History Literature / Ringworld

* MetalPoorPlanet: As an artificial world, there are no mineral ores on the Ringworld: if you dig into a mountain, you'll hit the [[{{Unobtanium}} scrith]] underlying the sculpted landscape after a few hundred meters. As a result, if civilization on the ring collapses it will remain stuck at the stone age. Consequently, Larry Niven is constantly talking about all the ways that the Ringworld is reacquiring knowledge. The ghouls have an extensive communication network and advanced knowledge, City Builders have huge libraries, returning ships have brought back advanced knowledge, and Protectors with their genius intellects are constantly turning up all over the Ring. Add to that a large number of Known Space ships marooned all over the Ringworld with vast information storage libraries and you're looking at a dawning technological renaissance.

* RingWorldPlanet: The trope maker for the "circular slice of a Dyson shell" variant. The Ring was created, conceptually, as a way to get the benefits of a shell-type Dyson sphere while scaling down the physical impossibility of the thing. It's made of {{Unobtanium}} called ''scrith'', since no real material is strong enough to hold together under the immense centrifugal forces of its rotation, and is so massive that its geographical features include 1:1-scale maps of several ''planets'' (including Earth). ''These maps are significantly less than 1% of the ring's surface area''. Day and night are created by massive solar panels in spinning in orbit between the sun and the ringworld. [[RamScoop Bussard ramjets]] on the rim of the ringworld keep it centered, since by itself it would eventually fall into its sun. The whole thing is reasonably RagnarokProof, which is good, as it's also quite Ragnarok-''prone'': once high-technology civilization there collapses, the absence of available metals means that it can never arise again without outside interference.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The first book spends quite a while showing the reader why Louis Wu wants to go traveling. Unfortunately, the reason he wants to travel is that his life is boring and hollow, something that Niven gets across a bit too effectively.

* Orgasmatron: A device called a "tasp" can remotely stimulate the pleasure centers of a being's brain. It is very addictive and use of it on someone without their consent is highly illegal. While it does not explicitly cause orgasm, Nessus (a manipulative alien) uses it to make Prill (a [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe humanoid]] whose help the protagonists need) addicted to sex with Louis Wu. It is also compared to sex when the narrative muses that "all women have a tasp" that they use to manipulate men to do their bidding.

* RingWorldPlanet: But of course -- the Ringworld is a ring with a habitable area equivalent to 3 million planets.

* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Louis]] is Wembleth's father.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The Ringworld's hominids are explicitly not mutually fertile with one another and with humans, which is what allows rishathra -- interspecies sex -- to be a common form of diplomacy and a viable way for the City Builders to accommodate their hyperfertility without creating population explosions. If the Pak breeders from whom all of these species descend are ''Homo habilis'', however, then cross-species sterility should be the exception, not the rule. Most species within the same real-life genuses can create hybrids, even if sterile ones, with one another, and hominds in particular are well-recorded as having interbred very extensively.
* ArousedByTheirVoice When Luis Wu meets Nessus for the first time, he notes that the Puppeteer's voice sounds like a synthesis of every attractive woman he can think of, and is very frustrated that this comes from an alien without even a passing resemblance to a homind body.
-->''Had Louis visualized a woman to go with that voice, she would have been Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Marilyn Monroe, and [[NewtonEinsteinSurak Lorelei Huntz]] rolled into one. [[FutureSlang "Tanj!"]] The curse seemed more than usually appropriate. ''There Ain't No Justice!'' That such a voice should belong to a two-headed alien of indeterminate sex!''

* AfterTheEnd: The Ring once had a widespread civilization[[note]]which only covered about 12 degrees of the Ring, but given the size of the Ring itself it dwarfs civilizations that cover multiple star systems[[/note]], but it fell -- literally. Only a few remnants of the City Builders are left, now mostly reduced to living in isolated settlements within the crumbing ruins of their once-great cities, within a land mostly gone to wilderness and barbarism.

* BornLucky: Teela Brown (to the extent of being a canon BlackHoleSue), later deconstructed to hell and back.

