The Dyson's Sphere is just wrong

hasukurobi

I know this has been brought up before but it gets even WORSE when you go to command and listen to what they say about the Sphere...

They say it has a 200 Million KM diameter. REALLY?

That would be to say that it has a diameter of: 124,274,238.447 Miles.

That means that each part of the sphere should be orbiting the sun at roughly: 62,137,119.2235 Miles

Terra orbits our sun at: 92,960,000 Miles and is in the optimal zone for comfortable living.

Venus orbits our sun at: 67,240,000 Miles and is considered to be too close to be habitable even if it were terraformed.

So first and foremost you have the walls of this sphere being close enough to that yellow dwarf that it would really COOK them. Now I guess you can try to make the argument that they use some kind of cooling technology (not that the star seems dimmed in any way) or that the collection of the star's energy by the Sphere helps to prevent its walls from heating up too much. I would consider that a bit questionable but I MIGHT be willing to suspend my disbelief about that.

Next problem is the one so frequently brought up that apparently the Devs cannot comprehend what being in a sphere with an orbit around the Star nearly as far out as Venus would look like. They want to use the Rule of Cool to give us Halo like visuals but the Halo Worlds were only around the size of a planet nowhere NEAR the size of this Sphere.

That means a Halo Ring would be around: 24,901.55 miles in Diameter. That is compared to the Sphere which is 124,274,238.447 miles or more in Diameter according to the scientist. In other words a Halo Ring would only be: 0.02003% the size of this Sphere.

Why is that important? Because on a Sphere this size you would NEVER notice the curvature of the Sphere from the inside. The land would curve SO gradually that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to detect. Furthermore, you would also NOT see the sides of the sphere going up around you with any clarity with your naked eyes. They would be so far away as to make it impossible. Keep in mind that Luna (our moon) is only 238,900 miles away from us but the walls of this Sphere are going to be further away at orders of magnitude.

Also you would NEVER be able to see the other side of the sphere as anything more than an ambient glow as it will be roughly 124,274,238.447 Miles away from you. That means it would take a bit more than 11 minutes for the light reflecting off the other side to even GET TO YOUR EYES. That is pretty distant to expect a naked eye to see. Sure ship's sensors may be able to detect these things but not eyes.

Last but not least is gravity... If the Sphere is spinning to create Gravity then the only inhabitable zones would be at the equator and everything would naturally be dragged to that location. So in order for what we see to happen the sphere must either A) Be thick enough to create planet-like gravity all around or Be artificially creating planet-like gravity along its entire surface. Not saying that B is totally impossible with their tech but it would be a big power drain. Option A is nearly insane due to the fact that you would need the material from so many planets the size of Earth to build even a thin Sphere as big as this one that imagining making one thick enough to also produce suitable gravity is just mind numbing. There would be a lot of missing planets throughout the entire Delta Quadrant.


TL/DR: You cannot see the curvature of the Sphere or Details of the land mass on the sides or furthest distances of the Sphere with the naked eye. The surface of the Sphere would not have gravity except for the equator. The surface of the Sphere would be burning up. The Delta Quadrant must be missing a lot of planets to have made this thing.

castsbugc

*shrug* its just a game

azurianstar

I recall one of the Dev Team commenting that nobody really knows what the inside of a Dyson Sphere would really look like.


While I agree with the curvature, I have to disagree with your assessment that we wouldn't be able to see the walls on the other side, since the star would be illuminating the entire interior structure. So we very likely would be seeing the far ends of the sphere.

stirling191

You're assuming of course that the star itself is naturally occurring, and not created (and calibrated) to power the sphere.

jockey1979

Science "Fiction"

"Game"

"Fun"


Any of this mean anything to any one???

asthaloth

This has come up repeatedly, and has been repeatedly pointed out;
1: Rule of cool. People expect to be able to see the other side of the Sphere.
2: The same problems exist with Star Trek canon.
3: Dyson spheres, if anyone were dumb enough to ever build one in the first place, and ridiculously unstable.

