tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post7235830824843070218..comments2023-11-05T04:09:53.857-05:00Comments on Something Short and Snappy: Ender's Game, chapter thirteen, part two, in which Graff ruins everything againErika The Over Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03649072707709302370noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-37426351523169008932013-10-12T20:33:36.548-04:002013-10-12T20:33:36.548-04:00Darn it. I never read that and now I'll have ...Darn it. I never read that and now I'll have to make the time.bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-61064743261811333582013-10-12T15:43:39.248-04:002013-10-12T15:43:39.248-04:00THIS TWIST IS THE BEST TWIST.THIS TWIST IS THE BEST TWIST.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-18994733904594948852013-10-12T11:47:15.472-04:002013-10-12T11:47:15.472-04:00Yeah... and that does make a whole lot of sense......Yeah... and that does make a whole lot of sense...BaseDeltaZeronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-68512273216907731522013-10-12T10:43:40.299-04:002013-10-12T10:43:40.299-04:00It's a computer program, and seems to be prett...<i>It's a computer program, and seems to be pretty locked down, what with the 'hasn't actually eaten the planet despite your rampant stupidity.</i><br /><br />!<br />I've just figured out how these blundering idiots are managing. They are, in fact, all in the matrix. The Mind Game, not being a blundering idiot, put the warlike and prone to sticking their fingers in lightsockets humans in a sim and made peace with the Formics. The characters just <i>think</i> all this is real.depizannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-6055141459309862032013-10-12T05:14:50.281-04:002013-10-12T05:14:50.281-04:00See: Joe Haldeman's reasoning in The Forever W...See: Joe Haldeman's reasoning in <i>The Forever War</i>, which serves as an excellent rebuttal to the illogic of fighting an interstellar war between aliens with crewed ships.EdinburghEyenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-31674991235998911042013-10-11T17:49:06.089-04:002013-10-11T17:49:06.089-04:00Separately posted because of its length and becaus...Separately posted because of its length and because the thread it addresses is already complete.<br /><br /><br />@ BaseDeltaZero and Our Over Lord:<br /><br />I'm restating this, as a set of propositions, for my own convenience.<br /><br />1. We're agreed that Graff can't train Peter Wiggin as his SuperDuperCommanderKid or trust Peter to wipe out the Formics because Graff can't put Peter under his thumb. ("Because Peter is too smart for him" is another way to put this, not an identical statement but a very similar one.)<br /><br />2. We're also agreed that Graff (and Pals) can't use their SuperDuperCommand-o-Puter as a Formic-Wiper-Outer or put it in charge of their fleet because they can't get <i>it</i> under their thumb (again, "because it's too smart for them," ditto.)<br /><br /><br /><br />3. Valentine would be useless to Graff & Co., because if she were to divine the existence of the ansible, she'd want to use it for its most obvious purpose, viz., to talk. To Formics. To find out what's going on. Which is the foremost thing Graff and the Graff Gang can't allow.<br /><br /><br />Don't these circumstances and others (like the profound secrecy and weird location of the Eros Base, like the fact that Graff bundles Ender into a "tug" without telling anybody what he's going to do and where he's headed, certainly not Ender or the pilot he press-gangs, and like the ambiguous capacities of the Earthly warfleet — just to begin with) suggest some state of extremely deep kabuki in which Graff & Co. are fighting the Formics only as a side issue — because after whatever length of time they've been put into the position of "unacknowledged legislators" of the Earth, they must at last produce results? And that they've determined (or <i>did</i> determine back at the time when the decision was being made) that they'll be in a better bargaining position as successful warriors than as mere haggling diplomats? <i>Ender's Game</i> makes no bones about the fact that it exists to put one over on its readers. It ends with a galactic cry of "Sold!!". (Though in the book's specific context that's depicted as a good thing.) <br /><br /><br />Could we not have a situation in which Earth is really ruled by a small number of powerful individuals/cartels, who, for their own part, possess <i>Star Trek</i>/Type II technology and therefore are <i>themselves</i> not unduly worried by the Formics, but who recognize a need to keep the greater mass of Earth's population occupied and busy and who permit the alien invasion to go forward to that end? And who employ Graff and the likes of Graff as a sort of upper servant class, to superintend the kind of history which will let the Earth's real board of directors, whoever they are, continue to conduct business as usual? Because Graff & Co. <i>never</i> take the short path, they <i>always</i> mug around behind black masks and cloaks. They always act like they're engaging in a cover-up. Could that be because they are?bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-80258353481838026582013-10-11T15:46:54.621-04:002013-10-11T15:46:54.621-04:00Bingo!Bingo!Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-26574188229644931032013-10-11T14:05:19.036-04:002013-10-11T14:05:19.036-04:00The math was done with the presumption it was, in ...<i>The math was done with the presumption it was, in fact, not FTL at all. If FTL is actually involved... well, I have no idea, but it just makes things more confusing.</i><br /><br /><br />Sorry, my brain is just all over the place this week--I don't actually know if it *is* FTL; I was just using that as a mental shorthand for 'practical interstellar engine'. Given the time that Ender's Game was written, the theory behind something like a subluminal Alcubierre drive hadn't really been detailed, so... hell, I don't know. Petra did talk about gravity drives; surely she's not the only person ever to think of--wait, she's a Battle School kid, of course she's the only person ever to think of it.<br /><br /><br />I'm just going to assume that IF vessels accelerate by throwing things really hard out the back of the ship.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-62498493324058607842013-10-11T13:52:23.117-04:002013-10-11T13:52:23.117-04:00"I think the power output question depends on..."I think the power output question depends on exactly how their FTL works, which naturally they will never tell us--on the one hand, relativity applies; on the other, Graff's remarks on how humanity has 'learned to play with space a bit better' implies something more like a warp drive, and I don't think I've ever seen a warp drive theory that doesn't avoid relativistic time dilation."<br />The math was done with the presumption it was, in fact, not FTL at all. If FTL is actually involved... well, I have no idea, but it just makes things more confusing. Perhaps the 'learned to play with space better' refers to some kind of gravity drive? Having good gravity/mass manipulation tech would make sense, what with Dr. Device. Alternatively maybe it's some kind of temporal distortion warp drive. If you can warp space, it stands to reason you can warp time as well...<br /><br /><br />(Unrelated, again from what I've heard of later books, the mind game actually got integrated with the formics' philotic network, so if they had given it control of the fleet, it most likely would have refused to fight and just locked down all their ships until it had established effective translation from alien thoughts into English.)<br /><br />So, in other words, they didn't make it commander because it's too smart for them. Glad to know I was right :PBaseDeltaZeronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-24367436656940522502013-10-11T13:38:51.379-04:002013-10-11T13:38:51.379-04:00That is fantastic math. I think the power output ...That is fantastic math. I think the power output question depends on exactly how their FTL works, which naturally they will never tell us--on the one hand, relativity applies; on the other, Graff's remarks on how humanity has 'learned to play with space a bit better' implies something more like a warp drive, and I don't think I've ever seen a warp drive theory that doesn't avoid relativistic time dilation. (If I recall what I've heard about the later books, they eventually replace FTL with something like infinite-range teleportation, so clearly this is a setting where thermodynamic laws are presumed to be incomplete.)<br /><br /><br />I absolutely love the 'kilo-Ender' as a unit of logistic/strategic competency. (Like the opposite of a farad, of course, the base unit is so far on the wrong side of the scale that it's only worth using in prefixed form.)<br /><br /><br />(Unrelated, again from what I've heard of later books, the mind game actually got integrated with the formics' philotic network, so if they had given it control of the fleet, it most likely would have refused to fight and just locked down all their ships until it had established effective translation from alien thoughts into English.)Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-7212669042564794932013-10-11T12:59:29.021-04:002013-10-11T12:59:29.021-04:00Wait what that does not help things argh. That...Wait what that does not help things argh. That's a relativistic factor of *14*. That means they're travelling at an *average speed* of 99.7% c, or, in layman's terms, 'fucking fast'. And since it's an average, mind, that means they need to actually be traveling *faster* for half of the trip and erglebergle.