JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (08/14/85)
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.
Cate3.SV@Xerox.ARPA (08/19/85)
From: Cate3.SV@Xerox.ARPA
As I remember the story, (and this may be faulty) the Home
Protectors were going off to fight the Pak, at the speed of light. At
that time the Puppeteer's had not sold the secret of going faster than
the speed of light yet. So the Home Protectors spent two hundred years
traveling to fight the Pak, hopefully beat the Pak, and then another two
hundred years to come back. This would explain the lack of interaction
between the Home Protectors and the human race.
Maybe the next story will be about how thousands of Home Protectors
deal with the human race?
Henry IIIpeter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/21/85)
> From: Cate3.SV@Xerox.ARPA > > As I remember the story, (and this may be faulty) the Home > Protectors were going off to fight the Pak, at the speed of light. At ...at nearly the speed of light... > that time the Puppeteer's had not sold the secret of going faster than > the speed of light yet. So the Home Protectors spent two hundred years > traveling to fight the Pak, hopefully beat the Pak, and then another two ...slightly less than 200 years because the Pak were cming towards them as well... > hundred years to come back. This would explain the lack of interaction > between the Home Protectors and the human race. They would have come back before Ringworld. I don't have all the dates here, but when Truesdale left Home there hadn't been any contact with the Kzin. The man-kzin wars took easily a couple hundred years (thanks to time dilation), before the Puppeteers sold the Hyperdrive to Homo Sap... quite a while later Bey Schaeffer was born (there were multiple centenarians who had been in the wars)... Bey Schaeffer had been around for a while when Louis Wu was born (he was his foster-father, see "Borderlands of Sol"), and Louis was 200 years old at the time of Ringworld. This comes to well over 400 years after Protector. > Maybe the next story will be about how thousands of Home Protectors > deal with the human race? > > Henry III Known Space was pretty big by this time. Maybe the next story will be what happens when the results of the pak/human fight are discovered? -- Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (08/30/85)
In article <494@baylor.UUCP> peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >> From: Cate3.SV@Xerox.ARPA >> >> As I remember the story, (and this may be faulty) the Home >> Protectors were going off to fight the Pak, at the speed of light. At > >...at nearly the speed of light... > >> that time the Puppeteer's had not sold the secret of going faster than >> the speed of light yet. So the Home Protectors spent two hundred years >> traveling to fight the Pak, hopefully beat the Pak, and then another two > >...slightly less than 200 years because the Pak were cming towards them >as well... > >> hundred years to come back. This would explain the lack of interaction >> between the Home Protectors and the human race. > >for a while when Louis Wu was born (he was his foster-father, see "Borderlands >of Sol"), and Louis was 200 years old at the time of Ringworld. This comes >to well over 400 years after Protector. > Well, this all also forgets the fact that Protectors are a *methodical* bunch. They would almost certainly make utterly certain that there are no more Pak waves comming in. This would require quite a lot of time since they would have to go quite far towards the Pak planet to find out. Besides, I decided the obvious way of deciding this question was to ask Larry Niven himself, after all he is the one who wrote the story. I didn't have a chance to get much detail, but he said that the Home Protectors are still out there, every one of them. So for whatever reason they *haven't* gotten back yet. >> Maybe the next story will be about how thousands of Home Protectors >> deal with the human race? Well, bad news, Larry Niven has said he is through with the Known Space series, since it is too big to be maintained consistantly anymore. So there won't *be* a "next story". -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa