posted
Hi, I'm a newbie here ! I've been trying to figure out where Ender might be during the events of Shadows in Flight. He's somewhere planet-hopping with Valentine as Speaker for the Dead, correct? But is there anything in any of the stories to indicate where?
Just curious! Thanks so much for any thoughts.
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I don't have the book with me at the moment, but I think Bean mentioned that Ender was already an itinerant speaker. So by this point in the timeline the events of "Investment Counselor" have already taken place and Ender has met Jane on Sorelledolce (and taken up Speaking). This seems to be consistent since IC noted it had been 400-odd years since Ender had left Earth, and SiF takes place 421 years after the events of SotG.
Exactly where Ender is when Bean and the kids reach their destination is unknown, since from IC to Speaker all we have are occasional textual references to the planets Ender and Valentine visited.
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posted
Here is an intriguing thought that I posted in the other Shadows in Flight discussion.
We know or assume that when the Ender and Shadow storylines re-converge, it will be after Ender's death. But from the point in time where the Beanie Babies are now, Ender's death and the birth of New!Peter are (roughly) 2500 years in the future; a hundred generations. Not only hasn't the planet of Lusitania been founded, but it probably hasn't even been discovered yet.
What could happen 2500 years in the past, to make the Beanies move 2500 years into the future? What could be sufficiently relevant to them, that would provoke them to take this journey?
That is one massive mystery, and it will take a stoke of genius on the part of Card to bring these two story lines, and more importantly two time lines, together.
posted
I'm interested to see how the leguminotes bridge the timeline gap, too. It seems like there are two main routes OSC can take. One: the three Beanie Babies could settle and start a colony of scary-smart descendants, like Bean wanted, and 2500 years later SiF features these babies-of-the-Beanie-Babies'-babies. Two: something happens to interrupt that plan, and the original triplets choose a path that jumps them forward through time, either starflight or stasis.
Right now I'm leaning toward option two, simply because the characters of three Beanie Babies were so developed in SiF that it would be a shame if that was the last time we saw them. I agree with you, Steve, that starflight is the more likely option for prolonging their lives, since there wasn't really any mention of stasis in SiF. So they probably won't pull a Worthing and found an entire hidden planet of mind-read... *ahem* super-brainiacs, then come out of stasis 2500 years later to appear in Shadows Alive.
If the triplets decide to take to the stars again, the roughly 2500 years works out to be 30 more subjective years on a spaceship (that is, if they continue at the 85:1 rate mentioned in the book). So it's definitely possible that the three of them are still around by the end of CotM. That's also plenty of time for them to raise some more Beanie Babies, if they choose to go that route. But the proximity of a spaceship makes the whole incest issue a bigger problem, since everybody would know everybody rather intimately (har, har). Thirty years on, the children of the triplets might be a little desperate for some new blood in the mix...
EDIT: I was lurking over at PWeb and Taalcon reposted some Facebook tidbits from OSC. He confirms that the original three Beanie Babies will show up in SA, so option one is off the table:
quote:Response to a question asking for a release date on "the next book that describes the descoladores" from OSC: They make me write them first. For what it's worth, the book you're asking about, Shadows Alive, is a direct sequel also to Shadows in Flight, which just came out. The kids in "Flight" will play a leading role in "Alive."
quote:Posted on January 21: "Now that I know Ender, Sergeant, and Carlotta, I'm that much closer to being able to write Shadows Alive - the sequel to Children of the Mind AND the shadow books. Now if I could just figure out what's going on on the Descolada planet.
posted
To defeat your enemy, you have to know and love your enemy.
To write about the Descolada, you have to know and love them.
It seems likely that the Beanies will take space flight, but how soon and why is the mystery.
How soon is important, because the longer they say where they are, the more New Beanies there are. Do they stay behind? Do they die suddenly? To they come with on the journey? Is it some genetic problem with New Beanies that sets the three original on their journey?
A genetic problem seems unlikely as the Planet Lusitania and every thing they did there is centuries from even existing.
