Star Trek: Relic site update! (ICON)

[Sheliak Bob]

I still argue that constructing a Dyson would require much, much more energy than it would ever be able to conserve. How much energy is required, after all, to move a PLANETARY mass or eighteen through interstellar space? Just don't make no damn sense. No Sir.
I don't buy it.
I absolutamentally don't.
Leaks water like a sieve, I says.

[Sheliak Bob]

Besides, for use in an RPG campaign, it would be sort of boring if the Dyson was a primary residence for a species that was totally wiped out by the flares from its unstable sun.
The preserve function would allow for a stable platform on which protected species could evolve more or less naturally. They would be protected from outside interference by the shell and by the semi-hidden status of the Dyson.

I'm assuming that the Androids that attacked Dyson Station were probably indigenous maintainence, artificial lifeforms left behind by the Builders to oversee and maintain the Sphere. Which makes sense because no natural species would have the lifespan to oversee a preserve of the Dyson's scope. Natural species would probably evolve into variant forms themselves before the Sphere's design function was achieved.

Next question: What degree of interaction/contact would be permitted with the species inside the Dyson? Some are primitive and obviously should have Prime Directive protection. What about more advanced, but obviously not warp capable species? Should Starfleet not contact any species at all, only observe them from a distance? (boring!)
Should there be any intervention in the event of a sphere species that is endangered by its environment, by degrading of the sphere, or by other species that are crossing out of their habitat zones?

[Phantom]

I'm not really up to date on Dyson Sphere's, just from the ep.

1) Did/Does Freeman Dyson exist?
2) Was this an actual theory?

Just wondering if this is one of those actual theoretical scientific ideas that Trek latches onto every once and while.

[Sheliak Bob]

Freeman Dyson is a very real person. The idea of a shell macrostructure built around a star has been written about and advanced in scientific publications.

It's still very, very SILLY. But it is real.

[Owen E Oulton]

Freeman Dyson's original concept was not the hard-shell sphere envisioned in SF and used in the episode Relics, upon which my campaign is based. His original concept was a dense spherical "cloud" of power collection satellites so thick that it would eventually completely block out sight of the star in the centre. Each of these satellites would be built individually and would have its own orbital path - the old bugaboos about stability, et cetera, don't apply to this type of Dyson Sphere, usually called a "Type I Dyson Sphere" - the fictional shell type is generally called a "Type II Dyson Sphere."

Dyson's power-collection sphere would be built up over hundreds, perhape thousands, of years as power demand increased. Eventually, all of the systems natural resources would be consumed to built and maintain the satellites.

Of course, with that many satellites whipping about the star, collisions would be inevitable, and a lot of effort would be required to replace and repair damaged and/or worn-out satellites, as well as collecting the debris from the collisions (both for recycling and to prevent further damage from collisions with the wrecked components).

Dyson argued that such a sphere was not only possible, but inevitable. It requires no super-science, merely a conservative extrapolation of current technological trends and lots and lots and lots of time. The energy collected would be several orders of magnitude greater than taht expended, however stupendous that expenditure would be. Sorry, Bob, but science and engineering are against you on this.

This really needs to diverge off into another thread, over in General Chat.

I'd be happy to continue in this thread with comparative speculation on where the Relics Dyson Sphere came from and other game-related stuff, although as it gets away from syetem-related discussions and into general speculation, maybe it should also be moved to the Narrator's Ready Room (for non-system-specific conversations on running a Sphere-based campaign) or Star Trek Chat for discussion of the episode itself.

[Diamond]

You don't have to move planets through interstellar space. Niven did the math and you can indeed create a (thin) dyson sphere using only the mass of a planetary system. Heck, you have to clear out the planetary system anyway to make sure there are no astroid hits. That's your building materiel.

As for the energy required, the total power output of the sun is known to 21st century current-day science. (note power is energy per unit time)

Solar constant: f = 1370 W/m² = solar power intercepted by 1 square meter at Earth-orbital distance. Surface area of a dyson sphere with an Earth-orbital radius is 2.83 x 10e17 km² = 2.83 x 10e26 m².

