Could the Empire build a Dyson Sphere?

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2006-01-31 03:48pm

Well, could they?

Either type.

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2006-01-31 03:57pm

Probably. But any race that can construct a Dyson Sphere doesn't need one.

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-31 04:04pm

I doubt they could build a dyson shell, but a sphere is no doubt within their grasp.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-01-31 04:11pm

DocHorror wrote:Probably. But any race that can construct a Dyson Sphere doesn't need one.

That's only if they have FTL, mind.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-31 04:16pm

NecronLord wrote:
DocHorror wrote:Probably. But any race that can construct a Dyson Sphere doesn't need one.
That's only if they have FTL, mind.

Could you construct a Dyson sphere with the resources of only one system, though? I suppose you could matter from the star itself, but it still seems a bit infeasible.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-01-31 04:27pm

In the SW Galaxy? Why would you? Can you imagine what sort of military target it would become? can you imagine fighting for control of it?

That, and why would you need one when for a fraction of a fraction, yo ucan get mind boogeling population densities like those on Courscont.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-01-31 04:40pm

Sonnenburg wrote:I doubt they could build a dyson shell, but a sphere is no doubt within their grasp.

What in Valen's name's the difference between the two?
AFAIK a Dyson sphere is a shell completetely engulfing a star so you have the entire inside surface to make use of, while a Dyson shell would be-what?
By all means someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard of that distinction before now.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-01-31 04:47pm

I think what he met was a Ring as opposed to an all encomposing Sphear.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-01-31 05:09pm

A dyson shell is a solid sphere encompassing a star, such that the stars energy etc can be collected, and a mind boggilingly huge area of living space would be created (however exactly how you would be able to keep the atmosphere and gravity on the inside of the shell I don't know). In such a shell, the excess infrared radiation is of course released into space.
Other types include a dyson net, being a huge star encompassing set of 'wires', on which are strung energy collectors for harvesting the suns power. This obviously requires far less in the way of materials than a shell.
Also, a dyson swarm is theorised, where a large number of huge space stations are placed in orbit around the sun, with one side made to collect the suns energy, or a greater number of smaller satellites etc.
All types fall under the original idea proposed by Freeman Dyson in 1959, although the concept did appear in a book called Star Maker before this. The actual original idea was a network of solar satellites, similar to the dyson swarm.
The Halo construct, from the Halo games, could be considered a miniaturised Niven Ring, being a single slice of a Dyson Shell, although the construct is obviously not actually encompassing a sun.
Whether the Empire could build one, I wouldn't be so sure they could practically build a Dyson Shell, although theoretically they probably could. The other forms of Dyson Spheres would probably be within their grasp. The whole point of such a construct, however, is to harvest a suns entire energy output, so why would the Empire have use of such a thing when they can build hypermatter reactors capable of producing many times this amount of energy (at least that of out own sun anyway)?

Jedi Guardian · Post by **Jedi Guardian** » 2006-01-31 05:23pm

Yes i'm supposing they could but like Crossroads inc. said it would be an unthinkably huge military target

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-31 06:49pm

Batman wrote:
Sonnenburg wrote:I doubt they could build a dyson shell, but a sphere is no doubt within their grasp.
What in Valen's name's the difference between the two?
AFAIK a Dyson sphere is a shell completetely engulfing a star so you have the entire inside surface to make use of, while a Dyson shell would be-what?
By all means someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard of that distinction before now.

This has lots of good stuff:

Dyson Sphere FAQ

One of the paradoxes of the Dyson Sphere is that anyone with the engineering skills to not only devise the materials and manage to position it stablely around a star would have such immense technology and understanding that they really wouldn't need to make one. It would be like having the technology to hurtle rocks with a catapult ten thousand miles; anyone who had the technology to do so wouldn't see the need to stoop to using a stupid catapult.

Edit: Shazbut, when I said "sphere" I was referring to the Dyson Shell.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-01-31 06:59pm

One of the paradoxes of the Dyson Sphere is that anyone with the engineering skills to not only devise the materials and manage to position it stablely around a star would have such immense technology and understanding that they really wouldn't need to make one. It would be like having the technology to hurtle rocks with a catapult ten thousand miles; anyone who had the technology to do so wouldn't see the need to stoop to using a stupid catapult.

