League War
The League War is the brief but devastating conflict that erupts on Eros immediately after the Third Invasion, as the Warsaw Pact and the Hegemony turn on each other following the buggers' destruction. It is the final, ironic coda to humanity's victory, revealing that the unity forged against the alien enemy dissolves within hours, and it forces Ender Wiggin into a state of withdrawal from which he only begins to emerge when his friends find him.
Causes and Background
The League War was not a sudden accident but the predictable collapse of the fragile alliance that had held humanity together during the Bugger Wars. As Colonel Graff later explained to Ender, the war was rooted in the same fear that had justified the training of child commanders: "if one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end." The moment the bugger threat was eliminated, the ideological and nationalistic tensions that had been suppressed for decades resurfaced. The Warsaw Pact, which had chafed under American hegemony in the League, saw the post-war power vacuum as an opportunity. The Hegemon and the Strategos, meanwhile, were determined to maintain control. The conflict was also fueled by the propaganda that had dehumanized the buggers, as Ender had noted in his own analysis of the war videos: the enemy was always portrayed as "ugly and murderous and loathsome," making it easy to transfer that hatred to a human rival. The war was thus a direct consequence of the same "us versus them" mentality that had justified the extermination of the buggers, now turned inward.
What Happens
The League War broke out on Eros, the asteroid that housed I.F. Command, within days of the final battle. Ender, having just learned that he had unknowingly commanded the real Third Invasion and destroyed the bugger homeworld, was in a state of profound shock and exhaustion. He slept for what seemed like an eternity, and when he awoke, he found himself in the midst of a new war. The thump of explosions echoed through the corridors, and the section where he lay was blacked out to keep him safe. The fighting was between the Warsaw Pact marines, who had been stationed on Eros, and the forces loyal to the Hegemon and the Strategos. The Polemarch, who was Russian, had ordered his troops to find and kill Ender, but many of the Russian soldiers refused, having watched the videos of Ender's battles and come to love him. The war was chaotic and bloody, with about five hundred people dying on Eros alone, and it was worse on Earth, where the Hegemon resigned and the world descended into a frenzy of recrimination and power-grabbing.
Consequences and Aftermath
The League War ended with a truce on Earth, negotiated over several days, which resulted in the acceptance of the Locke Proposal. This proposal, named after the pseudonym of Ender's brother Peter Wiggin, kept the International Fleet in existence but expelled the Warsaw Pact from it. The Warsaw Pact marines were sent home, and the immediate crisis on Eros subsided. However, the war had profound consequences for Ender. He had been awarded the rank of admiral and was hailed as a hero, but he was also a target. The war convinced the powers that be that Ender was too dangerous to be allowed to return to Earth, where he could be used by any faction to legitimize its ambitions. As Graff later explained, "In all the world, the name of Ender is one to conjure with. The child-god, the miracle worker, with life and death in his hands." So Ender was kept on Eros, isolated and under guard, while the world he had saved turned its attention to the next conflict. The League War also marked the beginning of Ender's withdrawal from the world. He had already been shattered by the revelation that he had committed genocide, and the war only deepened his despair. He spent the next year in a kind of limbo, waiting for the world to decide his fate, and it was only when Valentine came to him with an offer to leave for the colony that he found a way out. The League War thus served as the final proof that the human race was not ready for peace, and it set the stage for Ender's eventual departure from Earth, carrying with him the cocoon of the hive-queen and the burden of his crimes.
