough scrutiny to work quite well as fictional devices.
I doubt there's a fictional alien species out there with a significantly less assailable record in the canon literature.
[ June 16, 2008, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: scifibum ]
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Don't worry Geekazoid, you're making sense. You're just wrong
I see that you posted this only a few minutes after my last post, so I trust you will take into account my argument about machine language.
Thanks for the info about the original reason behind Ender's dream. As I said, in this view it compounds the disconnect I had with the last two chapters. Here's why: it shows that, although the Hive Queens knew that they had wronged the humans, and that the humans were still very much hostile to them in response to it, there first reaction was to resort to military action. It is not until after they realize that they cannot defeat the humans that this "we could have been sisters" thing emerges. Yes, they're sorry, but it reads more like they're sorry they didn't win.
In addition to explaining further my argument about communication through battle, I want to also address neo-dragon's hypothetical situation, because I believe Mazer found (quite accidentally) the exact way to let the Hive Queen's know that we were intelligent and they should stop fighting. See, I did have a minor problem earlier on that I just filed away in the back of my brain: how could the Hive Queen's have reconciled the existence of spaceships with the absence of intelligence? Then I realized that they didn't reconcile it at all, they must have known they were engaged against some form of intelligence, but that it was still like themselves and it was hidden from them.
That was one puzzle. The second was that, even though they were at war with this other intelligence, they made no attempt to protect their Hive Queen, not even when Mazer was headed right for it. There was no alarm at the fact that another fleet was attacking them. As Mazer stated, it was as if they did not believe the queen would be attacked. That leads me to another conclusion, and further evidence that by their morality, the Hive Queens should have sacrificed more drones in an attempt to avert war. The conclusion is that battles such as the Second Invasion are not uncommon, and are not even considered to be existential threats. The destruction of another Hive Queen's drones is an acceptable behavior, and are not to be taken as threats against the person of the Hive Queen. If I had to guess, I'd say that the buggers engaged in physical contests, whether for ritualistic purposes or because of territorial disputes. If true, that means that even among the Hive Queens, telepathic communication is not sufficient. Perhaps thoughts are just as cheap as words.
However, when Mazer did kill the Hive Queen, that sent an instant shockwave throughout the Formics. They had to wonder what could that Hive Queen had done that was so horrible that it warranted her to be targeted and killed. It was at that moment that they dropped their assumptions, and realized what they had been doing.
But here's the thing: if the destruction of a colony's drones is not seen as an existential threat (for if it was, that would warrant the termination of the queen, and thus the queens would protect themselves), then there is no justification for defending the outer colonies from the human attack by killing the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of hive queens.
Granted, there's lots of speculation here. But, if you've got a better explanation, I'd love to hear it.
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
Well here's my go at a better explanation.
First of all, your idea of machine language is ultimately flawed. I never claimed that they didn't interact with the physical world. Of course they would have to do some physical things otherwise war and space flight would be impossible. Yet being able to make a machine is and to get it to follow instructions is not communication. Any person can pull a lever or push a button. Also the assumption that they had to had writing doesn't make sense because then wouldn't whatever they have written have been mentioned to Ender as a source of information about the Buggers. Yes I do know that it could be written so they couldn't understand but it seems that most of the writing on any ship would be to
A. tell someone what some switch or other does B.Communicate back to base C.Get information of your surroundings
The Formics did not need A or B and any information written for C would of been in the form of numbers. This would not really allow them to communicate effectively with another race.
So now I'll take your root of trying to say what probably happened.
It was definitely the battle the Mazer won that was the battle that convinced them of our sentience of the individual. I'll even agree with you on how it convinced them of our individualism.
Yet the one thing that I don't think you have comprehended yet is the entire fleet that Mazer was fighting was that single Hive Queen who was on the ship. The idea that Wars of this type were common doesn't make sense because then they would mention how they had fought another enemy under the same type of circumstances.
The conclusion that you get from this that they had mock battles among one another also doesn't make sense in the fact that there is no basis for it and doesn't make sense with that fact that at most times there was only one Hive Queen per planet.