While it is true that in all probability there would be no economic imperative to build a Dyson sphere (unlike what the Trekkie techno-wankers and other random morons, including Dyson himself, would have us believe), there could actually be an incentive to build it, in terms of the sheer aesthetic signifigance of it. It could be an incredible capital city, or even a great contemporary art project for a sufficiently advanced society (on a par with the wrapping of the entire Reichstag (Parliament) building in Berlin in fabric a few years ago).

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-01-31 07:07pm

RThurmont wrote: While it is true that in all probability there would be no economic imperative to build a Dyson sphere (unlike what the Trekkie techno-wankers and other random morons, including Dyson himself, would have us believe), there could actually be an incentive to build it, in terms of the sheer aesthetic signifigance of it. It could be an incredible capital city, or even a great contemporary art project for a sufficiently advanced society (on a par with the wrapping of the entire Reichstag (Parliament) building in Berlin in fabric a few years ago).

Making it a want to build one, as opposed to an actual need.
@Sonnenburg: Thanks.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-01-31 10:40pm

Making it a want to build one, as opposed to an actual need.

No shit. Hence,

in all probability there would be no economic imperative to build a Dyson sphere

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-01-31 11:10pm

RThurmont wrote:While it is true that in all probability there would be no economic imperative to build a Dyson sphere (unlike what the Trekkie techno-wankers and other random morons, including Dyson himself, would have us believe), there could actually be an incentive to build it, in terms of the sheer aesthetic signifigance of it. It could be an incredible capital city, or even a great contemporary art project for a sufficiently advanced society (on a par with the wrapping of the entire Reichstag (Parliament) building in Berlin in fabric a few years ago).

"Hey, Gorblat, check out the Neminumicans. They went and built a dyson shell."

"Another pork barrel project."

"Yeah, someone's obviously trying to compensate for their tiny ovipositors."

"What an eyesore, and I bet they didn't write up a stellar environmental impact statement."

"Yeah, what happened last time someone pulled this?"

"Three wise men got fucking lost, that's what happened."

ngc7293 · Post by **ngc7293** » 2006-01-31 11:36pm

From reading a SW timeline, it seems to get confusing as to the beginning of the empire. Larry Niven made it a Need to build. I suppose if you wanted to fine tune the question, then you would put in that WHAT IF there was no FTL.

The SW universe makes FTL possible, so over a 50,000 year period, someone would invent it. But what if in the SW universe, FTL was not possible. In 50,000 years, would people have built a Niven Ring someplace?

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-02-01 12:32am

IIRC, repulsor coils are made with some sort of gravity knots mined/created/extracted from facilities that cover black holes. So it isn't a Dryason sphere per say, but shows that they have the at the mininum the base technology and engineering to do so, if they can build around a black hole, that is.

Wild Karrde · Post by **Wild Karrde** » 2006-02-01 03:04am

I remeber seeing a concept sketch of a ringworld with several Lucrehulks hanging around it.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-02-01 12:27pm

Wild Karrde wrote:I remeber seeing a concept sketch of a ringworld with several Lucrehulks hanging around it.

I believe it was an early concept for Cato Neimodia, for Ep. 3, although the idea was translated to planet-bound bridge cities for the final version.

By the way RThurmont, your av isn't working.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-02-01 12:59pm

Noble Ire wrote:
Wild Karrde wrote:I remeber seeing a concept sketch of a ringworld with several Lucrehulks hanging around it.
I believe it was an early concept for Cato Neimodia, for Ep. 3, although the idea was translated to planet-bound bridge cities for the final version.

By the way RThurmont, your av isn't working.

Ah, so Cato Neimoidia ended up as a more conventional city (Plo Koon gets shot down over it), and the bridges ended up as Mygeeto, site of Ki-Adi-Mundi's slaying. Cool.

