History Literature / RingWorld

* PutOnABus: In ''Ringworld's Children'', the Hindmost only briefly mentions that Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok were returned to their hometown floating city, and they otherwise don't appear in the book at all. Surprisingly, Niven gets Harkabeeparolyn's name wrong and calls her Fortaralisplyar, who was a different ''male'' character from the same floating city in ''The Ringworld Engineers''.

* PutOnABus: In ''Ringworld's Children'', the Hindmost only briefly mentions that Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok were returned to their hometown floating city, and they otherwise don't appear in the book at all. In a surprising case, Niven gets Harkabeeparolyn's name wrong and calls her Fortaralisplyar, who was a different ''male'' character from the same floating city in ''The Ringworld Engineers''.

* 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.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Halrloprillalar [[spoiler: dies between the first and second books, due to the interaction of incompatible drugs]].

* OlderThanTheyLook: Louis Wu, Chmeee, and pretty much anyone else who has taken boosterspice [[spoiler: or used Carlos Wu's nanotech autodoc.]]

* 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.]]

*** [[spoiler: That was actually an assumed name he took when he met up with some crash-landed ARM crewmembers, as Louis Wu is known to pretty much everyone and he didn't want to explain he was working for a Protector.]]

* 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.

* TragicMonster: [[spoiler: Teela, after becoming a protector in ''The Ringworld Engineers'' and deliberately forcing Louis to kill her.]]

* ConvergingStreamWeapon: The upgraded Slaver Disintegrator. Normal Disintegrators produce a beam that suppresses the charge of the electron on solid material it hits, causing it to have a uniform positive charge and, due to the resulting unopposed repulsive forces between protons, violently tear itself apart into subatomic dust. The upgraded version also fires a beam that suppresses the charge of the ''proton'' and lands a short distance away from the first. Besides more disintegration, this also creates a ''massive'' electrical current between the two charged areas.

* 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]].
** [[spoiler: The superconductor plague was a LOT worse than that. They engineered it so 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.]]

** A comment repeated is that the Ringworld isn't so big as to be incomprehensible - it's just barely small enough that the mind can understand ''how mind-bogglingly big'' it actually is.

* BizarreSexualDimorphism: Kzinti females are non-sentient. Also, it's suggested at one point that puppeteer females must mate with [[ThreeWaySex two males]] in order to conceive.
** In the second book, The Hindmost (who is mated to Nessus) explains Puppeteer reproduction in more detail. The "female" Puppeteer is actually a different species, which acts as a host for the embryo formed by the gametes placed into it by the Puppeteers. The organs used to deposit gametes are described as being "most similar". Louis then understands why Nessus didn't want to talk about it: "This is ugly."
*** The comparison is to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonoidea Ichneumonoid wasps]]

** On the other hand, she might not have been born lucky after all, and just looked that way for the benefit of people who were. (Trying to follow cause and effect in a universe with people whose mere existence is supposed to cause the entire universe to automatically conspire in their favor is a serious MindScrew.)
*** 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 Protector, at which point it becomes obvious that what actually constitutes "luck" is so subjective as to be meaningless

* ConvergingStreamWeapon: The upgraded Slaver Disintegrator.

* OffToSeeTheWizard: After finishing the first book, Larry Niven realized that its plot and characters mirrored those of TheWizardOfOz. (Louis Wu is Dorothy, Nessus is the Cowardly Lion, Speaker-To-Animals is the Scarecrow, Teela Brown is the Tin Man, and Halrloprillalar is the Wizard.)

* 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.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Halrloprillalar [[spoiler: dies between the first and second books]].

** Nessus isn't just considered insane. He ''is''. He is bipolar, swinging back and forth between "normal" puppeteer cowardice, and periods of berserker-like bravery.

* FamousFamousFictional: Louis' opinion of [[ArousedByTheirVoice Nessus' voice]] -- "Had Louis visualized a woman to go with that voice, she would have been Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Marilyn Monroe and Lorelei Huntz rolled into one."

* FloatingContinent: Ranging in size from buildings to cities, these were very common on the Ringworld. It's mentioned most species could build these just as easily as the City Builders could, but choose not to for a number of reasons.

* MetalPoorPlanet: As an artificial world, there are no mineral ores: if you dig into a mountain, you'll hit the [[{{Unobtanium}} scrith]] underlying the sculpted landscape after a few hundred meters.

