quote:

---

in Earth Afire

HERC was the world’s first gravity-lensing aircraft,which used lenses to deflect gravity waves from Earth and send them around the aircraft. The lenses were not mechanical lenses like glass lenses that refracted light, but rather fields created by a centerpoint.By adjusting the shape of the field, it adjusted the direction that gravity waves were focused or deflected. The result was the aircraft felt less gravity. It hovered. It flew without rotor blades. And because gravity lensing adjusted continuous lytoprovide vertical placement above the Earth’s surface, all that was needed to make the HERC fly forward was a means of propulsion, which the rearjet engine provided.

---

quote:

---

Ender's Game, in Battle School.

"You remember this, little boy." When she said little boy it sounded friendly, not
contemptuous. "They never tell you any more truth than they have to. But any kid with
brains knows that there've been some changes in science since the days of old Mazer
Rackham and the Victorious Fleet. Obviously we can now control gravity.

They could a hundred years before. Funny quote, though: it was Mazer himself who flew the first HERC into battle, in the First Formic War

---

quote:

---

Ender's Game, on Eros, lecture about what humans learned from Buggers.

We learned gravity manipulation because they enhanced the gravity here.

That's another thing- humans invented it all by themselves, according to Earth Afire, Formics couldn't have anything to do with it, since HERC was constructed before they ever came to Solar System.

---

quote:

---

in Speaker:

"Isn't it?" Ender retorted. "Why are we so anxious to keep them from any influence from our culture? It isn't just in the interest of science. It isn't just good xenological procedure. Remember, please, that our discovery of the ansible, of starflight, of PARTIAL GRAVITY control, even of the weapon we used to destroy the buggers-- all of them came as a direct result of our contact with the buggers.

Same thing as before.

---

quote:

---

in Ender's Shadow


This is how we got our secret technologies, thought Bean. The Buggers had gravity-generating
machines. We learned how they worked and built our own, installing them in the Battle School and
wherever else they were needed. But the I.F. never announced the fact, because it would have
frightened people to realize how advanced their technology was.

---

quote:

---

in Ender's Game

"Ender, look around you. Human beings didn't carve this place. We like taller ceilings, for one thing. This was the buggers' advance post in the First Invasion. They carved this place out before we even knew they were here. We're living in a bugger hive. But we already paid our rent. lt cost the marines a thousand lives to clear them out of these honeycombs, room by room. The buggers fought for every meter of it."

---

quote:

---

in Ender's Shadow

(...)into the bowels of Eros.
Bean knew at once that this place was not shaped by human hands. The tunnels were all too low -- and even then, the ceilings had obviously been raised after the initial construction, since the lower walls were smooth and only the top half-meter showed tool marks. 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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Curses! Being stuck in China without my books means I won't be much help. But I'll let others know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dogbreath:

Also, I suggest maybe changing John Paul's reaction to Graff showing up somewhat, since he clearly knows Graff. (from First Meetings) Though actually, as the scene reads right now, it kind of already feels like this is this is the case. (John Paul speaks to Graff with a level of familiarity you wouldn't expect) Did you already have his back story planned out when you read EG's, or is this just a neat coincidence?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
I seem to remember there being a discrepancy between EG and Ender in Exile over what the name of the first colony Ender is governor of is called. I'll try to hunt down the difference and where it's located in the books.

---

quote:

---

in Xenocide

Valentine wasn't surprised at what they found-- after all, when they were young, she and Ender had been with the first colony on Rov, a former bugger world.

in Ender in Exile

"Yes," said Ender. "Wouldn't it be ridiculous if they finally got peace on Earth and we just started up the whole warfare thing again here on Shakespeare?"

---

quote:

---

in Earth Unaware

'All that's left is pushing the button and letting the glasers rip the rock to shreds. The two gravity fields will interact, counter each other, and keep the destructive reach of the fields to a minimum"
'So it works,' said Lem.

---

quote:

---

in Ender in Exile

'Well, this part of the tour usually bores people,' said the captain.
'No, I wasn't bored. Trully. I was just thinking.'
'About what?'
'Stuff that's too classified to talk about using any method but telepathy,' said Ender. Which was true - the existence of the M.D. Device was only on a need-to-know basis, and the secret had been well kept. Even the men who deployed and used the weapons didn't understand what the were and what they could do.


and more importantly, also Exile

Ender thought it was a technology that humans had come up with on their own. But it was clearly based on a formic technology.