** Louis Wu actually discusses this at one stage, making the obvious suggestion that it may simply not have worked at all. Later on, it turns into BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor as Teela morphs into a Literature/{{Protector}}, at which point it becomes obvious that what actually constitutes "luck" is so subjective as to be meaningless.
** There's a massive argument for UnluckilyLucky. After all, what Teela needs at any point might not necessarily be [[BecarefulWhatYouWishFor what she wants]]. It's unlikely to be what those around her want (or need), either. And, then you've got her kids to think about. Or her lottery-cousins' kids. And, all their kids. [[TheNeedsOfTheMany Protectors are all about the bloodline, after all.]] Even the supposedly "lucky" ones might have luckier relatives who might "need" them where they wind up being when its lucky for the entire group down the line, regardless of what emotional wringers it puts the individual (and those around them) through. Because warped statistics mean somebody suitable enough is going to get tapped for it. Ouch?

* ArtificialGravity: The Ringworld generates this using centrifugal force.

* WackyWaysideTribe: A number of Ringworlder communities encountered by the characters, like the Hairy Ones and the Grass Giants, serve to add flavor to the setting but don't have much bearing on the plot,

%%* HotLibrarian: Harkabeeparolyn, if you're into rishathra.

%%* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Speaker-to-Animals (Later Chmeee) [[spoiler:and his son, Acolyte]].

%%* RazorFloss:
%%** Shadow square wire.
%%** Sinclair molecule chain.
%%** Variable swords.

** Louis Wu is almost two-hundred and fifty years old by the end of the series but looks around twenty. It's implied Hindmost is (like most Puppeteers) several centuries older. And of course, protectors can live for thousands of years.

** At the time Niven wrote ''Ringworld'', he hadn't decided to {{Canon Weld|ing}} his stories of the Belters and near-future space exploration, including ''Protector'', into the same universe with the far-future stories of Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu. This is why Nessus says "there is evidence enough that your species evolved on Earth", even though later novels show he would have known who the Pak were. It wasn't until after Niven established the [[StandardSciFiSetting future history]] of Known Space that he realized Pak protectors were the most likely builders of the Ringworld. In some author's notes he's said that he deliberately let Louis come to the wrong conclusion to simplify the first book.

%%* RingWorldPlanet: But of course.

* SpoilerOpening: The current edition of ''The Ringworld Engineers'' has a cover painting by Donato Giancola depicting [[spoiler:a Protector]], which spoils a major plot point of the book.

%%* TagalongKid: Kawaresksenjajok.

%%* WackyWaysideTribe: A number of Ringworlder communities encountered by the characters, like the Hairy Ones and the Grass Giants.
* WeakButSkilled: This is generally Louis' shtick through out the series [[spoiler:until he eats Tree of Life]].

** Kzinti females are non-sapient, although [[spoiler:it's all but stated that this is due to deliberate genetic engineering by the Kzinti males so long ago that they themselves have forgotten about it. This is supported by the fact that the Kzinti females on the Map of Kzin, descendants of Kzinti abducted in prehistoric times, are fully sentient beings]].

* GargleBlaster: The Machine People ethanol is both fuel and drink.

* OurGiantsAreBigger: The Grass Giants are a very large, herbivorous race of Ringworld hominids evolved to fill the ecological role large grazers normally hold. Though large, they do engage in rishathra (sex with other hominids outside their species), so they're presumably not that much larger than normal.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They are non-sentient, [[spoiler:at least until transformation into a Protector]]. They also attract their prey with pheromones and are technically a number of different hominid species that evolved convergently into the same niche.

%%* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Speaker-to-Animals (Later Chmeee) [[spoiler:and his son, Acolyte.]]

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: [[AvertedTrope Averted. Seriously averted.]] The scale of things is mentioned lots of times, usually in a "Holy crap, I can't believe how large this thing is" situation.

* WackyWaysideTribe: A number of Ringworlder communities encountered by the characters, like the Hairy Ones and the Grass Giants.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The variable sword, a piece of monomolecular wire held taut by a stasis field.
** Also the Shadow Square Wire. A heap of it looks like smoke from a distance. It will slice apart any matter that touches it: trying to pick it up will cut off your fingers, and [[spoiler:one character even runs into a trap made from it and gets his head cut off (fortunately he has a spare)]].

* AncientConspiracy: It's revealed in the first novel that the Puppeteers secretly [[spoiler:interfered in the Man-Kzin wars to try and breed docile Kzinti]] and also secretly [[spoiler:lobbied for the Birthright Lottery to breed someone like Teela Brown]]. In the second novel, we also learn that the Puppeteers secretly [[spoiler:engineered the Ringworld's superconductor plague so that they could investigate the Ringworld safely and so that they could arrive in the nick of time and save everything, making a LOT of money and getting a LOT of power in the process. Then politics happened between sowing the plague and fixing it, and the fixing never happened.]]

* FormerlySapientSpecies: When the Pak Protectors built the Ringworld, they introduced no animal life to it beyond their own kind, some food animals and microfauna. As such, when the Pak empire collapsed and the Pak Breeders (''Homo habilis'') were left on their own, the Breeders radiated to fill the various empty niches in the massive world they found themselves in. Many of their descendants redeveloped sapience, but others -- such as the predatory vampires -- remain little more than cunning animals.

* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Speaker-To-Animals is known by his profession (as are all Kzinti) until he has earned the right to choose his own name. While it isn't specifically stated, Acolyte appears to have the same issue.

** Louis Wu is almost two-hundred and fifty years old by the end of the series but looks around twenty. It's implied Hindmost is (like most Puppeteers) several centuries older. And of course, Protectors can live for thousands of years.
** The last novel has a character who's the last surviving true Pak Protector on the Ringworld. She's several ''million'' years old.

** At the time Niven wrote ''Ringworld'', he hadn't decided to {{Canon Weld|ing}} his stories of the Belters and near-future space exploration, including ''Protector'', into the same universe with the far-future stories of Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu. This is why Nessus says "there is evidence enough that your species evolved on Earth", even though later novels show he would have known who the Pak were. It wasn't until after Niven established the [[StandardSciFiSetting future history]] of Known Space that he realized Pak Protectors were the most likely builders of the Ringworld. In some author's notes he's said that he deliberately let Louis come to the wrong conclusion to simplify the first book.

* TransplantedHumans: Pak Protectors are a form of ''Homo habilis'' who built the Ringworld as a safe place for their breeders to survive the core explosion. They did not place any animal, not even an insect, which would harm a humanoid. That left many ecological niches empty, and after three million years the humanoids have evolved to fill the roles. It's later revealed that other sapient alien species were later transplanted onto the Ring, including the Martians (extinct on their homeworld as of ''Literature/{{Protector}}'') and primitive Kzin whose females are still sapient.

* ''Literature/TheRingworldEngineers''
* ''Literature/TheRingworldThrone''
* ''Literature/RingworldsChildren''

Unrelated to Literature/{{Discworld}}, though it was a major influence on Creator/TerryPratchett's earlier book ''Literature/{{Strata}}''.

* TransplantedAliens: The City Builders constructed replicas of other inhabited planets in Known Space and populated them with species from those planets, including the last [[Literature/{{Protector}} Martians]], Jinxian Bandersnatchi, and pre-genetic engineering Kzin whose females are still sapient.

* TransplantedHumans: Pak Protectors are a form of ''Homo habilis'' who built the Ringworld as a safe place for their breeders to survive the core explosion. They did not place any animal, not even an insect, which would harm a humanoid. That left many ecological niches empty, and after three million years the humanoids have evolved to fill the roles.

* CryCute: Teela is described as being "one of those rare, lucky women whom crying does not make ugly".

* DarkerAndEdgier: The second novel to the first, in a ''major'' way. The Ringworld Engineers opens with Louis Wu a barely FunctionalAddict hooked on a [[ElectricInstantGratification direct current]] into his brain, and only a few chapters in we learn that it's because [[spoiler:Halrloprillalar was kidnapped by ARM and held prisoner, and he hasn't seen her since.]] In the same chapter, Louis is informed that [[spoiler:she's dead of a drug interaction.]] A few chapters later, we find out that the Ringworld is destabilizing and is going to destroy itself against the sun within two years time. He ends up [[spoiler:saving the Ringworld at the cost of trillions of lives (only a fraction of the inhabitants, but ''still'',]] and having to kill [[spoiler:Teela, who had become a Protector.]] Compared to the first book, with a comparatively happy ending where none of the main characters die, it's jarring, to say the least.