Implications of c heap Energy in the AStar Wars Universe

[amigocabal]

It was established as early as The Empire Strikes Back that a fully-fuled X-Wing can escape the gravity well of two planets and jump in to hyperspace twice without refueling.

Given the existence of compact, extremely-high energy sources, what are the implications in the daily lives of the residents of the galaxy? (An old shuttle could be used to provide electric power for a city of millions.)

One implication I can think of is cheap water desalination and purification. A world with even 20% ocean would have an effectively limitless water supply, as the energy required for purification operations would be c heap. (By shapr contrast, without cheap energy, semi-arid parts of a world with an ocean covering 75% of the surface would have water shortages)

[biostem]

I know this sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but it just doesn't seem like physics works the same way in the Star Wars universe - they can traverse the galaxy in a matter of hours or days, yet we have people living in mud domes, making a living by condensing water out of the air - you'd think that it'd be a simple matter to capture a few ice comets, carefully land them on the planet, and create lakes or even oceans, instead. You have robots that are fully sapient, yet they use manually-fired and reloaded cannons, and attack other capital ships using broadside-style combat tactics, straight out of the days of sailing ships. Look, I love the Star Wars universe, but it breaks down when you start taking too close a look at it...

[Q99]

A lot of SF makes energy costs of travel waaay cheaper than the implications. Star Wars is in no way unusual on that.

Heck, note that moisture farmers find it no big deal to have a craft that just hovers constantly when traveling. Logically that'd be energy expensive, but they act like it's nothing.

[Broomstick]

I know this sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but it just doesn't seem like physics works the same way in the Star Wars universe - they can traverse the galaxy in a matter of hours or days, yet we have people living in mud domes, making a living by condensing water out of the air - you'd think that it'd be a simple matter to capture a few ice comets, carefully land them on the planet, and create lakes or even oceans, instead.

Living in "mud domes" actually makes sense in that adobe is a cheap, insulating building material that is readily available on a planet like Tatoonine and suited to its arid climate.

As for the water shortage solution you propose - apparently no one with the tech to move comets is interested, and perhaps the impoverished moisture farmers don't have the resources to get it done themselves. Star Wars has vast disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Just because moisture farmers have landspeeders doesn't mean they have ready access to space travel any more than our African semi-nomadic herdsmen having cell phones means they have easy access to jet travel or high-tech medicine.

But yeah, some of the physics don't add up.

[Rhadamantus]

Terraforming anything you want should be relatively easy. In practice, we don't see it much, probably because there's so many habitable planets.

[Adam Reynolds]

One possible explanation is that the fuel used in starships is more expensive than the alternative. It would explain why solutions like this aren't used even though they should be workable.

The standard of living on Tatooine is fine, and Anakin and his mother live relatively well even as slaves.

[NecronLord]

And which Tatooine potentate is going to create oceans without starting a sand-people uprising and displacing millions of moisture farmers from their land? Just because a technical solution is workable doesn't mean it's politically viable.

[Crazedwraith]

Didn't one of the old EU Novels have Biggs' Dad as a water baron? He actually stopped a few attempts to bring water to Tatooine because he'd lose his business.

[NecronLord]

Sounds plausible? Yes, we think Owen and Beru are poor because they aren't Naboo in royal finery, but in all honesty papa Cliegg could afford to buy and free a slave, Own and Beru have a landspeeder and bought their kid nephew a landspeeder and a skyhopper (which doubtless uses that same energy density technology in some form); their living conditions are by no means sub-standard.

Many would gladly have a viable moisture farm and the 'droids to run it.


This isn't exactly poverty, either by modern day standards, nor compared to some poverty we've seen in Star Wars.

[ray245]

Nor did Luke find it hard to get the money to fly off the planet. It's implied that the Lars family have no problem finding the money to do so. They just don't want to.

[Solauren]

Better explanation for Tattooine then any offered so far.....

It's a HUTT World. They like things the way they are. Jabba likes the fact the entire planet is a desert just popluated by the scum of the galaxy.

Cause with water, the Republic/Empire would pay more attention.

It's a dust-bowl cause the owner likes it being a dust bowl. Period.

[Lord Revan]

Better explanation for Tattooine then any offered so far.....

It's a HUTT World. They like things the way they are. Jabba likes the fact the entire planet is a desert just popluated by the scum of the galaxy.

