posted
I have to wonder if Peter and Petra were actually deeply in love with each other? I wonder if they didn't find comfort in their shared love for Bean and for Bean's children, and later their own children. I'm not implying that they weren't fond of each other, or that there wasn't a love of some type, but I think it was love of others that bonded their love together.
I wasn't that fussed about Peter and Petra getting together. When you think of the complex and unique nature of both their lives, there really weren't a lot of choice for potential mates for them. So, I think the Peter and Petra combination was a natural. In a dark sense, they loved each other because there was no one else they could love.
I was bothered by the resolution of Bean's story though. I have worked myself up to expect Bean's dark and tragic death, and ultimately, it did not come. In fact, I avoided reading the last book because I really did think I could emotionally take Bean's death.
Now however, now that the story is written and done with, I find myself intensely curious about what happened to Bean and his children. I'm also curious about the heartache and loneliness Bean must have felt having abondoned the one person who truly loved and understood him?
Still in my fantasies, I envision New!Peter and Bean's kids meeting in the future, and dare I even hope, perhaps, meeting Bean again. The Biologist on Lusitania seemed to have found a way to overcome intentional genetic mutation. Perhaps, or so I very much hope, New!Peter will be able to save Bean's children and perhaps Bean himself. Though I admit even under the best of circumstances Bean has probably deteriorated horribly, and saving him under those circumstances would be a very small mercy.
Further, there is also the unresolved plot of the planet of the Driscoladero's, and the likelihood that New!Peter will fight to fix the corruption that has creeped into the Star Congress government. There are lots of juicy plots that still need resolution.
In short, I wasn't bother by Peter and Petra because that is the freedom that Bean gave Petra in divorcing her. And who else on this dark earth could possibly understand Petra well enough to love her other than Peter? I was initally bothered by the NON-resolution of Bean's story, but now that it is done, I really hope to be him and his children again.
There are some unresolved plot points that I might almost call Flints (a Harry Potter reference to 'mistakes'). What about Bean's money? Certainly Bean and his 'special' children are not dead, in their travels they are likely to need money. Yet, to some extent, Bean willed the money to Petra, and logically Petra willed it to her children. Were they all successful enough to never touch that money even over the course of a thousand years? Did they leave it exclusively to Bean? Did the I.F. prevent Petra from touching the money knowing that Bean and his 'special' kids were more likely to need it since they were in perpetual space travel, whereas, the other normal children were in a position where they could earn their own living? So, who ultimately got Bean's money?
posted
Speaking of Bean's money. Bean, to some extent, created Jane - the Financial Management program. He didn't actually create the software, but he was responsible for remodeling it to handle everyone's investments. I can't believe the Jane would forget about Bean, especially when she is managing his money. I speculate that at some point Jane will reveal herself to Bean, probably when Bean turns age 20 (if he lives that long) and has to pay his taxes like Ender, and will, much like Ender, be his constant companion from then on.
I suspect Jane never saw any reason to let Ender know she was also helping Bean in his long interstellar journeys. Beans needs were completely different than Enders, and never the twain shall meet, or would they?
Perhaps, it was Bean who help Jane contact the various worlds that downloaded her critical software and data. That seemed to be Jane's doing, but perhaps she was aided by Bean or Bean's children in the background unbeknownst to Ender.
Now that New!Peter is taking over, it seems logical that at some point, he would discover the existence of Bean and his kids, and from there the story goes on.
posted
I saw it coming too... Although I saw Bean's immenent death, and knew that OSC was not going to make a mistake a lot of author's do and go *Spoiler* 'Found a cure, everything's OK'. So, seeing this, It was clear by the time I finished a couple of chapters of SOTG that Peter and Petra would end up together. Although, that will just make it more confusing if they are married. Peter Wiggin and Petra Wiggin... OSC could make a typo and no one would know.
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quote: I can't believe the Jane would forget about Bean, especially when she is managing his money.
I'm not sure why Jane would even be aware of Bean, let alone care about him. I suppose they could have programmed the software to keep track of both Bean and Ender's finances, but I didn't get that impression.
quote:I speculate that at some point Jane will reveal herself to Bean, probably when Bean turns age 20 (if he lives that long) and has to pay his taxes like Ender, and will, much like Ender, be his constant companion from then on.
I suspect Jane never saw any reason to let Ender know she was also helping Bean in his long interstellar journeys.
