Contractors.
Star Trek: Dyson
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
Contractors.
Sighs...humor is a lost concept.
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I never noticed it until now, but the Dyson Sphere is part of a Binary Star System setup.
The fact that the outside of the sphere is illuminated on one side suggests a Binary Star System setup.
The fact that the outside of the sphere is illuminated on one side suggests a Binary Star System setup.
The series could be called Star Trek: DYSON'S FEAR
The 10 episode limited series would start off semi-episodic with missions within the sphere, and then the mystery box turns out to be a robot with tentacles or something.
The 10 episode limited series would start off semi-episodic with missions within the sphere, and then the mystery box turns out to be a robot with tentacles or something.
Renovating and learning from the pre-existing one is all fine and well, however, the UFP has over 150 member species in late 24th century.
That's over 150 stars they could encompass with Dyson Swarms at least... would provide for A LOT more energy which could be used for scientific experimentation.
Building their own Dyson Swarms would provide UFP with hands on practical experience in the subject matter and would also likely lead to new methods in ship creation, energy storage, efficiency, resource management, etc - plus some of that knowledge would likely be beneficial in how to work with the existing Dyson Sphere.
Having a finished Dyson Sphere is fine and its restoration can be a learning experience as well, but with the power from over 150 stars, it would also change how the UFP fundamentally looks at things too.
Having access to just 1 full star in terms of energy output would redefine things... having that over 150 times over would provide for scaling things up.
Plus, potentially building their own Dyson Swarms across its own space would provide a faster learnig route compared to trying to decipher Neutronium based technology (which UFP sensors have issue with - which if you ask me is preposterous given they encountered a Planet Eater made of solid Neutronium 100 years prior).
As for how I'd use the Dyson Sphere after its restoration... send in colonists from all member species planets to start populating it first.
Use the energy output for Hypersubspace communications and sensor scans across and beyond the Milky Way in real time.
Materialization of whole fleets of ships using energy to matter replication... upgrading most/all UFP assets remotely using transporters - aka, a dated starbase population could be beamed to a nearby planet (or to the Dyson SPhere temporarily) , then dematerialize the starbase and rearrange it in the pattern buffer to resemble state of the art version, or just remove existing superstructure and external hull and 'refresh them' with state of the art material composites... same can be done with ships, outposts, subspace relay stations (which could be upgraded to hypersubspace MIDAS arrays)... planetary defenses upgraded and augmented immediately throughout the entire UFP.
The extra Dyson Swarms would basically scale up available energy and assist in further extending ranges, speed, efficiency, etc.
What if the Environmentalist factions within the UFP don't want you to start blocking out Sunlight in any way/shape/form and take away matter from within any Star Systems to build Dyson Swarms?
That also means that you aren't allowed to build a Dyson Swarm around any existing Star in the observable universe by UFP law.
You get one Dyson Sphere, the one that exists, and any other solution, is not allowed due to preservation of Stellar Nature, Astro/Stellar Ecology, and NIMBY-ism to prevent the loss of any Star / Star System matter within the known observable universe that can be observed by the UFP Government / StarFleet.
Every Planet, every minor Planetoid, every Star, every Star System must be preserved and limited / highly regulated amounts of Astro Mining / Harvesting / Matter extraction is allowed to balance the Stellar Eco System for the rest of time according to new UFP Stellar environmental laws.
Since the Dyson Swarms are usually built at 1 AU away from the star they encompass, it wouldn't be blocking sunlight at all because a lot of member species planets are in that 'sweet spot'... for those that aren't , extending the swarm a bit away wouldn't be an issue.
Also, since a swarm is a massive collection of space based solar power stations 10km in size each (all of which would be made habitable), I don't see the issue.
Same if we decided to build a Dyson Swarm in real life... the Swarm would be holding position at 1 AU... or effectivelly just a bit beyond Earth... that way, none of the solar collectors would actually be in the way... and despite there being a lot of the collectors, they still wouldn't block the sun really... An actual Sphere though would.
Alternatively, the swarms could be construced in star systems which are part of UFP but not inhabited (plenty of those lying around).
It would seem VERY odd/weird that UFP would prohibit construction of a Dyson Swarm around any existing star in the observable universe... especially since it can be done in a non destructive way in Trek using replicators which would make matter from energy itself.
Its actually dead easy that way and a no brainer really.
Dyson Swarm is just one step away from Dyson Sphere.
And if the Environmentalists say "No", you need to comply with the law.
What's wrong with just a plain old Space Station orbitting at 1 AU instead of a Dyson Swarm?
What about living on the planet?
I don't think they care if its an uninhabited system.
