Quiz Answers

KIRK: You should sell an instruction manual with this [tribble].

CYRANO JONES: If I did, what would happen to man's search for knowledge?

—"The Trouble with Tribbles", (Classic) Star Trek

We agree with Cyrano, so in a way we regret providing these answers; we would rather encourage your search for knowledge! As you read what follows we hope you'll keep two things in mind: There is never a final answer, and "Always ask the next question!"

I. EASY AS MAKING A KZIN ANGRY

1. What is the title of Larry Niven's most famous novel?
   1. A Gift from Earth
   2. Ringworld
   3. World of Ptavvs
   4. Protector
   5. Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

   (b) Ringworld is Larry Niven's most famous work, one of the few novels ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards, among others. It has inspired filksongs and other science fiction stories about "Enormous Big Things", which is David Gerrold's term and is preferred by Larry Niven, but the category is better known as "Big Dumb Objects".

   Joke answer: Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers is Harry Harrison's hilarious science fiction spoof, satirizing many "space opera" tales including "Doc" Smith's "Skylark" series and the "Tom Swift Jr." series. Larry Niven writes "Harry Harrison borrowed the Ringworld to make a point about population control, in Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" (N-Space p. 123-4).

2. Which two-headed species manufactures GP hulls?
   1. Thrintun
      
   2. Kdatlyno
      
   3. Puppeteers
      
   4. Tnuctipun
      
   5. Ferengi
      

   (c) The Puppeteers own General Products, the company which makes GP hulls.

   Joke answer: The Ferengi are greedy aliens in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine".

3. What spindly albino Crashlander almost died surveying a neutron star?
   1. Beowulf Shaeffer
   2. Carlos Wu
   3. Sigmund Asufaller
   4. Margo Tellefsen
   5. Dorothy Gale

   (a) Beowulf Shaeffer is the protagonist of "Neutron Star".

   Joke answer: Dorothy Gale is the protagonist of The Wizard of Oz, the first in a very long and frequently wonderful series of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson and other writers. Another title is The Patchwork Girl of Oz, apparently the inspiration for the title The Patchwork Girl, a Known Space story.

4. The fastest form of travel in Known Space is by...
   1. Fusion drive
   2. Gravity polarizer
   3. Thruster
   4. Hyperdrive
   5. Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

   (d) Hyperdrive is the only form of Faster Than Light (FTL, or superluminal) travel used in Known Space.

   Joke answer: In "Hare-Way to the Stars", Marvin Martian tried to blow up the Earth with the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, but was foiled by Bugs Bunny.

5. Which cat-like species engaged Humans in multiple interstellar wars?
   1. Outsiders
   2. Kzinti
   3. Trinocs
   4. Puppeteers
   5. Hokas

   (b) The Kzinti have engaged Humans in four wars plus other major and minor "incidents".

   Joke answer: The Hokas are impossibly cute, loveable teddy-bear-like aliens from Earthman's Burden by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson.

6. Which mysterious, tentacled species sold the secret of the hyperdrive to Humans?
   1. Puppeteers
   2. Trinocs
   3. Kzinti
   4. Outsiders
   5. Fuzzies

   (d) Outsiders sold the Human colony of We Made It the secret of the hyperdrive, as mentioned in the epilogue to A Gift from Earth.

   Joke answer: Fuzzies are impossibly cute, loveable teddy-bear-like aliens from Little Fuzzy and sequels by H. Beam Piper. If you haven't read any of Piper's classic works, do yourself a great favor and remedy that situation immediately!

7. Who recruited explorers for the first (known) Ringworld expedition?
   1. Louis Wu
   2. Speaker-To-Animals
   3. Nessus
   4. Teela Brown
   5. Link Hogthrob

   (c) Nessus (a Puppeteer) recruited Louis Wu, Speaker-To-Animals, and Teela Brown, in Ringworld.

   Joke answer: Captain Link Hogthrob commanded the USS Swinetrek on the recurring "Pigs in Space" segment of TV's The Muppet Show.

8. Kzanol the Slaver was a...
   1. Protector
   2. Thrint
   3. Pierin
   4. Tnuctip
   5. Zabriskan Fontema

   (b) The Slavers' name for themselves is Thrintun; singular Thrint.

   Joke answer: Zabriskan Fontemas are proverbially brainless creatures in E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series.

9. What Shmoo-like creatures are the largest known intelligent species in Known Space?
   1. Bandershatchi
   2. Outsiders
   3. Grogs
   4. Kzinti
   5. Cheela

   (a) Bandersnatchi live on Jinx and are "...as big as a dinosaur and as white and smooth as a shmoo" (World of Ptavvs p. 48).

