In fiction , a character or personage , is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel , play , radio or television series , music , film , or video game ). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made. Derived from the Ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ , the English word dates from the Restoration , although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones by Henry Fielding in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor " developed. (Before this development, the term dramatis personae , naturalized in English from Latin and meaning "masks of the drama", encapsulated the notion of characters from the literal aspect of masks .) Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theater or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person". In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase " in character " has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers , has been called characterization .
93-829: This is a list of fictional characters featured in the Known Space novels by Larry Niven . Sigmund Ausfaller , a native of Earth, is a member of the Amalgamated Regional Militia ("ARM"), working in the Bureau of Alien Affairs on Earth. To protect puppeteer (and Earth) interests, in "Neutron Star" Ausfaller plants a bomb in the lifesystem of Shaeffer's ship, the Skydiver , so that Shaeffer will not attempt to steal it. Years later, in The Borderlands of Sol , when Shaeffer encounters him on Jinx , he offers Shaeffer and Carlos Wu
186-448: A Belter . In the low gravity of Ceres base, Gil discovers that he has a psi power . His brain, still remembering the " image " of his lost arm, can use it much as he did the flesh-and-blood arm. He can feel and manipulate objects via ESP and telekinesis , respectively. Finding a third crewman, Homer Chandrasekhar, they make several highly profitable trips over the following year. Gil finds his "imaginary arm", though not strong, to be
279-405: A Pak Protector has no bloodline to protect, it usually stops eating and starves, though some childless Protectors can adopt the entire Pak race as their family. Niven states that Protectors on the crowded Pak homeworld would constantly war against each other to gain advantage for their family and that alliances would last only until one ally sees advantage in betrayal. Human Protectors, and those on
372-407: A Pak Protector's instincts to protect its bloodline at any costs. The Pak have no drive toward the collection of abstract knowledge, have no concept of art, and do not even possess enough of an artistic impulse to understand the purpose of making sketches and paintings for reasons not directly useful. The change from Breeder to Protector is the result of a peramorphic transformation brought about by
465-684: A Quantum II hyperdrive ship (named Long Shot by Shaeffer) to the core of the Milky Way galaxy, where Shaeffer discovers the core explosion. The Regional President of Jinx appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer story " At the Core ". Ulf Reichstein-Markham was born on Wunderland in 2390 , the son of a Solar System Belter . Following the occupation of Wunderland by the Kzinti in the First Man-Kzin War , at
558-406: A certain anatomical resemblance to a feature of the large Earth land animal), a native of Earth, is probably the richest human alive. His great-to-the-eighth grandmother invented the transfer booth . It is rumored that he actually owns known space, and gets income from renting it out, and that General Products Corporation is actually a front for him. Pelton lives in a house on the side of a cliff in
651-438: A character using the basic character archetypes which are common to many cultural traditions: the father figure , mother figure, hero , and so on. Some writers make use of archetypes as presented by Carl Jung as the basis for character traits. Generally, when an archetype from some system (such as Jung's) is used, elements of the story also follow the system's expectations in terms of storyline . An author can also create
744-489: A colony of Pak breeders that were stranded on Earth 2.5 million years ago. The protectors that built the colony ship died when their Tree-of-Life crops failed. The original Pak Breeder population (known to us as Homo habilis ) bred and mutated wildly, evolving into modern humans as well as all other Earth primates . All Terran primates would transform into the Protector stage if exposed to Tree-of-Life root (or, more accurately,
837-526: A computer analyst for Donovan's Brains, Inc. She had been previously employed by the Epcot-Atlanta police. During her childhood her father ran a lobster ranch in Boston. She was able to travel to Fafnir asleep inside Carlos Wu's special autodoc and later was frozen for travel to Home when Smittarasheed located Shaeffer on Fafnir. Sharrol Janss appears in the stories " Flatlander ", " Procrustes " and " Ghost ", and
930-455: A distinction between the individuals represented in tragedy and in comedy arose: tragedy, along with epic poetry , is "a representation of serious people" (1449b9—10), while comedy is "a representation of people who are rather inferior" (1449a32—33). In the Tractatus coislinianus (which may or may not be by Aristotle), Ancient Greek comedy is defined as involving three types of characters:
