Dyson Sphere

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Bryan Moore
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Dyson Sphere

Post by Bryan Moore »

I feel like this has been asked before, but I'm not about to Necro... SO... why would a civilization build a Dyson Sphere other than "Because We Can" A full Shell, like that in Relics, would require so many resources, that a civilization that COULD build one would have so much material wealth and capital invested in it's people that outside of protection or isolation, it doesn't seem feasible. Even then, I would highly imagine that there would be far more efficient methods of achieving such isolation. Was the whole thing just a "Mine's Bigger" game with the galaxy?
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by IanKennedy »

I think the usual stated aims are land area and energy availability. You have a huge amount of space to to use. A single Dyson Sphere is as large as 250 million planets. You also have the entire output of the star to power things.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Talondor »

It would seem alot easier to colonize a million planets then to bring the land and water, as well as the flora and fauna, of 250 million worlds to seed one Dyson Sphere.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Talondor wrote:It would seem alot easier to colonize a million planets then to bring the land and water, as well as the flora and fauna, of 250 million worlds to seed one Dyson Sphere.
There's enough mass in one solar system to build a Dyson Sphere. Convert the mass of Jupiter to Iron and it would make a Dyson sphere about three feet thick. Use the other planets to make soil for the inside surface.

You can't bring flora and fauna from other systems, but why says you'd want to?
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Bryan Moore »

It's a wonderful idea, having a shell like that... but again, I'd think there would be so many cheaper solutions to any thing a shell would offer that it is a "Wonder of the World" achievement more than practical need.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by IanKennedy »

The winning factor for a Dyson Sphere is that you don't need warp drive or interstellar travel, if you can get around your solar system then you're good to go.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

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Unless you want to establish interstellar trade. If you do not have warp drive, you have to wait for traders to come to you, and are at the mercy of those traders if only the likes of the ferengi stop by.

Also without warp drive, you cannot explore the galaxy.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Teaos »

Different mentality. Maybe they had stopped progressing and had no desire to expand out.

Not all species would be the same. The most powerful race in the universe might just have a handful of systems, or even just one.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Graham Kennedy »

If you had a Dyson sphere you wouldn't need interstellar trade. Intersphere trade would do just fine.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Bryan Moore »

We often lose sight of the sheer magnitude of a solar system. I remember an article about an elevator on the Death Star taking hours, yada yada yada... here, you could legitimately jump to Warp 1 and watch nearly an eentire episode of Star Trek while circumnavigating the sphere. Amazing.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Graham Kennedy »

People think of it as a mega large structure. Really the way to imagine it is if you took every planet in several galaxies and brought them all into one solar system.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Talondor »

I have been thinking about this the past couple of weeks, and I have been wondering about a couple of questions about life on the inside of such a structure:

Would a Dyson Sphere have seasons? Since everything faces the sun, I assume there would never be any night. Everything would just be one infinite day. The only way to tell time would be some artificial way like clocks or stardate.

Is the whole interior breathable air, or just a layer along the surface.

The sphere we saw in Relics had exterior doors, large enough for a starship to pass through. So unless they were used only for maintainance ships to work on the outside shell, the people must have had some contact with the outside universe. Either to receive ships for diplomacy or trade, or to send out their own ships to explore and trade.
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Re: Dyson Sphere

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Talondor wrote:I have been thinking about this the past couple of weeks, and I have been wondering about a couple of questions about life on the inside of such a structure:

Would a Dyson Sphere have seasons? Since everything faces the sun, I assume there would never be any night. Everything would just be one infinite day. The only way to tell time would be some artificial way like clocks or stardate.
Yes. This is a major drawback of a Dyson sphere.

Though it's worth pointing out, the classic Dyson sphere wasn't actually a solid sphere with people living on the inside. A Dyson sphere was supposed to be the ultimate solar array, surrounding a star in order to intercept all of the energy output. The idea of the solid living area sphere was mostly something that came along later.

Also, worth bearing in mind that living in permanent day would be a drawback to us, but not necessarily to the sphere builders. Perhaps they evolved on a tidally locked planet, and always lived in permanent day with no seasons. A sphere would make more sense to them than to us.
Is the whole interior breathable air, or just a layer along the surface.
It would have to be a layer along the surface, I'd think.
The sphere we saw in Relics had exterior doors, large enough for a starship to pass through. So unless they were used only for maintainance ships to work on the outside shell, the people must have had some contact with the outside universe. Either to receive ships for diplomacy or trade, or to send out their own ships to explore and trade.
It's entirely possible that their people are spread across multiple systems - very likely in fact, since most people discover warp drive long before they're capable of building a Dyson Sphere. Given that, it's certainly possible that there are other spheres out there waiting to be found, most of them still inhabited.
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