   The scientific name Frumious Bandersnatch comes from a famous nonsense poem:

   Jabberwocky Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

   —Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

   "Frumious" is one of Carrol's "portmanteau words", by which he meant two words packed up into one; in this case "fuming" and "furious". By the way, "Jabberwocky" is also the origin of the word "chortle". Much, much more fascinating analysis of the Alice books can be found in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice, one of our favorite books.

   The Bandersnatch also appears in another poem by Carroll. Here is the relevant section:

   And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new
        It was matter for general remark,
   Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view
        In his zeal to discover the Snark

   But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
        A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
   And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
        For he knew it was useless to fly.

   He offered large discount— he offered a cheque
        (Drawn “to bearer”) for seven-pounds-ten:
   But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
        And grabbed at the Banker again.

   Without rest or pause— while those frumious jaws
        Went savagely snapping around—
   He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
        Till fainting he fell to the ground.

   The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
        Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
   And the Bellman remarked “It is just as I feared!”
        And solemnly tolled on his bell.

   —"The Hunting of the Snark (an Agony in Eight Fits)" by Lewis Carroll

   Joke answer: The Cheela are aliens about the size of a sesame seed, living on the surface of a neutron star in Dragon's Egg and Starquake by Robert L. Forward... who inspired the character Julian Forward in "The Borderland of Sol".

10. What is Gil the ARM's psionic power?
    1. Plateau Eyes
    2. Telepathy
    3. A telekinetic "invisible arm"
    4. Precognition
    5. Invisibility, but only when no one's watching

    (c) Gil Hamilton, agent of ARM (Earth's United Nations police) has a reliable but very limited psionic power. His "invisible arm" gives his nickname "Gil the ARM" a double meaning.

    Joke answer: In the rather disappointing movie "Mystery Men", The Invisible Boy believed he could become invisible— but only when no one was watching. (So how did he know he had this power?)

11. Phssthpok and Brennan-monster were...
    1. Thrintun
    2. Kdatlyno
    3. Tnuctipun
    4. Protectors
    5. Hobbits

    (d) Protectors, an advanced "adult" life-stage of humanoids, are considerably smarter, tougher and stronger than normal Humans. See the novel Protector.

    Joke answer: Hobbits are from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. But you already knew that.

12. Condemned criminals on most Human worlds are sentenced to...
    1. Feed the tree
    2. A disintegrator booth
    3. The organ banks
    4. A transfer booth to nowhere
    5. Defenestration

    (c) The organ banks made their appearance early in the Known Space series, in "Jigsaw Man". Despite many medical advances, they're still sending criminals to the organ banks in the Beowulf Shaeffer era:

    "Using the fusion drive in Earth's atmosphere would have gotten us into the organ banks, in pieces" ("Flatlander", Neutron Star p. 144 or Crashlander p. 72)

    Joke answer: Defenestration is murder or execution by being thrown out a high window. Several incidents of defenestration occurred historically in Prague. How this obscure method of homicide came to be part of the folklore of SF fandom is a mystery to Ye Editor, but in the past fans might be threatened with defenestration for such "crimes" as outrageous punning.

    "Feed the tree" is a euphemism for death in The Integral Trees by Larry Niven. In that non-Known Space story, bodies (usually dead) are fed into a fertilizing hole of the enormous integral trees.

II. MODERATELY CHALLENGING, LIKE HUNTING BANDERSNATCHI WITH A TANK

1. Who is Beowulf Shaeffer's true love?
   1. Taffy Grimes
   2. Cruella De Vil
   3. Sharrol Janss
   4. Margo Tellefsen
   5. Teela Brown

   (c) Beowulf Shaeffer met Sharrol Janss in "Flatlander". At the beginning of "Grendel" they had already planned to marry and form a family.

   Joke answer: Cruella De Vil was the villainess in Disney's "101 Dalmations". We mean, of course, the classic cartoon, and not the ill-advised live-action remake which gives the dogs not a single line of dialog.

2. Beowulf met her when...
   1. She went to his 200th birthday party
   2. They played bridge at Gregory Pelton's mansion
   3. They both went to a Sons of Earth party
   4. She picked his pocket
   5. Her refrigerator became an inter-dimensional portal for terror dogs

   (d) They first met when she picked his pocket. Later they were formally introduced to each other by Gregory Pelton ("Elephant") when arranging a bridge game.

   Joke answer: In the movie "Ghostbusters", Dana (Sigourney Weaver) met Venkman (Bill Murray) when she sought help regarding the somewhat atypical interior of her refrigerator, leading Venkman to remark "Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance."

