60 pages • 2 hours read
Xenocide
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Themes
Defining Intelligent Life
Defining intelligent life appears in the depiction of both Jane and the descolada virus. Several characters struggle to accept the ideas that Jane is not a computer program and that the descolada virus is intelligent and communicates. Qing-jao refuses to accept Jane as a lifeform and feels no remorse when she reports Jane’s existence to Starways Congress. Grego belittles Quara and argues against her claims that the descolada virus is intelligent and can communicate. Their rejections of Jane and the descolada virus as sentient demonstrates the idea that people often reject those who are “Other.” Other species often deny the sentience of Jane and the descolada virus because the two represent such unfamiliar manifestations of life forms. While many aspects of Jane’s and the descolada’s existence vary from that of humans, they share common traits of sentience with humans—emotions and communication.
Jane’s sentience is defined primarily through her self-awareness and her emotional responses. Although she is self-aware, Jane does not know much about herself in the beginning of the novel. She knows only that she is alive but does not understand how she came to be. Her lack of understanding is, in part, because she is the first of her kind to exist. The explanation of how Jane came to be a self-aware entity comes from the hive queen. Jane, like everyone else, was called forth from Outspace, and she became rooted in the pattern created by Ender, similar to his creation of Peter and young Val. Along with being self-aware, Jane displays human-like social emotions. She feels fear and desperation as she faces her potential death, and she also feels a deep sense of empathy for other sentient species. Jane’s empathy provides the motivation for her altruistic behavior. For example, she risks her life to block the Lusitania fleet, and she allows Qing-jao to send the report to Starways Congress. Doing the right thing—in this case refusing to harm Path in the process of saving herself—is more important to Jane than survival. Altruism, as expressed by Ender, coincides with the highest form of intelligence. By depicting this, the author reveals that he values and respects altruistic behaviors.
Although the descolada virus is thought to be intelligent, its sentience is not proven. The researchers hypothesize that the descolada virus is intelligent because it evolves more quickly than one would expect. Quara also finds evidence that the individual viruses can communicate with each other, which is how they are able to apply adaptations throughout their entire species. The researchers accept the idea that the descolada is intelligent, and they hypothesize for a short time that the Pequeninos’ intelligence stems from the descolada, although that idea is proven incorrect through Planter’s experiment. While it is widely agreed upon that the descolada virus is sentient, the researchers—excluding Quara—agree that the virus is varelse: an intelligent species that they cannot coexist with because they cannot communicate with it. This juxtaposition of sentience without communication abilities also develops the themes of Cross-Species Understanding and Coexistence and Ethics and Morality in Science. The descolada virus is defined as intelligent, but it cannot coexist with the other species in the universe, for its very nature compels it to kill other species. This plot point suggests the idea that intelligence without empathy and communication is infinitely dangerous.
Cross-Species Understanding and Coexistence
Cross-species understanding and coexistence appears in the relationships between the humans, the Pequeninos, the hive queen, Jane, and the descolada virus. Demosthenes creates a four-part “Hierarchy of Foreignness” to categorize intelligent species:
Utlannings are strangers from our own world. Framlings are strangers of our own species, but from another world. Ramen are stranders of another species, but capable of communication with is, capable of co-existence with humanity. Last are varelse […] An alien life form that’s capable of destroying all of humanity […] Yet which we cannot possibly communicate with, and alien species that we cannot live with (24).
The Pequeninos, the hive queen, and Jane are raman species because they can communicate, empathize, and coexist. The descolada virus is viewed as varelse because the researchers have not discovered a method to communicate with the virus to induce it to stop killing other species.
Although the Pequeninos and the hive queen are viewed as raman, the relationship between them and the humans is strained because of their physical and mental differences. The Pequeninos resemble pigs. The humans often refer to them pejoratively as “piggies,” and Qing-jao called them “pig-men” while rationalizing the impending destruction of Lusitania. The humans also do this with the hive queen and her drones, referring to them as “buggers.” This dismissive language reflects the concept that humans tend to negate the rights of entities deemed “other” in order to rationalize harming them. The relationship is further strained by the humans perceiving the other species as dangers. In their first encounter thousands of years ago, the hive queen’s species attacked the humans because they did not understand that every human being is just as sentient as a hive queen; humans, unlike Formics, do not have mindless drones. The humans, in turn, viewed the Formics as an evil species, and they created and disseminated propaganda that fomented widespread fear of the species. This fear also reflects the real-world instinctual fear that humans often feel toward insects or any other species that appears particularly foreign or alien. The Pequeninos are also feared, but not for their appearance. They are feared because of their unique life cycle which includes a third segment as a tree. However, to become a tree, the Pequeninos must be killed and dissected, and their body parts must be buried in the ground. Humans perceive the act of creating fathertrees and mothertrees as abhorrent, and the perceived violence of this natural practice on the part of the Pequeninos contributes to humans’ fear of them. Secondly, Pequeninos are feared because they carry the descolada virus, which is fatal to humans. These tense relationships demonstrate the role of fear in inter-species relationships, and Card uses this pattern to critique the complications that exist in real-world relationships between groups of people.