Cause with water, the Republic/Empire would pay more attention.

It's a dust-bowl cause the owner likes it being a dust bowl. Period.

At least in legendaries it was implied that Hutts prefer wet swampy places (like Nal Hutta) granted those same sources imply that Jabba was seen a bit wierd by hutt standards though that was more in terms of his preference of humanoid females over other hutts then preferring Tattooine.

[Elheru Aran]

Star Wars is one of those interesting situations where it *could* be a post-scarcity universe; they have the technology, the power generation and the capabilities to do it. But generally due to local conditions/traditions, whomever is in power, and social mechanics, it doesn't happen. The Republic/Empire is too corrupt to change much, the crime lords like their worlds poor, and thanks capitalism for the rest because mega-corporations seem to have a lot of power and they aren't particularly known for altruism.

[Q99]

I'm sure there's lots of species adapted to/who prefer drying worlds. Wetter worlds. Cooler worlds. Hotter worlds. Terraforming may not be that big because you can almost always find someone to move in as-is.

[amigocabal]

Cheap energy also meant that Echo Base on Hoth had an effectively limitless supply of water, as the waste heat from power generation could be used to melt the ice.

Contrast that with the real world. A bunch of insurgents hiding in the Antarctic would not be able to melt ice into fresh water so easily.

[Batman]

There's also the question of what motivation do the entities with the necessary resources to terraform, say Tatooine, have to actually do it? Capitalism is alive and well in the Wars universe (Banking Clan, Trade Federation) so the terraforming projects they undertake would have to show at least a high probability of profit. About the only thing Tattooine seems to have in abundance is sand and while it DOES have its uses it's also not something very hard to come by in a galaxy apparently lousy with Earthlike planets

[Solauren]

There's also the question of what motivation do the entities with the necessary resources to terraform, say Tatooine, have to actually do it? Capitalism is alive and well in the Wars universe (Banking Clan, Trade Federation) so the terraforming projects they undertake would have to show at least a high probability of profit. About the only thing Tattooine seems to have in abundance is sand and while it DOES have its uses it's also not something very hard to come by in a galaxy apparently lousy with Earthlike planets

Tattooine's best resource according to it's masters is that is a dangerous desert world. Lots of dry river beds and wind created canyons, really hostile natives, and some rather dangerous lifeforms.

That means it's not worth bothering with for most people.

Toss in makes for awesome pod-racing and there ya go.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm sure there's lots of species adapted to/who prefer drying worlds. Wetter worlds. Cooler worlds. Hotter worlds. Terraforming may not be that big because you can almost always find someone to move in as-is.

Yeah, that's another thing. Most species that evolve on a world will be well adapted to the demands of that world, and terraforming would only benefit an offworld species... of which humans seem to be the vast, vast majority for some reason. And humans are ridiculously adaptable to quite a wide range of climates, so why terraform if you can manage to live on a planet with only some minimal (or a lot, depending) discomfort?

Hoth is an extreme example because nobody but the Rebels lived there (or, as an Imperial officer theorizes, 'smugglers')-- the choice of planet was *deliberate*, and they were capable of surviving without TOO much discomfort. Yes, Luke gets screwed up... by being more or less directly exposed to the elements in bad weather; the rest of the Rebels don't seem more than mildly uncomfortable in the snow. Granted, they filmed the outdoor scenes in Norway with Norwegian extras who probably could've walked around in shorts and T-shirt if they wanted to, which is just another point for human adaptability.

So I'm getting a feeling that terraforming probably isn't that common in the Star Wars galaxy mostly because they don't NEED to most of the time, and when it does come up... it's very expensive and the only people with that kind of money are governments or mega-corps, and neither are particularly interested in that kind of outlay.

[Jub]

There's also the fact that terraforming a planet is either very slow or very disruptive.

in the example of Tattooine, there's only so fast you can introduce water to the world without it simply washing everything away. So you have to get a little water and then let planets settle in to secure the soil, then add a little more and keep making sure things are actually moving towards increased comfort. Even with huge levels of technology, unless you're willing to accept wiping out what already exists to make things happen faster, it's hard to transform a planet in less than a few hundred years.

So why bother, as has been stated there are enough worlds that most anyone can find a place that suits them. You could also just move to a space station which will always have a known set of conditions. If you're well off and determined enough you could even buy a ship and some droids and settle down in an uninhabited system. Soon enough you'll have a climate controlled domed homestead made precisely to your specifications.