---

quote:

---

about Ren's sex in Speaker:

When Valentine's daughter Syfte was four years old, and her son Ren was two, Plikt came to
her

---

quote:

---

in Xenocide:

Only people like Miro, and Jakt's and Valentine's children-- Syfte, Lars, Ro, Varsam-- and the strange quiet woman Plikt;


about secondborn's sex in Xenocide:


Their twenty-year-old daughter, Ro


and about Lars in Xenocide:


compartment they shared with Syfte and her husband, Lars

---

So firstly: the secondborn's name is not precise. Either Ro or Ren. The sex is also not precise. Although maybe Ren died, and then Valentine gave birth to Ro.

And secondly: Lars is Syfte's husband, not her brother. Although it is possible to call your son-in-law your child, I guess.
 

---

Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
 
I know the graphic novels of the first formic war aren't exactly canon, but they depict some sort of artificial gravity on all of the ships in space.

"Ender's Game" makes it clear that there was no technology for artificial gravity and that's why Battle School rotates.

This might have been done to make drawing the comics easier, but if someone reads the comics before reading "Ender's Game" they could cause confusion.
 

---

Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
 
In "Ender's Game" at the end of the book Valentine says this:

"We're only telling them that Demosthenes is going with the colony. Let them spend the next fifty years poring over the passenger list, trying to figure out which one of them is the great demagogue of the Age of Locke."

And in the new colony, Abra says "The buggers were all dead fifty years before we got here."

This shows that the trip to the colony took fifty years.

But in "Ender in Exile," Dorabella says "The voyage takes forty years—I went next door and looked it up on the net."

I think the journey is referred to as a 40-year trip for all of "Exile," in fact.
 

---

Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
 
Yeah, but Ender's a grown man (mid 20s) in Ender's Game when he has that conversation with Abra, which implies 40 year spaceflight + 10 years governing the colony so, 50 years?
 

---

Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
 
Hey Mr. Card, since clearly Szymon doesn't need multiple signed copies, if you sent one of his my way, that'd totally be cool with me.
 

---

Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
 

 

---

Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 
Okay, I got to look this up. Here is the quote that says Val has five children:
SFTD:

"It was Plikt, the good Lutheran who taught Valentine to conceive of Ender's life in religious terms; the powerful stability of her family life and the miracle of each of her five children combined to instill in her the emotions, if not the doctrines of faith."

Xenocide's first Val chapter starts off by talking about what a hardship it was for Jakt to leave Tronheim. It is also stated the the line of sailors ends with him, all of their children have scholarly lives, so they can do their jobs anywhere. Val feels like a lousy mother because she wrote essays instead of playing with her children. The other people (besides Val, Jakt and the crew) on the ship are itemized and they are Syfte, her new husband Lars, and other children Ro(20F) and Varsam (16M).

Given that it is a summary chapter, the omission of children who stayed behind or died young would have had to have been mentioned, given the reminisces about Val's parenting and that they all came.


If you want to edit the books, Speaker should be changed. Change 5 to 3.
 

---

Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
1. Ender's Game: "8 years in space," is how Mazer describes his relativistic journey after the first invasion.

In Mazer in Prison, the number has been revised to just 2 years. This is possibly dismissible as an unreliable character, and personally I think 8 years plays better than 2 as an offhand reference.

1. Ender's Game: the initial bugger invasion is referred to by Ender's internal frame as "a single ship, burning over China." The later novels (Earth Affire), have it as a ship with several landers.

quote:

---

"Ender's Game" makes it clear that there was no technology for artificial gravity and that's why Battle School rotates.

---

quote:

---

Seems like from the three grand technologies: Ansible, Dr. Device and Gravity control, only ansible was never fully understood (up until Children of the Mind) and the other two were invented thanks to the ingenuity of human race.

---

quote:

---

1) In EG, we learned the first battle of the First Invasion occurred on Eros. The Formics had made Eros their forward base of operations, and they blacked it out so we (humans) couldn't see what they were doing. Earth sent a ship to investigate and the Formics killed all the crew. This was how humans learned of the Formics and how the first war started.

