Not precisely. https://larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml https://larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml >The Puppeteers mistook the City Builders to be the

Not precisely. https://larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml https://larryniven.net/puppeteer/puppol.shtml >The Puppeteers mistook the City Builders to be the Ringworld's engineers and become suddenly afraid to encounter so powerful a species. The Puppeteers examined the Ringworld's superconductor material and created a technophytic bacterium to seed the Ringworld and destroy the superconductor. The strategy was to follow the probes with trading ships and come to the profitable rescue of the City Builders. However, the Puppeteers soon realized that the City Builders could not possibly have created the Ringworld, and discovered several Pak artifacts. The Puppeteers feared the Pak above nearly all other threats. >The Conservatives took control of the government and the Ringworld project was abandoned. Puppeteers don't colonize. They trade, and destroy threats, but the Conservative majority doesn't actually want to own or operate the Ringworld. (Remember, they're flying through space on a rosette of five planets... with over a trillion puppeteers crowded onto just one of them, and the other four covered with automated farms. Elbow room isn't something a herd animal values.)