Thus, the Dyson sphere gets 3.88 x 10e29 W. That's how much energy (in Joules) it gets every second. Now, how much energy does it take to move planets around? Let's take Jupiter as an example. Jupiter's mass is 1.9 x 10e27 kg. Jupiter's average orbital speed is 1.3×10e4 meters/second. To move it around, we can cancel its orbital momentum for it to fall in to a new orbit and then spin it up. Kinetic energy = 1/2 mv² = 1/2 (1.9 x 10e27 kg)( 1.3×10e4 m/s)² = 3.2 x 10e35 kg m²/s²= 3.2 x 10e35 Joules.

This is of course only the minimum energy needed in principle to do the job. It all depends on how efficient the Dyson sphere users are at applying energy to move planets. And of course that's just approximately half the energy required to start the move of one planet, you have to apply a similar energy to finish the job depending where you're going. Assuming perfect efficiencies your Dyson sphere pays off that energy cost in approximately 1000 seconds or 17 minutes.

Of course there are more than one planet and efficiencies are going to be tremedously less than perfect. But for an engineering project of this scale, which will probably stand for the lifetime of civilizations, taking a few hundred years to pay off the initial cost would not be unreasonable.



http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/Dysonsp.htm
http://cc.ysu.edu/~dafowler/sun_lab.htm
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/DavidEngel.shtml
http://www.astronomynotes.com/gravappl/s8.htm

[Sheliak Bob]

Ack.
Math.
Why'd it have to be Math?
My brain hurts.
(I still says its silly! ptoooui! Next thing ya' know, you'll be tryin' to tell me that people can fly or walk on da' moon. goofy science stuff.)

[Owen E Oulton]

Well, it took longer than I wanted it to, but finally I've got the Mission and Tavares Class ships up in the Star Trek: Lucas section of my site. ICON stats and full deck plans for both ships are given, including two versions of the Tavares - a standard freighter and a Starfleet Intelligence variant.

I've also completed the cosmetic upgrades to the entire site. Next up, post-Dominion War campaign materials for an Intrepid Class starship, and details on the Klingon Archæological Society.

I'm also looking to put together a package on the Dyson Sphere for those of you who've asked what's behind it in my Star Trek: Relic campaign. I just have to decide how much info to give out. Part of the backstory will be familiar to those who have run Traveller using the "Grandfather" mythos. Other details involve what happened to Dr. Edward Morbius after the explosion on Altair IV in Forbidden Planet. Once completed, I'll post a notice here and interested parties can e-mail me for a copy. Please don't e-mail me for it until I announce it, though, as I can't promise I'll remember you...

[Sheliak Bob]

Looking forward to it, Owen! Meanwhile, I've got a Betelgeusan Command Lt., a Zakdorn enlisted Security specialist turned shuttlepilot turned fighter jock--who happens to have a background in macro space structures, AND a jaded Betazoid medic with chronic pain and alcoholism problems who is a crack shot with a phaser (picture a telepathic Doc Holiday with a crutch)--all roaming around getting into trouble.
Lots of fun!

[Greg Smith]

Originally posted by Sheliak Bob
Meanwhile, I've got a Betelgeusan Command Lt., a Zakdorn enlisted Security specialist turned shuttlepilot turned fighter jock--who happens to have a background in macro space structures, AND a jaded Betazoid medic with chronic pain and alcoholism problems who is a crack shot with a phaser

They Fight Crime!

[JALU3]

One, thing, do you have a complete ICON skills list?

[Owen E Oulton]

Re: a full ICON Skills List:

Not yet, as discussed elsewhere in the Forums. I'm in the process of compiling one, but don't have the TOS Core Rules Book or the Vulcan supplement to make it complete.

[Dave]

Owen,

Great job as usual! Any plans for additional material for the Excalibur campaign?

[Owen E Oulton]

Well, the IKV nomghar is finally up on-line (click on the Relic banner below), including the tlhIngan Game Theory page! It also looks like it's going to actually get into play as well, as a once-a-month game campaign. Yay!!!

Not all of the material is up yet - I have yet to actually HTML the PC and NPC character sheets, and there are a couple of essays I have to buff off and/or update.

As for the Excalibur campaign materials, I have a little bit of stuff which may eventually get on line, but not in the near future. Sorry.

[Diamond]

Thanks Owen, love the new Deck Plans there! Can't wait to print them out. On the stats, I was suprised to see that a old-series era small klingon corvette has as much shields as an Excelscior! Do those stats represent TNG-era modifications of the original basic spaceframe?