Why the Humans Were RIGHT in ENDER'S GAME
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ย. 2020
- Ender's Game chronicles humanities heroic struggle against the hivemind formic aliens. We take a look at why this fight was necessary and just.
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Lucky for humanity Ender never rage quit during a simulation.
Lol yea that would’ve been bad
In a wise decision, command also decided not to give headsets to Ender and his team of children, out of fear and embarrassment over squeakers yelling about when the bagel bites would be ready.
However, the Formic Queen made her own and used it to complain about her loss when the match ended.
casbott
"Are ya winning, son?"
"I just realized I committed genocide!"
"Good job, son"
He waited til after to rage quit then he changed teams
Lol... read the book...him unleashingthe little Dr WAS rage quitting
"The only good bug is a dead bug." -Starship Troopers.
DESIRE TO KNOW MORE INTENSIFIES!
Did you do your part? And, would you like to know more?
I'm doing my part!
I’m doing my part!
@aw3s0me I ALWAYS want to know MORE!
Formics: invade Earth.
Humans: you picked the wrong house fool
That is also not accurate. Once they understood what they were dealing with they could have ended us right there. They made a choice not to. We would have had no chance against them if they had come for us. That is made VERY clear in the books eventually. In the time it took humans to deconstruct their tech then build a fleet of their own and then launch it earth would be a cinder.
That is why they used kids also. Because they were not going to reason it through... they would not hesitate to do what was needed. The whole book is a commentary about child soldiers and why they are a bad idea.
In reality we would turn on each other as we do now an far far into the future.
@@whitelabrat and that’s why the formics are superior, they realized humanity was sentient and moved on. From a glance humanity would be the same as we look at common animals... something to be pushed aside
@@doomedbringer We are Space Orcs
@@whitelabrat I haven't read the books, but from the movie, and ik the movie could be hella different, we killed a queen and ended the whole fleet. Did the aliens know the total number of humanity? What planet was actually our home planet or at least our capital? Did they know how fast we as humans adapt and if we displayed our full power when dealing with them? Caution can often to confused for mercy.
When you try doing a pacifist playthrough in Stellaris but the first empire you find is a devouring swarm and then you go full xenophobic
Suffer not for the xenos to live!
Yay
ironically in stellaris if you are fighting devouring swarms you won't be hampered by having to change ethics just to expand.
interesting thought, as a devoureing swarm is always an enemy, would they count as constantly at war with your peaceful empire, allowing you to basicly attack first, even though you could only ever wage defensive wars? I have to test that.
in the meantime, I played some xenophobic empires in my last games. Felt different, even somewhat liberating, as all my galactic policies and diplomacy was only ever geared towards having everyone leave me alone, while I hoarded massive fleets and build up massive industries to support them to fight those who inevitably would be driven to war against me (by attacking them preemtively because I will not allow the Xenos to have the upper hand and pollute the universe with their lies about me ... *cough cough*)
still, I usually enjoy the more friendly approach a tad more (unless I play a hive mind, because hive minds are awesome XD)
@midgetydeath ... (cough) BOLTER SHELL! (cough cough)
The book makes it very clear that the formics did not know of human individuals, they viewed humans as drones. They were absolutely horrified when they realized every human was essentially a queen. They had no desire to come back to earth after this realization.
But it’s been implied the drones of the queens are sentient but any disobedience from them leads to their death. The queen that launched the attack very well knew about individual sentience
@@SammyBoy818their social structure is just different from humans, they di change as a species after the xenocide
@SammyBoy818 where does sit imply that, I listened to the audiobooks I think I missed that
@@SammyBoy818While yes, they are. Like any colony on earth the drones also only exist to make the lives better for the colony as a whole. Disobedience is often what leads to conflict, strife, or even such things.
The thing is though, they didn't see us as drones per say, they saw us as just more animals/cattle to be farmed or harvested. The first queen wasn't really thinking at the time nor considering the possibility that we could be anything other than that. All she considered was establishing a colony like she was told to do. After the second attack they finally put things together something wasn't right. That we weren't just some thoughtless animals following instincts. But that we simply had our own way of living, existing, and so on. They found out after the second one that we basically were as sentient as them, but simply did things different. Of course, regardless the damage was done, and the second attack would bring retribution regardless of that. I do believe they knew it was coming no matter what, which is why they had such large defence fleets. As well as the fact the queens knew this, which is why they never sent a massive invasion fleet to kill us, rather simply to defend themselves (because it could have been sent to earth before the earth forces arrives to their planet, and attacked them in route, but thats not what happened). If their species needed to die then they were willing to accept it at that point (on the homeworld) as they had seen that humanity wasn't just fools, but that the actions the queens took was too much and too far. Had they realized sooner and tried to actually establish contact through other means the second time rather than another misguided invasion like assault, then things may have been different.
Although I dont fully believe a full racial exterminatus is OK at all. I do feel like for the future generation of queens, that this lesson will be extremely important to learn from for the future. Because the old generation clearly had their heads too far up their own abdomens to think of anything other than what they knew... basically to think outside their box. Because by the time they did, it was far far too late.
Also, dont believe they ever actually thought humanity was each their own queen per say. But they definitely understood that we all weren't simply drones nor cattle/animals. As they were going through space and destroying everything humanity made, they didn't see that as us, per say. Possibly saw us moreso as just floating food/space fauna or metals to be used. Which is why they just kept moving forward without a second thought. Granted, their first invasion clearly brought them some confusion as things didn't quite seem right with us. But still, they kept ignoring it till the second time inevitably showed them they weren't dealing with anything lesser than themselves.
This channel is a pro human centric propaganda channel,and i love it
@ickedettekiekemal Those people should lead by example if they hate other humans so much.
I can't tell if its satirical or not.
When I was a kid, the Japanese shows have transforming heroes like Ultraman, Jetman and Shaider (yeah, I obviously am a fan) that seem to say that Japan will save us from aliens 🤣✌
Agreed, it's a nice change of pace from the self-pitying, nihilistic, "humans are the real monsters" bullcrap that floods our media every single day.
I have become xenophobic because of this channel. Humanity first.
There was no memory of pain or fear though. What the hive queen felt was sadness, a sense of resignation. She had thought these words as she saw the humans coming to kill, but it was in words that Ender understood her: The humans did not forgive us, she thought. We will surely die.
- Ender's Game, Ch 15: Speaker For the Dead
WELL SAID!
The queen has also been known to lie, and be able to hide her thoughts. Spoilers for Shadows in Flight:
The ending has Bean talking to several Formic drones, and discovering that: 1) Formic workers did have kinds of their own, they simply were not allowed free action, 2) Formic queens were terrified of their workers possibly revolting, hence using an organelle in the worker’s bodies to kill them if they rebel, and 3) Formic Queens were able to hide their thoughts from Drones, Workers and other queens.
The queen’s word cannot be taken as gospel, she can lie, and she has lied to Ender while he still lived.
Funny how humans can understand the bugs, but shucks, those dang bugs just can't seem to understand humans...
If a species (and even more so a handful of individuals) so unapologetically aims to melts billions of others and only feels bad when those they planned to melt down to fuel don't go down cleanly and fight back, then they are nothing more than a menace, and deserve no forgiveness. Unless at the instant they realise they're killing conscious beings, they halt their invasions, offer reparations and profuse apology, and promise to never do such a thing again, then they are not worthy of mercy and should be destroyed, if only to save those that couldn't fight back.
@@Hailfire08 so you are vegan?
That's why I love Arrival. None of the scientists dealing the aliens "assume" anything. The main lead even asks do they even understand what a question is?
I totally agree, my favorite movie. The way they view communication is pivotal to the message. In that movie they were actively trying to communicate with us which already tells us so much about them as a species. They were so patient with us!
