Xenocide
Summary
The hive queen has taken root in the planet of Lusitania and is quickly building her colony, breeding and birthing drones, who in turn are building civilization, complete with technology. With the help of the hive queen and the humans, the piggies have made large strides in technological improvements. The humans themselves have continued interacting with the piggies, and Quim has even become a missionary in converting the piggies' societies to Christianity.
Since the fleet sent to orbit Lusitania has lost communication, the Starways Congress has become deeply concerned and enlisted the aid of the planet Path, which has been in league with the Starways Congress for many years. The Starways Congress, however, is not the most virtuous organization. They genetically improved the intelligence of Path's people, but Congress wanted control over them. In order to submit them to their will, Congress has injected them with a condition of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. No one on Path knows about the disorder. Instead they believe their need to count certain objects, move their body in a particular motion, or some other sign of OCD is a result of the Gods interacting with them. The Gods of Path demand that the inhabitants purify themselves through certain actions. It is through Path's religious beliefs that Starways Congress maintains control over them. The Congress has now ordered one of the leading members of the planet Path, Han Fei-tzu, to discover why t contact with the fleet was lost. Han Fei-tzu in turn looks to his daughter, Han Qing-jao, who is one of the most intellectual human beings around, to find out why. She is very deft in her work, but the belief that the gods rule over the universe is deeply imbedded in her mind and she devotes a large portion of her time to “worshipping them”. She believes that anything, which takes place is the will of the gods. Her stubbornness generates problems in the storyline and frustration in the reader, but it is effective for character development, and she is capable at finding the reason why the fleet sent by congress seems to have disappeared. Now the problems for Lusitania have become even more burdensome. Since she is searching for the why on the Nets, Jane is able to monitor. Jane reports to Ender that someone on Path is searching for her, and will have her deleted.
Qing-jao is added to the list of problems on Path. The problems are divided and assigned to various members. Novinha, Ela, and Quara must work on the biology of the Descolada virus to find its role in the colony and how they can counter it. Grego is to find some way of traveling faster than the speed of light so that they can evacuate the planet should the fleet make contact with Starways Congress again. Quim is on a missionary to talk to the piggies of all neighboring villages in attempt to bring them together in a great unification. Miro, who is partially paralyzed because of an attempt to climb an electric fence, has been sent to talk to the hive queen about philotic webs since she uses the philotic web to communicate and Jane lives in the web. As it happens, the hive queen created Jane when she connected with Ender through his video game, but it is complicated for her to explain how it works:
“We never thought about how. We only did it. Found a hot bright source. A network, but very strange, with shifting membership. And at the center of it, not something like us, but just another common one. But with such intensity. Focused into the network, toward the other humans. Focused inward on [the] computer game. And focused outward, beyond all, on us. Searching for us” (308).
Eventually Grego managed to work out the equations for time travel, which involves a push and pop method. Jane, with her massive power throughout the philotic web, is able to push an object, human, or creature into an outer area, and then pop them back into the universe. Furthermore, while outside the region of the universe the mind is able to manifest near anything. On a test run, Jane pushes Ender, Miro, and Ela outside. Once outside, Ela is able to create the structure for a descolada cell that is harmless to humans but beneficial to the piggies. Ela did discover a cure for the descolada, but all native life on the planet of Lusitania depends on the Descolada to survive, and her cure would wipe out the descolada killing the piggies and every other native. Ela's descolada is innocuous among humans, but keeps the piggies alive. While outside the universe, Miro creates a new body for himself so that he is no longer condemned to endure partially paralyzed jerks and staggers. Ender also creates two new beings outside: Peter and Valentine from when he was a child. Now that a new Descolada has been formed they have resolved part of their troubles, but must still work to save Jane and prevent the Starways Congress from blowing up Lusitania . Secondly, with the creation of Peter and Valentine there are now two new possible conundrums.
Analysis
With the introduction of Han Qing-jao, Card is playing off a model in Judith Rapaport's book “The Boy who Couldn't Stop Washing”. By having the people of Path believe the gods are the reason for their obsessive compulsive disorder he presents society in a different fashion. It is 3000 years into the future, and humanity has spread out across the world. Some of the greatest intellects live on Path during this technological era, but instead of analyzing their situation and learning about psychological disorders, they simply claim it is the will of the gods. Therefore, if the gods will them to do something against another race they must obey without questioning. Religion is still a dominant force on the planet, despite the eons that have passed. Card's beliefs has a mormon take a particular light here. The people of path are not mormons, but it is the idea that religion would remain in tact after thousands of years. Christianity itself has only been around for two thousand years. Judaism of course is much older, but the majority of religions have died out over time. Card believes that religions have strong enough grip to persevere despite revolutions in science.
In reality, though, the gods of path do not exist to command them. They do not interact with the people of Path by influencing their activities and motions. It is really the government that has bound Han Fei-tzu and Qing-jao along with hundreds others. This leads to a inside look at government in our world today and in other literature. To prevent the people of Path from learning about their conspiracy, they only educate those who have OCD. Anyone who is not affected by the disorder works out in the fields, with little schooling, and a poor life. Qing-jao's servant, Wang-mu, is without OCD, but is far wiser than Qing-jao herself. She offers more insight about the problem with the Lusitania fleet than Qing-jao is able to discover. Yet, because of her status in the world, her accomplishment is dumbed down. Since she does not have OCD, she does not interact with the gods, and is not important.
Orson Scott Card has also moved twenty-two years into the future. With all of Novinha's kids grown up, and Ender married to Novinha. The relationships and characters have developed further. The family as a whole has become better situated in the town and more respected. Quara, though, is still meddlesome and difficult to endure. Card's ability to develop his characters and have them successfully interact with each other is easily seen in the third book. The quarrels and tribulations such as Grego's war on the piggies, and Novinha's “woe is me” prattle help illuminate this. More detail is also given to science on Lusitania. Biology is incorporated in regards to the biology of the piggies, the hive queen, and the Descolada. Meanwhile physics is needed to understand the push and pop method for traveling instantaneously. Yet, not everything can be solved by the end of the third book. So the dynamic plot is left to continue in the fourth book with the extra characters Peter and young Valentine who must share Ender's existence, his very being. As Ender must share his existence with his manifestations, he must also share the storyline with the other characters. His role as the central character has begun to decline. He plays less and less a dominant role in each successive book, and the story is more and more thoroughly spread out among the other characters.