Editing Speaker for the Dead (section)

== Setting ==
Some years after the eradication of the [[Formics|Formic species]] (in ''Ender's Game''), [[Ender Wiggin]] writes a book called ''The Hive Queen'', describing the life of the [[Formics]] as described to him by the dormant Formic Queen whom he secretly carries. As humanity uses light-speed travel to establish new colonies, Ender and his sister Valentine age slowly through relativistic travel. Ender's older brother, the now-aged [[Hegemon]] of Earth, [[Peter Wiggin]], recognizes Ender's writings in ''The Hive Queen'', and requests Ender write for him once he dies. Ender agrees and authors ''The Hegemon''. These two books, written under the pseudonym "Speaker for the Dead", launch a new spiritual movement of Speakers for the Dead, who have authority to investigate and [[Eulogy|eulogize]] a person and their work after their death. ''The Hive Queen'' also shifts societal opinion about the Formic war, leading humanity to view Ender Wiggin, previously a hero, as responsible for a tragic and cruel xenocide, '[[wikt:xeno-|xeno-]]', meaning alien, and '-cide', referring to the act of killing, together meaning the act of killing populations of [[extraterrestrial life|alien]]s (comparable to [[genocide]]).

Three thousand years after the Formic xenocide, humans have spread across the Hundred Worlds, ruled by Starways Congress. A Brazilian Catholic human colony called Milagre is established on the planet Lusitania (1886 S.C.). The planet is home to a sentient species of symbiotic forest dwellers. The colonists (who primarily speak Portuguese) dub them "Pequeninos" (Little Ones) but they are often referred to as "piggies" due to their porcine snouts. Their society is matriarchal and gender-segregated, and their belief system centers around the trees of the forests. The Pequeninos prove to be of great interest to scientists. Since humans had destroyed the only sentient species they had encountered (the Formics), special care is taken to ensure no similar mistakes are made with the Pequeninos. The human colony is fenced in, strictly regulated to limit contact with the Pequeninos to a handful of scientists, and forbidden to share human technology or culture with them.

Shortly after the colony's founding, many of the colonists die from the ''[[Descoladores|Descolada]]'' virus (Portuguese for "uncoiled"), which alters [[DNA]] and causes terrible pain, rampant cancerous growth of fungus and even extra limbs, decay of healthy tissue, and death. The xenobiologists Gusto and Cida von Hesse manage to create a treatment for the virus before succumbing to it themselves (1936 S.C.), leaving behind their young daughter Novinha.