Niven only gave the right to use Kzinti to Trek because he had to meet a deadline for a TAS episode and cannibalized one of his Known Space stories for it. So there won't be any puppeteers in our universe - just as well, too, because then we'd have to deal with a species where only its clinically insane members are brave/dumb enough to use warp drive (as it can fail sometimes).
(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
I think that particular episode is still kinda in a gray zone. The fact we see a Kzinti in Lower Decks, but not NAMED as one on screen to my knowledge, is interesting though. However there was also mention of the Kzinti in Star Trek Picard season 1.
Niven only gave the right to use Kzinti to Trek because he had to meet a deadline for a TAS episode and cannibalized one of his Known Space stories for it. So there won't be any puppeteers in our universe - just as well, too, because then we'd have to deal with a species where only its clinically insane members are brave/dumb enough to use warp drive (as it can fail sometimes).
(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
A number of sci-fi novelists wrote episodes for TOS and TAS, including top-end authors like Niven.
The TAS episode The Slaver Weapon was an adaptation of Niven's The Soft Weapon short story because workload conflicts and schedule snafus made it impossible for him to write an original story for it. The episode follows the short story very closely except of course for trimming it to fit the runtime the show had available and the cast swap where Spock was substituted for a Puppeteer named Nessius (my spelling may be off), Sulu and Uhura for a human adventurer/archaeologist (I forget his name atm, he appeared in several other stories I think) and his wife (who was also a scientist iirc, it has been a very long time since I read those stories).
Niven only gave the right to use Kzinti to Trek because he had to meet a deadline for a TAS episode and cannibalized one of his Known Space stories for it. So there won't be any puppeteers in our universe - just as well, too, because then we'd have to deal with a species where only its clinically insane members are brave/dumb enough to use warp drive (as it can fail sometimes).
(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
Finagle if Trek just merged itself with Niven and added known space as what civilians are up to outside Starfleet. Though with a trace of seriousness: Puppeteers would be a great addition to STO, as I'm sure the team would knock General Products hull forms out of the park.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Niven only gave the right to use Kzinti to Trek because he had to meet a deadline for a TAS episode and cannibalized one of his Known Space stories for it. So there won't be any puppeteers in our universe - just as well, too, because then we'd have to deal with a species where only its clinically insane members are brave/dumb enough to use warp drive (as it can fail sometimes).
(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
I never heard any of Nivan Stories,
Larry Niven wrote a series of stories set in Known Space, a sphere around 30 lightyears across that had been explored by humans after the outsiders sold one of the existing human colonies (established by slower-than-light craft) a hyperdrive shunt design. (The First Human-Kzin War was underway at that point, with kzinti using a gravity-polarization drive and humans using nuclear-fusion propulsion and lightsails. The kzinti quickly learned that while their telepaths reported human society to be pacifistic and unarmed, humans were quickly able to repurpose lightsail launching lasers as system-defense weapons, and of course the Kzinti Lesson - any reaction drive is a weapon, with its efficiency as a weapon being directly proportional to its efficiency as a drive. This was taught when the Angel's Pencil, running supplies to Wunderland around Alpha Centauri, used its drive to cut the kzin ship Warrior's Talon in half, in the first encounter of the war.) Human possession of hyperdrive, which enables a ship to cross one lightyear every three days, gave them an insurmountable advantage over the kzinti, resulting in a decisive victory. There were at least four such wars after that, each one ending in a human victory as the kzinti have a tendency to attack before they're ready.
