General Products (Larry Niven)
Encyclopedia
In Larry Niven
's fictional Known Space
universe, General Products is a Pierson's Puppeteers company which produces various spacecraft
components.
in the middle of the 20th century). In the history of General Products this indemnity has been claimed only once, by Gregory Pelton, whose hull failed under extremely unusual circumstances (see Flatlander
).
In the story Neutron Star, the narrator, Beowulf Shaeffer
, states that around 95% of all contemporary spacecraft are built around a General Products hull.
As a GP hull is transparent, most humans paint some or all of the hull to provide some privacy and to prevent problems associated with FTL
travel through hyperspace
and exposure to the "blind spot". To provide further protection, the hulls are normally lined with 'flare shielding', which instantly becomes reflective to any of the transmitted visible light wavelengths should the intensity rise above a certain threshold.
Furthermore, since the Puppeteers are careful to an extreme degree to avoid any risk at all, they don't trust even these hulls completely. They have therefore installed in at least two (and possibly all) of their ships a 'Slaver Stasis field', which stops time inside the hull instantly should anything bad happen, and keeps it stopped until the bad thing goes away. In the absence of time
, nothing can possibly affect the contents of the Stasis field until it turns itself off. Indeed Louis Wu
speculates that a ship with its Stasis field on would be able to handily survive a second big bang
(though several stories cast doubt on this).
A General Products hull is "an artificially-generated giant molecule
, with the inter-atomic bonds
artificially strengthened", causing the hull to resist "any kind of impact, and heat in the hundreds of thousands of degrees" (from Flatlander
). In Fleet of Worlds
, the characters learn that the bonds of the giant molecule are "artificially strengthened" by a small power plant in the hull. By aiming a very powerful laser at it (since GP hulls are transparent to visible light), one can destroy the power plant, and destroy the hull. Gravity attracts the hull and its contents normally, but not even close approach to the event horizon
of a black hole
can damage the hull. However, tidal stress will kill anything outside the ship's center of mass (from Neutron Star), and the hull probably could not survive entering a black hole's singularity
. Furthermore, a General Products hull can be destroyed by antimatter
. Hyperdrive
affects General Products hulls, since it is used by the ships to travel. From the text of stories involving stasis boxes, it is implied that the "hyperwave" pulses used for probing for them are not reflected by General Products hulls, though whether these are absorbed or penetrate is unclear.
There are four General Products' hull models available for sale, each of which can easily be adapted and customised to any specific need.
, roughly the size of a basketball
, often used for probes and other small automated spacecraft.
300 feet (91.4 m) long and 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, pointed at both ends and with a slight "wasp
-waist" constriction near the tail. The Lying Bastard, the landing vessel in which Nessus
, Louis Wu
, Teela Brown
and Speaker-to-Animals
crash-land on the Ringworld, is based on a modified #2 hull, specifically designed with most of the flight equipment and thrusters on the outside, to minimise the number of breaks in the hull, allowing a Slaver
stasis field to be fitted to the inside of the ship, protecting the occupants from any danger (by freezing them in stasis
in the event of attack, for example).
to the Puppeteer homeworld in a ship based on a #3 hull. The Hot Needle of Inquiry which carried Chmeee, Louis Wu, and the Hindmost from Known Space to the Ringworld in The Ringworld Engineers also had a #3 hull.
by Beowulf Shaeffer in the short story At the Core and flown to the Pierson's Puppeteers' fleet of worlds by Louis Wu, Speaker to Animals, Teela Brown, and Nessus in Ringworld — is built inside a #4 General Products hull, most of which is filled with the advanced "quantum II" hyperdrive leaving only a small two-chamber living area.
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
's fictional Known Space
Known Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of some dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by author Larry Niven. It has also in part been used as a shared universe in the Man-Kzin Wars spin-off anthologies sub-series....
universe, General Products is a Pierson's Puppeteers company which produces various spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
components.
