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.
DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK...unless you have time to read the entire archive. Seriously, I ran across it last year and ended up reading it from start to finish in one sitting. I check it every night at midnight for my Schlock fix.
Dyson spheres are of course practically impossible
A bit like perpetual motion and silent sneakers
Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, we had one in TNG, so they exist in the Trek universe, it's been on TV and so it can be in the game. They could even expand on the idea and give us other types of spheres or ring worlds like this. There is a lot of potential for these things in this game, I hope to see them one day.
Ring worlds like the Halo Universe looking ones???
Yes, and even different looking ones than that, google image search ringworld or ringworlds and you'll see all kinds of interesting ring world type of setups.
I always assume that a dyson sphere in terms of star trek would be able to use the stars own gravitational forces to supply it's gravity, building not just a single shell, but multiple layers having the habitation layer toward the middle. Industrial would be towards the star itself and defense on the outer layers. Any civilization that would be able of creating such a thing would either have a material strong enough, or as it is trek, stabilize the shelled layers using force fields, structural integrity fields, and/or both. It's not like the power is going to go out any time soon so i doubt consumption of systems that powerful would be an issue. As for where the materials would come from i'd say that's easy that a race that advanced would be able to have transporter tech as well as replicator which would easily be able to rearrange the materials at hand into the materials needed, any waste or byproduct left over if not usable would be dumped into the star itself. Just take the uninhabitable planets and unused debris and send it through a machine. As for the actual math of it, as the doctor pointed out, it's trek. We don't need to know the math of it all to make it happen there. Just a reasonable sounding explanation.
The Kzinti are already in STO; they just got named Ferasan to dispose of the copyright issues.
I wouldn't say they were "renamed", since there is nothing in-game (that I know of) that connects the Ferasans to the Kzinti. All we got is that they are cousins of the Caitians.
Until CBS gets Niven's permission, the Kzinti isn't canon. Even if they did appear in TAS.
And Cryptic has to tread very carefully when dealing with Ringworlds, due to not only Niven's famous work, but also due to the Halo series.
I was being tongue in cheek regarding Ringworld, but I wasn't aware that you know the fine details of the original contract with Niven. On what basis are you saying with such absolute certainty that Kzinti can't be used outside that episode?
No one seems to have gotten sued over their use in the Star Fleet Universe of Star Fleet Battles, in which they are not the one system protectorate they were in The Slaver Weapon, but are a full faction.
And Cryptic has to tread very carefully when dealing with Ringworlds, due to not only Niven's famous work, but also due to the Halo series.
Hah. Niven may have solidified the concept, but neither one owns it. Not by a long shot. Even then it was still based on the Dyson Sphere. So it being in this game would not only be perfectly reasonable, but downright awesome.
The dyson sphere has always been something I wished to see and experience in game but I can only imagine how much man hours that would take to make it look presentable.
Wouldn't the shear mass of the sphere be enough to generate gravity?
Well, the barycenter would still be in the middle of a hollow sphere, so it'd probably still pull them off the surface.
I have heard, though, that a (relatively) thin, extremely long disc would pull you straight down, due to the gravitational forces pulling inward and outward cancelling out but still contributing to the 'down' force.
Take a look at my Foundry missions! Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
Hah. Niven may have solidified the concept, but neither one owns it. Not by a long shot. Even then it was still based on the Dyson Sphere. So it being in this game would not only be perfectly reasonable, but downright awesome.
I never said Cryptic couldn't use Ringworlds, but when people start throwing Niven and Ringworld in STO..........well Star Trek needs to be Star Trek, not taking from other sci-fis.
I was being tongue in cheek regarding Ringworld, but I wasn't aware that you know the fine details of the original contract with Niven. On what basis are you saying with such absolute certainty that Kzinti can't be used outside that episode?
Because Kzinti is the same race he uses for his novels, thus off-limits.
No one seems to have gotten sued over their use in the Star Fleet Universe of Star Fleet Battles, in which they are not the one system protectorate they were in The Slaver Weapon, but are a full faction.
