Science fiction novel or short story. Characters were lost or crashed or something on a new-to-them world and were making for a mountain they could see in the distance. But when they reached the mountain, it turned out to be a hole blasted by an asteroid through the "world" they were on, which turned out to be some kind of flat fake habitat floating in space.
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38This happens in Ringworld. The mountain, “Fist of God” extends beyond the atmosphere. It plays a key role in the visitors’ escape – James McLeod Jul 21 '19 at 12:55
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existing hub for duplicates at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/94578/novel-where-a-man-is-paid-to-travel-to-a-planet-inside-a-metallic-sphere – Otis Jul 24 '19 at 04:32
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@Sprout you should probably take a look at the bounty and accepting the question... – Peter Nielsen Dec 12 '21 at 21:47
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Well, since Sprout has not been on the site in over 2 years and has only posted 1 question, I doubt he will be returning. – NJohnny Dec 13 '21 at 08:47
1 Answers
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This is almost definitely Ringworld by Larry Niven.
The mountain in question appears strange to Louis and company because it's so big, and it's located in the middle of the ring, while most of the mountains are part of the ringwall.
"That's the biggest tanj mountain I ever saw in my life."
"Louis!"
He had spoken too softly. "A mountain!" he bellowed. "Wait'll you see it! The Ringworld engineers must have wanted to put one big mountain in the world, one mountain too big to use. Too big to grow coffee on, or trees, too big even for skiing. It's magnificent!"
It was magnificent. One mountain, roughly conical, all alone, forming no part of a chain. It had the look of a volcano, a mock-volcano, for beneath the Ringworld there was no magma to form volcanos. Its base was lost in mist. Its higher slopes showed clear through what must be thinning air, and its peak had a shiny look of snow: dirty snow, not bright enough to be clean snow. Perhaps permafrost.
There was a crystal clarity to the edges of the peak. Could it thrust clear out of the atmosphere? A real mountain that size would collapse of its own weight; but this mountain would be a mere shell of ring foundation material.
Louis realizes that what Fist-of-God (what the natives call the mountain) is, but refuses to say so aloud because he doesn't risk appearing foolish until the moment they reach the top.
"Remember the night you explored a giant map of the Ringworld? You couldn't find Fist-of-God. Why not?"
The kzin didn't answer.
"It wasn't there, that's why not. It wasn't there when the map was made."
[...]
"Louis, just what do you expect to find in Fist-of-God crater?"
"Stars," said Louis Wa.
The kzin was tense too. "Do not mock me! In all honor---"
---And they were through. There wasn't any pass. There was only a broken eggshell of Ringworld foundation material, stretched by terrific stresses to a few feet of thickness; and beyond that, the crater in Fist-of-God Mountain.
They were falling. And the crater was full of stars.
There appears to be a bit of confusion as to the structure; in brief Ringworld is a megastructure approximately 300 million km (300 Gm) in diameter (950 million km in circumference) and about 1.6 million km (1.6 Gm) in width. It is relatively thin, on the order of 10s of km thick, and rotates about its central star to produce around 1g of pseudogravity. Millennia before the story, a moon-sized interstellar rogue planetoid struck the outward-facing side of the ring at speed.
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11That is IT! Thank you. I felt sheepish asking, because I knew it was going to be a novel very familiar to readers of Science Fiction, but it was completely escaping me. And now I am excited to re-read it! Thanks again! – Sprout Jul 21 '19 at 14:08
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22@Sprout No need to feel embarrassed; we've all forgotten things. Since this is correct you should click on the checkmark in the upper-left corner of the answer, just under the voting arrows; this will indicate to future searchers that the answer is correct. – DavidW Jul 21 '19 at 14:15
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Is that normal in a topologic sense? I can't figure out how and why a hole would appear as a mountain. – Teleporting Goat Jul 22 '19 at 13:28
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13@TeleportingGoat - It's a hole way at the top. Picture poking a hole through a plastic garbage bag - it stretches and stretches and finally pops through at the top. Fist-of-God is exactly that - a massive piece of space debris hitting the underside of the Ringworld, stretching the material upward, and finally piercing through above the height of the walls, so the atmosphere doesn't leak out. – VBartilucci Jul 22 '19 at 13:45
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4@VBartilucci Ah, so it actually is a mountain, just an unintended one. From what was written above I (and apparently others) took it to mean it was just a big hole in the ground. – Eborbob Jul 22 '19 at 13:51
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1I kept picturing it as being punctured the other way and was having trouble figuring out why it looked like a mountain until I read your comment @VBartilucci – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Jul 22 '19 at 18:05
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@Draco18s tbf, to the people living on the other side, it is! (Just a joke, haven't read the book so don't know if there are people on the other side!) – RyanfaeScotland Jul 22 '19 at 20:36
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1@RyanfaeScotland No, there are no people on the other side; only the inner surface of the ring is habitable. – zwol Jul 23 '19 at 14:17
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3@Draco18s It is that way, because the defence systems protect against things falling onto the inside edge of the ringworld. A moon+ sized planetoid hitting the bottom was highly unlikely, and not handled by the "automated" defences. – Yakk Jul 23 '19 at 14:17
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@Yakk Honestly, that's backwards. The outside edge only faces space, and space is full of stuff [citation needed], the inside edge is partly facing (and thus protected by) the opposite side of the ring. I get its a story and that the story required this mountain, but the author didn't think things through. It would have been easy enough to say "it was really big and the automated defenses couldn't get it all before it hit." – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Jul 23 '19 at 14:23
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4@Draco18s The outside edge is made out of nearly a invulnerable substance. The inside edge has people and biosphere on it; that is fragile. The defence system defended the fragile side. As far as space is concerned, the cross-section of the two is nearly identical; you'd expect a near identical rate of impact on both sides. Work out the percentage of sky covered by the ring for someone standing on the inside of the ring; it is tiny. The "inside" is not "protected" by the opposite side of the ring in a way practically different from zero. – Yakk Jul 23 '19 at 14:39
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1ahhh, @zwol, thanks. I think I'm completely picturing this ring wrong. Rather than fill the comments with descriptions I'm going to order a copy of the book! – RyanfaeScotland Jul 23 '19 at 14:42
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2@Draco18s Also, if I remember correctly, the defense system was a powerful laser firing from a position close to the system's sun (exactly how this works is a plot point in Ringworld Engineers so I'm not going to be too specific). So it couldn't target anything approaching the ring from "underneath," because the ring itself was in the way. – zwol Jul 23 '19 at 14:49
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1@zwol I haven't read it either, but if that's where its placed, then that is a reasonable excuse. – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Jul 23 '19 at 14:53
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@Draco18s You really should read it! It's a classic of the genre, but it's also full of great ideas. Not only the ringworld itself, but a Klemperer rosette, innovative uses of a superconductor... – DavidW Jul 23 '19 at 14:58
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1@DavidW Its been one of those books that every time I hear about it I think, "I should read that" and never get around to it. – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Jul 23 '19 at 15:19
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@RyanfaeScotland I haven't read this, but from the comments it appears to be like this, but with a sun in the center. This image is of a Bishop Ring, the sun-in-the-center version of the megastructure appears to be a Niven Ring, named after the author of Ringworld. – Izkata Jul 23 '19 at 18:41
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Hahaha, sure why not, there is already a million comments, what's one more. Thanks @Izkata, that's what I was picturing now. Previously I was think a disc world / flat earth with a huge hole in the middle, it would appear as a mountain on one side and a chasm on the other. – RyanfaeScotland Jul 23 '19 at 21:38
