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From: JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Fate of the Protectors of Home
Message-ID: <3274@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 09:30:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3274
Posted: Wed Aug 14 09:30:45 1985
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA  (Jim White)


>>  Bigger question, though.  This one has always bothered me about
>>Niven's universe.  What the heck happens to Home after the
>>Protectors left to beat off the Pak ?  Obviously, our guys win,
>>because even by Louis Wu's time, Pak were unknown.  But what
>>happens to Home itself, with all that Tree-Of-Life virus floating
>>in the atmosphere ?  It bugs me.

>My guess would be that the Home Protectors continue to keep the
>human race as a whole as its charge, looking out for us and keeping
>us out of trouble. The Home colony was given as a failure in the
>timeline in "Tales of Known Space", and "Protector" has, at least
>for me, the impression of being a report that was never seen by most
>of humanity - the Protectors probably just kept Home for themselves
>as a base. Keep in mind that Protectors live a LONG time,
>O(10Kyears), so they need not even supplement their numbers very
>often. Maybe the Puppeteer "eugenics" program for Kzinti and humans
>is really the result of the Protectors manipulating the
>Puppeteers... It protects humanity from its most dangerous adversary
>to date, and makes more sense than the Puppeteers just doing it
>because "they like humans" (as stated in "Ringworld Engineers").

Vince's speculation is well thought out, but I believe another scenerio to
be equally likely. Phsssthpok (sp?) was only able to stave off death by
tranferring his protective instincts to the search for the 'lost' colony--
Earth. Otherwise, with no clan to protect, he would die. The Protectors
of Home, I believe, must have overcome tremendous instinctive behavior
patterns in order to be able to work together  to fight off Phssthpok's
followers. I doubt that co-operative effort could have been duplicated by
guiding the human race as benevolent masters.


When provoked the Pak were furious and effective fighters. Had they still
been around in Louis Wu's time and became aware of the Kzinti and the
Puppeteer's, the Protectors of Home would have wiped those races out as
they would pose potential threat to the human species. More likely the
remnants of Home's Protector population, devastated by their battle with
the Pak, returned to Home. Their they either killed each other, after
staking out their own territory, of died of despair, since they didn't
have any 'clan' to protect.