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From: JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: The Ringworld Polar Projection Maps
Message-ID: <3944@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 18:54:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3944
Posted: Mon Oct  7 18:54:57 1985
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From: JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA  (Jim White)

There has been considerable debate in SF-LOVERS about the fate of the
Protectors from the Home colony. Although I'm not sure that was ever resolved,
(I certainly hope not), a spin off of that debate seems to concern the
polar projection maps in the Great Ocean (one of) of the Ringworld. Larry Niven
does seem to have a penchant (intentional or not) to write stories that
inspire debate. The maps on the Ringworld may be his attempt to get back at
us for being so interested (picayune?) concerning the detail of his works.
These maps certainly provide a challenge to any who attempt to unearth a
rationale for their existance, or for that matter, the existance of the
Ringworld itself.


Almost certainly the Ringworld was built by Pak and NOT the human variant
of the Home colony, as some had suggested during the earlier aforementioned
discussion. The time line isn't right for it to be any other way. I suspect,
and I'd have to reread the timeline in Known Space, that about the time
Phssthpok was entering the Sol system, the Puppeteers were greedily seeding
Ringworld with the superconductor pathogen, (give or take a thousand years).
Chmee, I believe, was right when he deduced the Ringworld was hundreds of
thousands of years old when he, Louis, et. al. got there. I do believe Chmee
was right but not necessarily for the same reason. Chmee thought that their
had been too much evolution and mutation of the original 'human' stock
for the Ringworld to have been anything but ancient.

An important fact to remember here is that the Ringworld is mobile. The
Ringworlds sun could be flared by manipuating the magnetic effects of portions
of the Ringworld 'scrith'. The sun would move and the Ringworld's attitude
jets would chug furiously to keep up. Someone will probably be delighted to
calculate what it's maximum speed and acceleration might be, but I suggest that
both would be sufficient to be able to escape the core explosion.

I advance the theory that the Ringworld is some giantic Noah's Ark. It was
built near the core world of Pak by breederless Protectors who had staved
off death by starvation by generalizing their protective instincts to generic
Pak and, yes, even non-Pak species. The building of the Ringworld, sans maps,
would be easy to figure. The Pak protectors fought continual planet wide
wars. If They were going to build something to escape the destruction of their
home world, it would be reasonable to build something big enough to allow
room for each Protector, and it's breeders. Their technology would probably
make quantum leaps forward because, with room, they wouldn't fight as much.
The maps however, tend to discredit a Ringworld 'by Pak and for Pak'
theory, as the maps would serve no function for a  Pak, and they do not
build a functionless artifacts.

I believe that the Ringworld has been traveling hither and yon thourghout the
galaxy for quite some time. During that time the Pak have collected species
and built replicas of the species home planets. The divergent life of the
Ringworld is not so much a function of evolution and mutation, as Chmee
deduced, but that in concert with specie variation from planet to planet.
It may well be that the species were really much different but that the
Ringworld environment favors a human form, (since the Pak built it), and
the various inhabitants have been evolving toward the human form since
placed on the Ringworld.

I'm sure there are arguements that conflict with this scenario. It would,
admittedly, be quite an altruistic leap forward for a Pak to care about
saving any specie other than Pak breeders. However, the Pak had obviously
intended to keep Kzinti, and Grogs on the Ringworld or they wouldn't have
created the Kzin and Gummidgy maps. The Ringworld must have been created
to flee the core explosion, because there would be little reason to make
such a structure mobile.

Ah well, signing off for now.

                                                 Jim White