okie@ihuxi.UUCP (Cobb) (08/08/85)
> From: Dave Godwin <godwin@uci-icse> > > 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 I remember correctly, the Ringworld would graze the sun if it's spin wasn't corrected. That meant the destruction of the Ringworld. And as Ringworld was Teela's home now, she couldn't see that destruction -- and by her own inbred logic, she could not kill her "children" to save them. > 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. Another point to note is that Brennan says they caught some of the protectors trying to save their children from the effects of tree-of-life. I guess the implication here is that eventually, every one of the colonists on Home was either dead or a protector. > 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. The only mention of Home anywhere else in Niven's Known Space series is in the timeline at the beginning of the "Tales of Known Space" collection. It says the colony failed. Hmmm... perhaps it was a result of there not being any way to "rescue" a failed colony (slowboats, you know). When Home and Earth lost contact, they couldn't realistically send anyone to investigate/save the situation. In fact, it's possible that Home was then "interdicted" by the rest of the worlds -- after all, whatever destroyed the colony may get whoever comes to check it out. Eventually, the memory of Home faded from the minds of Earth's billions, to the point that even in Louis Wu's time it is not really remembered. As to the protectors on Home, they may all be gone -- either destroyed in the final battle with the Pak or on the way back to the Pak homeworld to finish off the race (remember, Pak think big). The tree-of-life virus may not have survived on Home after the protectors left; it needed thalium oxide to survive, something not common in the "empty" arms of the galaxy. And it's possible that while Brennan had developed a varient that could live in a human being, it could not survive in any other environment. So Home could be free of tree-of-life.. Sounds like some good fodder for more stories. Perhaps the rediscovery of Home (call it "You Can't Go Home Again"), complete with tree-of-life... or the beginning of a trail to the last protectors (other than those on the Ringworld)... One last thought -- Niven may not have been able to work out a universe containing large of amounts of Pak *and* puppeteers, so he let the Pak (again, except for those on the Ringworld) become a mystery. Maybe the puppeteers will meet the Pak on their migration... B.K.Cobb ihnp4!ihuxi!okie "Louis. Don't you know me?"