The Authorized Ender Companion

by Black, Jake

  A lightweight helmet and visor are included in the flash suit configuration. The helmet provides for simple protection against collision with the walls of the Battle Room and with other students. A visor, described below, provides a controlled amount of tactical feedback deemed necessary to perform a particular training exercise. A small microphone and speaker are also provided in the helmet for two-way radio communication. Two small, high-powered speakers flanking the student’s mouth utilize destructive audio interference methods to block or muffle the speech of a student as penalty for being frozen. This is coupled with the temporary disabling of the student’s intercom system, thereby knocking a frozen student out of the communication loop with his army.

  Each suit is equipped with a gauntlet-style flash gun that wraps around the student’s wrist, and provides a means to identify a target and simulate a shot fired against that target. The gauntlets are provided with multiple RFID chips to allow the sensor arrays built into the Battle Rooms to track position and orientation of the gauntlets accurately during gaming sessions. This motion-capture information is fed into the Battle Room’s control computers, cross-referenced with position and orientation information of the other students’ flash suits, and appropriate hits are logged when a simulated shot is fired. Secondary infrared LEDs built into the gauntlet allow the room computer to verify the strike through the use of infrared cameras mounted throughout the rooms.

  The flash guns are also provided with a tightly focused, full-color Light Emitting Diode (LED), which allows a student to see what target he or she has “painted” prior to taking a simulated shot. The beams of these bright LEDs are not normally visible by the students in Battle Room sessions. This minimal information is supplemented by the virtual tactical display presented in the visors. The color of the LED is controlled by the room computer at the onset of a given game to provide different targeting colors for opposing teams. The four lights surrounding an army’s entrance gate are also coordinated with these colors.

  The Gauntlets house the electronics required to communicate with the Battle Room control computer, to feed the visor display, and to freeze the suit itself. It also contains the rechargeable batteries needed for pistol, suit, and helmet operation. A palm switch attached to the gauntlet controls the firing trigger.

  Each flash gun Gauntlet is a dedicated right- or left-handed unit, custom fit to the student through the use of simple low-temperature thermoforming methods.

  When a flash suit is “struck” by a virtual laser shot, the Battle Room control computer logs the hit, and also responds by broadcasting a coded command to that suit’s specific unit address to freeze the struck portion of the suit. As more portions of the suit are stuck, additional commands are broadcast. The Hook may be used to initiate a “thaw” command to all flash suits, to flash suits from a particular army, or to individual suits. The Battle Room control computer can also be programmed at the administrator level to automatically thaw suits after a predetermined period of time, or follow some other programmed thawing protocol.

  The helmet visors are made from a clear polycarbonate plastic embedded with transparent organic LED material to provide a stereoscopic heads-up display. Minimal tactical info (primarily simulated laser paths and hits) is provided to the soldiers within an army. Platoon leaders are provided with more tactical detail, and the commander of an army is provided with the greatest amount of tactical display data.

  The displays embedded in the visors provide simulated “laser beans” to permit proper targeting by the students. However, the translucency of these virtual beams can be modified, and the beam images and their target images can also be disabled at the will of the observing officers or game administrator, based on the training needs of a particular session.

  ANSIBLE

  The ansible is the means of communication used by the International Fleet (I.F.) to communicate with its interplanetary and interstellar ships, the Command School, planetary colonies, and other space assets. It allows for instantaneous communication between transmitter and receiver, regardless of the distance between them. As such, it is considered to be a “faster-than-light” communication tool.

  The ansible works by imposing a stream of digital information into a stream of “entangled photons.” The photons on the ansible transmitter are “entangled” (in a quantum sense) with a sister stream of photons housed within the receiver. A change in the spin-state of a photon in the first stream is indirectly read as a change in the spin-state of the entangled photon in the second stream.

  The rate of transfer is the frequency, or “bandwidth” of the transmission. Low-bandwidth transmissions are suitable for simple texts. Higher bandwidths can provide radio and still-image communication. Transmission frequencies in the megahertz and greater ranges are capable of carrying both audio and video signals, or simply greater amounts of lower bandwidth data.

  Two references to faster-than light communications that bear on the science of the ansible. The first reference, by John G. Cramer, was published in the December 1995 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, and was titled “Tunneling through the Lightspeed Barrier.” In that article, Cramer describes tests performed in 1993 through 1994, where quantum tunneling of microwave radiation across an insulating gap led to calculated propagation speeds in excess of the speed of light. According to Cramer, a number of scientists took advantage of the quantum effect called “tunneling” to have a microwave signal jump across an insulator, which normally (assuming Newtonian mechanics) would have blocked the signal. When they measured the distance across the gap, and divided that distance by the time it took for the signal to jump the gap, they came up with speeds almost five times the speed of light.

