Noisy Rhysling said:
Oh I see what you mean. One thing to remember about those aliens is they would build a DS to their specs, not ours. They might like more or less gravity, They could have a different, not quite compatible, recipe for an atmosphere. Given the thing I'm most concerned about in this scenario, they might be able to take a little more hard radiation than we can. All these things would have to be considered before we move in.
But what immediately intrigues me is whether or not those uber-aliens would find the idea of building a DS around a Class-B star, which coughs up a lot more radiation in the ultra-violet to X-ray spectrum than Sol does, attractive. They idea I have is that they could use the higher energy output to create more energy for themselves. the downside is that the unfiltered output of a Class-B star would put you in the Cancer Ward and cook the atmosphere into something un-breathable. So you have to put some sort of filter/shield between the star and the ground. I thought I had was that the shield/filter would be the logical place to turn that hard radiation into something useful.
Grinkle said:
I read Ringworld years ago, I am not at all versed in whatever are thought to be the main design considerations of a Dyson sphere, so this may be very naive.
If I were any less naive than you are I wouldn't have submitted this thing. They whole point of asking this question is to see how naive I am. If you read the paperback version of
Ringworld circa 1975 you should remember the artist's depiction of the ringworld: a large band surrounding a sun with a smaller band sitting between the sun and the ringworld. The smaller band had shaded patches, and was designed to mimic the shifts of day and night. The shield/filter I'm talking about would be that smaller band. However, in my scenario, that band would be another sphere--and it would have an additional task: filtering out and utilizing the higher frequency radiation that a class-B star to kick out. Those uber-aliens would not have evolved in a star system with a class-B star because nothing has time to evolve in a star system with a class-B star. The star will go nova long before anything more complicated than an amoeba has time to get going. Also, my assumption is that the levels of radiation a class-B would put out would be hell on any of its satellites.
However our uber-aliens, with the amazingly high level of technology, might look at a class-B star and think: If we're smart we should be able to harness all that power for a few million years." After a few million years our uber-aliens are going to have to be elsewhere when the class-B goes nova. But anyone who has the know-how to build a Dyson Sphere has the know-how to be elsewhere when the house goes up.
The beauty of a Dyson Sphere to Freeman Dyson was that it would utilize all the energy of a star. the beauty of our uber-aliens system is that they utilize the energy of their Class-B star twice: once in the filter which deals with the more energetic and dangerous forms of radiation, and once with the lower forms of radiation that has been put through the filter. This lower form of radiation would be akin to the energy output of Sol: of the spectrum and intensity that created life on Earth. The lower intensity radiation would fall on all that real estate beyond the filter and be used to produce food and energy of the sort we would utilize solar cells to harvest.
It's a wonderful scenario--assuming I haven't screwed up anything. That's why I'm laying this all out for you really smart people; so you can tell me where I screwed up!
