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Dyson sphere's and Ring Worlds in STO
thedoctorbluebox
Member Posts: 749 Arc User
We've already seen a Dyson Sphere in a TNG episode, so we know there is at least one in the Trek universe, not hard to imagine that there might be more. Also could be ring worlds out there.
How about having some future FE or mission, or Daily, or some kind of content in STO that introduces us to one of these things in the game. Have us find one maybe in some mission, or go back to the one we had already found and do something there, like an away mission to the surface maybe. Or we find some other sphere, or even a ring world. Have some kind of mission or FE centered around that.
I find those kinds of things fascinating, takes a great advanced race to build such devices. Maybe the Iconians can build them and use some as bases hidden out in the Galaxy, would be interesting.
Just a thought, but someway to incorporate those things in the game would be amazing.
How about having some future FE or mission, or Daily, or some kind of content in STO that introduces us to one of these things in the game. Have us find one maybe in some mission, or go back to the one we had already found and do something there, like an away mission to the surface maybe. Or we find some other sphere, or even a ring world. Have some kind of mission or FE centered around that.
I find those kinds of things fascinating, takes a great advanced race to build such devices. Maybe the Iconians can build them and use some as bases hidden out in the Galaxy, would be interesting.
Just a thought, but someway to incorporate those things in the game would be amazing.
Brent Justice
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JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
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Post edited by thedoctorbluebox on
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Comments
I'd really like that sector block added because it should have the Dyson's Sphere AND the Veridian system, where Kirk died. And the Amargosa Observatory. And that would likely be a hub for trilithium weapons research.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oPwTHJ9tBM#t=20m00s
However, there's a bunch of mechanical things I don't quite grasp with them.
There are no polar caps as everything is evenly heated. There's no day/night unless you put in some artificial shield that shades half the sphere at a time. The Sun never moves in the sky, so it's perpetually noon everywhere, unless the shade makes it dark. If you don't have gravity generators all over, and are using the centripetal force of the sphere's rotation to provide artificial gravity, then your gravity is entirely variable by latitude, with gravity being highest at the equator, and nearly 0 g at the poles. Plus, gravity wouldn't be perpendicular to the sphere, but would be directional, so from the equator to each pole would be like climbing mountains?
Still intriguing. I'd love to try and build something approximating that in game. Though it would have it's own set of difficulties.
Wouldn't the shear mass of the sphere be enough to generate gravity? Maybe that's part of the design, since the sphere uses all the matter in a star system in its construction, spread out across 2 AU in diameter = 1G at the shell's interior.
But what do I know? I'm an artist.
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
Any civilization that actually built a Dyson sphere would be using gravity manipulation ubiquitously (of course, such a civilization's Dyson "sphere" wouldn't be a sphere, it would be a series of connected ringworlds that gradually reduce in size, largest at the equator). Honestly, a Dyson sphere-capable society also shouldn't have had too much issue stabilizing their central star (that's always bothered me about that episode). But as a single episode plot it wasn't too bad.
The Veridian system... I'd like to see it, IF it involves the Nexus. After all, the Nexus ribbon IS scheduled to pass through again in 2410. Maybe we finally get to bump the year up.
While we're on the subject of famous star systems, I always liked the idea of putting in a Dominion War memorial in the Chin'toka system, maybe with a display at the coordinates where the original Defiant went down that had that on it.
you would have a series of shutters located every 12 hours of arc to give you day and night, not the entire half of the sphere, because that would make it night for half of the year.
dyson sphere mass would generate gravity, it's what would keep the atmosphere stuck to the inside surface, also, by having UV/IR filters to dilute the light in certain spots you could have tundra and cold zones. I don't use the word "polar" because by definition means relating to poles.
Mass is what generates gravity, and the Dyson Sphere is indeed massive enough, the gravity would be in fact homogenous, depending on how perfect the sphere, it maybe in fact PERFECTLY homogenous, but yes by building structures up you could in fact create variable gravity zones for all kinds of research.
question though, would it be possible to fill the volume of a Dyson Sphere with atmosphere? What would be the effects?
I had a dream one time about floating in a dyson sphere, way out away from the surface but not close to the sun, I had no space suit, I could hear my own screams. I just remember looking all around me and seeing the surface of the sphere and freaking out at how far away it was.
oi, it creeps me out just thinking about it.
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You gotta figure, that if we can fit 1.3 million earths inside our own sun... all the metals on our tiny little planet wouldn't even cover .01%. That's a HUGE investment for this one thing. Sure it's impressive, but if you have access to the 1.3 millions worlds, to harvest all the raw materials it would take to build this monstrosity... it seems like putting all your eggs in one basket, doesn't it? ...1.3 million eggs can make a lot of omelettes!
