Advanced/Clarke Tech & Megastructures in the Three Galaxies

[Warshield73]

Over the last few months I've been watching several series on futurism, technology and sci-fiction including this one Isaac Arthur and it got me thinking about advanced technology and Phase World. Specifically what technology the main powers could have without completely messing up the world building and game mechanics. I'm also wondering what structures would societies with relatively inexpensive and ridiculously fast FTL not even bother with.

For example, would a Dyson Sphere or shell world even be worth the effort if you can almost effortlessly move people and resources between star systems.

So for starters could/would the TGE, CCW and other main level powers create or have any of these and what else is missing from Phase World that isn't in the books but wouldn't completely break the setting.

- Star Lifting - Recovering elements from stars
- Using Fusion to create heavier materials
- Dyson Spheres / Swarms
- Shell Worlds
- etc.

[taalismn]

Well, if you got gravity control and forcefields, yeah, you can start doing fun stuff like sun-diving, provided your shields are good enough and they have someplace to push all the energy they're deflecting. Poul Anderson's Empire didn't have artificial gravity(they rotated for effect) but did have the Langston Field, and that allowed their starships to sail into the coronas of stars.

-Producing stable super-elements/materials like neutronium(I always cringe in the episode of ST:DS9 when they try to break into a Cardassian command bunker that is 'armored with neutronium'...the whole place should be sinking to the planet's core, unless they got some honking big AG units going full-blast to float the stuff...hell, just standing NEXT to it would cause your viscera to be pulled towards it)

[89er]

If your willing to invest the time, money, resources and more into this the result are great. But all that has to come from somewhere, and all that could be used to improve infrastructure, update old systems, help out populations.

Say the CCW post Minion War builds a Ringworld megastructure for its population, that is not going to be built overnight. As the years grind on, the luster will fade and be mocked as a vanity project for the elite of the elite and not for the people. Mortal greed and ambition is not so easily conquered even a post scarcity society.

Just some thing think about.

[taalismn]

The megastructures in Iain Banks' Culture were created by a. society that was run by AI Minds, who had the mental power, patience, and long term vision ncecessay to oversee such projects. Given the general AI-phobia prevalent in the Three Galaxies, I don't see any of the major power blocs ceding administrative control to sophist AIs. The best/most the CCW has allowed them was a hand in designing their latest superheavy warship, which is hardly impressive by Clarke-tech standards.

[Furoan]

The three major power blocks (CCW, Kraegor Empire and the UWW) probably 0have the capabilities not the time to start building some of the clarktech stuff like ring worlds etc. That being said, remnants of things like that, from back when the Eldar Races were prevalent before the Dominator warm 50,000 years before the present-day might be still floating around, let alone the workings of the First Race (aka the Cosmic Forge itself).

For 'current day mega-projects, there is obviously the Space-Gates around Center, but not sure they 'count' as they are the work of the Second Stage Promethons who are on the level of minor deities etc. We do know that the Three Galaxies contains a few retreats from 'Entities' which include Gods (who are hanging around on a planet in the borders of the UWW), Demon Lords and a few other powerful beings. Those guys probably have the power/knowledge/time to build something pretty advanced (and then there are the Splugoth etc).

So your players probably could find a few Clarktech things floating around, but most of them would be in the hands of 'eldar races'/god-beings etc or are ancient relics from those races before the Dominators wrecked everything.

[Warshield73]

Well, if you got gravity control and forcefields, yeah, you can start doing fun stuff like sun-diving, provided your shields are good enough and they have someplace to push all the energy they're deflecting. Poul Anderson's Empire didn't have artificial gravity(they rotated for effect) but did have the Langston Field, and that allowed their starships to sail into the coronas of stars.
-Producing stable super-elements/materials like neutronium

Star lifting is actually "simple" compared to gravity control so I figure that any society with it would probably make use of it. You get all of these great resources with the pleasant side effect that your star lives longer with more predictable "weather". Theoretically of course.

Using Fusion power to create more exotic elements just seems basic. It requires more energy to create than the actual fusion will generate but to people with both cold fusion and matter/anti-matter reactors that seems easy.

