Concepts in the Ender's Game series

This is a list of miscellaneous elements in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card.

Aiua

Aiùas are explained in Orson Scott Card's series of novels, beginning with Speaker for the Dead and continuing in Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. An aiùa is an intelligent philote. Sentient creatures consist of uncounted numbers of philotes (the true indivisible particle) and one aiùa, which holds the collection together and can be thought of as the physical representation of the soul. According to Grego in Xenocide, the term was inspired by the Sanskrit word for 'life,' probably "āyus" (this is not the first time Card has derived fictional slang from real-world vocabulary). The existence of philotes and aiùas is also acknowledged, though not as large of a theme, in the parallel Shadow series.

Anton's Key

Anton's Key is a fictional genetic modification to human DNA. It primarily afflicts Julian 'Bean' Delphiki; over the course of the novels, he passes it on to four of his nine children.

"Anton's Key" unlocks unlimited brain growth, allowing the person access to the intellectual miracles of infancy (language acquisition, for instance) throughout their entire life. Children with Anton's Key will be born prematurely, but, despite low birth weight and shorter gestation period, will not require any extra attention as most premature babies do. All of the normal human growth milestones are accelerated, including, but not limited to, toilet training, walking, talking and puberty (except for the growth spurt).

The disadvantage of Anton's Key is the need of body to grow alongside the brain, resulting in gigantism and a slow but unstoppable physical growth. The immense size of the body causes circulation difficulties for the heart: the heart is forced to pump blood through a network of arteries and veins much larger than the average human's network, and the subject will eventually experience congestive heart failure and death. Persons in whom Anton's Key has been turned are not expected to live past their twentieth birthday, and may not even make their fifteenth.

The scientist (Anton) who created this modification was inflicted with a Pavlovian mental ban, preventing him from thinking about the topic without suffering a panic attack. Despite this, Volescu did get ahold of the information and created Bean.

Descolada

The Descolada is a fictional virus in the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card. It is a quasi-conscious self-modifying organism capable of infecting any form of life. The Descolada is first mentioned in Speaker for the Dead, and plays a leading role in the later book Xenocide. Additionally, in Children of the Mind, the Lusitanians, with the aid of Jane, make their way to the home world of the descolada. The plot of the book slowly reveals that the creators of the descolada (known as descoladores) may be intelligent life forms, sending out the virus as a means of communication and possibly slavery or just colonization/terraforming. The intent of the descolada is not discovered, however, as the book ends before any meaningful contact can be made with them.

"Descolada" is also the Portuguese word for "unglued". In the context of the book, this refers to the Descolada virus's effects; it breaks the link of the DNA double helix (ungluing it) and induces mutations.

Descoladore

These are a sentient species that are first presented in Children of the Mind. Little is known about them other than the fact that they communicate using chemicals.

They created the Descolada and other viruses to attempt to terraform planets such as Lusitania. Upon arriving at their home planet, a group of scientists led by Peter, Jane, and Valentine broadcasted the remains of the Descolada found on Lusitania. This molecule contained the genetic makeup of humans and Pequeninos. The Descoladores responded by transmitting a genetic molecule back that affects the same place in the brain as [...]. Differing hypotheses for this transmission included a pacification attempt by the Descoladores to sedate and capture the intruders, as well as a welcoming "hug" to a new species. This led to the belief that the Descoladores communicate by transmitting a molecule meant to be manufactured and ingested by the receiving party. Another hypothesis is that this is the way the Descoladores communicate with animals, and use philotic twining to communicate amongst themselves.

Fantasy Game

The Mind Fantasy Game is a game that is played by the students in Ender's Game to monitor their psychological development and stability while they are in Battle School.

Ender plays the game intensely, and the teachers become very worried when he becomes preoccupied with the Giant's Drink. In the Giant's Drink, a giant gives the player a choice of two drinks. That area is a lose-lose situation that reveals the [...] tendency of the child. Ender constantly keeps dying in that area. Finally, Ender breaks the rules, kicks the two drinks over, and stabs the giant in the eyeball, [...] him. Because most children give up and never progress beyond the Drink, the game was not programmed to reveal what happened after getting past the Giant. However, the computer was so complex that it created areas afterwards, tailored to Ender's mind.