---

quote:

---

3. In EG, we learned the First Invasion occurred 30 years before the Second Invastion. Mazer Rackham served in the 2nd Invasiion, and is described as "little known, twice court-martialed" before his victory in the 2nd war. Then, he was stationed on Eros for 20 years. Then, he took a relativistic space flight that aged him 8 years, while 50 years passed on Earth. He appears to be around 60 years old at the time of EG.

If you work the timeline backwards, it is not possible for Rackham to have served in the First Invasion. He would have been 2 years old. Plus, it's hard to believe Rackham is an unknown at the time of the Second Invasion, given his huge role in repelling the First Invasion in Formic Wars.

---

quote:

---

But in "Ender in Exile," Dorabella says "The voyage takes forty years—I went next door and looked it up on the net."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Szymon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
I seem to remember there being a discrepancy between EG and Ender in Exile over what the name of the first colony Ender is governor of is called. I'll try to hunt down the difference and where it's located in the books.

---

I checked, you're right.

quote:

---

in Xenocide

Valentine wasn't surprised at what they found-- after all, when they were young, she and Ender had been with the first colony on Rov, a former bugger world.

in Ender in Exile

"Yes," said Ender. "Wouldn't it be ridiculous if they finally got peace on Earth and we just started up the whole warfare thing again here on Shakespeare?"

---

It could be that Shakespeare was just a name of the colony, not the whole planet. But the preposition is "on", not "in", and Shakespeare in the latter is opposed to "Earth". So yeah, Rov in Xenocide, Shakespeare in Exile.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Orincoro:

quote:

---

1) In EG, we learned the first battle of the First Invasion occurred on Eros. The Formics had made Eros their forward base of operations, and they blacked it out so we (humans) couldn't see what they were doing. Earth sent a ship to investigate and the Formics killed all the crew. This was how humans learned of the Formics and how the first war started.

---

This was in reference to the 2nd invasion, and not the first, if I recall correctly. The first invasion was, according to Ender's own information in Ender's Game, begun when a single ship appeared over China.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Orincoro:
It's not a factual contradiction, just a contradiction in terms of what Mazer says, rather than what is described in other parts of the narrative. Mazer could be wrong, or misleading, etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Orincoro:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Szymon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
I seem to remember there being a discrepancy between EG and Ender in Exile over what the name of the first colony Ender is governor of is called. I'll try to hunt down the difference and where it's located in the books.

---

I checked, you're right.

quote:

---

in Xenocide

Valentine wasn't surprised at what they found-- after all, when they were young, she and Ender had been with the first colony on Rov, a former bugger world.

in Ender in Exile

"Yes," said Ender. "Wouldn't it be ridiculous if they finally got peace on Earth and we just started up the whole warfare thing again here on Shakespeare?"

---

It could be that Shakespeare was just a name of the colony, not the whole planet. But the preposition is "on", not "in", and Shakespeare in the latter is opposed to "Earth". So yeah, Rov in Xenocide, Shakespeare in Exile.

---

Resolved, as pointed out in the afterword of Ender in Exile, that the colony is Shakespeare, and the planet is Rove.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Craig Childs:
C'mon, it seems like a pretty obvious contradiction between books. If you had read Earth Afire first, then you would have spotted the incongruity right off. The purpose of the EG rewrite is to eliminate little things like this that throw the reader out of the story.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Orincoro:
I think a fair amount of the narrative material in these prequel novels serves to make the characters and situations described in later novels a lot less interesting than they were when I read about them the first time.

Mazer, for example, is frankly boring as a hurrah hero with a kid sidekick in China. He was fascinating as a mythic hero who was not valued by his superiors, but fought and won against the buggers, of whom little was understood.

---

I agree completely. I enjoyed all the Ender stories, some of them I enjoyed immensely, but the prequels have not been my cup of tea.

But, to be fair, this is the story OSC and Aaron wanted to tell, and it mattered to them enough to write the comics and then expand it to a 1,200 word trilogy. They felt *this* story was more compelling than the original backstory of the Battle of Eros (First Invasion) and Mazer Rackham (Second Invasion).


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Orincoro:
That being said, for the sake of the novel Ender's Game, the lightest possible touch in changes to the story and dialogue are probably desired. Because altering the backstory from the original, very sketchy, references only serves to make it far less appealing or mysterious.

That's where I disagree. The history has been changed (for better or worse) and EG should be updated to reflect the new reality. It may be that EG suffers a little in order to allow OSC's wider, fuller vision to flourish.
 

