The buggers have a collective, hive consciousness similar to an ant colony or bee colony, or the Borg in Star Trek.
To the Formics, the "workers" are literally mindless drones controlled by a queen, only the queens are sentient and the workers are not. This is why the queens didn't care how many of the workers were blown up or killed, because to them, the workers are not alive and thus don't matter.
What the Formics didn't understand is that human beings do not have 'queens' in the same sense that they do. To put it another way, they thought that the humans they were killing were mindless drones just like their own workers. What they didn't understand is that humans are NOT a collective, hive consciousness, rather each individual is unique, each and every human is a queen.
The fact that humans build stuff is not evidence of sentience. Lots of insects build stuff, ants build massive ant hills, bees build hives, earthworms move millions of tons of dirt every year. Lots of other examples could be provided, but obviously, ants, bees, and earthworms are not sentient.
The Formics communicate to each other through telepathy, and they don't use 'words', they just kind put images in each other's heads. To the Formics, THIS is what it means to communicate, and because they saw that humans could not communicate telepathically in the same way that they do, the Formics assumed that humans cannot communicate AT ALL and that therefore, humans were no different from ants, bees, earthworms or other non-sentient beings that build things.
It is nowhere near as absurd a premise as you seem to think.
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MaximRecoil
8 years ago
The buggers have a collective, hive consciousness similar to an ant colony or bee colony, or the Borg in Star Trek.
To the Formics, the "workers" are literally mindless drones controlled by a queen, only the queens are sentient and the workers are not. This is why the queens didn't care how many of the workers were blown up or killed, because to them, the workers are not alive and thus don't matter.
What the Formics didn't understand is that human beings do not have 'queens' in the same sense that they do. To put it another way, they thought that the humans they were killing were mindless drones just like their own workers. What they didn't understand is that humans are NOT a collective, hive consciousness, rather each individual is unique, each and every human is a queen.
That's interesting and should have been included in the movie, but the queen or queens were still at fault for not doing their homework, and even under such an assumption, they should have left as soon as they were attacked, because that means that the queens on Earth that they assume exist obviously don't want the Formics to be here.
The fact that humans [have technology] is not evidence of sentience.
Fixed, and yes, it is.
Lots of insects build stuff, ants build massive ant hills, bees build hives, earthworms move millions of tons of dirt every year. Lots of other examples could be provided, but obviously, ants, bees, and earthworms are not sentient.
The Formics communicate to each other through telepathy, and they don't use 'words', they just kind put images in each other's heads. To the Formics, THIS is what it means to communicate, and because they saw that humans could not communicate telepathically in the same way that they do, the Formics assumed that humans cannot communicate AT ALL and that therefore, humans were no different from ants, bees, earthworms or other non-sentient beings that build things.
No species on Earth has created technology aside from humans. Do you even know what technology is? And yes, I used the term "technology" in my previous post, not "stuff". If the queen(s) can't tell the difference between the implications of building e.g., a fighter jet and building an ant hill, then they deserve what they got.
As for communication, how do they think the attack against them was coordinated if not for communication among humans? What did they think all of those signals being transmitted through the air and orbital space around Earth were? Too stupid to detect e.g. radio signals? Even if they couldn't decode/understand the signals, they still should have been able to tell the difference between signals and mere noise, and signals = communication by definition.
It is nowhere near as absurd a premise as you seem to think.
It is every bit as absurd as I think it is. See above.
I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.
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danielgalun
7 years ago
Well, it's been a really long time since I read the book, but I don't think the Formic are portrayed as that friendly in the book. From what I remember it's more just that they are VERY alien, extremely different from us. To the point where our two species could never understand each other. Like I said, it's been a long time since I read it, but from my memory the Formic were hostile and the threat was real. Yet, they were trying to initiate communication, leading us to think that it could have been resolved another way, rather than genocide. So even though they were hostile and at war, they were somewhat more willing to "talk" than we were and possibly not as hell bent on our annihilation as Ender and the rest of the world was lead to believe. From what I remember this is not talked about a lot in the book, the Formic are deliberately kept mysterious so the reader won't understand them any more than Ender does. I think Ender's feelings are relatable in the way that even if they where a threat, killing off an entire species without knowing why would weigh heavy on anyone's mind, especially when they were trying to communicate with you.
The sequels to the book speak more about the Formic and you learn a little more about who and what they are. I don't think the ending in the movie actually came from the original Ender's Game, but was added on based on what happens to Ender in the sequels where he does travel around the universe as an adult trying to learn about the Formic and seeking some kind of redemption.
When reading the book I was always rooting for Ender, but almost everyone around him are cynical and not very likable, except his sister. The Formic are more interesting than anything else, I don't think you're meant to root for anyone but Ender in the book, and it's meant to cast doubt over who is right and wrong. But I don't remember ever being given a definite answer to who was in the right, only that Ender had a hard time living with what he had done.
But that's just from memory and it's been about 15 years since I read them so don't take my word for it.
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