In Ender's Shadow, the main protagonist Bean is said to be the only student who never plays the game, because he knows that the teachers are using it to map out their minds. His refusal to play the game vexes the teachers and forces them to monitor him in different ways. Bean, however, does play the game once, at the Giant's Drink, and the computer shows Achilles' face, similar to the scene in Game when Ender sees Peter's face.

In Shadow of the Giant, Bean issues a request for Graff to reprogram the Mind Game to become a neutral trust holder of Ender's trust fund. He does so because he suspects that Peter Wiggin has been embezzling the trust fund money. The reprogrammed Mind Game quickly becomes very useful, and is predicting the stock market better than the experts by the end of the novel.

It is revealed in "Xenocide" that the Hive Queen used the Fantasy Mind Game to form a connection or "bridge" to Ender during the events of "Game" in order to subdue him. In order to do so, the Hive Queen summoned an aiua from Outside. Eventually, sometime after Bean requests for the Mind Game to be reprogrammed, the aiua inside the Mind Game evolved into Jane, the cybernetic entity who lives among the philotic twines between planets introduced in "Speaker for the Dead."

Hierarchy of Alienness

The Hierarchy of Alienness is a concept from the Ender's Game series of novels written by Orson Scott Card. It classifies the relationships between humanity and all other creatures. The hierarchy is a four-tiered structure using various classifications to group all "strangers". It is first presented in the book History of Wutan in Trondheim by Valentine Wiggin, published under the pseudonym of Demosthenes. The origin of the terms is said to be the Norwegian language of the fictional planet Trondheim. However, only the word "utlannings" actually derives from Norwegian ("utlending" means "foreigner"). The words "framling" and "varelse" are in fact Swedish of origin, meaning respectively "stranger" and "creature". The word "raman" is not found in any Scandinavian language.

The hierarchy

Utlannings are strangers of one's own species and one's own world (i.e. community or culture). An utlanning is a person who shares our own cultural identity. For example, if one were to meet a stranger who lived in another city, state, or province, this person would be considered utlanning.

Framlings are strangers who are of one's own species but who are from another world or culture. This is a person who is substantially similar, but significantly different from ourselves. For example, if one met another human who lived on Mars, this person would be a framling (a classic example is Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land). At the time the Hierarchy is proposed, each planet in the Ender's Game Universe (other than Earth) has been colonized by a single terrestrial culture or nation, making humans from other planets “framlings”.

Ramen (singular raman) are strangers from another species who are capable of communication and peaceful coexistence with humanity, even if they do not pursue the latter. We are able to exchange ideas with "ramen", but would have little or no common ground with them, at least not initially. Some examples of ramen are some characters of the Star Wars and Star Trek series, including Ewoks, Wookiees, and Vulcans, or fantasy-genre elves, dwarves, gnomes, and so on.

Varelse (pronounced var-ELSS-uh 1) are strangers from another species who are not able to communicate with us. They are true aliens, completely incapable of common ground with humanity. The quasi-intelligent Descolada virus may or may not have been sentient enough to qualify in this category. It was thought that the Descoladores, creators of the Descolada, were the true sentients, and it was determined at the end of the Ender quartet that it would take years of study to formulate any communication with them. One character describes all animals as being varelse, since “no conversation [with them] is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes makes them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it.” The Xenomorph creatures found in the Alien series or the ocean of Solaris could be considered varelse as well.