---

Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
 
A minor one for me is when Graff is alive and when he is not. I think there's a bit of contradiction between Ender's Game, Ender in Exile, and Shadow of the Giant.

But the one that's really bothered me is the timing of Peter reading The Hive Queen, contacting Ender, Ender writing The Hegemon, and Peter's death:

In Ender's Game, it says: "By ansible she [Valentine] got an answer from the ancient Hegemon, Peter Wiggin, seventy-seven years old with a failing heart." At the end of the section, it says, "And when he died, Ender wrote a second volume, again signed by the Speaker for the Dead."

In Shadow of the Giant, it says in chapter 26 "Speak for Me": "Peter might be over seventy--and, as he often pointed out to Petra, an old seventy, an ancient seventy..." Then, at the end of the chapter, "Peter lived for some time after that, despite his weak heart. Hoping the whole time that Ender might write the book he wanted. But when he died, the book was still unwritten."

So far, no contradiction.

Then came Ender in Exile. Chapter 19: "On the ansible, they talked for an hour at a time, Peter in his late fifties, with a weak heart that had the doctors worried, Ender still a boy of sixteen." So, 77, 70, or late 50s? [note: Shadow of the Giant has him talk about how he's eternally 12, though that might just be a reference to his defining trauma at that age]

Later, it says, "When Peter had told of his whole life, everything he did that mattered enough to come up in these conversations, Ender spent only five days writing a slim volume called "The Hegemon." He sent a copy to Peter with a note: Since the author will be 'Speaker for the Dead,' this can't be published until after you die." Peter wrote back: "It can't happen a moment too soon for me." But in a letter to valentine, he poured out his heart about what it meant to him to feel so completely understood. "He didn't conceal any of the bad things I did. But he kept them in balance. In perspective.""

So, kind of a big difference there, in both Peter's age, and the fact that Peter actually read the book. I can reconcile the book just not being published to fit with Ender's Game, but it does directly contradict the Shadow of the Giant passage. I find both powerful (but then, I find all three of the Ender meets Valentine after the war scenes to be moving, even though again, the Ender in Exile scene breaks continuity the most).

(Just noticed that in the thread linked by
theamazeeaz, I made the same complaint

I was also bit bothered by the discrepancy between what Graff told Ender about the discovery of Eros and the Formic Wars description of the First Invasion - I think Aaron Johnston said that OSC and he had moved Eros to the Second Invasion, so I was hoping that would get changed in a new version of EG.

I've generally really liked the prequel series. I thought Mazer being unvalued by his superiors was actually still present in the book, and expect a lot more in the second trilogy, given how Mazer was expanded in "Ender's Game Alive."

I'm not sure it's really a contradiction, since OSC directly addressed it in Ender's Shadow, but Ender's evaluation of Bean, as supposedly intermediated by Mazer so Bean could be free to handle the battle if Ender failed, has always bothered me as a bit too obvious of a retcon. (Also, I adore Bean, so seeing a bit more of him in EG, like he was in EGA, always makes me happy.)
 

---

Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Craig Childs:

That's where I disagree. The history has been changed (for better or worse) and EG should be updated to reflect the new reality. It may be that EG suffers a little in order to allow OSC's wider, fuller vision to flourish.

---

quote:

---

He felt himself wanting to cry. He hadn't cried since the first few days of homesickness after he got here.

---

quote:

---

He bit down on his hand to stop the feeling, to replace it with pain. It didn't help. He would never see Ender again.

---

quote:

---

He bit on his lip, trying to let the pain force the emotion away. It didn't help. Ender was gone.

---

Insignificant contradiction, but there it is.

Also, are we to include contradictions between the movie and the book?
 

---

Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
 
Well, GaalDornick, if we did that, we'd either be here for days, or just a second:

"Ignore everything in the movie with regards to continuity."

There we go.
 

---

Posted by staredecisis (Member # 13054) on :
 
One more possible contradiction, although this is extraordinarily minor. There's a difference between Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow on what Eros is called. In Ender's Shadow, it is called a "wandering asteroid." In Ender's Game, it is called a "minor planet," "planetoid," or "asteroid." These terms are traditionally synonymous, although they've started taking on slightly different meanings. (Eros probably isn't large enough to be considered a planetoid under the new definitions.)

