Ender's Game

At first, I wanted to be like one of the Wiggin children with their superior intelligence at such a young age. They are the poster children for "Knowledge is power". We see Ender as a commander and Peter and Valentine stirring up trouble as Locke and Demosthenes. But thinking over it, it's not like they have superior intelligence and are throwing mud at each other. Peter and Valentine look for challenges (aka world domination through Locke and Demosthenes). Not only have the Wiggin children lost any chance at a normal childhood (especially in Ender's case), the fate of the humanity rests on their shoulders. Intense. Then on top of that Ender has to cope with killing another race. Poor Ender.

Which brings up genocide. It became clear that wiping out the entire race of buggers was genocide, but no human ever said "this might not be right" until Ender had already killed them and was acting as Speaker for the Dead. Humanity's excuse for genocide was self-defense, us or them, the best defense is a good offense attitude. Why rush into exterminating an entire race? Aside from the timing of the ships arriving near the bugger homeworld, could it be related to Ender's age? Would it have been harder to lie to Ender about the simulators if he had been a year or two older? If he had killed the buggers sooner, would it have not affected him as much?