The ringworld would've been interesting though. Exotic locales go well with Star Wars. Or, er, something.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-02-01 01:03pm

Yeah but everyone would have just gone 'Oh they ripped off Halo'. It would have been cool, but Halo was the first to really do a ringworld, so it would be viewed as a complete copy.
I think the idea for a Dyson Sphere is purely theoretical, with little or no grounding in practicality. It is based on a non FTL civilization, but how could so much in the way of materials be garnered from a single system? I doubt a civilization with FTL and such huge power generation capabilities would have any need of a Dyson Sphere.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-02-01 01:37pm

Knife wrote:IIRC, repulsor coils are made with some sort of gravity knots mined/created/extracted from facilities that cover black holes. So it isn't a Dryason sphere per say, but shows that they have the at the mininum the base technology and engineering to do so, if they can build around a black hole, that is.

As I recall, the text was 'ring-like structures around black holes' which could mean anything, really, right down to a 2001 space hotel floating around a black hole. I suspect that Doctor Saxon concieved some sort of ringworld there, but there's nothing canonical to suggest it.

In any case, the stresses involved are calculated on the 'size matters' page of the main site. Mike estimates that the materials of the Excecutor must be able to survive 1.8 TPa. The Star Trek dyson shell, on the other hand, has a tensile stress of 2.65 TPa. He also calculates the Death Star's stresses as as 87 TPa, but I personally suspect that this accelleration would use some sort of inertialess drive rather than the rather anemic looking engines described in the official literature (and invisible on film). Especially as the accelleration in the scene used to scale it would be done with repulsors. Of course, I've never actually seen Star Wars ships accellerate in an intertialess manner, but I suspect that the Death Star would be built to do so, or at least covered in repulsors.

So, in conclusion, they've probably got the materials technology to build one.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-02-01 08:02pm

Halo was the first to really do a ringworld, so it would be viewed as a complete copy.

Hardly. Ringworlds have figured in various examples of literary science fiction for quite some time. Of course, what you have to realize is that cinematic/computer game/televised SF typically tends to trail literary SF by an average of 20 years or more in terms of sophistication. The only cinematic SF pieces that came close to, or exceeded, where literary SF was at the same time were 2001: A Space Odyssey (which mirrored the concurrent New Wave in literary SF) and Blade Runner (which was, at the time of its debut, quite well ahead of the literary cyberpunk SF movement).

By the way RThurmont, your av isn't working.

Yeah I know, I need to get on that. Maintaining avatars and sigs is a bitch. Especially when you suck at it.[/quote]

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-02-01 08:41pm

NecronLord wrote:
Knife wrote:IIRC, repulsor coils are made with some sort of gravity knots mined/created/extracted from facilities that cover black holes. So it isn't a Dryason sphere per say, but shows that they have the at the mininum the base technology and engineering to do so, if they can build around a black hole, that is.
As I recall, the text was 'ring-like structures around black holes' which could mean anything, really, right down to a 2001 space hotel floating around a black hole. I suspect that Doctor Saxon concieved some sort of ringworld there, but there's nothing canonical to suggest it.

In any case, the stresses involved are calculated on the 'size matters' page of the main site. Mike estimates that the materials of the Excecutor must be able to survive 1.8 TPa. The Star Trek dyson shell, on the other hand, has a tensile stress of 2.65 TPa. He also calculates the Death Star's stresses as as 87 TPa, but I personally suspect that this accelleration would use some sort of inertialess drive rather than the rather anemic looking engines described in the official literature (and invisible on film).

And you base this hypothesis on what?

Especially as the accelleration in the scene used to scale it would be done with repulsors.

I hashed this out on spacebattles. The Yavin scene is done outside the repulsor range.

Of course, I've never actually seen Star Wars ships accellerate in an intertialess manner, but I suspect that the Death Star would be built to do so, or at least covered in repulsors.

repulsors are not an inertialess drive. There are no statements suggesting such, and their effects can be modeled with conventional physics, although it requires the invention of a new kind of particle with special properties to do so. That is not a deal breaker, look at turbolasers.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-02-01 08:43pm

Noble Ire wrote:
Wild Karrde wrote:I remeber seeing a concept sketch of a ringworld with several Lucrehulks hanging around it.
I believe it was an early concept for Cato Neimodia, for Ep. 3, although the idea was translated to planet-bound bridge cities for the final version.

By the way RThurmont, your av isn't working.

According to Empire at War, Kuat has a ring type structure around it. These are probably one of the many many shipyards in the system (they are described as system spanning)