Ender's Shadow, Chapter 22: "Just before arrival, the kids were briefed. FleetCom was in the wandering asteroid Eros. And as they approached, they realized that it really was in the asteroid."

Ender's Game, Chapter 13; "I.F. Command is on the minor planet Eros, which should be about three months away from here at the highest possible speed."

Ender's Game, Chapter 14: "Eros was hopeless. It was a roughly spindle-shaped rock only six and a half kilometers thick at its narrowest point. Since the surface of the planetoid was entirely devoted to absorbing sunlight and converting it to energy, everyone lived in the smooth-walled rooms linked by tunnels that laced the interior of the asteroid."

[ August 10, 2014, 06:13 AM: Message edited by: staredecisis ]
 

---

Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by millernumber1:
[QB]
(Just noticed that in the thread linked by
theamazeeaz, I made the same complaint

---

Yep. I linked to that thread because I didn't want to take credit for things other people have found in the past.
 

---

Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by staredecisis:
One more possible contradiction, although this is extraordinarily minor. There's a difference between Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow on what Eros is called. In Ender's Shadow, it is called a "wandering asteroid." In Ender's Game, it is called a "minor planet," "planetoid," or "asteroid." These terms are traditionally synonymous, although they've started taking on slightly different meanings. (Eros probably isn't large enough to be considered a planetoid under the new definitions.)

Ender's Shadow, Chapter 22: "Just before arrival, the kids were briefed. FleetCom was in the wandering asteroid Eros. And as they approached, they realized that it really was in the asteroid."

Ender's Game, Chapter 13; "I.F. Command is on the minor planet Eros, which should be about three months away from here at the highest possible speed."

Ender's Game, Chapter 14: "Eros was hopeless. It was a roughly spindle-shaped rock only six and a half kilometers thick at its narrowest point. Since the surface of the planetoid was entirely devoted to absorbing sunlight and converting it to energy, everyone lived in the smooth-walled rooms linked by tunnels that laced the interior of the asteroid."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Szymon:
Somebody in a post somewhere mentioned a problem with Valentine's children, and he/she was right:

quote:

---

about Ren's sex in Speaker:

When Valentine's daughter Syfte was four years old, and her son Ren was two, Plikt came to
her

---

quote:

---

in Xenocide:

Only people like Miro, and Jakt's and Valentine's children-- Syfte, Lars, Ro, Varsam-- and the strange quiet woman Plikt;


about secondborn's sex in Xenocide:


Their twenty-year-old daughter, Ro


and about Lars in Xenocide:


compartment they shared with Syfte and her husband, Lars

---

So firstly: the secondborn's name is not precise. Either Ro or Ren. The sex is also not precise. Although maybe Ren died, and then Valentine gave birth to Ro.

And secondly: Lars is Syfte's husband, not her brother. Although it is possible to call your son-in-law your child, I guess.

---

quote:

---

Even though she had agreed wholeheartedly with Ender that it was right for Miro to go, it was still unbearable to lose her child. It made Ender wonder if his own parents felt such pain when he was taken away. He suspected they had not. Nor had they hoped for his return. He already loved another man's children more than his parents had loved their own child. Well, he'd get fit revenge for their neglect of him. He'd show them, three thousand years later, how a father should behave.

---

quote:

---

Of course my condolences on the passing of your parents. But I understand from them that you and they corresponded to great mutual satisfaction before they died.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kacard:
As TOR prepares for a final, reconciled edition of the novel Ender's Game, I would like to make sure we've caught ALL the contradictions between Ender's Game and later books and stories.

---

quote:

---

EG:
"Ender, we didn't go to them first, they came to us. If they were going to leave us alone, they could have done it a hundred years ago, before the First Invasion."

---

quote:

---

EG:
"We knew then that it was possible to communicate faster than light. That was seventy years ago, and once we knew it could be done, we did it. Not me, mind you, I wasn't born then."

---

quote:

---

Earth Awakens:
"How much time do we have?"
"Five years. But that's not what scares me the most. This mothership is changing (...) It's transforming itself into a fleet."

---

quote:

---

Everyone had learned the wrong lesson from Bonzo's misuse of Ender Wiggin. They all dumped though the door immediately, so that there was no chance to do anything other than name the formation they would use.

---

quote:

---

Rose hooked a finger over the butt of Ender's gun and pulled him to the forcefield that his the battleroom from view.

