But first, do any of the "old and distinguished" Hatrackers remember any debates on the origin of Jane?
If so and you can link them, please do.
Back to the premonition: an interesting idea came up in another thread about Bean becoming Jane. Now that doesn't sound likely AT ALL and I do not believe OSC would tie up those loose threads in such a way for even one second.
The debate in the thread "Faster then [sic] light travel" touched on the rumor that the children of Bean would meet the children of Ender.
I believe that topic could be done rather neatly.
BUT: What if Jane was not Bean, but a relative or loved one of Bean?
What if something happens to Petra, and although Bean is unwilling to save himself from his demise, he is willing help Petra live on much longer than her body would allow? What if he performs some act for his dying child? His only child? What if Jane represents the evolution of Homo Sapiens from Bean's genetic enhancements, and Bean finds a way for the essence of a person to manifest itself as Jane?
posted
I think it is pretty clear that Jane is the auia that was pulled from "outside" to bridge between the Hive Queens and Ender. Xenocide spells this all out.
I don't see any kind of Bean / Jane connection. I DO see a possible connection between Bean and the Godspoken of Path, though.
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
Uummm . . . I don't know, that seems a little farfetched to me . . . Jane's already in Young Val, isn't she? The understanding I got from reading Children of the Mind was that without Jane, Young Val couldn't survive . . . and now she's married to Miro . . . so how could she leave Young Val's body?
posted
though I think there is evidence that they are related if Julian Delphiki (Bean's father) programmed the fantasy game, which I think there is strong hinting of in Ender's Shadow. Maybe when Bean is close to death he somehow accesses this. I remember he mostly avoided the fantasy game in battle school except for playing by accident. Didn't he go to fairy land and see Achilles?
I wonder what Petra did with the fantasy game. Not to stick my nose into stuff that hasn't been written, but maybe Jane as the fantasy game starts giving messages to Ender's Jeesh while he is yet on his first colony journey.
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posted
I think it would be very un-Cardlike if Bean actually survived to the last book. OSC is all about killing off his characters as brutally and unmercifully as possible.
Posts: 2048 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Yah, Jane was already semi-intelligent in Ender's Game, too. I am assuming it was Jane who made the choices to access pictures downloaded from Earth that were outside the parameters of the game's original programming. While it did this with everyone (we can assume, since Bean saw Achilles) it was with Ender that she made the deepest connection (and thus all his nightmares, etc. in the end). I think this is a red herring. I am also thinking more along the lines of Path (or at least Anton's work leads to the people of Path...either way, Bean is involved in some way or another).
What I want to know is if we will see any more of Peter's conversation with Ender (as briefly discussed in Ender's Game) when "Hive Queen and the Hegemon" are written. Will Peter mention Bean's role in this affair? Curious.
posted
how did jane get all that support from other worlds when she was about to die? it had to have been there for a while, has been or petra got anything to do with janes helpers? did she show herself to bean, petra, or peter before she let ender know about her? is the ansible even linked up to the earth before ender leaves for the first colony?
posted
I think the official, documented, chronology is this:
--Hive Queen realizes the construction of human minds/aiuas, and as is done when a new Hive Queen is born, she draws out an aiua to connect with Ender. [Described obliquely in EG, more explicitly in Xenocide.]
--The aiua is cast off by the Hive Queen, after the Formic defeat. It slowly becomes sentient, drawing aspects from the Formic and Human parts it has, as well as the philotic/aiuic links between the computers. [As described in Xenocide/CotM.]
--Jane develops into her current form, and remembering her human link, she goes searching for him, and then waits until Investment Counselor to show herself.
--Jane, having realized what the Starways Congress is doing to find her, goes looking for allies on planets that may have people sympathetic to her existence. [This would have occurred starting as early as SftD.]
--Jane finds a way to survive between The Hive Queens, the human philotic network, and the web of the Father/Mother trees of the pequeninos (sp). Ultimately, they find a way for her to jump into Young Val, who is really holding a part of Ender (as is Young Peter). The implication behind the creation of YP/YV Outside, I believe, is that Ender's aiua is so strong, as reflected in his empathic brilliance, as to be able to desire/create these two facsimiles of his siblings. Ender's aiua goes into Young Peter, and relinquishes Young Val (albeit reluctantly). This is all in Xenocide/CotM.
