Niven didn’t need to invoke scrith to build the ringworld. His universe already contained two possible material solutions to the strength problem - the General Products hull material and normal matter in a statis field, both of which stop 100% of neutrinos.
Scrith was in my view a plot element. Firstly it emphasised the alien quality of the technology in the Ringworld, and secondly it allowed a meteorite to smack a bloody great hole in the Ringworld floor, which was necessary for the characters to escape in the first book.
You’re assuming a sun-like star, andros. Of course you’d have to choose carefully, but you could find a smaller, cooler star to put the ring around and it would still support photosynthesis and all the other things you’d want in a star.
The gang-written novel Murasaki, very “hard” science fiction (the writers included David Brin and Greg Benford) had a binary planet orbiting a red star in an orbit much closer in than Mercury’s. It can be done.
Then again, I don’t know how a buckminsterfullerine-constructed Ring would have whethered the Fist-of-God impact. My guess would be it would deform but not open, then snap back and eject the planetoid, like the mesh of a tennis racket. At least, that’s fun to think about…
Thanks for the welcome! Been a long time Niven fan, but yes certain books he has written alone and collaborated on were big snores. What the hell was beowulfs children for (let alone about?) How certain missing chemicals in an environment can make people retarded? come on, lets hear some more hard science set on weird planets (Gift from Earth, Integral Trees) again.
I am hard pressed to want to read a Ringworld sequel just so larry can answer questions that make the place easier to swallow as able to exist… and remember we only know 5% of the ring and what Teela monster knew and also WANTED us to know…
there is your foder…
I think you’re referring to “Destiny’s Road”, not “Beowulf’s Children”. I liked both of those, by the way. DR is an explanation of a social situation by taking the protagonist on a thorough (if unlikely) tour through it, a la Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy”.
Five, duh. Don’t know what I was thinking. Of course a smaller star would be in order.
I wonder, though . . . a Fist of God-sized impact on a much smaller Ring made of buckyballs might well be deflected, but if so, all of the force would be absorbed by the Ring. I would think that would make it all the more likely to destabilize and wobble into the primary.
Matt, you’re right about alternative materials, especially the GP hull material (putting the entire Ring into stasis is a bit much). As well as being a neato plot device, though, I think scrith ultimately worked well to emphasize the Pak “if it works, use it” mentality. They didn’t develop anything better than scrith because they didn’t need to. Or something.
Cal, while I didn’t care at all for Beowulf’s Children, I did enjoy *Destiny’s Road. He said this summer he was not planning on writing a sequel, for which I’m thankful–I think it stands very well on its own.
‘Destiny’s Road’ really surprised me. I had always liked Larry Niven, but not so much because of the characters or storytelling style but simply because of the cool ideas and the extrapolations he could work from them. ‘Destiny’s Road’ worked on a different level, it seemed more ‘literate’ than most of his prior works. A friend of mine who doesn’t like most SF read it and really enjoyed it. I reread it immediately after finishing it because I knew I missed some of the subtext…great book.
I didn’t care so much for ‘Beowulf’s Children’, but I have problems with the stories he co-writes with Steven Barnes, they seem to follow a certain formula, can’t quite put my finger on it right now. Niven’s work with Pournelle, however, is great. I like both authors and their writing styles and knowledge complement each other well.