Thrint
Encyclopedia
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. They debuted in Niven's World of Ptavvs
, in 1966.
led to an environment wherein no individual species possessed great advantage over any other; defenseless off-world species, however, were easy prey. A single Thrint can manage a few dozen sentient beings simultaneously; with an amplifier helmet, the same Thrint can control an entire planet.
The Thrintun were green-skinned, scaly carnivores, eating and excreting through a single facial orifice lined with sharp teeth and fringed with pink feeding tendrils. They had a single eye in large, round heads. Their two hands had three large, clumsy fingers arranged in a mutually opposed fashion, like a mechanical grab. Niven is inconsistent about the actual size of a Thrint: in World of Ptavvs
, the character Kzanol is about half the height of a human, whereas later stories portray Thrintun as about 8 feet high. This discrepancy is not necessarily an error on the part of the author; the two heights given (approximately 3 feet and 8 feet) serve as rough extremes for real life adult human height, growing up in different gravitational environments, as well.
Thrintun had no internal mechanism for regulating appetite; for their own health and safety they had to learn while young to endure their constant, ravenous hunger rather than suffering from sickness due to overeating. The average adult male IQ was between 80-90, while females were nearly mindless. Males came of age when they could effectively resist the telepathic control of their father.
Their success in spite of low intelligence and poor skill with tools was due to the great advantage of their telepathic abilities; they never suffered much selective pressure to improve what they had. A Thrint's slaves could be far more intelligent than their master, but intelligence provided no protection at all against enslavement.
Thrintun referred to their telepathy as "The Power". In all their religions, The Power was self-evident of their manifest destiny
to rule the galaxy. A loss or congenital lack of The Power is cause for exile, or more usually murder by the family, in their society. These unfortunates, called Ptavvs, are tattooed pink and are enslaved by other Thrintun.
Their society, though immense at its peak, was not very complex, consisting mainly of various families vying with each other for slaves and land. The only real laws were an indictment against murdering other Thrintun and two "unbreakable oaths": the prtuuvl for agreements between Thrintun, and the kpitlithtulm for agreements between a Thrint and favoured slaves. Violation of any of the above meant death by vivisection
– enough to give even the most violently desperate second thoughts about doing so.
The Thrintun developed a mediocre philosophic tradition in response to their need for control over their aggressive drives. Aphorisms such as "haste is not speed" represent deep wisdom to a Thrint. The combination of strong and insatiable hunger with low intelligence also leads Thrintun to act rashly. In World of Ptavvs, Kzanol desperately wagers his future on a competitive animal race. Gambling is quite common among Thrintun. Similarly, Suicide Night was an unsurprising (to any Thrint) reaction by all the Thrintun to losing their war against the Tnuctip
un.
hunters when their planet was visited by a starship piloted by an unknown race. They quickly enslaved its crew, then their civilization before going on to galactic domination over dozens of species (known to later humans as the Slaver Empire). Chief among these suborned races were the masters of genetic engineering, the Tnuctip
un.
The Thrintun settled vast areas of the galaxy, seeding many planets with basic, Tnuctipun-created life forms for use as food sources. (The diversity of life before their empire is not known.) Once a planet was seeded with a sort of yeast, larger animals known as whitefoods (later, as the Bandersnatch
i) were introduced in a form of interstellar cattle-farming. The common chemical composition, genetics and environmental conditions found among species in Known Space are a consequence of this process: most life in the Galaxy is descended from Tnuctipun food yeast.
The Man-Kzin Wars
short story Teacher's Pet claims that Pak Protector
s, progenitors of the human race, evolved on one such planet after plant life had started and that the Thrintun self-destructed before the Bandersnatchi were installed. Like most of the Man-Kzin Wars short stories, its canonicity is unknown.
The Thrintun were nearly defeated about two billion years before the human era. The Tnuctipun had devoted centuries to a well-crafted plan to destroy the Thrintun: designing technologies to weaken Thrintun society and cultivating an easily shattered dependence upon the Tnuctipun. As the latter pressed the final battle of the war, the Thrintun, as a death blow they called Suicide Night, used an immensely powerful telepathy amplifier to send a single, telepathic command throughout the Galaxy: "Die." All chordate
s in the galaxy committed suicide, including the Thrintun themselves.
The story is partially told in the novella World of Ptavvs
and the story Peter Robinson from the book Man-Kzin Wars X. The second half of Children's Hour by Jerry Pournelle & S M Stirling features the last of the Thrintun coming out of a stasis field in the Alpha Centauri
system.
, a race of sessile
furry cones which can control animals telepathically, are suspected of being degenerate descendants of the Thrintun.
In the years following the events of World of Ptavvs, humans encountered artifacts remaining from the time of the Thrintun, whom they called the Slavers, since "thrint" was unpronounceable. Hunting for Slaver stasis vault
s, often containing new and tremendously valuable technologies, became a pastime for many adventurers. Most of this technology, of course, was made by slave races, particularly the Tnuctip
un. As Tnuctipun technology was often a booby trap
by design for the Thrintun, this hobby was rather dangerous.
