* Pierson's Puppeteers: A technologically advanced race of three-legged, twin-necked herbivores descended from herd animals, and noted for their so-called cowardice.

* Hyperdrives allow for faster-than-light travel, but at a rate slow enough ( 1 light year per 3 days, ~ 122c ) to keep the galaxy vast and unknown ; the new Quantum II Hyperdrive, developed by the Puppeteers but not yet released to humans, can cross a light year in just 1. 25 minutes (~ 425, 000c ).

Characters range from " everyday Joes in space " to crack mercenary teams, and the game often draws from pulp science-fiction for its aliens ( the Aslan are similar to Kzin, the Hivers to Pierson's Puppeteers, and so on ).

The Hierarchy vigorously prosecutes Puppetry, both due to the Code of Charon and out of compassion for the mortals who are abused by Puppeteers ; still, the ability to " skinride " and reclaim some semblance of life and feeling is too much for many ghosts to pass up.

Socially, two notable traits of Puppeteers are their racial / cultural penchant for cowardice and their tendency to congregate in herds.

In Ringworld, Nessus, a Puppeteer, explains how his race's cowardice is partly a result of a science experiment ( the details of which are not given ) that proves the Puppeteers have nothing equivalent to an immortal soul, and therefore death is, for their species, absolute and eternal.

Blackmail is not immoral to a Puppeteer and Puppeteers have an established code of conduct surrounding the practice, making it perfectly safe for both the blackmailer and the victim, including that the blackmailer must turn over all their evidence against the victim and submit to a partial memory wipe, so they cannot betray the blackmail deal.

The Puppeteers also use more personal manipulation ; for instance, Puppeteers who have dealt with human males have utilized a voice that sounds like that of a seductive human female, and the Puppeteer Nessus utilized an implanted tasp, a device which could stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, thus allowing him to subliminally condition those he dealt with.

This is one of the reasons the Puppeteers were so successful at keeping the location of their homeworld a secret — explorers would be looking for a yellow dwarf ( as one could surmise that Puppeteers had evolved around a yellow dwarf from their biology and that they were comfortable on Earth-like planets without pressure suits ) when their planet ( s ) were actually near a red giant.

This news prompts the Puppeteer Exodus, where the Fleet of Worlds flee the galaxy at just under light speed for the Magellanic Clouds, in the hope that by the time the explosion reaches the Fleet of Worlds, the Puppeteers will have found a way to protect their civilization.

Ander, working for ARM agent Sigmund Ausfaller, has come to question him about his dealings with Pierson's Puppeteers, General Products and Carlos Wu, as well as what happened to Wu and ARM agent Feather Filip.

The Bread & Puppet Theater has received National Endowment for the Arts grants and numerous awards from the Puppeteers of America and other organizations.

According to the story in Ringworld ( expanded in the Known Space novel Juggler of Worlds ), the Puppeteers intervened with human reproduction beginning several generations in the past, with the intention of breeding humans for luck.

* In the story " Ghost ", including as framing story for the Crashlander collection, Schaeffer is told that the Puppeteers were well aware of the tidal effect.

She trained in modern dance, Cecchetti ballet and classes at the Detroit Institute of Arts in puppetry, mime and theater since childhood, was a member of the Detroit Puppetry Guild, Puppeteers of America and UNIMA, performed with George Latshaw ’ s puppets for the Detroit and Cleveland symphony orchestras and Jim Henson offered her an apprenticeship with the Muppets which was declined to accept a Fulbright scholarship to India.

* Superior Concept Monsters, Official Puppeteers for New York's Village Halloween Parade

Many of Niven's stories take place in his Known Space universe, in which humanity shares the several habitable solar systems nearest to the Sun with over a dozen alien species, including the aggressive feline Kzinti and the very intelligent but cowardly Pierson's Puppeteers, which are frequently central characters.

Contact has been made with alien species such as the two-headed Pierson's Puppeteers and the aggressive felinoid Kzinti.

The Puppeteers had hoped that the culling of a quarter to a third of the more aggressive members of the Kzinti with every war would result in a more peaceful race, or at least one that was capable of coexisting with other species without instantly trying to kill and eat them.

Technologically, the Puppeteers are very advanced, centuries or millennia ahead of most other species ( including humans ).

The Puppeteers also influenced species on the Ringworld.

* Puppeteers were one of the species detailed in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials.

# REDIRECT Pierson's Puppeteers # Politics and relations with other species

Most Puppeteers give themselves the names of centaurs and other figures in Greek mythology, such as Nessus, Nike and Chiron — at least when called upon to deal with humans.

Pierson's Puppeteers claimed to have a technology called " starseed lure " that can attract nearby starseeds to a specific solar system.

In Larry Niven's fictional Known Space universe, General Products is a Pierson's Puppeteers company which produces various spacecraft components.

The Long Shot — the ship flown to the galactic core 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.

It also marked the first appearance of the nearly indestructible General Products starship hull, as well as its creators the Pierson's Puppeteers.

Biologically, Puppeteers are highly intelligent herbivores ; a herd animal, Puppeteers prefer the company ( and smell ) of their own kind.

) The hulls are advertised as being capable of flying through the upper atmosphere of a star unscathed, although the contents will be cooked ; as a protection against this particular contingency, the Puppeteers also provide a stasis field.

Furthermore, since the Puppeteers are careful to an extreme degree to avoid any risk at all, they don't trust even these hulls completely.

Their cycle of reproduction is similar to that of Earth's digger wasps: the Puppeteers consider themselves to have three genders ( two male, one female ): the two " male " genders are the equivalent of human female and male ( one has an ovipositor, the other produces sperm ) and the " female " is a ( non-sentient ) parasitised host into which the ovum and spermatozoon are deposited.

Another behavioral trait is the coma state, broadly a cognate of the human fetal position – in the same way that ostriches are said to bury their heads in the sand, Puppeteers fold up into a ball, tucking their three legs and two heads underneath the padded cranial bulge.

Manipulating politics on Earth through bribery and blackmail, the Puppeteers caused ' Birth Lotteries ' on Earth around 2650, biasing human genetic selection ( controlled, in the Known Space universe, by the " Fertility Board of the United Nations ") towards encouraging luck.

The recently-deposed Hindmost, leader of the Puppeteers, abducts the human Louis Wu ( who has become a wirehead ) and kzinti Chmeee ( previously known as " Speaker-to-Animals ").

The character Teela Brown, who journeys to the Ringworld, is an outcome of this Lucky Human Project, though not quite the outcome the Puppeteers would have liked.

Because the Puppeteers seemingly have no experience of tides, they were unable to anticipate the deadly tidal forces.

( As told in Niven's short story, " Neutron Star ") Crashlander reveals that the Puppeteers may have feigned their ignorance of tidal forces.

This suggests radiation may not be the primary danger the Puppeteers flee, also that Puppeteers may, in fact, have a means to deal with radiation affecting entire worlds.

In Crashlander it is speculated that the Puppeteers are planning on moving to the now-uninhabited Core, isolated from potentially dangerous species-which would have either fled the galaxy entirely or been destroyed.

A number of previously revealed " facts " turn out to have been lies told by characters in the books, which is another common feature of Niven's Ringworld and other Known Space stories, especially those involving Protectors and Puppeteers.

Puppeteers devise their own original tales, however there are many ' traditional ' tales that have descended orally from earlier puppeteers and are accepted as ' canon ' with slight alterations between the players.