And finally, at what point is it stated that the Solonae dyson sphere has a star identical to Sol?

castsbugc

well that and that its an earth type sequence star anyways, its hard to say looking up at it, and since we cannot FLY the distance towards it...

reginamala78

Its entirely possible the star in question just isn't as energetic as Sol's, and that orbital distance is the Goldilocks Zone for that star.

mrkollins

Dude you need to take a break.

markhawkman

reginamala78 wrote: »

Its entirely possible the star in question just isn't as energetic as Sol's, and that orbital distance is the Goldilocks Zone for that star.

Yeah, and besides, we CAN'T see the far side of the sphere form the battlezone. We can see the horizon curve up but that's only about a 1/4 the way to the far side of the sphere.

centersolace

The Devs have said that the star is a Red Dwarf, which is considerably smaller and has a much lower output than our sun.

tacofangs

hasukurobi wrote: »

I know this has been brought up before but it gets even WORSE when you go to command and listen to what they say about the Sphere...

They say it has a 200 Million KM diameter. REALLY?

That would be to say that it has a diameter of: 124,274,238.447 Miles.

That means that each part of the sphere should be orbiting the sun at roughly: 62,137,119.2235 Miles

Terra orbits our sun at: 92,960,000 Miles and is in the optimal zone for comfortable living.

Venus orbits our sun at: 67,240,000 Miles and is considered to be too close to be habitable even if it were terraformed.

Yup, it's not 1AU. Yes it's roughly in Venus' orbit. But hey, guess what? It's not orbiting Sol!
It's orbiting a smaller, dimmer sun. So it's in the Goldilocks zone for THAT star.

hasukurobi wrote: »

Next problem is the one so frequently brought up that apparently the Devs cannot comprehend what being in a sphere with an orbit around the Star nearly as far out as Venus would look like. They want to use the Rule of Cool to give us Halo like visuals but the Halo Worlds were only around the size of a planet nowhere NEAR the size of this Sphere.

That means a Halo Ring would be around: 24,901.55 miles in Diameter. That is compared to the Sphere which is 124,274,238.447 miles or more in Diameter according to the scientist. In other words a Halo Ring would only be: 0.02003% the size of this Sphere.

Why is that important? Because on a Sphere this size you would NEVER notice the curvature of the Sphere from the inside. The land would curve SO gradually that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to detect. Furthermore, you would also NOT see the sides of the sphere going up around you with any clarity with your naked eyes. They would be so far away as to make it impossible. Keep in mind that Luna (our moon) is only 238,900 miles away from us but the walls of this Sphere are going to be further away at orders of magnitude.

It's true, in a real Dyson Sphere, you wouldn't see any curvature, and the opposite wall of the sphere would just be a solid color. Know what that looks like? Pretty much every ground map in the game already. It's Science Fiction. When you tell someone they're in a Dyson Sphere, they expect to see certain things. Yes, it's not 100% realistic (but a Dyson Sphere in general isn't either).

And actually, I DID go over all of this before. Several times in fact, leading up to S8.

hasukurobi wrote: »

Last but not least is gravity... If the Sphere is spinning to create Gravity then the only inhabitable zones would be at the equator and everything would naturally be dragged to that location. So in order for what we see to happen the sphere must either A) Be thick enough to create planet-like gravity all around or Be artificially creating planet-like gravity along its entire surface. Not saying that B is totally impossible with their tech but it would be a big power drain. Option A is nearly insane due to the fact that you would need the material from so many planets the size of Earth to build even a thin Sphere as big as this one that imagining making one thick enough to also produce suitable gravity is just mind numbing. There would be a lot of missing planets throughout the entire Delta Quadrant.

B.

A doesn't work for anything you want to inhabit. And even building a thin shell requires you to harvest thousands of star systems. Which is stupid and insane. Again, Dyson Sphere's are cool in theory, but suck in practice.


http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12085941&postcount=46
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12087201&postcount=59
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12681721&postcount=41
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12752881&postcount=106
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12745561&postcount=70
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12192161&postcount=102
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=5477771&postcount=4

hanover

You know what I like when I'm unwinding with a game at the end of the day? A good, pedantic session of hard astrometric science. :rolleyes:

Why stop there? Let's make relative distances in sector space more "realistic." No more seeing anything but an empty starfield with the naked eye 99%. Only be aware of other players through sensor contacts.