1023-429: A fictional character using generic stock characters , which are generally flat. They tend to be used for supporting or minor characters. However, some authors have used stock characters as the starting point for building richly detailed characters, such as William Shakespeare 's use of the boastful soldier character as the basis for John Falstaff . Some authors create charactonyms for their characters. A charactonym
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#17328700963711116-424: A fourth for bridge. Sharrol also has two children by Carlos Wu, Tanya and Louis , as part of an arrangement between the three so that Bey and Sharrol could raise children together on Earth. Sharrol suffers from Flatland Phobia, a fear of changes to a person's environment, gravity, etc. which makes them psychologically unable to bear space travel or being away from Earth. She was employed at the time she met Shaeffer as
1209-623: A framing story ("Ghost") which ties them all together in the fix-up collection Crashlander . Shaeffer also appears in the story "Fly-by-Night" and in Juggler of Worlds , second book in the Fleet of Worlds series. His known activities span the Timeline of Known Space from 2622, when he became chief pilot of Nakamura Lines, to 2655 when he emigrated to the planet Home with his wife Sharrol and their children. Character (arts) A character who stands as
1302-670: A native of Earth, is a wealthy human who owns the ship Drunkard’s Walk . A lean man with a lean face, a sharp-edged nose, prominent cheekbones and dark, deep-set eyes with shaggy black eyebrows, Bellamy is in prime condition. He is 300 years old and takes boosterspice, although he was born before that drug became available; initially, like all humans before boosterspice, he relied on the organ banks to keep him healthy. An outgoing, interesting man, Bellamy talks well; he tells old jokes but does it well, and he has some new ones, too. While not xenophobic, Bellamy tends to not think of aliens as people; Shaeffer remembers that he had said they should wipe out
1395-469: A representative of a particular class or group of people is known as a type. Types include both stock characters and those that are more fully individualized . The characters in Henrik Ibsen 's Hedda Gabler (1891) and August Strindberg 's Miss Julie (1888), for example, are representative of specific positions in the social relations of class and gender , such that the conflicts between
1488-471: A ride home to Earth on his ship, Hobo Kelly , in hopes of attracting the attention of whoever or whatever was causing ships to disappear when entering or leaving Sol system. Some years later, Ausfaller, having almost caught up with Shaeffer on Fafnir, is killed by Ander Smittarasheed in order to protect Smittarasheed's interest in the special nanotechnology autodoc developed by Carlos Wu, left on Fafnir when Carlos escaped from Feather Filip as she shot Shaeffer in
1581-445: A second two-chambered heart forms in the groin at the fusion of the femoral veins . The arms lengthen. Fingernails turn into retractable claws. Teeth fall out and the lips and gums fuse, the mouth forming a horny beak (flat in protectors transformed from humans, non-flat in protectors transformed from Pak). All the breeder's hair falls out and the head acquires a bony ridge to protect the newly expanded cranium . The expanded skull allows
1674-494: A silver lining of greater import in order to maintain indeterminacy , at the expense of dissipating plot tension (Teela was never in any danger really )—regardless of the views expressed by various characters within the narrative. Teela can also be viewed as a lampshade trope, by bending narrativium to function as a plot device ("a hero will always win when outnumbered, since million-to-one chances are dramatic enough to crop up nine times out of ten"). Gilbert Gilgamesh Hamilton
1767-425: A transplant, or settle for a prosthetic . Gil, by a quirk of his own nature, can not live with a prosthetic. Gil receives his new arm, but finds he can still dissociate his imaginary arm from his real one, and reach through walls, flesh, and even vidphone screens to manipulate objects he sees in them. Shortly afterward, Gil finds out that his new arm had not come from a condemned criminal as he had hoped, but from
1860-478: A valuable asset, as he can reach through walls and even into vacuum. After six months, Gil has earned enough to repay all his medical fees, with a comfortable cash reserve left over. Despite much disapproval from Owen and Homer, Gil decides to return to Earth and seek to get his citizenship back. On Earth, he can easily get a transplant to replace his missing arm. In the Belt he would have to pay exorbitantly high fees for
1953-431: A vastly extended lifetime, it is not infinite; during the original half-million year journey to Earth some Protector colonists did die from old age. Because of their enormous intelligence and instinctive need to protect their family (or their species, etc.), Protectors are efficient, ruthless and quite amoral. Xenophobia is a commonly displayed trait: other races are considered either unneccesary or potentially dangerous. It
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#17328700963712046-680: Is a detective . He is often called "Gil the Arm", both due to his affiliation with the ARM world police force, and his unusual psychic ability. Born in Topeka , Kansas , to flatlander parents near the end of the 21st century (it is established he was born in the month of April, but 2086, 2091, 2093, and 2097 are all given as years in various stories), he emigrates to the Belt as soon as he becomes an adult. There he begins work on an arduous ten-year apprenticeship towards
