Ringworld ultimately declares that the purpose of the expedition - indeed, the whole novel - was simply to get Teela Brown from here to there. This begs the question “Why was it so all-fired important for Teela to get there?” Niven acknowledges this, but the reasons we’re given in the book aren’t entirely satisfying. Probably they’re correct, but as with so many other aspects of this novel, there’s probably quite a bit more going on below the page, which only appears if we think about it.

Nick Payne is a Christian Blogger who’s had his “Sanctuary” site up and running for at least three years, and he posts occasionally under the name “Galahad” over on B5.com. I bumped into him over there in a conversation about religion, where he instantly impressed me with his thinking. He linked me to one or two articles on his site, and the one below tends to reflect an ongoing concern that we have here on the site, so I figured I’d give it a shoutout and link to it.