TLDR: *SUFFER NOT THE ALIEN TO LIVE! PURGE THE XENOS BY FIRE!!!*
*screams in Stellaris*
Yes inquisitor, here's the fleet commander that started a dialogue with the Xenos.
It is with a heavy hand that I condemn these millions to death for the sins of a few. No peace may be brokered with the Xenos... the Emperor will is clear. I hear by sign the Order Exterminatus.. may the Emperor have mercy on their souls.
*Happy Chainsword Sounds*
@@SDK2584 *PURRRRRRRGING WIIIIITH MY KIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!*
All the other Formic worlds could have been alien planets and ecosystems that the Formic had taken over and turned into biomass to _FormicForm._
Maybe even intelligent life - the Formic would just consume Pandora if they had found it first.
casbott or would think not intelligent life to the extent or technology level of Earth in this universe, since finding humanity was a new and shocking thing for the Formics
Clearly the Formics haven't encountered another sufficiently advanced intelligent civilization yet, cos they somehow lost to what amounts to modern humans despite having FTL or near light technology. Then they got exterminated by that same civilization in under a century. Human would have to be some next level special to be the first of many others to achieve this. Formics are most likely weak af. Humans even bm'd them harder by having their kids destroy them
@Harvey Dustin that's always the conundrum. These creatures are incredibly mindless yet they develop spaceships that move FTL. It's very much the author (and this TH-camr) saying "yes they have equipment several centuries ahead of our own, but they're basically animals and aren't smart enough to reason
As if they "stumbled across" electricity or plasma energy
As long as they didn't eat the unobtanium.
@@Malthizar That's a very fair point, but I think it's supposed to be like a hive mind. They followed different evolutionary path than we did and likely only knew how to deal with other hive-minds. Upon meeting us, they'd naturally assume we're also a hive mind especially if they couldn't conceptually understand individuality. Imagine meeting an alien, and EVERY single one of its cells is alive and an individual. You give them a high-five, and they go to war with you because you've basically just committed genocide. Conceptually, we couldn't even imagine an alien like that. That's what I imagine the hive mind was thinking when it met us. This doesn't mean they aren't intelligent, just so different from us we can't even tell. Plus, in the book, it seems they figure out it was a misunderstanding before we do.
Wait until Alan discovers emus, and that Australia fought a war against them and lost.
China also fought a war against sparrows and Alberta one agains rats.
At least America won the war with the Buffalo.
@@alexandrub8786 In that war China lost around 40 million people. With the Australians they used 10,000 rounds of ammo just to kill 1000 emus out of a total of 20,000 birds.
What about the cassowary?
@@ascalon22 and France had a 116 uear war with England and GB had a war with Zimbabwe that lasted less than 3/4 of an hour
Humanitys most unifying factor is hate and fear. When we can agree on a bad guy or monster we come together far easier despite our differences to hate that outgroup.
"My armor is contempt. My shield is disgust. My sword is hatred."
I think it's less about hate and more about a predator/prey response. Humans are pack hunters and when we are threatened by a superior predator our instinctive response is to do what has always worked which is to group up and work together.
"This bloated, rotten corpse of an Imperium is no longer driven by reason and hope, but by fear, hate and ignorance."
Roboute Guilliman
@@donovandrobina4398 Historical examples include the HRE and Chinese Warlords during WWII
This is an overly simplistic viewpoint. Also untrue. Humans aren't all bad OR all good. We're a complex mixture between the two extremes. Our good traits are shared as well as our bad. It's not one sided, even if we have difficulty recognizing it sometimes.
Generation Films: "This Chaos is essential to humanity's success."
Deathwatch: "Yeah, you keep thinking that while we just kill all these Xenos."
Grey Knights: "The Ordo Malleus finds your claim disturbing."
Adepta Sororitas: *"BURN THE HERETIC!!!"*
Black Templars: *Revs Chainsword with religious intent*
According to the new Dogma we are not supposed to recognize the existence of Chaos.
Ender's Game is probably my favorite book. I've read it once a year for the past 24 years. For the very reasons you said, it's a brutal war story, that's ultimately about empathy. If we really want to destroy each other, we first have to understand each other. Once we understand each other, we are unlikely to still want to destroy each other.
I fear we may only understand the 'other', after we have destroyed them. And instead of living in peace, we will live in grief.
Nice post.
hi can you please tell me if earth's politicians are good guys or bad guys i really need to know for school
@@strayallycatIt depends. Oftentimes not, sadly, as the people whose main aspiration is power over others generally aren’t the nicest.
It should be noted that no matter what humans were going to try to attack the Formic homeworld, with Ender or not. After the Formic invasion the space navy sent a voluntary fleet on a way trip to the homeworld. Humans expected a second invasion. Which would never come. The movie says it was fleet of drones/drones carriers. In the book those were humans who sacrificed their lives to make the ones way trip with outdated human technology. When you see Ender abandon the dreadnoughts and carriers. He was sacrificing every crew member without knowing.
It was also this action that confused the Formics into allowing the humans to destroy their planet because at this point they had come to understand that each human life was considered precious and thus had no concept of suicide for the sake of others. They couldn't understand that unique individuals would willingly throw away their lives.
It is said to be drones, but they do mention that the ships were crewed by humans, who I assume would see to maintenance, weapon tracking, and other such features which could not be remotely commanded to any degree of effectiveness.
3H3E3 uhh, third invasion if you are talking the book universe. There were two terraforming waves that hit earth nearly one hundred years earlier, the first a scouting party and the second an assault group that had been fully militarized by that point.
The ships were manned in the movie as well
And even if Ender had somehow won that final battle, without attacking the planet, the IF would have killed the queens anyway. Either with the Little Doctor, or with rifles.
Ender simply saved them the trouble of doing it themselves.
"...or an alien species..." *photo of Mark Zuckerberg intensifies*
My favorite part of this video
zuckology is an emerging discipline in the field of xenobiology
@@mikejohnstonbob935 Succ
I mean, the Formics did regret their actions when they finally did understand humanity and our individuality. In fact the books paint it rather clearly that they were horrified by their actions having rationalized each human as having the value of a Queen due to the presence of sapience. But as you said, the conflict was inevitable and the formics themselves were doomed simply due to miscommunication and lack of understanding and empathy. The fact that we fought 2 wars against them to begin (both on earth) didn’t help
The overwhelming fleets of ships we sent to everyone of their worlds we learned about, while fortifying the Sol System against a 3rd attack, and the fact we were willing to expend generations of people to preserve our race, also kind of made them realize they done F'd up.
Sean Wadey Oh most certainly, The aforementioned wars were like someone accidentally running over someone’s dog, then backing over a kid when they reversed to see what they initially hit. The third was was humanity collectively chasing down the poor sap and giving him some mob justice. The formics didn’t mean to kill anyone sapient but by the time they realized their mistake we already had the pitchforks and torches
Doesn't work. Even if they only understood a queen, they still recognized a queen as alive and that there must be one.
Further, they understand technology. You don't see buildings, engineering, space craft and think "Naturally occurring." Or "nonsentient ants make space ships"
You might not understand how this intelligence works. But the clear evidence is it is intelligence.
Shawn Walker Not necessarily, first remember it was the workers who first made contact. They were given their orders and do not even have the ability to question them. So they’re not even gonna report any disturbance or loss of life both of themselves or to others. It wasn’t till their ship was destroyed that the local queen of the scout ship popped over to say hello (this was the 2nd War). During this quick conflict the Formics did notice humanities intelligence and constructions, but they couldn’t process or comprehend our method of individuality. So they wrote us off as particularly clever animals or hardy lifeforms (like how we would if we encountered fungus, bacteria or ants that learned to travel and build mud spires in space). It wasn’t till we killed the queen that the Formics went ‘oh shit, they’re way too smart to be animals! My god we’ve killed millions, what the fuck have we done!’. The Formics then pulled everything pack in the hopes we would not feel threatened but by then we had our marching orders and were sending fleets off like a Black Friday sale.
