Ender Confronts the Queen
The destroyer of a species meets its last queen.
Ender's meeting with the Formic queen comes at the end of Ender's Game, after the war. On the colony world he governs, Ender discovers a structure that matches the giant game he played at Battle School, and inside it the dormant egg of a queen.
Lore & Background
The queen communicates with him telepathically. Before the First Invasion the Formics had assumed that humans were a non-sentient race, for want of a collective consciousness, and they realized their mistake too late. She had reached out to Ender to draw him to this place, and she asks him to take the egg to a new planet for her species to colonize.
Reader's Guide
Ender takes the egg and, with what the queen tells him, writes The Hive Queen under the alias "Speaker for the Dead". In the 2013 film the scene differs: a dying Queen in a Formic structure near the forward base moves to kill Ender, spares him when he shows remorse, and gives him a queen egg she has been protecting. In Speaker for the Dead, the queen tells Ender that Lusitania would be an ideal place to restart the hive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Ender Confronts the Queen?
It is the meeting between Ender Wiggin, the child commander who destroyed the Formic homeworld, and the dormant queen he finds on the colony world he governs. After it he writes The Hive Queen under the alias "Speaker for the Dead".
What are Ender Confronts the Queen's powers or role?
The queen communicates with Ender telepathically. His role is to understand the Formic perspective and honor their history by speaking for them.
Where does the confrontation between Ender and the Queen take place?
The meeting takes place on the colony world Ender governs, one of the abandoned Formic worlds, which the later novels call Shakespeare.
More in Story & Timeline
Elsewhere in Ender's Game
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