2139-458: Is a "walk-on", a term used by Seymour Chatman for characters that are not fully delineated and individualized; rather they are part of the background or the setting of the narrative. Dynamic characters are those that change over the course of the story, while static characters remain the same throughout. An example of a popular dynamic character in literature is Ebenezer Scrooge , the protagonist of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. At
2232-530: Is a descendant of a former lover of Louis Wu . Her age in Ringworld is given as twenty, though there are conflicting data in later books. She joins the Ringworld expedition, and eventually becomes separated from the group. She meets a Ringworld native called Seeker, and decides to remain with him on the Ringworld while the remainder of the crew departs. In The Ringworld Engineers , when a second expedition returns to
2325-697: Is a member of the technologically advanced alien race known to humans as Pierson's Puppeteers , and amongst themselves as Citizens. Nessus, like almost all Puppeteers ever met by humans, is insane by Puppeteer standards. Sane Puppeteers are far too cautious (cowardly from the human perspective) to go off-world or interact with non-Puppeteers, so only insane individuals like Nessus can manage to act as business liaisons or ambassadors to other species, as he does with humans and others. Nessus demonstrates traits that in humans would be diagnosed as manic-depressive disorder , displacement , and at times, extreme suggestibility . His interactions with humans cause him to be one of
2418-587: Is a name that implies the psychological makeup of the person, makes an allegorical allusion, or makes reference to their appearance. For example, Shakespeare has an emotional young male character named Mercutio , John Steinbeck has a kind, sweet character named Candy in Of Mice and Men , and Mervyn Peake has a Machiavellian, manipulative, and murderous villain in Gormenghast named Steerpike . The charactonym can also indicate appearance. For example, François Rabelais gave
2511-492: Is found by Outsiders in a stasis field in a singleship. They sell the singleship containing her to Sigmund Ausfaller , who releases her from stasis. Ausfaller deduces that Brennan put Alice in stasis and sent her far from the danger described in Protector because she is pregnant with his descendant. Alice later becomes involved with Louis Wu , in (by the same authorial team) Betrayer of Worlds and Fate of Worlds . Nessus
2604-528: Is mentioned in the stories " Grendel " and " The Borderland of Sol ". Alice Jordan is a Belter and a Goldskin , a member of the Belt Police in the mid-twenty-fourth century. Together with flatlander Roy Truesdale, they set out for the Kuiper Belt in search of Jack Brennan, a human turned Protector who has been abducting humans for study. In Destroyer of Worlds (by Niven and Edward M. Lerner ), Alice
2697-554: Is not attested in OED until mC18: 'Whatever characters any... have for the jestsake personated... are now thrown off' (1749, Fielding, Tom Jones ). Pak Protector Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two developmental stages of fictional life in Larry Niven 's Known Space universe. The Pak first appeared in "The Adults", which appeared in Galaxy in 1967; this story was expanded into
2790-399: Is observed several times that this intelligence combined with instinct also compels action so completely that Protectors often have little "free will". Niven uses this trait as a plot device several times as characters set up circumstances where Protector characters will react in a specific manner. In Protector , Jack Brennan (a human turned into a Protector) commits genocide by exterminating
2883-491: Is possible, therefore, to have stories that do not contain "characters" in Aristotle's sense of the word, since character necessarily involves making the ethical dispositions of those performing the action clear. If, in speeches, the speaker "decides or avoids nothing at all", then those speeches "do not have character" (1450b9—11). Aristotle argues for the primacy of plot ( mythos ) over character ( ethos ). He writes: But
List of Known Space characters - Misplaced Pages Continue
2976-459: Is revealed that Teela Brown and Seeker had a child, who remained on the Ringworld after the end of the Fringe War . Louis speculates that Teela's luck might work for the survival of her genes , rather than Teela herself. The existence and nature of Teela's luck is debated back and forth by the characters throughout the four-book series. For most of Ringworld , Louis is skeptical of the idea. But by
3069-490: Is set in a time when the Teela gene is more common among humans. Niven says there will not be more stories from this time: "Stories about infinitely lucky people tend to be dull." This indicates that the author felt constrained to develop story lines around Teela consistent with the view that luck is genetic and inheritable—any hardship inflicted upon Teela which appears unlucky on first glance must thereafter be revealed as concealing
3162-404: Is the Protector stage. Protectors are highly sensitive to the smell of their close relatives and "weed out" those that smell wrong, which may indicate a potentially dangerous mutation. This weeding also suppressed positive mutations, essentially halting Pak evolution. Protectors are fully sentient, and are far more intelligent than ordinary humans. This "superior" intelligence, however, serves only