My question, and this goes back to one of my earlier threads on Shipboard Manufacturing, with ludicrously fast FTL drives, how much resources would they put in to things like this if you can just hop on a ship and fly to another system with easy to get resources.

(I always cringe in the episode of ST:DS9 when they try to break into a Cardassian command bunker that is 'armored with neutronium'...the whole place should be sinking to the planet's core, unless they got some honking big AG units going full-blast to float the stuff...hell, just standing NEXT to it would cause your viscera to be pulled towards it)

To be fair most people today, much less in the '90's, understand the properties these materials would have. There is even a drone super weapon in the Three Galaxies book that says it has a neutronium bunker.

When I see something like that I always just play it as it is a standard alloy enhanced with a microscopic lattice of neutronium. Still ridiculous but for people who break physics daily with contra-gravity and FTL it works to sell that sci-fi/fantasy vibe.

If your willing to invest the time, money, resources and more into this the result are great. But all that has to come from somewhere, and all that could be used to improve infrastructure, update old systems, help out populations.

The thing is we are dealing with political entities that have been around for thousands of years. The CCW is the new one at 700 years old. Also lifespans are longer with Noro at 250, humans just shy of 200 and wolfen at about 120. The other thing is if you read the original Phase World book it describes most CCW worlds as rather idyllic with most manufacturing and labor being done by robots.

Put all of this together with the vast resources of thousands of star systems and you have the making for some major projects, many of which would benefit the populace. We already know that most wolfen in the home ssytem live in orbit as the planet has been turned into a nature preserve and that Tera Prime has a system of artificial rings built around it. Just wondering what else there might be.

Say the CCW post Minion War builds a Ringworld megastructure for its population, that is not going to be built overnight. As the years grind on, the luster will fade and be mocked as a vanity project for the elite of the elite and not for the people. Mortal greed and ambition is not so easily conquered even a post scarcity society.

Just some thing think about.

I should probably start putting this in any of my posts on Phase World but for a discussion like this I am only interested in pre-Minion War. The information we have on the Three Galaxies is thread bare as it is and we have no idea what the results of the MW are going to be. So I am trying to get some ideas for the state of the galaxies before the war.

Second, the three galaxies should probably be post scarcity, given the tech level, but it clearly isn't given the information we have which is probably better for the purposes of a game world like this.

The megastructures in Iain Banks' Culture were created by a. society that was run by AI Minds, who had the mental power, patience, and long term vision ncecessay to oversee such projects. Given the general AI-phobia prevalent in the Three Galaxies, I don't see any of the major power blocs ceding administrative control to sophist AIs. The best/most the CCW has allowed them was a hand in designing their latest superheavy warship, which is hardly impressive by Clarke-tech standards.

In both Anvil Galaxy and Three Galaxies books we have several examples of planets using AI's, also the Kreeghor don't seem to have any problems with it especially after tehy used the Machine People to develop their Dreadnought program. That being said there is no reason to believe that most mega projects couldn't be completed with regular computers. I will agree that the changes that Campbell made to the setting regarding AI, among other things, make a lot of these projects at least a little less likely.

The three major power blocks (CCW, Kraegor Empire and the UWW) probably 0have the capabilities not the time to start building some of the clarktech stuff like ring worlds etc.

I think given the thousands of years for each of these groups (human alliance and noro fed have been around for more than a thousand years, the CCW is 700) with advanced CG and FTL technology I think they have the time for a few things.

For me, the question is do they need them given the access to FTL technology. The whole idea behind things like ring worlds, shell worlds and Dyson swarms/spheres is to make use of all of the resources of a system to house billions of people, but with FTL they can just go to another system.

That being said, remnants of things like that, from back when the Eldar Races were prevalent before the Dominator warm 50,000 years before the present-day might be still floating around, let alone the workings of the First Race (aka the Cosmic Forge itself).

This is why I focused on the current power blocks. We know some of these things are out there from the ancients so that is easy.

For 'current day mega-projects, there is obviously the Space-Gates around Center, but not sure they 'count' as they are the work of the Second Stage Promethons who are on the level of minor deities etc. We do know that the Three Galaxies contains a few retreats from 'Entities' which include Gods (who are hanging around on a planet in the borders of the UWW), Demon Lords and a few other powerful beings. Those guys probably have the power/knowledge/time to build something pretty advanced (and then there are the Splugoth etc).

