Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
"Ringworld" and "The Ringworld Engineers" are science fiction novels set in Larry Niven's expansive future history known as Known Space. The narrative unfolds in a universe populated by various sentient alien species, including the aggressive kzinti and the cautious, two-headed puppeteers. The central plot follows a group of explorers led by a puppeteer named Nessus, who investigates a massive, artificial structure called the Ringworld, which boasts an area equivalent to three million Earths. The team faces numerous challenges, including a crash landing that forces them to navigate the vast and complex environment of the Ringworld, where they discover its inhabitants are descendants of humans, manipulated by the puppeteers throughout history.
In "The Ringworld Engineers," two members of the original exploration team return to the Ringworld to confront new dangers and ecological challenges, as the Ringworld is threatened by cosmic events. The story delves into themes of sacrifice and morality, particularly highlighted by the transformation of Teela Brown into a Pak protector, who must grapple with the consequences of her powers. The narrative intertwines thrilling adventures, rich character development, and profound ethical dilemmas, inviting readers to ponder the implications of advanced technologies and the responsibilities of those who wield them.
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Subject Terms
Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers
First published:Ringworld (1970) and The Ringworld Engineers (1979)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—future history
Time of work: 2850 and 2873
Locale: Earth and the Ringworld
The Plot
The Ringworld novels take place in Larry Niven’s own particular future history, Known Space. Like Isaac Asimov’s and Robert Heinlein’s future histories, it has been charted and time-lined, but unlike theirs, it includes a variety of sentient alien species and several million years of prehistory. According to this schema, humanity arose not simply because of evolution on Earth but also because the attempt of a race known as the Pak to establish a colony on Earth went awry. Human beings are the mutated remnants of the Pak breeder stage, which could not metamorphose into the protector stage because the necessary catalytic plant could not be grown on Earth.
At the time of the novels, the two most important alien races are the kzinti, a fierce race of large felinelike carnivores whom humans have beaten in a series of savage wars, and the puppeteers, so called because of their two heads, which resemble human hand puppets. The character of the puppeteers is the exact opposite of that of the kzinti: They are diffident herbivores who would rather flee than fight. The puppeteers, however, disappeared from Known Space some two hundred years before the novels open, because they discovered that the core of the Milky Way is exploding. Even though a deadly wave of radiation from it will reach Known Space in the distant future, the puppeteers are moving their entire race now.
In their migrations, they have discovered the Ringworld, an artificial ring of matter forming a band around its sun, at roughly Earth’s distance from Sol. Its land area is that of three million Earths. Because the civilization that built such an artifact must be immeasurably powerful, the puppeteers organize an expedition to examine the Ringworld more closely. The team consists of the puppeteer Nessus, who is considered insane by puppeteer standards because he is willing to take risks; Louis Wu, a two-hundred-year-old human who is known for his habit of taking solitary journeys to escape from any kind of company; Speaker-to-Animals, a kzinti junior diplomat trained to deal with other species without reflexively killing them; and Teela Brown, a human whose ancestry involves several generations of winning the Birthright lotteries and who is thus considered by the puppeteers to be lucky by reason of genetics.
Forced to crash land when their ship’s slower-than-light engines are destroyed by the Ringworld’s meteor defenses, the team must figure out a way to leave the Ringworld without the use of conventional means of propulsion. During their journey across an infinitely small portion of the Ringworld’s surface, which nevertheless seems impressively large to them, they discover that the Ringworld’s main sentient inhabitants are all descended from human beings. More important, they learn that the puppeteers have manipulated both human and kzinti history for their own ends. Most of the once-advanced civilization of the Ringworld has reverted to savagery because of a biological plague that destroyed its superconducting material. With the help of a native spacewoman, the team is able to escape from the Ringworld, but Teela Brown remains, because apparently she is destined to live there.
In The Ringworld Engineers, two members of the former team, Louis Wu and Speaker (now named Chmee), return to the Ringworld after being kidnapped by the deposed leader of the puppeteers, the Hindmost, who hopes to discover on the Ringworld a transmutation device, the secret of which will restore him to his former rank. During this journey, the team meets a much greater variety of Ringworld inhabitants, ranging from giant grass eaters to nocturnal vampires. Each hominid group has evolved to occupy an ecological niche occupied by animals on Earth. The team also learns that the Ringworld will soon be destroyed because its orbit has been shifted by solar flares.
Wu is determined to save the Ringworld. He learns that the Ringworld was constructed by Pak protectors, all of whom died a quarter of a million years ago. One human, however, has been transformed into the protector stage since then—the former Teela Brown. She cannot save the Ringworld because doing so would mean the death of 5 percent of the Ringworld’s population, one and one-half trillion lives that, as a protector, she instinctively must protect. Wu and the others manage to save the planet, but at a terrible cost.