Significance

The reason that this hierarchy is given is that with a species designated as ramen, communication and compromise are viable alternatives to war, while if a species is designated as varelse, then we have a right to wage war on this species in self-defense. However, these definitions are open to interpretation. The Pequeninos and Formics (the "Buggers") are both considered ramen at various points in the series and varelse at other points, and the change in designation did not come from a change in the species being described, but rather from a change in humans' understanding of them. Quara, one of the characters in the series, even goes so far as to state, "As far as I can tell, intelligence is intelligence. Varelse is just the term Valentine invented to mean Intelligence-that-we've-decided-to-kill, and raman means Intelligence-that-we-haven't-decided-to-kill-yet." Having said that, Card acknowledges this aspect of the Hierarchy with a challenge in the epistolary opening to the first chapter of Speaker for the Dead:

Molecular Disruption Device

The Molecular Disruption Device is a fictional weapon of mass destruction featured in the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels by Orson Scott Card. Given the awkwardness of saying "molecular disruption device" or "molecular detachment device", the name was abbreviated to "M. D. Device", which gave rise to the nicknames "Dr. Device" and "The Little Doctor". (However, a group of scientists claim that such a weapon is actually possible and are attempting to create a similar tool.)

Motivation

After the devastation caused by two invasions by a hive minded extraterrestrial race known formally as the "Formics" and informally as the "Buggers", Earth's military and scientific minds sought a way to permanently neutralize the Formic threat. All attempts at diplomacy and communication had failed. Humanity picked up several important pieces of technology from the Formic equipment, including gravity control and the possibility of faster-than-light communication, the ansible.

Mechanism

A basic explanation of the function of the Little Doctor appears in Ender's Game. The device produces two beams whose focal point has the ability to disrupt the bonds between atoms in molecules. The device also creates a field in which nearby molecules are also destroyed, and each dissolved molecule widens the reach of the field. In the absence of nearby mass, such as in the vacuum of space, the field dissipates rapidly, but a tightly-clustered formation of ships could be easily destroyed.

The device is capable of destroying essentially any single object, or cluster of objects that are close enough together. It can destroy something as small as an enemy spacecraft, or something as incredibly large as an entire planet. In theory, it may even be able to destroy larger objects such as stars, if they are dense enough.

In Ender's Game, the only thing said about the weapon's physical characteristics is that it employs a directed energy beam; "it can't shoot around corners," Ender deduces. Three thousand years later, in Children of the Mind, the device has been scaled into the warhead of a missile, small enough to fit inside a small room. Upon "detonation", the field effect is started within the missile itself and uses the weapon's mass to jump-start a chain reaction. A removable section of casing allows it to be shut off, and instructions on how to do so are printed all over its surface (turning it on, a military officer explains, is the difficult part).

Deployment

The M.D. Device was dispatched with several interstellar fleets heading towards the Formic homeworld. The ships were also equipped with ansibles, allowing Earth to develop the strategies and leaders needed for battle while the fighting force was still in transit. From Command School, Ender Wiggin remotely ordered the use of the Device on the enemy planet, resulting in the planet's complete destruction. It had not been previously tested on an object of such scale. Ironically, Ender used the Device on the planet in order to flunk himself out of Command School: deceived into thinking he was attempting to pass his final exam, he decided to prove himself too dangerous, too uncivilized to actually command against the Formics and hoping to be sent home. Ender carried this guilt with him for many years.

In Speaker for the Dead, Starways Congress deployed the Evacuation Fleet to the planet of Lusitania. Lusitania was not only host to a sentient species known as the pequeninos, but also an extremely infectious and destructive virus, the "descolada," which, if allowed contact with life on any other planet, would cause planetwide extinctions and ecological disaster. Despite this, the pequeninos had demanded their right, as sentient beings, to spread out amongst the stars. Despite violating Congressional law forbidding the donation of technology to less advanced life forms, the human scientists on Lusitania (and, later, the revived Formics) agreed to help them spread out. With the colony now in rebellion and harboring an extremely potent bioweapon, Congress (in Xenocide) authorized the Fleet to use the Little Doctor. By the end of Children of the Mind, however, Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-mu, with the help of their allies, convinced Congress to change its mind, and xenocide via the use of the Little Doctor was averted.

