Protector (novel)
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Protector is a 1973 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. The work is a prequel (of sorts) of his classic novel Ringworld and fleshes out a species originally introduced in the story called Pak Protectors. The novel is said to be based on a shorter version titled The Adults.
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[edit] Plot summary
The novel is comprised of two phases in the same space that are separated by 220 years of time.
The first half of the book follows the path of the Pak named Phssthpok who has travelled from the Pak homeworld in search of a colony of Pak in the distant system of Sol, which is our Earth. Upon his arrival, he captures a man named Jack Brennan, who gets converted to a protector. They land on Mars where Brennan kills Phssthpok and is rescued by two humans, Nick Sohl and Lucas Garner, who had set out to meet the alien. The first half of the novel ends with Brennan telling his story to the humans before he heads for the outer reaches of the solar system.
The second half of the book follows the path of a human named Roy Truesdale who has been abducted with no memory of the event. While searching for his abductor, he befriends Alice Jordan who helps him figure out that the man he has sought is none other than Jack Brennan. Truesdale and Jordan find Brennan in the outer solar system on a fabricated world of Brennan's design called Kobold. Brennan has found out that there is a Pak invasion fleet headed towards human space and takes Truesdale to a human outpost colony called Home in an effort to divert attention away from Earth. During their journey they battle with scout ships from the Pak fleet. Brennan and Truesdale arrive at Home only to have Truesdale realize that Brennan plans to convert the colony into a defensive Human Protector army. Truesdale kills Brennan and lands on Home, but is himself infected with a mutated strain of the Tree-of-Life virus that quickly spreads to a number of other colonists, thus carrying out Brennan's plan despite Truesdale's initial attempts to thwart it. Upon his conversion to protector form, Truesdale immediately understands the necessity of Brennan's plan and completes it by breaking out of hospital confinement and infecting the entire population of Home. The modified virus either kills or converts the remaining inhabitants, resulting in an army of childless protectors. The new protectors see that they absolutely must act to save the rest of humanity, and start preparing for battle with the Pak invasion fleet.
In what is treated as a minor incident in the story line, told more or less in passing, it is mentioned that during his soujourn in the outer Solar System, Brennan had committed cold-blooded genocide, sending a large ice asteroid to crash on Mars and raise considerably the water content of its atmosphere, which is lethal to the Martian's metabolism. This was done for no more reason than that martians had killed a handful of humans, in a single long-forgotten incident. The incident serves to underline the Pak Protectors' inherent racism and xenophobia, and utter incapability of acting by objective moral principles.
[edit] Concepts
- Pak
- A species called Pak lives on a planet near the Milky Way core, as a species with three main stages of development: Child, Breeder, Protector. A Pak is born, and matures into a Breeder, at which point he and she may bear children. Breeders are not particularly intelligent. Around 40 years of age, a root called Tree-of-Life begins to smell delicious to all Breeders, and they eat it and metamorphose into the Protector stage via a virus that lives in the Tree-of-Life. A Protector's joints expand to give his muscles a greater momentum arm, his skin wrinkles into a tough armor, and his nails turn into retractile claws. A second heart develops near the groin, the mouth fuses into a beak, and all sexual characteristics disappear. The most important change is that the brain expands, giving a Protector a tremendous intellect. A Protector has no motivation other than the preservation of his bloodline, and to that end the Pak homeworld is never free from war, since all Protectors are constantly trying to ensure their progeny's survival at the expense of everyone else. If a Protector has no children left, he no longer feels the urge to eat and dies unless he can adopt the entire Pak race and work towards their benefit.
- Origin of Humanity
- Two and a half million years ago, a group of Protectors hollowed out an asteroid, turned it into a ship, and set sail for the galactic arms. They eventually settled on Earth, but discovered that the Tree-of-Life root would not grow, meaning that no Breeders would turn into Protectors, and the Protectors would die without the root. The Protectors spent their time building a laser strong enough to send a message for help back to the Pak homeworld. Eventually, the Breeders, known to us as Homo habilis, evolved into present-day forms, including humans.
- Phssthpok
- Phssthpok had lost all of his children in a war on the Pak homeworld, and needed to find meaning for his life, or he would die. After spending much time in the homeworld's library, he found the story of the Pak expedition to find a habitable planet in the galactic arms. He worked out that the soil of earth lacked thallium oxide, and mounted a rescue mission aboard a ramship 33,000 years ago, arriving in the Solar System in 2125 AD.
- Persephone
- According to the novel, Persephone is the tenth planet of our solar system. While actually proposed in the 1970s to account for perturbations for the orbit of Neptune, Niven gives it additional qualities such as retrograde motion, an orbit tilted 61 degrees to the ecliptic, and a mass slightly less than that of Saturn.
- Neutronium
- Brennan created a sphere of neutronium measuring 8 ft in diameter, and maintained it in a stasis field at his world of Kobold. It is a material consisting of densely-packed neutrons, such that there is no denser substance, and his sphere has a surface gravity measured at 8 million g.
- Kobold
[edit] Timeline of events
- 2.5 MYA — Settlement of Earth by Pak colonists.
- 33,000 BC — Phssthpok departs Pak homeworld.
- 32,800 BC — First emigration wave departs Pak homeworld.
- 32,500 BC — Second emigration wave departs Pak homeworld.
- 32,500- BC — Pak scouts depart Pak homeworld.
- 2125 AD — Phssthpok arrives at Sol. Brennan turns protector.
- 2340 AD — Kidnap of Truesdale.
- 2341 AD — Discovery of Pak fleet. Departure of Flying Dutchman. Destruction of Kobold.
- 2346 AD — Discovery of Phssthpok's Star.
- 2350 AD — Arrival at Home.
