Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!MICHAEL%MAINE.BITNET 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 Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 54 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