3255-606: The Catskinner AI . By the time Wunderland was liberated in 2420, Reichstein-Markham had become an admiral , and then was chosen to be Minister of War for the free Wunderlander government. He finally died in the year 2443 after being selected to chair the Interworld Commission, an early form of pan-Human government established after the peace treaty with the Kzin was signed. Prior to his death, he had used his position to give
3348-452: The Lensman , bound for Earth from Jinx after Shaeffer's fateful trip to the core of the Milky Way galaxy. Pelton can be cordial and pleasant but also very direct and blunt when it suits him. He is patient but his patience has limits, and while he is as cautious as anyone he can sometimes act without thinking, a trait that would have gotten him killed if Shaeffer had not talked him out of landing on
3441-613: The Martian race ("Aliens were dangerous, or might be, and Pak were not interested in anything but Pak") and also releases a genetically modified Tree-of-Life virus on the colony world Home, turning everyone middle aged into a Protector (and killing all other humans on the planet) in order to create an army of childless Protectors with which to fight the invading Pak fleet. It is indicated throughout Niven's works that humans ( Homo sapiens ) that have turned into protectors are far more intelligent than their Pak ( Homo habilis ) counterparts (in much
3534-463: The buffoon ( bômolochus ), the ironist ( eirōn ), and the imposter or boaster ( alazṓn ). All three are central to Aristophanes ' Old Comedy . By the time the Roman comic playwright Plautus wrote his plays two centuries later, the use of characters to define dramatic genres was well established. His Amphitryon begins with a prologue in which Mercury claims that since
3627-465: The indemnity on his General Products hull. The money was deposited on accounts in Fafnir and Home, where the group planned to emigrate to, using assumed identities, after secretly arriving on Fafnir. Gregory Pelton appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer story Flatlander and was mentioned in the stories Grendel , The Borderland of Sol and Ghost . In Juggler of Worlds , Pelton is powerful enough to control
3720-446: The social order . In fiction writing , authors create dynamic characters using various methods. Sometimes characters are conjured up from imagination; in other instances, they are created by amplifying the character trait of a real person into a new fictional creation. An author or creator basing a character on a real person can use a person they know, a historical figure, a current figure whom they have not met, or themselves, with
3813-457: The Beowulf Shaeffer story " Grendel " and is mentioned in the story " The Borderland of Sol ". Sharrol Janss , a native of Earth, is Beowulf Shaeffer's wife and the mother of their daughter Jeena and another child, name unknown, whom she was pregnant with when Shaeffer encountered Ander Smittarasheed on Fafnir in 2655. Sharrol first met Shaeffer on Earth when she picked his pocket, and was later formally introduced to him by Dianna and Elephant as
List of Known Space characters - Misplaced Pages Continue
3906-530: The Fleet of Worlds series of Ringworld companion novels ( Fleet of Worlds , Juggler of Worlds , Destroyer of Worlds , Betrayer of Worlds , and Fate of Worlds ), which opens about 200 years before Ringworld and ends following Ringworld's Children . Peter Nordbo is an astronomer and noble on Wunderland , who during the First Man-Kzin War was pressed into service for the Kzin following their occupation of
3999-606: The Kzinti for good and all. Bellamy is the leader of a hunting party visiting Gummidgy when the Kdatlyno touch-sculptor Lloobee is kidnapped. When Shaeffer discovers that Bellamy is part of the kidnap plot, he and Emil Horne are captured by the kidnappers who intend to stage their deaths as an accident. Lloobee creates a diversion, allowing Shaeffer to escape, and Bellamy pursues him. Shaeffer rams Bellamy's ship with his aircar, forcing Bellamy to land, but neither Shaeffer nor Bellamy notice that
4092-462: The Pak mostly concentrate on the unique Protector stage. Niven explained the evolution of the Pak as resulting from high radiation levels on their home world near the core of the galaxy . The high radiation near the star-dense core caused severe mutations that can destabilize the evolutionary process. As a result, the Pak evolved a mechanism to eliminate dangerous mutations from the population. That mechanism
4185-462: The Ringworld, it is revealed that Teela has become a Protector-stage human . Her new instincts force her to protect the Ringworld population. When she realizes those instincts are driving her toward an unacceptable choice, she manipulates the other characters into killing her. Further details of her life emerge in three more novels. Her story is the subject of guesswork and deduction by the other characters, and subject to inconsistent retconning among
4278-486: The Ringworld, seem to be less warlike and better able to work for the betterment of the entire species (or all of the Ringworld hominids) rather than just their bloodline, though this may simply be a function of how few Protectors with families encounter each other. Protectors typically die from starvation (from lack of will to live, e.g. if the Protector's bloodline has died out, in which case they simply stop eating until death takes them) or violence. Although Protectors have