I see no reason to bring Bean into this, and in fact, I think it would needlessly complicate things. Jane wasn't the Fantasy Game, in toto. She was an aiua that used to FG to help beidge the HQ and Ender... In fact, ultimately, the FG is a crutch, since by the time Ender is "playing" on Eros, the HQ can use the bridge directly, causing all sorts of havoc (somewhat unintentionally, though maybe not) on Ender's brain.
Papa Moose, does this jive with your expertness on all things Ender?
posted
It's good to see my ideas continue to be kicked around. Good stuff!
*rubs hands together enthusiastically*
"Devil's Advocate" time!
--Hive Queen realizes the construction of human minds/aiuas, and as is done when a new Hive Queen is born, she draws out an aiua to connect with Ender. [Described obliquely in EG, more explicitly in Xenocide.]
The Hive Queen is often misinterpreted by the limited "speech" aspects of the Human mind. We see this at least once; I strongly recall her explanation of the "bridge". She mentions pulling things from "outside" through "doorways".
Ender: "What 'doorways'? How do you open them?"
Hive Queen: "Doorways?"
Ender: "Yes, doorways. You mentioned doorways?"
Hive Queen: "No, not doorways. You misinterpret, because you have no word for what I am expressing. The word you hear as 'door' is so vastly complicated and intricate that you do not comprehend it."
This misinterpretation must not only be limited to the word, "doorways". There must also be other words misinterpreted. Whole concepts missing from our mental vocabulary. Concepts we cannot, due to the fashion in which our brains are wired, wrap our minds around. Could we not have misinterpreted the "bridge"?
The Battle School computers were the earliest memories of Jane. Using those computers, being the fantasy program, those are the farthest back she can recall. But should Bean actually move himself from the corporeal world and into the electronic one, what keeps him from forgetting what he was? What keeps "Bean" together? We know of Bean's "survival only" outlook on life. Who is to say that he does not deem the hard drive space taken up by his Bean memories as unneccesary, or worse, liable to betray his precarious position? Surely Bean/Jane could detect people poking around in her hard drives. Suppose they came too close to the truth? It is well inside Bean's character that he would delete his old memories in order to keep himself from being discovered.
Or perhaps he hid his memories, to be reactivated upon contact with his offspring?
It is definently a possibility that Bean is Jane.
--The aiua is cast off by the Hive Queen, after the Formic defeat. It slowly becomes sentient, drawing aspects from the Formic and Human parts it has, as well as the philotic/aiuic links between the computers. [As described in Xenocide/CotM.]
In our speculative contingency where Bean transfers his aiua to the Battle School computers, and later deletes his earthly memories, Jane is not "slowly becoming sentient". She's relearning Bean's old sentience.
--Jane develops into her current form, and remembering her human link, she goes searching for him, and then waits until Investment Counselor to show herself.
Consider: It's not "remembering her human link," it's simply carrying out Bean's orders. Bean, as seen throughout Ender's Shadow, has a unique feeling about Ender. He feels loyal to him in a way he feels loyal to no one else, least of all himself. So he commands "himself" to seek out Ender; to help Ender, when he needs it.
Or perhaps it's not a command; its simply a part of his Bean-ness. When he deletes his memories, all that remains is his "self", his basal persona/aiua. Ender, it could be argued, had such an effect on Bean that he permenantly altered Bean's persona. Easily beleivable. Consider the child who went into Battle School, the cold, computing child, the undeveloped character, and then consider the child who helped Ender on Eros. An utterly loyal, self-sacrificing person.
So, with Bean's memories deleted/hidden, his aiua falls back on Jane's memories. Looking for the person to whom that intense loyalty is aimed, Ender strikes a chord. Jane seeks Ender out based on this.
Don't dismiss the possibility out of hand. It would be a good way to tie Bean into the story, and it would be a good way to tie his children into it.
Posts: 497 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Except that Bean-as-Jane doesn't make much sense, since the personality would be a radical change (Ender-as-Young-Peter doesn't exhibit this, neither does Jane-as-Young-Val). Plus, Bean is _changing_ through the Shadow series. He is moving from his survivalist/fatalist conceptions. The other examples of aiua-change don't jive with your description of how bean->jane works. You can't erase the memories, if the other changes are accepted.
Of course, a simpler objection to your idea would be "if Bean wants to survive, why would he want to forget who he was/is?" What sort of meaningful survival is it to forget what you are?
I think Occam's Razor tends to be in favor of a Jane as an out-growing of the "bridge." Of course, OSC could build some nifty rationale/plot that changes Bean into Jane, but that would be quite a work to fit into the Ender "canon", and not really add anything to the Enderverse, compared to just coming up with something completely separate. And given OSC's general lack of planning out consistencies beforehand, I find it unlikely that OSC had this idea in his head up until this point.