General Products hull
The most famous (and most profitable) items produced by General Products are General Products hulls, which are advertised as being impervious to anything apart from visible light (as defined by wavelengths visible to any of the species which are customers of General Products), antimatter, and gravity. The hulls are advertised as being capable of passing through the upper atmosphere of a star without damage, although the contents may become overcooked (but see below for a solution to this problem). The company even offers a guarantee that, should anything harm you within a General Products hull as a result of a failure of these specifications, you (or your estate) will receive a very large sum of money ("tens of millions" of "stars" in the event of a death, with a "star" having value roughly equivalent to one United States dollarUnited States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
in the middle of the 20th century). In the history of General Products this indemnity has been claimed only once, by Gregory Pelton, whose hull failed under extremely unusual circumstances (see Flatlander
Flatlander (story)
"Flatlander" is an English language science fiction short story written in 1967 by Larry Niven. It is the third in the series of Known Space stories featuring crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer...
).
In the story Neutron Star, the narrator, Beowulf Shaeffer
Beowulf Shaeffer
Beowulf Shaeffer is a fictional character from Larry Niven’s Known Space series. Shaeffer is a crashlander, a native of We Made It, a planet circling the star Procyon...
, states that around 95% of all contemporary spacecraft are built around a General Products hull.
- 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.
As a GP hull is transparent, most humans paint some or all of the hull to provide some privacy and to prevent problems associated with FTL
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
travel through hyperspace
Hyperspace (science fiction)
Hyperspace is a plot device sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternative region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device...
and exposure to the "blind spot". To provide further protection, the hulls are normally lined with 'flare shielding', which instantly becomes reflective to any of the transmitted visible light wavelengths should the intensity rise above a certain threshold.
Furthermore, since the Puppeteers are careful to an extreme degree to avoid any risk at all, they don't trust even these hulls completely. They have therefore installed in at least two (and possibly all) of their ships a 'Slaver Stasis field', which stops time inside the hull instantly should anything bad happen, and keeps it stopped until the bad thing goes away. In the absence of time
Stasis
The term stasis may refer to* A state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other....
, nothing can possibly affect the contents of the Stasis field until it turns itself off. Indeed Louis Wu
Louis Wu
Louis Gridley Wu, a fictional character, is the main protagonist in the Ringworld series of books, written by Larry Niven.Louis Wu was born in 2650 to Carlos Wu and Sharrol Janss. When he appears in Ringworld, Louis is 6'2" tall...
speculates that a ship with its Stasis field on would be able to handily survive a second big bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
(though several stories cast doubt on this).
A General Products hull is "an artificially-generated giant molecule
Molecule
A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...
, with the inter-atomic bonds
Covalent bond
A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding....
artificially strengthened", causing the hull to resist "any kind of impact, and heat in the hundreds of thousands of degrees" (from Flatlander
Flatlander (story)
"Flatlander" is an English language science fiction short story written in 1967 by Larry Niven. It is the third in the series of Known Space stories featuring crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer...
). In Fleet of Worlds
Fleet of Worlds
Fleet of Worlds are both a location and a book in Larry Niven's Known Space series.The series consisting of this book and its sequels is referred to by the same title.-Novel:The novel, co-written by Niven and Edward M. Lerner, was released in 2007...
, the characters learn that the bonds of the giant molecule are "artificially strengthened" by a small power plant in the hull. By aiming a very powerful laser at it (since GP hulls are transparent to visible light), one can destroy the power plant, and destroy the hull. Gravity attracts the hull and its contents normally, but not even close approach to the event horizon
Event horizon
In general relativity, an event horizon is a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. In layman's terms it is defined as "the point of no return" i.e. the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. The most common case...
of a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
can damage the hull. However, tidal stress will kill anything outside the ship's center of mass (from Neutron Star), and the hull probably could not survive entering a black hole's singularity
Gravitational singularity
A gravitational singularity or spacetime singularity is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system...