With all that in mind, the question is less why don't they terraform and instead why don't we see more people living entirely free of planets?

[Khaat]

With all that in mind, the question is less why don't they terraform and instead why don't we see more people living entirely free of planets?

I think the answer is in the thread title: cheap energy.

Getting to/from a planet is not a tremendous energy investment. It was only going to cost Obi-wan, Luke and the 'droids as much as Solo quoted because a) he needed the money for Jabba, and b) "avoid any Imperial entanglements" is a blank check. But he also knew they didn't have enough for their own ship, so Solo had to hit in that sweet range between "buy & fly your own" and "astronomical charter fee". And he expects them to barter him down some. They were going from a frontier world to a core world of the Empire.

Planets are stable and plentiful, and some of the less desirable have loose law and/or freely available land. Space stations are only exactly what you make them to be. A station's a big investment: you have to build or buy everything you can't scavenge, which is why most space-based sci-fi cultures do things like re-dedicate/convert mined-out asteroids (or skulls of Celestials, or budong corpses) and such into stations to reduce that initial investment. Then there's security: space stations are vulnerable to much smaller-scale disruptions than planets (natural and artificial). Yes, a ship can hit a planet from orbit, but it can also hit an asteroid station in orbit.

Then there's stability: Hoth was a better choice for the rebels than a station in the asteroid field of the same system because the asteroid field was very, very active. Hoth already had air and water and gravity (and well, they have gravity beat), not to mention stuff to hide behind or under if someone comes looking. Even the temperature on Hoth won't kill you unless you get stuck outside during part of the day (the night). Step outside of your asteroid base 24/7, and things kill you much more readily.

Terraforming: with the cheap power available in the Star Wars universe, it isn't even a matter of "add water" when you could probably move the planet to a sweeter spot in the system's habitable zone for enough investment.

[Jub]

I think the answer is in the thread title: cheap energy.

Getting to/from a planet is not a tremendous energy investment. It was only going to cost Obi-wan, Luke and the 'droids as much as Solo quoted because a) he needed the money for Jabba, and b) "avoid any Imperial entanglements" is a blank check. But he also knew they didn't have enough for their own ship, so Solo had to hit in that sweet range between "buy & fly your own" and "astronomical charter fee". And he expects them to barter him down some. They were going from a frontier world to a core world of the Empire.

Yes, getting out of a gravity well is cheap in Star Wars but it's still even cheaper to build ships that never need to dip into an atmosphere. Given that they have shields and material far tougher than anything we have, you could build huge ships with millimeter thin hulls and engines 10,000 times less powerful and still have a vessel that dwarfs anything we can think of making today which is able to do anything your average asteroid colony would ever need. On a large scale, it makes sense that companies don't offer this option but in a galaxy as large as Star Wars it only takes a relatively small group to offer something like that and start a race to the bottom.

It doesn't happen because that isn't on theme for the piece of fiction we're reading but it's hard to argue that it wouldn't happen.

Planets are stable and plentiful, and some of the less desirable have loose law and/or freely available land. Space stations are only exactly what you make them to be. A station's a big investment: you have to build or buy everything you can't scavenge, which is why most space-based sci-fi cultures do things like re-dedicate/convert mined-out asteroids (or skulls of Celestials, or budong corpses) and such into stations to reduce that initial investment. Then there's security: space stations are vulnerable to much smaller-scale disruptions than planets (natural and artificial). Yes, a ship can hit a planet from orbit, but it can also hit an asteroid station in orbit.

If planets are so desirable why aren't they all colonized? We know that they've had hyperdrive for a few thousand years, so why isn't the Galaxy already full? Why aren't they start lifting their galaxy towards their nearest neighbor to claim as many resources as they can when it's clear that they could do so?

Then there's stability: Hoth was a better choice for the rebels than a station in the asteroid field of the same system because the asteroid field was very, very active. Hoth already had air and water and gravity (and well, they have gravity beat), not to mention stuff to hide behind or under if someone comes looking. Even the temperature on Hoth won't kill you unless you get stuck outside during part of the day (the night). Step outside of your asteroid base 24/7, and things kill you much more readily.

