posted
The spoilers in this only involve Ender's Game / Shadow. If you haven't read those yet.. what are you doing here?
Alright. Here is my issue: The IF Personnel aboard the ships that were sent to invade the Formic colonies and home world. No one outside the IF Fleet was suppose to know that it was the Humans which were invading, not the Formics. Graff, Dap, and Dimak were always griping in ES about all their violations, and near violations, of protocal. They were always worried about someone leaking information. -- How could this have possibly be hidden from society? There were undoubtedly hundreds if not thousands of IF personnel aboard those invading ships. If they left directly after the Second Invasion, don't you think someone would notice they were gone? How long could they still be on duty without some leave time right after they had won a war. Did they lie to the masses? Tell everyone that the dirty Buggers had killed all their loved ones, and then not allow those soldiers to contact their families? How many do you think would go for that? "Good job, you've saved the human race, now we are sending all of you back into the depths of outerspace again." -- What about the soldiers on the vids? The ones who boarded the alien ships and poked and prodded the lifeless skeletons which moments before were blowing the crap out of them?- Wouldn't they be recognized by someone back home? Surely they would know they hadn't died. - So the IF allows those soldiers to stay. Oh- and their crew of course. - Wouldn't it be risky? To trust those soldiers not to say a word? - If someone would, will you please post an explanation as to why it was so important to keep the knowledge of the third invasion being that of the Human's from the minds of society? Would it not be supported for some reason or another? - The bloody things just nearly ate you alive, who would be against stopping them before they tried it again?
Lot's of thoughts going through my head. I need your outside view to keep me from getting in a rut.
posted
Just so you know i beleive it says that there were very few humans which means it was most likely computers that were controling the main ships.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I remember reading quite clearly that they had a good mix of men and women on those fleet ships so they would have a good start at making human communities on the ex-alien infested planets once they had eradicated the lot. - That may have been one of Bean's theories though... - But they definitely had humans aboard though.. Bean asked Graff if alot of pressure was getting into Ender's mind because Mazer was subtly expressing the anguish he was feeling every time a ship was lost, because he knew there was real people aboard those ships. - The last battle, there was 80 IF ships alone. That doesn't count all the ships from all the previous battles, all the previous 'tests'. -
posted
I'm going with this theory. When the second Invasion ended no one ever knew what really happened. There were no direct figures on the dead, no direct vids of the battles were ever shown on earth. It would be pretty easy to say 1,000,000 IF troops died when 500,000 is the true number. You then the 500,000 that are officially dead they have two options:Go on the invasion force or stay in the solar system. Either way you'll never going home.
Posts: 421 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
As to the troops on the ships while the families might find it sad that their loved ones disapeared or were reported dead for those people on the ships themselves due to reletivity it would only have seemed like a few years. Also the I.F. seemed to have little regard for personall feelings anyway think of Mazer who had to lose everyone he loved for the cause. In regards to why not just tell everyone, this would not be done for many different reasons. First their would always be bleeding heart bugger lovers that would say it would be inhumane to stoop to their level. Also the fact that at earth we kept no ships and were completely diffenceless would have disturbed alot of people. Also arguments on whether the I.F. had the right to do what it did would arise. Haveing those types of questions arise after the war is one thing but during especially right after the first group of ships was launched could have caused all sorts of problems.
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posted
I just had another thought. The invasion of Bugger space was almost a free shot. To much had to go right to really believe they had a realistic shot at beating the buggers, namely having a brilliant military commander at the helm. With the political situation being what it was on Earth it would have been foolish to tell everyone about the invasion. The only reason Humanity was united under one government was the threat of invasion. Look what happened when the War ended. So think about it this way, if the invasion fails, if Ender can't defeat the buggers, no harm no foul. Everyone they sent on the invasion was thought to be dead anyway, no one knows there was even an invasion in the first place, and Earth has 60 years to build a fleet to stop a bugger counter attack.
posted
Well if someone just came out and said the "real" invasion was launched be Humans no one would believe him. They would be just like the people who claim to have evidence about aliens. Who would believe them? Then said person would just vanish. The IF doesn't care about throwing away thousands of troops in a invasion, what do you think they would do to someone who leaked classifed info?
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posted
I'm just thinking about the IF ships-- the people on those.. it feels like someone might've tried something, seeing as they had the ansible and such.. meh- but that would only be able to contact Earth-based IF quarters wouldn't it? -- it was only some odd decades inbetween the battles.. that's pretty harsh on the soldiers knowing that their families went on thinking they were dead, which they sorta were, at least to the world they knew, they were dead.. - You'd think once they beat the Formics and their children found out that they had been alive that whole time, they would be incredibly pissed.. but there'd be letters that they had saved and videos- which would make it easier to cope for both, the children of these soldiers who would have to deal with their parent's death a second time, and for the soldiers themselve's. -
I hate not knowing the real answers though.. which very possibly don't even exist.
posted
Lets also remember these troops saw that Humanity was on the verge of being wiped out. I'm pretty sure if you ask someone who has barely made sure everyone they've ever known will survive to see another day to go and make sure that will never again most of these soldiers will go. By the time Ender is born it is after 60 years or so of peace. People forget, they don't remember the fear. However, someone who lived through the invasion and saw through his own eyes how close we came to being exterminated would be very willing to sacrifice everything for the people they love.
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posted
Also, if the whole world knew that the I.F. was invading the bugger homeworlds it would have been harder to deceive the childeren and get them to "play the games". The geesh might have made the jump themselves and it would've had an effect on their performance.
But that's what I think.