3. Where did the Lying Bastard begin its journey to the Ringworld?
   1. Arrakis
   2. Fleet of Worlds
   3. Nereid
   4. Jinx
   5. Earth

   (b) The Lying Bastard left from the Puppeteer Fleet of Worlds for Ringworld, on the second leg of the First (known) Ringworld Expedition. The first leg was from Nereid to the Fleet of Worlds, in the Long Shot.

   Joke answer: The planet Arrakis is the setting of Dune, Frank Herbert's classic SF novel.

4. Where did Kzanol's ship crash?
   1. Luna
   2. Nereid
   3. Earth
   4. Barsoom
   5. Pluto

   (e) Pluto had been a moon of Neptune until Kzanol's ship hit it so hard it was knocked out of orbit. See World of Ptavvs.

   Joke answer: Barsoom is the setting of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic fantasy (or "science fantasy") series John Carter of Mars.

5. Which spaceline did Beowulf Shaeffer work for?
   1. Pan Am Interstellar
   2. Nakamura Lines
   3. Spaceley Sprockets
   4. Outbound Enterprises
   5. IPC

   (b) Beowulf Shaeffer worked for Nakamura Lines until it went bankrupt, per "Neutron Star".

   Joke answers: George Jetson (of TV's "The Jetsons") worked for Spaceley Space Sprockets. "Pan Am Interstellar" is our tribute to the now-defunct airline whose logo adorned the "Orion III" shuttle in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey". IPC (the InterPlanetary Corporation) is from E.E. "Doc" Smith's Spacehounds of IPC.

   Outbound Enterprises is actually not a joke answer; that interstellar passenger service is mentioned in the canonical "Fly-By-Night".

6. What planet is a Mountaineer from?
   1. Gummidgy
   2. Mesklin
   3. Plateau
   4. Margrave
   5. Silvereyes

   (c) Plateau

   "I gather a mountaineer is a Plateau dweller." [paragraph] "Right. Like a crashlander comes from We Made It and a flatlander comes from Earth" ("The Ethics of Madness", Neutron Star p. 203).

   Joke answer: Mesklin is the extreme-gravity "whirligig planet" in Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, one of the all-time best "Hard SF" novels— highly recommended!

7. Which starship did Beowulf Shaeffer pilot to the galactic core?
   1. Long Shot
   2. Slower Than Infinity
   3. Lazy Eight
   4. Heart of Gold
   5. Skydiver

   (a) The Long Shot was the experimental Quantum II hyperdrive ship which Bey was hired to fly to the galactic core as a publicity stunt.

   Joke answer: The Heart of Gold with its Infinite Improbability Drive is from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

8. What is Louis Wu's middle name?
   1. Zaphod
   2. Warren
   3. Gridley
   4. Piet
   5. Mark

   (c) Gridley

   "In the year 2830 one Louis Gridley Wu..." ("There Is a Tide", Tales of Known Space p. 201).

   Joke answer: Zaphod Beeblebrox stole the Heart of Gold in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

9. Which species was first encountered by humans in "There Is A Tide"?
   1. Kdatlyno
   2. Grogs
   3. Wookiees
   4. Outsiders
   5. Trinocs

   (e) Louis Wu made first contact with Trinocs; it seems the Trinoc he befriended became the ambassador to Human space and appeared at Louis' 200th birthday party (in Ringworld).

   Joke answer: In "Star Wars", Chewbacca is a Wookiee. But you knew that, right?

10. What was the invention in "ARM"?
    1. thiotimoline
    2. a time accelerator
    3. an improbably strong material
    4. an inertial reducer
    5. an artificial gravity generator

    (d) Raymond Sinclair invented an inertial reduction machine in "ARM", one of the "Gil the ARM" stories. It did not actually speed up time, although it appeared to.

    Joke answer: Thiotimoline was a fictional substance having the natural ability to time travel, in a series of spoof articles by Isaac Asimov in Analog.

11. What is/was the purpose of Confinement Asteroid?
    1. Pak protector expedition ferrying breeders to Ringworld
    2. Pregnant Belters bringing children to term
    3. An ARM hideaway for the remains of Pssthpok and his ship
    4. Prison for the Belt
    5. Lucky Starr's trap for the Asteroid Pirates

    (b) Normal development of a human baby requires a gravity field. As detailed in World of Ptavvs, the Belters built Confinement Asteroid so their expectant mothers wouldn't have to stay on Earth to bring their babies to term. The term "confinement" in this context is a euphemism for pregnancy. In the Victorian age and up through the 1950s in Western society, women who were obviously pregnant were kept hidden away from public view; hence the euphemistic phrase "for the period of her confinement".