@@bluenight104
Unlikely they sent that off without a brain to oversee it.
Ender:I killed an entire species!
Artyom: I feel you pal.
Funny, still have to finish metro 2034
Haaa, its funny because it's evil 😂 haaaaa, we are laughing now, watch us laught HAA HAA 😂 HAA HAA LOLZ HAA HAA
I was not expecting to see metro 2033 in the comments section of human centric propaganda, But it fits
I will admit there is a lot of times I feel humans mess up way too much to be justifiable. But the very fact we recognize those moments is proof that we can rise above them.
We definitely are quite capable of "can rise above". I'm also capable of "can have mind-blowing gay sex" but somehow I never do, you'd even find it impossible to ever see me have any kind of sex that isn't just me and one or two of my own bodyparts, just like after all those thousands of years and generations, humans still only rarely happen to slightly "actually rise above, instead of just can rise above" as a species.
Hm... I'm a guy, so me having that sex with my own bodyparts... might be gay? I mean... I am a guy, it's a guy's hand on me, even if no other guy is involved, and I'm definitely touching a dong, even if it's my own... DAMNIT, WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE ME THINK ABOUT GAY STUFF!!!
- "Ostriches are terrifying!"
No one tell him about the Great Emu War.
i see your Emu War and i raise you 1 Territorial Khornate Cassowary in the middle of a space hulk
How has he only JUST found out ostriches exist? Has he never been to a zoo prior to the episode before?
Formix treated people like ants. The queen attacking the Earth didn't realise she destroys sentient beings. She thought the soldiers and the population are just drones like in their society. Only when terrans did the "unthinkable" killing the only sentient formix leading the assault, the queen, formix realised their mistake. There was never going to be a second formix assault, because they finally understood how our society functions.
well they showed humans that they were a extinction level threat sooooooo GG aliens ı guess better us humans being evil and killing aliens that letting them live and have a chance to kill us all
Galactic version of fuck around and find out. The bugs fucked around and us apes helped them find out. Also I think the point that Allen made about the queens being socially isolated probably would lead to the anti social violent behavior we observe in many other species so even if they did now understand we were all also individuals they would very likely still not consider our individuality valuable.
@@noobguy9973 It's just nature really. Imagine two animals fighting to the death in the wild. The cheetah attacks the buffalo, but in defence, the buffalo stomps on and crushes that cheetah to death. It's sad if you're the cheetah, but hey you'd not be dead if you didn't try to kill the buffalo. Moral of the story is... Don't fuck with buffalos. Oh, and that ona cosmic scale, the Formix attacking but ultimately destroyed by those they tried to do likewise to, it's very much like a cosmic 'nature'. Neither good nor evil... it just is.
True, but when you dont know wheather or not a threat is there, assuming the worse and proceeding is unfortuanatly the best option.
@@Forscythe80 exactly so as a human we should care about our species and our species best interest in that situation would be too fucken annahilate these space bugs
Everyone talks about the Formics being nearly exterminated, but almost no one talks about the fact that Ender led thousands of humans to their deaths during those "tests", which all jokes aside, is equally as horrifying as the xenocide 😢
Good stuff, as always, Generation crew 👍👍
Which is why in the books Ender had a complete mental breakdown when he did find out and then volunteered himself into exile on the first colony ship out of the Sol System. Then his Brother, Sister and Bean took over the governments of Earth and truly unified the planet.
The trip was a one way trip anyway. They were dead as they left for the homeworld. Their deaths, while regrettable and due to the strategy of Ender, cannot be held to his conscience, as regardless of what actions he took they were already doomed. The Xenos however are directly due to his actions.
"test" were actually videogames hehehe
Totally agree. He was equally horrified at his unknowingly using so many human crewed ships as cannon fodder to ensure the delivery of his super weapon. It was the reality that his "win" was pyrrhic at best.
@@hammy79791 it wasn’t pyrrhic though. Those humans died, and on an individual level, that is indeed horrifying, but on the collective level, their sacrifice saved the majority of the human species from extinction. From a macroscopic perspective, trade 10s of thousands for billions of lives is an acceptable deal.
"When we look at alien species (Zuckerberg), we should NOT impart onto them human characteristics." That was very clever. Nicely done.
Fully agreed, while the Books go on to explain that the Formics thought we were Hiveminded like them and if they had known each Human was an Individual they wouldn’t have attacked us that fact does tell us that if they had encountered another Hiveminded species like themselves then they would’ve killed/enslaved them and I don’t know about you guys but that tells me a lot about their sense of Morality.
Really - you are aware of human history? You have made the case that they are better than humans without knowing it.
If you’re fighting a hive mind then the only deaths that matter morally are the queens, killing mindless drones is as morally wrong as breaking a computer. As long as they spared the queens, then any massacre of hive minds is morally neutral, assuming the queens don’t go crazy or smth from having all their drones die
I understand your point but I simply don't believe a species that proliferates fidget spinners can ever truly be forgiven.
what a god
based
purge them, we must!
me with ADHD: ... man screw you *fidgets even harder
True, but you got a "gigachad" pfp so I don't think you're one to talk.
I wish they would remake the movie. It was so rushed. They tried to fit the novel into it so hard they barely put a little bit of creativity. They could have done so much with it.
or TV mini series
A tv show would be better.
It really needed a limited series. Hopefully some Netflix money would get sent into a project for ot one day
I would have liked the six-year timeline the book had. Give the kids time to grow. Like the Hogwarts Gang did.
So, somewhat an "unofficial" Warhammer 40k Tyranid invasion, movie? 👍🙄😇🤔
The tyranid are way more powerful and scary
Not quite Orson Scott is a Christian sci fi writer and place hidden Christian themes in his stories, like showing love, forgiveness and mercy to your enemies in enders game
@@zacharymoss2994 Yeah Card is a real hack. Ender's Game is literately the only book he's every written that's worth a damn. I read the first four books in the 'Ender' series and they just get progressively more and more dumb as they go.
Now all we need him to discover is the great emu war in Australia that the Australians lost.
@@dogofwar6769 I've read most of cards books and I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, his pathfinder series is fantastic and uses lots of interesting concepts. Treason is an amazing book too.
That's what bugs me about Star Trek, all the aliens are essentially humans with bumpy foreheads.
the worst episode in this regard was the "devolution" one, where the characters started devolving and returning to a primitive form (like an ape). One of the characters actually became a giant spider, and this was totally ridiculous (and digusting) as the character is fully humanoïd.
Cause diverse body types and special effects are expensive, and a little bit of silicone and makeup isn't. Plus people rarely feel much for ugly creatures and nasty looking buggers.
We need more people to realize that we are all humans and all practically the same.
We have different cultures, religions, customs, traditions, lifestyles and ways of thinking, we are not the same.
@@nobleman9393 despite that, we are still more alike than we are different.
Am-Bush I have nothing a like with a radical leftist commie other than my nation of birth and mutual existence at the same point in time.
I get your point, but we are tragically far beyond that point.
The radicals won’t stop unless they’re locked up or eliminated. They don’t want peace or compromise.
They want the destruction of America and everything it stands for.
So civil war is going to happen, unless Trump takes off the gloves and gets shit under control, the right and center are going to unite against the far left and knowing the psyche of radical leftists and past actions of radical leftists, there will be blood.
I pray it doesn’t come, but they’re trying pushing us off a cliff, at some point we gotta accept the fact that they need to be stopped.
And how do you stop a coup?