Outspace

Outspace is a fictional "universe" used in the Ender Quartet. It is a space with no reference points and thus no distance, comprised of an infinite amount of disorganized philotes, each willing to follow any pattern it can.

The primary function of "Outside," as it often referred to in the books, is faster-than-light travel. This type of travel works on the principle that from the Outside, the lack of defined space makes the "In" universe a point no larger or smaller than any philote nearby. Thus, anyone Outside could reenter the universe at any point and any speed. However, to do so, the person would have to be able to hold the pattern of themselves and anything else taken along on the journey Outside in their mind. This is something only the computer entity Jane has ever been capable of, therefore she is the only one capable of taking "anything more complex than a rubber ball" Outside and back In, as stated in Children of the Mind.

Another use of Outspace as shown in Xenocide is to create objects. As stated above, all the philotes Outside are perfectly willing (and, in fact, trying) to get into some organized pattern. Both conscious and unconscious thoughts create patterns that the philotes bend to. Through this process, Ender's stepdaughter Ela consciously created the "Recolada," a replacement for the Descolada virus that would both allow the Pequeninos to transform into adults and no longer harm the Formics or Humans. Ender himself created copies of Peter Wiggin and Valentine Wiggin as he best remembered them in his subconscious and his disabled stepson Miro created a new body that showed his opinion of himself.

Philote

Philotes are subatomic particles which take no space whatsoever, and are essential to the theory of philotic energy. Each atom has a philote of its own, each molecule likewise, and ultimately each human has an aiùa, an intelligent philote. It is suggested that perhaps a single philote, which could be referred to as God, contains the essence of humanity, and/or all sentient species in the known universe.

Early in the series, philotic energy is used as a form of faster-than-light communication, in which messages are transmitted instantaneously via ansible. Later on, it is also used as a form of near-instantaneous travel, with items to be transported being sent Outside and then back in, arriving at the specified destination (which may be any distance from the origin).

The Hive Queens of the Formic race are born like the rest of the Formics: unintelligent. The mother of the new queen calls a philote from another place, a non-place, and it comes. The Hive Queen also mentions that humans do the same thing when born. It's the act of becoming sentient. It is discovered that these philotes come from Outside, where there is no sense of location and all matter resides in one geometrical point (see above section for more detail).

Philotics is the study of the Philote.

Philotic Web

The Philotic Web is a philosophical and metaphysical construct of the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card. The philosophy of philotes and the philotic web they create first appeared in Xenocide, the third book of the series. It describes the interconnection of not only all the aiuas in the universe, but also the lesser-intelligent philotes. The "web" itself is used by Jane to access not only the combined knowledge of humanity, but also as a pseudo-storage device to house her memory and higher reasoning functions.

The web is the direct result of every philotic connection in the universe. These connections never touch each other in the truer sense of the word "web," but every being can be linked to every other being by their interconnected philotes. These philotic connections are not static, and can be strengthened or weakened over time. For example, Si Wang-Mu and Peter Wiggin begin their journey together having only a small philotic connection. As they spend more time together and grow increasingly more affectionate and emotionally attached to each other, their connection grows stronger and stronger.

The philotic connections spoken of in the Enderverse can grow to monumental proportions based solely on emotional and "spiritual" connectedness. Grego is spoken of as having formed a very intense philotic web with the angry mob in Xenocide in a matter of minutes. Additionally, philotic connections can cause physical disturbance or emotional distress when severed.

It is also important to note that philotic connections exist between living and non-living things alike.

Stark

Stark (short for Starways Common and also called Common and Starcommon) is the common interstellar language. In the 3000-year gap between the novels Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead it evolved from "IF Common," which in turn evolved from American English. It is the official language of the Starways Congress and the primary language of most of the Hundred Worlds.

Although the characters of Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind speak Stark, their speech has been translated into English in the books, so the reader has no way of ascertaining the difference between the languages. Ender Wiggin, who grew up on Earth thousands of years earlier and speaks English natively, notes that Stark is very similar to English.

References

• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
• Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
• Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
• First Meetings by Orson Scott Card

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