I'm not sure which one Niven wrote first, but in Mote in God's Eye he SPECIFICALLY explains how the Moties used atomic power to toss asteroids from the Mote system at their enemies during wars... and at some point in the Motie cycles, they had all the remaining asteroids moved far enough away from Mote Prime so they couldn't be used as weapons any longer.
They even explained to the reader (through the human scientist's evaluation on how the asteroids got placed in a new orbit) exactly how it would be possible to move an asteroid to an exact trajectory.
In Footfall did he get more detailed than that?
Essobie
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure which one Niven wrote first, but in Mote in God's Eye he SPECIFICALLY explains how the Moties used atomic power to toss asteroids from the Mote system at their enemies during wars... and at some point in the Motie cycles, they had all the remaining asteroids moved far enough away from Mote Prime so they couldn't be used as weapons any longer. They even explained to the reader (through the human scientist's evaluation on how the asteroids got placed in a new orbit) exactly how it would be possible to move an asteroid to an exact trajectory. In Footfall did he get more detailed than that? Essobie