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| '''''Ringworld''''' is the title of a ] novel by ] |
'''''Ringworld''''' is the title of a ] novel by ], set in his ] universe. The work is widely considered one of the classics of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and it ties in to numerous other books in the Known Space universe. | ||
| ==The story== | ==The story== | ||
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| {{spoiler}} | {{spoiler}} | ||
| In the year 2850, four explorers (two humans and two ]s) are chosen to explore a mysterious "ringworld", an enormous artificial ring-shaped structure that surrounds a ]. It is set in an extremely technologically advanced universe, where instant transportation and indestructable spacecraft hulls are a reality. | |||
| The work is widely considered one of the classics of the science fiction literature. It stands out for its vividly drawn characters. The protagonist ] is very old (but physically perfectly preserved), bored with life, and consequently ready for adventure. ] is a ] (a ferocious predator species), and his persona seems to be modeled on a Japanese ] warrior. | |||
| The protagonist ] is a retired adventurer who has just celebrated his 200th birthday. Despite his age, he is in near peak physical condition due to advanced medical technology. His spends his time hopping from party to party across Earth, but secretly he has become bored with his lifestyle. | |||
| ], a ], belongs to a more advanced species whose most notable trait is cowardice. Nessus has been sent to Earth to gather a small team to explore the Ringworld, the existance of which is unknown to most of the species in Known Space. Pierson's Puppeteer's have a reputation as manipulators who use other species for jobs that might involve any risk. | |||
| ] is a lion-shaped ], a ferocious predator species which has unsuccessfully warred with humans in the distant past. He is recruited to as the mission's security chief. His persona seems to be modeled on a Japanese ] warrior. | |||
| :''Speaker-To-Animals said one thing more before he turned back to his table. "Louis Wu, I found your challenge verbose. In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap." | :''Speaker-To-Animals said one thing more before he turned back to his table. "Louis Wu, I found your challenge verbose. In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap." | ||
| Finally, ] is a young human female whose role in the mission is not immediately clear. But Nessus doesn't do anything without a reason, and her usefulness becomes clear as the plot unfolds. | |||
| :''"You scream and you leap," said Louis. "Great."'' | |||
| When their ship crash lands on the Ringworld, the adventurers must set out to find a way to get back into space. They cross vast distances, witness strangely evolved ecosystems, and interact with some of the Ringworld's varied primitive civilizations. They attempt to discover what caused the Ringworld's inhabitants to lose their technology, and puzzle over who created the Ringworld and why. | |||
| ], a ], belongs to a species whose most notable trait is cowardice; it only emerges slowly that Nessus and his conspecifics are largely in control of the action. ] is introduced as a female "airhead" character, but turns out to be rather more interesting as the plot proceeds. | |||
| ==Concepts== | |||
| Niven offers a number of entertaining conceits, including | Niven offers a number of entertaining conceits, including: | ||
| * the Puppeteer's General Products hulls, which are impervious to nearly anything except light and simply cannot be destroyed. | |||
| ⚫ | *the idea that luck can be favored by ] | ||
| * the Slaver ], which causes time in an area to stand still; since time is nearly stopped, no harm can come to objects in stasis. | |||
| ⚫ | *the ], a device that induces a state of extreme pleasure in the brain at the push of a button | ||
| ⚫ | * the idea that luck is a ] trait that can be favored by ]. | ||
| ⚫ | *], sex between closely related species; common on the Ringworld, where humanity has ] |
||
| ⚫ | * the ], a device that induces a state of extreme pleasure in the brain at the push of a button; it is used as a non-harmful method of debilitating its target. | ||
| ⚫ | *a non-fatal beheading | ||
| ⚫ | * ], sex between closely related species; common on the Ringworld, where humanity has ]. | ||
| ⚫ | * a non-fatal beheading. | ||
| Niven includes a number of species and concepts from his other Known Space stories, including the Kzin and ]s. | |||