** Shadow square wire
** Sinclair molecule chain
** Variable swords

* PutOnABus: In ''Ringworld's Children'', the Hindmost only briefly mentions that Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok were returned to their hometown floating city, and they otherwise don't appear in the book at all. In a surprising case of TheyJustDidntCare, Niven gets Harkabeeparolyn's name wrong and calls her Fortaralisplyar, who was a different ''male'' character from the same floating city in ''The Ringworld Engineers''.

'''Chiron:''' [[ShapedLikeItself It is a star with a ring around it.]] A ring of solid matter. An artifact.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They are non-sentient, for starters. They also attract their prey with pheromones and are technically a number of different hominid species that evolved convergently into the same niche.
** Or at least they are [[spoiler: until transformation into a Protector.]]

* AuthorAppeal: Rishathra, which is cross-species mating used for the purposes of diplomacy on the Ring. Niven reportedly wore a shirt to conventions that says "I have sex outside my species"[[note]]He wrote that if wearing a badge with the same slogan, you really have to remember to take it off outside SF conventions, or people draw funny conclusions.[[/note]]

** In the second book, The Hindmost (who is mated to Nessus) explains Puppeteer reproduction in more detail. The 'female' Puppeteer is actually a different species, which acts as a host for the embryo formed by the gametes placed into it by the Puppeteers. The organs used to deposit gametes are described as being "most similar". Louis then understands why Nessus didn't want to talk about it: "This is ugly."

* [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Dropped A Bridge On Her]]: Halrloprillalar.

* FloatingContinent: from buildings to cities.

* FreeLoveFuture

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They are non-sentient, for starters.

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

* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Wembleth.]]

* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Speaker-To-Animals is known by his profession (as are all Kzinti) until he has earned the right to choose his own name.

* RazorFloss: Shadow square wire; Sinclair molecule chain.

* CoolShip: Anything that reaches the Ringworld from ''Known Space'' in a reasonable amount of time qualifies. Eventually the Ringworld itself qualifies as the largest starship ever.

** He does it again in ''Ringworld's Children'', describing the state of the Fringe War -- "It'll be like the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, or the UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, or Avenge Mecca: [[ForeverWar it could last forever]]. Nobody knows how to turn off a war."

** He does it again in ''Ringworld's Children'', describing the state of the Fringe War -- "It'll be like the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, or the UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, or Avenge Mecca: [[ForeverWar it could last forever. Nobody knows how to turn off a war."

* BizarreSexualDimorphism: Kzinti females are non-sentient. Also, it's suggested at one point that puppeteer females must mate with [[ThreeWaySex two males]] in order to concieve.

** The novel also has a room temperature superconductor that also superconducts heat, both of which become an important plot points.

* StarfishAliens: Nessus is a Pierson's Puppeteer, a creature with three legs, two heads, and its brain in the middle of its body. Nessus is noted to have his heads look at one another, his equivalent of a laugh. The Ring also has some transplanted Jinxian Bandersnatchi, sentient slugs the size of a freight train.
** This is actually a major spoiler as the other characters, most specifically Louie, only assumes that the gesture is meant as laughter, and frequently suspects other meanings.

** The novel also has a room temperature superconductors that also superconducts heat, both of which become an important plot points.

** The novel also has room temperature superconductors, and superconductors of heat, both of which become an important plot points.

** On the other hand, she might not have been born lucky after all, and just looked that way for the benefit of people who were. (Trying to follow cause and effect in a universe with people who's mere existence is supposed to cause the entire universe to automatically conspire in their favor is a serious MindScrew.)

*** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], in that a to-scale drawing of the Ringworld isn't very dramatic. As Niven himself put it in ''The Ringworld Engineers'': "Picture fifty feet of baby-blue Christmas ribbon one inch wide. String it in a circle, on edge on the floor, and put a candle in the middle. Now expand the scale: The Ringworld was a ribbon of unreasonably strong material, a million miles wide and six hundred million miles long, strung in a circle ninety-five million miles in radius with a sun at the center."

* ArtisticLicenseBiology / ArtisticLicenseChemistry: The superconductor plague. Bacteria cannot break down metallic substances [[note]]Some bacteria do alter metals under very reducing conditions, but these wouldn't exist in electronics presumably and could never be a plague; the chemical reaction could be reversed[[/note]] which all conductors are by virtue of their molecular structure[[note]]The reason conductors are all metals is because the closely packed atoms can easily transfer a charge; organic molecules are large, messy, and often without charge at all[[/note]]. Louis compares the superconductor plague to a fungus that ate polystyrene on Earth, which also ignores that polystyrene is an organic compound and '''can''' be broken down by bacteria.