Pequeninos

The Pequeninos (Portuguese for "little ones"), or piggies, are a fictional alien species in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card. Forest-dwelling, small and technologically primitive, they were discovered by human colonists on the planet of Lusitania and given the name "piggies" because of their generally pig-like appearance.

Pequeninos first appeared (and played the most important role) in Speaker for the Dead, the second book of the series.

Biology

The pequeninos exhibit an extreme case of sexual dimorphism, combined with the unique plant/animal symbiosis that characterizes all life in their native planet of Lusitania. Taking this symbiosis to the extreme, pequeninos are unique in that they metamorphize from animal to plant.

Fertile females of the species are impregnated while still in non-sentient worm-like infant form from the fathertrees that form the third stage in the development of Pequenino males. Typically called little mothers, they do not survive labour as they have no birth canal — embryo pequeninos have to eat their way out of their infant mothers.

This birth takes place within the birthing place or else the mother-tree of the pequenino tribe. Following birth, there follows what pequeninos call their "first life" or "life of darkness", their life as infants and children which they spend still within the mothertree. Most female children will not pass this stage of development, dying as they deliver the new generation of pequeninos, though a few of them, those either sterile or deliberately selected for the role will grow up to full stature in order to become wives, the matriarchs of the tribe.

Male children will eventually grow up to their "second life" or "half-lit life", leaving the mothertree. In this time the male pequeninos, calling themselves now "brothers", try to distinguish themselves, hunting and foraging, and very often waging war against other tribes. Also they carry the infant mothers to and from the fathertrees. It is in this stage that pequeninos have the most humanoid appearance, and the most comprehensible, and communicatable, type of existence for humans.

In this stage male pequeninos don't have reproductive capabilities. This only happens in their "third life" or "life in the full light", which is a privilege selected only for those pequeninos that have distinguished themselves, either in combat or otherwise — a decision usually made by the matriarchic wives. Male pequeninos that are given this honour, are seemingly ritually killed by a fellow tribe member, but in reality the methodical cuts and removal of certain organs that they undergo helps them transform into "fathertrees" that grow out of their seeming corpses.

These fathertrees, or simply fathers, look completely like trees in appearance, but nonetheless the pequeninos can still communicate with them using the "father-tongue"; and the trees can also communicate with each other. Communication from father tree to brothers requires the brother to tap the father with sticks, allowing to father to adjust cavity sizes inside his trunk to vary the sound. With the sap on their barks, they fertilize the infant mothers carried to them by the "brothers".

If a pequenino dies without the proper rituals, he will become a brothertree, a tree that does not retain its sentience as the fathertrees do. It is from these trees that the pequeninos take their wood, by speaking to them in the "fathertongue" and singing them into the wooden tools they need.

History

The pequeninos were discovered on the planet Lusitania in the year 1886 after the formation of the human ruling body Starways Congress (Around 2,100 years after Ender's Xenocide, i.e around 4,300 AD) by a group of human colonists, Roman Catholic in religion, Portuguese in language, and Brazilian in culture.

This was only the second contact between humans and intelligent alien life, the Formics being the first, and Starways Congress decided to impose strict limitations on any kind of contact between pequeninos and humans — if any mistake were to occur it would be on the side of too little association, not too much.

Since preventing the piggies from knowing of the humans' existence itself was already impossible, other limits were imposed: the small colony itself, Milagre, Portuguese for "Miracle", was entirely surrounded by a high pain-stimulating fence intended to prevent both humans and pequeninos from crossing it. The only ones allowed to pass the fence were the scientist studying the pequeninos and his or her assistant, and they were never allowed to ask questions of the pequeninos, to answer pequenino questions about humans or to bring with them any equipment whatsoever, other than the clothes they wore.

However, all these measures ended up eventually proving a complete failure — partly because the pequeninos were able to chew a certain native pain-suppressing drug in order to cross the fence in secret and observe humans from up close and partly because the human xenologers' own feelings of compassion were making them unable to coldly observe the pequeninos even in times of suffering, without moving to help them. Reluctantly at first and systematically later on, Libo and his assistants taught the pequeninos the use of arrows and other undiscovered tools, the basics of herding and agriculture, and they even modified certain human plants to make them better fit for pequenino consumption. No barrier on cultural contamination lasted either -- Miro and Ouanda ended up offering the pequeninos printouts of The Hive Queen and The Hegemon as well as a copy of the Gospel of John.