At the same time, Hoth is far more easily found than a floating station in the middle of empty space light years away from the nearest star. When you tie yourself to a star you make hiding for any length of time impossible because any determined foe will just spam probes to every star in the galaxy. If you're sitting out in literally the middle of nowhere, you increase the volume of space that your foe has to search exponentially and with the level of tech we see in Star Wars, you're not giving up much in doing this.

When you have the level of energy you see in Star Wars, you don't need planets and while a space station could offer less comfort when you're a group of rebels hiding why would you pick a relatively obvious place if you don't have to?

Even beyond the need to hide, you can build a space station however you want it to be. Everything from gravity, to exact atmospheric composition, to what plants and animals you bring along are yours to control in a way that you can never do on a planet.

Terraforming: with the cheap power available in the Star Wars universe, it isn't even a matter of "add water" when you could probably move the planet to a sweeter spot in the system's habitable zone for enough investment.

Moving a planet at those speeds will cook the planet and anything living on it. You can't just dump that kind of energy into a world over any span less than decades, if not centuries, without doing more setup than it's worth. Star Wars could work faster if they setup planet wide heat dumps, shields, and artificial gravity though at that point why not just make something new from scratch for less effort?

[Rhadamantus]

With all that in mind, the question is less why don't they terraform and instead why don't we see more people living entirely free of planets?

I think the answer is in the thread title: cheap energy.

Getting to/from a planet is not a tremendous energy investment. It was only going to cost Obi-wan, Luke and the 'droids as much as Solo quoted because a) he needed the money for Jabba, and b) "avoid any Imperial entanglements" is a blank check. But he also knew they didn't have enough for their own ship, so Solo had to hit in that sweet range between "buy & fly your own" and "astronomical charter fee". And he expects them to barter him down some. They were going from a frontier world to a core world of the Empire.

Planets are stable and plentiful, and some of the less desirable have loose law and/or freely available land. Space stations are only exactly what you make them to be. A station's a big investment: you have to build or buy everything you can't scavenge, which is why most space-based sci-fi cultures do things like re-dedicate/convert mined-out asteroids (or skulls of Celestials, or budong corpses) and such into stations to reduce that initial investment. Then there's security: space stations are vulnerable to much smaller-scale disruptions than planets (natural and artificial). Yes, a ship can hit a planet from orbit, but it can also hit an asteroid station in orbit.

Then there's stability: Hoth was a better choice for the rebels than a station in the asteroid field of the same system because the asteroid field was very, very active. Hoth already had air and water and gravity (and well, they have gravity beat), not to mention stuff to hide behind or under if someone comes looking. Even the temperature on Hoth won't kill you unless you get stuck outside during part of the day (the night). Step outside of your asteroid base 24/7, and things kill you much more readily.

Terraforming: with the cheap power available in the Star Wars universe, it isn't even a matter of "add water" when you could probably move the planet to a sweeter spot in the system's habitable zone for enough investment.

If we assume the Assertor weighs 200 billion tons and can accelerate 3,000g, moving an earth size planet could be done with an engine of that size at 1/10 millionth of a g. To move it 1 AU would take 25 years.

[Khaat]

Market forces have decided noone (well, not enough folks) wants to live in a can, or just not in the stories we've seen. Could? Sure. Has? It's a big galaxy, so probably.

why isn't the Galaxy already full?

Because the archetype requires "backwoods boy grows to be defender of the right and true". Otherwise, realistically, it could be. And just because the Republic had been at peace for two millennia (?) doesn't mean there haven't been significant/catastrophic events or conflicts on a "merely planetary" scale that have slowed expansion. Settlers on Tatooine had to deal with nomadic raiders (but never just hunted them to extinction). Why was Naboo mostly empty, with ruins of old giant statues lying under time-smoothed hills of green? It was a rich, fertile world, right? So much so that the Trade Federation blockaded it (imports? exports? what were they?) Naboo should be packed with humans (and gungans) unless they a) suffered some calamity they are still recovering from (could even be a mass exodus!) or b) have a culture that isn't (irresponsibly?) expansionist (maybe because of a).

Hoth is far more easily found than a floating station in the middle of empty space light years away from the nearest star.

Yeah, except for a) traffic (if not just during construction, but during normal operation/resupply), b) energy pouring out of your floating station with nothing to mask it (not even a planet), and c) the Empire spams probe 'droids everywhere, not just "M-type planets". Though I did wonder why the rebels didn't pick somewhere outside the galaxy (like where they were assembling at the end of ESB) for regular bases - then it occurred to me that they have to be around to oppose the Empire (and recruit, and resupply, and spread the word, and defend allied interests), which means sticking somewhat close* to what they want to do and where they want to do it.

