List of Known Space characters
This is a list of fictional characters featured in the Known Space novels by Larry Niven.
Individual characters
Sigmund Ausfaller
Sigmund Ausfaller, a native of Earth, is a member of the Amalgamated Regional Militia, working in the Bureau of Alien Affairs on Earth. To protect puppeteer interests, in "Neutron Star" Ausfaller plants a bomb in the lifesystem of Beowulf Shaeffer's ship, the Skydiver, so that Shaeffer will not attempt to steal it. Years later, in The Borderlands of Sol, when Shaeffer encounters him on Jinx, he offers Shaeffer and Carlos Wu a ride home to Earth on his ship, Hobo Kelly, in hopes of attracting the attention of whoever or whatever was causing ships to disappear when entering or leaving Sol system. Some years later, Ausfaller, having almost caught up with Shaeffer on Fafnir, is killed by Ander Smittarasheed in order to protect Smittarasheed's interest in the special nanotechnology autodoc developed by Carlos Wu, left on Fafnir when Carlos escaped from Feather Filip as she shot Shaeffer in the chest with an ARM punchgun. He is later "resurrected" by Wu's Autodoc and taken to one of the Puppeteer farming worlds by Nessus.Ausfaller appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer stories "Neutron Star", The Borderland of Sol, and "Ghost", and is mentioned in the story "Procrustes". He also appears in the non-Shaeffer novel Fleet of Worlds and is the main human character in its sequels Juggler of Worlds and Destroyer of Worlds.
Larchmont Bellamy
Larchmont "Larch" Bellamy, a native of Earth, is a wealthy human who owns the ship Drunkard’s Walk. A lean man with a lean face, a sharp-edged nose, prominent cheekbones and dark, deep-set eyes with shaggy black eyebrows, Bellamy is in prime condition. He is 300 years old and takes boosterspice, although he was born before that drug became available; initially, like all humans before boosterspice, he relied on the organ banks to keep him healthy. An outgoing, interesting man, Bellamy talks well; he tells old jokes but does it well, and he has some new ones, too. While not xenophobic, Bellamy tends to not think of aliens as people; Beowulf Shaeffer remembers that he had said they should wipe out the Kzinti for good and all.Bellamy is the leader of a hunting party visiting Gummidgy when the Kdatlyno touch-sculptor Lloobee is kidnapped. When Shaeffer discovers that Bellamy is part of the kidnap plot, he and Emil Horne are captured by the kidnappers who intend to stage their deaths as an accident. Lloobee creates a diversion, allowing Shaeffer to escape, and Bellamy pursues him. Shaeffer rams Bellamy's ship with his aircar, forcing Bellamy to land, but neither Shaeffer nor Bellamy notice that the front landing leg of his ship fails to deploy, leaving the ship balancing with its gyros alone. When Bellamy tries to save his ship, it flips end-for-end, throwing him into the air to his death. Bellamy probably had a romantic relationship with fellow kidnapper Tanya Wilson; Margo Tellefsen told Shaeffer that Wilson might attempt to kill him in revenge for Bellamy's death. He also wonders if Bellamy's age was a factor in his decision to kidnap Lloobee; when a person lives for hundreds of years and their politics and morals change over time, Shaeffer wondered, did they become indifferent to the idea of morality?
Bellamy appears in the Beowulf Shaeffer story "Grendel".
Teela Brown
Teela Brown is a member of the crew recruited by Puppeteer Nessus for an expedition to the Ringworld. Her sole qualification was that she was descended from six generations of "lucky" ancestors, winners of Earth's Birthright Lottery. She led such a charmed and worry-free life that she was emotionally immature and unprepared for "harsh reality." The Puppeteers had secretly been trying to breed humans for the psionic power of good luck. Nessus chooses Teela in the hope she would bring luck and success to his expedition.Teela is a descendant of a former lover of Louis Wu. Her age in Ringworld is given as twenty, though there are conflicting data in later books. She joins the Ringworld expedition, and eventually becomes separated from the group. She meets a Ringworld native called Seeker, and decides to remain with him on the Ringworld while the remainder of the crew departs.
In The Ringworld Engineers, when a second expedition returns to the Ringworld, it is revealed that Teela has become a Protector-stage human. Her new instincts force her to protect the Ringworld population. When she realizes those instincts are driving her toward an unacceptable choice, she manipulates the other characters into killing her.
Further details of her life emerge in three more novels. Her story is the subject of guesswork and deduction by the other characters, and subject to inconsistent retconning among the works. The influence of her luck is a significant factor.
