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From: rlk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Protectors
Message-ID: <3452@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 13:04:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3452
Posted: Wed Aug 28 13:04:13 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 01:20:50 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: rlk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU

OK, let's go for bizarre theories...

1)  Teela knew that there were more human protectors around.  Why?
She knew about Pthsspok, and could deduce what Brennan would do.

2)  The human protectors found the hyperspace drive (maybe even the
Mark 2).  Remember, they are much more intelligent than the Pak
protectors.  With this, and their patience, they certainly found the
ringworld.

3)  The human protectors decided that the best interests of the human
race would NOT be served by eliminating all possible danger.  Rather,
they decided that possible threats (puppeteers, kzinti, etc.) would
challenge the human race, but not cause any damage.  Remember that
Brennan did not want the human race to have access to tree-of-life
because it would cause internecine warfare?  What better way to make a
better human race than to unify it with the threat of Kzin, say, but
fix the outcome in such a way that hard work by the human race would
make it prevail (shades of Doc Smith here...)

4)  Teela, of course, knows this (somehow...)  She knows that the
human protectors exists, and thet they know about the ringworld.  For
that matter, they have already met and decided upon a course of
action...a lucky protector is bad for the human race (without harsh
reality to intervene, Teela's instincts would be too strong?).  So
Teela challenged Louis Wu to fix the ringworld.  If he failed, the
rest of the protectors would be there to fix it.  If Louis couldn't
fix it, he wasn't up to the task.

5)  Teela, due to her instincts, is really protecting homo sapiens.
By forcing Louis to kill 5% of the Ringworld, she is making that space
available to humans (5% of ringworld = 3E5 Earths).  OK, so this is a
bit silly, she could kill all the ringworld, but maybe the other
protectors wouldn't let her...

Robert^Z