Yes, but there's as much of it pulling you away from the surface as there is pulling you toward it. It effectively amounts to zero G everywhere from the shell. The star, however, still has its own gravity, so you fall into it. That is, to use the technical term, A Bad Thing.
The asteroid belt would have quite a lot of raw materials for a significant portion, sure, but jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune are gas giants. From my understanding there isn't much solid mass to these planets. I still feel that if you have enough resources to build something of this magnitude... they would put them to use in a more practical way. The Dyson Sphere seems like an unnecessary expediture of valuable resources for very impractical payoff. Sure you could house your entire galactic population in ONE area, but the maintainance, and upkeep for something like this seems far to great. Even if the shell is 300 ft thick... even if it's 300 MILES thick, it would be like stretching tissue paper across the surface of a basketball. It's too thin and fragile to be practical.
As far as sphere generating its own gravity through mass or rotation... that seems unlikely. I would argue that since they seems to have some form of artificial gravity on EVERY starship/station IN the startrek universe without the benefits of these two solutions anyway... they probably just used the same fictional artificial gravity generator system.
However, a tiny shell you can't live in does that too, far cheaper; and is what Freeman Dyson was talking about anyway.
The TNG type is cooler, though.
I don't think it would be difficult at all.
With the Exterior of the Dyson's Sphere, you could have the art team draw up the exterior for the background on one side of the map. And for the entry port, have something extend slightly out of the border boundry.
The Reverse can be true with the interior. The Interior of the Dyson Sphere in a 360 degree background, then put the sun in the center of the map (or off to one side to give the illusion there is a sun at the center). The important parts of the sphere (like buildings you want players to access) would pop out of the map border.
Presto, Dyson Sphere in STO.
From my understanding, centrifugal force would play part of the gravity, but the mass of the shell also creates gravity as well. Then like mentioned above, gravity generators can easily be added. This apparently is true with the one the Enterprise-D flew into, due to those space ports.
Day / Night, while it's true it would be perpetually day, you could have artificial satellites providing "shade". Also factor in that these things are hundreds of levels thick, so it would be only constantly day for those on the surface.
With the poles, it wouldn't be 0'gs, but it would be low enough. And due to the lack of pressure, this area would be barren or places where you likely to have shipyards.
Ah perhaps everyone is forgetting about replicator technology, a handy little piece of tech that turns energy into matter. The Federation had crude replication technology in the 23rd century and transporter tech before that which operates on the same principal. (In fact you would think that replicators would come before transporters since replicators are energy to matter while transporters are matter to energy storing a rather complex pattern and then back to matter.)
Obviously the Dysons were more advanced than even what we have in 2409, it's safe to assume they had replication technology equivalent to 2409 standards if not far greater. If they had a solar system similar to our own after exhausting all metal deposits they could have begun converting "useless matter" into the types of materials they needed. Also they could siphon off gas giants then converting the gas into energy through some sort of energy producing method or converted the matter through replicators.
It is possible they also built a Dyson Sphere such as Freeman Dyson suggested which they used to harvest energy which they turned into what they needed for their much larger construct.
Yet another possibility is that the Dysons could be one of the only races to master harnessing energy from an Omega molecule.
So many possibilities this would make an awesome storyline for a future episode
Afraid that's not how Replicator Techonology works.
You don't convert energy into matter, you convert one type of matter into another type of matter. For example, converting an asteroid into a bulkhead or waste products into consumables.
If almost every warp faring civilization in Star Trek can generate artificle gravity on their starships, why can't an even more advanced race capable of actually building a Sphere world?
Replicators turn antimater driven warp power into material onboard starfleet vessels across the Alpha and beta quadrants. All you need is enough 'Industrial Replicators' and enough anitmater...
Day/night would be as simple as building smaller version of the Sphere, or shutters within itself. They would create shadows to generate night cycles while harvesting solar energy on the sun side.
Maintenance cost?! Really? When the last time anyone mentioned money in canon Star Trek? Or the very idea of discussing maintenance requirements for an unknown design and/or material. Maybe the Sphere is constructed from material that does not decay, and is protected and maintained by deflector, structural integrity, and AF gravity fields.
You're both kind of right.
Replicator systems convert matter to energy to matter.
This is why you have energy rations and energy credits in Star Trek. That's basically aportioned replicator usage.