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posted
They were clearly hiding it from the children, because they were children.. that's why they made it a 'game'-- yes. Could the soldiers have known about this ahead of time though? Did the IF already have plans that if they won in the second invasion they were going to send their remaining fleet off to the Formic colonies? Did the soldiers know? I would imagine that as soon as it was won, the soldiers who remained alive would be quick to write home to their loved ones in celebration. Surely right? The only way I could see the facade of a much larger amount of deaths would be if the soldiers knew ahead of time what was going to happen.
posted
I think it would be fairly simple to keep it the Third invasion a secret - Keep the information at a high enough security level. If an underling *has* to know, reassign them afterwards to a position where they would be unable to inform others, similar to the pilot who transported Graff and Ender to Eros in Ender's Game.
In addition, create disinformation by allowing secrets to "leak", like the one where there were thousands and thousands of ships hiding in the comet shield in case the Buggers returned.
Finally, I think the U.S. armed forces could take a lesson from this - Don't tell the media what your plans are and just leave them completely out of the loop. If the media was the same in the 1940s as it is now, I could see the newspapers trying to scoop each other and tell the world when and where D-Day is supposed to occur.
posted
Okay, I just skimmed the questions and answers, so if I'm repeating I apologize.
The only people sent on the ships were those who volunteered to do so. They willingly left for the bugger home worlds knowing that they would never have contact with their families. They may not have even been allowed to use the ansibles themselves. For all we know they were disabled so that verbal communication only worked one-way, and the only information being transmitted back were coordinates and such.
Also, even if they showed up in vids vivisecting buggers, the IF could always claim that their ship had some sort of mechanical malfunction on the way back to Earth, and sadly there were no survivors.
Any way, that's my take on things.
Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Okay, i'm going to say that I agree partially with a number of posts so here's my take on things.
-The soldiers sent were volunteers; conscrips dont make good fleet officers.
-It is very likely that the crew is sending in prerecorded messages back to Earth to be shown to their family after the war or at their death if they are not a security risk.
-Those ships most likely have a captain, XO, crew and various officers to maintain dicsipline, to repair/maintain the ship, and of course it is doubtful from what I can tell of the political situation that they wont allow robots to take full control of the ships thats why all of the commands are verbal.
-Now remember that the IF has centuries of previous general staffs and army beurocratic history to learn from so it is conceivable that the IF can keep its security remember I believe that a certain majority of the officers in the I.F are from Battle School and thus from a young age do have a natural loyallty to the I.F for as long as the Bugger threat remains.
-In case some of you are confused the I.F sent the immediate survivors of the Battle of Saturn (thats what I call it) and whatever reserves they had ti attack the Buggers homeworld (the farthest planet away) and other planets creeping closer to earths position. And sending reinforcements and new task forces and new ships to the closer and closer Formic worlds.
This is what I think.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote: The soldiers sent were volunteers; conscrips dont make good fleet officers.
Anyone got a quote on this subject from the books?
If it's true, when were the volunteers asked to volunteer? - I suppose the soldiers may have had no connection with home after the war, especially cause they may not have been given instructions as to what information they were aloud to tell yet- so they went back to their stations and celebrated, hugged, blahdy blah, and then maybe a half day or so later they were approached by their admirals and what not and they gave these speeches about how this was there chance to end it for once and for all, to become heros, save their children, save their children's children, save humanity, from the Formics aggression forever. They would have to sacrifice their lives again though. Never to return. But to be remembered as heros. --- And of course it would sadden them to know they could never go back, but they'd still volunteer. -- but the ones that stayed behind- some of them may have gone crazy due to the war, due to losing friends they had grown up with their whole lives, some of them might even be angry that they were asking more from them and they'd decide not to volunteer, they wanted to go back home, and they'd be resentful, and I could imagine those soldiers being a security risk.. so yah.. they might station those ones at Eros and never let them return home anyway.. ::shrugs:: -- Sorry, I just like to ponder.
posted
It would have been easier than everyone thinks. If the first ships were sent out sixty years ago thats sixty years ago EARTH TIME. As shown by how long Ender lives and by the fact that on his trip to the bugger worlds Peter becomes an old man. For the crews of the ships it might have only been six months or a year and it would not have been that hard to keep those troops disciplined for that short of time. Reletivity does amazing things.
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posted
It can be found in like the 2nd chapter of Ender's game. Graff is trying to convince Ender to come becuase he's needed. He says they won't force him because conscrips make good cannon fodder but not good officers.
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posted
There's a quote somewhere that's more related. Let me see if I can find it.
Edit: What I mean is that the soldiers sent on the ships aren't necessarily officers, so that quote doesn't necessarily prove anything. Let me see what I can find.
posted
Okay, pg. 298 of the YA paperback version (towards the end of chapter 14) Ender is talking to Mazer and Graff and it says:
quote: "We had pilots with our ships, didn't we." "Yes." "I was ordering pilots to go in and die and I didn't even know it." "They knew it, Ender, and they went anyway. They knew what it was for."
posted
Ya, thats a far better post but remember they sent starships to the buggers that carry cruisers, destroyers, frigates, as well as fighters. You had to have officers to maintain a achain of command.
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posted
"What are you doing here?" "Demosthenes retired. Now I'm going with the first colony." "It's fifty years to get there-" "Only two years if you're aboard the ship."
Now, slower ships for earlier technology, say it's five years voyage. That's not all that bad.
As far as wondering where people went - they had to be out in space in defense and they wouldn't be allowed back to earth, even in retirement, for security purposes.
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posted
Hopefully the survivors were allowed back after the war ended. It would be kind of sad if they weren't. Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
They were already there to start colonies - besides, they're over 100 years removed from anyone they knew. I guess they could spend some quality time with their great grand-children, if they had kids before they left, but it seems much easier for the IF to require them to stay.
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Also remember that this is easily 100+ years in the future and while it may seem that things might not have changed all that much but the militaries way of doing things inextraordinary circumstances may have changed.
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