I completely disagreed with Bean about taking the 3 affected children and leaving Petra and the rest.
His stated reason was that he didn't want the normal children to have to grow up in a starship.
But... the whole point of being in the starship is time travel. While years are passing on Earth, only days are passing in the ship. Nobody is growing up on the ship.
Somewhere I recall that it would only be weeks for Bean while it was years for Earth. We know that Ender's trip to Trondheim was about 8 days for 22 years.
Well then what's the problem? Pack everyone into the ship for a few weeks, and come back. It's 50 years later, and they can see how a cure is progressing. The unaltered kids can't spend a few *weeks* in a starship?
Since they don't have to spend years braking to turn around, why not only go out a couple of light years and come back? Just keep doing that. The moment there's a cure, you're all back at Earth right away.
Okay, but Bean doesn't really believe in a cure. And at the end of the book it *is* 50 years later and the cure doesn't look promising. (*We* know that 3000 years later there'd *definitely* be a cure available, but they don't know that.)
Well, try another 50 years. Why not? But, when everyone agrees there is no cure, come back to Earth, with a rich pension, and die with your wife and children. Why make three children grow up on a starship, when they could have Earth? Just sterilize them, it'd be much less cruel. And the family is together, and there's no divorce.
What Bean is really deciding is that Petra being with her parents, brother, and friends is more important than anything else, because if she got on that ship she'd never see them again. And that is a serious consideration, but I don't think it trumps never seeing your husband and three of your children again.
And after she stayed and he left, what did she do? Went to work and didn't see her children for a year. A year! They can go a year without seeing their mother, but "they shouldn't grow up in a starship" for what's really only a few weeks?
Me, if I were Bean, but with no children, I'd stay home and die. For the kids, I'd do the time travel, but I'd take the whole family. Now, if the wife didn't *want* to go, that'd be a different story...
If I were the one without the abnormality, I'd go. I wouldn't lose my spouse, and I certainly wouldn't lose three of my children.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I completely disagreed with Bean about taking the 3 affected children and leaving Petra and the rest.
His stated reason was that he didn't want the normal children to have to grow up in a starship.
But... the whole point of being in the starship is time travel. While years are passing on Earth, only days are passing in the ship. Nobody is growing up on the ship.
Somewhere I recall that it would only be weeks for Bean while it was years for Earth. We know that Ender's trip to Trondheim was about 8 days for 22 years.
Well then what's the problem? Pack everyone into the ship for a few weeks, and come back. It's 50 years later, and they can see how a cure is progressing. The unaltered kids can't spend a few *weeks* in a starship?
Since they don't have to spend years braking to turn around, why not only go out a couple of light years and come back? Just keep doing that. The moment there's a cure, you're all back at Earth right away.
Simple. There are two reasons. First, because Petra still has to find and care for the nonth child (they don't know that the child has left Earth on a colony ship). That's the excuse he uses to force Petra to agree with him. Second, because comming back to Earth after three thousand years would not lead to a "normal" life. Bean and Petra would be totally out of place and not understand anything of the culture. Imagine that you'd taken a person who lived three thousand years ago and sent her here. What would his life be like?
It might not be as extreme for Petra, since in three thousand years the Enderverse changes very little technologically. But Bean doesn't know that, either.
quote: Okay, but Bean doesn't really believe in a cure. And at the end of the book it *is* 50 years later and the cure doesn't look promising. (*We* know that 3000 years later there'd *definitely* be a cure available, but they don't know that.)
Well, try another 50 years. Why not? But, when everyone agrees there is no cure, come back to Earth, with a rich pension, and die with your wife and children. Why make three children grow up on a starship, when they could have Earth? Just sterilize them, it'd be much less cruel. And the family is together, and there's no divorce.
How long do you wait? How fast can the ship go?
Besides, someone could kidnap the children after they return and try to clone the ones with Anton's Key. Bean wants to make sure no one else will ever get that Key from his genes.
quote: What Bean is really deciding is that Petra being with her parents, brother, and friends is more important than anything else, because if she got on that ship she'd never see them again. And that is a serious consideration, but I don't think it trumps never seeing your husband and three of your children again.
I'd disagree. The normal children should get a chance to know the rest of their family.
quote: And after she stayed and he left, what did she do? Went to work and didn't see her children for a year. A year! They can go a year without seeing their mother, but "they shouldn't grow up in a starship" for what's really only a few weeks?