| The novel is also a send-up of ] ]; the inhabitants of the Ringworld have lost their technological prowess and now attribute the phenomena of their world to divine power. The four explorers thus encounter priests, crowd scenes, fanaticism, and so on. | The novel is also a send-up of ] ]; the inhabitants of the Ringworld have lost their technological prowess and now attribute the phenomena of their world to divine power. The four explorers thus encounter priests, crowd scenes, fanaticism, and so on. | ||
| However, it is the very idea of a Ringworld that seems to have most attracted readers' admiration. | However, it is the very idea of a Ringworld that seems to have most attracted readers' admiration. Niven fills the reader with a sense of awe and wonderment by describing the unimaginably large scale of the Ringworld. Even visualizing what such a massive structure would look like when viewed from its surface is a difficult, yet rewarding, excercise. | ||
| ==Ringworld engineering== | ==Ringworld engineering== | ||
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| Tsunami Games released two ]s based on Ringworld, "Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch" in 1992 and "Return to Ringworld" in 1994. | Tsunami Games released two ]s based on Ringworld, "Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch" in 1992 and "Return to Ringworld" in 1994. | ||
| The ] is reported to be developing a Ringworld miniseries . There have also been reports of a movie in the early planning stages, with rumors circulating that ] might direct . | |||
| The plot of the ] '']'' for the ] ] also takes place on a ringworld, though with no reference to the Niven novel - given its dimensions (some 50,000 miles across) it is more like Banks' Culture Orbitals than Niven's behemoth. | The plot of the ] '']'' for the ] ] also takes place on a ringworld, though with no reference to the Niven novel - given its dimensions (some 50,000 miles across) it is more like Banks' Culture Orbitals than Niven's behemoth. | ||
Revision as of 18:13, 20 July 2004
Ringworld is the title of a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. The work is widely considered one of the classics of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and it ties in to numerous other books in the Known Space universe.
The story
In the year 2850, four explorers (two humans and two aliens) are chosen to explore a mysterious "ringworld", an enormous artificial ring-shaped structure that surrounds a star. It is set in an extremely technologically advanced universe, where instant transportation and indestructable spacecraft hulls are a reality.
The protagonist Louis Wu is a retired adventurer who has just celebrated his 200th birthday. Despite his age, he is in near peak physical condition due to advanced medical technology. His spends his time hopping from party to party across Earth, but secretly he has become bored with his lifestyle.
Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, belongs to a more advanced species whose most notable trait is cowardice. Nessus has been sent to Earth to gather a small team to explore the Ringworld, the existance of which is unknown to most of the species in Known Space. Pierson's Puppeteer's have a reputation as manipulators who use other species for jobs that might involve any risk.
Speaker-To-Animals is a lion-shaped Kzin, a ferocious predator species which has unsuccessfully warred with humans in the distant past. He is recruited to as the mission's security chief. His persona seems to be modeled on a Japanese samurai warrior.
- Speaker-To-Animals said one thing more before he turned back to his table. "Louis Wu, I found your challenge verbose. In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap."
Finally, Teela Brown is a young human female whose role in the mission is not immediately clear. But Nessus doesn't do anything without a reason, and her usefulness becomes clear as the plot unfolds.
When their ship crash lands on the Ringworld, the adventurers must set out to find a way to get back into space. They cross vast distances, witness strangely evolved ecosystems, and interact with some of the Ringworld's varied primitive civilizations. They attempt to discover what caused the Ringworld's inhabitants to lose their technology, and puzzle over who created the Ringworld and why.
Concepts
Niven offers a number of entertaining conceits, including:
- the Puppeteer's General Products hulls, which are impervious to nearly anything except light and simply cannot be destroyed.
- the Slaver stasis field, which causes time in an area to stand still; since time is nearly stopped, no harm can come to objects in stasis.
- the idea that luck is a genetic trait that can be favored by selective breeding.