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, were a long-extinct species which ruled the galaxy through telepathic mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
. Humans knew them as "Slavers", since "Thrint" is unpronouncable to the human larynx. They debuted in Niven's World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his Known Space universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 short story of the same name.-Plot summary:...
, in 1966.
Biology and sociology
The Thrintun evolved on a planet where most animal species possessed telepathic ability. Natural selectionNatural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
led to an environment wherein no individual species possessed great advantage over any other; defenseless off-world species, however, were easy prey. A single Thrint can manage a few dozen sentient beings simultaneously; with an amplifier helmet, the same Thrint can control an entire planet.
The Thrintun were green-skinned, scaly carnivores, eating and excreting through a single facial orifice lined with sharp teeth and fringed with pink feeding tendrils. They had a single eye in large, round heads. Their two hands had three large, clumsy fingers arranged in a mutually opposed fashion, like a mechanical grab. Niven is inconsistent about the actual size of a Thrint: in World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his Known Space universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 short story of the same name.-Plot summary:...
, the character Kzanol is about half the height of a human, whereas later stories portray Thrintun as about 8 feet high. This discrepancy is not necessarily an error on the part of the author; the two heights given (approximately 3 feet and 8 feet) serve as rough extremes for real life adult human height, growing up in different gravitational environments, as well.
Thrintun had no internal mechanism for regulating appetite; for their own health and safety they had to learn while young to endure their constant, ravenous hunger rather than suffering from sickness due to overeating. The average adult male IQ was between 80-90, while females were nearly mindless. Males came of age when they could effectively resist the telepathic control of their father.
Their success in spite of low intelligence and poor skill with tools was due to the great advantage of their telepathic abilities; they never suffered much selective pressure to improve what they had. A Thrint's slaves could be far more intelligent than their master, but intelligence provided no protection at all against enslavement.
Thrintun referred to their telepathy as "The Power". In all their religions, The Power was self-evident of their manifest destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
to rule the galaxy. A loss or congenital lack of The Power is cause for exile, or more usually murder by the family, in their society. These unfortunates, called Ptavvs, are tattooed pink and are enslaved by other Thrintun.
Their society, though immense at its peak, was not very complex, consisting mainly of various families vying with each other for slaves and land. The only real laws were an indictment against murdering other Thrintun and two "unbreakable oaths": the prtuuvl for agreements between Thrintun, and the kpitlithtulm for agreements between a Thrint and favoured slaves. Violation of any of the above meant death by vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
– enough to give even the most violently desperate second thoughts about doing so.
The Thrintun developed a mediocre philosophic tradition in response to their need for control over their aggressive drives. Aphorisms such as "haste is not speed" represent deep wisdom to a Thrint. The combination of strong and insatiable hunger with low intelligence also leads Thrintun to act rashly. In World of Ptavvs, Kzanol desperately wagers his future on a competitive animal race. Gambling is quite common among Thrintun. Similarly, Suicide Night was an unsurprising (to any Thrint) reaction by all the Thrintun to losing their war against the Tnuctip
Tnuctip
The Tnuctipun are a fictional extinct alien species in Larry Niven's Known Space series.Tnuctipun were small, arboreal pack predators, averaging about 3–4 feet long. Their heads were long and lean, and their eyes opened laterally...
un.
Known history
The Thrintun were NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
hunters when their planet was visited by a starship piloted by an unknown race. They quickly enslaved its crew, then their civilization before going on to galactic domination over dozens of species (known to later humans as the Slaver Empire). Chief among these suborned races were the masters of genetic engineering, the Tnuctip
Tnuctip
The Tnuctipun are a fictional extinct alien species in Larry Niven's Known Space series.Tnuctipun were small, arboreal pack predators, averaging about 3–4 feet long. Their heads were long and lean, and their eyes opened laterally...
un.
The Thrintun settled vast areas of the galaxy, seeding many planets with basic, Tnuctipun-created life forms for use as food sources. (The diversity of life before their empire is not known.) Once a planet was seeded with a sort of yeast, larger animals known as whitefoods (later, as the Bandersnatch
Bandersnatch (Known Space)
The Bandersnatch is a fictional alien species in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The species is named for Lewis Carroll's Bandersnatch.-Characteristics:...
i) were introduced in a form of interstellar cattle-farming. The common chemical composition, genetics and environmental conditions found among species in Known Space are a consequence of this process: most life in the Galaxy is descended from Tnuctipun food yeast.
The Man-Kzin Wars
Man-Kzin Wars
The Man-Kzin Wars is a series of military science fiction short story collections , as well as the eponymous conflicts between mankind and the Kzinti that they detail...
short story Teacher's Pet claims that Pak Protector
Pak Protector
Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two forms 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 the novel Protector by Larry Niven...
s, progenitors of the human race, evolved on one such planet after plant life had started and that the Thrintun self-destructed before the Bandersnatchi were installed. Like most of the Man-Kzin Wars short stories, its canonicity is unknown.
