Ender's aiua split (caution spoilers)

[Murtauk]

Upon the test flight into the outspace Ender finds that their are a few more passnegers aboard than the cure for the descolada. Young Peter and Val I believe gave Ender a chance to get a few things. first he was able to reconcile somewhat with the peter he knew back home, by creating one that wanted desperately to be a better man and second he was able to give Jane the means to be alive and through Miro the love he couldn't give her. Now although I do understand why this split occured I am still at odds with why he had to fade as a result of this, it's just not enough reasoning to have Ender die, i get that Novihna had to finally let someone go and not control them, but this could have easily been done with Quaro when he was killed by warbringer. I just hated the idea of Ender merely fading away, I mean come on this dude saved the world, then worlds! Anyway I guess what I'm asking is should the split have caused Ender's bodily death?

[UnnDunn]

But the whole point is Ender isn't dead. He's just in two bodies now. And he simply didn't want the old body any more.

It's exactly the same thing that happened to Miro when he went Outside the first time, and it happened for largely the same reasons: Miro's body was no longer enough to satisfy the needs of Miro's aiua, and similarly Ender's body was no longer enough to satisfy the needs of Ender's aiua. It just took a little longer for Ender to do the transfer than it did for Miro, because Novinha had to let him go (he loved Novinha too much to just abandon her) before he could dump the old body.

Also, it wasn't Quara who was killed by Warmaker, it was Quim.

[Murtauk]

Quim that's right! sorry about that. I knew it started with a Q though. Did you feel that there was a enough of a need in from ENder or his aiwa from having known Miro those few months to justify his splitting in thirds? I mean I get his connection to Jane, I really wanted to see the two of them together, since no one (based on what I read) ever had as close a connection to Ender as she did, not even the hive queen, and she was in his head!

[UnnDunn]

Ender's aiua, ultimately, had one absolutely overwhelming motivation throughout the entire Speaker trilogy: to prevent humans from destroying other sentient life the way they tried to destroy the Formics. That's what his aiua needed to do more than anything. Another, smaller part of his aiua loved Novinha, at least until she basically divorced and rejected him.

Jane is sentient, as are the pequeninos and the Formics, and humanity was preparing to destroy them all. Ender's aiua simply could not let that happen. But at the same time, Novinha was stuck on Lusitania, and Ender's aiua's love for her would not allow him to leave. So when they went Outside, Ender's aiua came up with a solution. Wahey, three bodies!

You'll notice that Peter and Young Val, acting as additional bodies for Ender's aiua, were focused solely on saving Lusitania's non-human population, and had almost zero regard for the other humans. Peter's mission was to recall the Lusitania fleet and reverse Jane's switch-off, while Young Val's mission was to find new colonizable planets for the pequeninos and the Formics. Meanwhile, Ender's original body was only staying alive just enough to stay with Novinha until she let him go.

Even Jane is pressed into service, acting almost like a fourth "body" for Ender's aiua, since her aiua is inextricably twined to--and subservient to--his. She has her independence, which is what let her set up her own contingency plans in case Peter's plan to save her failed, but ultimately she served Ender's aiua by serving Peter and Young Val, even without the jewel in Ender's ear. Her entire being exists to serve Ender; that's what she was created (by the Hive Queen and Graff) to do. Not like his slave, more like his pet.

By the way, the non-human population of Lusitania also includes the Descolada, and the aliens who made it. Ender felt a need to save them too; once the pequeninos and Formics were no longer in danger of extinction, Jane and Young Val immediately began searching for the Descolada home world. You'll notice it's Peter (again, acting as a vessel for Ender's aiua) who was instrumental in destroying the Little Doctor and who made an almost pleading case for why humans should never even carry the device, even against the Descoladores, a species as varelse as they come.