So rather i believe the proof of individualism is that beforehand, a Hive Queen's life had never been in danger other than from another Hive Queen. Therefore, because the Queen herself never felt any danger, thinking of the fact that they were like "fingernails" she didn't believe she would be killed until it was too late.
Its after this moment when the Formics decide not to try to attack again and rather to sit and amass their armies to protect themselves from the wrath of the enemy they now made. At this point they only know that they are sentient and that to them, every single one is like a Hive Queen. So when the enemy comes their first goal is the same as ours was when they came. To protect themselves and stop the invasion. As a second alternative they decide to try to both sabotage and get a link of communication with us. That was supposed to be done by making Ender into basically one of the drones.
From the connection they make with Ender, though they fail to take control of him, they figure out more about the human race. They understand even deeper how its not like each ship is controlled by one Hive Queen (it could have been what they thought) but rather that there are each individuals with their own thoughts and communication style.
Actually its probably through their understanding of computers and technology that they made the link to Ender. Now they still have no way of communicating with us. I have proven that fact to you time and again. They can't speak to us through computers because we don't have the same language. They can't speak to us mind to mind. They don't speak to each other with words.
Your only suggestion was to communicate in battle but i have yet to see an effective way of doing it. Therefore they did the only thing that any province does when they are endangered. They fight for their lives. I believe an idea i heard a couple of days ago says it perfectly. "I care more about my family than I do about your family or anyone else's." That is the stance the Formics took because they had no way of communicating. Even though in the outer battle there was no existential worry of whether or not the entire community would survive, the death of the drones and the loss of planets that you call your home to invaders is not something that any creature that want to survive evolutionarily would do. It be like me saying to you that if a go and destroy Puerto Rico the United States Government would not try to stop me because I'm not attacking Washington or an actual state but only a province. Yes the drones are mindless, but they are the ones who do the actual work for the society. The Hive Queens need them and the land they work on so of course they will protect themselves.
I hope my explanation helps out and I'm willing to accept any critics. Also, sorry if my ideas don't flow neatly into one another.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
Ok Geekazoid, now I do need some further explanation, because I'm lost at this part:
quote:Originally posted by Geekazoid99: Yet the one thing that I don't think you have comprehended yet is the entire fleet that Mazer was fighting was that single Hive Queen who was on the ship. The idea that Wars of this type were common doesn't make sense because then they would mention how they had fought another enemy under the same type of circumstances.
The conclusion that you get from this that they had mock battles among one another also doesn't make sense in the fact that there is no basis for it and doesn't make sense with that fact that at most times there was only one Hive Queen per planet.
So rather i believe the proof of individualism is that beforehand, a Hive Queen's life had never been in danger other than from another Hive Queen. Therefore, because the Queen herself never felt any danger, thinking of the fact that they were like "fingernails" she didn't believe she would be killed until it was too late.
As I see it, there are two contradictory elements here: 1) these types of conflict had never, or almost never, happened before 2) there was no reason for the Hive Queen to feel threatened. If the Hive Queen had never known of another Hive Queen's drones, which are flying in the same kinds of ships, being destroyed around her, why wouldn't she think it possible that her ship could be targeted as well? This is, after all, a new experience, so she knows of no rules that would protect her.
But you are right, it is time that I laid out a plan for how the buggers could have communicated with humans. First, Geekazoid, dealing with computers is not simply pulling a lever. You need to explain the meaning of pulling that lever to the machine. Computers do not magically know that just because I hit the spacebar, that it should move my cursor further to the right. At some point, you need to convert the idea of moving the cursor to the right into binary language. Try teaching a computer to drive a car. It's easy for humans to grasp the concept, but it's really difficult to translate into something a computer can understand.
Now, in response to scifibum, all good programers know that if you can't find the "surrender" button, you program it. So, that's what we're going to do. Our first task is to conceptualize what this button will actually do. Well, from the buggers point of view, we want to open communications with the humans and convince them that we don't want to fight. Ok, but we have a problem: some systems have Hive Queens or colonies that are vital to the wellbeing of the hive, and these must be defended. Others we can make do without. So, our button is going to signal to the humans which systems we'll fight for, and which we will not.
