The Authorized Ender Companion

by Black, Jake

  In an effort to preserve herself, Jane exposed the truth of the godspoken to Qing-jao’s father. Jane told him that the gods did not speak to people, but the godspoken were actually people who had a genetic mutation that caused the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder to exist in the godspoken’s mind without having the actual disorder. Qing-jao refused to believe this, though her father did.

  Jane revealed her true self to Qing-jao who, in response, decided to inform Starways Congress of Jane’s existence, and tell them that she was responsible for the disappearance of the Lusitania Fleet. This act would result in Jane’s destruction. The sentient computer program decided to allow it to happen. Wang-mu pleaded for Qing-jao not to do so.

  Han Fei-tzu was angry with his daughter for exposing Jane to the Congress. The congressional leaders, however, were grateful to the Han family and promised medals for both Qing-jao and her father.

  The announcement of finding the fleet and discovery of the gods’ true identity put wedges in Qing-jao’s relationships with her father and Wang-mu. She cut off Wang-mu from being her servant and all but cut off communication of any kind with her father.

  Wang-mu aligned herself with Qing-jao’s father, while Qing-jao became more obsessed with doing the will of the gods, as she perceived it, by ensuring Jane’s destruction and the end of Lusitania.

  Under the direction of Fei-tzu, Wang-mu asked Qing-jao to help them with their research into the Descolada. Qing-jao refused, stating that there was not enough scientific evidence to support such research. She asked Wang-mu several questions about the virus that Wang-mu could not answer. Banished again from Qing-jao’s presence, Wang-mu took these questions to Ender and Ela, via ansible, leading to a new hypothesis regarding the virus. Qing-jao had unwittingly helped more than she’d intended.

  She had come to hate Wang-mu and called her many names. Obsessed with doing the gods’ bidding, Qing-jao refocused her labors on hearing the gods’ voice. She refused to have anything to do with Wang-mu or waste any more time on her.

  When her father told her of the virus that Ela had developed on Lusitania that would cure the godspoken of their OCD, Qing-jao believed it was not the virus that would bring the end of the godspeaking, but the gods themselves. They would be angry with Han Fei-tzu for rebelling against them and would withdraw their communication.

  Han Fei-tzu was saddened that his daughter believed in the gods so dogmatically. He exposed her to the virus that reversed their genetic manipulation. Though free of the obsessive compulsive disorder that had caused her to trace the woodgrain in the floors and walls of her home, Qing-jao felt that the gods still spoke once more to her. They told her that her inability to hear their voices was a test of true obedience and discipleship.

  For the rest of her life—nearly ninety more years—Qing-jao was faithful to the gods and their commandments. She wrote their words and taught their doctrine. When she died at a hundred years old, the people of Path, who loved and worshipped her, unanimously declared her to be the God of Path. It had been thought this honor would be given to her father, but after a century of service to the gods, it was Qing-jao who was beatified.

  Her writings became scripture on Path, titled The God Whispers of Qing-jao.

  Han Tzu “Hot Soup” (CH, EG, ES, EE, SH, SP, SG)

  Han Tzu (pronounced “Han Zi”) was a contemporary of Ender’s in Battle School and the leader of China during Peter Wiggin’s reign as Hegemon. His story began at a very young age when he was selected as a potential Battle School student and given the blinking red monitor in his neck. Tzu’s selection by the International Fleet’s testers brought great honor to his family and would restore China to world dominance and prestige.

  In preparation for his Battle School tests, Tzu was given many tutors and played with many boys and girls, learning “how to win” from boys and “what to care about” from girls. Most important among his tutors was the Shapes Tutor, Shen Guo-rong, who also taught Tzu logic and memorization skills through a series of games. Guo-rong told Tzu not to mention their sessions to anyone who came to their house. Though the games grew tiresome, Tzu stuck with them in order to not disappoint his father.

  Tzu spoke Chinese, but was also tutored in Common, the language of the rest of the world. Tzu tried to leave the walls of his home to go read, but neither his Common tutor Wei Dun-nuan nor the house cook Mu-ren would allow it. This experience taught him that he was a prisoner in his own home. This affected him deeply, and from then on, he became determined to get away from this prison.

