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From: godwin@uci-icse
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Niven's Protectors
Message-ID: <3147@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 14:49:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3147
Posted: Tue Aug  6 14:49:45 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Aug-85 00:37:29 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Dave Godwin 


	There is one reason I can think of that will explain the differences
in thought pattern between the Protectors of Home and Teela Brown as a 
Protector.  
	If Teela does not use the Star Drive to get the Ring back on axis, 
OK so lots of billions of hominids get toasty all over.  The race as a whole
will continue.
	If the Protectors on Home had not busted out of the hospitals to
make more of their own kind, the Pak would have swept in and destroyed the
entire human race.  The modern Earth-type human is a mutated abomination
in the eyes of a Pak.  Brennan and the rest of the Protectors were doing
their duty as a whole to the human race.

	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 whathappens to Home itself, with all that
Tree-Of-Life virus floating in the atmosphere ?  It bugs me.

			Dave Godwin
			UC Irvine