  The second article comes a lot closer to the functioning of the ansible. The article is from The New York Times, Tuesday, December 16, 1997, and is by Malcolm W. Browne. Titled “Physicists Report the ‘Impossible’: Tele-porting a Particle’s Properties,” it is about a phenomenon first described in the mid-1930s by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. This phenomenon is called the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlation, and is more commonly known as “photon entanglement.” It is possible to create a pair of photons from a single action (such as firing a pulse of ultraviolet light at a nonlinear crystal, as was done in 1997 in Innsbruck), and the pair of photons thus created are “entangled.”

  When that one high-energy photon of ultraviolet light bombards the “nonlinear” crystal, two lower energy photons are emitted from the crystal. Because of the nature of the crystal, one of the emitted photons will be polarized in one direction (let’s say “vertically,” just to continue the discussion), and the second photon will be polarized in the other direction (horizontally, for instance). Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, if you were to measure the state of one of the photons, you would lose other information about that photon.

  You would cause its “state” (the condition of the information—the energy—about that photon) to collapse from a probabilistic condition to a measured condition. This is also called the “waveform collapse” of the photon.

  By measuring the object, you affect the object. But, more importantly, since the two photons we are discussing are “entangled” based on how they were created, when you cause the collapse of the information state of the first photon, you also cause a collapse in the information state of the second photon. This mutual collapse occurs simultaneously, regardless of the distance between the photons.

  The creators of the ansible were able to develop a method of measuring the states of photons in two entangled streams. By measuring the state of photons in the first stream, they caused a collapse in the informational state of those photons. By indirectly measuring the states of the second photon stream (by measuring its effect on another nonlinear crystal), they were able to determine the pattern of waveform collapse of the first stream. By modulating the measure ments performed on the first stream in a controlled pattern (think of Morse code as a simple form of information mod
ulation), they were able to send information from one entangled stream to the other. Because of the nature of entanglement, the transfer of information is immediate, regardless of the distance between the streams.

  The earliest ansibles were limited in the amount of information they could transmit. The two entangled photon streams were of a limited length (duration), and once the end of such an entangled stream was reached, transmissions ceased. Further development efforts led to the creation of a method for creating entangled streams of high-frequency photons in entirely independent transceivers, on demand. Once that milestone was reached, the era of truly instantaneous high-bandwidth communication had begun.

  DESKS

  The term “Desk” refers to the personal, rugged, wireless, solid-state tablet-style computers used in classrooms, both on Earth and on the Battle School.

  These computers are equipped with ultra-wide-angle auto-stereoscopic displays (three-dimensional images capable of being viewed without the use of special glasses from up to a 60-degree off-angle from the face of the screen), solid-state terabyte flash-drive memories (encompassing both RAM and storage), advanced wireless connectivity, an instant-on operating system, and touch screens with pen and finger interfaces. The Desks are ruggedized against dropping, water, scratching, etc. The units are smooth on all sides, with no openings. They are recharged through the use of noncontact induction technology, and audio is made available either through focused planar speakers behind the screen, or wireless earbuds. Data is transferred through the wireless connection to wireless memory keys, thereby doing away with the need to physically insert a memory key into the unit. The omnidirectional antennas for the Desks are embedded within the body of the computer.

  Applications are specific to the operating environment. New applications are loaded wirelessly to the Desks.

  FRIENDS OF ENDER

  It was the first time I had stayed up all night with a book. The red numbers of the clock passed 4:00 A.M., then 5:00 A.M., and then my mother was coming down to find me eating breakfast at the table, still fondling the pages of the book I found in her closet. I couldn’t stop reading, because every word screamed to a young, twelve-year-old girl who didn’t care about fashion, boys, MTV, and who did too well in math: There are more of you. There is a place where you can be loved and respected. Which is ironic, of course, since love wasn’t something Ender ever felt accustomed to.

  And the next time a bully gripped me to throw me onto the sidewalk, I grabbed his hands and pulled him down too. As he lost his balance, I kicked him hard in the groin and pushed him over my head. When he was on the ground with a girl standing over him with fire in her eyes, he crawled away from me on all fours and he never lived it down. They didn’t pick on me physically after that. Ender taught me that sometimes, even if you don’t want to, you have to fight. You fight dirty and you win.

  As the years pass, I read the book over and over again. Every time, I see myself as a new character. It was Valentine who inspired me to become a journalist, because there is so much power for good in words. Not the talking heads like you see on TV who blather on about nothing. I sit down and speak with alcoholics and mothers of murder victims and try to actually find the truth rather than impose it. I pull out Peter for the meetings with the money-crazed executives, smoothly cynical and unemotional. I network. I schmooze. I wrap myself in a core of arrogance so strong no one could ever accuse me of being vulnerable. Peter’s strength protected me after I was raped, because even with all his dark impulses, he was never ashamed of what he did, or what happened to him. He only tried to learn, control, move forward. Everything was calculated, and when you’re rebuilding who you are, a little calculation doesn’t hurt.

