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After rereading Ender's game, I noticed that Graff mentioned the American's and the Soviets wanted Ender. Are they still around in the Bean series, or did they conviently suffer a collapse?
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Um, there aren't any Soviets left. The Soviet Union died in the 1990s. There's just Russia.
I'd just like to know if in the books during the bean series, if there is the Soviet Union, or Russian Federation, could you tell me please? Are they referred to as the Soviets, or the Russians?
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quote:Originally posted by Reticulum: After rereading Ender's game, I noticed that Graff mentioned the American's and the Soviets wanted Ender. Are they still around in the Bean series, or did they conviently suffer a collapse?
Really? Where is that mentioned? I just recall Valentine telling Ender that Peter would use him as he pleased, and Graff telling Anderson that tyrants would want him to command their armies. In Ender's Shadow I think Bean guesses that "Russians" would want all the Battle School graduates. Details... Point is, first edition came out in 1985, and Soviet Union was still around back then...
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: The Soviet Union died in the 1990s. There's just Russia.
1991 to be exact. And there are 14 other republics of the former USSR in addition to Russia, now separate entities.
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quote:Originally posted by Reticulum: After rereading Ender's game, I noticed that Graff mentioned the American's and the Soviets wanted Ender. Are they still around in the Bean series, or did they conviently suffer a collapse?
Really? Where is that mentioned? I just recall Valentine telling Ender that Peter would use him as he pleased, and Graff telling Anderson that tyrants would want him to command their armies. In Ender's Shadow I think Bean guesses that "Russians" would want all the Battle School graduates. Details... Point is, first edition came out in 1985, and Soviet Union was still around back then...
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: The Soviet Union died in the 1990s. There's just Russia.
1991 to be exact. And there are 14 other republics of the former USSR in addition to Russia, now separate entities.
Actually, Graff did say that: "Ender, every one wants you to command their armies! The American's want you, the Soviets want you. Everyone!" Take in mind this isn't exact, but along the lines.
If the Soviet Union isn't around in the Bean series, than that is a rather large consistency error.
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Sorry if you misunderstood me. Russia most definitely is involved. By "Bean series" I presume you're referring to the Shadow books. Russia is there, and off the top of my head so is Armenia. Petra Arkanian is Armenian. The fact that Soviet Union as a country isn't around anymore is just because it no longer exists. Shadow books were written quite some time after "Ender's Game". When you say that's a "consistency error", are you suggesting OSC should have kept referring to it as USSR? If so, remember that Ender's Game and all subsequent novels are staged in the futuristic time.
In 1985 nobody knew that just 4 years later the Berlin wall would fall, or that 6 years later so would the iron curtain. To me, there is no consistency error, just history happening in the real world.
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Not really. OSC deleted a superpower without ever explaining how it happened. The Soviet Union was one of the most important nations of the 20th Century. He accidently forgot (probably) he mentioned them in Ender's Game, and so referred to them as Russians. I wonder what his say on this is.
To compare, that would be like someone writing a fictional political book set in the future with one mention of the US. Afterwords, the US collapsed in their world, and they wrote another book mentioning our successor (sp?), but never ever mentioned that we collapsed.
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I agree, Dark as night, with your last statement and I remember the part in the book, Reticulum, where what you're talking about was written. (went to grab the book to reference the page, remembered it was with her dm)
I think that before we get all 'the real world is...' we have to remember that these are books written in the real world but in their own time. Time moves differently within them... That's my 1/2 pence.
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quote:Originally posted by Dark as night: When you say that's a "consistency error", are you suggesting OSC should have kept referring to it as USSR? If so, remember that Ender's Game and all subsequent novels are staged in the futuristic time.
That's the point. According to Wikipedia, Ender's Game takes place in 2165. That means the Soviets were around then, and in the Enderverse never collapsed. The Shadow series takes place a few years before and after, yet there is never a mention of the Soviet Union, or how they collapsed in the shadow series.
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There you go. he never mentioned they collapsed in the Shadow series. He probably forgot he mentioned the Soviets in Ender's game.
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And I agree with you, cmc. Time does flow differently within the Enderverse. Reticulum, I understand your point, but the best we can do is speculate anyway. And still I think that OSC couldn't have "deleted a superpower" because its role in Ender's Game was episodical at best to begin with.
Again, without getting too much into the "real world is..." discussion, it's fiction. If this really was an accidental oversight, it was minute and ought to be forgiven.
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quote:Originally posted by Reticulum: There you go. he never mentioned they collapsed in the Shadow series. He probably forgot he mentioned the Soviets in Ender's game.
Why would he mention it? It happened hundreds of years ago in the stories. USSR is no more important in the Shadow Series than the French Empire is to us now.
OSC has tried to make Enderverse a possible future. Between the start and the end of the Shadow Series, 911 everything surrounding it happened. He changed things in the subsequent books to reflect that.
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Oh yes, of course it should be forgiven, I'm just wondering WHY there is no mention of the Soviets in the Shadow series, but instead Russia. But then again, could you really say the US had a large role in Ender's Game anyway? OSC could probably clear this up.
WHY would he never mention the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major player in world politics, in a series that dealt with their existence?
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Reticulum, so what's semantics? If it's a whole 'nother Universe - what's Soviet or Russian really? In my opinion, nothing more than the reader makes it out to be. I've been known to be wrong, though... : )
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I think I'm a few moments behind you guys in this conversation. I'm not trying to disagree, Reticulum. I'm just trying to look at it from the author's perspective. He couldn't go back and delete the verbiage he used in original edition of EG in 1985. It must not have been that important to him to explain anything about the collapse.
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Reticulum, what if there were nothing to collapse in the 'Enderverse'? Absolutely just a question...