---

quote:

---

“Can I finish eating?”
“You never finish eating.”
It was true. Ender’s tray always had food on it after a meal. Ender looked at the plate and decided he was through. “Let’s go then.”

---

quote:

---

your portions are
scientifically calibrated to meet your
dietary needs, and in the future you will
finish every bit of what you are served.”

---

quote:

---

He selected the smallest boy, Bean, handed him Tom’s gun, and made Bean kneel on Tom’s frozen legs.

---

quote:

---

We can't drop them, so we wont be getting smacked in the game by lost weapons.

---

quote:

---

he thawed in about five minutes, the way it worked in practice.

---

quote:

---

In training mode, the flash suits unfreeze after 30 seconds.

---

quote:

---

One of the frozen Dragon soldiers tried to answer him through jaws that were clamped shut by the flash suit.

---

quote:

---

"So a soldier shot is as good as a shot to the heart; it freezes you completely"
"But I can still talk, so even frozen soldiers can give warnings."

---

quote:

---

We don't wear socks anymore.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by GaalDornick:
In Ender's Game, right after Ender is handed his graduation orders from Graff, there is a paragraph from Bean's POV:

quote:

---

He felt himself wanting to cry. He hadn't cried since the first few days of homesickness after he got here.

---

After looking through Ender's Shadow, I see no mention of Bean crying in the first few days of Battle School and I can't imagine it would've been because of homesickness. Maybe because of Poke's death, but that's not homesickness.

Also, in Ender's Game:

quote:

---

He bit down on his hand to stop the feeling, to replace it with pain. It didn't help. He would never see Ender again.

---

In Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

He bit on his lip, trying to let the pain force the emotion away. It didn't help. Ender was gone.

---

Insignificant contradiction, but there it is.

Also, are we to include contradictions between the movie and the book?

---

quote:

---

If the Hive Queen knows how to communicate instantaneously across vast distances from her mind to the mind of one of her own, why couldn't she do so with other creatures as well?

---

quote:

---

Graff: "The oddest thing of all was that they also don't have any communication devices on their ships. No radios, nothing that could transmit or receive any kind of signal.

"They communicate ship to ship. I've seen the videos, they talk to each other"

"True. But body to body, mind to mind. It's the most important thing we learned from them. Their communication (..) is instantaneous. (...)

[there's more, you remember, probably]

"So they knew about their defeat the moment it happened," said ender. "I always figured - everybody awlays said that they probably only found out they lost the battle twenty-five years ago."

"It keeps people from panicking," said Graff. "I'm telling you things you can't know, by the way, if you're ever going to leave I.F. Command. Before the war's over".

Ender was angry. "If you know me at all, you know I can keep a secret"

---

quote:

---

"The video is a very tightly kept secret, Ender."

"I know. I've pieced it together, partly. You, with your tiny reserve force, and their armada, those great big heavy-bellied starships launching their swarms of fighters. You dart in at one ship, fire at it, an explosion. That's where they always stop the clips. After that, it's just soldiers going into bugger ships and already finding them dead inside."

Mazer grinned. "So much for tightly kept secrets. Come on, let's watch the video."

They were alone in the video room, and Ender palmed the door locked. "All right, let's watch."

The video showed exactly what Ender had pieced together. Mazer's suicidal plunge into the heart of the enemy formation, the single explosion, and then--

Nothing. Mazer's ship went on, dodged the shock wave, and wove his way among the other bugger ships. They did not fire on him. They did not change course. Two of them crashed into each other and exploded a needless collision that either pilot could have avoided. Neither made the slightest movement.

Mazer sped up the action. Skipped ahead. "We waited for three hours," he said. "Nobody could believe it." Then the I.F. ships began approaching the bugger starships. Marines began their cutting and boarding operations. The videos showed the buggers already dead at their posts.

"So you see," said Mazer, "you already knew all there was to see."

"Why did it happen?"

"Nobody knows. I have my personal opinions. But there are plenty of scientists who tell me I'm less than qualified to have opinions."

"You're the one who won the battle."

"I thought that qualified me to comment, too, but you know how it is. Xenobiologists and xenopsychologists can't accept the idea that a starpilot scooped them by sheer guesswork. I think they all hate me because, after they saw these videos, they had to live out the rest of their natural lives here on Eros. Security, you know. They weren't happy."

