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Is there any reason Jane chose a feminine persona for herself? Did she choose at all?

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3 Answers 3

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Jane answered that when conversing with Milo in "Children of the Mind":

“I’m not as set on using Val’s body as you were to have me do it,” said Jane. “Peter’s will do as well. Even Ender’s, as long as he’s not using it. I’m not actually female. That was merely my choice of identity to get close to Ender. He had problems bonding readily with men. The dilemma I have is that even if Ender would let go of one of these bodies for me to use it, I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know where my aiua is any more than you do. Can you put your aiua where you want it? Where is it now?”

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  • Excellent, thank you. I'll mark this answer as the correct one.
    – liewl
    Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 18:30
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I don't think she chose. In Xenocide,

it's revealed she was created by the Hive Queens connecting to the Fantasy Game at Battle School. So I expect she was born that way. It's possible that when the Hive Queens pulled her aiua in to the universe from Outside, they pulled a lady-aiua, as that's what all the Hive Queens are.

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    Please delete this answer. This is 100% wrong and contradicted by canon (and being highest voted and accepted, totally ruins the point of the site). From CotM: “You boys are so slow,” Jane murmured in his ear. “I’ve been talking to the Hive Queen and Human and trying to figure out how the thing is done—assigning an aiua to a body. The hive queens did it once, in creating me. But they didn’t exactly pick a particular aiua. They took what came. What showed up. I’m a little fussier.” Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 17:20
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Her sex was actually established by Ender in First Meetings, when she offered him the choice of either male or female avatars. As a computer/god, she has no inherent sex. Aiuas also have no inherent sex, just a desire to hold the pattern.

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    "Aiuas also have no inherent sex, just a desire to hold the pattern." - Is there canon evidence of this?
    – Kevin
    Commented Nov 5, 2015 at 23:13

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