I have been a big fan of enders game since I was in elementary school, and I am now in college. I never read any of OSC's other genre's other than The Worthing Saga.
After reading Ender in Exile, it seems to me that it is very likely that Ender's game could be in the same universe as Worthing saga.. set however many thousands of years beforehand. They have key similarities, namely the swipe and the stasis sleep. In my view, the swipe could be those who are descendants from Bean's son who was seen in the last book, after centuries of evolution to which they developed the ability to be telepathic and did not live so short lives.
Or, the human race may somehow have learned telepathy from the formics, and did some sort of genetic engineering to create the swipe, I don't know, but the Worthing saga would be set so far in the future that the formics had died off again, or left the galaxy for whatever reason.. there is a lot of space for something to happen.
This is just my interpretation of what could be a possibility, I know there is no official connection, and it would only be natural for two Sci-Fi books such as the worthing saga and Ender's Game to have so much in common because they were written by the same author, but while we are talking about fiction, humor me.
What do you think of this idea? Thought of it already? notice other similarities? I'm a nut?
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
Actually, OSC has a short story called A Thousand Deaths which is a prequel to the Worthing Saga. It contains brain-taping, and the main character's name is Crove, which is the original name of the planet Capitol. At the end, he is exiled to the planet which will bear his name.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
A Thousand Deaths is one of my least favorite of his short stories - maybe that's why I've never appreciated Worthing the way other people seem to.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
kevan,
The "Thousand Deaths" story takes place on earth where the Soviets have conquered the USA. It, and the Worthing Saga, don't even properly take place in our universe, let alone the Ender universe. (Crove joins an interstellar colony at the end of the story. In the Enderverse the humans don't colonize until after the final bugger war.)
What you've discovered, I think, is that Card thinks both telepathy and stasis are nifty. Posted by kevan (Member # 11858) on :
Yeah.. I figured they were just similar because of the same writer... I haven't read any other in the worthing series.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
:spoilers for both series:
I think the main points of dissent between the two series have nothing to do with the formics. After all, The Worthing Saga talks about "the enemy," quite a lot, and that could easily be some future form of the bugger/human/piggy alliance created on Lusitania and other planets by Jane and Peter. There are also the Descaladores to consider- and we don't exactly know the outcome of their interaction with humans/piggies/buggers.
The dissenting points are:
1. The ansible is not present or hinted at in TWS. This may be explained if you suppose that it is deactivated or destroyed to kill Jane (as she hints that she is what keeps it working). This would also eliminate the idea of instantaneous travel.
2. Somec. There is no need for Somec if, as in EinE, the Enderverse has stasis technology. And besides, relativistic travel with inertia compensation obviates the need for either in the later books anyway.
OTOH, OSC just likes certain tropes that appear in more or less similar ways in many of his novels. He likes genius children, ministers of colonization, "skipping across the surface of time like a stone over water" (he uses almost exactly the same words in both series more than once), the adopted deities or progenitors of religious movements living in the worlds influenced by their lives (both Jason and Ender), telepathy, and the evolution of the human race through some unnatural process, (Bean, the beanie babies, and Jason's children), the manipulation of entire societies through unassuming and seemingly implausible cunning and deftness (Peter, Valentine, Archanian, and Abner Dune), people playing games which represent or portend real world conflicts, (Ender and Herman Nuber).
[ November 30, 2008, 04:18 AM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: A Thousand Deaths is one of my least favorite of his short stories
That was actually in one of my top five, after Deep Breathing Exercises and In the Doghouse.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by aiua:
quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: A Thousand Deaths is one of my least favorite of his short stories
That was actually in one of my top five, after Deep Breathing Exercises and In the Doghouse.
I think I also remember reading that this is one of only two of his stories (the other being Kingsmeat) that OSC's wife was not able to finish reading. Mrs. Card, if you are reading, is this true?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I remember reading that about 1,000 deaths, but not Kingsmeat.
Posted by Josh Cooper (Member # 11533) on :
That's an interesting idea but for many reasons, it's not likely. One thing that Card could do is just write the story that overwrites or manuvers around the conflicting areas. Say "this is what happened despite what you read in other stories" and then connect the two. But there are probably too many diffences in the Enderverse and Worthingverse. Orincoro raised a good point with Somec and Stasis. The Worthing Saga may leave out anything about the Formics, Pequeninos, or Descaladores, but I don't remember it denying the existance of aliens. The two can still be tied together. It's stuff like Somec and Stasis that causes conflict in the stories.