According to the story in Ringworld, the Puppeteers intervened with human reproduction for at least six generations, seeking to breed humans for an inheritable psionic ability for luck. They suspected such an ability was latent in humans already, having come to regard humanity as an unusually lucky species. The plan worked by manipulating the reproductive laws of Earth. To stem overcrowding, there were strict birth control laws, limiting the number of children each person could have. The Puppeteers covertly manipulated the Birthright Lottery, whereby anyone could win the right to have more children. Since the winners are chosen at random, luckier people would have more children, who would hopefully inherit that luck, which would become stronger with each generation of winners.
In Ringworld's Children, it is revealed that Teela Brown and Seeker had a child, who remained on the Ringworld after the end of the Fringe War. Louis speculates that Teela's luck might work for the survival of her genes, rather than Teela herself.
The existence and nature of Teela's luck is debated back and forth by the characters throughout the four-book series. For most of Ringworld, Louis is skeptical of the idea. But by the end of the series Louis says he believes the luck is real, because he sees no other explanation for the unlikely coincidences that have benefited her.
Niven has described the problems that such a character and such a trait pose to his story and to his fictional universe. He calls it "Author Control" to illustrate the plot and story limitations it imposes on the creative process. The story "Safe at Any Speed" is set in a time when the Teela gene is more common among humans. Niven says there will not be more stories from this time: "Stories about infinitely lucky people tend to be dull." This indicates that the author felt constrained to develop story lines around Teela consistent with the view that luck is genetic and inheritable—any hardship inflicted upon Teela which appears unlucky on first glance must thereafter be revealed as concealing a silver lining of greater import in order to maintain indeterminacy, at the expense of dissipating plot tension —regardless of the views expressed by various characters within the narrative.
Teela can also be viewed as a lampshade trope, by bending narrativium to function as a plot device.
Lucas Garner
Lucar Garner appears in World of Ptavvs, Protector and The Defenseless Dead.Gil Hamilton
Gilbert Gilgamesh Hamilton is a detective. He is often called "Gil the Arm", both due to his affiliation with the ARM world police force, and his unusual psychic ability.Born in Topeka, Kansas, to flatlander parents near the end of the 21st century, he emigrates to the Belt as soon as he becomes an adult. There he begins work on an arduous ten-year apprenticeship towards the acquisition of his singleship licence, working as a member of small, multi-person crews.
After completing several successful trips, Gil is nearly killed. While attempting to move an asteroid with explosives, crew leader "Cubes" Forsythe miscalculates, which results in the destruction of the valuable rock. A fast moving piece of shrapnel penetrates the ship, slicing off Gil's arm and killing Forsythe. The remaining crewmember, Owen Jennison, stops Gil's bleeding and manages to get him to life-saving medical facilities in time. While recuperating from his injury, Gil broods over his future as a Belter.
In the low gravity of Ceres base, Gil discovers that he has a psi power. His brain, still remembering the "image" of his lost arm, can use it much as he did the flesh-and-blood arm. He can feel and manipulate objects via ESP and telekinesis, respectively. Finding a third crewman, Homer Chandrasekhar, they make several highly profitable trips over the following year. Gil finds his "imaginary arm", though not strong, to be a valuable asset, as he can reach through walls and even into vacuum. After six months, Gil has earned enough to repay all his medical fees, with a comfortable cash reserve left over.
Despite much disapproval from Owen and Homer, Gil decides to return to Earth and seek to get his citizenship back. On Earth, he can easily get a transplant to replace his missing arm. In the Belt he would have to pay exorbitantly high fees for a transplant, or settle for a prosthetic. Gil, by a quirk of his own nature, can not live with a prosthetic.
Gil receives his new arm, but finds he can still dissociate his imaginary arm from his real one, and reach through walls, flesh, and even vidphone screens to manipulate objects he sees in them. Shortly afterward, Gil finds out that his new arm had not come from a condemned criminal as he had hoped, but from the captured stock of "organleggers", black market dealers in illicit organ transplants. To make amends, Gil joins the ARM, the elite global police force.
As an ARM, Hamilton is a high-tech detective, who hunts organleggers and other criminals for a living. With his unusual psi power, he is formidable and highly feared among his enemies.
His exploits are detailed in six "Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton" stories. The stories are noir style, told in first person, and frequently involve exotic technology and locked room mysteries:
- Death by Ecstasy
- The Defenseless Dead
- ARM : Hamilton is called to the scene of a murder. The victim is Dr. Raymond Sinclair, a brilliant scientist who has invented a mysterious device that creates a bubble of accelerated time. The murder scene is a locked apartment at the top of a high-rise, where the prime suspect is a beautiful young woman who Gil refuses to believe is the killer.
- The Patchwork Girl
- The Woman in Del Rey Crater
- "Sacred Cow" written with Steven Barnes