They were board gamescreated under the FASA licence, which was completely independent of CBS and Paramount. Therefore it's not official Star Trek property.
They were board gamescreated under the FASA licence, which was completely independent of CBS and Paramount. Therefore it's not official Star Trek property.
Star Fleet Battles wasn't the FASA license, it was a license of the Franz Joseph original Technical Manual. And they had to change their Kzinti so they're very different than Niven's, to reach a point where they just weren't worth suing. That's why the video game Starfleet Command II, which was based on SFB, renamed them the Mirak.
FASA's license was from Paramount, but they lost it when they included TNG stuff for which they were NOT licensed. The pen and paper RPG license for Trek has a long and sordid history of this sort of poor planning and trademark trollery.
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I never said Cryptic couldn't use Ringworlds, but when people start throwing Niven and Ringworld in STO..........well Star Trek needs to be Star Trek, not taking from other sci-fis.
Considering Star Trek was what helped jumpstart Nivens carrier (at least one of them).... I don't think it would be that big of a deal. Besides.... think of the awesome!
I never said Cryptic couldn't use Ringworlds, but when people start throwing Niven and Ringworld in STO..........well Star Trek needs to be Star Trek, not taking from other sci-fis.
It was an idea in the scientific community before and independently of it being used in Niven's writing.
Because Kzinti is the same race he uses for his novels, thus off-limits.
They are also the same race as in Niven's short story 'The Soft Weapon,' which Niven adapted for use in Star Trek: The Animated Series as "The Slaver Weapon." Kzinti were kept intact for purposes of the episode. They were presented as having had a war with Earth in the past, having lost, and ending up with just their home system as a protectorate.
As we do not know the details of the negotiations with respect to rights, it is not a given that they are off limits.
They were board games created under the FASA licence, which was completely independent of CBS and Paramount. Therefore it's not official Star Trek property.
Actually, you are thinking of a different license. SFB was created under a license with Task Force Games, which eventually became Amarillo Design Bureau Inc.
Considering Star Trek was what helped jumpstart Nivens carrier (at least one of them).... I don't think it would be that big of a deal. Besides.... think of the awesome!
From my understanding, it was a bit of the opposite.
Niven published Ringworld a couple of years before TAS and was asked to write episodes because he was a popular Sci-Fi writer.
Star Fleet Battles wasn't the FASA license, it was a license of the Franz Joseph original Technical Manual. And they had to change their Kzinti so they're very different than Niven's, to reach a point where they just weren't worth suing. That's why the video game Starfleet Command II, which was based on SFB, renamed them the Mirak.
FASA's license was from Paramount, but they lost it when they included TNG stuff for which they were NOT licensed. The pen and paper RPG license for Trek has a long and sordid history of this sort of poor planning and trademark trollery.
Even though I mixed up the licenses, what I said isn't any less true. Cryptic isn't going to use material from these sources. Lets say that CBS let these games be under the Star Trek license, it wouldn't be any different than Cryptic using material from the other Star Trek games, like Bridge Commander, SFC, or Legacy.
It was an idea in the scientific community before and independently of it being used in Niven's writing.
As I said, nothing can't stop cryptic from using it since it is a scientifically accepted concept like the Dyson sphere. But you start using Ringworld and people will think Cryptic is stealing from Halo or Ringworld, so they got to be creative in making it their own.
They are also the same race as in Niven's short story 'The Soft Weapon,' which Niven adapted for use in Star Trek: The Animated Series as "The Slaver Weapon." Kzinti were kept intact for purposes of the episode. They were presented as having had a war with Earth in the past, having lost, and ending up with just their home system as a protectorate.
As we do not know the details of the negotiations with respect to rights, it is not a given that they are off limits.
We may not know the details, but it's obvious CBS said no.
If the Fifth Season of Enterprise happened, that would've likely been a completely different story, since Manny Coto said he was going to have them make an appearance. Too bad.
Honestly, when it comes to the Star Trek license, it's all over the place. Compared to George Lucas with the Star Wars License.