I focused this on tech because magic or mystical mega projects are kind of easy.

So your players probably could find a few Clarktech things floating around, but most of them would be in the hands of 'eldar races'/god-beings etc or are ancient relics from those races before the Dominators wrecked everything.

I agree these things from the past would exist, just trying to decide if they would have modern counterparts.

For me I want to add some more sci-fi to this setting that feels, and I said this before, really stagnant but I want to avoid breaking the system too much.

[green.nova343]

Over the last few months I've been watching several series on futurism, technology and sci-fiction including this one Isaac Arthur and it got me thinking about advanced technology and Phase World. Specifically what technology the main powers could have without completely messing up the world building and game mechanics. I'm also wondering what structures would societies with relatively inexpensive and ridiculously fast FTL not even bother with.

For example, would a Dyson Sphere or shell world even be worth the effort if you can almost effortlessly move people and resources between star systems.

So for starters could/would the TGE, CCW and other main level powers create or have any of these and what else is missing from Phase World that isn't in the books but wouldn't completely break the setting.

- Star Lifting - Recovering elements from stars
- Using Fusion to create heavier materials
- Dyson Spheres / Swarms
- Shell Worlds
- etc.

I'll start with Dyson Spheres. Artificial gravity would help offset the stresses that would normally cause a solid (Type II) sphere's polar regions to collapse (essentially working as the much-maligned "structural integrity fields" of Star Trek). The amount of materials, however, would be staggering. For example, in our Solar System the estimate is that if you took every rocky planet, asteroid, moon/satellite, & every other solid object (including Earth) you could build a shell roughly 8-20 centimeters thick...way too thin to actually work as a platform, let alone leave any materials for constructing living quarters or providing soil, water, etc. Another estimate I've seen is that an ideal sphere would be 15km thick, so we're talking about taking the materials from roughly 100 star systems to build a single solid sphere. Now, apparently "Dyson swarms" would be better, where you have a bunch of separated plates (or even simply a ring of solar collectors in a ring around the star). Note that John Ringo theorized something similar with his "SAPL" in a trilogy he wrote as a semi-official prequel to the Schlock Mercenary webcomic (basically "how did Terrans first meet Galactic civilizations). SAPL was essentially "Archimedes' mirror" on a star-system scale (collecting mirrors scattered all throughout the Solar System, feeding to a bunch of larger collection mirrors, which then aimed them at a central location....first a really big mirror, then later a mirror mounted inside an inflated 10-15km iron-nickel asteroid). It was ostensibly meant for mining purposes, but basically burned through the toughest starship shields in a matter of seconds with energy to spare.

I could see Dyson spheres/swarms in 1 of 2 circumstances: a system that isn't too keen on interstellar exploration & wants to fully maximize their own system, & a star empire that doesn't care how many star systems it strip-mines to build spheres/swarms for its own star systems.

A more realistic proposition might be Shell Worlds. CG technology could provide the necessary gravitational sources at the center without going full "black hole" for it. The primary concern, however, would be on the types where it's a hollow shell around a pressurized gas (the gas keeping the shell from getting pulled in), as the shell would need to be thick enough and strong enough to resist or limit damage to at least the level of a "solid" planet. Computer-controlled backup & emergency systems could be designed to allow the CG generators to spin down if catastrophic shell damage occurs, I suppose, and the use of MDC alloys as the underlying framework would work as well. Interestingly enough, a lot of scientists make fun of Moonfall's premise that the Moon is a similar type of "megastructure", but it was the primary focus behind David Weber & Steve White's Empire of Man series of novels (the original Moon having been replaced by the Fourth Imperium's Battleship Dahak, whose CentComp gained sentience over the millenia).

Star-lifting is definitely doable with CG technology. It would have to be on a massive scale & use focused CG generators, but you could probably come up with ways to siphon off stellar material. Gets you a lot of hydrogen & helium, & some of the other lower elements, for use in fusion power systems.