Part of the history of Known Space is that about a billion years earlier, the galaxy was dominated by a species called the thrintun. Known to historians as Slavers, the thrintun were of moderately low intelligence, but possessed a form of telepathic control they called the Power. With it, they enslaved every other species in the galaxy, forcing any animal with detectable brain patterns to do as the thrintun bid. One of their subject races were the tnuctipun, a species with a gift for genetic engineering; heavy use of the Power tended to dull the abilities of races subject to it, so the tnuctipun were more lightly controlled. They engineered a species that was a single cell almost half the size of a brontosaur, which the thrintun prized for its delicate flesh, particularly the brain-equivalent organelle, which they ordered the tnuctipun to make larger. What the thrintun didn't realize was that the tnuctipun maintained enough of their own will that they were able to make plans of which their masters were unaware. The giant meat-beasts, for instance, were fully sapient, but immune to the Power. The sunflowers, enormous plants almost as big as redwoods and topped with a flower whose petals were shiny silver and reflected sunlight, could be turned from power generators into weapons, as they could focus the light on buildings or any creatures unfortunate enough to be nearby. And the tnuctip engineers were also able to create three chief weapons - a cap that could block the Power, a stasis field that suspended the passage of entropy inside, and a weapon with multiple settings that could assume several forms, including one that was a small one-tnuctip fusion rocket for quick escapes and one that used two opposed weapon emitters as a self-destruct mechanism. These weapons enabled the tnuctipun to rise in rebellion against the thrintun, who in the end wound up using a massive amplifier to broadcast the Power across the entire galactic disc, issuing one command - "die". They didn't realize this would encompass the thrintun as well. So, anything with a brain that wasn't immune to the Power died. (That's the basic reason the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon" is incompatible with the rest of the Trek universe as we understand it - all the races the Progenitors seeded would have died that day.)
In the story "The Soft Weapon", the puppeteer Nessus commissioned a human couple (who hunted stasis boxes as a hobby) to take it to Beta Lyrae II, where long-range scans had indicated a stasis box might be hidden. The box was there, but so was a kzin ship, the Traitor's Claw (whose crew were officially "discommended" by the Kzin Patriarchy, so that if they were caught looking for ways to defeat humans they could be disavowed). The story was adapted by Niven as the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon", as Niven has one of the worst curses any writer can have - he can only write when he feels inspired. He was contracted to produce a TAS episode, and his first proposal was rejected, so with deadline bearing down he cannibalized one of his own stories (he didn't think anyone would notice, as the Known Space stories hadn't really taken off yet).
Other major species in the Known Space universe include the puppeteers, three-legged centauroid beings with two flat, brainless heads at the end of tentacle-like necks. (The brain is located in a hump between the necks, above the two forelegs.) The puppeteers are more intelligent than almost any other species known (we have no idea how intelligent the outsiders are, as they don't like to answer personal questions - they will, but the price is equivalent to the GDP of Earth, and nobody's that curious), and as herbivores, have a psyche developed around what they call sensible caution and what everyone else calls extreme cowardice. No sane puppeteer has been seen by any other race, for instance, because no sane puppeteer will subject themself to hyperdrive, which can sometimes fail, and the location of their homeworld is a closely-guarded secret. Only those puppeteers crazy enough to risk their lives ever leave, and thus they are the basis of trade for the entire species. (Nessus, who features in both "The Soft Weapon" and the novel Ringworld, is severely bipolar - at its height, it openly insulted a kzin ambassador, and at its lowest, it shrieked in terror at a butterfly. In "The Soft Weapon", it was in manic phase when it kicked the kzin Chuft-Captain in the chest with its powerful hind leg, breaking three of the kzin's ribs through an armored pressure suit.)
*Had to correct a planetary error caused by typing on insufficient caffeine. The Angel's Pencil was bound for Wunderland, the colony on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. I had We Made It, the colony on a planet orbiting Procyon A, on the brain because it was the Mayor of We Made It who bought the hyperdrive shunt from an outsider ship that was following a starseed. What's a starseed? The outsiders will tell you - for ten trillion UN marks, or the equivalent in trade goods.
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(Parenthetically, I wonder sometimes why we have kzinti, but not police webs or the ancient thrintun/tnuctipun war, the reason why the macguffin of the episode even existed. And where are the bandersnatchi? Or the stage trees? Or the sunflowers?)
I think that particular episode is still kinda in a gray zone. The fact we see a Kzinti in Lower Decks, but not NAMED as one on screen to my knowledge, is interesting though. However there was also mention of the Kzinti in Star Trek Picard season 1.
I never heard any of Nivan Stories,
The TAS episode The Slaver Weapon was an adaptation of Niven's The Soft Weapon short story because workload conflicts and schedule snafus made it impossible for him to write an original story for it. The episode follows the short story very closely except of course for trimming it to fit the runtime the show had available and the cast swap where Spock was substituted for a Puppeteer named Nessius (my spelling may be off), Sulu and Uhura for a human adventurer/archaeologist (I forget his name atm, he appeared in several other stories I think) and his wife (who was also a scientist iirc, it has been a very long time since I read those stories).
