As soon as Father got them both onto his citizen's access, they began testing the waters.
And it was so easy, we didn't even need to see Valentine convince him! As Iridium pointed out, it's funny that Ender's parents are meant to also be geniuses in their own right, but Card writes them about as clueless as the grown-ups in
Rugrats. A lot less fun, though.
They staved away from the nets that required use of a real name. That wasn't hard because real names only had to do with money. They didn't need money. They needed respect, and that they could earn.
I love how no matter the time period, some idiots always think the key to absolute honesty and candor on the internet is mandating real names.
With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were their words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.
Okay, so, they're basically just using their dad's login. So, why couldn't everything they post be traced back to Mr. Wiggin? This should logically be the
Simpsons episode where Lisa ghostwrites all Homer's food reviews, if Homer didn't know he was a food critic. Also, so far, we've been shown that the Wiggins live in a highly authoritarian society. The government controls reproduction, suppresses religion, implants monitoring devices in toddlers' spines, and reserves the right to abduct your children into space to play Ro-Sham-Bo with Ender. If Peter and Valentine start making political waves with their Substacks, are we really meant to believe the I.F wouldn't be willing be willing and able to track them down pretty much instantly? It's kind of a shock they haven't already done away with Peter like he was an unusually smart prole in
1984.
They used throwaway names with their early efforts. not the identities that Peter planned to make famous and influential. Of course they were not invited to take part in the great national and international political forums -- they could only be audiences there until they were invited or elected to take part.
We call this agoras of enlightened thought "Twitter Spaces."
But they signed on and watched, reading some of the essays published by the great names, witnessing the debates that played across their desks.
And in the lesser conferences, where common people commented about the great debates, they began to insert their comments. At first Peter insisted that they be deliberately inflammatory. "We can't learn how our style of writing is working unless we get responses -- and if we're bland, no one will answer.”
Isn't that the opposite of how you'd go about that? If people are reacting to your posts because you think Batman dating Selina Kyle is MAP erasure, your writing style is pretty much irrelevant. If you want to see if people resonnate with your actual writing, you should be posting nuanced points that require people to actually engage with your text and presentation.
They were not bland, and people answered. The responses that got posted on the public nets were vinegar; the responses that were sent as mail, for Peter and Valentine to read privately, were poisonous. But they did learn what attributes of their writing were seized upon as childish and immature. And they got better.
Yeah, this is basically the entire section. "They were really good writers, people read their shit, and their shit got better," rince and repeat like, four times, with about as much detail. Also, again, is their dad not noticing the torrent of hate mail he's getting for saying Israel should be divided evenly between the gypsies and the Rastas?
When Peter was satisfied that they knew how to sound adult, he killed the old identities and they began to prepare to attract real attention.
"We have to seem completely separate. We'll write about different things at different times. We'll never refer to each other. You'll mostly work on the west coast nets, and I'll mostly work in the south. Regional issues, too. So do your homework.”
Notice that Card basically treats the internet as bunch of digital newspapers where things like geography still matter. Also, hey, Card predicted kids opining on issues in places thousands of miles away like they're experts!
They did their homework. Mother and Father worried sometimes, with Peter and Valentine constantly together, their desks tucked under their arms. But they couldn't complain-- their grades were good, and Valentine was such a good influence on Peter. She had changed his whole attitude toward everything. And Peter and Valentine sat together in the woods, in good weather, and in pocket restaurants and indoor parks when it rained, and they composed their political commentaries.
Pocket restaurants? What, like a pop-up stall? Did
Kuappi become a franchise? Also, I'm guessing indoor park means something like a city park but there's dome over it because it's the future, but I'm just picturing Peter and Valentine sitting in a ballpit in one of those indoor adventure playgrounds.
Peter carefully designed both characters so neither one had all of his ideas; there were even some spare identities that they used to drop in third party opinions. "Let both of them find a following as they can," said Peter.
Naturally, both characters exist to promulgate
Peter's ideas and none of Valentine's because... I don't know, she's a girl?