For using fusion to create materials...CG-type technology would be almost a given. The "iron peak" is the limit you hit in normal stellar fusion (elements above iron have too high of neutron-to-proton ratios to be readily achieved), & while it's possible with the "s-process" (s meaning "slow addition of neutrons") by having iron nuclei seeded into a younger star from prior supernovae, the process is very slow (thousands of years), so not commercially viable. The r-process (rapid) usually happens in thermonuclear weapons, but apparently doesn't produce a whole lot of usable products necessarily. Best method for that would be fusion bombs contained behind force shields that then collect the remnants, & by concentrating the elements it might be possible to better commercially manufacture them. The p- and rp-processes could also work with normal fusion if controlled properly (relying on injecting protons instead of neutrons), but only work up to tellurium at best. Still, should be doable without resorting to Star Trek-like "replicator" technology.

[glitterboy2098]

-Producing stable super-elements/materials like neutronium(I always cringe in the episode of ST:DS9 when they try to break into a Cardassian command bunker that is 'armored with neutronium'...the whole place should be sinking to the planet's core, unless they got some honking big AG units going full-blast to float the stuff...hell, just standing NEXT to it would cause your viscera to be pulled towards it)

the novel continuity established that it wasn't really neutronium but rather 'hypo-neutronium', which were various (unspecified but fictional) synthetic superheavy transuranic elements with ridiculously high neutron counts, and that most people just dropped the "hypo" part.

which of course is a handwave to excuse sloppy technobabble, but honestly the idea of synthetic transuranic elements that are so dense that they make excellent armor is an interesting one in itself. (especially since the explanation for MDC materials in triax 2 can be seen as a lesser variation on the same idea)


in the 3G's, i could see dyson swarms (vast collections of stations and statites orbiting stars) as viable, since those wouldn't require any technology the 3G's societies don't have. it just calls for an expenditure of resources that doesn't quite fit the canon factions and stuff like their fleet sizes. but it could easily be stuck into the hands of some alien race that decided to "build tall" around one or two systems instead of expanding into an interstellar empire. especially if they're some particularly long lived civilization that has been building te parts to the swarm over multiple ages of the galaxy.

The megastructures in Iain Banks' Culture were created by a. society that was run by AI Minds, who had the mental power, patience, and long term vision ncecessay to oversee such projects. Given the general AI-phobia prevalent in the Three Galaxies, I don't see any of the major power blocs ceding administrative control to sophist AIs. The best/most the CCW has allowed them was a hand in designing their latest superheavy warship, which is hardly impressive by Clarke-tech standards.

tru enough. though they could certainly show up as creations of the various "elder races" in the 3G's, both those that currently exist, and those that once existed and their creations survived.

i would also suggest that some of the concepts from the culture books could be adapted to lesser scales. a full 2 million km diameter banks orbital might be outside of the CCW's or TGE's abilities, but a Halo ring sized one (10,000km) might well be within reach, and while it would need to rotate faster and would have a shorter day/night cycle as a result, it would suffice for many of the kinds of stories you might want to set on such a space station.
likewise a 50km long, 20km wide Culture General Systems vehicle might not work with the tech in the 3G's, but the idea of a city contained within a starship certainly is viable, and it wouldn't be hard to imagine something the size of a Packmaster carrier with civilian housing, and shopping ares, and dockyards for smaller ships, and even park areas with (small) forests and lakes and streams all contained within its hull. like a mobile space station. i mean, they did on battlestar galactica with the botanical cruisers and Cloud Nine, and those weren't even as large as a warshield cruiser. so there shouldn't be much to stop the 3G's from mounting something similar onto a ship over 2x the size of the Galactica. (for that matter, a packmaster is way larger than Terok Nor/Deep Space Nine, and is way more mobile)

[Furoan]

The one issue of imagining a Dreadnaught sized ship as a civilian ship is that we learned that the CCW only 'recently' got enough knowledge to build the Contra-gravity drives needed to push such a massive ship around. That being said, such a ship might either use a Rift Drive or a Phase Drive to get around. (Or it could be a gigantic Generation ship and move between systems at slower than light speed I guess).

