EG - Shadow series contradiction

[HaricotVert]

After finishing Ender in Exile today i decided to glance back through chapters 14 and 15 of Ender's Game and noticed this little contradiction in the conversation between Mazer and Ender just before the battle over the Formic home world:

"Does the Little Doctor work against a planet?"
Mazer's face went rigid. "Ender, the buggers never deliberately attacked a civilian poulation in either invasion. You decide whether it would be wise to adopt a strategy that would invite reprisals."

I remember that during the Shadow series there were several references to when the Formics invaded and killed millions of Chinese and began terraforming the area with their plants as well.

Does that not count as a deliberate attack on a civilian population?
Or is Mazer referring to the fact that the Formics could not tell the difference between a civilian population and expendable extentions of a queen?
Or is this just a contradiction among the books?

[neo-dragon]

Or is Mazer referring to the fact that the Formics could not tell the difference between a civilian population and expendable extentions of a queen?

Bingo.

[HaricotVert]

thats what i assumed, i just thought OSC would have worded the sentence a little differently if that was his intention.

What about this...
Considering that we know how all of the Formics are extentions of the hive queen and act as they are told by her, does that mean that none of the Formics are considered "civilian" as opposed to how humans have a military separate from civilians?

aaand... dont you think, with the enormous size of the final battle at the Formic home world, that all the Formics were in space fighting? Ender did say that he was outnumbered 1000 to 1 in that battle. it could very well be all of the Formics from the planet fighting, and none left on the planet because they are all doing as the hive queen pleases... and if i were her, i would definitely want everything i have to fight this unstoppable force that is destroying the species

[Person122]

Here's another likely contradiction:

In Ender's Game, Ender thinks that his fart collection is in his socks, but Alai reminds him "We don't wear socks anymore.". It was set in stone that at Battle School, the kids don't wear socks.

Then in A War of Gifts, people would give stockings to one another as gifts. ("he laid a stocking down on the table besides Wiggin's tray.")

Where exactly did these stockings come from?

[Bean_wannabe]

Knitted them out of old flash suits, of course