Ender's Game

[drazzz52923849]

Anyone read this book? Great science fiction novel. I think that the "Buggers" in this book were what the borg became. Anyone else agree?

 

[Professor Zoom]

You're suggesting that the villains of one franchise became the villains in another totally unrelated franchise?

Yeah... no.

It's a great book. And it's unrelated to Star Trek.

 

[Lt. Trull]

Ennie... Meenie.... Mynee.... NO.....
great series though...... should be a good movie... well... if the don't F it up...

 

[Caliburn24]

One of my favorite scifi books, but I have never seen even the slightest hint that the Buggers were an inspiration for the Borg.

Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers always felt more Borg-ish to me.

The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines intend to destroy all sentient life. These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials some 50,000 years ago. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller.


The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as their perceived "need" arises. The original Berserkers had been designed and built as an Ultimate Weapon to kill the enemy in the long-ago war. The race which created them somehow forgot how to turn them off, and it was killed off itself. Then Berserkers set about killing sentient life wherever it could be found. When the Berserkers found out how deadly some forms of life could be to them, some were constructed to wreck entire life-bearing planets and moons, against the possibility that their life might someday evolve into sentient life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(Saberhagen)

 

[RoJoHen]

It's my favorite book, but no, the Buggers and Borg have nothing to do with each other.

 

[Bisz]

I quite enjoyed the book but like the other posters, have no idea where you think the relation to Borg may be coming from.

 

[Davros]

I am thinking that the Cybermen had more to do with the inspiration for the Borg.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Not my favourite book, but in my eyes, the Buggers were more biological than the Borg were.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I quite enjoyed the book but like the other posters, have no idea where you think the relation to Borg may be coming from.

The hive mind and drone social structure, probably.

And, believe it or not, Maurice Hurley's original idea for the Borg was an insectoid race like the Buggers (or, as later editions call them, the Formics), but it wasn't feasible on TNG's budget.

So, yes, it is actually possible that Ender's Game could have influenced the Borg.

 

[Kelthaz]

Fantastic book. I own several of the sequels, but I've never bothered to read them. I felt the story was wrapped up very well in the original.

As for the Buggers as Borg, I'll just say no.

 

[Owain Taggart]

And, believe it or not, Maurice Hurley's original idea for the Borg was an insectoid race like the Buggers (or, as later editions call them, the Formics), but it wasn't feasible on TNG's budget.

Ok, I can see where you're coming from. Maybe similar to the Xindi from Enterprise?

 

[RoJoHen]

Fantastic book. I own several of the sequels, but I've never bothered to read them. I felt the story was wrapped up very well in the original.

You should definitely read the sequels. "Speaker for the Dead" is at least as good as "Ender's Game," if not better.

 

[Lt. Trull]

I pictured the buggers as giant Ant / Praying Mantis types....

 

[Reverend]

Fantastic book. I own several of the sequels, but I've never bothered to read them. I felt the story was wrapped up very well in the original.

You should definitely read the sequels. "Speaker for the Dead" is at least as good as "Ender's Game," if not better.

Agreed. Best to be aware though, that it's a very different book.
If one were looking to recapture some of what the first book was like than I'd highly recommend Ender's Shadow. It covers roughly the same span of time and many of the same events but it's told from Bean's perspective and the sequels cover the period only briefly mentioned at the end of Ender's Game; like what happened on Earth in the decades Ender and Valentine spent on their way to the colony (relatively speaking), what became of the other battle school kids, how Peter came to power etc. Very worthwhile I thought.

I keep seeing rumblings of a movie adaptation every now and then. I'll believe it when I see it as I can hardly see any movie studio making an essentially mature story with a cast almost entierly consisting of under 12s...and no romance.
They'll either try and and dumb it down to be a kid's movie or change it so they're all teenagers instead...and add a romance. In either case it'd suck. Might be better off animated methinks.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, the last time I heard, it was in development hell. It would be a tough movie to make while still staying true to the material. I've also heard about a game, but I'm not entirely sure how they would make a game out of it either.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've always been struck by certain similarities beween it and Starship Troopers.

 

[drazzz52923849]

the reason why i think the borg was because of the queen idea. and below

 

[drazzz52923849]

I quite enjoyed the book but like the other posters, have no idea where you think the relation to Borg may be coming from.

The hive mind and drone social structure, probably.

And, believe it or not, Maurice Hurley's original idea for the Borg was an insectoid race like the Buggers (or, as later editions call them, the Formics), but it wasn't feasible on TNG's budget.

So, yes, it is actually possible that Ender's Game could have influenced the Borg.

this

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I keep seeing rumblings of a movie adaptation every now and then. I'll believe it when I see it as I can hardly see any movie studio making an essentially mature story with a cast almost entierly consisting of under 12s...and no romance.
They'll either try and and dumb it down to be a kid's movie or change it so they're all teenagers instead...and add a romance. In either case it'd suck. Might be better off animated methinks.

Card goes back and forth on the movie. At times, he sounds positively excited about the possibility for a movie. At other times, he sounds like the only way a movie will happen is if it's exact to the book.

I think the real problem in making an Ender's Game movie is in making Ender sympathetic. I fear that the movie would make concrete early the very bad things that Ender does in defending himself. It's a big reveal in the book, but I don't see how the movie could keep hidden that, for example, Bonzo is brutally murdered by Ender. A movie about how the government is turning a very little boy into a remorseless killer would be a hard sell to a European production company. I think it would be an impossible sell in Tinseltown.

 

[The Doctor]

Fantastic book. Too bad Card is such a collosal tool though. It takes away from the enjoyment somewhat.