General Products (Larry Niven) - General Products Hull

General Products Hull

The most famous (and most profitable) items produced by General Products are General Products hulls, which are advertised as being impervious to anything apart from visible light (as defined by wavelengths visible to any of the species which are customers of General Products), antimatter, and gravity. The hulls are advertised as being capable of passing through the upper atmosphere of a star without damage, although the contents may become overcooked (but see below for a solution to this problem). The company even offers a guarantee that, should anything harm you within a General Products hull as a result of a failure of these specifications, you (or your estate) will receive a very large sum of money ("tens of millions" of "stars" in the event of a death, with a "star" having value roughly equivalent to one United States dollar in the middle of the 20th century). In the history of General Products this indemnity has been claimed only once, by Gregory Pelton, whose hull failed under extremely unusual circumstances (see Flatlander).

In the story Neutron Star, the narrator, Beowulf Shaeffer, states that around 95% of all contemporary spacecraft are built around a General Products hull.

Nothing, but nothing, can get through a General Products hull. No kind of electromagnetic energy except visible light. No kind of matter, from the smallest subatomic particle to the fastest meteor. That's what the company's advertisements claim, and the guarantee backs them up. I've never doubted it, and I've never heard of a General Products hull being damaged by a weapon or by anything else.

As a GP hull is transparent, most humans paint some or all of the hull to provide some privacy and to prevent problems associated with FTL travel through hyperspace and exposure to the "blind spot". To provide further protection, the hulls are normally lined with 'flare shielding', which instantly becomes reflective to any of the transmitted visible light wavelengths should the intensity rise above a certain threshold.

Furthermore, since the Puppeteers are careful to an extreme degree to avoid any risk at all, they don't trust even these hulls completely. They have therefore installed in at least two (and possibly all) of their ships a 'Slaver Stasis field', which stops time inside the hull instantly should anything bad happen, and keeps it stopped until the bad thing goes away. In the absence of time, nothing can possibly affect the contents of the Stasis field until it turns itself off. Indeed Louis Wu speculates that a ship with its Stasis field on would be able to handily survive a second big bang (though several stories cast doubt on this).

A General Products hull is "an artificially-generated giant molecule, with the inter-atomic bonds artificially strengthened", causing the hull to resist "any kind of impact, and heat in the hundreds of thousands of degrees" (from Flatlander). In Fleet of Worlds, the characters learn that the bonds of the giant molecule are "artificially strengthened" by a small power plant in the hull. By aiming a very powerful laser at it (since GP hulls are transparent to visible light), one can destroy the power plant, and destroy the hull. Gravity attracts the hull and its contents normally, but not even close approach to the event horizon of a black hole can damage the hull. However, tidal stress will kill anything outside the ship's center of mass (from Neutron Star), and the hull probably could not survive entering a black hole's singularity. Furthermore, a General Products hull can be destroyed by antimatter. Hyperdrive affects General Products hulls, since it is used by the ships to travel. From the text of stories involving stasis boxes, it is implied that the "hyperwave" pulses used for probing for them are not reflected by General Products hulls, though whether these are absorbed or penetrate is unclear.

There are four General Products' hull models available for sale, each of which can easily be adapted and customised to any specific need.