The most important factor in cross-species understanding and coexistence is communication. If species are unable to communicate, they are unable to know each other’s motivations and intentions. This uncertainty leads to fear, and fear leads to hate. The hive queen is accepted as a sentient species because Ender is able to communicate with her, and he can, in turn, communicate with other humans about the hive queen. Jane, too, can coexist because of her ability to communicate. The humans cannot communicate with the descolada, and they fear they cannot coexist, so they use science to kill the existing virus and replace it with one that is not intelligent. However, the hive queen tells Human that the descolada had begun to evolve symbiotically with her and her drones. This forces the reader to question whether the descolada virus was varelse or whether it would have adapted to coexist with humans. If it were in fact capable of adapting, then the humans are once again guilty of committing xenocide.
The Power of Religion
The power of religion is woven into the entire plotline, and it is expressed as having both benefits and consequences. The benefits of the power of religion are shown through the positive impacts that Christianity has on the relationship between the humans and the Pequeninos, and the consequences are depicted through Warmaker’s extremist views and the representation of Path.
When humans and Pequeninos first began to interact on Lusitania, the humans taught the Pequeninos about Christianity, a quirk that Card clearly uses to critique the pattern of Christian missionary work over the centuries. However, in this case, the Pequeninos largely accept the religion, which positively impacts the relationship between the two species. They find common ground in their shared faith, and their beliefs bring them closer together. This depiction of religion shows the power that faith has to bring together different groups into one strong community with shared values. However, the author also demonstrates that religion has the power to divide. Warmaker develops the extremist religious view that the descolada is the Holy Ghost and that it is his mission to spread the virus throughout the universe. He uses this logic in a deliberate act of violence when he ensnares Quim and forces Quim to die from the descolada virus. Warmaker’s depiction as an extremist represents the idea that the reputation of an institution should not be determined by extremist views. Warmaker misuses the Christian religion, but that does not mean that religion is necessarily harmful in and of itself. Rather, Card implies that when religious ideas are appropriated to achieve political ends, the concepts can become highly problematic and damaging.
The power of religion is also shown in Congress’s genetic manipulations of the people of Path. Congress understands the power that religion can hold, and they corrupt this power and use it to control the inhabitants of Path. Congress created a group of people with hyper-intelligence, and to ensure the hyper-intelligent remain under control, Congress created a variant of OCD and attributed the symptoms to messages from the gods. To prevent the people of Path from discovering the scientific truth behind the godspoken, they banished geneticists. Their actions created the conditions for Path’s culture to revolve entirely around religion and godspokenness. Similarly, Han Fei-tzu and Jane publish a document declaring that Path has been honored by the gods, so that people will accept the cultural transition after the widespread genetic alteration from the virus. The primary difference in Congress’s and Han Fei-tzu’s manipulation of religion is the intent—Congress intended to oppress and control the people of Path, while Han Fei-tzu intended to keep the people of Path safe. After the truth is discovered, religion remains an important factor in the culture of Path. This is seen in Qing-jao being named the God of Path after her death. By portraying contrasting views of the power of religion, the author criticizes those who would use religion to manipulate others while demonstrating a positive opinion of religion’s power to bring communities together and to enrich cultures.
Ethics and Morality in Science
Ethics and morality is the primary theme in Xenocide, and it encompasses the other themes within the novel. This theme is portrayed through the conflicts, which each involve a moral dilemma connected to science. The most prominent examples of ethics and morality in science arise from the plans to destroy the descolada virus, the creation and reversal of the manufactured OCD on Path, and the communication between the researchers and the general public.
Quara voices her concerns that the descolada virus the humans are working to eradicate is a sentient species. As a sentient species, she argues, the virus has as much right to live as the humans, the Pequeninos, and the hive queen. The others do not agree and argue that since they cannot communicate with the virus, their only option is to destroy and replace it. The moral dilemma centers on who has the right to live. This question is further complicated by the idea that the descolada virus was created to terraform planets and the fact that it had begun to live symbiotically within the hive queen. If the descolada was artificially engineered, destroying it is more easily justified. Alternately, if the virus had begun living symbiotically with the hive queen, it is likely that it would have adapted to the humans, given enough time. This notion further leads to the idea that Quara was on the right track in her desire to communicate with the descolada virus. If the virus is sentient and non-violent, as its symbiosis with the hive queen suggests—then the destruction of the descolada and the creation of the recolada is immoral. The researchers’ intentions combined with the unnoticed evolution of the virus demonstrates that science is often unintentionally immoral. Researchers may have good intentions and still produce unethical results.
The genetic manipulation of the people on Path is a clear violation of ethics, but Han Fei-tzu’s actions are also morally questionable. Han Fei-tzu decides to release the virus on Path without notifying the other citizens. Furthermore, he creates a false narrative to cover his actions. As with the researchers on Lusitania, Han Fei-tzu has good intentions. Not only does he feel that people are trapped by the genetic OCD, but he also feels that every citizen should possess the genes for heightened intelligence. Rather than risking rejection of the plan, he secretly releases the virus, effectively infecting the entire population on Lusitania. Although his decision to work in secrecy can be interpreted as immoral, it was most likely the most ethical decision. If he had spread the truth first, some of the people may have rejected the idea, as did Qing-jao, or they may have reacted violently. Similarly, when presented with the truth, Warmaker and his followers developed extremist views. Without knowledge of the truth, it is unlikely that Warmaker would have come to his extremist conclusions and therefore unlikely that Quim would have died and that the forest next to Milagre would have been destroyed. Han Fei-tzu’s lies work in his favor, suggesting that sometimes it can be interpreted as ethical when science acts with good intentions without considering the opinions of the general public. However, the complexity of these situations sends the message that there is often no clear-cut line that divides ethical and unethical science.
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