By your rationale, ANY of the jeesh could be Jane... Battle School helped cultivate survivalist instinct. Heck, maybe Graff, or even Mazer could be Jane. I'm sure just as plausible reasons could be put forth as to why they would do it.
posted
Chuu... I think it's easier, and kinder, to think of Jane as the entity she is represented as in Xenocide and so on, because if she had been intended to be Bean, or Petra, or Achilles, or Mrs. Wiggin, or god knows who else, that would eventually cloud our perception of who OSC wanted her to be. I believe that he originally wanted us to feel a sympathy for Jane, and eventually happiness for what she became, but in the intervening time, she was meant to be Ender's boon companion, the friend that he could no longer have in his long-gone jeesh, a friend that he didn't have to leave behind and who always remembered him the way he was. Someone, in short, who was meant to know the REAL Ender, in a way that no one besides Valentine knew him before.
If Jane was written to 'be' the aiua of someone Ender once knew, I think perhaps she would end up being cheapened, in my eyes.
Though I hope that in the end, Ender's jeesh is somehow connected to him, I don't know if I could deal with that idea, which would become ridiculous if concentrated on too much. But, I don't know, OSC could like that idea, and then I'd be proven wrong. (I just hope not..)
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quote:Heck, maybe Graff, or even Mazer could be Jane. I'm sure just as plausible reasons could be put forth as to why they would do it.
Not so much why as how. The reason that Jane can throw her aiua around is because her resources are so vast. The entire philotic web contributes to her mental capacities... every computer on the Hundred Worlds is at her disposal.
And when she goes Outside, every computer in the Hundred Worlds is needed. Every single one. Graff's brain, Mazer's brain... none of them have the mental resources to do it. It's mathematics: the amount of switches which can be flipped. Computers are restricted by their binary functions, the amount of such functions they can perform. Humans are restricted in the same way by the amount of synapses fireable in their brains. Mazer, Graff... even Ender cannot send their aiua into a computer system. They, after all, are restricted by the same synapse count as every other human.
Human. Who defies that? Who exceeds that? Who is no longer human?
Bean. Plain and simple, Bean's mind is still increasing in size. The amount of synapses firing in Bean's mind is beginning to increase astronomically.
Soon it will immobilize him. He will lose the mobility of his physical body, as his mind grows to unreasonable, inhuman proportions. The sheer weight of his brain will be too much for his body to handle.
He will undoubtedly see the immediate solution to his predicament. He is too heavy for his body? Go where weight means so much less.
Outer space. Where in outer space? Anywhere that will have him.
Battle School.
The place is used as an administrative headquarters for a military wing which needs a competent, trustworthy leader. Bean is a recognized military genius, the Stratego of the ever-growing Hegemony under Peter. The station is turned over to his needs, and the turning of the rings are slowed. Gravity decreases. He earns another year to live, two at best.
As he continues to grow, the rings are more increasingly slowed. Finally, the rings stop. Zero Gravity.
It isn't enough. His heart is failing to provide blood to his entire body. He has become completely immobile, a massive brain.
A massive, organic supercomputer.
Immobilized and with time to think, wouldn't Bean come to the same conclusions that our characters in the EG sequels came to? Not along the same lines, neccesarily, but enough to feel the only way to escape the prison his body has become.
The computers.
Surrounded by the most advanced computer technology, why wouldn't Bean do it?
posted
Well, I dig the idea, but the likelihood of its being acceptable to OSC is vanishingly small...
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
But in the case of Bean-as-Jane, the main aiua for the philotic links already exists BEFORE Bean converts over. Instead it's finding out how to merge with the "bridge".
Graff, having invested in Ender's existence before he, well, existed, could do it... He'd have noticed something weird about the Fantasy Game.
I guess it depends on if you think the human needs to accept the bridge, or vice versa.
As for why Bean wouldn't do it, I thinj we find it increasingly clear why not in the more recent books.
posted
Graff does not have a gigantic brain. Nor does he have a computer network hooked into himself. He lacks the neccesary "computing power" that would be needed to jump bodies. In theory, the "bridge" could jump into him... a) don't know why it would, and b) they couldn't jump back Out of Graff's body.
Graff did notice something weird about the Fantasy Game. It was bugger technology that no one really understood.
