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"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders."
- Larry Niven
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| General Products Hull | ||
| Nearly indestructible outer skin for spaceships; pick your hull size and put what you want inside. |
The puppeteers of Ringworld are a remarkable race; their caution bordering on paranoia led them to develop some of the safest products for even the most hazardous pursuit - space travel.
| "Nothing, but nothing, can get through a General Products hull. No kind of electromagnetic energy except visible light. No kind of matter, from the smallest subatomic particle to the fastest meteor. That's what the company's advertisements claim, and the guarantee backs them up. I've never doubted it, and I've never heard of a General Products hull being damaged by a weapon or by anything else." |
| Technovelgy from Neutron Star,
by Larry Niven. Published by Worls of If in 1966 Additional resources -
|
There are four hull types:
SF fans have read this idea before; see the crystal sphere from the 1931 story Emperor of the Stars.
More information is provided in Ringworld (1970):
General Products, the puppeteer-owned trading company, had sold many diversified wares in known space; but its fortunes had been founded on the General Products hull...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Neutron Star
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to Neutron Star
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
General Products Hull-related
news articles:
- Fishbowl Spaceship From Armadillo Aerospace
| Europa Clipper Plate Carries A Special Message |
| China Wants To Build Mega Space Ships |
| Dream Of Building Your Own Rocket? |
| Used Dragon Cargo Spacecraft Will Fly Again |
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