The only thing I can see is some revelation about the Hive Queen or the Formics in general, that send the Beanies off chasing after Ender. It is going to be hard to track Ender's where abouts, but I suspect that Bean has nearly as high a military security clearance as Ender did. Though he doesn't have the help of Jane.
That is the only thing I can see. Some event occurs that sends the Beanies plus Beanies-II off on a quest to intersect with Ender.
That could take 5 to 7 years of space time to accomplish, and that would put them in sync planet side with New!Peter. They absolutely can't start out chasing New!Peter or Lusitania because neither of them exist yet.
Sadly they don't catch up until Ender is dead, the Formic planets have been repopulated. I still hate to see the formic become the new enemy though. In the book (Ender's book) Speaker for the Dead, the formics were redeemed. They were not the monsters they were made out to be, I hate to see them turn into monsters again.
The only thing I can see, is that some unfathomable event occurs that sets the Beanie off chasing Ender through space. Though why not just send him and email. He does seem to have Email, that is how Jane makes first contact with him.
But what the event could be that sends them off on this chase, I simply can not imagine.
I don't envy Card in having to figure all this out on his own.
As to your time dilation time line of 2500:30, is that right?
The Beanies are now 6 years old, and they have travel about 420 year in time. At 420:5, that would mean 5.95 years of travel at the same speed they had previously traveled. Assuming, that they need to move 2500 years into the future.
Also, Ender has already become a Speaker in Shadow in Flight, that means he has Jane with him and she has severely hidden all traces of Ender and Vals flights. That will make them extremely difficult to trace. Though a team of Beanies with access to Bean's security clearance will certainly have an advantage.
Can you tell us where you got the 85:1 number? It sounds familiar but I can't track it down.
In fact, can some one provide a reference to Relativistic Speed and Time Dilation? Just curious.
In any event, the only thing I can think of is some event occurs or some piece of information becomes known such that the Beanies feel they must track down Ender. But what that could be, I can't imagine.
posted
I'm not at all sure I'm using a correct ratio. The 85:1 is based on this quote from Sergeant:
quote:Shadows in Flight, page 46: In space, near lightspeed, while the rest of the human race moves through time eighty-five times faster than we do. Each year of our lives is a whole lifetime for members of the human race.
This is consistent with the ratio of 421 relativistic years to 5 subjective years, 421:5 reducing to (84.2):1. So my logic for the rest of the timeline is based around that rough 85:1 ratio. When applied, 2500/85=29.4 subjective years, resulting in the ratio 2500:(29.4). However, I could be completely off base here; I have no science or math cred beyond HS physics and calculus courses. Maybe my whole ratio-based approach is entirely wrong for time dilation calculations.
And it's also possible that the 85:1 ratio is irrelevant by the time of Shadows Alive. Maybe Carlotta improves the ship or something in the interim. When Ender goes from Trondheim to Lusitania in Speaker, a 22 year relativistic span, it only takes him 2 weeks. That ratio is around 572:1 which would make the Beanie Babies' voyage ratio 2500 years relativistic to 4.37 years subjective, closer to your estimate. I guess it depends on what age OSC wants the Beanie Babies to be during Shadows Alive; if you use the SiF and SftD examples as bounds, the triplets could be anywhere from 10 to 35 years old subjectively.
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posted
Think back to the extension of the Ender series, Ender travels to Lusitania, and that puts him about 30 year out of sync the Valentine. Or was it 22 years in two weeks as you said? On Valentines flight to Lusitania wasn't Miro with her and didn't it take longer than two weeks? In any event, later, Valentine travels from the Scandinavian planet to Lusitania, which brings her back in sync with Ender. More or less back in sync.
Though we don't know the speed of that travel. I suspect, the Near Light Speed differential is logarithmic, meaning that it is not a linear function. The closer to light speed the greater the cascade of relative time.
