posted
The actualization of a battle school at all would depend heavily not only parents and children, but all of the citizens, whether their family would be directly effected at all. There are definitely selfish motives in the building of the school, but ultimately it is driven by altruism. They have to put aside national discrepancies and work for the good of the whole. At this point in History, I can think of nothing, alien or otherwise, that would unite every nation on earth to one purpose. Even if that puprose was to save the eath from an alien invasion.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
As far as Bonzo's familly goes that was more a matter of spanish pride, but I think you misunderstand (or maybe I just messed it up) that many parents would be forced to relinquish their children. After all i know that if I had children I would do everything in my power to stop them from being taken away from me.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Vonk, always remember that the strongest instinct of humanity is to survive, wether that survival depends on protecting yourself or your loved ones. It doesn't matter, but our strongest goal is always to survive.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, Advent, but that instinct still doesn't lead humanity to unite; it hasn't yet, anyhow. Unlike Card, I don't think that even an outside threat to humanity's survival would lead everyone to unite in a common cause. There are always those barriers separating various factions, whether political or social or otherwise, that prevent complete unification.
Plus, self-survival does tend to trump altruism for most of the human population. The exceptions, when humans do unite, provide powerful examples, but those occasions are so powerful mostly because of their rarity.
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think the more likely outcome would be some faction or another attempting to use the battle school, or the temporary "peace" caused by a planetwide threat, to assert themselves as a world power. Then, the rest of the world will have to protect itself from that one faction, and eventually we would destroy ourselves and leave the planet as a gift for the attacking species.
i think that would be the biggest obstacle to a battle school. in EG and the Bean stories that followed, the more aggresive nations were able to wait until the threat was over before they tried to gain power. in todays world, i do not believe they would have the patience.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
CRash can you think of a more rare situation than possability of our race going extenct?
And to vonk yes I remember all too well how Earths governments break the Warsaw Pact to gain control of the battle schoolers.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just because an situation is unlikely does not make it automatically one of those occasions where humans unite. In fact, I would assume that such an unknown and unforeseen situation such as facing sudden extinction would only make it more likely for humans to take the more selfish course, rather than join together. The more "rare" the situation, as Advent puts it, the higher probability of humans reverting to the norm rather than doing the unusual and uniting.
I agree with vonk that the selfish aspect comes into play on a national scale as well, the desire for power. That selfishness would very likely destroy any attempts at an "impartial" Battle School.
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maybe I, like OSC, like to view humanity as being a little better than that. Or at least I can hope we are.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Better? That's the grey word for me. I'm up for beauty. And the more beautiful option is that the human race survives.
I have no concrete predictions myself but I sway towards Advent here, though some nights I've been convinced that CRash's view about fortress-mentality was the go.
Then I think of freaks in the course of history when personal willpower, smarts and unseen circumstances have altered everything. Things even Bean couldn't see coming.
If I was shown Bugger propaganda vids and told I would die a terrible death like my father had in the first Formic War unless I threw myself into the war effort, I think I would look at my enemy over the border in the eye and we'd just know that it was time to share the sandbox. I don't know what good I'd be, OSC rarely hints as to what roles he imagines artists other than writers might inhabit in the Enderverse. (Zip orchestras? (SOTH) Tell me more.)
Was humility imposed on the peoples of Earth after the first Formic War? Humility's always good at dissolving selfishness,
Posts: 30 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thats what the Warsaw Pact was for. It bonded humanities governments under the single leadership of the Hegemony.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