The Thrintun were nearly defeated about two billion years before the human era. The Tnuctipun had devoted centuries to a well-crafted plan to destroy the Thrintun: designing technologies to weaken Thrintun society and cultivating an easily shattered dependence upon the Tnuctipun. As the latter pressed the final battle of the war, the Thrintun, as a death blow they called Suicide Night, used an immensely powerful telepathy amplifier to send a single, telepathic command throughout the Galaxy: "Die." All chordate
Chordate
Chordates are animals which are either vertebrates or one of several closely related invertebrates. They are united by having, for at least some period of their life cycle, a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail...
s in the galaxy committed suicide, including the Thrintun themselves.
The story is partially told in the novella World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs
World of Ptavvs is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his Known Space universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 short story of the same name.-Plot summary:...
and the story Peter Robinson from the book Man-Kzin Wars X. The second half of Children's Hour by Jerry Pournelle & S M Stirling features the last of the Thrintun coming out of a stasis field in the Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
system.
Post-extinction
In the 'present day' of the Known Space universe, the GrogsGrogs
For the puppets, see Grogs .For the clay caricatures, see Grogg.Grogs are a fictional extraterrestrial species in author Larry Niven's Known Space universe. They first appeared in the short story "The Handicapped"....
, a race of sessile
Sessility (zoology)
In zoology, sessility is a characteristic of animals which are not able to move about. They are usually permanently attached to a solid substrate of some kind, such as a part of a plant or dead tree trunk, a rock, or the hull of a ship in the case of barnacles. Corals lay down their own...
furry cones which can control animals telepathically, are suspected of being degenerate descendants of the Thrintun.
In the years following the events of World of Ptavvs, humans encountered artifacts remaining from the time of the Thrintun, whom they called the Slavers, since "thrint" was unpronounceable. Hunting for Slaver stasis vault
Stasis (fiction)
Stasis , or hypersleep, is a science fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily restarted or restart spontaneously when stasis is...
s, often containing new and tremendously valuable technologies, became a pastime for many adventurers. Most of this technology, of course, was made by slave races, particularly the Tnuctip
Tnuctip
The Tnuctipun are a fictional extinct alien species in Larry Niven's Known Space series.Tnuctipun were small, arboreal pack predators, averaging about 3–4 feet long. Their heads were long and lean, and their eyes opened laterally...
un. As Tnuctipun technology was often a booby trap
Booby trap
A booby trap is a device designed to harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is...
by design for the Thrintun, this hobby was rather dangerous.
Other media
- Thrintun were one of the species detailed in Barlowe's Guide to ExtraterrestrialsBarlowe's Guide to ExtraterrestrialsBarlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials is a 1979 science fiction book by artist Wayne Barlowe, with Ian Summers and Beth Meacham...
. - The Dnyarri of Star ControlStar ControlStar Control is a science fiction computer game that was developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade in the early 1990s. Star Control still enjoys a cult following...
are very similar in description, powers, and history to the Thrintun race. Similar to the Grogs, the Talking Pets are their devolved forms.
- Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence 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 "The Slaver Weapon" in Star Trek: The Animated SeriesStar Trek: The Animated SeriesStar Trek: The Animated Series is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe following the events of Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s...
, adapted from his own short story "The Soft WeaponThe Soft Weapon"The Soft Weapon" is a science fiction short story written in 1967 by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. It was the basis of the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode, "The Slaver Weapon"...
". It includes some elements from his Known SpaceKnown SpaceKnown 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....
mythos such as the Kzinti and the Slavers. This is the only Kirk era TV or movie story in which Kirk didn't appear. This episode also has the distinction of being the only animated episode where anyone dies or is killed on-screen.
All that was known and left of those lost civilizations were their stasis boxes, in which several advanced devices were found. The first one found contained a flying belt, the second a disruptor bomb, and one found in 2269 contained a weapon of a TnuctipTnuctipThe Tnuctipun are a fictional extinct alien species in Larry Niven's Known Space series.Tnuctipun were small, arboreal pack predators, averaging about 3–4 feet long. Their heads were long and lean, and their eyes opened laterally...
spy. (TAS: "The Slaver Weapon")
- The Prime "immotiles" of Peter F. Hamilton'sPeter F. HamiltonPeter F. Hamilton is a British author. He is best known for writing space opera. As of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide.- Biography :...
Commonwealth SagaCommonwealth SagaThe Commonwealth Saga is a series of science fiction novels by British science fiction writer Peter F. Hamilton. This saga consists of the novels Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained , as well as Misspent Youth . The events of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained take place 340 years after his...
are in some ways similar. Although they primarily utilize other castes of their same species, the "motiles"