We should definitely have to calculate a firing solution before we shoot at anything in space. That sounds fun. :rolleyes:

And it is WAY too simplistic to maneuver a ship with WASD and a mouse. We should have at least 8 individual maneuvering thruster banks bound to 8 individual keys and manipulate pitch, roll, and yaw seperately. Course, distance, and speed must be calculated and plotted before you go anywhere.

Next, let's talk about objects like ships colliding in space...

hevach

Yup, it's not 1AU. Yes it's roughly in Venus' orbit. But hey, guess what? It's not orbiting Sol!
It's orbiting a smaller, dimmer sun. So it's in the Goldilocks zone for THAT star.

Yeah, I'm actually surprised Taco was the first one to point this out. It should be pretty obvious - the habitable zones of some stars is closer than Mercury's orbit.

daedalus304

did anyone just think to put the "Omega Particle" on the list for making the dyson sphere possible?

despite its destructive properties, it is aparently heralded to produce tremendous amounts of power, so maybe with a massive self replicating network powered by these particles, this could be possible.

and when I say a self replicating network, I mean replicators the size of ESD and with the ability to replicate an entire sphere with the purpous of using the sphere to contain an artificial star.

szim

Well from a scientific point a view a Dyson sphere of that size is complete nonsense anyways. The amount of energy you need to produce and maintain (!!) such an incredible amount of mass would exceed everything the star can produce.

They should have chosen a white dwarf star instead. A Dyson sphere around such a star would "only" have to measure around 3 million kilometers in diameter to be in the habitable zone. Such a sphere would still have an inner surface approximatly 27'720 times the size of earth's surface. Big enough for wars, Omega particles, Spires and everything else they want to put in there.

kyeto13

"Rule of Cool"

That pretty much covers it.

This was not perfect Dyson Sphere Simulator. This a game. If it looks accurate, then you will have people that will think it is broken because they cannot see the farside. The Devs went for a more cool look than an accurate look.

elessym

tacofangs wrote: »

And even building a thin shell requires you to harvest thousands of star systems.

Or one star.

jeffel82

:rolleyes:

/10char

solidneutronium

Something else wrong is the horizon is convex.

jonsills

The only sane reason to build a Dyson shell (or even Dyson's original sphere concept) would be if the builders didn't have FTL, or at most had the slow FTL used by Earth-based trading ships in Enterprise. If, like everybody in the Alpha Quadrant, you can get from hither to yon easily and quickly, a Dyson shell is unnecessary and pointless; you can occupy as many worlds as you can reach. If, on the other tentacle, you can't just flit between the stars like that, you might wind up needing that kind of habitable space - and the ability to capture the star's entire energy output (which, by the way, should be more than sufficient to power the artificial-gravity generators needed to keep things fastened to the inner surface of the shell - it's been seen in the shows that AG generators must take next to no power, as even when they don't have enough energy to run all the lights they can still walk around on the decks like it's not even a thing).

And if this is indeed an M-type red dwarf star (as opposed to, for instance, Sol, a G-type yellow star), then yes, you'd need to huddle closer to stay warm. It's been proposed that any planet close enough to a red dwarf to be in the Goldilocks zone would also be so close as to become tidally locked to the star, which could potentially render it uninhabitable by humans.

Beyond that, as has already been invoked, Rule of Cool covers it all.

orangeitis

The only part I agree with is the parts of the sphere you can see... the scale is most definitely off. The rest of OP's criticisms can be excused by 'superior alien tech', regardless if it breaks what we know about the laws of physics. And if it can... well this is science fiction and all. Not exactly a place to judge what superior alien tech could do unless it's well established within the fictional universe it hails from.

I'm not just defending the Dyson sphere because it's my most favorite type of mega structure. It's about plausibility within fiction.

thedoctorbluebox

You assume the star is like our star, perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it's smaller, perhaps it has different properties. This would allow the optimal distance to it to be different than to our own star. I'm sure the Solenae built the sphere around the star at the optimal distance from that star, they'd know what they were doing

zorbane

sophlogimo wrote: »

Keep in mind that the star at the center of the sphere is most likely a red dwarf, much cooler than our sun.