On another note, the story of A Thousand Deaths could be what happened if Russia had won the League War after the Formic Wars. Or, perhaps sometime after Ender in Exile and before Speaker for the Dead, a third Warsaw Pact defies the Free People of Earth and takes succeeds in taking over Earth. Then declares the International Fleet void and forms Starways Congress.
Posted by blindsay (Member # 11787) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan:
quote:Originally posted by aiua:
quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: A Thousand Deaths is one of my least favorite of his short stories
That was actually in one of my top five, after Deep Breathing Exercises and In the Doghouse.
I think I also remember reading that this is one of only two of his stories (the other being Kingsmeat) that OSC's wife was not able to finish reading. Mrs. Card, if you are reading, is this true?
The hardest story for me to get through is also one of my favorites. Euminides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory is one of the scariest short stories I have ever read. I had nightmares for a few days after reading it. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and had to keep telling myself that mutant octopus babies did not really exist. That was about ten years when I was a senior in high school.
I think the concept of the Enderverse and Worthing Saga being linked is pretty cool. It is certainly believable. The Universe is a big place
On a side note, when I read Children of the Mind there is a part in which Ender and the gang are in that ship near the end traveling to different dimensions and what not. (That part still confuses me) At one point they end up near a planet and discover that there is life. The planet send ships up to attack the ship Ender is on, but they leave before anything bad happens to them. Is it ever explained anywhere who these people were or what purpose they served? I remember reading it and thinking to myself that the fact that this happened hinted that this would be important later. As far as I can remember it was never mentioned again. Did I miss something? It has been bugging me for over a decade and I figure if anyone knew it would be other Hatrackers!
Posted by sylvrdragon (Member # 3332) on :
**SPOILERS for CotM**
It hasn't been mentioned again because that is (at the moment) the last book in that time line. Shadows in Flight will continue where that one left off with the Descaladores and Young Peter etc.
Also, Ender wasn't on that ship, Peter was (and Young Val/Jane, and several others).
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I am of the opinion that linking the universes is neither cool nor believable.
And, iirc, OSC is of a similar opinion.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by blindsay: Euminides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory is one of the scariest short stories I have ever read.
I fully agree. This was the first story I read out of Maps in a Mirror nearly 20 years ago. It set the tone, and I was a little afraid when I began every other story in that collection. I reread quite a bit, and I have never had the spine to reread this one.
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: :spoilers for both series:
2. Somec. There is no need for Somec if, as in EinE, the Enderverse has stasis technology. And besides, relativistic travel with inertia compensation obviates the need for either in the later books anyway.
If I were trying to link the two, which I am not a supporter of but I think is interesting to play with, I would say that stasis IS somec and the name just evolved over time. I have no answer for the rest of that point, however.
There's a quote from OSC about story-linking that I rather like, and I think sort of applies here (though it was written only about the Ender series), so I'm going to add it to my post:
quote:OSC, April 2005, Barnes and Noble SotG Discussion It does not make a book or series BETTER for everything to connect to everything else. That only makes it feel like the whole thing takes place in Delaware. You need to have messiness, things that seem to be part of another story, questions that are never answered. Not a LOT of questions like that, but enough to be aware that there's a much larger world than you can possibly see in one novel.
Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
Hegemony. The phrases of trying to build a hegemony appear in so many of Card's works it's a mini-catch phrase. That and all the references to "The Tempest" which appear in NUMEROUS works of Card, and damn near all of the Ender series.
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
quote:Originally posted by tmservo: Hegemony. The phrases of trying to build a hegemony appear in so many of Card's works it's a mini-catch phrase. That and all the references to "The Tempest" which appear in NUMEROUS works of Card, and damn near all of the Ender series.
*Exile Spoiler*
Anyone else get a bit overwhelmed by so much of "The Tempest" in EinE? Perhaps I just felt so out of the loop because I've never so much as read a Sparknotes summary of the play...it was hard for me to follow the parts of the book that alluded to it heavily. Basically everything I know about the plot of "The Tempest" I've gotten from reading OSC's allusions. I should knuckle down to reading the actual thing one of these days!
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
I don't really think the two universes are a good fit (though I do enjoy both of them). I doubt OSC would want to pull an Asimov and link them together.
Though I would find it amusing if just to mess with us he said that the Ender universe and the Alvin maker ones were linked.
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