4371-565: The Rocky Mountains on Earth, and having spent a lot of time in space resents being called a flatlander. Pelton is of average height but strongly built, looking not so much overweight as solid. Most humans in this period of time on Earth are in excellent health, with autodocs to maintain their bodies and boosterspice to prevent aging; Pelton presumably uses both. Pelton and Shaeffer's personalities tend to complement each other, and they quickly made friends when Shaeffer first encountered him aboard
4464-637: The SecGen of the fictional UN, and becomes a wanted criminal on the run, the authors' way of explaining why he never returns to the Known Space universe. This Pierson's Puppeteer , a native of the Fleet-of-Worlds working for General Products in Known Space , contracts with Shaeffer to pilot a spaceship in a close fly-by of newly discovered neutron star BVS-1 to discover what killed the first two explorers to make
4557-607: The acquisition of his singleship licence, working as a member of small, multi-person crews. After completing several successful trips, Gil is nearly killed. While attempting to move an asteroid with explosives, crew leader "Cubes" Forsythe miscalculates, which results in the destruction of the valuable rock. A fast moving piece of shrapnel penetrates the ship, slicing off Gil's arm and killing Forsythe. The remaining crewmember, Owen Jennison, stops Gil's bleeding and manages to get him to life-saving medical facilities in time. While recuperating from his injury, Gil broods over his future as
4650-585: The age of 18 he joined the "Free Wunderland Navy", what purported to be a resistance group but was little more than a band of space pirates occupying the Serpent Swarm ( Alpha Centauri 's asteroid belt ). He was responsible for the capture of the United Nations spaceship Catskinner , whose crew were later responsible for the assassination of Chuut-Riit. He also came under the control of a Thrint who escaped its Slaver stasis field before being destroyed by
4743-399: The anatomy. Skin thickens, becoming similar to leather armor, strong enough to turn a copper knife. Joints swell until the creature becomes "a parody of the human form done in cantaloupes and coconuts ". This increases leverage available to muscles by increasing the force of the moment arm , the result being that a protector can lift ten times its own weight. Genitalia and gonads vanish, and
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#17328700963714836-494: The attempt, Peter and Sonya Laskin. After Shaeffer's return from BVS-1, the puppeteer also agrees to pay Shaeffer one million stars in return for his silence concerning whether the puppeteer homeworld had a moon. The Regional President of We Made It appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer story " Neutron Star ". This puppeteer (called "Honey" by an overly tired Shaeffer at one point, due to his female-sounding voice) also worked for General Products . He contracted with Shaeffer to pilot
4929-473: The brain to grow to an enormous size; the resulting mind, even starting from something as "unintelligent" as a chimpanzee, becomes far more intelligent than a typical human. Pak Protectors also acquire an extended lifespan, and can live tens of thousands of Earth years (a common element in Niven's stories). Once the transformation is complete, a Pak Protector must periodically consume more Tree-of-Life root to maintain
5022-624: The breeders eventually evolved into all the other hominids of the Ringworld that one sees in Larry Niven's novels. In Destroyer of Worlds (co-written by Niven and Edward M. Lerner ), a human world (and the Pierson's Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds ) confronts a Pak Protector war fleet. The trailing edge of that Pak fleet, carrying the primary Pak Library, also figures prominently in Betrayer of Worlds , by
5115-587: The captured stock of " organleggers ", black market dealers in illicit organ transplants. To make amends, Gil joins the ARM , the elite global police force. As an ARM, Hamilton is a high-tech detective, who hunts organleggers and other criminals for a living. With his unusual psi power, he is formidable and highly feared among his enemies. His exploits are detailed in six "Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton" stories. The stories are noir style, told in first person , and frequently involve exotic technology and locked room mysteries : The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton (1976) contains
5208-517: The characters reveal ideological conflicts. The study of a character requires an analysis of its relations with all of the other characters in the work. The individual status of a character is defined through the network of oppositions (proairetic, pragmatic , linguistic , proxemic ) that it forms with the other characters. The relation between characters and the action of the story shifts historically, often miming shifts in society and its ideas about human individuality, self-determination , and
5301-453: The characters, but they include the characters for the sake of their actions" (1450a15-23). Aristotle suggests that works were distinguished in the first instance according to the nature of the person who created them: "the grander people represented fine actions, i.e. those of fine persons" by producing "hymns and praise-poems", while "ordinary people represented those of inferior ones" by "composing invectives" (1448b20—1449a5). On this basis,