Shock and Awe
Your right! We all should stand together against the dolphins and prepare for the guaranteed invasion of aliens that will come at some point
@@The_Lone_Outlaw I'm curious what is it exactly you think the US stands for? I have seen and heard the line about destroying the US and all it stands for in propaganda for some time, and no one seems to have a believable idea on just what the US stands for.
So you mentioned that the Formics were unable to understand or comprehend that humans existed as a race of fully sentient creatures, not just queens and drones as they did, but that’s not necessarily true.
I remember (vaguely, I last read this book like 6 years ago) that the last queen told Ender vía their weird telepathy that in the end they realized that humans were in fact autonomous and all fully sapient by watching our fighting patterns and seeing how we tried to maximize human lives spared rather than just throw endless hoards of drones at them, They even adjusted their strategies to account for this realization, as they knew it was already too late for any sort of communication, and ultimately lost the war as a result because Ender, in emulation of the Formics and still believing it was all just a simulation and that his ships were NPCs basically, sacrificed his entire fleet to fire the Little Doctor at the planet. It was all very sad, and I think she also mentions that this was their (the Formics) first recognized contact with another sapient race as well.
Again, I read this book super long ago, so feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong, but I remember the general gist of it
Andy Diaz I'm surprised that humanity didn't have any scientists attempt speaking with the queens since they were the only ones that had a real conscious...
"Orange Man is on Formic Homeworld??!"
"Positive!"
"Must Destroy Orange Man!"
@@blackshogun272 Communication methods do not interact. Formics use purely telepathy, humans use sound, sometimes transmitted via radiation.
@@theloweffortchannel7211 Could always use light as a fallback, they have optical nerves.
@@AlphaWolfShade Formics never bothered with other forms of communication, which is why their channels are never intercepted.
I imagine you've read the continuation of humanity after the Formic wars through the stories of "Bean". But if you want a really good look at how humans are incapable of understanding another Alien Species then I encourage you to read the sequel to Enders Game "Speaker for the dead" and the continuation of Enders Life after the war. Its quite a different tale than the battles and tactics that make up the story of Enders Game but it really makes one think about just how different two alien species are from one another despite common traits like two arms two legs and a head.
Yes.
I was so thoroughly impressed with OSC, to take a Hugo & Nebula winning book like EG, and follow it up with a Hugo & Nebula winning sequel *that was nothing like the first one!*
That takes guts, right there.
Which is why we should exterminate them and rid ourselves of the headache and future risk.
@@theonpointheavy4401 Sigh
Is it just me who's thinking it is quite ironic, that he's stating that the formics couldn't understand humanity due to its individaulity, yet two sentences later he tries to analyze them, therefore assuming, he could understand a hive-minded species?
They are made up and come form a human mind, so yes we can analyse them.
It's understandable that Ender is upset about the simulation not being a simulation and that he wiped out the Formics for real and Colonel Graff not telling Ender that he was going to wipe out the Formics for real in a fake simulation. But the humans and the Formics were at war and the Formics threatened humanity.
I would think it would be a huge shock for anyone that it was real and not a simulation. Even if they are the enemy it should be a shock that you wiped out an entire race with one shot
I read the original short story the novel was based on as a teenager, and later the novel itself. In it there were no invasion waves, the war was ongoing and interstellar. The Formics wiped human colonies clean and no one knew why. Ender was commanding forces sent out over the last several generations on one way missions to slow down the alien advance. At first he was defending human colonies and later advancing into Formic space. Always with ever smaller and more primitive fleets. While Ender, being a child was sickened by what he had done, it was totally justified.
I understand that Card rewrote the novel and added new material. This, I believe, diluted the story. The original idea was to explore the morality of using children to fight wars, to examine the cost of that even if you are trying to save humanity itself. By greying the morality of the war it undercuts that basic idea.
I find much of SciFi is just channeling the contemporary fears of the author's time. Original Star Trek had some episodes that were talking about Mutually Assured Destruction and the fear of autonomous weapons. The Borg in TNG...the fear of technology taking over our individuality. Roddenberry was a AAF pilot in WWII. I find it interesting that the Klingon honor code and the Guilefule Romulans mirror the American view of the Japanese and Soviets. In the case of the Formix i think OSC was addressing ecologic and climate destruction as they stripped words bare and move on. It's a recurring theme in much of SciFi: Oblivion, Independence Day, V (how's that for the way back.) Just as some cultures have run right over indigenous peoples as they colonized...I expect we channel that fear in alien invasions that don't even see us as sentient. Our cities look like ant mounds. Something to step on.
Except that is NOT what the Formecs were doing. They weren't stripping the world bare and moving on. They were replacing the organic matter which was incompatible with their physiology and replacing it with their own. They couldn't eat Earth based organic matter, so they were going to plant their own varieties of plants and animals to use for sustenance. They were setting up for a permanent stay on Earth, so long as conditions remained survivable, such as the sun not expanding too much and consuming the Earth. The Formecs weren't like the Locusts of Independence Day.
Alan: says we never get to see first contact between the Formics and humanity,
Me: looks over at my boxed set of Earth Unaware, Earth Afire and Earth Awakens
Alan: Says we also don't know how they function
Me: looks at books two through five of the main series, and shadows in flight.
Also, by the end they did come to understand the individuality of humans. They only communicated with Ender because he was plugged into the computer and they believed they could turn him into a conduit with which to negotiate with all of humanity.
Also, they do know about deals, since they formed a society of queens
Alan: the Formics cannot be coexisted with peacefully
Me: looks at Speaker from the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind
when they revealed that the simulation was real and the entire bugface population is wiped out i only had one thing to say *"the emperor protect"*
Ender's Game was an amazing book but the movie was doodoo. It left out close to half of the story. Basically the only thing they share is the title and a few characters.
It's not crazy to think that an intelligent alien species may have evolved morality that resembles our own. Convergent evolution causes life to have similar forms and functions when similar pressures are put upon a species. These pressures (when conserned with morality) are created by the conservation of energy and the benefits of competition and cooperation for resources as well as optimal strategies for evolution on a macro level. Since these pressures gave rise to our morality and behaviours in other earth species that resemble some of the actions that we do based on morality then it's possible aliens would too.
It's therefore mabey not as misplaced as you'd think to imagine getting along with aliens.
Though they'd certainly be harder to understand and would have different needs that may conflict with our own. Indeed may not share any sort of morality that resembles our own but that may be less likely as it could've prevented them from achieving intelegence.
Oh and checkout some TH-cam vids called "alien biospheres" or something. It's pretty good.
I had a similar opinion. I found it more prudent to say it’s not necessarily true that they MUST share our humans values and ethics but nevertheless it’s not as if it would be absurd for there to be similarities. Because we’ve never run into alien species, we lack the statistical data to concretely judge how likely those odds are. But I think with our current understanding and predictive ability, it’s not unreasonable to say either extreme (aliens are very unlikely to be similar to us, or must almost always be similar) is the less likely option.
In other words, seeing fictions depict aliens as societies that share many aspects of our ethics and morality, or that share few is not inherently wrong. The possibility that both could arise is not absurd (given our current knowledge). This is especially true because a species seeking to become technologically advanced enough to leave their gravity well will inevitably have to solve certain optimization and ecological pressure “riddles.” We may not all have to solve these in the exact same way, but the thing with optimizations is that it will inevitably lead to similarities on some level so long as the problems being solved are also similar.
Humans on Earth don't share a common morality. Your modern, technological, educated, western moral structure is not universal to all of humanity. And to assume that your version of morality is the one that will prevail and allow humanity to become space faring is chauvinistic. Given that humans have radically different moral attitudes, why would think that creatures completely alien to us would have anything similar to your version of morality?
I think there will be many civilization types. Some similar, some impossibly foreign. If you look at ant colonies, you see a fairly foreign type of order that is order nonetheless. It makes sense they were inspiration for the formics. I would think only individualistic societies are capable of invention (still true in humans), but ants craft complicated nests of various materials and some set up complicated empires.
