A Starseed is a fictional race from the Known Space series by Larry Niven.
The starseeds: mindless beings who swarmed in the galactic core. Their metabolism was the solar phoenix, their food was the thinly-spread hydrogen of interstellar space. Their motive power was a photon sail, enormous and highly reflective, controlled like a skydiver's parachute. A starseed's egg-laying flight commonly took it from the galactic axis out to the edge of intergalactic space and then back, without the egg. The hatched starseed chick must find its own way home, riding the photon wind, to the warm, hydrogen-rich core.
Where the starseeds went, then went the Outsiders.
- Larry Niven, in Ringworld
It is possible to use a Starseed Lure, that causes the local sun to emit electromagnetic signals that attract starseeds. The puppeteers used a Starseed Lure to alter the course of the Man-Kzin Wars (see Ringworld).
Audited October 6, 2001