<br /><br />It's fast enough we can just assume their target is 70 light-years away. Which is about 700 trillion kilometers. This actually doesn't require a terribly high acceleration, only something like 1.915 g. It does, however, result in a kinetic energy of around 6.2 exajoules PER KILOGRAM. PER KILOGRAM. That's 6.2 quintillion joules. Of kinetic energy. Per kilogram. That is, for reference, two orders of magnitude above mass-energy. Each kilogram carries more energy than the yield of fifty Tzar Bombas. I am not even going to try to comprehend the amount of fuel required. Presumably there are, in fact, a lot of these ships. That translates to a LOT OF KILOGRAMS. Let's say that each ship weighs, oh, about as much as a space shuttle. That's a pretty small spacecraft, as sci-fi goes, right? And lets say there are, oh, a thousand of them, just to keep things neat.<br /><br />Yeah, we're quickly talking about energies that are a respectable fraction of the Sun's total energy output. And you need to do it twice. It's around the total energy radiated by the sun in an hour, enough to halt the Earth's rotation, or deorbit the moon... six times. (25 xennajoules (i.e. 2.5E29 joules)). This is *just* the ship that actually arrives on target, not even thinking about the fuel/reaction mass it takes to get there. Seriously, guys, it's so much power, why aren't you using missiles, is Ender really the only person to think of 'hey, what if we *shot the aliens*.' <br /><br />It's not quite Star Wars level silly power outputs, but it's coming pretty close. We are edging on Type 2 civilization, here. That is what is casually refered to as 'not the type of civilization that gives a damn about population control.' Or really, much of anything. It kinda suffers from the 'science marches on' thing in the 'if you can generate *that* much power, why aren't you building warp drives? Or wormholes?' Or with the Eros thing, it begins to beg the question of why you don't *build your own* secret planetoid to house the International fleet headquarters.<br /><br />Sigh. I guess I'm just sad to see such awesome power in the hands of these unmitigated *idiots*. Seriously. Palpatine is more competent than you. The Imperium of Man is more compe... hrph, well, the Imperium is *cooler* than you, anyways. The United Federation of Planets? On the competence scale, they're roughly 1.3 kilo-Enders.<br /><br />I wondered this too, but I was willing to grant that the Ping-Ping Ball of Leadership might only have a map while piloting an actual high-speed spacecraft was too complicated for automation. (Though, like you say, they're perfectly happy building psychiatric programs with universal clearance and letting them run around in Ender's brain.)<br /><br />Actually, you know what? If the Mind Game is so brilliant you trust it with absolute clearance, and the training and upkeep of your secret genius, the only thing that can keep up with his 'brilliance'...<br /><br />Why don't you put it in command? Seriously, it even works on a meta-level. It's a computer program, and seems to be pretty locked down, what with the 'hasn't actually eaten the planet despite your rampant stupidity.' It'll probably do the whole 'annihilate the formics for no damn good reason, because... ??? thing. Or maybe it's just so much smarter than them (approaching the intelligence of a normal human being) they know better than to ask...BaseDeltaZeronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-71684983388373679702013-10-11T09:30:22.321-04:002013-10-11T09:30:22.321-04:00Wait, if Graff's Magic Ball-o-Clearance is wha...<i>Wait, if Graff's Magic Ball-o-Clearance is what's actually guiding them to Eros, why do they even need a pilot?</i><br /><br />I wondered this too, but I was willing to grant that the Ping-Ping Ball of Leadership might only have a map while piloting an actual high-speed spacecraft was too complicated for automation. (Though, like you say, they're perfectly happy building psychiatric programs with universal clearance and letting them run around in Ender's brain.)<br /><br /><i>Eros is *just* the command center. With the ansible, there is basically no reason they had to put it there, instead of, say, under Cheyenne mountain, or any number of obscure places on Earth. Or on Mars! Or the far side of the moon!</i><br /><br />This is why I am certain that Card just wanted to say something very profound about love, but I haven't figured it out yet, probably because I'm too much of an ivory tower intellectual fop. (With the existence of Doctor Device, I can understand IFC not being on Earth, because these are the type of Dr Strangelove characters who would absolutely think 'We have to make sure that the total destruction of Earth does no impede our ability to kill aliens'. The moon, however, remains perfectly legit. IFC could have been on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility; how fucking poetic is that?)<br /><br /><i>Incidentally, why the hell is the IF even considering sending manned vessels on a 70 year invasion? Generation ships should not be combat vessels.