Were the Buggers Going to Attack Again in Enders Game

"If information technology came to war, nobody wages more than terrible war than the Formics."

— The Last Shadow, Chapter 19

SPOILER Alarm: First/2nd Formic War and Ender Quintet plot details follow.

A Formic worker with a defoliant spray tank on the cover of the French edition of Globe Ablaze.^[1]

The Formics were an advanced space-faring conflicting species. Although they were officially named Formics (from the Latin word for pismire),^[2] the aliens were nicknamedBuggers by humans due to their insect-like advent.^[3] The Formic race consisted of Hive Queens, male drones, and workers.^[4] The unabridged species shared a hive mind, so the loss of private workers did not business concern them.^[5]

The Formics killed over forty million humans during the First Invasion of the Formic Wars^[5] in the conventionalities they were only scouring the lifeforms of Earth, to exist replaced with the native life of their homeworld. After the defeat of the Formic fleet in the Second Invasion and the death of a Hive Queen, the Formics realized that the humans were sentient and did not invade them once more.^[3]

During the 3rd Invasion, Ender Wiggin used the Molecular Disruption Device on the Formic homeworld, destroying the planet and all the Hive Queens on it; thus almost killing off the Formic species in its entirety.^[3]

Before their demise, the Hive Queens hacked the Mind Game in Battle School in an attempt to communicate with Ender Wiggin.^[3] Although they failed to talk to him, the interaction led Ender to observe a Hive Queen cocoon on a planet they had colonized, named Shakespeare by the humans. The Formics had left the Queen there, trusting Ender that he would take it with him on his voyages, and attempt to detect a world where their species could exist reborn.^[6]

The Formics re-created their civilization 3,150 years subsequently their destruction on the planet Lusitania,^[7] and later on colonized other planets using faster-than-light travel.^[8]

Contents

• i Biology
  • 1.1 Workers
  • 1.ii Hive Queens
  • i.3 Drones
  • 1.4 Sub-species
    • 1.four.1 Gold Bugs
  • 1.5 Slug "Carriers"
• ii History
  • 2.ane Early on History
  • 2.two The Get-go Invasion
  • 2.iii The Second Invasion
  • two.4 The Tertiary Invasion
  • 2.5 Rebirth of the Formics
• 3 Ender's Game Motion picture
• 4 Etymology
• 5 Weapons and Technology
  • 5.1 Doilies
• vi Planets
  • 6.i Terraforming
  • half dozen.ii List of Planets
    • 6.2.i Pre-Formic-Homo Wars
    • 6.2.ii Post-Formic-Human Wars
• vii References

Biology

The Formics bore similar physical characteristics with a species of insects native to Earth, ants. This led to a pejorative term, Buggers, being used to refer to them more oftentimes than Formic during the time of the Third Invasion.^[3] Due to the intense fighting that happened betwixt Formic nests on their homeworld, Formics evolved outset and foremost to fight and kill.^[6]

A Formic worker attacking during the First Invasion.

Workers

Also known as soldiers, Formic workers were well-nigh four feet tall and had vi arms. Their skin was mainly red, with some orangish and green throughout. While they appeared insectoid, they had fine wisps of short hair covering their body, similar to the hair on a homo'southward arm. Each worker had subtle variations to its advent.^[ix]

A close-upwardly of a Formic worker.

Even though they had antennae, they seemed to be vestigial in that they had no use for impact, sound, smell or sense of taste. Autopsies by human scientists showed that the Formics had an internal skeleton, but too retained an exoskeleton.^[2]

Their mental functions were straight controlled by Hive Queens. The worker did the construction, repair, fighting, and other efforts necessitated for keeping the hive healthy. However, not all workers could be fully controlled past a Hive Queen - some were more resistant to their mental control than others.^[viii]

Hive Queens

The Hive Queen of Shakespeare in Speaker for the Dead (Comic Book).

Hive Queens were around three meters in length, with large compound eyes, and a reddish-brown skin tone. Similar to ants, Hive Queens possessed wings in their youth in gild to motility to new areas, but these atrophied in subsequently life. They physically retained the wings, but they were no longer functional.^[8]

Hive Queens had a highly adaptive immune system, which worked effectively enough and so that there was no need for medical research and kept their species safe from the Descolada on Lusitania.^[8]

The Hive Queens were capable of telepathic communication among the rest of the Queens.^[3] The Queens were the only Formics capable of laying eggs, afterward mating with the male person drones.^[4]

A Hive Queen in Ender's Game (Movie).