  Now I am Ender again. The games that once mattered to me so much now seem unimportant compared with the friends I love. I am redeemed by my ability to stare truth in the face and speak it, if I can. There is a certain power in being willing to look at both the good and the bad side of yourself with objectivity and honesty, and not hiding either.

  If Ender could be whole, so could I. And I wove myself back together with pieces of him.

  Jennifer McBride, journalist

  Polson, Montana

  There are three books that I can’t remember not having read: The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Ender’s Game. I therefore don’t have a story about the first time I read Ender’s Game, because I simply don’t recall a time when Ender (like Frodo and Lucy) wasn’t a part of my life. These are also the three books I’ve read to pieces; I surrendered my original copy of Ender’s Game to the trashcan only when a couple of the pages, having separated themselves from the three chunks the book fell into, went missing entirely. Of course, it didn’t really matter at that point as I could probably have recited them from memory—but that didn’t stop me from pestering my mother to take me to the bookstore immediately to buy another copy. There are some books one simply must own.

  Jessica Sheffield, graduate student

  State College, Pennsylvania

  In my first year of teaching, I taught basic Senior English. After muddling through Pride and Prejudice with my predominately male classes (what was I thinking?!), I decided to have them read Ender’s Game the following quarter. My classes were completely different than they had been just a few weeks before. Kids who had never finished a book in their lives suddenly came to class with intelligent questions and comments. Discussions were amazing, and both boys and girls really got into the book. One student in particular made a total change in his attitude in class and, consequently, in his grade. By the end of the book, students wanted to know what happens next to Ender and Valentine and what happened on Earth. I told them about later books in the series and other books they might also be interested in.

  I had always hoped that I could recommend some of my favorite books to kids, but had never really had the chance yet. I also had students choose their own final projects to create to show me they understood the book, and I had some fantastic book covers, sound tracks, displays, and presentations. And because more of them actually read the book, they did better, on average, on the test than they had with previous books. More than anything else, Ender’s Game got students genuinely excited about reading. Many who had never willingly picked up a book in their lives now realize that there are books out there that they can not only learn something from, but also truly enjoy.

  Ashley R. Miller, high school English teacher

  Midvale, Utah

  I was an aimless, wandering eighteen-year-old, freshly booted from the military (medical discharge USN—bad cartilage in left knee), living with an oppressive stepdad and in need of something when my big brother Mike invited me to stay with him in Brooklyn for a few weeks.

  Mike, sensing my ennui, told me to read three books: The Princess Bride by William Goldman, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, and Ender’s Game by some cat named Orson Scott Card. The first two I’d at least heard of, the last one just sounded, well, weird. But, trusting my brother, I pored through them.

  Today, at thirty-seven (almost thirty-eight), there are three books I read once a year then pass along to any of my friends and family who haven’t yet had the pleasure: Princess Bride, Owen Meany, and Ender’s Game. And while I adore the first two and recommend them to everybody, it is Ender’s Game that to this day still resonates with me.

  Ender showed me something I dearly needed to see: Don’t trust the grown-ups. He taught me something I dearly needed to learn: Look out for yourself because no one else will. And, most important, he gave me the road map I needed to deal with a crippling childhood loss, that of my father.

  I have tried (and just as often failed) to be like Ender in real life, or at least as much as you can if you don’t live on an orbiting military space station. I’ve tried to be as much Speaker as Xenocide, tried my best to love even those I wanted to introduce to Dr. Device.

  And I have missed Ender dearly in my adult life. If you’re ever in a rest room in South Jerse
y and see scrawled next to all the “For a good time call” messages a little, scrawled “Ender Lives!” you know who to blame.

  Terry O’Brien, entertainer/columnist

  Cape May, New Jersey

  I have known how to read since the age of two and this talent never was a popular trait among my peers. While reading has been a life passion, it’s never been something that I could share with others.

  I hated that. Even when I was among readers, few were convinced that I had good books to recommend; they were always the ones doing the recommending. And while I’d take their advice (and enjoyed a great variety of tales), they were far less inclined to take mine, or if they did, less likely to be as impressed with the stories as I had been.

  After the birth of Harry Potter, a greater number of kids my age began to see the joys of books. I decided not to let this opportunity go to waste and found books to share after they put down their wizard school fantasies. They told me about T. A. Barron’s Merlin series.

  I wished for a genie who could grant me wishes. One of my first would be that folks would take me seriously when I told them what works of entertainment would be worth their time. No such luck.

  In eighth grade, my best friend recommended a novel about a boy in an outer-space military school. I liked sci-fi and this premise appealed to me. Despite the fact that he told me the ending (like he did with The Sixth Sense—jerk), a year later, I read Ender’s Game. It didn’t matter that he told me the ending because the story itself was great. I finished it in two days; a rare occasion even for a speed reader like me.

  Best of all, I didn’t need that stupid genie. I had what I needed: a chance to prove to people that I have Good Taste. A month later, I got my next-door neighbor a copy to read, and to my credit, I didn’t blab the ending. My neighbor loved it. He told others about it. I told more.