StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Greetings all:

As a long-time reader of this forum, I am pleased to make my first posting here. I am curious as to how large an Imperial construction project can be. Specifically, I am, referring to a Niven-type Ringworld or a Dyson sphere. Does the Empire have the resources to build either of these and if so, how long would it take for them to do it?
In Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' stories, the Ringworld is described as having a radius of one A.U (93,000,000 miles); this would make the diameter 2 A.U's (186,000,000 miles) in diameter. The surfare of the Ringworld is one million miles across, with walls 1,000 miles high (to keep in the atmosphere). This gives the Ringworld a surface area of just over 584 trillion square miles. The material of the Ringworld is a metal called 'Scrith', estimated to be 50-100 meters in thickness. This metal is capable of resisting almost any impact; the one impact which did penetrate was from a body the size of Earth's moon. All this impact did was to bow out a section of the Ringworld and punch a large hole in it.
A Dyson sphere is a hollow metallic ball with the same diameter as a Ringworld. The material of the sphere is unknown, but is estimated to be 2-3 kilometers in thickness. Applying the formula 4 x Pi x (square of the radius) gives a Dyson sphere a surface area of 108,631,440,000,000,000 miles, or 186 times the area of the Ringworld.
Comments, anyone?

Mike Garrity

With the Mining Guild alone having dominion over billions of metal-rich resource worlds, I'd say the Empire and its affiliates can easily get resources for it. Given their use of self-replicating construction droids, they might get it finished within some decades.

I would say the Empire had the resources and the technology to build structures just as large. I think it would just be a matter of cost and time.

To my knowledge the closest thing to a ring world in the Star Wars universe is the Kuat Drive Yards, a circular orbital array around the planet Kuat. There are also shipyards circling the entire Kuat system, but I think that the connectivity of these structures has never been clearly described.

As for the the Dyson sphere, I guess if you could build structures like the Death Stars and battlemoons I don't see why the Empire could not build something on a larger scale.

Remember though that a dyson sphere will be several orders of magnitude larger than the Death Star, so it might be that the materials used can't handle the stresses involved. Size Matters, on the main site. I've no idea as to how strong the SW materials are, but I can see this being the main problem for the Empire / whoever's building this beast.

I would say the material used to build a Dyson sphere is similar to scrith, the metal used to build the Ringworld (but much stronger). If we examine a certain episode of a TV series-that-shall-not-be-named, the shell of the Dyson sphere looked to be at least 2-3 kilometers in thickness.
As for the material strength of a Ringworld, I would say that the strength of scrith is many orders of magnitude greater than that of quadranium, the metal used to make the Death Star. In fact, I doubt that the Death Star's superlaser would do much damage to a Ringworld,let alone a Dyson sphere.

Mike Garrity

1. How durable is this Scrith?! I mean just saying it's better is a pointless assumption. Show something that demonstrates it.

2. Since you've given no time limit, the Empire can devote literally a galaxy to this project. They can call Palpatine's Left Nut. If given that level of resource and no limit of time, sure...why not. Most galactic civilizations can do such a project if left alone.

Correction: The Dyson sphere only had a radius of 100,000,000 km or approximately 2/3 AU.

As for its thickness, here are some screen shots if anyone wants to scale them.

Enterprise entering

E-D leaving

Slips through just in time, as usual.

I think Scrith is, basically, as strong as it gets.

From what i've read, it has the tensile strength similar to the strong nuclear force itself. I'm not making that up, that's supposed to be the tensile strength, though i'm not sure what precisely that means.

I forget where i read that, it may be one or more of the various tech-wankery things floating around about Known Space. I could try and find it specifically if you want.

The dyson sphere (form the unnamed series) was stated as being constructed from Neutronium. Which is supposedle invunerable to anything trek can throw at it. And yet we see a large gouge where the Jenolan crashed, indicating mere kenetic impact can harm it.

Alien-Carrot wrote:The dyson sphere (form the unnamed series) was stated as being constructed from Neutronium. Which is supposedle invunerable to anything trek can throw at it. And yet we see a large gouge where the Jenolan crashed, indicating mere kenetic impact can harm it.

Perhaps it was a neutronium-impregnated hull, rather than a pure one. The neutronium could be used more as a backing than a hull material. Or maybe it's the same neutronium Star Destroyers are armored with (IIRC) which is certainly not invulnerable.

I'm fairly certain neutronium, in the sense that modern science knows it, cant really be used to build anything.

I mean whatever they're using (both of them) most certainly isnt really neutronium, just like Star Wars "lasers" are some kind of plasma weapons and Star Trek black holes have "cracks". We're probably looking at some bizarre substance that simply doesnt exist in our world(i.e in reality).