Depends on the environmentalists.
There are all sorts of levels of extremity to the environmentalists out there.
And what makes you think they have such influence on what the Federation does?
I mean there wouldn't be any terraforming then either, or stuff like that Atlantis Project.
It's a hypothetical, I'm sure there will always be somebody complaining about Terra forming __ planet or trying to change the surface of the Earth by raising Atlantis.
Except that we're not even talking about doing anything to Earth... we're basically talking about creating a Dyson Swarm at 1 AU around the Star... which wouldn't obstruct sunlight or cause any kind of problems.
In fact, problems would further be mitigated... the chances of doing something wrong drops severely when you do it in an uninhabited star system.
The UFP certainly has no qualms about mining dilithium everywhere or anywhere... so I'm thinking creating a Dyson Swarm with nothing but star's energy would cause none of the issues in terms of environmentalists... and even if 'some' matter would need to be harvested, to local asteroid fields would have more than enough in them to do the job.
And UFP also knows its own space pretty well (or at least it should) to the point where they could say which systems would be good for building Swarms and which ones not
Having a single orbiting habitat at 1 AU does nothing much... the purpose of the Swarm is to harness the energy output of a whole star so you have it at your disposal at all times.
People can still live on a planet... but if that was their only preference they wouldn't chose to live in space stations.
The Dyson Swarm also offers that option.
How to Build a Dyson Swarm
So how do we realize such a grandiose vision? In a 2012 lecture, Armstrong provided a highly abstract outline. First off, the entire building process would be carried out by automated, self-replicating robots. An army of these mechanical workers would be sent to Mercury to mine it for raw materials. He estimated that roughly half of the planet would be usable. Over roughly fifty years, the robots would multiply and build up the swarm of panels and satellites, until all of Mercury's raw materials are extinguished.
True, the depleted planet would be a husk of its former self, but would we really miss it? Armstrong even titled one of his presentation slides, "Sorry, Mercury, it's nothing personal..."
"Disassembling a planet is basically disassembling an asteroid, excepting doing it again, and again, and again," he added.
For a planet like "Mercury" to lose half it's total mass just to build a Dyson Swarm, would that be worth it?
It's one thing to build one or two Space Stations.
It's another to build so many Space Stations that you create a swarm that an entire planet loses half their mass, and how would that affect the orbital dynamics of the local Star System? I'm sure somebody in the Astrometrics portion of the UFP Government will ask that question.
If Mercury's orbit is affected, how does that affect everybody else at the Planetary Level, Star System Level, Galactic level?
Long term effects, projections to long term changes in Galactic Star System flight path / orbital mechanics around the Giant SMBH around the galaxy?
Is it worth consuming so much raw matter just to harvest more energy via a Dyson Swarm?
When will your greed / desire / lust for more energy be satiated?
Most BiPaB based species evolved on a Planet, we're used to living on Planets in a Star System.
Is there such a need to cause such great stellar disturbance as consuming / repurposing half a planets mass?
Especially when a Dyson Sphere exists and you haven't even used it all up yet or come close to fully occupying it?
Remember, the UFP are environmentalists, so they need to find ways to Min/Max everything and avoid consuming as many resources as possible while generating as much energy as possible with minimal environmental impact into the future. We're talking planning scales that can account for millions of years, especially with Temporal technology and communicating with our descendents on what the long term affects of our action will be and making changes in the past to prevent any deleterious results.
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Yes, it would definitely worth it in real life.
Also, you don't necessarily have to use Mercury... we could simply use asteroids for getting the raw materials - they are chockfull of the stuff.
Also, its worth noting that Mercury losing half its mass in itself wouldn't really affect other planetary bodies because in interstellar terms... its small.
If we decided to use one of the larger planets, then long term, there would be an effect.
So, using Mercury for harvesting the raw materials and making the self-replicating bots and matter for the Swarm wouldn't really result in issues down the line at all.
Also, as I said, UFP wouldn't need to use the same method we have to. They have replicators that convert energy into matter. We don't.
We need to build an army of self-replicating bots to do the work and harvest the matter in question. For UFP in the 24th century, its a simple matter of using replicators to do the job without touching Mercury.
I guess that's one way of looking at things... but I don't.
UFP demonstrated a desire to look for better/more powerful energy sources that last a long time. A Dyson Swarm gives you access to practically 100% of the energy output of an entire star.
Humanity in real life also is looking for better and more powerful energy sources. That big ball in the sky that radiates 384 Yottawats (or 384 million Exawatts) every single second would certainly do the job.