</i><br /><br />They're not; relativity applies and from the perspective of the first ships launched it's only been five years since the Second Invasion. Which will be something to consider when we get to the campaign and consider just how incredibly scared and angry those ships' crews probably are. Regardless:<br /><br /><i>You *have* the ansible</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Yes. The existence of the ansible should immediately and forever remove all need to ever have live crew aboard combat vessels. Depending on how reliable their physical robotics are, they might or might not need humans on hand to handle repairs or whatever kind of unexpected situations arise, but the pilots should all be back on Earth. Jumping ahead to consider that whole 'scared and angry veterans of the Second Invasion' thing now, I half think that the reason they used crewed vessels instead of automated is <i>because</i> they weren't sure they could get pilots 70 years later who were sufficiently dedicated to completely wiping out a species that hadn't done anything threatening since their grandparents were born.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-14080416546275352942013-10-09T19:10:43.423-04:002013-10-09T19:10:43.423-04:00Graff is a villain, at the head of an organization...Graff is a villain, at the head of an organization that seems to be unable to find their own backsides with two hands, a flashlight, and Google Maps. I don't see how they've been able to exist for this long, because child soldiers, war crimes, and kids killing kids, among other things like sending the whole fleet on an invasion, banking on the Chosen One appearing exactly when needed, almost five years into the future, with a complete and competent officer corps underneath them. Whose propaganda is apparently so bad that two teenagers can beat them and whip up mobs for and against them. <br /><br />At this point, the Formics night be doing the humans a favor if they squashed Terra and let the colonists rebuild the homeworld. <br /><br />Although, I have to say, the narrative does an excellent job of showing us why a small child can become the greatest commander on the planet, if unintentionally. Just about everyone else has the Idiot Ball attached or falls into Too Dumb To Live.Silver Adeptnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-31386360902728959592013-10-09T09:20:54.520-04:002013-10-09T09:20:54.520-04:00VERY good point about the resources.VERY good point about the resources.Ymfonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-70556797369087207132013-10-08T22:12:48.002-04:002013-10-08T22:12:48.002-04:00In what alternate reality is a ship called a tug f...In what alternate reality is a ship called a tug fast? Also, while it may be the fastest available tug, why on earth did they choose a tug? While a tug is small and powerful, the point is that it carefully pulls or pushes a much larger and usually heavily laden craft. Fast is contraindicated. <br />Also, if they were in such a hurry that no reliable volunteer pilot was available, how did they have time to supply it for a three month trip, particularly if this includes not just food and water but air? Even if there was normally a three person crew and the deployment is normally months long so that there are already sufficient supplies, shouldn't those other crew member be on board to do their jobs? Last time I checked, all crew members on small working crafts have REALLY IMPORTANT JOBS. Like making the engine run and not break, navigate, allow someone to sleep while still keeping a watch, etc. There generally isn't room or budget for extra/wasted space, people or supplies. If normally the tug is so automated that one person can do the job, where did the space and supplies for 2 extra people come from?<br />This is just one more small "WTF this makes no sense!" moment in this book.Kaynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-52021978470881759152013-10-08T15:43:24.435-04:002013-10-08T15:43:24.435-04:00I was using "zen" more in its demotic th...I was using "zen" more in its demotic than its theological sense.bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-89946558392819872452013-10-08T15:42:22.302-04:002013-10-08T15:42:22.302-04:00Yep. (It's deliberate, in my opinion. I forb...Yep. (It's deliberate, in my opinion. I forbear to elaborate for fear of generating a WOT.)bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-57699009632430305462013-10-08T09:51:04.990-04:002013-10-08T09:51:04.990-04:00While your hypothesis here isn't impossible, t...While your hypothesis here isn't impossible, there are a couple of reasons I don't find it particularly compelling. Running with your example, same-sex attraction is nothing new, so I don't have any clear reason to think Joseph Smith couldn't have 'understood' its existence; I find it much more likely that he didn't care and/or actively disapproved of it. Further, Card in general has not shown himself to be a particularly empathetic or compassionate person in... basically any area, whether it's a matter of LDS dogma or not. This causes me to doubt that he struggles with reconciling his tenets with his intuitive morality. For all that Graff is a supervillain, he at least bluntly agrees that he's a supervillain. (Even if I'm not sure Card thinks so.) Card conversely is totally onboard with everything he pushes (setting aside the question of whether he's deeply closeted).