Star Fleet Battles wasn't the FASA license, it was a license of the Franz Joseph original Technical Manual. And they had to change their Kzinti so they're very different than Niven's, to reach a point where they just weren't worth suing. That's why the video game Starfleet Command II, which was based on SFB, renamed them the Mirak.
FASA's license was from Paramount, but they lost it when they included TNG stuff for which they were NOT licensed. The pen and paper RPG license for Trek has a long and sordid history of this sort of poor planning and trademark trollery.
Do we know that is absolutely the reason the Kzinti were changed? The rights regarding TAS were at least somewhat up in the air, leading to the series being at least temporarily considered non-canon. However, the rights to TAS have ended up back with Paramount/CBS.
So the question is, was SFB limited just by Niven or were they limited by other rights holders?
After all, as you say, FASA lost their license due to including material whose rights were held by Paramount rather than any third party. Amarillo may have had to make the changes to avoid the same fate at Paramount's hands without Niven being involved at all.
I liked that episode of TNG, and was always interested in the concept of a Dyson Sphere.
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.
Evil smirk crosses my face... how about a miniature Dyson Sphere ( like a proof of concept ) that's really a lock box.
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.
Not really. Depending on the distance from the star, you can maintain a relatively small Gravity Force on the surface.
The Average PvP player
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
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.
That is... I very Plausible idea...
The Average PvP player
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
Bottom line is, the kind of Dyson Shell presented in TNG is almost certainly never going to be built anywhere in the universe; the kind of Dyson Sphere actually predicted by Dyson has probably been built many times and will be built many more, including by us some day.
And, the latter is much easier to create in the Foundry.
As for Ringworlds and Halos (there's a difference; a Ringworld surrounds a star, the thing in Halo is just a really really big space station)? Yeah, those are possible. Dunno how practical they are, especially the Halo; but as anybody working on Mars exploration will tell you, there are tremendous advantages to having a flat place to set stuff down, that often outweigh the penalties of being on the bottom of a hill. That's why many of them would prefer a Moon base to an orbital facility for launching a Mars mission.
Of course, if you can build a Ringworld, you *WILL* also build a Dyson Sphere to use 100% of the star's output, because it's a trivial extra expenditure for a massive increase in available energy.
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No one said you have to use all of the surface area for habitable space. I actually wouldn't put the habitable area on any of the surfaces. I'd make patches in the middle of the spheres shell a few miles thick as enclosed habitat areas. That way you can use the inside area as an energy collection grid without concerning yourself about how comfortable it is to life.
Why even make it solid, for most of it your still going to have an absolutely dumb amount of surface area even if you only make the surface 25% solid. Let the rest of it be open space and simply use "Technogarble Fields" to collect eh energy from those areas; This is Trek after all. A sun enclosed in a Bucky ball grid is still gonna be an impressive sight. Especially if you get a sun bigger than what you would find with habitable planets around it. If I was gonna go to the trouble of collecting a stars energy I would find on that was nice and blue and big as hell.
If you're collecting the energy, you don't want to be at 1 AU; that's just wasted material. You want the energy collection to happen as close as your technology lets you get.
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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.
not to nitpick but we wouldn't be seeing the amargosa observatory. it was destroyed when soran destroyed the sun in the system it was in
Dyson Spheres would be completely impractical for any civilisation to build
there is nothing in physics that says it can't be done. though it would require a far more advanced civilization than ours to have the ability to harvest the necessary resources
On what basis are you saying with such absolute certainty that Kzinti can't be used outside that episode?
cbs has said in the past that he owns the rights to them, not them.
Considering Star Trek was what helped jumpstart Nivens carrier (at least one of them).... I don't think it would be that big of a deal. Besides.... think of the awesome!
when copyright is involved its a bigger deal than you think. people don't like getting their ideas stolen
The Dyson Sphere episode was a good episode, mainly because Scotty was there.
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
I see your position on this, however i think that an in-game project for the entire community would work out really well, specially for those that arent apart of a fleet and isn't building a star-base. People like to build things and so give them the option to building other items in game. Iam in a fleet that is buidling a star-base, but i would welcome a community project.
Commander Shran - You tell Archer, that is three the pink skin owes me!