Speaker for the Dead suggests that no one came remotely close to occupying the level of Jane's attention as did Ender. So, while I suppose it is possible that Jane was aware of Bean or his family, I don't imagine it was anywhere near the level of devotion that she gave exclusively to Ender.
Regarding Peter and Petra, it didn't really matter to me whether they got married. I would have been happy either way. Although, I'm probably happier with their getting married considering that I always liked Peter more than Bean anyway.
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quote: I can't believe the Jane would forget about Bean, especially when she is managing his money.
I'm not sure why Jane would even be aware of Bean, let alone care about him. I suppose they could have programmed the software to keep track of both Bean and Ender's finances, but I didn't get that impression.
Keep in mind that the program that became the financial management program also searched data for Bean's babies. I think it knows Bean very well. Further, that same Financial Management program continues to manage Bean's money. Perhaps, although it is not clear, managing the finances of all the off-world Battle School graduates who were in Ender's jeesh.
quote:
quote:I speculate that at some point Jane will reveal herself to Bean, probably when Bean turns age 20 (if he lives that long) and has to pay his taxes like Ender, and will, much like Ender, be his constant companion from then on.
I suspect Jane never saw any reason to let Ender know she was also helping Bean in his long interstellar journeys.
Speaker for the Dead suggests that no one came remotely close to occupying the level of Jane's attention as did Ender. So, while I suppose it is possible that Jane was aware of Bean or his family, I don't imagine it was anywhere near the level of devotion that she gave exclusively to Ender.
Jane seems to be capable of several levels of awarenss. Certainly, one of her top levels would be reserved for Ender, his immediate friend, and their immediate problems which effect Ender a great deal.
But that doesn't mean she can't spare some level of awareness to keep Bean Company. Certainly Bean would be very busy managing his kids, so I don't see a lot of long heartfelt conversations with Jane. But still Jame does own Bean something. He assisted in allowing her to expand and grow, and become more focused, and that increase awareness allower her to seek out Ender.
To some extent, the question become when did Jame become self-aware. When in the course of events did she start seeking out Ender thereby finding him a kindred spirit? Jane, according to the book 'First Meetings' did not reveal herself to Ender until Ender turned 20, but she still may have been tracking him, and further, may have felt her spiritual connection with him.
So, yes, the connection between Ender and Jane is massive, but Jane is in a sense running the universe, she certainly has a few spare electrons to dedicate to Bean.
Bean many have found her a polite and handy computer program, but may not have been aware of the level of her own self-awareness until such time as she was about to be shut down. Then Jane may have sought out any resoure to save herself, and Bean combined with his children represent a HUGE resource.
I'm not saying that happened, but it would be a nice way to tie the two stories together.
posted
I'm not sure that Jane was ever aware of Bean or the part he played in her "birth". She was taking care of Ender's money, not Beans. Also, she carried out the search for his children long before she was self-aware. She may not remember it anymore than we can remember being in the womb. I don't think that Jane remembers very much about the early days of her existence. I certainly got the impression from SftD and its sequels that she didn't know how she came to be alive other than that she may have evolved from the fantasy game.
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quote:Keep in mind that the program that became the financial management program also searched data for Bean's babies. I think it knows Bean very well.
Well, not necessarily. All that the software was programmed to do was to search through some data sets and create some matches based on certain criteria. It didn't need an intimate knowledge of Bean or his babies, just a list of parameters.
quote:But that doesn't mean she can't spare some level of awareness to keep Bean Company.
****** Speaker for the Dead Spoilers *******
I suppose it's possible that she functioned as a simple program for Bean, but SftD makes it pretty clear that she did not introduce herself to anyone before Ender.
"So she gave them no sign that she was alive. Until she found the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, as everyone eventually did, and knew that the author of that book was a human to whom she dared reveal herself...She kept no secrets from him; he kept no secrets from her."
quote:He assisted in allowing her to expand and grow, and become more focused, and that increase awareness allower her to seek out Ender.
There is an important distinction between the Fantasy Game program and Jane.
"This program was actually more intelligent than Jane was at the moment of her birth, but it was never self-aware until she brought it out of memory and made it part of her inmost self."
Bean may have expanded the Fantasy Game program, but he had nothing to do with Jane's existence, and without Jane, the program could never be anything more than a lifeless program. When she incorporated the program into her memory, that is when she started to seek out Ender.