. Furthermore, a General Products hull can be destroyed by antimatter
Antimatter
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
. Hyperdrive
Hyperdrive
Hyperdrive is a name given to certain methods of traveling faster-than-light in science fiction. Related concepts are jump drive and warp drive....
affects General Products hulls, since it is used by the ships to travel. From the text of stories involving stasis boxes, it is implied that the "hyperwave" pulses used for probing for them are not reflected by General Products hulls, though whether these are absorbed or penetrate is unclear.
There are four General Products' hull models available for sale, each of which can easily be adapted and customised to any specific need.
General Products' #1 hull
A #1 GP hull is a sphereSphere
A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...
, roughly the size of a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, often used for probes and other small automated spacecraft.
General Products' #2 hull
A #2 GP hull is a cylinderCylinder (geometry)
A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...
300 feet (91.4 m) long and 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, pointed at both ends and with a slight "wasp
Wasp
The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
-waist" constriction near the tail. The Lying Bastard, the landing vessel in which Nessus
Nessus (Pierson's Puppeteer)
Nessus is a male character in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, of the species Pierson's Puppeteer, an herbivorous species noted for two heads whose mouths act as capable hands...
, Louis Wu
Louis Wu
Louis Gridley Wu, a fictional character, is the main protagonist in the Ringworld series of books, written by Larry Niven.Louis Wu was born in 2650 to Carlos Wu and Sharrol Janss. When he appears in Ringworld, Louis is 6'2" tall...
, Teela Brown
Teela Brown
Teela Brown is a fictional character created by Larry Niven in the Ringworld novels. Teela was a member of the crew recruited by Puppeteer Nessus for an expedition to the Ringworld. Her sole qualification was that she was the sixth generation of a line of ancestors all born because - in each case -...
and Speaker-to-Animals
Speaker-to-Animals
Speaker-to-Animals is a fictional character in the Ringworld series of books, written by Larry Niven.In Ringworld, Speaker-to-Animals is a junior diplomat who is trained to deal with other species without reflexively killing them...
crash-land on the Ringworld, is based on a modified #2 hull, specifically designed with most of the flight equipment and thrusters on the outside, to minimise the number of breaks in the hull, allowing a Slaver
Thrint
The Thrintun , in Larry Niven's fictional Known Space universe, were a long-extinct species which ruled the galaxy through telepathic mind control. Humans knew them as "Slavers", since "Thrint" is unpronouncable to the human larynx...
stasis field to be fitted to the inside of the ship, protecting the occupants from any danger (by freezing them in stasis
Stasis
The term stasis may refer to* A state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other....
in the event of attack, for example).
General Products' #3 hull
A #3 GP is a cylinder with rounded ends and a flattened belly. It is opined in Ringworld that a #3 hull makes a good multi-crewed passenger ship. Before acquiring the Lying Bastard, the Ringworld expeditionaries transfer from the Long ShotLong Shot (Niven)
Long Shot is the name of a fictional spacecraft from the Known Space universe. It first appeared in the short story "At the Core" by Larry Niven, and played pivotal roles in several of his Ringworld novels....
to the Puppeteer homeworld in a ship based on a #3 hull. The Hot Needle of Inquiry which carried Chmeee, Louis Wu, and the Hindmost from Known Space to the Ringworld in The Ringworld Engineers also had a #3 hull.
General Products' #4 hull
A #4 GP hull is a transparent sphere around 1000 feet (304.8 m) in diameter; it is the largest ship size ever built in Known Space. Due to the large size and their cost, they are generally used only for colonisation projects. The Long Shot — the ship flown to the galactic coreGalactic Center
The Galactic Center is the rotational center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is located at a distance of 8.33±0.35 kpc from the Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius where the Milky Way appears brightest...
by Beowulf Shaeffer in the short story At the Core and flown to the Pierson's Puppeteers' fleet of worlds by Louis Wu, Speaker to Animals, Teela Brown, and Nessus in Ringworld — is built inside a #4 General Products hull, most of which is filled with the advanced "quantum II" hyperdrive leaving only a small two-chamber living area.