5394-536: The chest with an ARM punchgun. He is later "resurrected" by Wu's Autodoc and taken to one of the Puppeteer farming worlds by Nessus. Ausfaller appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer stories "Neutron Star" , The Borderland of Sol , and "Ghost" , and is mentioned in the story "Procrustes" . He also appears in the non-Shaeffer novel Fleet of Worlds and is the main human character in its sequels Juggler of Worlds and Destroyer of Worlds . Larchmont "Larch" Bellamy ,
5487-534: The children. To the Pak, the Breeder stage, though capable of space travel, is not deemed fully sentient; Breeders, to a large extent, rely on Protectors for long-term survival. Earlier Niven stories describe the breeder as "just intelligent enough to swing a club or throw a stone". Pak Protector is not analogous to any human form. It is described as a 'fighting machine', with armor-like skin, super-human strength and super-human intelligence. Niven's stories that focus on
5580-579: The earliest surviving work of dramatic theory , Poetics ( c. 335 BCE ), the Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle states that character ( ethos ) is one of six qualitative parts of Athenian tragedy and one of the three objects that it represents (1450a12). He understands character not to denote a fictional person, but the quality of the person acting in the story and reacting to its situations (1450a5). He defines character as "that which reveals decision , of whatever sort" (1450b8). It
5673-417: The end of the series Louis says he believes the luck is real, because he sees no other explanation for the unlikely coincidences that have benefited her. Niven has described the problems that such a character and such a trait pose to his story and to his fictional universe. He calls it "Author Control" to illustrate the plot and story limitations it imposes on the creative process. The story "Safe at Any Speed"
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#17328700963715766-425: The few Pak Protectors to make it to Earth apparently are not found in the fossil record. The Pak species goes through three stages of development: Child, Breeder and Protector. Pak Child is analogous to a human child: sexually immature and dependent upon adults for survival. Pak Breeder is analogous to a young-ish human adult: sexually mature, self-sufficient (in later writings) and providing immediate care for
5859-468: The few Puppeteers to ever show any support for Human interests as coequal to Puppeteer interests. He is also directly responsible for the presence of Sigmund Ausfaller on New Terra. Nessus is featured in the short story " The Soft Weapon " (printed in the 1968 collection Neutron Star ) and is one of the expeditionaries to the Ringworld in the 1970 book of the same name. Nessus is also a central character of
5952-410: The first three novellas. Flatlander (1995) ( ISBN 0-345-39480-1 ) is a collection of the first five Gil Hamilton novellas and novels. Emil Horne , a native of Jinx , is a top-flight computer programmer. He meets Shaeffer on a trip from Down to Gummidgy and they struck up a quick friendship. Horne is short and strongly built like most natives of Jinx, a high-gravity world. His ability to ask
6045-412: The front landing leg of his ship fails to deploy, leaving the ship balancing with its gyros alone. When Bellamy tries to save his ship, it flips end-for-end, throwing him into the air to his death. Bellamy probably had a romantic relationship with fellow kidnapper Tanya Wilson; Margo Tellefsen told Shaeffer that Wilson might attempt to kill him in revenge for Bellamy's death. He also wonders if Bellamy's age
6138-477: The help of Robert Saxtorph and his ship to investigate. They found that Peter had discovered a remnant of the Tnuctipun , a black hole powered hyperdrive that could also be used as a powerful Hawking radiation beam weapon. Peter had freed himself from the Kzinti and was reunited with Tyra, and after the weapon was destroyed by the Kzin, returned to Wunderland to free his name. Gregory Pelton (aka "Elephant" for
6231-546: The latter being either an author-surrogate or an example of self-insertion . The use of a famous person easily identifiable with certain character traits as the base for a principal character is a feature of allegorical works, such as Animal Farm by George Orwell, which portrays Soviet revolutionaries as pigs. Other authors, especially for historical fiction , make use of real people and create fictional stories revolving around their lives, as with The Paris Wife which revolves around Ernest Hemingway . An author can create
6324-442: The location where Lloobee is being held, a cave created with a Slaver disintegrator tool, which Horne locates by having Shaeffer fly high above the ground to see the dust created by the tool. When he attempts to enter the cave, however, a stun-gun set in the "on" position and facing the door renders Horne unconscious. He is returned along with Lloobee after Shaeffer escapes from the kidnappers with Lloobee's help. Emil Horne appears in
6417-406: The most important of these is the structure of the incidents. For (i) tragedy is a representation not of human beings but of action and life. Happiness and unhappiness lie in action, and the end [of life] is a sort of action, not a quality; people are of a certain sort according to their characters, but happy or the opposite according to their actions. So [the actors] do not act in order to represent