This whole concept of a bridge might be flawed. We only know of it from the standpoint of the Hive Queen... Jane does not remember being a bridge. I'm not sure that the "bridge" would even play a role in the Bean-as-Jane deal, with no one entity imposing itself on the other. I would, purhaps, explain the bridge as what allowed Bean to enter the computer. Bean couldn't go into the computer, by itself, or he would have done it on Earth. He goes in through the "bridge", into the Battle School computers.
That's how I'd play it if I were in the writer's chair.
Posts: 497 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I just have to say that un-less im mistaken at one point Jane thinks about how she was just a barely sentint being. But, she truly become sentint when she finds the fantasy game and makes it her-self. And since the game was so devoted to Ender (half its avable mem.) and her aiue is the bridge would explaine y she is so interested in and devoted to Ender.
Posts: 397 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Actually, since Jane was able to jump into and out of the various networks in CotM, I don't see why the bridge couldn't jump into or out of Graf.
And I don't see how even if Bean had a huge brain, it'd be enough to compute everything to go Outside. It seems rather arbitrary and unnecessary.
posted
I find this thread fascinating simply because the premise is different than anything else recently.
I have to agree that OSC probably created Jane with no intentions of linking her to anyone from Enders Game, but what a fantastic idea to tie them together.
Even if we all agreed that Jane formed her philotic connection before Bean even thought of playing the Fantasy Game, what is to say that in the rapidly advanced stages of his premature death, Bean DOES search for a way to continue on as Steel and Reed Richards and others hint at?
What if his advanced mental ability transcends itself by forming its own philotic thread to Jane and they merge into one aiua? What if that merger causes Jane to be the "dominant" persona and Bean's memories are obliterated, but his essense, his aiua, remains?
Fun stuff! Any other thoughts?
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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What if Jane resented the fact that Ender turned off his earpiece for a few minutes because the hidden Bean aiua always resented the fact that Ender tended to ignore him, especially when Bean felt like Ender should use his talents better? This would only furter reinforce the pain that Jane felt by not having Ender, her one constant companion, turn her off...
quote:What if Jane resented the fact that Ender turned off his earpiece for a few minutes because the hidden Bean aiua always resented the fact that Ender tended to ignore him(?)
Hmm.. Gosh, the more I think about this idea, the more interesting and even... plausible it becomes. That sort of scares me.
I believe that Bean could have the mental capacity to do what Jane does. But what I wonder is why Bean, if he "became" Jane, would choose to be female rather than male. I mean, one could argue that the mind, which is what Bean is most attentive of, is genderless, but in reading Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets, I don't see how Bean as he has become would be able to think of himself that way.
quote: As for why Bean wouldn't do it, I thin(k) we find it increasingly clear why not in the more recent books.
I agree. The person that Bean is turning into would find it difficult to leave his body behind and only be a mind forever. (or whatever, for those of you who have read CotM...) But on the other hand, perhaps the happenings in those last two books would be enough to make him want to cling to life more tenaciously than ever.
Personally, it just squicks me to think of Bean ending up like that at the end of CotM... There's just something weirdly wrong about it.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Or... perhaps Bean/Lane just chooses, in it's new logical Bean/Jane form, to assume the form of whatever it knows Ender will be most likely to adopt as a complementary figure: a sidekick. If he appeared as Bean, Ender might not feel the same way about him as he does Jane.
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posted
Clearly. Bean is a dwarf. Jane is a hot computer chick. Which one is Ender more likely to choose? Duh.
Posts: 21 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Well Bean aint all ways a dwarf now he's ginat I mean Ender may need some one to rech the top shelf for him. Wut's a Hot Computer Chick got on that.(I can't belive i said that)
posted
"I think it would be very un-Cardlike if Bean actually survived to the last book. OSC is all about killing off his characters as brutally and unmercifully as possible."
PFFFT. Yeah, okay. *eye roll*
Alright, this 2 year old thread is revived!
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
*SPOILERS* (YOU'VE BEEN WARNED*****)
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*INCOMING SPOILER*
Bean gave Graff the idea of linking the fantasy game with Ender's accounts and to link it with all the various evidence on the net to figure out where his children were.
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Lots of Spoilers here. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ SHADOW OF THE GIANT DONT LOOK AT THIS!
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The Fantasy Game was reprogrammed to have it control Ender's accounts, The Hive Queen used an aiua to give the program a soul, and that soul, became Jane. In SOTG they speak about its ability to continually work because noone would be able to shut it down without an international attempt to destroy it (sound familiar?) and Jane is the one who is ever presently connected to the ansible network, as said in SOTG.