Ender's motivation didn't come from his relationship with Miro, it came from his relationships with Jane and the Hive Queen. Relationships that began in Battle School as Ender endlessly studied the Formics and played the Fantasy Game (Jane was created by the Hive Queen, 'born' when Ender killed the Giant and trained when Graff assigned her to look after Ender's finances). Relationship bonds that grew stronger and stronger over 3000 years. Add to that the terrible, grinding guilt Ender felt for his part in nearly wiping out the Formics--a guilt enhanced by his superhuman empathy, and you can imagine how powerful that motivation was. That's why he became the Speaker for the Dead and wrote the books he wrote, that's why he carried the Hive Queen all those years, that's why he rushed to Lusitania and negotiated the treaty with the pequeninos, and that why he split into three bodies in order to save them all.

[Tiny genius]

Lengthy speech but I do agree with you on pretty much every point. However, I want to go back to a previous point in this thread (if that's ok) and say that the tension between Novinha and Ender was much fanned by the death of Quim. She couldn't have let him go because a large part of her animosity towards Ender was the fact that Ender didn't try to oppose Quim's decision. Also, Ender's aiua was strong but maybe not strong enough. The three body solution to the "Novinha or piggies" problem made sense but I think that his aiua simply wasn't strong enough to sustain all of them. I believe it was Graff (or was it Mazer?) in one of the Shadow books said that it isn't uncommon for the solution to one problem to become to cause of the next.

To summarise, Ender's aiua needed three bodies to perform its wishes but this caused the problem of sustaining them all.

To summarise the summary, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

[UnnDunn]

Heh, I do have a habit of turning in wholly-unasked-for essay-length posts sometimes. You should see some of the tomes I post on Reddit occasionally.

[Murtauk]

Not at all,
My post was meant to be somewhat conversational and your response was spot on. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it actually gave me some closure on the matter of Ender's passing. This was actually my first read through the series, it took me about 3 weeks to finish the quartet, and the story as a whole was like barreling through an amazing mini series and to see ender die it just tore at me. I'm just glad that there are fans out there willing to take the time to give their insight on the stories and characters.

[UnnDunn]

Not at all,
My post was meant to be somewhat conversational and your response was spot on. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it actually gave me some closure on the matter of Ender's passing. This was actually my first read through the series, it took me about 3 weeks to finish the quartet, and the story as a whole was like barreling through an amazing mini series and to see ender die it just tore at me. I'm just glad that there are fans out there willing to take the time to give their insight on the stories and characters.

Have you read the Shadow cycle yet? If not, give it a whirl. It's pretty good.

[UnnDunn]

Lengthy speech but I do agree with you on pretty much every point. However, I want to go back to a previous point in this thread (if that's ok) and say that the tension between Novinha and Ender was much fanned by the death of Quim. She couldn't have let him go because a large part of her animosity towards Ender was the fact that Ender didn't try to oppose Quim's decision. Also, Ender's aiua was strong but maybe not strong enough. The three body solution to the "Novinha or piggies" problem made sense but I think that his aiua simply wasn't strong enough to sustain all of them. I believe it was Graff (or was it Mazer?) in one of the Shadow books said that it isn't uncommon for the solution to one problem to become to cause of the next.

To summarise, Ender's aiua needed three bodies to perform its wishes but this caused the problem of sustaining them all.

To summarise the summary, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Absolutely agreed on both counts. A big theme in CotM was Ender's struggles in sustaining three bodies, and how his focus shifted from one body to another as his aiua's interests changed.

[Murtauk]

Finally finished shadow of the giant and have just begun to read ender in exile and should get to shadows in flight soon. I reread EG not too long ago with the idea that the aiua that would soon become jane was at some point entering the fantasy game ender was playing. It's especially fascinating to think about what that time meant to the hive queens as he is sitting there dealing with bonzo then rose all the while they are plotting to try and control him.

[Tiny genius]

SPOILERS!!! I hadn't guessed from CotM how long the Hive Queens were interacting with him for and I haven't read EiE yet (damn audio books so hard to find 'em to borrow from libraries).
People should use spoiler tags on those things, I mean this one wasn't big but another one that is might come along, neh?