- the tasp, a device that induces a state of extreme pleasure in the brain at the push of a button; it is used as a non-harmful method of debilitating its target.
- rishathra, sex between closely related species; common on the Ringworld, where humanity has speciated.
- a non-fatal beheading.
Niven includes a number of species and concepts from his other Known Space stories, including the Kzin and Pak Protectors.
The novel is also a send-up of fundamentalist religion; the inhabitants of the Ringworld have lost their technological prowess and now attribute the phenomena of their world to divine power. The four explorers thus encounter priests, crowd scenes, fanaticism, and so on.
However, it is the very idea of a Ringworld that seems to have most attracted readers' admiration. Niven fills the reader with a sense of awe and wonderment by describing the unimaginably large scale of the Ringworld. Even visualizing what such a massive structure would look like when viewed from its surface is a difficult, yet rewarding, excercise.
Ringworld engineering
The "Ringworld" is an artificial ring about a million miles wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles in circumference), centered about a star, and rotating to provide an Earthlike artificial gravity, with a habitable flat inner surface equivalent in area to approximately three million Earth-sized planets. Walls 1000 miles tall along the edges keep in the atmosphere. The Ringworld could be regarded as a thin slice of a Dyson sphere, with which it shares a number of characteristics. Niven himself thinks of the ringworld as "an intermediate step between Dyson spheres and planets."
"Ringworld" has become a generic term for such a structure, which is an exemplar of what science fiction fans call a "Big Dumb Object". Other science fiction authors have devised their own variants of Niven's Ringworld, notably Iain M. Banks' Culture Orbitals, best described as miniature Ringworlds.
The construction of a ringworld remains firmly in the area of science fictional speculation, since although if such a structure was built, it could indeed provide a huge habitable inner surface, the energy required to construct and set it rotating is so massive (several centuries' worth of the total energy output from the Sun) that without as-yet unimagined energy sources becoming available, it is hard to see how this construction could ever be possible. Furthermore, the tensile strength of the material required would be on the same order as the strong nuclear force; nothing even remotely strong enough is known to exist in nature. In Niven's Ringworld novels, the material — which he calls scrith — is said to have been artificially produced through the transmutation of matter into the required substance. Quite how this was achieved is (probably wisely) never clearly explained, leaving scrith firmly in the category of unobtainium.
Additionally, a ringworld design requires active stabilization, because it is not in inertial orbit. Though the ring itself is rotating at 1200 km/s (to approximate Earth gravity), the center of mass does not move at all. Large thrusters must be incorporated into the design to keep it centered about its star. This point gave Niven some difficulty after he published his first Ringworld novel; he was deluged with letters pointing out that "the Ringworld isn't stable" and dedicated the first sequel to a resolution of this problem.
To provide an approximation of the day/night cycle common to planets, Niven's Ringworld was also provided with a separate ring of "shadow squares" linked together (by "shadow square wires") in a ring close to the star. These absorb a huge amount of sunlight energy, which is beamed to the Ringworld as its primary source of power. They are also not in inertial orbit, and must be actively stabilized as well.
Sequels and adaptations
The novel Ringworld has been followed by two sequels, The Ringworld Engineers and The Ringworld Throne. A fourth book, Ringworld's Children appeared in the USA in June 2004.
In the 1980s a role-playing game based on this setting was produced by Chaosium named RingworldRPG.
Tsunami Games released two adventure games based on Ringworld, "Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch" in 1992 and "Return to Ringworld" in 1994.
The Sci Fi Channel is reported to be developing a Ringworld miniseries . There have also been reports of a movie in the early planning stages, with rumors circulating that James Cameron might direct .
The plot of the first-person shooter Halo for the Microsoft Xbox also takes place on a ringworld, though with no reference to the Niven novel - given its dimensions (some 50,000 miles across) it is more like Banks' Culture Orbitals than Niven's behemoth.