[glitterboy2098]

The one issue of imagining a Dreadnaught sized ship as a civilian ship is that we learned that the CCW only 'recently' got enough knowledge to build the Contra-gravity drives needed to push such a massive ship around. That being said, such a ship might either use a Rift Drive or a Phase Drive to get around. (Or it could be a gigantic Generation ship and move between systems at slower than light speed I guess).

that referred to ships bigger than the Packmaster. the packmaster class has been around since before the formation of the CCW, so 700+ years of service. that bit of fluff in fleet of the three galaxies was in reference to the Emancipation class Dreadnoughts, which are even bigger than the packmaster class, and less than 24 years old. and those were a reaction to the Khreegor Doombringer ,whcih was also bigger than a packmaster, which has been around for at least 100 years (when the FWC stole one) and definitively known to the CCW for only 50 years.)

the fluff also says the packmaster is the largest you could build an FTL capable ship previously to the new drive and the emancipation class. it is kinda silent on whether the kheeghor used a special drive like the CCW did, or if there was some sort of design trade off that allowed bigger ships prior but limited them in some way that most races wouldn't accept.

thus why i specified the packmaster in my comment. if 1 mile long and 1/5th of a mile wide and tall (call it 5,280,000,000 cubic feet) is the upper limit for an FTL capable ship using 'normal' 3G's contragravity tech, i don't see why you couldn't build civilian ships to the same scale. super-freighters of that size would be one of the only ways to make shipping bulk goods between systems economically viable, and there is no reason you wouldn't also see things like cruise ships of similar scale. and what is a cruise ship but a specialized mobile mini-city?

[ShadowLogan]

So for starters could/would the TGE, CCW and other main level powers create or have any of these and what else is missing from Phase World that isn't in the books but wouldn't completely break the setting.

- Star Lifting - Recovering elements from stars
- Using Fusion to create heavier materials
- Dyson Spheres / Swarms
- Shell Worlds
- etc.

I don't think the authors even considered these things when writing for PhaseWorld. These technologies/structures are geared toward:
-material resource extraction
-energy extraction (does anyone in 3G actually need the entire energy output of their host star?)
-population growth (few races in Palladium have a population issue like this currently, and IIRC they all have access to off-world travel)

A Dyson Swarm could be started by any of them and set to expand as needed w/o being noticeable (a Dyson Sphere/Ring not so much IMHO) per say, though it does raise the possible consequence from how the energy is beamed around the star system, it might allow creation of Super-Energy-Weapons (that are a hazard to planet/moons, never mind puny ships).

Star Lifting might break things a bit in terms of making heat/energy resistant materials better possibly negating the usefulness of energy weapons (or specific types) for battle.

Other aspects are going to come down to the economics in the game world. But unfortunately, the game world economics don't always translate into the real world (or make sense). Some of them might be developed if they had military applications either in offensive or defensive capacity.

Producing stable super-elements/materials like neutronium(I always cringe in the episode of ST:DS9 when they try to break into a Cardassian command bunker that is 'armored with neutronium'...the whole place should be sinking to the planet's core, unless they got some honking big AG units going full-blast to float the stuff...hell, just standing NEXT to it would cause your viscera to be pulled towards it)

Star Trek TOS has Neutronium at least once ("Doomsday Machine" planet eater, and I want to say "Balance of Terror"). This is likely one of those instances where the world has multiple meanings (ex. Gas, it's a state of matter, but also short for gasoline/fuel, flatuance release, etc).

[Shorty Lickens]

I still think Death Stars qualify as a marvel of engineering. But they always seem to explode not long after their initial test fire......

[Crimson Dynamo]

When you have artificial gravity that's so efficient that it remains active even during a complete power outage, contra-gravity systems that can keep a Super Star Destroyer floating effortlessly in an atmosphere, and Interdictor-class tech that can basically create a massive gravity well on a whim, building a Death Star isn't really that amazing of a feat, especially in an empire that spans an entire galaxy. It's just really expensive and time consuming.

It's like being amazed about Starbase Alpha in Star Trek, while ignoring the true marvels that are Replicators, Transporters, and Warp Drive. Big != Better.