When a Hive Queen cocoon was laid, a worker had to exist fed to the fertilized egg. The Hive Queen was given an intelligent Philote, an Aiúa, only after its nativity, and the listen of the entire population of Formics was absorbed by the newborn queen. Once the Queen had control over the Formic workers, they would instantly act with what she willed for them to do.^[8]

To create about of the engineering science and structures used by the Formics, Hive Queens bioengineered creatures with similar biological science to the Formics that performed tasks for them.^[v] On diverse planets, including Shakespeare, Gilt Bugs and other metal-processing creatures were used to mine resources for the Formics.^[six] The Hive Queens created creatures that could build near-indestructible hulls for use in Formic spotter ships, as well as some that built and could repair resin shells around Formic-occupied asteroids, like 2030CT.^[5]

The level of control the Hive Queens had over the animals they engineered was the field of study of much debate betwixt xenobiologists. For primitive creatures like the mining bugs, the Hive Queens would give them a small mental impulse to do what they were engineered to do, checking in on them infrequently. To more complex organisms like the Formic workers, the Hive Queens would requite general or specific instructions. For example, when but ordered to "assault", workers would deed individually and independently. However, in some situations the Hive Queens would seize total mental control, and the group of workers would move as a single organism.^[5]

Drones

Male drones mated with Hive Queens, and their bodies were shaped to spend their lives clinging to them. Drones were capable of individual thought and activity also as mind-to-heed communication, merely more limited than that of a Hive Queen. They possessed wings for flight and spent most of their life physically attached to a Hive Queen. Unlike workers, they did not die immediately when their Hive Queen died; instead, they would attempt to seek a new Hive Queen to mate with.^[4]

Sub-species

The Formic Hive Queens created several sub-species that resembled the Formics. However, these species were not nether the direct mental control of the Queens and could only receive impulses from the commonage hive listen. They were more akin to animals than any kind of sentient being.^[5]

Sel and Po discovering the Golden Bugs.

Gold Bugs

Aureate Bugs and their silver, copper, etc. counterparts were a species native to Shakespeare that could ingest metallic stone and excrete a refined ore. They were creature-like and performed their singular job, metal collection and refinement automatically. When the Formics colonized Shakespeare, they spliced its genes to let for Philotic communication from the Hive Queens, and were used to procedure metals.^[10]

When Sel Menach and Po Tolo discovered them effectually 40 AX, Sel discovered that humans could also relay philotic signals to their brains as well.^[6]

Slug "Carriers"

The Hive Queen created sluglike "carriers" to help her with the eggs in the hive firm on Lusitania. They could besides be used to perform Formic "surgery", similar when they were used to heal Thulium Delphiki of The Folk's bioweapon.^[11]

History

Main article: Formic Wars

Early on History

Originally, the Formic Homeworld was divided betwixt rival and constantly warring nests, each controlled by a unmarried Queen, fighting against all of the others without whatsoever alliances. Even a newly hatched Queen would fight its own mother to the expiry. Formic civilisation truly began when ane female parent Queen managed to coax its daughter into not fighting it, to put an end to the senseless slaughter and benefit from joining forces. Automatically, this made their faction stronger than all of the others, as no two queens had ever allied earlier. In turn, each of the new Queen'southward daughters convinced its ain daughters into working together, until after several generations the descendants of that first forrard-thinking Hive Queen had eliminated all of the other nests and spread across their homeworld.^[viii]

From then on, the Formics expanded into the stars to colonize other planets. At first, they carved massive starships out of asteroids, like the Formic Ark.^[4] These ships were without a well-nigh-lightspeed drive, and thus took generations to accomplish their destination. Equally the centuries diameter on, however, the Formics refined their colonization techniques. They eventually developed Egg Drives, enabling nearly-lightspeed flight which allowed them to colonize much faster, besides as the well-nigh-indestructible material Hulmat. As the Hive Queens had a mastery over genetic science, they ran roughshod through the genomes of native species, adapting them all the same they needed to in lodge to gain complete mastery over their colony planets. By the time they had recognized Globe every bit a habitable planet, they had developed a system where a spotter ship, equipped with a most-lightspeed bulldoze, would arrive at a planet before the Hive Queen. The Formic crew of this ship would keep to use defoliation gas on the entire biosphere of the planet, annihilating all life present. Not even skeletons or tree roots were left; everything was dissolved into soup. The life would then be replaced with flora and fauna from the Formic homeworld. It is unknown if the reason the first planet to experience this colonization method was Earth was considering it had merely been adult, or they saw the technological prowess of humans every bit a threat and sought to eliminate their unabridged genetic structure.^[10]

The First Invasion

A photograph from the First Invasion, later used equally propaganda by the International Fleet.