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**ahhhhh!!!!! mr_porteiro_head, are those spoilers??? i'm not there yet!! : ) eh - i guess the topic warns me...**
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Case in point: The Soviets were around during Ender's Game. They were not around in the bean series, but the bean series takes place before and after EG. Therefore, he mentioned a nation (Russia as itself) that did not really exist, and while in Ender's Game the Soviets were around, they were not around IN THE EXACT SAME TIMEFRAME in the shadow series
posted
Then that's all it is, a small, meaningless inconsistency within a great series! I know I've never written anything that fits perfectly into 'the real world'... but then again, I've never written anything as widely read and speculated on as EG/ES… : )
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But sill, I would like to know the reasoning behind that. Also, would you agree with my point, cmc?
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I get your point, but am not sure I agree with it necessarily. I understand wanting to know what happened to a group of people that were referred to as one thing and then later as another. What if we spent the 'Ender Series' looking for an explanation of the Formics and the Buggers? What if we spent it looking for an explanation of the Piggies vs The Pequeninos? (i realize we may find it, but just as example)
To expound - I totally understand the 'real world' reading of the books and the words used in them... I just think we have to take into consideration the fact that the books are not the 'real world'. Does that make any sense?
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Sort of. What you SEEM to be saying, is that the Soviets and Russians are just names. I however, if this is your point, disagree. For OSC to refer to them when the Soviets were around as 'the soviets', and then when the Russians were around, as 'the Russians' and never again as the 'the soviets', tells me that he carefully paid attention to nationality.
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Hypothetical - what if it wasn't careful attention, it was just terminology that blended itself into the books? People who originally identified themselves as 'Soveits' became 'Russians', no?
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Yes, there you go. They became Russians because the Soviets collapsed. No mention of what happened to the Soviet Union in the books.
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Eh - I don't know his thought process, I'm not him. And I didn't write the books. Best I can do is say what I think...
Sorry if this is controversial, but maybe it didn't matter enough in the 'Enderverse' to be written in?
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Now THERE's a solution. The FINAL solution. There's a solution I'd be satisfied with. Good Job! (Not being sarcastic)
Now if only we could hear that from OSC. In the Enderverse, you absolutely right, it may not have been. But it still raises a few questions as to why he would decide to get rid of the Soviets simply because it happened in history. Perhaps he needed to make the Russians weaker so an enemy other than the US posed a threat.
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Excellent! No killing, name calling or death, just a good, well thought conversation. We'll have to do it again sometime! Posts: 2121 | Registered: Oct 2005
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There's not even a word to describe a consistency error this small. It's akin to a misspelling, or having your page 76 be a little too wide for the binding.
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Hi everyone, been lurking for quite some time now, but I felt like I might be able to help this discussion. The shadow series does make several references to the Warsaw Pact; specifically in SotG,
quote: "You're right, you can't encourage war. But you also can't afford to try to stop wars that can't be stopped. If you're seen to try and fail, you're weak. The reason Locke was able to broker a peace between the Warsaw Pact and the West was that neither side wanted war. America wanted to stay home and make money, and Russia didn't want to run the risk of provoking I.F. intervention.
quote:Peter arrived in St. Petersburg ostensibly to be an observer and consultant at the Warsaw Pact trade talks that were part of Russia's ongoing effort to set up an economic union to rival the western European one.
quote: They have all repudiated the Warsaw Pact, which never obligated them to join in an offensive war in any event.
Now the warsaw pact isn't exactly the same as the USSR, but it collapsed at the same time. I at least can imagine that in the Enderverse, the USSR never completely collapsed, but rather during the decades of semi-world government it lost its iron control over the satellite nations, but not its military alliance. That could easily lead to people thinking of them collectively as the Soviets, but with each nation far more independent than in USSR we're familiar with. This would also explain why the collapse of the USSR is never mentioned; it never collapsed so much as the individual nations were slowly able to take on more of their own decisions.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: There's not even a word to describe a consistency error this small. It's akin to a misspelling, or having your page 76 be a little too wide for the binding.
posted
There was no reason to explain how the Soviet Union collapsed in the Shadow Series, as it happened back in 1991, and all of his readers already know how that happened.
quote:Now the warsaw pact isn't exactly the same as the USSR, but it collapsed at the same time.
Yes, the warsaw pact fell through because the Soviet Union dissolved.
quote:I at least can imagine that in the Enderverse, the USSR never completely collapsed, but rather during the decades of semi-world government it lost its iron control over the satellite nations, but not its military alliance. That could easily lead to people thinking of them collectively as the Soviets, but with each nation far more independent than in USSR we're familiar with. This would also explain why the collapse of the USSR is never mentioned; it never collapsed so much as the individual nations were slowly able to take on more of their own decisions. [/QB]
Ahh, now that makes sense. But really, that's exactly how the real Soviet Union collapsed. They all began to assert their soviergnty, which led to the war of laws. The Soviet Union had already by 1990 effectivelycollapsed for the same reasons you give, so in the Shadow series, based on what your saying: the Soviets still collapsed in everything but name. Apparently, the USSR is still around, but the constituent republics have the kind of soviergnty they did in our world when the Soviets collapsed, but the nation stayed. Hope that insn't confusing. I like this explanation, although I may have read your post wrong.
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quote:I at least can imagine that in the Enderverse, the USSR never completely collapsed
Is nobody hearing what I'm saying?
The Enderverse has always tried to be a possible future from now, with "now" being the time the book was written.
The books are inconsistent. The Soviet Union exists in Ender's Game because it existed when Ender's Game was written. It doesn't exist in Ender's Shadow because it didn't exist when Ender's Shadow was written.
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