Posts: 883 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:See, this thread was started before that book was published...but now it's published!
And it's a good thing you brought the dates to my attention, or I would've wasted a whole lot of time reasoning out why this idea is not only implausible, it's absurd.
quote:Soon it will immobilize him. He will lose the mobility of his physical body, as his mind grows to unreasonable, inhuman proportions. The sheer weight of his brain will be too much for his body to handle.
He will undoubtedly see the immediate solution to his predicament. He is too heavy for his body? Go where weight means so much less.
Outer space. Where in outer space? Anywhere that will have him.
Battle School.
This guy did a hell of a job predicting what was next, though . And I like the idea of Bean ending up at the former Battle School - much more than I like the incredibly farfetched idea that Bean becomes Jane.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Bean dies. Card says so and I agree he should. He's out-lived his purpose and needs the eternal sleep. I think it would be both selfish and stupid if Card made Bean live somehow...especially since he told everyone otherwise.
Ultimately, Bean dies. GET OVER IT!
Posts: 112 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Hmm. You know, I know OSC is going for realism here, but one of the things that I've disliked in OSC's major stuff so far is that every single hero HAS to die. I mean, I'm not saying that all have to have a happy ending, but man...just one of them? Couldn't Bean get cured and then die of old age? I mean, that would be nice...for a change. PETER got to die of old age and I'm not completly sure that he should have been granted that (though he did make Petra happy and such, so maybe he did, but..). Now, Bean, he definitly deserves that. Alot.
But you know, its one of the things that bugged me about Children of Mind. I just did NOT like what happened to Ender. I thought he deserved better then that. He was such a better character then fake Peter and fake Val. And everything he was trying to do in Children and that happens to him..its just like...ugh.
And then this thing about Alvin dying in Master Alvin. I'm just not looking forward to that at all! Alvin definitly deserves better then that too (cause you can be pretty sure he's not going to die of old age...)
But Bean..you know..it would be so great if he could be in that last Shadow book and that he'd be there to be cured with his kids. Even you know, if he dies of old age, heck, thats fine. But it would be nice if he's there in that final book.
Just know..something suprising and different. Instead of what, mostly, everyone supsects OSC will do: kill Bean off before or during Shadow. My bet its before, but he might have Bean die in the early chapters.
I think Bean's kids will be cured, but not Bean. I think thats what most people think is going to happen...
Anyway, as for Jane, we know her orign because of Ender's Game/Speaker/etc AND especially because of Shadow of the Giant. Her orign is pretty clear now.
Hmm. I wonder if Jane/Val will still be around when Bean's kids show up. That would be cool.
DF2506 " Don't get me wrong here, I love OSC's books, I just don't like the 'every character HAS to die thing'. But you know, I was VERY happy with Shadow of the Giant, because Bean didn't die there. That ending was perfect imo. Loved that book."
Posts: 128 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I'd still love to see Bean die in the early chapters, having grown into a monstrous, swollen brain that fills the inner cavities of the ship, his children having learned to crawl over his various tendrils and dendrites.
posted
I really don't want Bean to die, but he probably will. Did OSC ever say it straight out, or are we just assuming here?
Though I see no connection between Bean and the Godspoken- Bean was far more advanced than they were, it seemed to me.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Card did make it definate that Bean will die and probably in the prolouge to another tale. Probably the long awaited "shadows in flight". And I agree that Bean seems to have nothing to do with the people of path yet if he has any kind of conection to any planet settlement already known-I think it would be Lusitania because of the brazilian culture.
Posts: 112 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
THe Godspoken do not grow to incredible size or start out incredibly small. I forsee Beans children finding a colony thats populated. They find wives/husbands, marry and have kids. A couple hundred generations later your get a race that has a fraction of the intelligence but are still the smartest people in the universe they have just lost the growth curse
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Also Jane acts nothing like Bean whatsoever. I think that even with no memory passover the inner soul of the person would remain. What im saying is the basic personality would remain the same. So I doubt a Jane to Bean connection.
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posted
TomDavidson, I appreciate you. That post cracked me up for a good long while and I fully support it going into whatever future installments of the Enderverse there are.
Posts: 50 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
All of you are not taking into consideration that maybe bean might a weird mix of Aton's key and the hive queens calling. It is said that Jane's location was within Ender himself, so maybe bean reached to a level that he could be what Jane was herself meaning that bean was with ender.
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