james_davis_nicoll | Ringworld (Ringworld, volume 1) by Larry Niven

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Ringworld (Ringworld, volume 1) by Larry Niven

Rereading this a few years ago, it struck me that Halrloprillala's people didn't seem advanced enough to be convincing as builders of the Ringworld. Now I wonder if Niven had plans for a sequel from the start, or it's just me back-projecting as a result of my knowledge of the sequel? (And then there's the possibility that Niven just couldn't manage to convincingly write a civilization both advanced enough to build a Ringworld and incompetent enough to collapse as thoroughly as the plot required.)

I remember buying the premise when I first read it, in part because decadent societies that have forgotten their technology were such a common trope in the SF that I was reading at the time that it was easy to nod along with the premise without thinking about it very much.

Now, many years later, it's somewhat obvious to me that this trope is absurdly more common than any evidence of this effect in human history (yes, yes, ancient Greece, but still). Most writers have now shifted to some sort of apocalyptic explanation for their downfalls of civilization, but haven't abandoned the idea (I'm sure for the understandable reason that rediscovery of ancient technology is a fantastic story hook that I still haven't gotten tired of, despite its implausibility).

Cory Doctorow could write a story where the civilization lost its technology due to copyright maximalism. Laws like the DMCA, but moreso. Not super plausible, but could make for some good satire.

In an essay somewhere or other, Niven comments on the extremely probable explanation that the Ringworld was built by Pak Protectors, and that he already had too many spinning plot dishes in play to work that in, so he settled for Louis Wu getting the wrong answer.

Edited 2022-04-17 20:44 (UTC)