@@QarthCEO I dunno. like, I'd say that if most humans ate one of their children they'd feel pretty bad about it. And I think that not constanty steeling is something promoted across most cultures. Strengthening bonds though cooperation and guilt though breaking those bonds are probs pretty common and obviously would promote technological advancements.
I think most people if they had to save either their own 10 year old child or a painfully dying 100 year old would chose the 10 year old.
I was really talking about the base human morality (which you could make a strong case for its existence) that we evolved to have where the vast majority of that evolotion took place long before the splitting of humans into groups like 'the west".
I think the variability in human morality is interesting but it's clear to me that these differences are built upon the base of morality, which in the vast majority of humans, is inate.
It may also not be wise to assume that everyone who is western has the same moral guides (beyond the base common to all humans)
Psychopath would be an exception to the base morality idea. An expeption that proves the rule but an exception non the less.
@@ruthlessrubberducky5729 I agree, I think there would be a mix and perhaps there would be some kinds of organisation of species that we have never seen the likes of.
With eusocial species it may be the rate of accumulation of steps towards intelegance may be slower than for similar individual organisms that team up without a shared germline but we'll likely never get an earth 2 though 2,000 to rerun evolotion on to test that theory.
Though ants do work alot like multicellular by organisms on account to a shared germline for the ants (though I'd guess there are probs ant species where the non-queens can reproduce under certain circumstances, perhaps like cancer in our own bodies) and thus the emergant properties of what could be described as as intelegent behaviour of ands would be an emergant property of the delocalisd coordination of ants just like the cells of our own bodies.
Hey can we have a look at the Megaroad and New Macross colony ships from SDF Macross.
You at it again lol
Don't die this time
@@awake3112 well the only other video i can suggest is the inspirations for every Variable fighter in Macross. Which is quite a list.
@@barrybend7189 haha ok do what you gotta do
Are you referring to Macross Frontier and the Vajra? Ender IS similar in a lot of ways to Alto Saotome. Both had second thoughts and I won't spoil any more, check out the movie "Macross Frontier Wings of Goodbye" that will explain it.
Alan: Talks about how we shouldn't readily assume we understand how an alien culture would think, act, or behave.
Also Alan: Goes into great detail about how the Formics presumably think, act, and behave.
In the book the Formic queen legitimately projected its regret and feelings of hopelessness towards Ender.
This is a spacefaring Type II civilization, obviously capable of advanced construction, and has an understanding of advanced technologies.
Iirc it was implied the Formics didnt realize humans were sentient prior to their original Invasion. Considering how beat down humanity was and the sheer numbers of Formics(multiple planets worth it was implied) nothing realistically would have stopped them from launching an immediate counter attack and finishing humanity off, if their intent had genuinely been to wipe out humanity.
Look at it this way. We eat outrageous quantities of meat. We butcher and eat thousands, if not millions, of livestock animals per year.
What would happen if all of a sudden the cows and pigs overthrew their human tormentors and came forward demanding equal rights and representation and an end to animal-human hostility?
Would we shrug and keep trying to eat them? Or would we step back and sort of gawk at our inability to realize the animals we were eating were intelligent, sentient, capable of fighting back, and willing to protect their existence?
Call it the "Bee Movie" or "Planet of the Apes" effect. It's all fine and good to eat the food until the food punches you and demands you never eat it's kind again.
Theres no real way of knowing if the Formics would have come back...but theres enough evidence to imply they learned their lesson.
Nothing necessarily wrong with culling them back to their homeworld and boxing them in mayhaps...but outright exterminating them doesnt really make us any better...in fact it makes us worse. At least when they invaded Earth it was for food. Humanity utterly torched their entire world on a "what-if?" Or "Better safe than sorry principle".
Cryogenius333 well, they did not invade for food, they invaded for colonializism, but I agree with you on most points. However, the issue is that humanity could likewise not understand the the Formics were willing to negotiate. To use terms from the book, until Ender communicated with the last queen years later the Formics were the definition of Varelse, aliens with whom negotiations are impossible. It is very clearly evil in the aftermath to kill off the Formics, and Card totally set that up as the narrative for Speaker and Ender in Exile, but humanity could not have known this until afterwards. The awful thing is that if humanity had been even a little slower in sending their ships they may have had a chance, since the Formics were attempting to reach out to them through Ender.
Whitney Lackenbauer In war, the 1st to lose generally doesn’t get to negotiate. We killed the queen of the scouts accidentally. They had attacked without any of the morals we value - women, children, negotiators, all died swiftly & without a thought. We were food, & that’s it. Fighting back was our only option. They gave no indication of remorse except via “leader to leader” telepathy via the Anvil within the game.
So the issue was less about morality & more about communication.
As example, we taught a gorilla Sign Language & suddenly that barrier disappeared. And we’re amazed that they have thoughts.
should have torched it twice, the only good bug is a dead bug
How would it be that hard to tell humans were sentient?
The Formics are telepathic, they do not require the crude and bulky communications us non telepaths (for now) have. So they did not understand how a species could evolve and live without it. That is why they didn't view us as sentient as they had no reference to what a non telepathic race should be in their view of the universe. When they finally did realize it they did not return. The Queen specifically made that point to Ender "you did not forgive us" In a way how could we? You put humanity on the brink of extinction. But even if they did not know, they still had no right to simply take from whatever planet they want. They are highly advanced that is clear. But in that advancement they should have recognized tools and artificial creations like spacecraft.
It would have made it better for all if they were able to come to an understanding, perhaps an exchange. We farm the food they require in exchange for their technology. Beneficial and could have led to a long lasting alliance.
They did understand one language thought.
Violence.
You're making the same mistake as others. You're attributing human characteristics to a fundamentally non-human being. The Formecs didn't view violence in the same way. It was simply how one Queen got the attention of another. To them, individual drone workers were almost infinitely expendable. Their deaths meant almost nothing to the Queens. The Formecs spent the first two Wars trying to find a human Queen because they didn't realize that ALL humans were Queens by their standards. It wasn't until just prior to their defeat that they finally began to understand, but it was already too late.
@@Seastallion Their mistake wasn't attacking humanity, their mistake was evolving without communication.
@@llanfairpwlgwyngyll7331
They didn't evolve without Communication either. Just a different sort of communication. They used telepathy that literally had no distance limitation. They could communicate with each other and control their drones from the other side of the universe, instantly. It was in fact, human observation of the phenomenon that led to the development of the ansibles.
@Seastallion Life would be so much simpler with telepathy, but at least it looks like a single devices would actually work, though the data throughput is likely to be no better than morse code at the moment...
@@ForgeMasterXXL
Of course, Ansibles are a fictional technology, but in the books there was a progression of development. It started with simple text messages, and slowly ramped up to full blown 2-way video/audio communications, and later even mass video conferencing between numerous people. The technology came under the control of The Starways Congress, the governing body of The 100 Worlds that came to be millennia after Ender's victory over the Formecs. Although they had FTL communication, they still lacked FTL travel, and the Ansibles were the only way to keep the various worlds united under a single government.
Your synthesis of the tension between the drive to live versus making concession to moral right has got to be the best analysis I've ever heard. I conclude that empathy has to be the human characteristic which distinguish us from the conciseness of other sentient creatures. It doesn't make us better or lesser than other creatures; its just our unique modem of operation.
There is a reconciliation between the formics and humanity on Lusitania in the sequels to Ender's Game. Also, the novels detailing the first and second formic wars does show a lot of both reprehensible and heroic people. I have been a fan of the entire series of Ender books. I really wish more of them could be made into movies, but as a film maker myself, I understand why they have not been. There's not been enough call for it and the cost of making them would far outweigh the probable profits.