Once, tired of writing and rewriting until Peter was satisfied, Val despaired and said, "Write it yourself, then!”
"I can't," he answered. "They can't both sound alike. Ever. You forget that someday we'll be famous enough that somebody will start running analyses. We have to come up as different people every time.”
And naturally, the fact you're setting the agenda for both of you won't show at all.
So she wrote on. Her main identity on the nets was Demosthenes -- Peter chose the name. He called himself Locke. They were obvious pseudonyms, but that was part of the plan. "With any luck, they'll start trying to guess who we are.”
Or El Sandifer will doxx you after deciding you're a facsist, citing a book he wrote that mentions you once.
"If we get famous enough, the government can always get access and find out who we really are.”
"When that happens, we'll be too entrenched to suffer much loss. People will be shocked that Demosthenes and Locke are two kids, but they'll already be used to listening to us.”
Try telling that to the chick smiling and pointing to your junk for the camera at the I.F blacksite.
They began composing debates for their characters. Valentine would prepare an opening statement, and Peter would invent a throwaway name to answer her. His answer would be intelligent and the debate would be lively, lots of clever invective and good political rhetoric. Valentine had a knack for alliteration that made her phrases memorable. Then they would enter the debate into the network, separated by a reasonable amount of time, as if they were actually making them up on the spot. Sometimes a few other netters would interpose comments, but Peter and Val would usually ignore them or change their own comments only slightly to accommodate what had been said.
Notice these two go out of the way to avoid
engaging with the masses that they're trying to sway. Also, no, we're not going to be getting any direct depiction of any of their debates, because that would require something like effort.
Peter took careful note of all their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. "We're being read," Peter said. "The ideas are seeping out.”
"The phrases, anyway.”
"That's just the measure. Look, we're having some influence. Nobody quotes us by name, yet, but they're discussing the points we raise. We're helping set the agenda. We're getting there.”
If it was this easy to affect actual politics with online speech, we'd all be living in the disputed zone between the domains of James Medlock and BAP.
Should we try to get into the main debates?”
"No. We'll wait until they ask us.”
They had been doing it only seven months when one of the west coast nets sent Demosthenes a message. An offer for a weekly column in a pretty good newsnet.
"I want pictures of Spider-Man 2099!"
"I can't do a weekly column," Valentine said. "I don't even have a monthly period yet.”
"The two aren't related," Peter said.
"They are to me. I'm still a kid.”
....
"I can't do a weekly column," Valentine said. "I don't even have a monthly period yet.”
Card, if you had sisters, I refuse to believe any of them ever said anything like that.
"Tell them yes, but since you prefer not to have your true identity revealed, you want them to pay you in network time. A new access code through their corporate identity.”
"So when the government traces me--”
"You'll just be a person who can sign on through CalNet. Father's citizen's access doesn't get involved. What I can't figure out is why they wanted Demosthenes before Locke.”
"Talent rises to the top.”
"Now, which of your political opinions do you want me to parrot today, brother?"
As a game, it was fun. But Valentine didn't like some of the positions Peter made Demosthenes take. Demosthenes began to develop as a fairly paranoid anti-Warsaw writer. It bothered her because Peter was the one who knew how to exploit fear in his writing -- she had to keep coming to him for ideas on how to do it. Meanwhile, his Locke followed her moderate, empathic strategies. It made sense, in a way. By having her write Demosthenes, it meant he also had some empathy, just as Locke also could play on others fears. But the main effect was to keep her inextricably tied to Peter. She couldn't go off and use Demosthenes for her own purposes. She wouldn't know how to use him. Still, it worked both ways. He couldn't write Locke without her. Or could he?
Seriously, what does Val get out of this?
"I thought the idea was to unify the world. If I write this like you say I should, Peter, I'm pretty much calling for war to break up the Warsaw Pact.”
"Not war, just open nets and prohibition of interception. Free flow of information. Compliance with the League rules, for heaven's sake.”
Has Card explained what "the League" is yet? Should I just assume it's the succesor to the United Nations? Because calling something "a League of Nations" is kind of setting yourself up to fail.