That may seem like "LOL! No shit Captain Obvious!" but it's worth noting because calling it, and believing it to be, real neutronium obviously wont work. At least if we say it's a fictional material, we can figure out the properties of it without handwaving it too much (i.e. "it'll be easier to figure out how strong it is")

Wow, so tell me, where again is the magical metal that is as strong as *snort* strong nuclear force is?

I mean did the writer have a clue or this hyperbole spewed by a retard, just like the event horizon crack.

And SW lasers are as much plasma as lava coming from a volcano. Learn some fucking science.

Master_Baerne wrote:

Alien-Carrot wrote:The dyson sphere (form the unnamed series) was stated as being constructed from Neutronium. Which is supposedle invunerable to anything trek can throw at it. And yet we see a large gouge where the Jenolan crashed, indicating mere kenetic impact can harm it.

Perhaps it was a neutronium-impregnated hull, rather than a pure one. The neutronium could be used more as a backing than a hull material. Or maybe it's the same neutronium Star Destroyers are armored with (IIRC) which is certainly not invulnerable.

Somebody here had the theory that the shuttle just made a path through the debris that had accumulated on the surface over its life. It seems to be a fairly reasonable assumption to me.

As for the OP I dont see why the Empire cant build a ringworld. DS2 was supposed to be a movable fortress. Im sure if they wanted to build a non- moving structure, The upper limit would be way larger

Ghost Rider wrote:Wow, so tell me, where again is the magical metal that is as strong as *snort* strong nuclear force is?

I mean did the writer have a clue or this hyperbole spewed by a retard, just like the event horizon crack.

Supposedly, it's not a natural material. It literally is some kind of magical metal created by "sufficiently advanced" science. I dont know where that came from i read it on a site during a quick search for some info on Scrith, but i presume it's from one of the books. I know they specify it's made by whoever the Builders are and it's some kind of uber stuff.

Look i think it sounds retarded too, personally i've never even heard of anything that bizarre before, but Larry Niven wrote it (i presume) so i can only guess at his reasoning.

And SW lasers are as much plasma as lava coming from a volcano. Learn some fucking science.

Actually i think it says something like that in the Guide to Weapons. I'm not pulling this out of my ass, i'm just repeating what the book said as far as i understand it--some kind of alien gas is put in a chamber called (i am not making this up) an XCiter (swear to God, thats what the book says) and is "excited" (i presume they mean ionized) and then focused out of the barrel somehow. Thats what the book says, if this has changed or something then mea culpa, i dont own any of the more recent tech books.

Ghetto Edit:

I've found something of a source. The actual words, apparently, came directly from Larry Niven, the guy who wrote the series. Or at least i think so, i'm not sure about if he was the only author or something.

He says, quote, "Sure, it takes near-magical technology: the tensile strength of the scrith floor is about that of an atomic nucleus"

Now, i'm not sure if this backs up what the other site said (being strong as strong nuclear force itself) but that is, apparently, where the quote came from.

Thats the best i can do as a source. I wish i had the books so i could check myself, but that seems to be what it says/

Okay, then I understand now. But jesus fuck, that's just stupid.

Though don't think that weapons guide is going for plasma bottle idea. It's being as vague because the material is better off that way to go "Gas excites something, and it expels as bolt."

As for Niven's bit, that's honestly him going "It could, really, maybe, happen with wank science!". Which is kinda sad, given saying it can take a lot and withstand such and such sounds alot more nebulous and far more reasonable then going "It's as strong as the STRONG force!!!".

So I understand where you got the material, just urgh...ugh...bad taste in mouth.

He had to fix the Ringworld after coming up with it; hence the substance. Really I like the treatment of scrinth compared to durasteel et al, which is treated like magic steel, smelted from naturally occurring ores and such, which is retarded. It has to be a composite material made from exotic matter and normal matter, with probably outright magic thrown in.

Michael Garrity wrote:Greetings all:

Good Day.

Does the Empire have the resources to build either of these

They definately do, good sir. The Galactic Empire dazzles and glitters across a minimum of 51 million star systems. In addition, there are virtuallly no contenders to Imperial might whatsoever, so that as a consequence, the Galactic Empire owns its entire galaxy (400 billion stellar systems as I last recall). If the Empire were to really desire a Dyson Sphere they could maximize their production possibility frontier to get...well, a shitload of Dyson Spheres.

If you require evidence that the Republic/Empire could exploit the full and vast potential of their galaxy, then here it is!

The IBC (or another founding member of the Confederacy) possessed mining operations across billions of systems as per AOTC: ICS. As the IBC was nationalized along with the majority of the Separatist powers, those operations would logically be placed under the mantle of Imperial control.

how long would it take for them to do it?