6510-633: The name Gargantua to a giant and the huge whale in Pinocchio (1940) is named Monstro . In his book Aspects of the Novel , E. M. Forster defined two basic types of characters, their qualities, functions, and importance for the development of the novel: flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are two-dimensional, in that they are relatively uncomplicated. By contrast, round characters are complex figures with many different characteristics, that undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise
6603-406: The narrative structure, unlike core characters, for which any significant conflict must be traced during a considerable time, which is often seen as an unjustified waste of resources. There may also be a continuing or recurring guest character. Sometimes a guest or minor character may gain unanticipated popularity and turn into a regular or main one; this is known as a breakout character . In
6696-600: The novel Protector by Larry Niven (1973). The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later novels, notably those set in the Ringworld . Destroyer of Worlds depicts a confrontation between the Pak and the Puppeteers . Niven has written that he invented the Protectors as a thought experiment to explain the common effects of aging on humans and to create a fictional evolutionary explanation for humans' long lives after females have passed reproductive age. Accordingly, most of
6789-419: The plan bogged down in details. Ander Smittarasheed told Shaeffer that as of 2655 it was unclear whether Pelton was still involved in the project at all. Shaeffer and Pelton maintained contact after the trip to Cannonball Express; when Shaeffer secretly emigrated to Fafnir with Sharrol, their children, and Carlos Wu and Feather Filip, Elephant gave him the money he had received from General Products Corporation for
6882-446: The planet We Made It , which orbits the star Procyon . He is the central figure of several stories which revolve around his dealings with Pierson's Puppeteers and human characters in unusual and potentially dangerous activities, which often test his wits and courage to see them through to completion. Shaeffer’s first appearance is in the short story "Neutron Star" in 1966. Niven wrote six short stories between 1966 and 1993 and added
6975-419: The plant known as Tree-of-Life . As humans (and all primates ) are descended from the Pak, Tree-of-Life can create a Protector-stage human. Tree-of-Life is the mechanism by which a Breeder becomes a Protector. The term originally is used to refer to a specific plant which, when consumed, triggers the transformation. The term "Tree-of-Life virus" is used to describe the symbiotic virus which actually governs
7068-454: The play contains kings and gods, it cannot be a comedy and must be a tragicomedy . [...] is first used in English to denote 'a personality in a novel or a play' in 1749 ( The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary , s.v.). Its use as 'the sum of the qualities which constitute an individual' is a mC17 development. The modern literary and theatrical sense of 'an individual created in a fictitious work'
7161-531: The positive attributes of Protectors are based on negative human aging effects: swollen joints, decreased muscle-fat ratio, weakening heart, invariant diet, decreasing height, facial atrophy, leathery skin, hair loss, lack of sex drive, and tooth loss are all turned to advantage during the shift from Breeder to Protector. In Protector , the audience learns that humans are descended from the Pak. Pak Children and Breeders appear in Earth's fossil record as Homo habilis ;
7254-698: The protosun's planet when they visited it in 2645: the planet, which they named "Cannonball Express", was composed of antimatter, which would have destroyed even Pelton's General Products-hulled ship, the Slower Than Infinity . Indeed, the hull eventually disintegrated due to annihilations by exposure to antimatter particles from the Fast Protosun's solar wind, but Pelton and Shaeffer were able to escape and managed to return to Jinx. After Shaeffer and Pelton returned from Cannonball Express, Pelton made plans to revisit it but when government agencies became involved
7347-476: The reader. In psychological terms, round or complex characters may be considered to have five personality dimensions under the Big Five model of personality. The five factors are: Stock characters are usually one-dimensional and thin. Mary Sues are characters that usually appear in fan fiction which are virtually devoid of flaws, and are therefore considered flat characters. Another type of flat character
7440-592: The reproductive laws of Earth. To stem overcrowding , there were strict birth control laws, limiting the number of children each person could have. The Puppeteers covertly manipulated the Birthright Lottery (created to offset excess emigration and deaths), whereby anyone could win the right to have more children. Since the winners are chosen at random, luckier people would have more children, who would hopefully inherit that luck, which would become stronger with each generation of winners. In Ringworld's Children , it
7533-571: The right questions when programming complex problems also helps him deduce the probable identities of the kidnappers when the Kdatlyno touch sculptor Lloobee is kidnapped from the Argos as it was about to enter Gummidgy system. Despite Shaeffer's caution and some misleading comments that led Horne to believe he was wrong about Larchmont Bellamy and his crew being the kidnappers (Horne wasn't wrong but Shaeffer didn't want him running in with stun-guns blazing), they are taken prisoner when they attempt to infiltrate