"Tell me."

"The buggers don't talk. They think to each other, and it's instantaneous like the philotic effect. Like the ansible. But most people always thought that meant a controlled communication like language -- I think you a thought and then you answer me. I never believed that. It's too immediate , the way they respond together to things. You've seen the videos. They aren't conversing and deciding among possible courses of action. Every ship acts like part of a single organism. It responds the way your body responds during combat, different parts automatically, thoughtlessly doing everything they're supposed to do. They aren't having a mental conversation between people with different thought processes. All their thoughts are present, together, at once."

"A single person, and each bugger is like a hand or a foot?"

"Yes. I wasn't the first person to suggest it, but I was the first person to believe it. And something else. Something so childish and stupid that the xenobiologists laughed me to silence when I said it after the battle. The buggers are bugs . They're like ants and bees. A queen, the workers. That was maybe a hundred million years ago, but that's how they started, that kind of pattern. It's a sure thing none of the buggers we saw had any way of making more little buggers. So when they evolved this ability to think together, wouldn't they still keep the queen? Wouldn't the queen still be the center of the group? Why would that ever change?"

"So it's the queen who controls the whole group."

"I had evidence, too. Not evidence that any of them could see. it wasn't there in the First Invasion, because that was exploratory. But the Second Invasion was a colony. To set up a new hive, or whatever."

"And so they brought a queen."

"The videos of the Second Invasion, when they were destroying our fleets out in the comet shell." He began to call them up and display the buggers' patterns. "Show me the queen's ship."

It was subtle. Ender couldn't see it for a long time. The bugger ships kept moving, all of them. There was no obvious flagship, no apparent nerve center. But gradually, as Mazer played the videos over and over again, Ender began to see the way that all the movements focused on, radiated from a center point. The center point shifted, but it was obvious, after he looked long enough, that the eyes of the fleet, the I of the fleet, the perspective from which all decisions were being made, was one particular ship. He pointed it out.

"You see it. I see it. That makes two people out of all of those who have seen this video. But it's true, isn't it."

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If contradiction was to be prevented, conversation above would have to be deleted in its entirety.

This conversation is one of the most important parts of EG, where Ender gradually begins to learn about Formics, the Queen, the Ansible. Now that I finished The Swarm, I can with all confidence say: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to eliminate these contradictions, and major ones they are.

***SWARM SPOILER***

Bingwen sees the birth of a Hive Queen. He, hours after boarding the asteroid-slash-factory, and multiple IF officers, discuss how there are Hive Queens and Adolescent Hive Queens. How ansible-mental control they have over formics varies, depending on distance, when it's full control, when just loose commands.

It is not doable to make these contradictions go away. I look at EG like it's the canon of all canons. Sure, some minor things can be changed. But now it would be full chapters that would need complete rewrites.

This is beyond contradiction, this renders both prequel trylogies non-canon. This is the only way one can enjoy them.
 

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Posted by Craig Childs (Member # 5382) on :
 
Agree 100%. I made this point after Formic War: Burning Earth actually. Those comics and later the First Formic War books require a virtually complete rewrite of the EG backstory

[ November 09, 2017, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Craig Childs ]
 

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Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
 
Hurray. 4 years.
 

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Posted by ChrisW (Member # 13982) on :
 
This is a continuity problem that's bothered me so much that I've registered on this forum just to complain about it. It doesn't involve "Ender's Game" specifically other than as source material, so it has nothing to do with any revised editions. I'm also being deliberately lazy and not looking up the specifics. It's just a general 'I've read these books so many times they're permanently on my mental hard drive' sense.

Specifically, the timeline doesn't work with Virlomi compared to, well, almost anybody else, but most especially with her reference to not having a high opinion of Han Tsu back in Battle School when he proposes to her.

Virlomi was close to graduation when she met Petra, and that was only because she kept track of the new girls in Battle School. As I recall, Virlomi was never even a toon leader and didn't even go to Command School, so she'd have never met Petra again if not for their experiences in India after the war.

Petra had at least a couple of years on Ender by the time he was assigned to Salamander Army, much younger than any other soldier and possibly still the youngest soldier in Battle School. Ender was transferred to Rat Army for a while and eventually became a toon leader in Petra's army (whose name I have forgotten and am too lazy to look up.) Eventually Ender was given command of Dragon Army where none of the soldiers was older than him.