To illustrate, if you go 90% of light speed, the difference might be a factor of 100:1. However, if you move to 95% of light speed in might now be 1000:1, and if you go 98% of light speed, the difference might be 10,000:1. If you go to 99% of light speed, it might be 1,000,000:1. I'm not saying it is, I'm just illustrating the non-linearity of it.
The point is, it is not a linear function. When Valentine and Ender traveled from the Scandinavian Planet (whose name I really should look up), they traveled in freighters, though 3,000 year advanced freighter.
However, Bean and the Beanies are in a fast light Scout Ship, that can accelerate and decelerate much faster than normal ships of the day. But then, they are technologically 3,000 years behind the times.
I wonder if this isn't some type of inconsistency, though again, it could simply be how close to Light Speed the different ships are traveling.
Am I wrong in the Beanies being 6 years old? And do I not remember correctly that they have been 400 and some earth years in flight?
29 years of space travel seems pretty excessive. That would make them between 35 and 40 when they arrive at Lusitania, depending on how much time they spend planet side.
But you are right, given the diverse data we have, the Beanies could be anywhere from 11 to 40 years old. Personally, I would like to see them arrive on the younger side; say 15 to 20 years old. I would prefer that they be slightly younger than New!Peter because I feel that would make more conflict between them; conflict of a humorous nature.
Though I will take the story any way Card delivers it.
posted
Actually I've been thinking about this, and something just didn't seem right.
To get my 5.95 years, I divided 2500/420 = 5.95238. But only today realized that that is how many blocks of 5 years spans of space flight 2500 years would take.
420 = 5 year, 2500 = 5.95 TIMES 5 years, which then means the actual span of time would be -
29.75 years of subjective time in flight to reach Lusitania. Keep in mind, I rounded a few numbers off.
That means 29.75 years plus the amount of time they spend planet side before starting their flight.
So, you were right.
But if that is true, it must mean that their cure succeeded, otherwise they would have never lived 29 more years. That would make their age 6 + 29 + planet-side time = 35 years old minimum, though logically a few years older than that.
Just out of curiosity, what do we imagine New!Peter's age was. When he arrived, and at the end of Children of the Mind? I don't think it is ever said out right, but I assume he started young, perhaps 15, and by the end, couldn't be more than perhaps 20.
I'm curious about the age of New!Peter relative to the Beanies when they arrive?
They have a mission now. They have to find the queen egg. Also don't forget that Carlotta can rebuild a ship from scratch. Surely she can improve the one they have... To make up for that long span.
I really don't see a problem where they can merge into the current timeline...
Using formulas to try and calculate doesn't really work since you can't assume to know how much Carlotta can upgrade the ship.
Who knows, by the time they merge they might be riding in a huge battlecruiser!
posted
They are landing on a primitive planet with no animal life and primarily ferns. So where to you get raw material, say Titanium, and how do you refine it into a usable material? How do you land on a planet of primarily ferns, and set about making semi-conductors and integrated circuits?
There is a whole lot of advanced infrastructure that has to occur before they have the technology to built or improve spaceships.
Now, as has been mentioned, likely the time ratio is not linear, as you increase your speed toward the Speed of Light, time accelerates much faster. Though we don't know the specific details of this.
Using spaceship time ratios from other books and combining that with this book, we come up with a Time Ratio of 83:1 (from 2500:30).
We don't specifically know that it is right, but it is the best we have. However, given that they are 2500 years out of sync in time, the people living on Lusitania, with a couple of exceptions, have not even remotely been born yet. They are countless generation from being born.
That makes it hard for the Beanies to know anything about a territorial planet that likely has not even been discovered yet.
The only thing that makes logical sense, is for the Beanies to set off after Ender, for some unfathomable reason. If they start chasing and tracing him through time and space, given the heavy security from Jane, it might just take them 30 years to catch up.
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! I've been trying to figure out where Ender might be during the events of Shadows in Flight. He's somewhere planet-hopping with Valentine as Speaker for the Dead, correct? But is there anything in any of the stories to indicate where?
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