<br /><br /><br />I'm not sure if you're suggesting that Card wrote any kind of intentional metaphor here--I doubt it, for the reasons listed above--but even as an unintentional reflection, I don't think it's a match (for the same reasons).Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-89828434034148674482013-10-08T03:44:58.506-04:002013-10-08T03:44:58.506-04:00the location of which which he does not have clear...<i>the location of which which he does not have clearance to know (rather, <br />his ship will guide him with the help of Graff's Ping-Pong Ball of <br />Leadership).</i><br /><br /><br />This has to be a metaphor, and likewise the fact that Graff claims to be mindlessly following orders from someone thinking in largely numerical terms ("fastest available military tug"). I've said before that Graff and these other fools are tools of the Mind Game computer program. I wonder what it means that I keep confusing Graff with Orson Scott Card.<br /><br /><br />Somehow I want to connect the AI with Card's religion. The computer program has fixed goals that someone thought seemed like a good idea at the time. The Book of Mormon probably seemed compassionate and humane at the time of writing. Had Joseph Smith understood that some people prefer sex with their own gender (or possibly nobody, in some cases) I don't think he would have declared that everyone has a Soulmate of the opposite sex who they will spend eternity with if [conditions I don't understand or care about]. But now it's written in gold and Card feels he has to go along with it.hfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-82557592900087922452013-10-08T03:16:17.699-04:002013-10-08T03:16:17.699-04:00I don't know - bekabot mentioned Zen, which yo...I don't know - bekabot mentioned Zen, which you will recall comes from Japan. This makes me think of the otherwise rational and enjoyable book <i>Hardcore Zen</i>, in which the author claims that his religion would save humanity or some such. And I immediately thought, 'Really? What did it do for the Japanese military in the lead-up to World War II? The evidence available to me does not justify your conclusion.'hfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-90257010946592330402013-10-07T23:02:44.163-04:002013-10-07T23:02:44.163-04:00That's a very good point about Shevek's ar...That's a very good point about Shevek's arc words, which had never occurred to me. Makes me even more outraged on her behalf, even if she's too fine a writer to be outraged for herself. And yes, the contrast between LeGuin's ethos -- feminist, cooperative, pacifistic, sexually inclusive -- and Card's -- misogynistic, hierarchical, militaristic, homophobic -- is what I meant by the irony of his coopting her ideas.MuseofIrenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-52850095035666925352013-10-07T22:23:49.459-04:002013-10-07T22:23:49.459-04:00What this tells me is that Ender's "empty...What this tells me is that Ender's "empty hands" arc words are an echo of Shevek's "empty hands" arc words. (Told ya.) Card is trying to imbue Ender with a bit of LeGuin zen, shoehorning Shevek's austerity into a book where it flat-out doesn't fit. (Consider Shevek's pacifism and you'll get some idea of the extent to which it doesn't fit.)bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-48203697717440637602013-10-07T19:56:06.446-04:002013-10-07T19:56:06.446-04:00To be fair, Le Guin herself has said she doesn'...To be fair, Le Guin herself has said she doesn't feel the idea of the ansible - or its name - can be copyrighted to her, as the ansible was actually invented by Shevek, who doesn't really believe in private property.EdinburghEyenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-67261063202445510042013-10-07T17:03:27.295-04:002013-10-07T17:03:27.295-04:00It's been a long time since I read this book. ...It's been a long time since I read this book. I had forgotten that he stole the ansible idea -- hell, the word itself -- from Ursula K. LeGuin. Whose shoes he is not worthy to polish. And which is fucking ironic on so many levels.MuseofIrenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-42261295040284674832013-10-07T09:15:29.820-04:002013-10-07T09:15:29.820-04:00Strictly speaking, I'm not sure Ender does wan...Strictly speaking, I'm not sure Ender does want everyone to love him--he specifically wants Peter to love him, and he insists that he personally loves people even as he destroys them, but the closest he gets to wanting everyone to love him appears to be his 'just let me fit in and be ignored' wish, which makes only occasional appearances.<br /><br /><br />As I was writing this, it occurred to me to wonder if Ender saying "I want Peter to love me" doesn't have some kind of subtext of "I want Peter to destroy me", but that is a leap much too big for me to be able to elaborate it into something interesting right now.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com