Most connoisseurs of Science Fiction would agree: Orson Scott Card is a master of his art (even though some if his short stories are a big heap of WTF[1]). The Ender's Game series[2] is a comprehensive and quite realistic depiction of what the future might hold for us, and what a contact with an uncomprehensible alien race could be like.

Criticism

But the sequels weren't uniformly well received. Especially the Shadow series has been criticized again and again, mostly not for its writing, but for its (admittedly sometimes complex) plot:

War and strategies seem too much like a game of Risk. Ancient enemies, which hate each other on a religious basis (the most difficult kind of enmity to overcome), sign peace treaties after 10 minutes of negotiations led by a brilliant child.[3]

[T]oo often, events click too conveniently into place in order to get the plot where Card wants it to go. For instance, given their centuries of mutual animosity, it's v-e-r-y hard to believe that even Achilles could be such a winning and charismatic person as to persuade both India and Pakistan to withdraw its armies from one another's borders with a heap of sugar-coated and all too clearly bogus promises — and do so in the space of a single high-level meeting with Pakistan's leader.[4]

But is it really that much of a stretch: Ancient enemies becoming friends, while friends commit treason of the highest order in the realm of politics? Especially when the name of the game is not Risk (that relies only on raw military power), but rather power politics?

Ancient Greece: With Friends Like These...?

Well, what better place to look for a comparison than History? And what better place to start this look than the period of ancient history Card seems most familiar with: The "Classic" era of Athens and Sparta, the 6th through 4th centuries BCE. Where do I get the notion that Card is familiar with this period? Why, from his writings, of course. If you've read Ender's Game, you know the institutions of Hegemon, Strategos and Polemarch, as well as the basic philosophy of the Greek orator and statesman Demosthenes. So do I, because I read up on their real-world counterparts of ancient Greece.


And here's the interesting thing: All these main factions (in Shadow of the Hegemon (SotH): Russia, India, Pakistan, China; in Greece: Athens, Sparta, Persia) and lesser players (SotH: USA, Indonesia, Europe; Greece: Thebes, Corinth, Megara, and plenty of other poleis) are/were bound by a rather complex, and ever-changing system of alliances and treaties (e.g. the Peloponnesian League with its Hegemony Sparta, the Delian League under Athens, the peloponnesian alliance between Corinth, Megara, Argos, Boeotia, Elis, Mantineia (against Sparta) and the Chalkidikians, or the quadrupel alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis and Mantineia).


On a playing board with so many players, and, additionally, even more players within these poleis, a certain amount of trickery, betrayal, infighting, and plain confusion, is to be expected. And, just like in SotH, there were various political actors, both poleis and persons, that, at various times changed their allegiance from this partner to that, and back again. Observe:

During the course of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades changed his political allegiance on several occasions. In his native Athens in the early 410s BC, he advocated an aggressive foreign policy, and was a prominent proponent of the Sicilian Expedition, but fled to Sparta after his political enemies brought charges of sacrilege against him. In Sparta, he served as a strategic adviser, proposing or supervising several major campaigns against Athens. In Sparta too, however, Alcibiades soon made powerful enemies and was forced to defect to Persia. There he served as an adviser to the satrap Tissaphernes until his Athenian political allies brought about his recall. He then served as an Athenian General (Strategos) for several years, but his enemies eventually succeeded in exiling him a second time.[5]

Yes, he went full circle, from Athens, to its arch-enemy Sparta, to their common arch-enemy, Persia, and then back again to Athens. Why? Because the Oligarchs of Athens, Sparta, and Persia saw him as what he was: A powerful man, struggling to become ever more powerful, and thus a threat to their own ambitions.


Alcibiades wasn't a singularity, either. Other examples include Conon, who first fought for the Athenians against Sparta, then, after a crushing defeat, defected to Persia, to continue his fight, and later returned triumphant and bearing Persian riches for the rearmament of Athens; as well as Tissaphernes, a Persian warlord/governor, who tried to play Athens off against Sparta - pretty successfully, it must be said. And this brings us to the poleis themselves: Athens and Sparta, with their opposed alliances, were, at various times (nevertheless in the course of few years), mortal enemies, neutrals, allies against the aforementioned peleponnesian alliance in a defensive pact[6], mortal enemies again, at various times allied with Persia against the other and so on.


So, if all the players are only concerned with power politics, the chance of them changing sides like other people change their pants is not a low as your modern day common sense, what with its 60-year-old NATO, and all that would have you believe.


So criticize Card for his other writing (I mean, The Elephants of Poznan? Seriously, dude, WTF?), or his believes, especially his discrimination against homosexuals (he is a Mormon and, more damning, a member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage).


But don't tell me that turncoats are unrealistic. They have been a part of this reality for thousands of years.

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Footnotes:

[1] Orson Scott Card (2000): The Elephants of Poznan.
[2] Orson Scott Card (1985): Ender's Game. Id. (1986): Speaker for the Dead. Id. (1991): Xenocide. Id. (1996): Children of the Mind. Id. (1999): Ender's Shadow. Id. (2001): Shadow of the Hegemon. Id. (2002): Shadow Puppets. Id. (2002): First Meetings. Id. (2005): Shadow of the Giant. Id. (2007): A War of Gifts: An Ender Story. Id. (2008) Ender in Exile. Id. (forthcoming): Shadows in Flight.
[3] Tal Cohen (2002): Shadow of the Hegemon / Orson Scott Card. Review. http://tal.forum2.org/hegemon
[4] Thomas M. Wagner (2008): Shadow of the Hegemon. Review. http://www.sfreviews.net/osc_shadow_hegemon.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiade
[6] Raimund Schulz (2003): Athen und Sparta, pp.103f. (German)