Moving a planet at those speeds will cook the planet and anything living on it.

If an X-wing (at say five tons) can accelerate at 5000 Gs, it can theoretically** move a planet's mass at a more sedate pace. I'm not talking moving a planet at X-wing velocities/accelerations, but a small push over two years to move from (Venus orbit) to (Venus orbit + 8 million miles). It would take finesse, not brutish application of force. Not that merely moving Venus would fix its habitability. But Tatooine? It might be a big help.

*Yeah, relative, hyperdrives being what they are
**I'm sure there are hardware limits, maybe even in that it would have to push against something (like the star)

[Rhadamantus]

Market forces have decided noone (well, not enough folks) wants to live in a can, or just not in the stories we've seen. Could? Sure. Has? It's a big galaxy, so probably.

why isn't the Galaxy already full?

Because the archetype requires "backwoods boy grows to be defender of the right and true". Otherwise, realistically, it could be. And just because the Republic had been at peace for two millennia (?) doesn't mean there haven't been significant/catastrophic events or conflicts on a "merely planetary" scale that have slowed expansion. Settlers on Tatooine had to deal with nomadic raiders (but never just hunted them to extinction). Why was Naboo mostly empty, with ruins of old giant statues lying under time-smoothed hills of green? It was a rich, fertile world, right? So much so that the Trade Federation blockaded it (imports? exports? what were they?) Naboo should be packed with humans (and gungans) unless they a) suffered some calamity they are still recovering from (could even be a mass exodus!) or b) have a culture that isn't (irresponsibly?) expansionist (maybe because of a).

Hoth is far more easily found than a floating station in the middle of empty space light years away from the nearest star.

Yeah, except for a) traffic (if not just during construction, but during normal operation/resupply), b) energy pouring out of your floating station with nothing to mask it (not even a planet), and c) the Empire spams probe 'droids everywhere, not just "M-type planets". Though I did wonder why the rebels didn't pick somewhere outside the galaxy (like where they were assembling at the end of ESB) for regular bases - then it occurred to me that they have to be around to oppose the Empire (and recruit, and resupply, and spread the word, and defend allied interests), which means sticking somewhat close* to what they want to do and where they want to do it.

Moving a planet at those speeds will cook the planet and anything living on it.

If an X-wing (at say five tons) can accelerate at 5000 Gs, it can theoretically** move a planet's mass at a more sedate pace. I'm not talking moving a planet at X-wing velocities/accelerations, but a small push over two years to move from (Venus orbit) to (Venus orbit + 8 million miles). It would take finesse, not brutish application of force. Not that merely moving Venus would fix its habitability. But Tatooine? It might be a big help.

*Yeah, relative, hyperdrives being what they are
**I'm sure there are hardware limits, maybe even in that it would have to push against something (like the star)

For an earth size planet, even an assertor power drive would take years to move it a lot. Planets are big, and they're probably for the most part still at the state where finding new planets in cheaper than terraforming them.

[Jub]

And just because the Republic had been at peace for two millennia (?) doesn't mean there haven't been significant/catastrophic events or conflicts on a "merely planetary" scale that have slowed expansion. Settlers on Tatooine had to deal with nomadic raiders (but never just hunted them to extinction). Why was Naboo mostly empty, with ruins of old giant statues lying under time-smoothed hills of green? It was a rich, fertile world, right? So much so that the Trade Federation blockaded it (imports? exports? what were they?) Naboo should be packed with humans (and gungans) unless they a) suffered some calamity they are still recovering from (could even be a mass exodus!) or b) have a culture that isn't (irresponsibly?) expansionist (maybe because of a).

Setbacks aren't enough to justify this lack of expansion. It's like saying that humans with near trivial access to modern jet travel wouldn't have found and colonized the Americas and Australia due to some petty war in Europe. It's simply unrealistic that someone would fail to use this technology to explore. Also, all it takes is one expansionist group to do this colonization a single planet with tech thousands of years out of date compared to the galactic pace is still going to possess the capacity to send a sphere of probes out to explore and catalog every system in the galaxy in a matter of centuries.