Without meaning to, Valentine started talking in Demosthenes' voice, even though she certainly wasn't speaking Demosthenes' opinions. Everyone knows that from the beginning the Warsaw Pact was to be regarded as a single entity where those rules were concerned. International free flow is still open. But between the Warsaw Pact nations these things are internal matters. That was why they were willing to allow American hegemony in the League.”
"You're arguing Locke's part, Val. Trust me. You have to call for the Warsaw Pact to lose official status. You have to get a lot of people really angry. Then, later, when you begin to recognize the need for compromise--”
I spent many minutes trying to come up with something insightful to say, but then I realised I do not care whatsover. I'm sure this is dumb, but I cannot be fucked to figure out how. It's kind of a major misstep to try and make me care about the politics of such a thinly sketched world this far into the book. So far,
Ender's Game has been laser focused on Ender learning how to command a fleet of starships against alien bugs by playing laser-tag. I'm not sure
how that's meant to work, but that's been the plot.
"Then they stop listening to me and go off and fight a war.”
"Val, trust me. I know what I'm doing.”
"How do you know? You're not any smarter than me, and you've never done this before either.”
"I'm thirteen and you're ten.”
"Almost eleven.”
"And I know how these things work.”
"Turns out squirrels scream in political theory when you skin them alive!"
"All right, I'll do it your way. But I won't do any of these liberty or death things.”
"You will too.”
"And someday when they catch us and they wonder why your sister was such a warmonger. I can just bet you'll tell them that you told me to do it.”
"Are you sure you're not having a period, little woman?”
"I hate you, Peter Wiggin.”
"But I'll still ghostwrite half of your Kampf for you and not even try to insert my own perspective. For reasons."
What bothered Valentine most was when her column got reblogged syndicated into several other regional newsnets, and Father started reading it and quoting from it at table.
Okay, that misprint is just
weird.
"Finally, a man with some sense," he said. Then he quoted some of the passages Valentine hated worst in her own work. "It's fine to work with these hegemonist Russians with the buggers out there, but after we win, I can't see leaving half the civilized world as virtual helots, can you, dear?”
"Anyway, the government says we don't have to fuck to produce another super-soldier for them, so that's nice."
"So you don't like lying to Father." he said. "So what? You're not lying to him. He doesn't think that you're really Demosthenes, and Demosthenes isn't saying things you really believe. They cancel each other out, they amount to nothing.”
"That's the kind of reasoning that makes Locke such an ass."
"That and his thing about land value tax."
But what really bothered her was not that she was lying to Father -- it was the fact that Father actually agreed with Demosthenes. She had thought that only fools would follow him.
A few days later Locke got picked up for a column in a New England newsnet, specifically to provide a contrasting view for their popular column from Demosthenes. "Not bad for two kids who've only got about eight pubic hairs between them," Peter said.
All of which were purchased from a ginger teenager, I'm sure.
"It's a long way between writing a newsnet column and ruling the world," Valentine reminded him. "It's such a long way that no one has ever done it.”
As soon as Jesse Singal to the 10th Power took the throne of skulls, his first dread decree was a compassionate but sober look at the evidence for child medical transition.
"They have, though. Or the moral equivalent. I'm going to say snide things about Demosthenes in my first column.”
I feel like Card remembered the part where Hitler wrote
Mein Kampf, but not the part where he was involved in violent street politics.
"Well, Demosthenes isn't even going to notice that Locke exists. Ever.”
"For now.”
"Then we start a podcast about silly internet news."
With their identities now fully supported by their income from writing columns, they used Father's access now only for the throwaway identities. Mother commented that they were spending too much time on the nets. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," she reminded Peter.
Peter let his hand tremble a little, and he said, "If you think I should stop, I think I might be able to keep things under control this time. I really do.”
"No, no," Mother said. "I don't want you to stop. Just be careful, that's all.”
"I'm careful, Mom.”
Peter then immediately got himself a pair of programmer socks.
