How to move a planet?

[gotpasswords]

Reading through this… and I thought my idea was silly? (fusion engines? sails? inertialess drives?)

A couple billion furniture dollies, and you just roll it over where you want it.

Call Galaxy Hitch-Hikers and Movers for a quote.

[Der_Trihs]

@Malacandra

We’ve only Louis Wu’s guess for it that the Pak built the Ringworld - we know the place was lousy with Pak once upon a time, but not that the protectors built it; even the evidence of the Repair Centre can’t be taken as gospel, 'cos there’s no reason why it couldn’t be a Pak add-on to an existing structure.

We meet one of the original Pak builders in Ringworld’s Children, although she could’ve been lying.

[Malacandra]

@Der Trihs

We meet one of the original Pak builders in Ringworld’s Children, although she could’ve been lying.

Fair enough, I’ve not got past Throne yet. But Halrloprillalar Hotrufan previously claimed that her people built the Ringworld, and we know she was full of it, so it could happen again.

Btw a small amount of antimatter wouldn’t disrupt the Ringworld enough to break it. It’s had Fist-Of-God punch through it and still keep running quite happily aside from some local disruption.

Does Children explain why the Pak should be so preoccupied with Known Space anyway? That tosses out a fair bit of Protector unless I’m missing something - I though Pssthpok was supposed to be the only Pak to have headed Earthwards in a mighty long time.

[Tristan]

@Malacandra

Does Children explain why the Pak should be so preoccupied with Known Space anyway? That tosses out a fair bit of Protector unless I’m missing something - I though Pssthpok was supposed to be the only Pak to have headed Earthwards in a mighty long time.

It has been many many moons since I read Protector, so correct me if I’m wrong…

Lacking FTL drives, and breeders being short lived if not exposed to the root, the Pak are essentially stuck on one planet. Towards the galactic core.

Given the Galactic Core explosion, is it possible they rediscovered the “Lost colony” of Earth, and then created the ringworld (or stole it… I like that idea) as a defense for their species against the impending radiation wave?

It’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet, so if this post makes no sense, I apologize…

[Der_Trihs]

@Tristan

Lacking FTL drives, and breeders being short lived if not exposed to the root, the Pak are essentially stuck on one planet.

They used a generation ship. Also, that faction bred themselves to be more tolerant of other’s bloodlines during the voyage IIRC.

@Malacandra

Does Children explain why the Pak should be so preoccupied with Known Space anyway? That tosses out a fair bit of Protector unless I’m missing something - I though Pssthpok was supposed to be the only Pak to have headed Earthwards in a mighty long time.

My memory of Children is shaky, but the Ringworld was built a mighty ong time ago.

@Malacandra

Btw a small amount of antimatter wouldn’t disrupt the Ringworld enough to break it. It’s had Fist-Of-God punch through it and still keep running quite happily aside from some local disruption.

Enough of it will however, an important plot point in Children. Of course, unlike humans, a Pak would have had to synthesize the stuff; Known Space humans have a whole planet’s worth ( from Flatlander ).

[chorpler]

@Stranger On A Train

Yeah, but scrith was a conceit that was never adequately described (unless he did so somewhere in the post-Ringworld Engineers oeurve). In general, the Ringworld is an impossibility for mostly conventional technology of the Pak, from both a materials standpoint, and from the energy and effort required to construct it. How did Pak engineers–lacking FTL capability and other “indistinguishable from magic” technology–manage to build something on the scale of the Ringworld, then transport their broods there? And why would they build something so hideously indefensible? Never mind giant magnetically pumped solar lasers; all you’d need is to blow a few million tons of radioactives onto the surface, or a rich cloud of negative ions to foul their Bussard attitude jets, or even a relatively small amount of antimatter to damage the Ring structure; it must be under enormous tension and even a small weakness would cause it to shred apart. And the Pak should have known that the ginormous size of the Ringworld would almost certainly result in balkinization and (without regular culling) mutation and diversification of Pak breeders into bastard species. The Ringworld honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense as a Pak artifact.

The ramjet attitude jets weren’t the primary method of stabilizing the ring. It was supposed to stabilize itself with the superconducting network buried in the scrith.

As for why it’s such a ridiculously big and indefensible structure, I think the speculation (maybe in Children, I don’t recall) was that they were trying to attract attention away from something else.

And GP hull material has its own weaknesses (other than antimatter), as portrayed in the upcoming Fleet of Worlds. But I don’t want to spoil it.

[Malacandra]

@chorpler

The ramjet attitude jets weren’t the primary method of stabilizing the ring. It was supposed to stabilize itself with the superconducting network buried in the scrith.

Has that changed since Engineers then? Then, Louis Wu was hoping like hell that was what the superconducting network was for, but it turned out to be the means of switching on the solar flare laser. That was when everything seemed to be lost, because it only left the attitude jets, and there weren’t enough of them.

[chorpler]

@Malacandra

Has that changed since Engineers then? Then, Louis Wu was hoping like hell that was what the superconducting network was for, but it turned out to be the means of switching on the solar flare laser. That was when everything seemed to be lost, because it only left the attitude jets, and there weren’t enough of them.

Yeah, it turned out in Throne or Children (I can’t remember which – I think Children) that the superconducting network was also for keeping the Ringworld properly centered, keeping the sun under control, powering lots of Ringworld functions, etc.

[Walker_in_Eternity]

@groman

Could you magnetize Venus and use magnetism to drag the core (assuming the rest of the planet would follow)?

The Daleks planned to do the opposite by removing the magnetic core of the Earth.

Sadly this idea wouldn’t work and the mechanism for moving the Earth was never explained.

Good story though.

[Der_Trihs]

Zombies could probably move the planet too.

Thread wants brains!! BRAAAAAINNS!

[chowder]

Well first you take a large shovel and then…

Oh sorry, thought you said plant

[msmith537]

@garygnu

I don’t know how it would work on a planetary scale, but I’ve read about theoretical stellar engines that would move the whole system.

Zero to 20 m/s in 10 million years doesn’t strike me as particulary high performance.

And if you are going to build megascale constructs like Dyson spheres and solar system scale solar sails, it might be more efficient to simply disassemble the Earth and rebuild it somewhere else.

[Miller]

Closed this very old thread. If anyone wants to continue discussing the subject, feel free to open a new thread.