What are our tools: ships, lots of ships. So, we could do something like scholarette suggests, and have a ship flying around, shooting prime numbers during a battle. It's a start, but unfortunately there's going to be a lot going on during a battle, and having a ship out there shooting at nothing in such a pattern might go unnoticed. Besides, even if the humans discovered it, there would be no means for them to respond, as all of the other ships would still be fighting. Thus, what we need is a signal that is conspicuous, something that would stand out in a military situation. Second, we need the humans to be able to react to that signal. Third, that signal should be as simple as possible, as simple as 1 and 0.
So, we will take scholarette's ship. However, it won't fire at all. Instead, in those systems that we are going to surrender, we'll place that ship right at the halfway point between the human fleet and our own. Because it's in such a peculiar position in the middle of the field, attention will be drawn to it: is it a new weapon? a sensor? a new tactic? To be successful in battle, these things must be considered. However, we know what it means, and we will always follow its instructions whenever that ship has been placed in that position: we will not fire, no matter what.
In fact, the first time we put this out there, we will do absolutely nothing. The humans, if they wish, may annihilate the drones at their discretion and leisure. The second time this occurs, however, the rest of the fleet will create geometric shapes: Spheres, cubes, triangles, etc. Or we can line up by prime numbers. Whatever it is, all that matters is that it's a simple pattern. We don't care if the humans find meaning in these actions except that they know we are communicating.
There will likely be little success at first, with the humans rushing to destroy our fleets the first several times. That's good, because it gives us some more time in Ender's dreams to come up with a message. Of course, we now know that, as Ender's dreams are very visual, human beings are visual as well. This is good, as our drones are also visual. Thus, we have common ground. Some Hive Queens came up with the idea of reshaping the landscape to look like the strange skeleton that dominates his mind. Their drones have even become quite adept at etching patterns into surfaces to represent objects. However, hope that Ender will visit that planet is dim. Instead, we will put one of those two-dimensional representations inside of an unarmed ship, and send it out, alone, to the human fleet when they next arrive. The representation will be an invitation: a human, a hive queen, and the planet below. If, by the time this is ready, the humans have reciprocated and do not attack our passive ships, we will offer for them to come and settle one of our outposts with us. Later, we may even send them a Hive Queen, as some were suggesting we give Ender if he came. At that time, the bridge will be fully constructed, and we may understand each other.
Does that work for you?
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
First I'll take care of your problem with my idea before i respond to your own. The fact is that even though it was a new experience for them. They still thought of us at that moment like they thought of themselves since that was the only life they knew. For their culture the ships were usually controlled by drones alone except in the time of colonization. Therefore they would of thought as all of the people on the ships who were protecting themselves as being drones. For their culture as stated above a Hive Queen was never in any danger of being killed because it was unheard of for any drone to even try to kill any queen and therefore the surprise of what happened makes sense.
Now to your idea. yes i do understand that computing is not just pulling a lever. I'm learning programing actually. yet still the fact that you would think that the computers and languages of the computing would be the same for both make no sense. The programing of he Formics might not be separated into bits and bytes but something of a larger size of maybe 6 digits. Yet more to the point. The buggers built all their ships and all their ships were exactly the same. therefore the Hive Queen might not of even needed any specific programming language and rather just went right down to the machine language to program the ships with all the necessary controls. Therefore its still not a full proof for the fact that they understand physical communication, rather its simply a sign that they understand math to a great extent which is already proven by the fact that they have interstellar travel.
The idea of the single ship sounds OK except in one regard. However that regard only truly exists if you agree with what I said above. The fact is based on my suggested order of events, the buggers would not have understood how to connect with us until fairly late. Ender's dreams didn't start till they were already in the middle of the war. The fact that they got most of their information about humans from Ender's brain makes it that it would take a while till they could even get idea that the way you suggested would actually work. I personally don't think that they would of had enough time to do such a thing because i believe the war did not last more than a couple of months, a year at most. Therefore they wouldn't of had enough time to reach that level of A. understanding that using that plan would work in communicating. and B. actually having enough time to reach the point that they would actually stop killing the passive ship before they reached the final battle.