Our spaceships would not have gravity, too. Funny, isn't it?

As to seeing the other side... I think you should see it. But the oceans that are visible are millions of kilometers across. Which is sort of both awesome and a waste of space... unless some aquatic species are supposed to live there.

If you've ever read Ringworld there were oceans that were big enough to put entire maps of planets. Earth, Mars and Kzin were three of them. The Kzinthi eventually built massive wooden boats and invaded the other "planets" on trips that took decades.

macronius

Even a game has to make sense. What's next ... flying pigs who shoot lasers out of their TRIBBLE. I agree 100% with OP. TGN "Relics" was a pretty mediocre episode ... Scotty aside.

leviathan99

hasukurobi wrote: »

TL/DR: You cannot see the curvature of the Sphere or Details of the land mass on the sides or furthest distances of the Sphere with the naked eye. The surface of the Sphere would not have gravity except for the equator. The surface of the Sphere would be burning up. The Delta Quadrant must be missing a lot of planets to have made this thing.

It would be funny if the Doomsday device Planet Killers were created as demolitions units for the creation of these spheres and not weapons at all as Kirk supposed.

I mean, the game already challenges Picard's assumptions about the Iconians being misunderstood. Maybe Kirk was projecting when he compared the Doomsday Device to a weapon. Maybe it's just a wrecking ball for construction.

Cue images of Miley Cyrus riding a Planet Killer.

tacofangs

solidneutronium wrote: »

Something else wrong is the horizon is convex.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12681721&postcount=41

zorbane

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

...

Cue images of Miley Cyrus riding a Planet Killer.

http://i.imgur.com/WrOrFvg.jpg

lordfuzun

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

Cue images of Miley Cyrus riding a Planet Killer.

zorbane wrote: »

http://i.imgur.com/WrOrFvg.jpg

Miley needs a shave.

duncanidaho11

Issue 1 with the OPs post: assuming that a dyson sphere revolves around its sun like Niven's Ringworld. It can't, consider the difference in angular velocity between someone at the equator and someone near either pole (and also the direction of centripetal force applied to them.) In order to create an inhabitable inner surface within a dyson sphere you would need to artificially generate gravity which is perfectly within the norm for Star Trek.

Issue 2, assuming that the need for technical accuracy is the primary concern for an artist working in a popular medium. They need to be able to convey at a glance where you are which may require a few creative liberties to be sure a dyson sphere can't be mistaken for a flat terrestrial landscape.


As for why a Dyson sphere when you have FTL, consider that managing a population numbering several hundred trillion individuals over several hundred thousand light years will for any civilization be far more difficult than managing a population of the same size located within a single stellar system..

ryvaken

Trek has always been pretty bad about scaling, and STO is a hideous offender even by that poor standard. That said, there are some issues with the sphere that I agree with and this seems a good opportunity to nerd out.

Fun fact: there is a real theory floating out there for a Dyson Sphere. The thought experiment of Dyson's was not a monolithic object for habitation, but rather a swarm of satellites for energy collection. Such construction would be vastly cheaper, easier to design, and actually possible to produce.
Result: we're starting off on a bad foot with a Relics style Sphere.

Different stars will put out different amounts of different kinds of radiation, thus any given sphere would be scaled uniquely to such a star. At first blush you'd think that something more energetic than a dwarf star would be a logical choice for a sphere, but consider that a weaker star means a smaller sphere means a cheaper cost. I don't have the numbers to run an analysis, but the area between the sphere's inner and outer hull is proportional to radius cubed, while energy dropoff is proportional to radius squared. So a star that requires a larger sphere will be less efficient in materials used.
Result: Building small spheres around weak stars is not a bad idea.

As to what the inside of the sphere would look like, you first have to ask all the usual questions about atmosphere. After that, it's always high noon. By definition, the star is always straight up. The curvature would be impossible to detect without sensitive (but not necessarily complicated) instruments, and the horizon would be lost to atmospheric refraction if the gasses are anything close to Earth's. Once you get above the gasses, into the void between the sphere and the star, then you're in for a show.