    Joke answer: Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids is a juvenile SF novel by Isaac Asimov.

12. What planet is a Crashlander from?
    1. We Made It
    2. Plateau
    3. Trantor
    4. Silvereyes
    5. Home

    (a) Crashlanders (including Beowulf Shaeffer) are native to We Made It.

    Joke answer: Trantor is the capital of the Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's SF classic Foundation series.

III. HARD AS HAGGLING WITH AN OUTSIDER

1. Name three stories in which neutronium appears, not including "Neutron Star".

   "There Is a Tide" features a tiny moon of neutronium; in Protector Brennan-monster had a sphere of neutronium at the heart of Kobold; and in "The Borderland of Sol" Julian Forward used neutronium in his experiments.

2. Of the two slowboats on Plateau, which survived the revolution?

   The Arthur C. Clarke remained after the Planck was sent tumbling over the edge.

   Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most famous science fiction writers, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama, and Childhood's End, among many others.

3. Spell Prill's full name correctly.

   Halrloprillalar Hotrufan, a character in Ringworld. "True fan" is a fannish reference, meaning "the compleat fan". Her last name therefore may suggest "Hot True Fan". Louis certainly found her "hot"!

4. Name Sigmund Ausfaller's ship from "The Borderland of Sol".

   The Hobo Kelly. "Hobo Kelly and Her Puppets" was a local Los Angeles children's TV show which started in 1965.

5. Give the shape and size of a #1 GP hull.

   Ringworld specifies "...a globe the size of a basketball..." (Chapter 10, p. 94)

6. Name the specific substance a Kzin Telepath's telepathy drug is made from.

   It's an extract of sthondath lymph, as specified in "The Soft Weapon" (Neutron Star p. 79).

7. What oath did Seeker take?

   "He's on a kind of quest. Long ago he took an oath that he would walk to the base of the Arch. He's doing that. He's been doing that for hundreds of years" (Ringworld chapter 22, p. 310).

8. Specify where Larry Niven stated that "Bordered in Black" and "One Face" are not Known Space stories.

   In Convergent Series, the notes following "Bordered in Black" state: "Bordered in Black does not belong in the Known Space universe... Similar statements hold for One Face..." (p. 23)

9. Describe a Belter strip.

   "...a Belter strip haircut adorns both men and women" ("Flatlander", Neutron Star p. 133 or Crashlander p. 61).

   "Through the bubble helmets you saw Belter crests on both men and women; hair running in a strip from forehead to nape of neck, with the hair shaved on both sides" ("The Patchwork Girl", Flatlander p. 193).

10. Correctly spell the names of two Kdatlyno artists.

    Hrodenu and Lloobee are both mentioned in "Grendel". Hrodenu is also mentioned in "At the Core", and Lloobee in "The Borderland of Sol".

11. Speaker-To-Animals was raised by followers of a heretical Kzinti religion/sect. Name it.

    The Kdapt-Preacher heresy

    "In the dark days that followed the Fourth Truce with Man, Mad Kdapt-Preacher headed a new religion. He was executed by the Patriarch himself... but his heretical religion survives in secret to this day. Kdapt-Preacher believed that God the Creator made man in his own image.... Kdapt's disciples wore masks of human skin when they prayed. They hoped to confuse the Creator long enough to win a war" (Ringworld chapter 17, p. 237).

12. Name the TV show which featured Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent.

    "The Soft Weapon" specifies it was Time for Beany. This show ran from 1949-1955.

IV. TOUGH AS A GP HULL

1. Name two references to the Batman superhero comic and specify which stories they're in.

   The Joker ("Flatlander") and the Batman emblem ("Fly-By-Night")

   "...a thin guy with tangled, glossy green hair and a bony white face with a widely grinning scarlet mouth... This joker was obviously dangerously insane" ("Flatlander", Neutron Star p. 143 or Crashlander p. 71).

   "...a small black enamel bat. ...that ancient Batman symbol... ("Fly-By-Night", Man-Kzin Wars IX p. 325)

2. Name all Sharrol Janns' children and identify their biological father.

   "Procrustes" specifies "Tanya was five and Louis was four" (Crashlander p. 218). Carlos Wu is their father.

   Jeena was mentioned in "Ghost" and "Fly-By-Night"; Beowulf Shaeffer is her father.