7626-478: The secret of hyperdrive to the Kzin disguised as a diplomatic packet, in the hopes of creating a lasting peace of equality between the two races. Although he did not live to see it, Reichstein-Markham's treachery meant that, far from his intentions, the Kzin would grow strong enough to launch four additional wars of conquest against the Human worlds. Shaeffer is a crashlander , a descendant of Earth explorers who colonized
7719-400: The series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in more than one episode, sometimes being the main focus. A guest or minor character is one who acts only in a few episodes or scenes. Unlike regular characters, the guest ones do not need to be carefully incorporated into the storyline with all its ramifications: they create a piece of drama and then disappear without consequences to
7812-526: The smell of the root becomes irresistible; the Breeder gorges on the Tree-of-Life root, infecting itself with the Tree-of-Life virus and transforming into a Protector. The age window for the metamorphosis is relatively narrow (between 42 and 50 Earth years). Tree-of-Life is common on the Pak world, so there is almost no risk of a Breeder living past this window without being exposed to the roots. The transition from Breeder to Protector involves reconfiguration of
7905-450: The start of the story, he is a bitter miser, but by the end of the tale, he transforms into a kindhearted, generous man. In television, a regular, main or ongoing character is a character who appears in all or a majority of episodes, or in a significant chain of episodes of the series. Regular characters may be both core and secondary ones. A recurring character or supporting character often and frequently appears from time to time during
7998-417: The symbiotic virus it contains). In The Ringworld Engineers, the characters find evidence that the Ringworld was built by Pak Protectors (confirmed by the statements of a character in Ringworld's Children who claims to be one of the original builders) and populated by Pak breeders. The Pak Protectors dwindled in numbers until they were no longer able to maintain the genetic purity of the breeder forms and
8091-465: The transition. Niven took the name Tree-of-Life from the Book of Genesis ; specifically to the fruit of the "Tree of Life" that could make Adam and Eve immortal (Genesis 3:22–24), which is quoted as the foreword to the novel Protector , and also mentioned by Brennan within the novel. Tree-of-Life (the plant) is a bush native to the Pak homeworld. When a Breeder reaches the proper age (early 40s for humans),
8184-517: The virus in its body. Without the virus, a Protector will weaken and die as its DNA is degraded; the virus supplies replacement DNA. The Tree-of-Life crop on Earth failed due to there being insufficient thallium oxide (which particular oxide is never explained) in the Earth's soil ; the plants grew but did not support the virus. As a result, the Protectors that led the colony to Earth died of starvation when their store of roots ran out. Pak Protectors have an innate need to protect close relatives. When
8277-522: The way that humans are more intelligent than the primates they evolved from) and that the Pak may, in fact, be the final evolutionary stage for the human race as a whole. Niven explains much of Protector behavior in his Future History, by revealing in Ringworld's Children that the ARM may be run by at least one Protector and that Boosterspice (which dramatically prolongs human lifespan) is derived from Tree-of-Life. In Protector, Niven explains that humans (and all of Earth's primates) are descended from
8370-561: The works. The influence of her luck is a significant factor. According to the story in Ringworld (expanded in the Known Space novel Juggler of Worlds ), the Puppeteers intervened with human reproduction for at least six generations, seeking to breed humans (finding them comfortable and profitable) for an inheritable psionic ability for luck. They suspected such an ability was latent in humans already, having come to regard humanity as an unusually lucky species. The plan worked by manipulating
8463-511: The world. At the height of the occupation, he discovered a source of bizarre radiation on a world many lightyears away, and was taken to investigate by the scientifically minded Kzin who oversaw him. During the flight, forces under Buford Early and Ulf Reichstein Markham liberated Wunderland, and Nordbo was convicted of collaboration and stripped of all of his possessions. In order to secure his release and clear his name, his daughter Tyra secured
8556-403: Was a factor in his decision to kidnap Lloobee; when a person lives for hundreds of years and their politics and morals change over time, Shaeffer wondered, did they become indifferent to the idea of morality? Bellamy appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer story "Grendel" . Teela Brown is a member of the crew recruited by Puppeteer Nessus for an expedition to the Ringworld. Her sole qualification
8649-406: Was that she was descended from six generations of "lucky" ancestors, winners of Earth's Birthright Lottery. She led such a charmed and worry-free life that she was emotionally immature and unprepared for "harsh reality." The Puppeteers had secretly been trying to breed humans for the psionic power of good luck. Nessus chooses Teela in the hope she would bring luck and success to his expedition. Teela
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