Dyson Sphere
A Dyson Sphere is a megastructure built around a star to harness most or all of its energy. Many large factions have Dyson spheres, such as the Hyperion Federation, HEX Mainframe, Cypher Dominion and more. Different factions build Dyson spheres in different ways.
Some factions can make the surface of Dyson sphere habitable. Assuming an object of Earthlike radius can hold a population between 10 billion and 30 trillion (depending on the estimate), a Dyson sphere with a radius of approximately 1 astronomical unit would hold a population between about 6 quintillion and 18 sextillion.
Generally, most factions exploit the difference in radiation pressure from the star. As photons have momentum, photon intensity is proportional to force away from the star. Due to the inverse square law, the pressure of the side that comes closer to the star increases, while at the same time the pressure on the other side decreases. This results in a force pushing the sphere back into its desired position.
Making the sphere spin may also solve the structural collapse issue. This will produce an effect on the sphere remiscient of objects orbiting a world, except the orbits are perfectly circular. It may help to visualise that each atom in the sphere would effectively be in its own orbit, except also simultaneously bonded to other atoms of the sphere. However, this solution has reduced effectiveness at the poles because they can only rotate with the equator. This produces an immense structural stress inwards towards the equator which no material would be abl eto support. Several factions have dealt wiht these issues in several ways:
Hyperion Federation:
Using a technology similar to Subspatial Starships, they place several support beams in subspace (going down to the other side of the sphere through the star) to prevent gravity from destroying the sphere under weight. Excess heat is conducted using temperature superconductors inbuilt in the sphere. Heat is radiated to several massive megastructure scale QEN heat vents to be radiated.
Most HF Dyson spheres are habitable on the external surface. Although the surface normally would not be touched by stellar radiation, holes are carved in the sphere. Large mirrors on towers redirect the radiation onto the sphere, lighting and heating it up. The towers rotate to simulate a day / night cycle. Due to the addition of life onto the sphere, they do not spin their Dyson spheres. Also, to get an earthlike gravity, they are built at surprisingly small radii very close to the star, which is not a problem due to the QEN heat vents mentioend earlier. Around a star of 1 solar mass, they weould have a radius of about 0.025 AU and a population between several hundred trillion to the low quadrillions.
HEX Mainframe:
The HM simply just created a gravitational field in the opposite direction from the natural gravitational field. Anything on a HM Dyson sphere will be weightless. Excess heat is conducted using temperature superconductors and sent to small objects to heat up to immense temperatures. These are expelled from the sphere at millions of degrees celcius as a gas / plasma. As there is no gravitational field, the gas will not return to the sphere.
Cypher Dominion:
The CD relies far more on star lifting than on Dyson spheres. They have not managed to make a full sphere due to a lack of method to cope with the immense gravitational force. Instead, the partial sphere spins. They use large panel radiators to manage heat.
Their star lifiters use a large ring world close to the star. Inside the ring world is a large ring of magnets. These continually pulse a magnetic field at a very specific frequency. This causes resonance, and the star to expand in 1 direction, causing it to expel a lot of plaasma. Due to resonance, the star shortly collapsed back into a sphere, and then disk shape. The plasma that is expelled is collected.
Sulethis Republic:
The people of the Republic are terrified of space. Their Dyson 'spheres' are entirely managed by drones.
Their 'spheres' have many docking prts for drones to recharge on. There are also automated factories designed to mass produce drones at a large rate.
However, they deal with the issues of gravity by not being a sphere. A SR Dyson 'Sphere' is actually a large collection of ring worlds in different orbits. They are less efficient than an actual sphere because much of the radiation still escapes. This form of sphere is much more reliable however.
Tranal Nomads:
The Tranal Nomads do not deal with the slow nature of setting up Dyson spheres. They are also too permanent for the TN, who would largely prefer to remain mobile. They do not have Dyson spheres.
Grand Artanat Empire:
WIP
Xalarin Council:
WIP
Karnol Caretakers:
WIP
Star Lifters
Star Lifters are a similar, though different concept from Dyson spheres. A star lifter extracts stellar plasma from the star often in large quantities.
Surprisngly, this can often be good for the star, increasing its lifetime.
Nicoll - Dyson beams
Main Article: Nicoll-Dyson Beam Odyros
A Nicoll - Dyson beam is a variant of a Dyson sphere that collects a large amount of the sphere's energy and places it into large antimatter containers. This is capable of storing extremely large amounts of energy. The primary feature of a nicoll-dyson beam, however, is the massive superweapon which is capable of destroying entire stars or planets.
Normally, stellar radiation alone is not powerful enough to do this to a star. This is why there is a massive antimatter reactor, allowing it to unload immense quantities of energy on a single target.
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