[UnnDunn]

SPOILERS!!! I hadn't guessed from CotM how long the Hive Queens were interacting with him for and I haven't read EiE yet (damn audio books so hard to find 'em to borrow from libraries).
People should use spoiler tags on those things, I mean this one wasn't big but another one that is might come along, neh?

Um... the Ender/Jane/Hive Queen connection was discussed in Speaker for the Dead (Ch. 11) and Xenocide (Ch. 15). If you've read those books, it's not a spoiler. Assuming you've read the entire Speaker trilogy, the only spoiler in this thread is the revelation that Graff assigned Jane to manage Ender's finances (that was discussed in Shadow of the Giant and fleshed out in Investment Counselor, not in any of the Speaker books).

[Tiny genius]

While the Ender/Jane/Hive Queen connection was discussed I didn't think the connection went as far back as that, I thought they only started later. I have read the Shadow books and know about the assigning of the Fantasy Game software to manage Ender's trust fund but didn't think that Graff had told Jane to personally. I didn't think he knew she existed as there wasn't a mention of her in the Shadow books. Maybe that's discussed in Investment Counselor which I have not read.

[UnnDunn]

Uh-oh, essay time again!

In Xenocide, the Hive Queen went into detail about how the Formics tried to reach out to Ender. They noticed Ender subconsciously calling bugger-like philotes in from the Outside as he endlessly studied the Second Invasion videos in Battle School. They thought "hey, maybe this is a human we can communicate with, explain that we meant no harm." They tried communicating with Ender directly, but the fundamental differences between the human brain and the Formic brain made it impossible--human brains worked in a fashion that was too chaotic and unpredictable for them to deal with directly.

But they noticed that Ender had a strong philotic twining to a different object: the Fantasy Game. Being a computer connected to the Ansible network (which is based on Formic technology), they could quite easily work with that. So they called in an aiua to control the Fantasy Game, with the intention that it would serve as a "bridge" between the Formics and Ender. But this "bridge" aiua was hamstrung by the programming of the Fantasy Game, so it couldn't work the way the Formics wanted, and they quickly abandoned it.

Then Ender killed the Giant. The Fantasy Game had no programming for this scenario, so the "bridge" aiua took over. Jane was born. What happens after that is explained in Speaker for the Dead. Jane goes through roughly the same intellectual maturation process a human does--she starts out just blindly grabbing data from the human computer networks, learning. Then at some point, she hones in on the Fantasy Game logs, finds Ender's Fantasy Game log and realizes the close bond she already has with him. It doesn't specify how long this process takes, but I would guess it takes maybe an hour or so. From then on, she becomes absolutely devoted to Ender, learns everything about him, builds her personality around him. That's how the Game was able to pull up Peter's image, spooking Ender.

Graff knew that the Fantasy Game had an advanced data-mining and analytical AI (thanks to the Peter-spooking-Ender incident), which is why he used it to manage Ender's trust fund (and search for Bean's babies.) But he didn't think of it as sentient; no-one did, until the events of Investment Counselor.

[Murtauk]

SPOILERS!!! I hadn't guessed from CotM how long the Hive Queens were interacting with him for and I haven't read EiE yet (damn audio books so hard to find 'em to borrow from libraries).
People should use spoiler tags on those things, I mean this one wasn't big but another one that is might come along, neh?

Sorry about the spoilers there, I assumed if someone was intrigued to read this discussion it would be due to the same reasons I posted it. I got to the end of CoTM and felt a pang of frustration.

[Tiny genius]

Yes, yes UnnDunn I know all that!
What you posted was a freakin' retelling of the story of Jane, not an explanation of how far back the HQ's philotic link with Ender went. I've re-read the Speaker trilogy very recently and didn't find anything saying that: a) The bridge (Jane) existed as far back as the events of Banzo and Rose & b) Ender was calling in "bugger-like philotes" when watching the bugger war vids.
As for anything in IC, EiE and part of SiF I don't know. Haven't read yet.

And thanks, Martauk, for adding the spoiler warning onto the end. It won't help me but it might help someone else!