That's my biggest fault with your plan. I have one other tiny fault again with the idea is that as an advancing army, we were no longer looking for information about them and therefore would not leave any ships left. Especially the way that Ender's missions were defined. Therefore there would be no boarding and finding the new statue symbolizing peace.
Just too clear something that might be said of my words. I believe that the etching/model/whatever made for Ender was done as a last ditch effort to survive that started when they realized that they wouldn't be able to stop Ender. It was probably created during the last month of battles. Because of this therefore by the time they realized how best to communicate, (physically) there was not enough time to put your plan into effect.
Otherwise your plan would be perfect for what we should do should we get into a fight with an interstellar race to try to start communication.
Posted by EndersGame1987 (Member # 11662) on :
Hey this topic has made it necessary for me to make a profile here.
JSchuler
If I'm not mistaken you haven't gotten to read Xenocide and CotM. When you do read that you find out that the Hive Queen says she cannot lie. But you also find out that she is like a child in which she never belives she ever held a point of view other than the one she currently holds. In other words she (meaning all the hive queens) could have very well believed that she could have fought off the alien invaders (ender) but once she was defeated she would have never remembered ever having thought she could win and only believed that defeat was unavoidable. This is were it seems most of the confusion your having is coming from and I hope that this helps clear it up.
Posted by JSchuler (Member # 11647) on :
EndersGame1987: If it's true that she believes that she has never held a different point of view, then how could she admit to a mistake about the sentience of human beings?
Although, if true, then that would mean that Ender's Speaker for the Dead was based, perhaps not on a lie, but a falsehood. The first, second, and third invasions were reimagined by the queen ex post facto to fit with what she now "knows," and the actual motivations are lost. In which case, it doesn't matter if the Hive Queen cannot lie. You still cannot trust what she says today about yesterday or tomorrow.
Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
All wrong T right, there I win.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Posted by CreoleBeanFan (Member # 11671) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: The work if OSC had established that the killing of drone buggers was still traumatic to the Hive Queens. However, in Speaker, it's stated that killing drones is simply another means of communication:
"The buggers had casually killed human beings, but only because they had a hive mind; to them, individual life was as precious as nail parings, and killing a human or two was simply their way of letting us know they were in the neighborhood." (Speaker, 37-38)
Also, as far as I've read, nowhere has the death of a bugger been equated to something akin to amputation. OSC always compares buggers to something that's easily replaceable. (I haven't even seen them compared to hair, as people can grow bald)
The idea that there was discord among the Hive Queens and that the Hive Queen Ender found was of the pacifist camp has some possibility, but it also has problems. If there was disagreement, Ender should have had a subset of his battles where the computer seemed to have gone stupid. Plus, it's likely that within a telepathic species that disagreement doesn't exist. Again, from Speaker we have the following:
"In all our life, you are the first person we've known who wasn't ourself. We never had to be understanding because we always understood. Now that we are just this single self, you are the only eyes and arms and legs we have." (Speaker, 70)
Reading that, I'm not seeing a space for disagreement in Hive Queen society.
Not sure if I agree with that sentiment completely. Just because you understand someone's motivations does not mean you agree with them. Sometimes you can observe someone doing something, understand their reason and their logic, but still think that they are making an incorrect choice. When it comes down to issues of morality, this is often the case.
Effective communication does not completely negate disagreements. Obviously it did not in the Formic society, because "The Hive Queen" contained a history of the great wars that swept over their planet, and it speaks of the many Queens that had to be destroyed before "The" Hive Queen had a daughter that understood community and the fact that she did not have to rival her mother. If they couldn't disagree, why would they have had wars?