Yeah, except for a) traffic (if not just during construction, but during normal operation/resupply), b) energy pouring out of your floating station with nothing to mask it (not even a planet), and c) the Empire spams probe 'droids everywhere, not just "M-type planets". Though I did wonder why the rebels didn't pick somewhere outside the galaxy (like where they were assembling at the end of ESB) for regular bases - then it occurred to me that they have to be around to oppose the Empire (and recruit, and resupply, and spread the word, and defend allied interests), which means sticking somewhat close* to what they want to do and where they want to do it.

Hoth has the exact same issue so the issue of traffic cannot stand true. You can also use a series of jumps, each sending supplies to increasingly remote and unpatrolled systems before they make the final jump. It hardly matters if this means each supply ship spends weeks in transit if it means not getting discovered.

The energy issue might cause trouble but I doubt, Star Wars tech is clearly efficient enough to give out very little waste energy or else Hoth wouldn't have stayed an ice ball. Due to this, we know that radiated energy can't actually be that high and anything less than stellar output is going to be damned easy to hide when you're parked in the void between stars with a nebula to mask anything that does escape.

Everywhere likely doesn't include empty pockets located far from any star. Places so remote they make Tatooine look like Coruscant and a rogue planet with no active core look positively energy rich. We're not just talking about parking your fleet around the worst star you can think of, or even parking it around a brown dwarf, or a rogue Jupiter, we're talking about setting up in literal empty space knowing that your fleet and high command are unlikely to ever be found so long as they base out of such a hidden location.

As for active missions, you can send those out from your hidden base in empty space as easily as you could send them from an other hidden location, just with less risk. Staying close, in Star Wars terms means staying within the same galactic quadrant, as we've seen ships make journeys halfway across the galaxy in hours. There's also nothing saying that you can't have a primary fleet HQ and lots of smaller deep space fleet bases for more mobility. After all, it's not like the entire rebel force was at Hoth, just some very important command elements.

If an X-wing (at say five tons) can accelerate at 5000 Gs, it can theoretically** move a planet's mass at a more sedate pace. I'm not talking moving a planet at X-wing velocities/accelerations, but a small push over two years to move from (Venus orbit) to (Venus orbit + 8 million miles). It would take finesse, not brutish application of force. Not that merely moving Venus would fix its habitability. But Tatooine? It might be a big help.

An X-Wing at that mass just isn't going to be able to tug on a planet enough to move it. It would have to drag a mass equivalent to a significant fraction of the planet it wishes to move in order to coax the planet to play along. Otherwise, you have to physically push against the planet, and that's going to take some serious bracing in order for the planet not to break from the stresses this would cause. Even so, let's do the math for actually getting a planet the same mass as Mars to move into Earths orbit:

5,000 G = 49,033.25 m/s^2
5 metric tons = 5,000 kg

E = ma^2
E = 5,000 * 49033.25^2
E = 6 * 10^12 J

Assuming Mars is orbiting circularly at 1.524 AU, a retrograde delta-V of 2.65 km/s will put Mars on that transfer ellipse. Half an orbit later, another retrograde delta-V, this time 2.94 km/s, will put Mars in a 1 AU circular orbit. All we have to do is change Mar's velocity by 2.65 km/s and then later by 2.94 km/s, or a total delta-V of 5.59 km/s, and we have Mars orbiting at 1 AU.

6.4171*10^23 kg * ((2.65 km/s)^2/2 + (2.94 km/s)^2/2) = 5*10^30 J

So we easily see that one X-Wing isn't going to do shit to move a planet over any useful time frame as you'd need 8.33 * 10^17 X-Wings all dumping their peak acceleration into the planet at once to provide that kind of energy. Assuming that an X-Wing can produce that much energy per second, it would take around 13.2 billion of them to move it in 2 years. This would also dump as much energy into the planet each year as the sun makes in a year and a half, this is a Death Star level event for that planet. So, needless to say, you've ruined whatever planet you tried to move this way.

You can't move masses as large as planets around quickly unless you're willing to put in a lot of effort to do so. Star Wars could do this, they could shield the world, use internal compensators, and radiate away the heat using the same systems an ISD uses scaled up to cover a planet however at this stage why are we doing this at all? You can get the same effect using mirrors at a fraction of the mass and energy required to move the planet. Simply having more energy doesn't make moving planets practical.