Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle didn’t just write bestselling science fiction, they built survival fantasies for empire. The Mote in God’s Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer, and Footfall wrapped authoritarian order and militarized “realism” in the language of hard science fiction.

In this episode, Red Horizons uncovers how their collaborations transformed fiction into ideology: collapse as stress test, violence as salvation, and continuity of government as the only future worth defending. These weren’t just stories. They were manuals for empire, echoing through Pentagon war games, aerospace strategy, and the survivalist fantasies of billionaires.

🎧 Released Thursdays on Patreon (always free), Fridays everywhere else.