The Hive Queen (Ender's Game)

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The Hive Queen is the central consciousness and physical embodiment of the group mind the Formics from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series. Along with the rest of her kind, the Hive Queen is regarded as the second-discovered raman species. Physically, she controls her large colony of insect-like entities through faster-than-light philotic connections, rendering the individuals of the race as extensions of her body.

The Hive Queen is also the title of a fictional book written by Card in the same series, usually sold coupled with The Hegemon.

[edit] Ender's Game

During the Third Invasion, it became evident to the Formics that they could not survive the war with the humans. In order to prevent their total destruction, The Formics prepared a location on one of their colonies for the Hive Queen to be left dormant as a cocoon. Using ansible communication, the Hive Queen accessed the memories of the human race's child prodigy and unknowing battle commander, Ender Wiggin, to better understand him. Using what they learned, the Formics made the landscape on one of their colonies close to Earth to look like that of Ender's most powerful memory (Fairyland, from the pseudo-sentient Mind Fantasy Game). Arriving as a colonist to that world, Ender eventually discovers the Hive Queen and takes her with him while exploring other colonies.

It is revealed that the Hive Queen's philotic connections allow her to communicate directly to Ender's mind. This is difficult at first, because as a queen she never needed words to communicate- the Formics instantly understood her. She gradually learns to communicate with him, however, and he promises to find her a new home for her to respawn her species. In addition, the Hive Queen helps Ender to write down the information concerning her life and the misunderstanding that led to the war. His finished work, titled "The Hive Queen," and published under the name "Speaker for the Dead," creates great sympathy for the Formics which generally leads humanity to come to regard Ender's actions as an evil act of xenocide. Ender travels to two dozen of the Hundred Colonies in this search, which due to the effects of relativistic space travel takes around three thousand years. While Ender aged only a few decades over this period, the Hive Queen is shown to have been fully aware in real time due to her philotic nature. She has become anxious to be released.

[edit] Speaker for the Dead and onwards

Eventually Ender responds to a call for a Speaker for the Dead from Lusitania, a small Catholic colony on the only planet of the third-discovered sentient race, the Pequeninos (the Piggies). Due to the fear of damaging the culture of the Piggies, the colony is restricted in growth as ordered by the Starways Congress. The Hive Queen points out to Ender that this makes the planet the best candidate for a new home, although he is unsure of whether the three races will be capable of living together in peace. Nonetheless, he agrees to investigate the possibility.

On the planet, the Hive Queen occasionally makes cryptic statements to Ender that she has made contact with the Pequeninos (philotically) and has shared information with them and agreed to live there in peace. After Ender and the Lusitanian colonists become more familiar with the culture of the Pequeninos, they form a treaty and agree to release the Hive Queen from dormancy once they can find a way to protect her from the native virus, the Descolada. At the conclusion of Speaker for the Dead, the Hive Queen is finally able to come forth and release her thousands of eggs, "undoing" Ender's act of xenocide.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series
Battle School	Petra Arkanian  · Bean  · Han Tzu  · Alai  · Achilles de Flandres  · Ender's jeesh and other Battle School students
Ender's family	Ender Wiggin  · John Paul Wiggin  · Peter Wiggin  · Theresa Wiggin  · Valentine Wiggin
Other	Han Qing-jao  · Si Wang-mu  · Jane  · The Hive Queen  · International Fleet personnel
Books  · Characters  · Concepts