All beings of earth are worth saving and understanding. We know what they are, where they come from, and how they become what they are. We know humans have humanity, because they are humans of Earth; but all other life is suspect. We can push human-like aspects onto aliens, but in reality we cannot even begin to assume they have even a similar way of understanding reality, let alone experience similar emotions and think in similar ways. They are alien: different. Certainly they CAN have some levels of similarity, at the very least an understanding of Mathematics and engineering, but very very few science fiction works show how truly long and difficult finding those similarities will have to be. And to truly understand how and why humans are different from aliens, we have to understand humans are humans, and why they are both all unique and all the same. We aren’t ready to meet anything but the life on earth, because we aren’t even truly ready to meet ourselves yet.
"All beings of earth are worth saving and understanding." *False!*
This is an absolutely great video. And if you want to see a similar story without all the war but has the "aliens have alien perspectives" then the Arrival (2016) movie based off "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang is exactly it. We, a race who view the world through the lens of causality, are visited by a species who see all of time as one interconnected system where cause and effect are the same thing.
Alien Queen: "Well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions..."
hi. i listened to your pod cast and have some observations. In the book and in the movie, it is clear -- actually discussed -- that the bugs realized that humans were sentient and that the invasion was a mistake. they had no intention of re-invading earth. in fact they bunkered down knowing that the earthlings would come for them. during this time the queen tried to talk to ender, she was communicating with him -- something you said she could not do. in fact, she totally understood humans, or at least compassion and forgiveness -- basically the best of our human traits. also, never ever is it justifiable to exterminate a sentient species without first trying to understand them, and then if then extermination is an awful sentence. i would suggest you go back to the movie and book and try and understand what happened. Indeed the sequel of the book is all about ender trying to undo the crime of what he did. he knows what he did was wrong -- it is not empathy he feels here -- it is guilt in knowing he was used and conned into killing something that was intelligent and perhaps a friend.
Yeah. But humans have the tendency to hate everything that is different from their "norms"
I love humanity but extremists are the reasons we have wars and we are anti everything not human/white/black/hetero etc
Did the books ever explain the first contect? Because that would also explain enough. Cause I can see humans shoot first, making it not a hostile invasion, but a defensive war on the side of the aliens
@@palaius the bugs came to earth to colonize it. they killed everything they saw. but that was because they did not understand that humans were individuals. the queen saw them as disposable drones, use and discard. that was their culture. but the queen realized she was wrong and tried to make amends. it tried to communicate but no one listened, perhaps the greatest crime of all.
how can i find his podcast.
@@devanarayans5131 it is right here. look above.
Through out the movie, this is the best quote: The way we win matters
there were other several books after Enders Game, and I read them all The author did an interesting job of describing how each of the species encountered communicated. I came away from it thinking that the formics, when they first encountered humans and attacked a few of our ships thought of it as similar to a tap on the shoulder, not realizing that each individual human was sentient. I would encourage everyone to read the rest of the series. They're not all action packed, but they are thought provoking.
hi can you please tell me if earth's politicians are good guys or bad guys i really need to know for school
@@strayallycat lame bait attempt
I don’t get this movie. Who in their right minds would let children command fleets of starships to battle aliens?
Kids are more creative I guess so they wanted something new
Cough cough UNSC cough cough. Most alien themed animes cough cough. Jedi padawan cough cough
Faster reaction time.
Better creativity.
The ability to act without regard or understanding of the ramifications.
"Book was better"
Warframe
The book does a much better job of explaining it. Child minds are much quicker and easier to mold, and they were on a short deadline. Kids are also more creative, and less reserved or cautious. They also can learn new concepts and methods of thinking that adults struggle with. It was a highly specialised skillset they needed, that had never been done before.
Should probably read the book.
Spoiler warning
At the end of Enders Game through a telepathic link that the formics had figured out what that humans were individuals each on as sentient as one of the queens. They only relived this because of the death of the queen that had alerted them to the fact that killing a single human was the same as killing a single queen.
The thing is they had no way to contact the humans and try to make peace. So they fell back to there home world and waited. Waited until the humans came to destroy them.
They regretted what had happened, that they could couldn't find a way for both species to live in peace. In they end they did the same thing as humanity. Placed their trust in Ender.
hi can you please tell me if earth's politicians are good guys or bad guys i really need to know for school
The entire reason humans tried to have good relations with the avatar aliens was that they were very human-like, if they were some generic alien wolfs/monkeys (like most other species on pandora) we would've exterminated them like all other local hexapods.
in other words species that are too different and cannot understand eachother and will fight, reality is not nice.
It's been awhile since I read Ender's Game. But I recall the book mentioning two invasions from the formics. And it as revealed to Ender after the final battle that they realized humanity was sentient and respected their right to exist, which was why there we never going to be the dreaded third invasion. You raise an interesting point that with Ender's lack of life experience he was unable to extrapolate this understanding before committing xenocide. Hence his becoming the speaker of the dead and writing the book about the formics that would largely be responsible for humanity hating Ender in the sequels that take place 3,000 years later.
I hope mankind will never have to fight another species
If you think ostriches are terrifying, you should ask an Australian what an emu is, and learn the true nature of fear!
MOST TRUE
but you know whats even more scary?
our military WITH MACHINE GUNS mind you LOST A WAR against the Emu's, one of there kind died and we spent a fuck ton of ammo and lost our pride
NEVER fuck with Emus, this is why we nickname the place Death Island
@@Sawtooth44
So true, how our army, with machine guns, lost war to some big flyless birds.
Fear? For an emu? Nah, it's time to assert dominance....
*_*learns emu mating call and unzips pants*_*
@@GuitarsRockForever The war was going well until the Emus started to rally their troops.
Your boy Orson Scott card mixed up the word respect with love twice in his quote.
For a person to say that quote and the exact wording he used shows that he will never understand what love is he may understand empathy and sympathy but love is beyond his grasp.
The two times I refer to are the first and the last
The reason I say this is because of a different quote in which it's ending comes as when you truly love something you must destroy/kill it. And this points to human greed when you truly love something you want no one else to have it. Empathy is a good thing sympathy is a good thing but like medicine in abundance it's destructive. When Dolly motion in the body is felt through chemical receptors in the brain we can only assume that all animals have these emotions the fact our four brain is developed more than any other creature ever known is where we get the abundancy to have a conscience. A gift given in the creation of dire circumstance that really has not evolved any further since. Which is why it is the ability to govern all is only the ability to govern yourself. Which is why we cannot be like ants and why concepts like capitalism can be dangerous and yield very results but socialism and communism always fail.
I do appreciate your general analysis throughout the rest.
Humans are independent on an independent level, all societal animals do not function the same but social mammals are the closest and that just makes scientific sense. But if you follow that science to its ends we have to be careful for we do not expand off this planet eventually we will consume it ourselves. The scariest part I said those who seek to make you conform to a identical societal construct will eventually see you as nothing but an inanimate object to be exterminated for the quote unquote greater good. All people that have ever believed in genocide and have elaborated on the idea have all came to his conclusion. And I do disagree with the idea that we are all in this together when a lot of the times those in a place that is given more power do not see it this way. These are the people that lack empathy and sympathy in most cases and lead to the greatest travesties history can teach us.
The formics did have a sense of individuality; the queen Ender *communicates with refers to her other queens as sisters proving that they did have a albeit different sense of individuality. More so, SPOILERS
in "Shadows in flight" it is revealed that the queen had Drones, seprete individual sentient entities.
The queen had no excuse, they killed without thought or remorse.