"She remembered the Fantasy Game's years of painful, powerful intercourse with Ender's mind and will, remembered it as if she had been there with Ender Wiggin, creating worlds for him herself. And she missed him."
********
So, I suppose it's possible that Bean used the Fantasy Game program for his own uses, but I don't think he had any meaningful interaction with Jane herself, well, at least at this point. I suppose anything could still happen in the next book.
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posted
All good points, and thanks for the book quotes, but...
although, it's not quite clear, Bean does say that after Petra and her children are dead, then they can start paying Bean's pension into the Investor Software (meaning the Fantasy Game Program). [SotG, Am Ed, HB, Pg 307]
That is implied permission from Bean to use the Program to manage his money.
There is a degree of ambiguity in how and when the software will take over Bean's Pension. Note that they are so confident in the software that they plan to use it to fund the research for a cure for Bean. The I.F. has a great deal of confidence in the software, and if Petra refuses to draw money from Bean's Pension, they might very easily let the software manage it. That doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Bean already says earlier in the book, that both Petra and Bean draw very little from the Pensions; a small allowance and the rest is re-invested. So even under normal use, the money is accumulating. It seems reasonable for Petra to let the very positive and productive software manage the money.
That does involve a degree of speculation and extrapolation on my part, but it seems a reasonable extension of the available information. They would have to be idiots not to let the program take on their money management, so I don't see it as that much of a leap.
Also, while Petra accepts that to her Bean and her 'special' children are as good as dead relative to her lifetime, she also knows that they will be alive for many hundreds of years, and in that time, they are likely to need some money.
My central point is that it creates a way to bring the two divergent stories back together. I guess we will have to wait for the book to be written to see if I was even close, but I still say, it seems like a logical extension of the available information.
posted
"So she gave them no sign that she was alive. Until she found the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, as everyone eventually did, and knew that the author of that book was a human to whom she dared reveal herself...She kept no secrets from him; he kept no secrets from her."
That implies that Jane was self-aware before she revealed herself. The Hegemon was published near the end of Peter's life, but that span of time for Bean, since he was in space flight, would have been very short.
We know from the separate story 'Investment Counselor' from the book 'First Meetings' that Jane revealed herself to Ender at Ender's subjective age of 20. This was after Ender started his space travel so the earth time was over 400 years.
"This program was actually more intelligent than Jane was at the moment of her birth, but it was never self-aware until she brought it out of memory and made it part of her inmost self."
"So she gave them no sign that she was alive. Until she found the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, as everyone eventually did, and knew that the author of that book was a human to whom she dared reveal herself...She kept no secrets from him; he kept no secrets from her."
This implies that while Jane was very primitive at the time, Jane was aware of events taking place in the Fantasy Program. In a sense, the unexplained intelligence of the Fantasy Program and it's ability to create worlds that didn't exist for other users, was because of Janes presence and her attempt to influence and understand Ender. At that time, she was acting as the bridge between Ender and the Buggers.
At what point Jane become autonomously self-aware is unclear, but is seems she had a degree of self-awareness from the very beginning.
This, in a sense, is part of the key to understanding Jane. It's not a matter of when she became aware, or when she became self-aware, but when in the story did she become autonomously self-aware? When did she become an independant, free-thinking, self-determined entity?
Given this self-awareness and her long history of information access before revealing herself, she was certainly aware of Bean, and who and what he was.
I won't say that she had even remotely the same level of connection to Bean that she had with Ender, but I'm convinced she was managing Bean's Pension and was communicating with Bean on that basis. I suspect when (if) Bean turned age 20, his finances would have been in as big a mess as Enders. Though he would have several Big Brains to help him out, I speculate that Jane would have intervened to assist. Again, not even remotely at the level of Ender, but still there.
Again, I am primarily looking for a way to tie the story of Bean and Ender together at this later point in time, and Jane seems a likely key to doing that.
Just a few thoughts. As always, speculation is what I do best.
quote:Given this self-awareness and her long history of information access before revealing herself, she was certainly aware of Bean, and who and what he was.
Yes, I agree that Jane would eventually have acquired knowledge of Bean's existence and situation.
quote:I'm convinced she was managing Bean's Pension and was communicating with Bean on that basis.
I'll grant that it is entirely possible that Jane was managing Bean's pension and communicating with him, but only in the manner that any other software program would. In other words, it would have been rather meaningless interaction.
quote:I suspect when (if) Bean turned age 20, his finances would have been in as big a mess as Enders. Though he would have several Big Brains to help him out, I speculate that Jane would have intervened to assist.