So UD, keep your essays to yourself unless you have something to say that is both informative, true and hasn't been explained in the books.

[UnnDunn]

Sorry, man. I'll shut up now.

[Murtauk]

Sorry, man. I'll shut up now.

Don't you dare!
Look, the events surrounding the attempted contact of the HQ to ender and the "birth" and realization of jane or as they refer to it in the halo universe, the difference between dumb AI and smart AI is difficult to cement, yet open enough to interpretation that we can take some educated guesses on it. Simply not agreeing with someones stance does not in itself give cause for someone to tell someone else not to speak there mind. Patience, conversation and the sharing of ideas should never be blocked or hindered in any way, lord knows there are plenty of empty headed comments on the web this stream should not be one that prevents the well thought out ones from being seen. No offense to tiny genius but telling someone to not post comments because they're not the answers you were looking for is foolishness, read the comment and judge for yourself whether to believe it or not but don't the push for that voice to be silenced that just promotes an antisocial environment where no one will want to make a statement for fear of being shot down.

[Tiny genius]

Okay, I'm sorry. I was harsh. Don't shut up.

But you will notice, in my defence, that I didn't reject the answer because it didn't answer me or it wasn't the one I wanted, I didn't like it because it was just a retelling of what is common knowledge from the books.

[UnnDunn]

Yes it's retelling (but also clarifying I hope) the books. The first time I went through the books, I had a very hard time understanding how Jane came to be, and I only grokked it quite recently. So I wanted to try to help clarify it for others.

[Tiny genius]

Jane's coming into being was pretty easy for me to comprehend, actually. All the other bits were cleaned up when Malu (spelling?) explained it.

Thanks, however, for clarifying one thing. The spelling of "grokked". I've only heard it (audio books and radio) and so couldn't know the spelling for sure. I was going to look it up but you saved me the trouble.

[Murtauk]

EIE is such a quick read don't wait for an audiobook. I can only imagine what battle school slang actually sounds like, the cadence i mean.

[Tiny genius]

What do you mean "don't wait for an audiobook"?

[Ender52]

EIE is such a quick read don't wait for an audiobook. I can only imagine what battle school slang actually sounds like, the cadence i mean.

For what it's worth "Ender in Exile" and "Shadows in Flight" are both availabe as unabridged audio books... I think by Blackstone Audio... downloadable from Audiable.com

[Tiny genius]

Downloadable for how much?

And repeat previous question: What do you mean I shouldn't wait for an audiobook?

[Ender52]

Downloadable for how much?
And repeat previous question: What do you mean I shouldn't wait for an audiobook?

Shadows in Flight $17.95
Ender in Exile $29.95

or by subscriptiom... one book per month $14.94 or two per month $22.95

They carry most/all? Cards books. Warning the files are coded that they only play on "Audible Enabled" devices... and computer and only when "Activated" for the user name the person that downloads the file.

Link http://www.audible.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Murtauk]

What do you mean "don't wait for an audiobook"?

I mean its out on paperback on amazon for like 5 bucks. I paid 4 for my copy and it's a very quick read.

[Tiny genius]

and it's a very quick read

Not if you've [I've] got only 4% vision. The difference in price between print and audiobooks is irritating though and in my opinion borders on discrimination.

[Murtauk]

and it's a very quick read

Not if you've [I've] got only 4% vision. The difference in price between print and audiobooks is irritating though and in my opinion borders on discrimination.

Dang, yeah I was going to try and get xenocide on audible for a friend and I saw the price. It's criminal.

[Murtauk]

Hey guys, if you would like a little more ender in your life. i recently interviewed unndunn on my new podcast and we have a really great discussion about Enders Game as well as some of the other books in the enderverse. You can get it here http://theslackergenius.com/Contact-Us.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The original interview was almost 2 hours long! so there was some editing down done. Please feel free to email me with suggestions for future discussions or if you are interested in being a gues, you can send me an email with your inquiry to theslackergenius@gmail.com