Finagle if Trek just merged itself with Niven and added known space as what civilians are up to outside Starfleet. Though with a trace of seriousness: Puppeteers would be a great addition to STO, as I'm sure the team would knock General Products hull forms out of the park.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Part of the history of Known Space is that about a billion years earlier, the galaxy was dominated by a species called the thrintun. Known to historians as Slavers, the thrintun were of moderately low intelligence, but possessed a form of telepathic control they called the Power. With it, they enslaved every other species in the galaxy, forcing any animal with detectable brain patterns to do as the thrintun bid. One of their subject races were the tnuctipun, a species with a gift for genetic engineering; heavy use of the Power tended to dull the abilities of races subject to it, so the tnuctipun were more lightly controlled. They engineered a species that was a single cell almost half the size of a brontosaur, which the thrintun prized for its delicate flesh, particularly the brain-equivalent organelle, which they ordered the tnuctipun to make larger. What the thrintun didn't realize was that the tnuctipun maintained enough of their own will that they were able to make plans of which their masters were unaware. The giant meat-beasts, for instance, were fully sapient, but immune to the Power. The sunflowers, enormous plants almost as big as redwoods and topped with a flower whose petals were shiny silver and reflected sunlight, could be turned from power generators into weapons, as they could focus the light on buildings or any creatures unfortunate enough to be nearby. And the tnuctip engineers were also able to create three chief weapons - a cap that could block the Power, a stasis field that suspended the passage of entropy inside, and a weapon with multiple settings that could assume several forms, including one that was a small one-tnuctip fusion rocket for quick escapes and one that used two opposed weapon emitters as a self-destruct mechanism. These weapons enabled the tnuctipun to rise in rebellion against the thrintun, who in the end wound up using a massive amplifier to broadcast the Power across the entire galactic disc, issuing one command - "die". They didn't realize this would encompass the thrintun as well. So, anything with a brain that wasn't immune to the Power died. (That's the basic reason the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon" is incompatible with the rest of the Trek universe as we understand it - all the races the Progenitors seeded would have died that day.)
In the story "The Soft Weapon", the puppeteer Nessus commissioned a human couple (who hunted stasis boxes as a hobby) to take it to Beta Lyrae II, where long-range scans had indicated a stasis box might be hidden. The box was there, but so was a kzin ship, the Traitor's Claw (whose crew were officially "discommended" by the Kzin Patriarchy, so that if they were caught looking for ways to defeat humans they could be disavowed). The story was adapted by Niven as the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon", as Niven has one of the worst curses any writer can have - he can only write when he feels inspired. He was contracted to produce a TAS episode, and his first proposal was rejected, so with deadline bearing down he cannibalized one of his own stories (he didn't think anyone would notice, as the Known Space stories hadn't really taken off yet).
Other major species in the Known Space universe include the puppeteers, three-legged centauroid beings with two flat, brainless heads at the end of tentacle-like necks. (The brain is located in a hump between the necks, above the two forelegs.) The puppeteers are more intelligent than almost any other species known (we have no idea how intelligent the outsiders are, as they don't like to answer personal questions - they will, but the price is equivalent to the GDP of Earth, and nobody's that curious), and as herbivores, have a psyche developed around what they call sensible caution and what everyone else calls extreme cowardice. No sane puppeteer has been seen by any other race, for instance, because no sane puppeteer will subject themself to hyperdrive, which can sometimes fail, and the location of their homeworld is a closely-guarded secret. Only those puppeteers crazy enough to risk their lives ever leave, and thus they are the basis of trade for the entire species. (Nessus, who features in both "The Soft Weapon" and the novel Ringworld, is severely bipolar - at its height, it openly insulted a kzin ambassador, and at its lowest, it shrieked in terror at a butterfly. In "The Soft Weapon", it was in manic phase when it kicked the kzin Chuft-Captain in the chest with its powerful hind leg, breaking three of the kzin's ribs through an armored pressure suit.)
*Had to correct a planetary error caused by typing on insufficient caffeine. The Angel's Pencil was bound for Wunderland, the colony on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. I had We Made It, the colony on a planet orbiting Procyon A, on the brain because it was the Mayor of We Made It who bought the hyperdrive shunt from an outsider ship that was following a starseed. What's a starseed? The outsiders will tell you - for ten trillion UN marks, or the equivalent in trade goods.