Earlier Niven stories describe the breeder as 'just intelligent enough to swing a club or throw a stone.' To the Pak, the Breeder stage, though capable of space travel, is not deemed fully sentient Breeders, to a large extent, rely on Protectors for long-term survival. Pak Breeder is analogous to a young-ish human adult: sexually mature, self-sufficient (in later writings) and providing immediate care for the children. Pak Child is analogous to a human child: sexually immature and dependent upon adults for survival. The Pak species goes through three stages of development: Child, Breeder and Protector. Pak Children and Breeders appear in Earth's fossil record as Homo habilis the few Pak Protectors to make it to Earth apparently are not found in the fossil record. In Protector, the audience learns that humans are descended from the Pak. Accordingly, most of the positive attributes of Protectors are based on negative human aging effects: swollen joints, decreased muscle-fat ratio, weakening heart, invariant diet, decreasing height, facial atrophy, leathery skin, hair loss, lack of sex drive, and tooth loss are all turned to advantage during the shift from Breeder to Protector. Niven has written that he invented the Protectors as a thought experiment to explain the common effects of aging on humans and to create a fictional evolutionary explanation for humans' long lives after females have passed reproductive age. The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later novels, notably those set in the Ringworld.ĭestroyer of Worlds depicts a confrontation between the Pak and the Puppeteers. The Pak first appeared in 'The Adults', which appeared in Galaxy in 1967 this story was expanded into the novel Protector by Larry Niven (1973). Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two developmental stages of fictional life in Larry Niven's Known Space universe.

Phssthpok, a Pak Protector eating Tree-of-Life root in the Library on the Pak homeworld

Larry niven pak