Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

[Susano]

Overheard in the future: "We already talked about how to add extra storage space to your continent by turning mountain ranges into bookcases, turning lakes into bath tubs, and continental shelves into decks (see also our popular Future Plate Tectonics article). Well, in this special episode we're going to be taking the same approach but ramping it up a bit because, let's face it, even the best planet can only hold so many people." One day – though probably not anytime soon – all of us are going to need to do some serious expanding.

 

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2010/12/megastructures-bigger-than-worlds.html

 

[Cancer]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

There are speculations that the bizarre surface features of Miranda result from something like what you have there, but the pieces got jumbled a bit before settling back together. Since our only images of that surface are from the Voyager fly-by in 1986, we don't have a lot more data than that to work with.

[Cancer]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

The compression and torsion strengths of the material holding those chunks in place has to be ... impressive.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I tried making one of these this morning, but I can't make head nor tail of the instructions. So, anyway, I'm stuck about halfway done, and the ringworld repair guy apparently doesn't make housecalls Mondays.

Any chance of borrowing some air, heat and gravity until Tuesday, twoish?

[Susano]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I tried making one of these this morning, but I can't make head nor tail of the instructions. So, anyway, I'm stuck about halfway done, and the ringworld repair guy apparently doesn't make housecalls Mondays.

Any chance of borrowing some air, heat and gravity until Tuesday, twoish?

 

Only if you can pay me back, pronto. This stuff doesn't grow on trees, y'know.

[austenandrews]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I'm swearing off of gravity. It's only holding me down.

 

Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

[Cancer]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

You wouldn't say that if the Roche limit were important to you. None of us are that big, though.

[Markdoc]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Galactus says "They're crunchy!"

 

cheers, Mark

[Susano]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Galactus says "They're crunchy!"

 

cheers, Mark

 

And good dipped in milk!

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Galactus can chew on this. -- if a 1au Dyson Sphere or Ringworld is a megastructure, that would make this an exastructure. (And the biggest *&^%$#@ thing I've seen in a SF novel....)

[dmjalund]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Galactus can chew on this. -- if a 1au Dyson Sphere or Ringworld is a megastructure' date=' that would make this an exastructure. (And the biggest *&^%$#@ thing I've seen in a SF novel....)[/quote']Galactus uses it for a running track

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Galactus uses it for a running track

 

There go the property values....

[amanojaku]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

In the computer RTS "homeworld" there was a level where the remains of what may have been an unfinished dyson sphere or ringworld were visible in the background. Very eerie, when combined with the music on that level.

 

Septimus is a RPG set on a dyson sphere, if anyone's interested: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63991

[Markdoc]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

In the computer RTS "homeworld" there was a level where the remains of what may have been an unfinished dyson sphere or ringworld were visible in the background. Very eerie, when combined with the music on that level.

 

Septimus is a RPG set on a dyson sphere, if anyone's interested: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63991

 

The problem with Dyson spheres and ringworlds is that they are so huge, most authors and RPG designers simply can't get their brains around it. The RPG there is a perfect example - it talks about "billions of people" flooding the Dyson sphere. But that's like saying that you "flood" the ocean by tipping your drinking glass into it. Even if you kicked it up a factor of 100 thousand to "hundreds of trillions of people" - let's say the equivalent of a hundred thousand Earths - that still leaves you with a population density one ten thousandth of the current earth's, assuming a Dyson sphere at 1 AU.

 

To envisage that, think of the US. Now remove everybody except the inhabitants of Butte, Montana. Enjoy your new country, guys! It's all yours! If the refugees flooding the Dyson sphere numbered merely in the billions, the US and Canada would have a population of one, there'd be another guy in South America, two in Europe, Africa would be empty and Asia would have enough guys for a game of poker, if they all got together.

 

Not ideal for a game - set out from your home base in a fast jet and it could be years before you encountered another settlement. So much for "factions fighting for control" - just leave. Pack up and go. If you fly away from them for a few months you can put the equivalent of 60 earths between you and them with little risk of ever seeing any other group ... ever.

 

These things are big. The images posted show the same thing - majestic ring worlds curving up the sky, but get real - the horizon would be far, far, further away than the horizon on earth. You could no more see the curvature than you can see the Rockies from New York. Most of a ring world, unless deliberately made crinkly inside, would look like Kansas, only flatter.

 

cheers, Mark

[megaplayboy]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Yep, the fun thing about dyson spheres is that, in theory, they could accomodate a larger population than might "fit" on all the other habitable planets in a galaxy. You could fairly dramatically increase the population of a humanoid species by building even one Dyson sphere around a star and provisioning it with plants, water, air, sunlight and gravity. I think you could set a pop density goal = earth density when human pop was around 10 million(about 1/1000 of our current pop density) and still have room for hundreds of quintillions of people. I'd say sextillions, but I don't have time to check the math on that.

[austenandrews]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I think you could set a pop density goal = earth density when human pop was around 10 million(about 1/1000 of our current pop density) and still have room for hundreds of quintillions of people.

Or at the present population density, enough humans to approximate the mass of the Earth? That's a whole lot of real estate.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Iain Banks populated the Culture novels with smaller versions of ringworlds, called orbitals. A rotating ring in orbit around a star (instead of having the star at its center), if given a 24-hour rotation and tilted slightly out if its orbital plane, will have a normal day-night cycle, eliminating the need for the 'shadow squares' in Niven's Ringworld. For the proper gravity, an orbital spinning once per 24 hours needs a radius of 1.85 million km, which is still huge, but orders of magnitude smaller than a ringworld.

[amanojaku]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Iain Banks populated the Culture novels with smaller versions of ringworlds' date=' called [i']orbitals[/i]. A rotating ring in orbit around a star (instead of having the star at its center), if given a 24-hour rotation and tilted slightly out if its orbital plane, will have a normal day-night cycle, eliminating the need for the 'shadow squares' in Niven's Ringworld. For the proper gravity, an orbital spinning once per 24 hours needs a radius of 1.85 million km, which is still huge, but orders of magnitude smaller than a ringworld.

Say guy, I don't suppose you know the formula for calculating how fast a structure has to spin to produce 1g of centrifugal gravity? Seriously, that would be a useful formula for SF RPG writing.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Say guy' date=' I don't suppose you know the formula for calculating how fast a structure has to spin to produce 1g of centrifugal gravity? Seriously, that would be a useful formula for SF RPG writing.[/quote']

 

I know the formula, but I don't use it much any more. I have a shortcut to this link instead. It's been a big help since I've been working on a hard-SF setting with no artificial gravity.

[amanojaku]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Thanks guy.

[amanojaku]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Say, wouldn't planet+ sized structures be called "Gigastructures"? I mean, for now we could consider things like the boulder damn or the troll platform to be megastructures, If we start talking about dysonspheres, ringworlds, etc wouldn't we need to call them gigastructures? Or do we downgrade thins like what we now consider megastructures?

[Drhoz]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I quite like the Matrioshka Brain, myself. Shell after shell after shell of self-repairing computer circuitry, each optimised to run off the heat radiated by the shells further in, the hole thing designed to work on the really *big* calculations that require the entire energy output of a star.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Like the question to the answer about the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything.

[Drhoz]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

Like the question to the answer about the meaning of Life' date=' the Universe and Everything. [/quote']

 

Yeah... funny that....

[Sir Ofeelya]

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds

 

I always wondered why the aliens who built the ringworld went all artistic and made maps of various planets. In the case of Earth, are there special climate controls that makes the Arctic cold.