  When the Battle School tester came, Tzu realized that his father, by giving the tutors the answers to the tests ahead of time, had cheated on the tests. Tzu had been prepared with all the “correct” answers ahead of time. This was why Guo-rong had ordered him not to speak of their studies. Realizing that his father had cheated was a hard blow to Tzu’s confidence, as it symbolized his father’s lack of faith in his son. Consequently, Tzu consciously answered the questions incorrectly. However, the testing officers identified the apparent cheating and arrested Tzu’s father for this illegal action.

  Following the arrest, the female testing officer brought Tzu to take another test—one for which he’d not been prepared. This test he passed and was admitted to Battle School.

  In Battle School, Han Tzu excelled and was given a promotion to toon leader in Ender’s Dragon Army. He was initially skeptical of Ender’s strategy, and sided with Fly Molo when the latter spoke poorly of their commander. He eventually came around, and his toon, D toon, helped defeat Rabbit Army in their first battle.

  Han Tzu was one of the toon leaders who helped Bean protect Ender from the threats from Bonzo Madrid. They were unable to be Ender’s bodyguards all the time, but made a concerted effort to protect him.

  After competing so well at Battle School, Han Tzu was moved to Tactical School for a week, and to Command School where he was one of Ender’s unseen squadron leaders in their simulator exams, which were actual battles unknowingly commanded by Ender and the squadron leaders. Han Tzu and Ender shared an emotional good-bye after the war. Han Tzu hoped Ender would someday visit him in China. Ender was polite, but knew that he would never be returning to Earth, making such a visit impossible.

  Han Tzu was one of ten of Ender’s former colleagues who was kidnapped and forced to play war games by his captors. Though a prisoner, he remained mostly positive, trying to contact Peter Wiggin to save him and his friends.

  He was separated from the other prisoners by their captor, Achilles Flandres. Though they were still allowed to communicate with each other via e-mail, no one was permitted to be in the physical presence of the other captives.

  When the Russian government mounted a rescue operation to free Han Tzu and his friends, Achilles did not interfere except with Petra Arkanian. Han Tzu was freed from his imprisonment.

  Fiercely Chinese, Han Tzu used his tremendous military acumen to rise to a position of great influence in the Chinese government. He even worked with Achilles for a time to increase China’s prestige and ability on the worldwide stage. When he was done with Achilles, he had him arrested and imprisoned.

  It was thought that Han Tzu was the source of information that led Peter Wiggin to free Achilles from the prison convoy in order to utilize him in the Hegemony. However, Han Tzu contacted Bean through an intermediary to tell him that Achilles had secretly arranged his own rescue and was playing Peter. Han Tzu had had nothing to do with it.

  As a high-ranking military leader in China, Han Tzu had gained some influence, but was still expected to give deference and respect to his superiors, no matter how stupid their ideas were.

  The armies of Muslim nations had been unified under the banner of a new Caliph, Han Tzu’s Battle School colleague Alai. These armies invaded China and were liberating Chinese-occupied nations like India. Han Tzu tried to convince his superiors of the need to act, but they ignored him and even threatened to kill him for telling them they were wrong.

  It was incredibly
frustrating for Han Tzu to have his hands tied on a matter that he could see was so threatening. He considered going into exile, but refused out of his fierce loyalty to China. He would serve his country for as long as he could, no matter how counterproductive or irritating his superiors were.

  In hiding for a brief time following China’s defeat at the hands of the Muslim armies, Han Tzu was confronted by Mazer Rackham, the soldier who had trained Ender at Command School. Rackham offered Han Tzu a starship that would take him from Earth and protect him from the vengeful attitudes of his colleagues in the Chinese military. Tzu turned it down. Rackham gave him a weapon to use to protect himself and took his leave.

  A short time later, Han Tzu was ordered to see the leader of the Chinese government, Snow Tiger. Snow Tiger did not have the loyalty of the Chinese military that Han Tzu’s outspoken criticism of their plans facing the Muslims had earned him. Snow Tiger was assassinated in front of Han Tzu, who took over the government. He was crowned emperor of China—the first in hundreds of years.