If Bean makes it to 20, would he even have to worry about his taxes if he never lands on a planet? I don't remember all the details in Investment Counselor, but for those that are in space flight, didn't they only need to pay taxes when they landed on a planet that was a member of the Hundred Worlds? So, if Bean and/or his children land on a planet that is not a member, would they be exempt from having to pay the taxes at that time?
Even if they did need to pay the taxes, however, I fully suspect that Bean's children would have been able to tackle that problem without the need for additional assistance. That doesn't mean they didn't use some type of assistance, I just don't think it was necessary.
quote:Again, I am primarily looking for a way to tie the story of Bean and Ender together at this later point in time, and Jane seems a likely key to doing that.
Well, I imagine Jane will have to officially meet Bean or his children sometime between Children of the Mind and Shadows in Flight, but I'm not sure that it needed to happen before then.
Although, I suppose a back story involving Jane and Bean would be interesting. In any case, a little speculation never hurts.
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posted
Hello everybody, I read seriously all you said. I liked the Peter/Petra end. I really can't tell you if I could predict it or not. I am happy for Peter, he deserves a good end.
I didn't know there would be two other books. So for me Bean was gone for good, and it was weirdly unexplained, now I know why
I thought that a book about Colonel Graff could be made too, as he is a constantly important and present character (well at least in Ender's Game and the Shadows). He is kind of the father of those children. Maybe an interesting point of view on the battle school...
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posted
On the Jane point, I would just wonder... If Jane knew Bean, had talked to him, knew what he was, wouldn't she tell Ender? Or something? There is nothing to imply, through the whole series, that Jane communicated on a personal level with any other human other than Ender.
I agree with camus's points. I do think it likely that somewhere in Jane's levels of attention she manages Bean's finances. I'm sure she pays as much detail to that as she does to any of the millions upon millions of communications going through the ansible system every day.
I don't think there is any need to connect Jane to Bean any further. One of the things that I liked about SftD was the way that there was this new type of person, this "intelligent computer", and the only person who knew about it was Ender. It tied nicely into his connections with all species of raman in Xenocide and CotM.
Too much interconnection between the Shadow series and the Speaker trilogy begins to look silly. I thought even Bean's role in Jane's creation was too much. It seemed really random, just tossed in there, and doesn't really fit with Jane's origins in SftD.
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posted
Well, again, this is very much speculation. But as we have acknowledged Jane has many many levels of conciousness and awareness; I really don't have a problem with Jane connecting with Ender on a personal level while being connected to Bean on a practical level. Though in my own mind, the practical connection with Bean would have some limited personal apects to it. But I don't see Bean needing a constant companion the way Ender needs one, and the way that Jane fills that roll in a way the Valintine can't.
Because of Jane's memories of the Fantasy Game and because of her knowledge of 'The Hive Queen' and 'The Hegemon', and because Jane was in a sense born to be connected to Ender; Jane knew she had found a kindred spirit in Ender. She knew she had found the one person who could comprehend and accept her as a new sentient lifeform. That gives them a special connection that Jane would not have with Bean. Yet, I still say Jane does have a connection with Bean, however limited it might be.
As far as Jane revealing her knowledge of Bean to Ender, why would she do that unless it came up in a conversation, and why would it come up in a conversation? Bean is merely one of Jane's many duties. Bean is merely one of her financial clients. It is entirely possible that Jane and Ender did discuss Bean. But what could she say, other than to recite Bean's history as just that - history. The same as she would recite the history of any of Ender's earth acquaintances. Unless Ender specifically asked to be put in direct contact with Bean, I really don't think there was ever much to be said. My personal sense is that Ender left all that behind him; when he and Valintine left on their voyages, they considered everyone they ever knew as being instantly dead.
One last point, as far as I remember in the 3,000 year of history to which we are witness, we've never seen anything that was comparable to the Star Trek Replicators. In otherwords, food and other supplies don't just magically appear at the push of a button. Spaceships need supplies. Certainly, the voyages we have seen have been long, several years, so the spaceships must have substantial storage capacity, but at some point, they are going to need to stop on some planet for more supplies.
