However, there was a large fan demand for stories covering the conflict, and a number of his author friends had shown interest in writing tales set in the time frame.

ARM, the United Nations security forces, has completely suppressed all "dangerous" technologies, histories, mental illnesses, and media, leading to not only an end of the war and almost all violent crimes, but a change in society so vast that most people have a difficulty even conceptualizing such things.

The Kzinti, with vast technical superiority (including gravity drives, telepaths, and a large military empire), detected a human colonization ship in deep space, the Angel's Pencil.

However, one of the human prisoners, with the aid of a rogue telepath, was able to escape to the Angel's Pencil and warn them of the danger of their increasing penetration into Kzinti space.

In the course of the First Man-Kzin War, the Kzinti invaded and occupied the human colony of Wunderland, in the Alpha Centauri system, as a staging point for an attack on Earth.

Human ships attempting to escape back to Earth were shot down, but a single vessel managed to carry some refugees to the sister colony We Made It.

However, after near defeat by the fourth fleet, it was becoming clear to Earth's military leaders that the Kzinti were learning to wage war more effectively than their traditional "scream and leap" tactics, and that the Solar System's defenses would quickly succumb to the Kzinti's superior numbers, firepower, and technology, were it only wielded with a modicum of tactical and strategic sense.

In order to delay the next attack, a Terran Bussard ramjet starship was utilized to transport and deploy several relativistic kill vehicles in the Wunderland system.

Using iron slugs accelerated to 99% of the speed of light, it devastated a portion of the planet, killing humans and Kzinti alike and delaying the launch of yet another Kzin fleet against Earth.

A number of specialists traveled aboard this ship, using Slaver stasis fields for lithobraking, and successfully assassinated the Kzin military leader on Wunderland, Chuut-Riit.

The FTL drive allowed the human fleets to coordinate and concentrate their forces beyond anything the Kzinti could manage, even letting them outrun and jam the news of each successive Kzin defeat.

Due to the treachery of Ulf Reichstein Markham, the Kzinti of Kzin gain access to hyperdrive designs and an engineer familiar with them in 2438.

A troika of unconventional officers – Belter General Lucas Fry, flatlander Major Yankee Clandeboye, and Wunderlander Admiral Blumenhandler – establish a semi-covert training center on Barnard's Starbase.

The group devises two ways to help prepare the rest of the human military: A war game called Trolls and Bridges, and a book, The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine.

Towards the start of the war, the Wunderland Treatymaker weapon is used on the Kzinti fortress-world of Warhead, creating a huge, habitable canyon on the otherwise Mars-like world.

Over the next decades and centuries, some Kzinti dream of another war, and go to great lengths (such as piracy, seeking Slaver stasis boxes, and going to the Ringworld) in an attempt to gain enough of an upper hand to begin one.

To that end, the Puppeteers used a starseed lure on Procyon to ensure that the Outsiders would equip mankind with hyperdrives, knowing that it would be the tool that would allow victory for humans.

He has ruled "A Darker Geometry" as definitely non-canonical,[19] and the story is incompatible with Juggler of Worlds, which is co-authored by Niven and Edward M. Lerner.

The protagonist in Matthew Joseph Harrington's "Teacher's Pet" from Man-Kzin Wars XI, who has become a Protector after landing on Home while fleeing from Kzinti, deduces several things that (at least at first glance) seem to be at odds with accepted canon – for example, that Puppeteers had been manipulating both humanity and the Kzin far more than anyone had previously thought.

Yet, Niven's "The Soft Weapon" states: There had been a time, between the discoveries of atomic power and the gravity polarizer, when it seemed the Kzinti species would destroy itself in wars.