Virlomi didn't have a high opinion of Han Tsu because she graduated Battle School back when he was crawling on the floor in China with a monitor in his neck. It's entirely possible that's where Han Tsu was when Ender joined Salamander and met Petra. It's theoretically possible that she was physically in Battle School when Han Tsu got there as a Launchie, but the odds of her noticing him (or vice-versa) are astronomical.

Even the most generous view of the timeline means Virlomi was easily pushing 20 when the jeesh came home after the war and was quite possibly older than that. I like the way it was handled in the books, but come on, she could have won easily by just grabbing a few of the jeesh and Peter. "Get over here, little boy! I'm going to make you a man."
 

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Posted by ChrisW (Member # 13982) on :
 
Is it spelled "Han Tzu"? I did say I wasn't going to look up any details.
 

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Posted by ChrisW (Member # 13982) on :
 
Can't help it, started rereading the books. At the start of Chapter 14 of "Shadow of the Hegemon":

"Even though she was considerably older, so her time in Battle School overlapped Petra by only a year, in those days Virlomi took notice of every girl in the place."

Most likely Virlomi noticed Petra as a launchie. But let's say she didn't notice Petra until she was assigned to Salamander Army. Ender was still a a launchie, assuming he'd even gotten to Battle School yet. Dink is older than Petra, so he probably got assigned to an army first, but he probably wasn't yet a toon leader in Rat. Notice how we have to assume that by-the-books straightforward soldiers like Petra and Dink were still in their first armies [Salamander and Rat] when Ender first met them.

Virlomi is long-gone by the time Ender's career starts, there's no way to avoid that. A chunk of "Ender's Game" passes and then Dragon Army forms with no soldiers who are older than Ender, including Hot Soup.

So the ages break down to: Virlomi is several years older than Dink who is at least a little older than Petra who is a few years older than Ender and probably about the same age as Carn Carnby. Alai and Shen are a couple years older than Ender who is older than his five toon leaders and Suri, then finally Bean.

None of this is meant as negative criticism by the way. Keeping track of these things is hard. I think OSC said somewhere on this website that he can't be bothered to keep track of the ages of his own children, so why would he do that for fictional characters? I'm a writer and get where he's coming from. It's only as a reader that I go 'HEY, THAT'S TOTALLY WRONG!' and care enough to go back and look.

I'm also enjoying the reread, by the way.

[ July 08, 2019, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: ChrisW ]
 

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Five years.
 

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Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
 
Yeah, you beat me to it.
That's a long time. I got married since last year's milestone. Any big changes in your lives?
 

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Posted by jdgilbert (Member # 14014) on :
 
Good morning everyone. This is the first time I am posting and I created this account specifically to receive confirmation on what I think is a continuity error between Earth Awakens and The Swarm.

I have not read the books, but rather have listened to the audiobooks while I work so I am not completely confident about my conclusion since I don't have a paper copy for reference. This is such a minor conflict that I shouldn't be hyperfocusing on it, but my ADHD mind won't let it go. Anyway, onto the conflict that my mind won't shut up about:

In Earth Awakens, Benyawe was selected by Lem to join the scout ship tactical strike team formed by Victor, Mazer, Shenzu, and the selected MOPs members.

Now the conflicting statement occurs in The Swarm in the chapter "Unraveling" when Lem and Benyawe are approaching the scout ship to test Wilasanee's hypothesized application of the NanoCloud to act as a Formic hull breach weapon. Lem is daydreaming about how much easier things would be if they had a laserized gamma plasma weapon when Benyawe sees the scout ship and is in awe of how massive it is. Lem responds with "I had forgotten you haven't been here before."

Correct me if I'm wrong but Benyawe played a critical role in disabling the very ship that Lem is claiming she has never been to before; and he was the one that sent her there. Am I missing something? Am I imagining things? Someone, anyone, please either confirm or refute my conclusion so I can stop thinking about it.
 

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Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
 
I know it makes me sound materialistic, but I've invested 5,5 years (so far) of waiting for my signed copy, I'm not going to let it go!

(Back me up people!)
 

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Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by alexiajia:
I am not completely confident about my conclusion since I don't have a paper copy for reference. This is such a minor conflict that I shouldn't be hyperfocusing on it, but my ADHD mind won't let it go

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