So, at some point, Bean's ship would have to stop at a planet, and Bean's kids would have to go down and negotiate for the substantial volume of supplies they would need to continue their journey. For that, they would need money, and needing money means needing Jane to assist as some level of awareness. It would be a simple bank transaction, so the level of awareness would not be that high, but I suspect that Jane would make some effort to make sure that Bean didn't get cheated. I don't see any of this as being very high on Jane's figuartive radar screen. All very much background tasks.
Don't forget that when Jane was about to be shut down, she found allies on several worlds to help her out. She seems to have done this on her own without help from Ender or the others on Lusitania. Jane is quite capable of interacting with other people without any dip his her interaction with the people of Lusitania which includes Ender. Note that by the end of the series , several people have the jeweled ear pieces and Jane has a personal interaction with them all.
Further, I suspect that if Bean drops out of warp drive (figuratively) and enters orbit around a planet, he has in a sense, landed on that planet for purposes of income tax. At that time, I think in a limited practical way, Jane assisted Bean in clearing his tax debt. Again, I admit it's speculation, but my sense is that it is fair speculation.
In a sense, if Bean and his kids, and later when Bean is incapaciated, just his kids are stopping at planets, that opens the door for the continuation of Bean's story. Now instead of endless dreary space travel, adventures are open to him.
Further since Bean and his kids are in near perpetual space fight, they would have no problem lasting longer than the 3,000 years (earth time) of Ender's story. That means that Bean's kids could very easily meet New!Peter, and there is a slim chance that Bean could even still be alive.
posted
We already know that "Shadows in Flight" will be about Bean's children meeting Peter II and the Lusitania gang, so it's a given that they're still alive. OSC has mentioned that Bean won't be, or he will die at the early on in the book. SotG was for all intents in purposes the end of Bean... Then again, at some point OSC said that Bean would die in SotG. Who's to say what he will change his mind about?
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posted
As I said before, I put off reading 'Shadow of the Giant' because I didn't think I could emotionally take Bean dying. As it turned out, I wasn't too thrilled with how unresolved Bean's story was. So, I am hoping that in the next book Bean dies with a sense of hope for his children, rather than to quitely die in despair in some untold story.
I need a resolution to Bean's story that while tragic still leaves me satisfied. I can't take someone I love just fading away with no purpose, no hope, no accomplishment in resolving the fate of his children. I can't stress how important this is to me. Bean can't simply be gone. Since Mr. Card has made me love Bean, I really don't think I can take the pain of his just being gone in the next book. That is an emptiness that is too tragic, too much to bare. His life has meaning in the tremendous sacrifices he made for the world in helping Peter bring peace to the earth and in the immeasurable sacrific of leaving his wife and 'normal' family in order to protect his 'special' kids, after that meaningful life, his death also must have meaning because the alternative is just too painful.
I suspect when (if) we meet Bean again, it will not be a pretty sight. I picture him pretty much helpless, doomed to live in weightlessness hovering around in a specially designed space chair while his children go planet side. A physical giant who now has lost most motor function and is all brain. Really, it's not a pretty sight. I can't take Bean just dropping dead, not after living like that. His death has to have some meaning even if the meaning is only to his kids.
posted
Why not just have Bean die in space? That seems pretty tragic to me. I don't see any need for a "noble" or "heroic" death. IMO, it's corny and unrealistic.
A death doesn't have to have any "meaning" to it. It's the life that counts, and as you said, Bean's life had plenty of meaning. In fact, one would think that any meaningful death would pale in comparison to Bean's life. I think a stark contrast between his vibrant, impactful life and a quiet, lonely death would be better.
People die, most of the time unceremoniously, and they usually don't get to choose where, when, or how. Why should Bean be any exception?
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quote: I don't see any need for a "noble" or "heroic" death.
I agree. I don't think he needs a death like Libo or Quim or Planter. He's already done enough sacrificing with the life he led. All I hope for him is to be able to be satisfied with his life, with the things that he was able to accomplish, not dwelling on the things that he would never have time to do. I want him to die happy with the decisions he has made and the people that he's loved. I want him to feel that despite having a short life, it was a life fully lived. I want him to be able to let go, completely satisfied and content.
It doesn't have to be a lonely death, but it doesn't have to be overly heroic either. I imagine an interchange similar to what Valentine encouraged Novinha to do with Ender at the end of Children of the Mind. Happy, content, and peaceful. For if Bean is truly successful in his life, then he will always live on in his children and the people that he has loved. What can be more noble than that?