You're misunderstanding several points in the story. The Formec Queens were certainly aware that the QUEENS were sentient, and eventually developed a unified race ruled by a collective of Queens and their daughters (sub-queens of a sort). Their worker drones had varying levels of autonomous ability, but the majority would die without a Queen. A rare few, such as those encountered in 'Shadows in Flight' had more autonomy than the other drones, but they were extremely uncommon. The Queens weren't particularly aware of those rare drones because when they employed their control it was all-encompassing, and the drones became little more than extensions of their own body. They didn't really notice the rare drones relatively low level intelligence. Humans were the first time they recognized any other sentience outside of themselves. Later they recognized the Peconiños as well.
I'd say it boils down to alien morality that may just not be reconcilable with human morality rather than being simply killing
@@markuhler2664
Killing a few drones of another Queen was considered by the Formecs to be the equivalent to a tap on the shoulder to get someone's attention. They thought nothing of it, as they considered drones almost infinitely expendable. When they first encountered humans they started actively searching for a human queen, because they couldn't communicate with humans despite screaming by their own standards. They didn't realize the entire human race was what they'd consider Queens until it was too late, just unable to telepathically communicate. The last Queen managed with considerable effort and difficulty, having learned language from Ender Wiggin over the course of a few decades of subjective time, but actually over a thousand years in literal time. Ender Wiggin traveled almost constantly from a boy into his 30s in relativistic voyages through space, passing through centuries at a time of human history. The Queen larva he was carrying experienced the full millennia plus of real time because of the philotic nature of her brain that gave her telepathic powers.
@@Seastallion you know, it's really sad that you're like the only person in this comments section who understood these books. I thought the reading comprehension level of Ender's Game and its sequels was pretty basic but I guess not. Most people just seem to stupid to understand simple shit like what you said.
At least SOMEONE can read.
@@Nictator42I think it's more that most people comment and reply with their only knowledge of the book coming from this video and a couple quick glances over wiki pages to back up their points
Dame dude your perspective is an eye opener to different possibilities and opportunities, its admirable
Anyone else feel l like he didn't read the book? If memory serves right, the book tells us that the queen that contacts Ender understood, too late, that humans were autonomous and even then they understood us too little.
In the books the Formics thought a hive mind was a prerequisite for full sapience and when humans destroyed the queen on the mothership they realized what they did and vowed to leave humanity alone. It's why the human forces never found invasion forces or had any retaliation strikes against them. The Formics only fought defensively and basically let humans decide their fate by giving their last queen egg to Ender so that their race could serve penance what they had done and for other intelligent races they may have destroyed in their ignorance.
When it comes to aliens, when in doubt always exterminatus first, there's plenty of time to do research and go to court later if they were sentient and say "oops" :D
That's what the Formix did, and we all saw how that turned out. A better choice is to study them from a distance and avoid interaction until we know whether they are a threat. Though as always, prepare for the worst.
Rule No. 1: DON'T LET THEM FIND EARTH!
@@YourArmsGone
The Formics didn’t know and most likely didn’t care. They probably looked and all they saw was race that constantly fights and kills it’s own kind and more importantly has hardly even stepped into outer space.
That and our billions of population we might’ve looked like a fully stocked refrigerator.
@@wesleywallace4426 definitely not your first thing
@@YourArmsGone Its because they didn't finish the deal, don't antagonize a species and expect them not to come back with a vengeance.
Man, you need to read the book. He didn't give the Formics human feelings, he was contacted by the queen telepathically and was able to empathize with her mind. It was real contact.
He goes into detail on this in the book and the sequel books as well.
Unfortunately, Alan thinks he knows what he’s talking about when he never does
This was a really great review/analysis :)
No one is really concerned about the protests. It's the fact that riots are being called protests that has people concerned.
They are protests until outside elements turn them into riots.
@@tylerbaldwin3269 Sure mate, it _totally_ would not happen if it was not for some "outside forces". There is no reason to create baseless conspiracy theories.
Im with you and i feel the same way about white supremacy race soldiers and kkk pretending to be cops and giving law enforcement a bad name.
@@dmichael2566
@@tylerbaldwin3269 BLM is racist
This was a very informative perspective, I do often struggle with a deep resentment for humanity, this really helped alot especially your closing thoughts
love your vids man
Dude, Allen, that was both brilliant and hilarious. Thank you. 😂
After the victory Humans could have taken the Formic Queen and raised the decedents as Human subjects, to eventually be integrated into a Human Empire.
They could have their culture completely wiped and instead be raised as subjects of the Glorious Terran Empire. They would make great cannon fodder in further conquests.
Or if Humanity is feeling magnanimous and _"enlightened"_ they could be modified to be able to coexist with other life forms. But it would be a delicate task, and they would require ongoing supervision to make sure they didn't become a threat to other species and ecosystems
As it is now, with Ender sneaking off with the Queen there's a chance for a sequel set long enough in the future that the Formic have rebuilt far away from Humanity and now return, this time having learnt how Humans operate from a naive Ender.
Or they could just consume the planets near them without daring to risk confronting Humanity again… just picking on weaker species and planets without a technological species - another option, always send more than one Queen for an invasion, as redundancy.
In general it is Heresy.
And a group of inquisitors has already send for you.
Glory To the God Emperor.
Yes, we need to learn that some species, (like wookies) are worthy of being allowed to live as pets and work-xenos.
"As it is now, with Ender sneaking off with the Queen there's a chance for a sequel set long enough in the future that the Formic have rebuilt far away from Humanity and now return, this time having learnt how Humans operate from a naive Ender." well if you read the books you would know what is going on and what is to come.
There were more books. The future already has been written.
Or maybe their near death experience will prompt them to study and understand human morality, learn how to make it work for them, and engage with us as equals.
Why is no one concerned about the penguins? They are obviously up to something.
Penguins schmenguins. Pandas are the true threat. Years of not being able to bang, but then when 2020 tries to wipe out the humans, every panda-guy suddenly gets a giant erection and pandas start being born in zoo's all over the place? Yeah, they're planning take us out soon.
Glad to see you are recovering
Good video, excellent points made
It is an interesting point of view. Reminds me of what ultimately happens in the Three Body Problem. There's a quote by the autor, I can¿t remember it clearly now, but it says something like: Why do we believe other (extraterrestrial) species will be benevolent to us, when we also dehumanize and torture those that we deem different to us, despide being humans?.
I do believe Human's as a species need to first build upon their own wisdom before judging the actions of others.
Sure we should build our wisdom, but don't be a dingus and act like we shouldn't annihilate threats to our species.
Omg...fantastic assessment at beginning. Feel same way about being one of not a country or creed, but one of human. Very well articulated. Thank you!!! 🙏👍
Humanity is a flawed species, but it's _our_ species.
The tragic thing about the entire situation is that the war started because both sides did exactly that, impart their view of their own species onto another and treated them based on that assumption. The formics thought humans were also a hivemind with drones and leaders, so to them killing a few near-mindless workers wasn't a big deal. The humans quickly understood the social structure of the formics due to their resemblance to insect hives here on Earth, but we also falsely assumed that the formics were aware and uncaring of how many intelligent beings they slaughtered.
It's only later that the formics realized and were horrified by their mistake. Their assumption caused a lot of suffering, while our resulting retaliation, anger and paranoia continued to cause even more of it. Not helped by an inability to communicate with each other until it was too late.
Fundamentally I see your point that we shouldn't assume our views are shared by potential alien species, just like we shouldn't assume the same of any other stranger we meet, but at the same time this doesn't mean that coming to a mutual understanding is impossible.
Much later on in the book series Ender brought back the Formices
Wait... you sure the Formex didn't find China like that when they arrived on the Earth?
Didn’t realize I’d get a legit philosophy lecture. Kudos bro.
Was this ever a question..? I read the whole book series and even then I didn't understand how, or why in Speaker of the Dead they begin to resent Ender. The Formic wars were literally a big misunderstanding, yes. Two species that didn't know how to communicate resulting in war, bur remember that the Formics killed literal millions if not tens upon tens of million humans, wheras we really only killed what, 12? (Considering that they are a hive mind the only "indvidual" formic to count are the minds)
Of course they were right: "trust not the xeno to live."