Two dark stains in the history of human-pequenino relationship were the brutal killings of the first two xenologers, Pipo Figueira and 17 years later his son Libo Figueira, at the hands of the pequeninos. In both cases each of them had been asked to bring a pequenino, Mandachuva and Leaf-eater respectively, to the "third life" in order to celebrate a recent accomplishment. Not understanding the pequenino transformations, in both times the human xenologers refused, preferring to sacrifice their own lives in the process — the piggies, likewise not understanding that the humans lacked the ability to pass on to a "third life", killed the xenologers thinking they were honouring them. For more details see the section on notable pequeninos.

The history of the pequeninos came to a radical turn with the coming of Ender Wiggin at the planet, who at the time was also seeking a planet suitable to relocate the one surviving Formic Hive Queen. The artificial intelligence Jane travelling with him, wishing to bring matters to a head, revealed to Starways Congress all the violations that the xenologers had committed in order to help the pequeninos: as a result the colony was faced with the prospect of forced removal. In response the human colony was forced to fully rebel against Starways Congress, taking down the fence and signing a treaty with the pequeninos.

That treaty ensured that technological and scientific know-how would no longer be kept secret from the pequeninos who eagerly wished to learn how to reach the stars: all barriers to communication would be broken down. At the same time all pequenino tribes entering that agreement would no longer be allowed to engage into aggressive war against other tribes. Pequenino law would apply within the forest, while human law within the colony and land given to them -- and the bugger queen would likewise be allowed a place on the planet. Lusitania now transformed into the home of three species, the third species would act as arbiter in all disputes between the other two.

This treaty was signed in ink and then sealed by blood as Ender Wiggin helped the pequenino called "Human" to his third life — by the rules of the treaty, the first and last time a human being would so help a pequenino. After this was accomplished, Ender Wiggin wrote the "Life of Human" as the third piece to accompany "The Hive Queen" and "The Hegemon" as the story of the three known intelligent species of the galaxy.

Notable pequeninos

• Rooter: Rooter was the most inquisitive of the Piggies and had a strong relationship with Libo before he was abruptly brought into his third life (as a father-tree), where thanks to human-piggie acculturation, he fathered 320 piggies.

• Mandachuva: The first crisis in human-pequenino relationship occurred with the death of the first xenologer, Pipo Figueira, at the hands of the pequeninos. When the first Xenologer of the colony, Pipo Figueira, just discovered that the Descolada virus, which had almost decimated the human population of Lusitania, was a part of the pequeninos' normal physiology -- he went to share that information with the pequeninos. The pequenino "Mandachuva" brought that news back to the "wives", alongside with the implication of this, namely that the humans were not all powerful and godlike, and that in some respects pequeninos were even more powerful than humans. It was a revelation to be rewarded — but when Pipo was asked to bring Mandachuva to the "third life", Pipo, not understanding the nature of pequenino transformation thought he was being asked to kill Mandachuva, and he refused, preferring to lose his own life in the process. On their side Mandachuva, and the pequeninos in general, thought that they were rewarding Pipo, bringing him on to his third life, not undestanding that no such thing existed for humans.

Mandachuva was finally allowed to pass on to the third life after the tragic misunderstandings were cleared with the coming of Ender Wiggin.

• Leaf-eater: Seventeen years later the new xenologer, and Pipo's son, Libo Figueira, suffered a similar fate. The piggy "Leaf-eater" had convinced the wives to let a very great number of little mothers conceive, and he then convinced Libo to help them out with the famine that they were sure to face. It was an enormous risk because if Libo refused to help that whole generation of pequeninos would perish — but it paid off because the humans did indeed help. After the first amaranth harvest, Libo was, like Pipo before him, asked to bring Leaf-eater to the third life — and again he refused thinking that he was saving Leaf-eater's life. Leaf-eater killed Libo, thinking on his part that he was helping Libo achieve his third life.

Like Mandachuva, Leaf-eater was also finally allowed to pass on to the third life after the tragic misunderstandings were cleared with the coming of Ender Wiggin.

• Human:

See also

• Pequenino is the etymon of the English word pickaninny through pidgin languages.