Pierson's Puppeteers, often known just as Puppeteers, are a fictional alien race from American author Larry Niven's Known Space books. The race first appeared in Niven's novella Neutron Star.
Biology and sociology The sobriquet "Pierson's" comes from the name of the human who made first contact in the early 26th century in the Known Space timeline. According to the Niven story The Soft Weapon, Pierson was a crewman aboard a spaceship at a time when there was a camp revival of the ancient Time for Beany TV show featuring Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, an animated character based on a hand puppet; Pierson accordingly described the alien he had met as a Puppeteer, given some resemblance of the head and neck with Cecil. Puppeteers dealing with humans usually give themselves the names of centaurs and other figures in Greek mythology, such as Nessus, Nike and Chiron. Puppeteers' names for themselves are reportedly highly complex, and unpronounceable by humans. The group name they use for their own species translates as "Citizens". Pierson's Puppeteers are described by Niven as having two forelegs and a single hindleg ending in hoofed feet, and two snake-like heads instead of a humanoid upper body. The heads are small, containing a forked tongue, rubbery lips rimmed with finger-like knobs, and a single eye per head. The Puppeteer brain is housed not in the heads, but in the "thoracic" cavity well protected beneath the mane-covered hump from which the heads emerge. They use the "mouths" to manipulate objects, as a humanoid uses hands. The Puppeteer's native language sounds like highly complex orchestral music, but they seem to be able to reproduce human language without difficulty or device, as well as the Heroes' Tongue (Kzinti), suggesting their vocal arrangement may resemble a pair of avian-like syrinxes rather than vocal cords. Biologically, Puppeteers are highly intelligent herbivores; a herd animal, Puppeteers prefer the company (and smell) of their own kind. 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) parasitized host into which the ovum and spermatozoon are deposited. Puppeteers are very long-lived. The exact length of a Puppeteer's lifespan is unknown, but it is at least several centuries—Nessus, the most prominent individual Puppeteer in the works, is over 300 years old during the events of the original Ringworld novel. This, together with a total lack of contraceptives (except major surgery) for their species along with an unwillingness to use them, is responsible for extreme crowding: the Puppeteer homeworld has a population of over a trillion, and four farming worlds are dedicated entirely to supplying the population with food. Even then, grown food is a luxury reserved for only the highest-ranking, with synthesizers feeding the vast majority. While contraception is forbidden, access to 'brides' (the parasitized breeding host, the third 'sex') is strictly controlled. Puppeteers also have access to highly advanced medical technology that may be a factor in their longevity. Technologically, the Puppeteers are very advanced, centuries or millennia ahead of most other species (including humans). For example, humans in Niven's universe invented (actually purchased from the Puppeteers) a method of cheap teleportation in the twenty-fifth century called a transfer booth, which requires an enclosed space at either end of the transmission. Puppeteers use a much more elegant and sophisticated booth-less "open" version in the form of stepping disks, which require no enclosure. They transformed their home world, and several other astronomical bodies, into a Klemperer rosette, in order to flee a galactic catastrophe. Puppeteers appear to lack generalized empathy towards other intelligent species and display almost textbook sociopathic tendencies: they are highly manipulative, appearing to feel no psychological distress when their actions cause harm to others, they perform interstellar-scale manipulation of other species, inducing and directing large scale wars in order to achieve the goal of their own safety and they do not appear to be disturbed when required to make choices that result in the deaths of billions or trillions. From what little interaction is shown between Puppeteers, it seems their lack of empathy extends to their own species. Mate selection seems to be largely status-based, with higher status mates being more desirable. The Puppeteer Nessus finds comfort in having his living space produce simulated proximity to his species: the smells, sounds, and sights of other Puppeteers. However, he appears to have little need or desire for social interaction with others of his kind. Socially, two notable traits of Puppeteers are their racial/cultural penchant for cowardice and their tendency to congregate in herds. The cowardice is thought in Puppeteer society to originate with the Puppeteer instinct for turning one's back on danger. However, the trait is thought by many to actually originate from their herd instinct, as the instinct to turn one's back is linked to an instinct to kick the hind hoof at an attacker. In Ringworld, when Nessus and the expeditionaries are threatened, the Puppeteer defends himself quite effectively:
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