I liked that episode of TNG, and was always interested in the concept of a Dyson Sphere.
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.
I'd love to see that. One of my favorite novels told the story of what happened to Riker's away team. In the Ep Riker beams down, then eventually beams up but we don't see what happened in the middle and it must have been something because the away team has injuries.
But yeah.... the object in the episode had several times the mass of a G-type star. In theory, if you're standing on the surface you're NOT going to be attracted to the center of gravity. It's kinda like putting a magnet inside a giant steel ring. The magnet is most strongly attracted to the part of the ring it's closest to. Therefore people inside a Dyson sphere should be able to walk on the inside of it, if it's massive enough to attract them.
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DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK...unless you have time to read the entire archive. Seriously, I ran across it last year and ended up reading it from start to finish in one sitting. I check it every night at midnight for my Schlock fix.
Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, we had one in TNG, so they exist in the Trek universe, it's been on TV and so it can be in the game. They could even expand on the idea and give us other types of spheres or ring worlds like this. There is a lot of potential for these things in this game, I hope to see them one day.
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Yes, and even different looking ones than that, google image search ringworld or ringworlds and you'll see all kinds of interesting ring world type of setups.
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Until CBS gets Niven's permission, the Kzinti isn't canon. Even if they did appear in TAS.
And Cryptic has to tread very carefully when dealing with Ringworlds, due to not only Niven's famous work, but also due to the Halo series.
I wouldn't say they were "renamed", since there is nothing in-game (that I know of) that connects the Ferasans to the Kzinti. All we got is that they are cousins of the Caitians.
I was being tongue in cheek regarding Ringworld, but I wasn't aware that you know the fine details of the original contract with Niven. On what basis are you saying with such absolute certainty that Kzinti can't be used outside that episode?
No one seems to have gotten sued over their use in the Star Fleet Universe of Star Fleet Battles, in which they are not the one system protectorate they were in The Slaver Weapon, but are a full faction.
Hah. Niven may have solidified the concept, but neither one owns it. Not by a long shot. Even then it was still based on the Dyson Sphere. So it being in this game would not only be perfectly reasonable, but downright awesome.
Well, the barycenter would still be in the middle of a hollow sphere, so it'd probably still pull them off the surface.
I have heard, though, that a (relatively) thin, extremely long disc would pull you straight down, due to the gravitational forces pulling inward and outward cancelling out but still contributing to the 'down' force.
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I never said Cryptic couldn't use Ringworlds, but when people start throwing Niven and Ringworld in STO..........well Star Trek needs to be Star Trek, not taking from other sci-fis.
Because Kzinti is the same race he uses for his novels, thus off-limits.
They were board gamescreated under the FASA licence, which was completely independent of CBS and Paramount. Therefore it's not official Star Trek property.
Star Fleet Battles wasn't the FASA license, it was a license of the Franz Joseph original Technical Manual. And they had to change their Kzinti so they're very different than Niven's, to reach a point where they just weren't worth suing. That's why the video game Starfleet Command II, which was based on SFB, renamed them the Mirak.
FASA's license was from Paramount, but they lost it when they included TNG stuff for which they were NOT licensed. The pen and paper RPG license for Trek has a long and sordid history of this sort of poor planning and trademark trollery.
Considering Star Trek was what helped jumpstart Nivens carrier (at least one of them).... I don't think it would be that big of a deal. Besides.... think of the awesome!
Which is really sad.
It was an idea in the scientific community before and independently of it being used in Niven's writing.
They are also the same race as in Niven's short story 'The Soft Weapon,' which Niven adapted for use in Star Trek: The Animated Series as "The Slaver Weapon." Kzinti were kept intact for purposes of the episode. They were presented as having had a war with Earth in the past, having lost, and ending up with just their home system as a protectorate.
As we do not know the details of the negotiations with respect to rights, it is not a given that they are off limits.
Actually, you are thinking of a different license. SFB was created under a license with Task Force Games, which eventually became Amarillo Design Bureau Inc.
From my understanding, it was a bit of the opposite.