I knew my solution was too good to be true >.> However I would like to point out this small article:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Matter-energy_conversion_matrix
So replicators can convert energy into matter and vice-versa however like you brought out that is not how they are usually used. The Dysons could have used a system of replicators that did convert energy into matter, but this is all speculation
1) Your link to Memory Alpha does not support your arugment.
No, what he was saying that it creates matter out of pure energy, like an unlimited resource.
Why the Voyager crew had energy rations for replicators, was because it took energy to convert the matter from one form to another.
matter:energy:matter
Working on that same principal I would assume that you can just do:
matter:energy
Energy can be stored so I think it would stand to reason you could store the energy for a period of time instead of converting it back to matter, and that means at a later date you can do:
energy:matter
The documented way replicators work is the first process, but one would assume you can cut off this process mid-way as shown above. I seem to recall a couple Voyager episodes where in order to keep the ship running items were recycled into the replicator for energy that was then used for the ship. Although it's not shown or brought up anywhere I don't see why you can't just harvest energy to turn into matter. I'm not trying to say you are wrong, you are right and I was wrong in my first post because I didn't take time to read up on the subject. The article I cited was meant to show the principal behind replication tech which you already know I should have included my little take on things with it.
Does what I'm saying make any sense at all? :P
A bit like perpetual motion and silent sneakers
Interesting it is, also you recall in ENT the spheres builders? Very much along the same lines at the Dyson Sphere.
Well not quite.
Dyson's Spheres are millions of kilometers wide (I.E. like the orbital distance of the earth to the sun). While the Sphere Builders Spheres were more or less the size of moons.
Personally, I wouldn't want any connection of Dyson Spheres to the Sphere builders. If I had a plot, it would be the Dyson Sphere that the Jenolan had found, the occupants were enemies of the Iconians. Which could give us reason to return to the Dyson Sphere and track down that race.
Well that saves me from explaining it. :rolleyes:
Yes, not only is this far more feasible technologically, it's also fairly easy game wise. Just copy the same low poly model over and over and over again, and Presto! Instant Dyson Sphere!
To provide an idea of the scale as seen from the ground, there'd be about one inch of elevation every 460 kilometers on my fuzzy napkin math.
No, surface gravity for a non-rotating Dyson Sphere is be miniscule, virtually nothing. You would need to have artificial gravity everywhere. For the Star Trek Universe, that seems the most likely scenario as artificiality gravity seems "easy". And they have an unlimited always on power source in the central star.
Or you have to make it a rotating sphere which has lots of problems. First of which is the incredible strain on the structure of the sphere. The sheer forces between the equator and the polar regions are mind boggling. And as "The Artist Formerly Know As" posted you give up a lot of usable habitual areas. It's better to just to cut off the non-useable areas. You cut down on the sheer forces and you wind up with, well, Ringworld.
One alternate for of Dyson Sphere was developed by Howard Tayler in his webcomic "Schlock Mercenary" (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/). (I can't recommend this webcomic highly enough.) An advanced alien species called the F'sherl-Ganni developed what they call Buuthandi. Unlike a rigid Dyson Sphere a Butthandi is a solar sail that totally envelopes the star. It has space stations and habitats handing from the inside like ballast. Less the issues of a Dyson Sphere, probably cheaper to build.
The science behind Dyson spheres is a completely different thing however. This sort of puts me off the episode a lot.
Dyson Spheres would be completely impractical for any civilisation to build. The sheer volume of mass required to build such a structure is immense. If we were to build one ourselves we would soon find that there is no where near enough usable material in our solar system, that is including the cores of the giant planets which would be extremely hard to access.
Then we come to the problem of gravity and other forces. The star and sphere would not not interact gravitationally which means that they would move independently of each other. So propulsion would be needed to keep the sphere in check. Stars and solid objects do not interact well with each other.
Then there is the material used to construct it. Every point on the sphere would be under the same pressure of the base of a dome 1 AU in height under the Sun's gravity at that distance.
I will not go into the math of this, its long and boring unless this sort of thing interests you. However, the pressure of this is immense and there is not a substance we know of, or guessed at, that could support this.
We then come to the issue of the sphere not actually having gravity. Yes it does have mass, however, the mass is spread over a massive area and this will basically render the gravity at any particular point 0g. Again math will make you sleep at this point.
So no gravity equals anything you put on the surface will be pulled towards the star at the centre, including any atmosphere. Yes we do have artificial gravity on starships and a sufficiently advance race could probably do it but would it be worth it?
The Dyson Sphere is an interesting thought experiment however it would not be in the best interests of a civilisation to construct one.
So any case my rant is over now please don't get me started on Heisenberg compensators in the transporter system