an unnamed second child; therefore, Louis has one sister and two half-siblings, who grew up on the Home colony world. Eventually, in his adulthood, Louis moved to Earth, and in the years between his two trips to the Ringworld he relocated to Canyon. At the end of Ringworld's Children he is in a spaceship, heading back to Home. While Louis Wu was raised by Beowulf Shaeffer, in the first Ringworld novel Louis seems not to know who Shaeffer is, nor does he make any reference to his relation to Carlos upon encountering the same autodoc in the later Ringworld novels. As the Known Space universe continued to grow in complexity with each newly published story, Louis' own backstory was increasingly retconned to fit in with this continuity. This is also probably why Louis never reflected on the obviously-traumatic events in his childhood that took place on Fafnir. This might also be explained as Louis simply being tight-lipped about certain aspects of his personal history, a trait he shared with both his biological father Carlos and his adoptive father Beowulf. Pre-Ringworld According to narration in Ringworld, Wu ran for political office in the United Nations in his middle 70s. He lost the election but in the process of running learned an oratorical technique he would later use to attempt to convince Teela Brown not to come on what would later turn out to be the first Ringworld expedition. In an adventure some 70 years before the events of Ringworld (around when Wu was 130, related in Betrayer of Worlds), that he does not recall in his later life (e.g., in Ringworld), Louis is found by a Pierson's Puppeteer named Nessus while working in a hospital in a rebel camp on Wunderland and severely addicted to pain killers. Nessus is attempting to find members of Louis' family, but Louis reports them dead. Desperate and hoping Louis has similar talents, Nessus recruits Louis with the understanding that his memory would be altered before his return to Known Space, he would be saved from the Civil War on Wunderland, well compensated and cured of his addiction. Louis' task is initially to prevent a war between the Puppeteers and Gw'oth. He eventually ends up preventing a genocide, observing the removal of the legitimate Puppeteer government, its ironic replacement with a puppet regime controlled by the Gw'oth, and finding himself with a very large Puppeteer bounty