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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Discussions About Orson Scott Card » Earth Afire (Page 2)

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Author Topic: Earth Afire
millernumber1
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Mazer's not American. And while Witt is, his troop is not.
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Bijoux regionaux point fr
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There is some confusion above as to why the hive queen did not realise during the first invasion that humans were sentient beings, surely our technology would prove that. Well it was explained in Ender's game that the Hive queens considered a being important only if it was a queen, the storehouse of the knowledge of the race. The drones could be killed at will as they had no genetic descendence that would be lost nor knowledge. It was speculated that to the formics, killing some humans would equate to saying hello and making their presence known.
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MathTeacherGuy
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quote:
Originally posted by Bijoux regionaux point fr:
Another thought. OSC makes out he knows more about military strategy than most, and yet in all his books, and especially Earth Afire, we have people so confident of their high IQ that they constantly break orders! What sort of an army would we have if Mazers and OSP ignored all the orders they are given?

Great point! I think it makes more sense if you take into account how often Orson Scott Card belittles traditional military leadership. In the Shadow series, almost every non-Battle School leader is incompetent. In Earth Afire, the Chinese military leadership demonstrate similarly poor decision-making and no creativity, while other world leaders show no initiative in caving to China's desire to handle the problem internally.

In other words, the standard military doctrine for Orson Scott Card is to follow orders, but only if they are issued by one of the protagonists. Disobey any other orders.

At least this explains the first of Mazer Rackham's two court-martials that were referred to in Ender's Game. I wonder what he did to earn the second one?

Someone asked about Aaron Johnston. I'm pretty sure his first collaboration with Orson Scott Card was the novel Invasive Procedures. He then wrote several of the Marvel comics from the Enderverse, including working with Card on Formic Wars. So it makes sense that he continued that collaboration with the novelization of those comics.

I think I heard somewhere that they plan to do a comic series and novel trilogy about the Second Invasion as well. Can anyone confirm?

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MathTeacherGuy
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Oh, I noticed some questions about Eros. I actually had the exact same question on my most recent reading of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. Here are the pertinent passages:

quote:
Mazer Rackham, to Ender, in Ender's Game:

"This was the buggers' advance post in the First Invasion. They carved this place out before we even knew they were here...

"In fact, that's how we discovered them. In a period of three days, Eros gradually disappeared from telescopes. We sent a tug to find out why. It found out. The tug transmitted its videos, including the buggers boarding and slaughtering the crew."

Of course, this explanation makes no sense in the context of the extensive asteroid mining happening in the Formic Wars books. Most likely, Eros would belong to Juke Limited or perhaps some government claim preceding the asteroid economy.

quote:
Bean's perspective, from Ender's Shadow:

The Buggers made this, probably when they were mounting the second invasion. What was once their forward base was now the center of the International Fleet.

So either Bean guessed wrong about the timing given in Ender's Game or Orson Scott Card changed the timing and Bean guessed right.

It's still possible that the Formics end up creating a base on Eros, but I just can't believe that with so many other asteroids occupied by humans, Eros would not already be taken. Perhaps we'll see a situation where the humans have built facilities on the surface of Eros, which are destroyed by Formics who build tunnels within.

Overall, I get the feeling that the Formic Wars books give humans at more advanced technology at the beginning of the First Invasion than Orson Scott Card intended when he wrote Ender's Game. In particular, interplanetary exploration seems further advanced than Ender's Game or the Shadow books ever indicate.

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C3PO the Dragon Slayer
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In Earth Unaware, it is established that the Formics had smaller ships scouting the wake of the mothership (such as the one that attacked when El Cavador was searching a debris field). It's possible that one or more of these ships built the advance post on Eros.

Or maybe they are retconning it to be part of the Second Invasion after all.

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millernumber1
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They are retconning it to be part of the second invasion - I asked Johnston about it back when Earth Unware came out, and he says that anything like that that is a major contradiction is almost always a retcon.

Which I think is cool - I like the way the invasions are playing out, and wouldn't give up on that to make the offhand references to Eros's origins match perfectly.

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MathTeacherGuy
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I agree.

Glad to find out that some contradictions should be considered retcons, as some of them really do work better than the original. This is one of them. And I certainly doubt too many people will be hung up on the fact that originally the First Invasion started at Eros; I didn't even remember that detail till I reread Ender's Game immediately after reading Earth Unaware and Earth Afire.

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vineyarddawg
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If you think about it, using Eros as a staging point for the second invasion actually makes more sense. During the first invasion, the Hive Queen didn't anticipate any sentient lifeforms resisting her, so why would you need to establish a forward base for an invasion?

Instead, if your first force was destroyed, it would make more sense to establish the base from which to stage the second invasion. (Of course, she still didn't think humans were sentient, but at the very least she realized there was something out there capable of putting up resistance.)

It is retconning, and is a major contradiction from Ender's Game, but at least it's for a reason that makes sense.

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millernumber1
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I think that's the spirit Card and Johnston are adopting - let's have the story make sense, rather than try to make everything fit perfectly. And I applaud them for it! (Much as I complain about continuity sometimes myself.)
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