Niven published Ringworld a couple of years before TAS and was asked to write episodes because he was a popular Sci-Fi writer.
Even though I mixed up the licenses, what I said isn't any less true. Cryptic isn't going to use material from these sources. Lets say that CBS let these games be under the Star Trek license, it wouldn't be any different than Cryptic using material from the other Star Trek games, like Bridge Commander, SFC, or Legacy.
As I said, nothing can't stop cryptic from using it since it is a scientifically accepted concept like the Dyson sphere. But you start using Ringworld and people will think Cryptic is stealing from Halo or Ringworld, so they got to be creative in making it their own.
We may not know the details, but it's obvious CBS said no.
If the Fifth Season of Enterprise happened, that would've likely been a completely different story, since Manny Coto said he was going to have them make an appearance. Too bad.
Honestly, when it comes to the Star Trek license, it's all over the place. Compared to George Lucas with the Star Wars License.
Do we know that is absolutely the reason the Kzinti were changed? The rights regarding TAS were at least somewhat up in the air, leading to the series being at least temporarily considered non-canon. However, the rights to TAS have ended up back with Paramount/CBS.
So the question is, was SFB limited just by Niven or were they limited by other rights holders?
After all, as you say, FASA lost their license due to including material whose rights were held by Paramount rather than any third party. Amarillo may have had to make the changes to avoid the same fate at Paramount's hands without Niven being involved at all.
Evil smirk crosses my face... how about a miniature Dyson Sphere ( like a proof of concept ) that's really a lock box.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
https://startrek.44thfleet.com/
Not really. Depending on the distance from the star, you can maintain a relatively small Gravity Force on the surface.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
That is... I very Plausible idea...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
And, the latter is much easier to create in the Foundry.
As for Ringworlds and Halos (there's a difference; a Ringworld surrounds a star, the thing in Halo is just a really really big space station)? Yeah, those are possible. Dunno how practical they are, especially the Halo; but as anybody working on Mars exploration will tell you, there are tremendous advantages to having a flat place to set stuff down, that often outweigh the penalties of being on the bottom of a hill. That's why many of them would prefer a Moon base to an orbital facility for launching a Mars mission.
Of course, if you can build a Ringworld, you *WILL* also build a Dyson Sphere to use 100% of the star's output, because it's a trivial extra expenditure for a massive increase in available energy.
Do I??
Love Freelancer.
Why even make it solid, for most of it your still going to have an absolutely dumb amount of surface area even if you only make the surface 25% solid. Let the rest of it be open space and simply use "Technogarble Fields" to collect eh energy from those areas; This is Trek after all. A sun enclosed in a Bucky ball grid is still gonna be an impressive sight. Especially if you get a sun bigger than what you would find with habitable planets around it. If I was gonna go to the trouble of collecting a stars energy I would find on that was nice and blue and big as hell.
not to nitpick but we wouldn't be seeing the amargosa observatory. it was destroyed when soran destroyed the sun in the system it was in
there is nothing in physics that says it can't be done. though it would require a far more advanced civilization than ours to have the ability to harvest the necessary resources
cbs has said in the past that he owns the rights to them, not them.
when copyright is involved its a bigger deal than you think. people don't like getting their ideas stolen
I see your position on this, however i think that an in-game project for the entire community would work out really well, specially for those that arent apart of a fleet and isn't building a star-base. People like to build things and so give them the option to building other items in game. Iam in a fleet that is buidling a star-base, but i would welcome a community project.
Do any of the current maps come anywhere close to approximating the size needed for a Dyson sphere? Or would the map exist on a slice of the sphere?
There are some exploration maps where you can orbit an entire planet, but that's not big enough to "orbit" a star.
But yeah.... the object in the episode had several times the mass of a G-type star. In theory, if you're standing on the surface you're NOT going to be attracted to the center of gravity. It's kinda like putting a magnet inside a giant steel ring. The magnet is most strongly attracted to the part of the ring it's closest to. Therefore people inside a Dyson sphere should be able to walk on the inside of it, if it's massive enough to attract them.
My character Tsin'xing