quote:When I read the first 3 chapters, I thought it made perfect sense that Mazer wasn't actually on the ship. After all, why would you have the top 2 military commanders on the same ship? i.e. The ship was sabotaged, something broke, a meteor hit it, problems on the new world, etc. In addition, if another threat had surfaced, neither Ender or Mazer would be able to get back in time to assist Earth.
Kind of a moot point, don't you think? Once they got on the ship they would be effectively "dead" anyway. I don't think that it would be very practical (and certainly not easy!) to stop a ship and turn it around once it reached relativistic speed. Once it sets out it's gone for at least 100 years (there and back). Ender was no longer a tool for anyone, which is why he left. There would be no reason to target a ship with Ender and Mazer on it, since if they are even on the ship it means that they are not threats to anyone on Earth. Besides, no one would have the guts to target an I.F. colony ship. If they got caught, every nation in the world would be their enemy.
quote: P.S. Wasn't Ender around 25 years old when he found the Hive Queen? If so, then how could he have turned 21 in Investment Counselor?
Yeah, I think that's just a screw-up. And I think he turned 20, by the way.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Not to meddle or anything...in First meetings it say Val is 25....I thought Val was only two years older than Ender? Did Val leave a planet a few days before ender or something?
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Two thoughts, first off is why couldn't Mazer have piloted the ship by ansible? Secondly everyone kept saying that he didn't say his name because the I.F. could be listening, THE I.F. WOULD HAVE BEEN THE "WE" THAT LIED ABOUT HIM HAVING PILOTED THE SHIP!!! If he was hiding his prescence from anyone it would have been the Chinese.
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No, we meant that the enemies of the IF might be listening. Of course he wouldn't be in danger from the IF, he works for them!
Also, the end of Ender's Game at least implies that Mazer was supposed to be actually on the ship. Besides, how could he possibly pilot it via ansible considering the time dilation effect? In other words, would he be sitting at the controls on Earth for 2 years or 50? And what if the connection were severed somehow? The ship is left without a pilot. It seems needlessly complicated compared to just having someone else pilot the ship.
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Maybe Val gained a bit of age in Ender's flying around to Eros and stuff. Though it seems unlikely. I don't know all the math on that.
The only error I picked up on my first reading of SOTG is that Alai comments on Peter's resemblance to Ender the second time they meet, page 148, and that seems more like something to say the first time you meet someone. But then he'd probably seen Peter's picture many times. And their first meeting was not as much of a small talk event.
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