  As emperor, Han Tzu witnessed the overtures that Virlomi, the goddess of India and a Battle School graduate, made against the Muslim occupiers. He was able to take advantage of the insurgency in India to force back the Muslim occupiers in China.

  Answering a call from Virlomi, Han Tzu released the Indian prisoners his country had taken during their occupation of India. He traveled to India and proposed marriage to Virlomi, wanting to unite India and China. He told her he had released the prisoners in a show of good faith, hoping it would help her marry him. She refused, and he left, hoping that they could be friends at the very least.

  Virlomi married Caliph Alai and used her advanced resources to attack China. Han Tzu, though the emperor, was a brilliant soldier and leader and personally led his armies against hers. When the Russian armies also attacked China, hoping to capitalize on a weakened Chinese military, Han Tzu tentatively aligned China with Peter Wiggin’s Free People of Earth, gaining tremendous military support in the process and adding to Peter Wiggin’s ever-growing world government.

  Once the war was over, China became full members of the FPE, with Han Tzu their representative in the world leadership.

  Han Tzu’s Mother (CH)

  Han Tzu’s mother, or Mama as he calls her, was a brilliant scientist. She invented a way to convert nearly half of the sun’s light into electricity. This process greatly improved Chinese manufacturing and the environment. She was unaware of her husband’s attempts to cheat the International Fleet in Han Tzu’s Battle School testing.

  Havelok (SD)

  The Havelok was a spaceship Ender Wiggin bought for forty billion dollars to travel to Lusitania.

  Havregrin (SD)

  Havregrin was a vegetable on the planet Trondheim.

  Hegemon (EG, SH, SP, SG, EE)

  The Hegemon is the highest office in the Hegemony and the presiding leader of the world government. A symbolic office in later years, it was made significant by Peter Wiggin, who dissolved the office once he retired.

  Hegemon, The (IC, EE, SG)

  The Hegemon was Ender Wiggin’s second book written under the pseudonym the “Speaker for the Dead.” It was a biography of Ender’s older brother Peter, the Hegemon of Earth. The book set the standard for a new funerary custom among humans—“Speaking.”

  Hegemony (PL, TP)

  The Hegemony is the presiding world government, which was created out of several nations united against the Formic species after the two Formic invasions. They had created population laws restricting families to only two children per household and instilled a uniform language, Common—a derivative of English—on the world.

  Hegira (CM)

  Hegira was a human colony among the Hundred Worlds. It was presumably settled by Muslim colonists, but that is unclear. The name of the planet where the colony is located is also unknown.

  Helicopter pilot (SG)

  The helicopter pilot took Alai, as the Caliph, from Damascus to India, via Beirut, where he would regain control over his armies.

  Helvetica (See Hundred Worlds)

  Hierarchy of Alienness (SD, XN, CM)

  Created by Valentine Wiggin in her book, written as Demosthenes, History of Wutan in Trondheim, the Hierarchy of Alienness was the scale by which the sentience of life was described and studied. The levels of each tier were as follows:

  Utlannings—creatures with whom there was a cultural and physical commonality to humans. They are from the same planet, but perhaps not the same village, thus the cultural commonality.

  Framlings—creatures of the same species but native to different planets. Because humans settled the Hundred Worlds, the human race was considered to be groups of Framlings from each of the Hundred Worlds.

  Ramen—creatures of a different species that are able to communicate and work with other species. The pequeninos of Lusitania were Ramen to humans.

  Varelse—(pronounced var-ELSS-uh) species different from humanity and unable to communicate with other species.

  Djur—defined as a creature being a hostile uncommunicative monster.

  Hikari, Aimaina (CM)

  Aimaina Hikari was a citizen of the human colony on the planet Divine Wind. Of Japanese descent, as were most on Divine Wind, he was a well-respected scholar and philosopher. He was referred to as the vessel that kept the Yamato spirit.

  A prominent leader among his people, he carried much influence in the matters of the Starways Congress. He had said that destroying the Descolada virus on the planet Lusitania was not a bad thing, but rather a very good thing.