The Formics fabricated a disastrous first contact with humanity in what would get known as the Start Invasion. The Formics did non comprehend that any species could be sentient if it did not possess a hive-mind, assuming that a hive-mind was a prerequisite for sentience. Thus, the Formics sent a sentinel ship to World with the intent to fire it downwards and colonize information technology with a Hive Queen.^[3]

On the colonization fleet's manner to Earth, a Formic scout transport separated and accelerated ahead to reach the planet earlier the rest of the fleet, intending to terraform it.^[12] By the fourth dimension the scout ship had reached Earth's orbit in 87 BX, the Formics had destroyed hundreds of noncombatant mining ships, asteroid colonies, and weigh stations. Upon their arrival, the Formics sent landers total of terraforming crews downwards to China and killed millions of humans thinking they were simply animals; this became known as the Scouring of Red china. The First Invasion was devastating and human being infrastructure throughout the solar arrangement took massive losses.^[9]

Afterward the humans managed to destroy the Formic spotter ship, the rest of the colonization fleet rearranged itself for war confronting what they saw as the uncommonly aggressive native life of Earth.^[12]

The 2d Invasion

The Formics engaged in battle with humans during the Second Invasion.

The Formics sent thousands of miniships to asteroids in the solar system, occupying them and using microorganisms to construct a resin-like beat around the infinite rocks. The Formic workers on the asteroids used bioengineered sluglike creatures to process the metal in the asteroids, using them to construct massive warships inside the rock.^[v]

During the final battle of the 2nd Invasion, Mazer Rackham managed to destroy the Hive Queen's send, killing her and ending the war, every bit the workers no longer had a mind to command them. To the Formics, this was a terrible effect; a Hive Queen had never been killed before. From this activeness, the Formics realized that humanity was sentient, and became horrified at the hundreds of millions of deaths they had caused. Therefore, the Formics decided not to send another fleet to Globe.^[3]

Unfortunately, this realization came too late, as humanity had already begun to respond to the seemingly genocidal intentions of the Formics. Immediately following the miraculous defeat of the Formics in the 2nd Invasion, every available warship was sent out past the International Fleet to attack the Formic's ain planets, driving towards their homeworld. Due to relativistic effects, many years passed on World while the human armada traveled to the Formic'southward dwelling house planets. Finally, they launched the "Third Invasion" -- an invasion of the Formics past humanity.^[3]

The 3rd Invasion

The Hive Queens gathered on the surface of their homeworld in Ender in Exile (Comic Book).

The human fleets began to go far in Formic space and conquered their planets. However, knowing that if the Hive Queens were taken out their entire army died, the Formics retreated almost entirely to their homeworld and defended information technology greatly, leaving their colony worlds to exist relatively piece of cake pickings.^[6]

Ultimately, under the leadership of Ender Wiggin, the International Armada defeated the Formic's fleets and arrived at their homeworld. Early in the invasion of the Formic worlds, to destroy a germination of ships, the Molecular Disruption Device was used, and the Hive Queens instantly understood the capabilities of the weapon and never allowed their ships to get close enough together again. Despite this cognition, the Queens stayed on their homeworld.^[6] In the final battle, Ender deployed the Molecular Disruption Device confronting the planet itself, completely destroying information technology and nearly the unabridged Formic race^[three] in what would later become known every bit the Xenocide.^[7]

However, foreseeing this course of events, the Formics had subconscious away a Hive Queen cocoon on Shakespeare, a colony world they knew Ender would later visit. When discovered, the new Queen communicated to Ender the history of her race, and their mistaken assault against Earth. Ender then prepare out on a relativistic journey to distant worlds looking for a suitable identify for the Formics to have their species reborn.^[3]

Rebirth of the Formics

Three thousand years passed while Ender searched, until he arrived at Lusitania. In that location, the Hive Queen began a new Formic colony, resulting in the planet becoming home to three different species: the native Pequeninos, humans, and Formics.^[7]

The Hive Queen carved a maze of tunnels beneath the ground which functioned every bit the new Formic metropolis, and had massive swaths of fields tended to past Formic workers to grow crops. When Jane developed Detouring, the Formics assisted with the construction of Boxes to ship Humans, Formics, and Pequeninos to new colony worlds so they would non be annhilated again by the Molecular Disruption Device in the 2nd Xenocide. Thus, past 3180 AX the Formics had again spread themselves to multiple worlds and so that they could never again exist put in threat of extinction.^[13]

Ender's Game Film

Concept art of a Formic worker from Ender's Game (Film)^[14].