I'd imagine that it'd be significantly longer than a few weeks (perhaps as long as 10 years) if they were suck in the ship for 3000 years Earth time.
quote: Me, if I were Bean, but with no children, I'd stay home and die. For the kids, I'd do the time travel, but I'd take the whole family. Now, if the wife didn't *want* to go, that'd be a different story...
If I were the one without the abnormality, I'd go. I wouldn't lose my spouse, and I certainly wouldn't lose three of my children.
Yes, but Bean is suppose to know better than anyone else and is the least selfish of all. So he gets his way. *sigh* Yeah I don't think that'd hold in real life too, but the idea is that this represents his moral growth. Bean is no longer the selfish child in the begining of Ender's Shadow - he have developed into a person who is completely selfless and willing to do what is right and just without making anyone else suffer. He sacrafices his happiness so his wife and normal children can grow up in the world he lives, and lead a normal life, while he sacrafices his own to take care of the mutant ones as best he can before they all die.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Okay, but Bean doesn't really believe in a cure. And at the end of the book it *is* 50 years later and the cure doesn't look promising. (*We* know that 3000 years later there'd *definitely* be a cure available, but they don't know that.)
[/QB]
How do we even know that? I don't recall Card saying for certain that Bean's children will be cured in "Shadows in Flight".
Anyway, like you said, Bean doesn't really believe that a cure will ever be found. He does want to give his children as much time as possible to wait for one though, just in case. That essentially means that they will probably spend their entire lives on the ship, so any normal children who came would have had to spend a good portion of their's as well. I agree with Bean. It's just not fair. The normal children can have normal lives. Taking that away from them because they don't want to split up the family is just selfish. Also, as LarvalBean mentioned, Petra had to stay behind to look for the nith child, and there's no reason why she should be left alone.
BTW, I hate it when people refer to realtivistic flight as "time travel". It isn't time travel. It's just a time dilation effect as described by the theory of realivity. No one is traveling through time, just experiencing it differently. But I'm sure you knew that.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I often disagree with the decisions of my characters. Many of them are far nobler and more heroic than I am or aspire to be, and make choices that I would shrink from. One does not have to be noble to write about nobility, on the same principle that one does not have to be a murderer to write about murder <grin>.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
True, true, of course. I just don't think I agree it was noble. Or rather, it *was*, since it was a sacrifice, I can't argue with that, I just think it was the wrong decision.
As far as the 9th child, it's not like Bean couldn't head off in the ship, and come back in 2 years to see if they'd found the child yet...
But basically, I came to care about Bean and Petra's marriage and I'd prefer they stay together. Fanboyish of me I suppose...
As far as Pastwatch, that is one of my favourite books, and I absolutely agreed with their decision, tragic though it was. But then again, they made that decision *before* getting married and having children.
quote:BTW, I hate it when people refer to realtivistic flight as "time travel". It isn't time travel. It's just a time dilation effect as described by the theory of realivity. No one is traveling through time, just experiencing it differently. But I'm sure you knew that.
It's accomodative speaking. When I refer to the guy in Rome as "the Pope," I'm not really acknowledging him as my spiritual Father, which is where the word derives from.
quote:How do we even know that? I don't recall Card saying for certain that Bean's children will be cured in "Shadows in Flight".
I can't believe with all the magical doodah with Outside, giving Miro a new body, creating young Val and Peter, defeating the descolada, curing the godspoken of path, etc that Ela can't whip up a simple virus that rewrites Bean's DNA and stops his growth.
In fact, all they'd need to do is go Outside, create new bodies, and transfer over. If Miro can do it, surely genius Bean can.
In fact, Bean could recreate Poke and Carlotta and animate them like Ender did Val and Peter... but Bean might be strong enough to handle all three...
Note: I would *not* want to actually read about that.
P.S. to OSC: Write Rasputin!
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Its not to say it wouldn't be possible, but whether or not he would want to cure people as a plot device.
One key to being a good Sci-Fi author in my opinion is to not convert to using contrite plot devices to weaken a story.
Sure alot of you would like to see Bean in another novel. I think its a horrible idea, who would want to see Bean, the old man who has had to live a lifetime without his wife and half his Children. Compared to him, his children will be immensely more interesting, because they are an open book, pull of possibility.
Also, OSC, I was wondering, when the Starways Council genetically enhanced the people of Path, they did it in a different form than a type of manipulation of Anton's Key correct? Posts: 42 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Seatarsprayan: I can't believe with all the magical doodah with Outside, giving Miro a new body, creating young Val and Peter, defeating the descolada, curing the godspoken of path, etc that Ela can't whip up a simple virus that rewrites Bean's DNA and stops his growth.