Posted by CreoleBeanFan (Member # 11671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: Most foolish of the Formids, in my opinion, was the fact that they put all queens on one planet. Why? Distance didnt matter in communication, so why? I think I found an explanation. Maybe they just wanted to lose and to leave one last hive queen to Ender, so he could find the way to reestablish their civilisation without (further) war. Queens knew what was coming (defending homeland was like an unconditional reflex.) and lost to stop the war, knowing perfectly well, that their civilisation still lasts with a single one hive queen. So they left it to him because they knew he'll do everything to undo his sins.
I think the Hive Queens must have already been there on one home planet. While the later works in the Ender Quartet do not explicitly state the distance in light years between the "100 Worlds," the distance between the outlying colonies is extreme. The distance between Trondheim and Lusitania, for instance, was somewhere between 30 and 40 light years.
The Human fleets of the third invasion were all launched with precise timing so that they would arrive at their destinations within months of each other - again indicating significant distance between habitable worlds. Just putting it into context, the nearest star from Sol is Alpha Centauri - four light years away, and we don't even know if there are any habitable planets in orbit there.
The Hive Queens simply would not have had enough time to return from their various colony worlds to their home planet within the timeframe all of the Human Invasion fleets showed up in. And even if they did, it is likely that given the ability of the Human fleets to use the ansible to communicate instantaneously, their knowledge of the Formic societal hierarchy, and their desire to completely eliminate the Formics, the Human fleets would have had instructions not to allow any ships to escape from the colony worlds. Being that they could be using any approach vector through the system, and would already be less affected by inertai, they also would have a tactical advantage at intercepting any craft attempting to launch from the surface of the colony worlds.
So if there were any Queens on any of the Colony worlds, they would have easily been defeated. But the real question is why would they need to? Since they communicated instantaneously and telepathically, they had no need of relocating themselves to another world. Until the Formics encountered the Humans, they, too, had never encountered intelligent life in the Universe. Of course, it is entirely possible that they DID encounter some primitive form of sentient life in their travels and simply eliminated them without being aware of it, because those creatures had not evolved to communicate telepathically, and had not invented the technology that would serve as outward signs of intelligence - i.e. starflight and advanced weaponry.
So perhaps, the Formic Queens never felt threatened with extinction from an intelligent source in their existence. That being the case, why should they disperse their Queens among the galaxy? They never had any incentive to. The only reason they sent a Queen with the Second Invasion was because of the distance from their home world. Since the workers and drones are borne by Queens, they would need a renewable source of workers there, and it would be far more practical to produce them on Earth rather than sending new workers on a voyage that would last decades from their home world.
That brings up an interesting question - at least in my mind. I wonder what would have happened if the Formics encountered the Pequininos before the Descoladores sent the Virus that transformed them into their current state of life? I wonder on how many of the "Hundred Worlds" did the Formics in fact, eliminate sentient species, or at least eliminate their evolutionary predecessors? Suddenly, I don't feel so bad for the Buggers.
In their own way, they were just as unconsionable as the Descoladores. In Xenodice, the point is made that the Humans are the ones that are most likely to be Varelse, because we are the only species that knowingly attempted Xenocide. Well, at least we were observant enough to RECOGNIZE intelligent life on Lusitania before we simply set about to terraforming the planet - or we didn't just assume that since the Pequeninos didn't speak English they were some kind of creature that wasn't worth communicating with.
Stupid buggers.
[ June 27, 2008, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: CreoleBeanFan ]
Posted by CreoleBeanFan (Member # 11671) on :
quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: EndersGame1987: If it's true that she believes that she has never held a different point of view, then how could she admit to a mistake about the sentience of human beings?
Although, if true, then that would mean that Ender's Speaker for the Dead was based, perhaps not on a lie, but a falsehood. The first, second, and third invasions were reimagined by the queen ex post facto to fit with what she now "knows," and the actual motivations are lost. In which case, it doesn't matter if the Hive Queen cannot lie. You still cannot trust what she says today about yesterday or tomorrow.
Because she was stuck in that cocoon and wanted to get out?
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