Concepts in The Ender's Game Series - Outside

Outside is a conceptual space outside of the fictional "universe" used in the Ender Quartet. It is a space with no reference points and thus no distance, composed of an infinite number of disorganized philotes, each willing to follow any pattern it can.

The primary function of "Outside," as it often referred to in the books, is faster-than-light travel. This type of travel works on the principle that from the Outside, the lack of defined space makes the "Inside" universe a point no larger or smaller than any philote nearby. Thus, anyone Outside could reenter the universe at any point and any speed. However, to do so, the person would have to be able to hold the pattern of themselves and anything else taken along on the journey Outside in their mind. This is something only the computer entity Jane has ever been capable of, therefore she is the only one capable of taking "anything more complex than a rubber ball" Outside and back Inside again, as stated in Children of the Mind.

Another use of Outside as shown in Xenocide is to create objects. As stated above, all the philotes Outside are perfectly willing (and, in fact, trying) to get into some organized pattern. Both conscious and unconscious thoughts create patterns that the philotes bend to. Through this process, Ender's stepdaughter Ela consciously created the "Recolada," a replacement for the Descolada virus that would both allow the Pequeninos to transform into adults and no longer harm the Formics or Humans. Ender himself created copies of Peter Wiggin and Valentine Wiggin as he best remembered them in his subconscious and his disabled stepson Miro created a new body that showed his opinion of himself to others.