Story | Christopher Snow

The Story of Ender's Game

Ender Wiggin was born the third child in society that only allows two chilren, unless you have special permission. Ever since birth he had been monitored by the International Fleet. The IF hoped that he would become the warrior and leader they needed to fight the incoming Formic hordes, an insect like species that threatened the existence of mankind. At six years old his monitor is removed and he is taken to Battle School, a space station where the best and brightest learn the art of zero gravity combat in the Battle Room. While Ender quickly rises through the ranks, he also starts playing a simulation known as the Mind Game, where his mind is combed through to create new puzzles and scenarios. This game shows the head of Battle School, Colonel Graff, Ender's potential and Ender is given his own army. Ender is able to take the cursed Dragon Army and lead them to victory after victory. The teachers continue to challenge Ender by creating situtations in the battle field that should be impossible to win, but Ender wins everytime. With nothing more they can challenge Ender with, the IF sends him to Command School. Here he is taught by General Mazer Rakham, who was said to be dead, how to lead a fleet of ships instead of humans. This teaching comes in the form of a new game, which Ender is able to overcome once again. After a few months Ender is told by Racham that he will be playing the game one more time. This fight feels different to Ender, the AI moves sporadically and unlike any of the games he has played before. In the end Ender just barely wins, but he successfully destroys the planet he was tasked to annihilate, a simulated end to the Formic species. General Rakham tells him that what he just accomplished was not a simulation but he, in real life, just lead the ships to victory against the Formics. Ender is appaled and he tries to come to terms with the fact that he just commited genocide on an entire species. Ender then sets off to help colonize the universe and speak for those who have no voice, both alive and dead.

Characters

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is the protagonist of Ender's Game. Brought into the International Fleet's Battle School for his immense potential as a commander of soldiers, he is eventually tricked into prosecuting the war against the Formics, resulting in the almost-complete destruction of that race, and spends a good part of the remainder of his life attempting to find absolution for his unknowing act of xenocide by becoming a Speaker for the Dead.

Valentine Wiggin is Ender's elder sister, being the middle child of the Wiggin family. Rejected from Battle School for her overwhelming compassion, she serves as the intermediary between Ender and Peter during the former's childhood. Later she helps Peter on his rise to power by becoming "Demosthes," an essayist whose rabble-rousing demagoguery is contrasted strongly against Peter's statesmanlike essays as "Locke."

Peter Wiggin is Ender's elder brother. A sociopath, he takes sadistic pleasure in manipulating and brutalizing other children, especially Ender, and is rejected from Battle School because he is too violent. In Ender's Game, he helps engineer a global war (with Valentine's reluctant assistance) under the pen name "Locke".

Colonel Graff is the principal of Battle School, and personally supervised much of Ender's training. After the war he is put on trial for his controversial actions there, but is given a position within the Hegemony as Minister of Colonization, responsible for sending humanity out to colonize the now-deserted worlds formerly held by the Formics.

Bean is a student of Greek and Igbo descent from the streets of Rotterdam. Though the smallest and youngest member of the Ender's inner circle, he is also the smartest and most fair-minded person. Ender initially notes that he is isolating Bean as Ender himself was once isolated, in order to force Bean to flourish.

Petra Arkanian is an Armenian student who is the only female in Ender's inner circle. During the Earth's invasion of the Bugger worlds, Ender relies on her heavily, often giving her complicated and critical assignments; she is the first student to burn out, falling asleep during a battle.

Mazer Rackham is the half-Māori captain who single-handedly stopped the Second Invasion by realizing that the Buggers are a hive mind. Due to his inability to pass on his knowledge, he was forced to spend fifty years at relativistic speeds (eight years to Rackham) so that he could train the next commander—Ender Wiggin.

Major Anderson was Graff's second-in-command at Battle School, generally seen in the epistolary conversations from Ender's Game attempting to moderate her superior's unorthodox training of Ender. Her passion is the Battle Room.

Bonzo, whose real name is Bonito de Madrid, is the commander of Salamander and is meant to bring out Ender's violent nature. As commander of Salamander Army, the autocratic Bonzo suddenly has Ender Wiggin thrust upon him when Ender is promoted from his launch group. He is accidentally killed in a confrontation with Ender, bringing six students with him to attack Ender in a bathroom.