Interesting concept; please read below...

David Fraser wrote:
>
>
> Dear Ringworld RPG group,
>
> (if anyone is home after all this time...)

Yup, I'm still reading! Really!

> Supposing the Kzinti on the Map of Earth got hold of a cziltang brone
> - a device which renders the ultra-hard scrith malleable - and
> started to use it to mine scrith, and then to shape and build
> machinery with it... what might they come up with?

I thought the cziltang brone only rendered the material *permeable* and
not malleable? Suffice to say, this is your game - do as you will! With
that assumption...

Beyond machinery, the Patriarch of the Map of Kzin would certainly have
a suit of armor and at least one weapon made of scrith... (Imagine
parrying with a scrith vambrace!)

And, given the engineering challenges of setting scrith, it might be
that only certain parts of machines might be made out of the scavenged
material. Armor plates and specific blades for scything war-machines,
particular engine parts that need to be neigh-invulnerable to grant
high-yield on the machines they are part of, etc.

There would be a lot of scrith-mass available if the Protector civil
engineers made the walls of the Ringworld as redundant as they made the
attitude jet system. The Map of Kzin mightn't explode outward into space
until the scrith got to be 15 - 20% of its current thickness.

> Also assume that some of the kzinti's pet monkeys are intelligent.
> ('cos NPCs who are all war-crazy faux-tigers is no fun, and NPCs who
> are people who have been bred into strange and unnatural shapes by
> said war-crazy faux-tigers is).

Ohhh - that's a lovely image! Hominids warped by assiduous breeding
programs implemented by the Patriarch of the Map of Kzin. Delicious! Who
says Kzinti wouldn't develop animal husbandry?

> Finally, how long do you guys reckon it would take the ratcats to
> start to Take Over The World with this device, and what might hold
> them back?

If they made it a point to harvest scrith from a broad area instead of
digging deep in one spot, they'd certainly have a technological
advantage over most of the RW's inhabitants. Consider a martial-art
style peculiar to the Map of Kzin wherein each soldier in the ratcat
forces have a scrith vambrace to parry with?

Application of 'unbreakable' material (given the tech-level you
mentioned) doesn't have to be very efficient to produce really, really
dangerous Kzinti armed forces. After all, the Kzinti are pretty damned
formidable on their own.

What might hold them back?

Protectors - lots of Protectors with scrith-repulsors and cziltang
brones of their own. Repel them into a knot or pass, make the ground
beneath them permeable, turn off the brones.

Then, the rest of your post seems to posit that there isn't another,
handy cziltang brone around... Maybe just lots of Molotov cocktails and
the repulsors.

> As you may have guessed, I'm lovingly crafting the next round of
> torture for my players. Their stated objective is to get the 'brone
> off the kzinti, undamaged, and use it to deal with a slight
> "Protector Problem" of their own making.

Your players are running hominids, I take it?

> Given that the cziltang brone exists and is impacting Kzinti society,
> background ideas would be quite handy. I have my own answers for
> most of the above questions, but a few other people chipping in might
> help me work out if I'm screwing up somewhere!

Maybe a few more details about your game will stir the pot?

Hope this inspires you!

--
Gerall Kahla