Which doesn’t necessarily sound exciting, but it really is. Personality conflicts and divergent goals start to emerge, with some impressive resulting conflict. Some of it works– no always reliably, and often dangerously. Yet not all of the old tech of the Ringworld Engineers whom the barbarian inhabitants now worship as gods has completely failed. It’s a world fallen into barbarism, with the civilization that built it fallen for reasons the current inhabitants are unable to explain. Of course, trouble starts as soon as they reach the Ringworld, and they soon find themselves crashed on it with a crippled ship, and exploring the world via flycycle. (Puppeteers are committed, devout cowards, and their argument that this is just sanity is more convincing than one might expect.) Nessus is the only Puppeteer insane enough to do such a thing hence the need for human and kzinti crew to join him. Nessus says the Puppeteers want to investigate it to be sure it’s not a threat. When they learn what their destination is–a compromise version of a Dyson sphere, an enormous ring around a G-class star–there’s a renewed discussion of whether they’re going, but the promise of the improved star drive is a powerful lure, The ring is approximately the diameter of Earth’s orbit, and the ring itself is about a million miles wide. Louis is bored and in the habit of taking a “sabbatical” into space periodically. Left unexplained or even examined at this point is why someone so lucky would wind up on a dangerous mission to an unknown destination for unexplained reasons. The other human, Teela Brown, is the product of five generations of ancestors who were all born due to their parents having won the birthright lotter for that year. The kzin they recruit is Speaker-to-Animals, a very junior member of the Kzinti diplomatic delegation to Earth, with only a title and no name earned yet. Nessus has a plan to alleviate Louis’ boredom.Īt first Nessus is very cagy about what exactly his plan is, but it certainly involves space travel, the Puppeteers’ better, faster hyperdrive they’ve never shared with humans or kzinti, and they need to recruit two more crewmates–a kzin, and another human, one who is the product of Earth’s Birthright Lotteries. This particular Puppeteer has chosen the human-pronounceable name of Nessus. When Puppeteers are speaking in their own language, the effect is often orchestral. Specifically, a Pierson’s Puppeteer, a being with two small heads on snake-like necks, three hooved legs, and its brain housed in its main body, rather than either of the heads. An entirely mundane hotel room, occupied by an alien.

Then, when transferring from one birthday location to another, he winds up someplace else entirely. It’s his 200th birthday, and he’s using transfer booths to extend the celebration of it for a full twenty-four hours, and he’s really bored. Louis Wu is 200 years old, and he’s bored.

Ring world larry niven