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posted
This specific thread may already be gone, but I have to throw my hat into the ring. We all could have seen the ending coming if we read Shadow Puppets. Peter talks love and such, and then even later in the series he goes through that whole little "woe is me" thing, speaking of how Bean and Petra don't even have to talk things through to get their meaning out there. It made me sad, but I can't say it was impossible to guess it. It does, however, bother me that Peter had the audacity to say "I love you" before he read Bean's last letter to his wife. Ever.
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posted
Hello all. I've read the whole series (finally) and this is my first time actually coming to the forums of this page. I had to do so b/c SotG affected me so much. As others here have said, I too was crying for the last 30 pages of the book.
But I was also pretty irritated at the way the book was ending. Why is it presented as a forgone conclusion in the book that Bean and Petra have to separate? They make it very clear that with the new "messenger ships," they can advance to lightspeed in weeks rather than years. This flies in the face of the, "Well we can't give the kids a normal childhood in a spaceship," premise. They wouldn't have to give up their whole childhood, merely a few months (years at most, and that's a huge maybe) of relative time. Certainly a few hundred years would have passed when they got back, but the kids wouldn't know the difference."
I was so mad at the end of the book... it felt to me like Bean betrayed Petra and his marriage, and his other children b/c he was being petty and selfish. And then it was shown how Petra "cam around" and accepted that as the only real choice, never explaining why a few weeks or months in a ship, to an infant, would destroy their whole childhood, it just seemed to be pushed as, "because," and left at that. It was crap.
I don't know... no book/movie/whatever has ever affected me like this whole saga from Ender's universe, especially the last 1/4 of SotG. I know it was a wonderful book and I am glad to have taken part in this "universe," and I hope to see it continue. But I hope there's some resolution for Bean b/c even though I think he betrayed his family, I would still like to read how his story ends.
And off-topic completely, I would love for "The Hive Queen and the Hegemon" to be published for real so that we could all read it. I think that would be fascinating.
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posted
Your feelings are entirely based on the slim premise that a cure would be found in the relatively near future. What if it isn't? You have to remember that in all honesty Bean didn't believe that a cure would ever be found, so if Petra or any of the normal kids went along they'd be on the ship until Bean and all of the kids with his condition died. That would probably be at least 20 years (in terms of the time they experience on the ship), so yes, the healthy kids would miss out on having a normal childhood. It's like being born into a prison sentence. It was a tough decision, but I agree with Bean. It simply wouldn't have been fair to have the normal kids spend maybe a quarter of their lives living in a metal box in space even though they don't need to, just because they were born into a unique family. Especially considering that by staying on Earth they got to have a happy normal live with Petra and Peter.
Frankly, it would have been selfish to make the normal kids go just because Bean and Petra didn't have the heart to break up the family. What Bean did was rather selfless.
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quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon: Your feelings are entirely based on the slim premise that a cure would be found in the relatively near future.
20 years of their time would be thousands of years of the time on earth. A few hundred years of earth's time would only be months of their time (with the new ships that get to lightspeed in weeks).
Bean believing there wouldn't be a cure means squat... the people who were around a year or two before the first Bugger War would probably have believed, "We'll never be in an intergalactic war with anything."
I'm just saying that when you look at the progression of things, 400 years is an awful lot of time for an awful lot of scientific progression, and when that would cost you only a few months....
I guess I'd have been more alright with it when they had the "normal ships" and such, but why go through the big deal of explaining all the benefits of the "messenger ships" and then just toss those aside and pretend they don't open more options?
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posted
Yeah, but we can already guess from the Speaker series and what we know about upcoming books that it's at least 3000 years before a cure is found. Even at near light speed, that has to be a significant portion of the kids' childhood. So it doesn't seem that Bean was exactly wrong.
Of course, I realize that the characters in the story don't know that. Still, Bean just wasn't willing to bet that a cure would be found. He didn't even have any guarantee that people would keep looking for one after they left. As I think he mentioned, why should people expend resources for decades or centuries looking for a solution to a problem that only effects a handful of people? So their only real hope is that some other discovery leads indirectly to a cure, and that's as much a matter of luck as anything.
And like I said. The kids that stayed got to have a normal happy life. Even Petra found happiness. Also, I almost forgot about the whole issue of the 9th child! As far as they knew, it was still on Earth somewhere, and they weren't willing to give up on it. So Petra at least would have had to stay regardless.
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