Six Good Reasons Why the Pak Didn't build the Ringworld
by Simon Hibbs
The idea that Pak protectors would suddenly decide that their non-sentient, essentially helpless breeder stage is
better off wthout protectors to look after them is ludicrous. They'd also know that the breeders would mutate from
studying the Earth breeder colony. Letting that happen is simply unthinkable to a pak protector.
The Protectors would have known about the Kzin, Grogs, Humans, Martians, etc. and rather than wipe them out, as
Brennan-monster and Phssthpok wiped out the Martians on Mars, they brought them to the ring and gave them a nice cozy
home to live in, right next door to the breeders, and withing spitting distance (in ring terms) of the command centre
for the entire ring. Yeah, right, good move!
The theory presupposes that the Ringworld engineer protectors found the records of the failed Earth colony and
followed its path in secret. If it was a secret, why did they leave records of the Earth expedition in the great
Library on Pakhome? Suppose some protector decided to go on some fool errand to rescue them with a load of thallium
oxide, or suppose a Pak family decided to conquer Earth for itself? They'd have a planet full of protectors from Earth
right on the doorstep of the ring!
Pak protector technology doesn't use automated control systems. Phssthpok flew all the way from the galactic core on
manual, without so much as a rudimentary autopilot. They just don't trust automatics, yet the ring is completely
automated, from the flup dredges and recycling system, to the attitude control jets and the meteor defense laser.
Why only build one ringworld? When you finish one, why not just build another, and another, and another? You've got
something better to do? Suppose there are other ringworlds aout there, would they let this one alone, knowing it's
packed with a trillion potential protectors of radicaly different bloodlines?
Who keeps killing off the protectors that sporadically get created on the ring? Somebody must be doing it. Why are
there any attitude control jets still in place? If I were a new protector on the ring, the first thing I'd do it
put a bunch of juvenile breeders of my species on an attitude control jet ramship, with one adult and a time released
store of tree-of-life. Launch the ramship and let the timer release the tree-of-life and turn the adult into a protector.
When he wakes up he's already on a fast trajectory away from the ring. His mission is to establish the species on new
worlds away from the ring, helping guarantee the long term survival of the species, whatever happens on the ring.
It's simply the optimum survival strategy. (Your mileage may vary on this, any other ideas?)
