SPOILER HERE Ringworlds Children

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OK I warned you

At the end of RWC Louis wakes up back as a breeder stage Human. He comments
that he feels stupid or words to that effect and the Hindmost implied that
the nano Doc can switch him back and forth from Breeder to Protector stage
at will, all he has to do is choose the setting and get back in to return to
Protector stage.

I would take that deal in a heartbeat! I would go back to being a
Protector, design/invent saleable technology, explore what it means to be a
Protector stage human, and once I was satisfied that Humanity was still safe
I would go back to being a Breeder stage human for a while. Every 20 years
or so I would have aged enough to reasonably spend a period, say a year, as
a Protector, then go back to being a Breeder. It is the best of both
worlds, you have your youth, and you have your wisdom when you need it.

Another thing, it occurred to me that one could argue that Louis Wu is the
one with the selfish luck gene, he has reproduced biologically a number of
times, he has descendents in the ARM, on several if not all the human colony
worlds, on Earth and on Ringworld. His wild oats are spread about as far as
humanly possible for his era.

Allen W.

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 > OK I warned you
 >
 > At the end of RWC Louis wakes up back as a breeder stage Human. He
comments
 > that he feels stupid or words to that effect and the Hindmost implied that
 > the nano Doc can switch him back and forth from Breeder to Protector stage
 > at will, all he has to do is choose the setting and get back in to return
to
 > Protector stage.
 >
 > I would take that deal in a heartbeat! I would go back to being a
 > Protector, design/invent saleable technology, explore what it means to be
a
 > Protector stage human, and once I was satisfied that Humanity was still
safe
 > I would go back to being a Breeder stage human for a while. Every 20
years
 > or so I would have aged enough to reasonably spend a period, say a year,
as
 > a Protector, then go back to being a Breeder.

I can't imagine a protector ever convincing itself that humanity would be
safe. Any protector, given the choice would keep on protecting. In fact,
a protector should have foreseen that the doc would fix him back to Wu and
adjusted the machine before hand.

--

I loved how fast Niven puts us into the action. It almost makes up for the
fact the novel is gaunt. The visions of having to repair a huge antimatter
hole with a huge inflateble scrith donut was increadible<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->