Alan this was very well thought out and impressive. You have a lot to offer with your insights and I am glad humanity has persons such as yourself to aid in our advancement toward an uncertain future…the Formic War series is a great read and finding deeper meanings in such a work requires much thought it’s good to see that being done…eventually I believe our species will have such an encounter with another species and my hope is that we are well schooled in methods and means of how to react when it does.
Keep up the great thinking bub !
Weirdly deep. Fantastic video
Just wanted to point out how consistent the quality of these videos are. Well done all around
The real hero of Ender's Game is not endure. The real hero is the undersized genetically engineered experimental child that manipulated Ender into winning the war. This is brought to light by the same author in the book Ender's shadow. This small child used Ender as a filter point to prevent The Hive Queens from manipulating him. Then he manipulated Ender into convincing the last Starship Captain to Suicide run on the formics home world.
Absolutely loved that book. Based my gamer tag on Bean (Silverbean)
Kind of gay.
If you read Ender's Shadow more carefully you'd realize that while Bean was better than Ender at many things, he could never surpass him in his ability to empathise with others and truly understand them, not just their actions. You'd know that not even Bean understood how Ender attained victory in the end and that Bean's comment about the enemy's gate was a sarcastic one. Bean had the opportunity to take over for Ender as commander in the final battle, but he didn't because he had no idea how to win
this is the classic way of thinking that puts the presumed human superiority above everything, I comment only by saying that it was a very popular way of thinking..... in the middle ages.
Interesting. Glad I happened on your channel.
While I agree with, well everything you said, there is one thing is like to point out. In the infinite expanse of the universe, is there no chance that there will be a species with simliar cultural beliefs and/or humanoid forms like ours? I say that there is. Will we ever meet them? Highly unlikely. However, to say that those types of species aren't out there is dangerously arrogant.
Maybe we could coexist with them, but there is no logical way to coexist with a devouring hivemind.
@@theonpointheavy4401 agreed, but that wasn't my point. I was referring to how there's no way that there isn't a species in the universe with similar cultures to humanity, and to believe that there isn't could lead to disaster.
This guy talks about the good of people but at the begining he is already differentiating people by their skin color.
You're not very intelligent if that was your takeaway
I have a nephew who had a part in putting together Ender’s Game( sling with a number of other movies), very talented young man!
I think this point of view, is very interesting, and thought provoking.
Read speaker for the dead and children of the mind...
Having fallen in love with the book, I felt the movie was a huge let down, albeit with some stunning scenery.
hi can you please tell me if earth's politicians are good guys or bad guys i really need to know for school
@@strayallycat Well, I'm late to this but I'll respond anyway.
I think it's too simplistic to say Earth's leaders are good guys or bad guys. That would be assigning a binary to a morally difficult question.
From the perspective of Earth's leaders, they have to protect humanity and in their view, the choice is "us or them."
It's the same rationalization you would use if someone was trying to kill you dead with a gun. You may not want to shoot them and take their life but if they give you no choice, then you will opt to kill them to save your own life, even if you regret the act.
However, the Formics didn't understand humanity was a sentient race. They thought we were just local wildlife. All the mammals on their worlds are just dumb beasts and lack any form of "hive mind" connection such as theirs. They had no concept of a non-hive conscious species, where individuals had independent intellect and thought, could even exist. Therefore, when they encountered humanity, they had no way of recognizing human civilization for what it was.
So, from our perspective the Formic invasion was a vicious xenocidal attack. From the Formics perspective, they were just clearing local wildlife aside to make way for a new colony.
The Formics eventually inferred it was fighting an intelligent race every bit their equal, morally and spiritually. They then felt a deep feeling of remorse for their actions and decided to leave humanity alone. But by then it was too late. Humanity's war machine could not be stopped and they were wiped out as a result.
It's wrong to do a genocide. The Formics tried to do a genocide on humanity and then humanity did a genocide at them in retaliation.
It's also wrong to exploit children in war. But from the perspective of Earth's leaders, had they not done so, then all children, everywhere, would not have a future. Which means, morally, as ugly as using child soldiers is, it can be justified by the fact that in their minds, if they did not do so, then it would result in human extinction. So, there would be no tomorrow for any of Earth's children had they not done so. At least, in their minds.
So what you're seeing here are complex motivations. They aren't cut and dry. The actions undertaken by the players are harmful and violent. Even cruel. But the motivations aren't that clear cut. And also, it depends on who you ask. One man's evil is another's salvation.
I think ultimately, the point wasn't to tell a simple parable about bad men doing bad things. It's more morally complex than that. We live in a morally complex world, after all. Ender's Game challenges us to think on multiple levels about the issue of good and evil in the context of existential perils.
Now, in subsequent novels, Ender atones for humanity's mistakes by rescuing the sole remaining Formic queen hatchling, and resurrecting the species through her. As a result, humans and Formics are able to coexist. Which goes to show that redemption is possible even after the worst crimes are committed. And humans are capable of both tremendous evils with the best of intentions, while also being capable of finding redemption for those wrong doings.
The book does leave you questioning certain things, though. Like, all else being equal, is the conscience and emotional trauma inflicted on Ender a reasonable price to pay to secure humanity's future? Likewise, is wiping out an entire sentient alien race a reasonable price to secure humanity's future?
I think the Formics were much more noble and worthy of life than humans in that so profound was their remorse that they basically ceded control of all their worlds to humanity seeking atonement for their sins, once they realized what those sins were. Humanity returned the favor by likewise eventually realizing their mistake and then resurrecting the Formics, and trying to find a way to forge ahead in coexistence with their kind. We were just slower on the up take about it. And we are much more contentious and flawed, owing to our selfish nature. But that can be overcome.
And perhaps in all this, is the novel's meditation on what it means to be human. Complex, morally frail, but still at the end of the day, mostly well intentioned beings, who sometimes make mistakes. And while some of us are genuinely malevolent and sadistic, for the most part, humanity as a whole wants to be good, even when it isn't. Where it gets tricky, and this is perhaps the real moral value of the story, is we have to be aware of just how good we are at justifying our own malevolence. Every villain is the hero of his own story, after all. I mean, look at any story--from the villain's perspective, he is the hero. He believes he is the one who is good and just and right. So, we should look at our own motivations carefully and try to find out when we're being villains while thinking ourselves the hero. And that is actually the spiritual gauntlet Ender Wiggin undertook in the first novel, when he spent the entire story thinking he was the hero, only to discover that he was the villain all along.
Interestingly, despite being the villain, Ender was not a bad person. Not even close. Nor were his adult handlers. They weren't evil people either. But all of them, collectively, were engaging in acts of evil together. And all of them, collectively, had to reckon with the consequences of their actions after the fact. And this is one of the basic moral challenges of being human.
Humanity first, that is all.
This is the mantra of the ordo xenos.
Purge the xenos brother! In the Emperor's name, let none survive! For the Allfather!
The general acknowledgement that Fuckerberg is actually an alien in a mask pleases me.
Lmao ah the bear he got kicked in the balls 😂😂 what humanity all together yeah yeah , but the bear lol
As most of the holywood made movies who are "inspired" by a book,the film is light years away frome thet book... the movie is confuse...reed the book,and you will unjastand clearly what is about in that strugle between humans oan formics...what film not say, formics atacked twice...My advice,serch and reed all the boocks of orson scot card on that sbject...It will be an amasing experience
Original book: Formic Asteroid attacked. Formics return.
Bro. Great analysis
10:25 I’m dying. 😆 When he says an alien species and it’s showing a picture Mark Zuckerberg!