On Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 12:13:08 AM UTC-5, Greg Goss wrote:   
   > Greg Goss  wrote:   
   >    
   > >Book four includes discussions with one of the Ringmakers -- rather   
   > >old by now.  They knew about Phssthpok and chose to follow, almost,   
   > >his path.   
   >    
   > whoops,  You're right.  "Cancel" my objections above.  They knew about   
   > the colony mission.  I wasn't thinking.   
   >    
   > And I now remember the "gravity planer".   
   > --    
   > We are geeks.  Resistance is voltage over current.   
      
   Yeah.   
      
   I'm not fully up on everything Niven's written lately, IMHO the quality has   
   fallen enormously.  But back in the day, the Pak were an _ancient_ race.  By   
   the time Phssthpok set out to find Sol, the race had been 'civilized' (in a   
   sense) and technology    
   capable for many _millions_ of years.   
      
   The expedition that settled Earth set out 3 million years ago, Phssthpok only   
   left Pak about 30,000 years ago (as seen from Earth and Pak, to him it was   
   roughly 1200).   
      
   The Pak had discovered gravity manipulation (probably many times) and it was   
   available in their Great Library.  Their big problem was that they tended to   
   smash each other down just about as fast as they could climb up.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)