It would also provide access to stupidly large amounts of energy for different science experiments... building the Swarm in real life would give us ridiculously great amount of experinece for making megastructures in space. After that, doing other things would seem fairly trivial.
And yet in Trek, billions live in space.
You do realize that we can (and will) recreate habitats that resemble our native environments up in space of course?
It provides a change of scenery as well.
Its not really a disturbance when working with a small planet like Mercury that would have literally no measurable effects in the near or far future.
If we tampered with larger planets, then yes (but this is unnecessary).
As I said, nothing wrong in doing up, repairing, colonizing and studying a pre-existing Dyson Sphere. But its also quite some distance away from UFP member planets with a temperamental star (which admittedly the UFP could probably stabilize on its own if 'drama' doesn't come into the mix).
The purpose of UFP and us making our own Dyson Swarms would provide invaluable practical experience and would massively advance our understanding of space based construction (for UFP, this would be like its own introduction to this level of technology and how to better interact with the actual Dyson Sphere that's already there), improve efficiency, conduct ridiculously more advanced scientific experiments, and could create far better feats when 'energy concerns' are not in the picture.
Even from UFP standpoint, they could conduct experiments that previously were out of reach due to not having enough energy.
Similar would apply to us.
I haven't forgotten that... and a Dyson Swarm is one of the better approaches towards that goal.
Since you're not encompassing the whole star in shell, but rather surround it with large habitats that act as solar collectors, you're not really obstructing the star.
Also for UFP, this would be the epitome of maximizing efficiency. Replicators already don't technically need matter to run... just energy.
So, supplying the energy output of an entire star to create matter out of that energy would not impact local planets or space in any way.
Heck, we've also run an experiment for conversion of light into matter back in 2018 in London - results of which are still pending.
So we know the process is theoretically possible in reality (aka, to convert energy into actual matter).
Yes it does, and there's ALOT of good Energy Efficiency reasons NOT to just upgrade matter from any random raw matter stocks to what you want, it's HIGHLY energy inefficient.
Here's the TNG Technical Manual section on Replicators.
Remember in the most recent Star Trek: Prodigy episodes, when they replicated a Shuttle from scratch, it drained a HUGE percent of the total Warp Core's available power.
You don't want a huge power consumption spike whenever somebody eats food.
That's why it's preferable to have raw matter food stock ready for replication into the foods that you want.
I'm fine with using Asteriods for raw materials, especially building Space Stations and StarShips.
That's not a decision that any one person can decide on, it should take a FAR larger governmental body and plenty of studies on what to do to make such a drastic decision.
Just because they can, doesn't mean they should.
RAW energy to Matter is VERY energy intensive, transmutting existing matter that is similar to your final desired output is FAR less energy intensive, ergo harvesting of base raw matter is still important when it comes to overall energy efficiency.
Everybody wants a better/more powerful energy source that lasts a long time.
And a Dyson Sphere would give you access to 100% without any leakage, but doing so would take a VERY long time.
Even the Dyson Swarm would take a while to setup and get going.
But do you really need all that power when most of humanity can get by on living on Planets and a few Space Stations?
But is that big ball in the sky yours exclusively for time eternal?
Should you be allowed to make a Dyson Sphere to encompass your local Star and harvest everything from it?
Sacrificing entire planets or more to build said Dyson Sphere?
What if future Astro-Environmentalism requires preserving Planets and has limits on how much matter you may withdraw from any planet at any given time, this is to preserve a balance of mass for your local Star System.
e.g. Earth Loses 50,000 Metric Tons of Mass Every Year
Humanity might find a way to prevent that yearly mass loss in the future.
Same would apply to other planets.
Yes, it would provide you a stupidly large amounts of energy, but what if you have to accomplish that via a different method and you aren't allowed to make a Dyson Sphere within UFP territory?
Are you going to pack up and join another species / Astro Nation-State that will allow you to do what you want?
Billions live in space is chump change compared to the UFP who should have citizenry numbers in the Quadrillion scale.
What if we checked on the future and messing with Mercury or any of the small Planetoids would have effects and Temporal communications with our descendents tells you "NO"?
What if you're limited to Asteriods only and limited planetary matter extraction?
And Quantum Slip Stream / Transwarp Tunnels for civilian FTL travel becoming normal makes travel to that location trivial.
We should make smaller Ring Constructs like the Halo Ring or Banks Orbital.
That seems much smaller and easier to achieve while providing plenty of room.
How you go about attaining said energy supply is important.
That depends on how dense your swarm is.
See above section on Replicators.
Yes, but it isn't a efficient process, that's for sure.
I think you were referencing this article?
E=mc²
Apparently there's a new game about making a Dyson Sphere.
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