  He believed that Ender’s act of xenocide against the Formics was logical and not immoral. It preserved humanity.

  He was a believer in the philosophies of Leiloa Lavea, and her Ua Lava religion, from the planet Pacifica. He was confronted by Peter Wiggin II and Si Wang-mu, who had traveled to meet him as part of their efforts to subvert Congress’s plan to destroy Lusitania. Both Aimaina and Wang-mu sought to “out-humble” the other. Their discussion led to Peter II and Wang-mu heading for Pacifica and Aimaina refusing to speak with them. But he did second-guess his advice to Congress and reconsidered his approach to Lusitania.

  Hikari warned his friend Grace Drinker, who had introduced him to Ua Lava and lived on Pacifica, of the Chinese girl and white boy who had visited him. It was twenty years’ travel from Divine Wind to Pacifica, but Hikari knew these children would arrive at Pacifica long before then, and he wanted his friends and counselors to be ready.

  On his own home world, Hikari contacted some of his former students on the planet, among the wealthiest of Divine Wind. He convinced them to use their monetary influence to change the minds of the politicians in Congress. He hoped that bribes of different kinds could be used to sway the government leaders and get them to call off the fleet that was heading to Lusitania to destroy it.

  History of Wutan in Trondheim ([SD, XN, CM])

  The History of Wutan in Trondheim was a book/essay written by Valentine Wiggin under her pseudonym Demosthenes covering the life of a man named Wutan for whom Ender Wiggin had spoken his death. In the book, Valentine laid out her “Hierarchy of Alienness.”

  Hive Queen (MP, EG, [GB], EE, IC, SD, XN, CM)

  The sole survivor of the destruction of the Formic home world, the Hive Queen was also the subject of Ender Wiggin’s first book, titled The Hive Queen. Ender found her in the tower that the Formics had created for him and which he’d seen in the Giant’s Drink game at Battle School. Ender discovered the Hive Queen’s cocoon-encased body in the tower and carried her out, promising to care for her for the rest of her life. He would even find a suitable planet for her to hatch new eggs, regrowing her race. The Hive Queen and Ender were able to communicate mind to mind as the Queen had with the drone Formics. Through this communication, the Formics were able to create the Hive Queen’s resting place years earlier, looking into Ender’s mind.

  Three millennia later, after having traveled with Ender throughout the many human colonies th
roughout the galaxy, the Hive Queen told him that she could restart her species at Lusitania, a planet where the native species (the only other sentient alien race humans had discovered) had killed a human. Ender was going there to Speak the death of the victim, and the Hive Queen was determined to grow there. She could sense a presence on Lusitania that the humans had not yet fully discovered. This presence, she knew, would keep her people safe.

  The Hive Queen began communication with the pequeninos, the native life of Lusitania, promising to teach them the way to space travel. The piggies were given permanent access to her as part of the treaty Ender negotiated with the female pequeninos. The Hive Queen would, it was hoped, teach them to mine ore and refine it into usable metal.

  Ender gave the Hive Queen a place near the pequeninos’ land to come out of her cocoon and hatch her unborn eggs. On a sunny day, she did so, excited to experience life for the first time in three millennia.

  She created for herself an industrial region, working toward creating a ship to travel spaceward. The Descolada had evolved, however, and she had become a carrier of the deadly virus.

  Over the course of the next two decades, Ender’s family worked on a way to eradicate the virus from Lusitania. His stepdaughter Quara discovered that the Descolada could actually be alive, and told the fathertrees that her siblings were trying to destroy it. Because the virus was an integral part of the pequenino reproductive cycle, the fathertrees—the fully mature pequeninos—contacted the Hive Queen, and plans began immediately to leave Lusitania in a Hive Queen–designed spaceship.

  The Hive Queen worked day and night building the ships. After a few weeks of this work, Ender, along with his stepson Miro, sister Valentine, and friend Plikt, visited the Hive Queen’s lair near the pequenino land. They learned of her intentions to leave the planet. And they all, except Miro, experienced the mental philotic-based communication that Ender and the Queen had had for centuries.