List of concepts in the Ender's Game series
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This is a list of miscellaneous elements in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card.
Contents |
[edit] Aiua
Aiùas are explained in Orson Scott Card's series of novels, beginning with Ender's Game, continuing with Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. An aiùa is an intelligent philote. Each human being consists of one philote, which could be referred to as the human soul. The word "aiua" is pronounced ayu, and may have been inspired by the Sanskrit word "āyus," meaning life. Philotes and aiùas are also present, though not as large of a theme, in the parallel series, including Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant.
[edit] Anton's Key
Anton's Key is a fictional genetic modification to human DNA.
Anton's Key is a genetic modification that afflicts Julian 'Bean' Delphiki and four of his nine children. One who has this is said to have "Anton's Key turned." The genetic modification causes giantism, extremely high intelligence and a virtually unlimited capacity for learning. Both are caused by a slow, but constant and unstoppable growth from birth of both body and, more remarkably, brain. Children with Anton's Key turned will be born prematurely, and, 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).
As the child grows, 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. In the process, the subject will eventually experience congestive heart failure, causing death. As a result, persons in whom Anton's Key has been turned typically do not live past their twentieth birthday.
The scientist who created it was placed under a mental ban so that others would be unable to replicate his work; however, Volescu did get ahold of the information and created Bean.
[edit] 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 Orson Scott Card ends the book before any true or 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.
[edit] Descoladore
These are a sentient species used in Orson Scott Card's book 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. Most people wanted to destroy their planet using the Molecular Disrupter Device but Ender Wiggin decided that they should try and make contact with them. The communication team broadcasted the remains of the Descolada found on Lusitania. This molecule contains the genetic makeup of humans and Pequeninos. The Descoladores respond by transmitting a genetic molecule back that affects the exact center of the brain that heroin does (probably intended to force the communication team to sit in a mindless stupor while the Descoladores move in). 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.
[edit] 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 the Norwegian language of Trondheim.
[edit] The hierarchy
Utlännings are strangers of one's own species and one's own world (i.e. community or culture). An utlänning 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 utlänning.
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 James Cameron's Alien series could be considered varelse as well.
[edit] 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 are both considered ramen at various points in the series and varelse at other points. The change in designation did not come from a change in the species being described; instead, this change came from a change in humans' understanding of these creatures. In fact, Quara, one of the characters in the series said, "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."
[edit] Molecular Disruption Device
The Molecular Disrupter 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 disrupter 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".
[edit] Motivation
After the devastation caused by two invasions by an 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.
[edit] 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 the vacuum of space, the field dissipates rapidly, but a tightly-clustered formation of ships could be easily destroyed. Its more devastating ability is the power to destroy planets--because a planet consists of tightly clustered mass, a single beam will destroy it.
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).
[edit] 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. Ender carried this guilt with him for many years.
In Speaker for the Dead, Starways Congress deploys the Evacuation Fleet to the planet of Lusitania. Lusitania is 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 have 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) have agreed to help them spread out. With the colony now in rebellion and harboring an extremely potent bioweapon, Congress (in Xenocide) authorizes the Fleet to use the Little Doctor. But by the end of Children of the Mind, however, Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-mu, with the help of their allies, convince Congress to change its mind, and xenocide, via the use of the Little Doctor, is averted.
[edit] Philote
Philotic energy is a theory. Philotes are tiny particles which make up atoms and take no space whatsoever. 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 contains humanity, and/or all sentient species in the known universe. That philote/aiùa could be referred to by some as God.
Early in the series, philotic energy is used as a form of faster-than-light communication. Messages are transmitted via ansible to all of the other ansibles instantaneously. Later on, it is also used as a form of near-instantaneous travel. Items being transported are 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 only thing that makes them intelligent is a philote being called from another place, a non-place. The mother of the new Hive Queens calls this philote, 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 a place called Outside. In this place, there is no sense of location. All matter resides in one geometrical point which takes up no space at all. It is compared to "zooming out" on the known universe. If you view it from very far away, it will take up only one point. Therefore, the sense of location even in our universe is just an illusion. All matter is contained in no "where-ness," as Orson Scott Card puts it.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Stark
In the Ender's Game series fiction of Orson Scott Card, Stark, short for Starways Common, is the common interstellar language which evolved from "IF Common," which in turn evolved from American English and IF Common over the 3000 years between the novels Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. 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. However, the character Ender Wiggin, who grew up on Earth thousands of years earlier and speaks English natively, notes that Stark is very similar to English. Some differences are noted in other Enderverse novels, such as the lack of the word whom.
[edit] Other
- Ansible
- Battle School
- Command School
- Dragon Army
- Formics
- Free People of Earth
- International Fleet
- Pequeninos
- Phoenix Army
- Starways Congress