In fact, all they'd need to do is go Outside, create new bodies, and transfer over. If Miro can do it, surely genius Bean can.
In fact, Bean could recreate Poke and Carlotta and animate them like Ender did Val and Peter... but Bean might be strong enough to handle all three...
I wouldn't regard the Outside as "magical". There are limits.
Making bodies is very unusual. The only two people who have ever made bodies by going Outside are Miro and Ender. If just anyone could pop out a new body whenever they wanted, then I'm sure the "lifeboat" ships that transferred people to new planets in CotM would have been a lot more crowded.
Making a new body is not a conscious decision. It's subconscious, down at the aiua level, where the patterns lie that a person sees oneself as being made up of. On a deep level, Miro visualized himself within his old body, the familiar pattern, so that appeared when he went outside. Ender, likewise, perceived himself in view of the aspects he attributed to his siblings. The way Bean sees himself is most likely the way he has been for most of his life--with Anton's key turned.
A new body requires a new aiua. My personal speculation is that the only reason Ender was able to sustain three bodies for any period of time was because of his close relations with the hive queen. In the end, his aiua uses just one body again, like all humans. Same with Miro, he didn't create a new body, per se, simply a replacement. Any new body would need an aiua to go along with it, so it is unrealistic to suppose that Bean could recreate any additional bodies (much less Poke/Carlotta, which I doubt he envisions himself as being made up of anyway).
Therefore, Bean is an unlikely candidate for making bodies. Genius is not related to body creation in any way. No human can reasonably double the amount of bodies their aiua controls and survive it. Bean has no reason to see himself as anything other than what he is.
(I don't know much about genetic manipulation, so I'm not sure if the Outside couldn't be used to create a virus or something else to help Bean/his children.)
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Making bodies is very unusual. The only two people who have ever made bodies by going Outside are Miro and Ender. If just anyone could pop out a new body whenever they wanted, then I'm sure the "lifeboat" ships that transferred people to new planets in CotM would have been a lot more crowded.
Actually, I think Jane made it so that all future trips resulted in the travelers being Outside for virtually no time at all, so that no one would have a chance to form a pattern, and create anything or anyone, even by accident. Otherwise, it would never be safe to have Outside travel replace regular flight, because with so many travelers doing it, chances are that someone would create a person or thing from time to time, and that would cause serious problems. I agree with you about everything else though.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Seatarsprayan: This post contains spoilers.
I completely disagreed with Bean about taking the 3 affected children and leaving Petra and the rest.
I agree.
When I first got to the end, being female and without any mutations, I automatically and almost subconsciously read it and thought of it as from Petra's point of view. And when she read Bean the riot act, right after giving birth, about never letting him leave her behind, I thought 'That's so Petra. And that's what I'd do.'
Being without my husband and three of my children would outweigh being without the rest of my family and Earth as I knew it. The ninth child would be always in my mind, and I'd probably never forgive myself for leaving him/her. But I'd have to go.
Alright . . . I admit it . . . I cried at the end.
Posts: 6 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Bean didn't want his affected children to exist. Taking them with him is his way of making that so.
My only real question about this situation is: will the cure be a modified descolada, or an in-and-out trip to get new non-keyed bodies?
Posts: 238 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Making bodies is very unusual. The only two people who have ever made bodies by going Outside are Miro and Ender. If just anyone could pop out a new body whenever they wanted, then I'm sure the "lifeboat" ships that transferred people to new planets in CotM would have been a lot more crowded.
I disagree, out of four? people who go "outside" for any real length of time and two of the four create three new bodies, must be easier than you think.
Posts: 42 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Didn't OSC already have Petra marry Peter in Ender's Game? If so he kind of forced himself into separating the two or killing Bean off.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by dinzy: Didn't OSC already have Petra marry Peter in Ender's Game? If so he kind of forced himself into separating the two or killing Bean off.
there was no such referance.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Nope, definitely not. Nothing was revealed about Petra's fate except that she returned to Earth after the war, and all we knew about Peter from EG was that he became a very successful Hegemon and lived to be an old man. In fact, until SotG, I had always assumed that he had never married, being too concerned with world domination/peace (whatever you want to call it) to worry about normal things like having a family. I'm glad that OSC proved my assumption wrong.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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