During the film's opening scene of the 2nd Invasion, the Formic fleet moves similar a swarm of insects, with no distinct design and a vast number of ships. When Mazer Rackham destroyed their central ship, which housed a Hive Queen, all the other ships stopped moving and fell down to the planet's surface below.^[15]

At Ender's school on Earth, in the science laboratory where he was bullied, there seemed to exist posters and diagrams of Formic anatomy, and in that location were numerous jars of preserved Formic organs and body parts. In fact, Ender beat Stilson with a preserved Formic limb.^[xv]

A scene was shown of the Formic Homeworld, with starships lifting off into orbit. Mazer explained that they were condign overpopulated, contained on i planet, and were collecting water from comets. Ender ambushed and destroyed a Formic fleet while they were collecting h2o from a field of asteroids and ice.^[xv]

The construction where Ender establish the Hive Queen cocoon.

Near the end of the movie, Ender asked about the strange design of Eros, and an officeholder replied that it was tunneled and carved out by Formics. After destroying the Formic Homeworld with the Molecular Disruption Device, Ender rushed out of the man base of operations into a strange construction, finding a single egg, and a lonely Hive Queen. The Queen was considerably larger than Ender, with a face reminiscent of an ant's, insect-like limbs and two huge wings.^[15]

Etymology

The commencement name for the Formics was hormigas, the Spanish word for pismire. This term was given by Victor Delgado upon seeing the concrete appearance of the aliens.^[ii]

Later on, Dr. Noloa Benyawe decided on the scientific name Formics, derived from the Latin word for emmet, formica.^[two]

In the original novel Ender's Game, the term 'Formic' was never used, only the pejorative of Bugger.^[three] In Ender's Shadow the proper noun of Formic was first used, interchangeably with Bugger.^[16] Later books use 'Formic' almost exclusively, as the more scientific term. This led to odd scenarios in the continuity of the books, such equally characters referring to them as Buggers inEnder's Game, chronologically next as Formics inEnder in Exile, and once more every bit Buggers inSpeaker for the Dead andXenocide. The moving picture adaptation ofEnder's Game uses 'Formics' exclusively.^[15]

Weapons and Technology

Formic technology was nigh solely mechanical, with no computers or electricity. The Hive Queens bioengineered organisms to perform specific tasks, like processing metal and building structures.^[5]

Doilies

Doilies were small, flat, bioluminescent organisms fired from the Formic jar guns. Weblike in structure, they resembled an intricately crocheted doily. However, encircled about in a articulate gel as thick and gummy every bit tar, doilies were weapons of decease. The gel acted as an adhesive when the doily struck its target. And so, upon bear on, the doily released a peroxide polymer that reacted violently with the adhesive gel. The result was a contained and highly directional explosion, tearing apart a human'due south spacesuit and all the bone, pare, muscle, and organs inside information technology.^[5]

Planets

The Formics colonized dozens of planets in the years before their meet with humanity. Afterward they were restored on Lusitania, they colonized more worlds alongside humans and Pequeninos.^[xiii]

Terraforming

For the earlier Formic colonies like Shakespeare, the Formics adapted the organisms from their Homeworld to merge with the local environment. For instance, they adapted small flavorless root and leaf plants from their home planet to fit the colony's biology and grow vitamins for them.^[x] Past the time the Formics reached Globe, however, they had developed a new system where they would utilize defoliation gas on the unabridged biosphere of the planet, annihilating all life nowadays. The life would so be replaced with flora and fauna from the Formic Homeworld.^[9]

List of Planets

Pre-Formic-Human Wars

• Formic Homeworld
• Colony IX
• Rov
• Shakespeare
• Hundreds more unnamed

Mail service-Formic-Homo Wars

• Lusitania
• Lusitanian Colonies

References

1. ↑ La Terre Embrasée
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 ii.3} Earth Unaware
3. ↑ ^{3.00 3.01 3.02 iii.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 iii.09 iii.10 3.11} Ender'southward Game
4. ↑ ^{iv.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} Shadows in Flight
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.i 5.2 5.3 v.iv 5.v 5.half dozen 5.7 five.viii} The Swarm
6. ↑ ^{vi.0 6.one 6.2 vi.3 vi.iv 6.v} Ender in Exile
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.i seven.ii} Speaker for the Dead
8. ↑ ^{eight.0 eight.1 8.2 8.3 8.iv 8.v} Xenocide
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.i 9.two} Earth Afire
10. ↑ ^{10.0 x.1 x.2} "Governor Wiggin"
11. ↑ The Final Shadow
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} World Awakens
13. ↑ ^{13.0 13.one} Children of the Mind
14. ↑ Exclusive: Fascinating ENDER'S GAME Concept Art by Cenay Oekman
15. ↑ ^{fifteen.0 15.ane 15.2 15.3 15.4} Ender's Game (Film)
16. ↑ Ender'south Shadow

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Source: https://enderverse.fandom.com/wiki/Formics#:~:text=After%20the%20defeat%20of%20the,did%20not%20invade%20them%20again.

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