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From: MICHAEL%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Protectors and the Ringworld
Message-ID: <3237@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 21:21:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3237
Posted: Sun Aug 11 21:21:46 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Aug-85 03:49:30 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: MICHAEL%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA  (Michael Johnson)

rlk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU  writes:

> PS Why didn't the library on Pak have any reference to the ringworld
> being built?  It did have the reference to the expedition to Earth,
> which was much smaller.

This has bothered me for some time too. I think this is a slip up in Niven's
chronology. There are a number of things about the Protectors and the Ringworld
that don't seem to fit.

1) The Pak library made no mention (that we have seen) about any expedition
   leaving the Pak homeworld for the general direction of Sol between the
   original that we know about and Pthsspok. By the size of the expedition,
   it certainly SHOULD have gotten some mention. It would have required at
   least as much effort as the original and considerably more than Pthsspok's.
2) The Ringworld was too old to have been built by any Protectors who left
   after Pthsspok.
3) It had to happen after the original Sol expedition because the Protectors of
   the Ringworld had SOLVED the Thalium Oxide problem. Certainly the Protectors
   who reached Earth would not have failed to research and find this bit of
   (decidedly vital) information if it existed.
4) Certainly if this expedition had occured Pthsspok would have found some
   mention of it. Obviously he did not, or he would not have had to solve the
   Thalium Oxide problem again.

It seems to me that by all rights the Ringworld should not exist. There are
two logical possibilities that come to mind that excuse this existance.

1) The Ringworld was built by a SECRET expedition from the Pak homeworld. How
   something like such an expedition could be kept secret, considering the
   intelligence (read 'spy') efforts of the rival Protector factions would
   have tried to find them out, fails to come to mind.
2) The Ringworld was built by an expedition that left Pak in a different
   direction and later sent a secondary expedition in the direction of Sol.
   This would have to have occured before the Sol expedition, else Pthsspok
   would have found the records of their having solved the Thalium Oxide
   problem (you can bet he looked). It is possible that records before the
   Sol expedition could have been lost, but highly unlikely that records of
   an expedition after the Sol one would have been lost without also losing the
   the Sol records. The original expedition must have been in pretty good shape
   to send out a party capable of building the Ringworld. With only slower than
   light ships, why bother to send them as far away as they must have? There
   must have been other habitable systems closer to where they were. They
   couldn't have been in the neighborhood of Sol originally because they would
   surely have left other artifacts around. We are talking a LARGE neighborhood
   here, since the Puppeteers conducted commerce in a VERY large region of
   space. If they had evidence of other Pak civilizations in the area, there
   probably would have been some mention of the fact.

                               TANJ

                                    Mike Johnson