Honestly, it's hard to tell. This will not only depend upon the limits of their infrastucture but also on their political and economic situation as well. If the need should arise at any moment after ANH (when the Emperor is in all manners totally in command) then there really will be no political impediments to the Emperor's will, so no, I don't think politics will be a great issue to overcome here. Nevertheless as I've stated, they definately do possess the necessary resource potential to build a Dyson Sphere. As a galactic society, they probably have the monetary capital as well.

But there are other things to consider. What's the ultimate capacity of their logistics? The construction of the second Death Star required not only the efforts of the Imperial Starfleet to support it, but also efforts on part of civilian contractors such as Black Sun. My feelings tell me that for the Empire to build a Dyson Sphere, they must acquire new capital (equipment, technology) to carry out such an endeavor. It's probably going to be some time before the Empire is going to have a completed Dyson Sphere, and that's all I can really tell you with the limits of my knowledge.

As a benchmark for how fast the Empire can proceed with capital accumulation and technological growth...let's look at both the Death Stars...the first one required twenty years to build...while the second one required merely say six months for half the superstructure. So it's not like the Empire's ill-disposed to increase their economic growth.
But they don't construct Dyson Spheres a whole lot (Where's the need?) so it's not like they're going to get out of bed and instantly start performing efficiently and quickly, if you take my analogy.

(Meanwhile as a sidenote, it's most intriguing that the Emperor had artifical planets constructed for his top lapdogs during this interval of Imperial growth--these were considered merely tokens on part of the Emperor for exemplary servitude!)

Ghost Rider wrote:As for Niven's bit, that's honestly him going "It could, really, maybe, happen with wank science!". Which is kinda sad, given saying it can take a lot and withstand such and such sounds alot more nebulous and far more reasonable then going "It's as strong as the STRONG force!!!".

IIRC He said it in response to some fans from MIT who worked out the calcs after reading the first Ringworld book. He didnt actually come up with the Scrith stuff until it was pointed out how insanely strong the materials would need to be to make the ringworld possible

Scrith is pretty strong, but as I recall a meteor punched a hole in it. It's strength is of the type needed to hold the ring structure together, not unlimited.
I think it also got scratched when heroes spaceship crashed.

Boeing 757 wrote:The IBC (or another founding member of the Confederacy) possessed mining operations across billions of systems as per AOTC: ICS. As the IBC was nationalized along with the majority of the Separatist powers, those operations would logically be placed under the mantle of Imperial control.

While it is quite possible that some of the more 'heavy industry' CIS members have billions of worlds as well. It is in fact, the Mining Guild. The Mining Guild survives the clone wars (and into the time of the New Republic, at least) and does not fall into the jurisdiction of the Galactic Empire.

Empire Strikes Back wrote:LANDO: So you see, since we're a small operation, we don't fall into the...uh...jurisdiction of the Empire.
LEIA: So you're part of the mining guild then?

B5B7 wrote:Scrith is pretty strong, but as I recall a meteor punched a hole in it. It's strength is of the type needed to hold the ring structure together, not unlimited.
I think it also got scratched when heroes spaceship crashed.

It has extremely high tensile strength, but it's not meant to have other properties that are wonderfully great. Scrith is of course, a McGuffin. Niven needed the Ringworld's ring, unlike, say, a Culture Orbital, to be thin enough to punch through with an asteroid so his heroes would have some way of escaping it at the end of the book, and thus, the super-tensile Scrith was invented, rather than just making the thing a thousand miles thick.

Does the Mining Guild exist completely autonomously or does it have to pay a tribute to the Empire, like the Corporate Sector?

Teleros wrote:Remember though that a dyson sphere will be several orders of magnitude larger than the Death Star, so it might be that the materials used can't handle the stresses involved. Size Matters, on the main site. I've no idea as to how strong the SW materials are, but I can see this being the main problem for the Empire / whoever's building this beast.

Actually, the stresses would not be as a great as those imposed on the Death Star during acceleration.

VT-16 wrote:Does the Mining Guild exist completely autonomously or does it have to pay a tribute to the Empire, like the Corporate Sector?

I don't know but I bet if the Empire were to say jump, they ask "how high?"

NecronLord wrote:It has extremely high tensile strength, but it's not meant to have other properties that are wonderfully great. Scrith is of course, a McGuffin. Niven needed the Ringworld's ring, unlike, say, a Culture Orbital, to be thin enough to punch through with an asteroid so his heroes would have some way of escaping it at the end of the book, and thus, the super-tensile Scrith was invented, rather than just making the thing a thousand miles thick.

You can't have obscenely high tensile strength without also having high shear strength. The reason is that there's a slip plane at 45 degrees to the direction of tensile stress, and if the shear strength was extremely low relative to tensile strength, a structural member would fail along the 45 degree slip plane in shear.

That particular plot device was not thought out very well.