3. What name did Gregory Pelton and Beowulf Shaeffer originally settle on for the antimatter planet?

   In the book version of "Flatlander", they named it "Cannonball Express" before realizing its true nature (Neutron Star pp. 161 & 163; or Crashlander pp. 90 & 92).

   Very few readers will get the extra "Geek point" for knowing the actual original original name, from the magazine version of "Flatlander", was "Swoosh".

   "Cannonball Express" was the name given to the train driven by the legendary Casey Jones in adaptations of his story, although in the original song "Casey Jones" by Wallace Saunders it was the "Cannonball Special".

4. Give the exact wording of Finagle's First Law.

   "The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum" (Protector p. 105).

   This is one of a class of maxims commonly referred to as "Murphy's Laws", the most famous of which is "Anything that can possibly go wrong, will." Such adages are particularly popular with engineers, referring to the difficulty of getting a prototype, or any complex machine, to work as intended.

5. Name the first person to be frozen in the organ banks for clinical paranoia.

   "Leviticus Hale, 1991. Oh, yes. Hale was a paranoid. He must have been the first they ever froze for that" ("The Defenseless Dead", Flatlander p. 72).

6. Name four species which we are sure have survived from the Slaver era.

   Bandersnatchi, stage trees, sunflowers, air plants.

   "Scattered through known space, on odd worlds and between stars, were the relics of the Slaver Empire. Some were Slaver artifacts... Others were more or less mutated Tnuctip creations: sunflowers, stage trees, ships' air plants floating naked in space in cellophane bubbles; and bandersnatchi" ("The Handicapped", Neutron Star p. 222).

   Note: "Grogs" is not a correct answer as we aren't sure they are descendants of the Thrintun.

7. Name all the bodies in Sol system considered major planets in the Beowulf Shaeffer era.

   Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Persephone, Caïna, Antenora, Ptolemea.

   "The solar system has a good number of planets— at least a dozen so far discovered, four of them outside the major singularity around Sol." "And not including Pluto?" "No, we think of Pluto as a loose moon of Neptune. It runs Neptune, Persephone, Caïna, Antenora, Ptolemea, in order of distance from the sun."

   —"The Borderland of Sol" (Tales of Known Space p. 162, or Crashlander p. 168)

   Caïna, Antenora and Ptolomæa are zones 1, 2 and 3 of the Ninth Circle of Hell in Dante's The Divine Comedy. Persephone is from Greek myth. She became the consort of Hades, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Pluto.

8. Name one of Teela Brown's great-great-grandmothers.

   Paula Cherenkov, who gave Louis Wu "whiplash of the heart", per Ringworld chapter 2 (p. 23).

   Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov was a Russian physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958. "Cherenkov radiation" is named after him.

9. What drives a starseed's metabolism?

   "Their metabolism was the solar phoenix; their food was the thinly-spread hydrogen of interstellar space" (Ringworld chapter 13, p. 180).

   The "solar-phoenix" is the carbon-nitrogen cycle which powers the fusion reaction in the heart of stars heavier than Sol. Also known as the Bethe-Weizsäcker-cycle.

10. Name two references to E.E. "Doc" Smith's writings and identify the stories containing them.

    "Lensman" is the name of a passenger starship mentioned at the beginning of "Flatlander" (Neutron Star p. 129, or Crashlander p. 57).

    The "Gray Lensman show" is mentioned in "ARM" (Flatlander p. 162).

    (Bonus question: A name from one of Smith's more obscure works appears in another story. This is probably a coincidence and not a genuine reference to Smith's work. Specify the name and the story.)

    The "D'Alembert Mountains", mentioned at the beginning of "The Patchwork Girl" (Flatlander p. 191), is listed as an unofficial name for an actual range of lunar mountains. Therefore it is probably not an intentional reference to the Family d'Alembert from the novlet "The Imperial Stars", one of E. E. "Doc" Smith's more obscure works, which was revised and expanded to novel length by Stephen Goldin.

11. What section of which Larry Niven book has several pages about the Ringworld which he did not write?

    It's not listed in the book's table of contents, but Playgrounds of the Mind has a section reprinted from the Ringworld Roleplaying Game on "Spill Mountain Folk" and "Ghouls (Night People)", written by John Hewitt. This can be found on pages 208-214 of the hardback edition.

12. What was Larry Niven's original suggested title for the shorter, magazine version of "World of Ptavvs"?

    "Relic of Empire"

    "Fred [Frederik Pohl] bought my first four stories, and many others, for the Galaxy chain. The third was a novella titled 'Relic of Empire.' He retitled it 'World of Ptavvs'..." ("Dramatis Personae", N-Space p. 14)