[green.nova343]

Meant to add in something else. With CG tech, you will see skyscrapers be able to reach much higher into the sky. David Weber talks about it with his Honor Harrington series, particularly when they compare the architecture of governments & civilizations that have had CG-style tech for centuries (Haven, Manticore, Solarian League, etc.) vs. more "backwater" planets that either just managed to incorporate it in the last generation or so (i.e. Grayson). My assumption is that the civilian systems (with a bunch of backup systems) use the CG fields to lessen the apparent weight of each floor (ceiling/floor, walls, etc.) so that it lowers the load on the support members, without actually changing the gravity felt by the residents on each floor. So skyscrapers & buildings that set records here on Earth will be pipsqueaks compared to these types of buildings.

Just...heaven help them when all the primaries, secondaries, backups, & backups to the backups fail simultaneously...

[glitterboy2098]

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

[Warshield73]

I'll start with Dyson Spheres. Artificial gravity would help offset the stresses that would normally cause a solid (Type II) sphere's polar regions to collapse (essentially working as the much-maligned "structural integrity fields" of Star Trek). The amount of materials, however, would be staggering. For example, in our Solar System the estimate is that if you took every rocky planet, asteroid, moon/satellite, & every other solid object (including Earth) you could build a shell roughly 8-20 centimeters thick...way too thin to actually work as a platform, let alone leave any materials for constructing living quarters or providing soil, water, etc. Another estimate I've seen is that an ideal sphere would be 15km thick, so we're talking about taking the materials from roughly 100 star systems to build a single solid sphere. Now, apparently "Dyson swarms" would be better, where you have a bunch of separated plates (or even simply a ring of solar collectors in a ring around the star). Note that John Ringo theorized something similar with his "SAPL" in a trilogy he wrote as a semi-official prequel to the Schlock Mercenary webcomic (basically "how did Terrans first meet Galactic civilizations). SAPL was essentially "Archimedes' mirror" on a star-system scale (collecting mirrors scattered all throughout the Solar System, feeding to a bunch of larger collection mirrors, which then aimed them at a central location....first a really big mirror, then later a mirror mounted inside an inflated 10-15km iron-nickel asteroid). It was ostensibly meant for mining purposes, but basically burned through the toughest starship shields in a matter of seconds with energy to spare.

I could see Dyson spheres/swarms in 1 of 2 circumstances: a system that isn't too keen on interstellar exploration & wants to fully maximize their own system, & a star empire that doesn't care how many star systems it strip-mines to build spheres/swarms for its own star systems.

In the Phase World setting I think this is as likely as any reason why you would see a sphere. As I said I think Dyson Spheres are unlikely. Truthfully the only good use I have seen for one in sci-fi is as an intergalactic lifeboat in a setting where FTL travel was difficult and could potentially cause the destruction of an entire galaxy. Other than that maybe an ancient race with an abundance of time and resources just looking for something to do. In a setting like Phase World I could also see it as a prison for something horrible.

It is important to note that we do have a Dyson Sphere in Rifts. DB 15: Secrets of the Atlanteans, pg. 34. Tera Orbis is just the kind of gigantic ancient creation that you might see, but again I am more interested in what the main two powers can create.

Something along the lines of a Dyson Swarm I think is more realistic. We even saw the Geth in Mass Effect 3 creating a miniature version of this in the Quarrian home system to make use of solar energy for what amounted to large orbiting server farms. Again though with cheap and spectacularly fast FTL drives I'm just not sure there would ever be a need.

Star-lifting is definitely doable with CG technology. It would have to be on a massive scale & use focused CG generators, but you could probably come up with ways to siphon off stellar material. Gets you a lot of hydrogen & helium, & some of the other lower elements, for use in fusion power systems.

As I understand it, the whole point is to remove heavier elements for the core and that is what would extend the life of the star. Removing lighter elements, especially hydrogen, would actually destabilize the star and even shorten it's lifespan.

I really think this is doable but I am just not sure it is economically viable. All you have to do is fly to a star system that has not been mined for thousands of years and break up a few asteroid fields.

For using fusion to create materials...CG-type technology would be almost a given. The "iron peak" is the limit you hit in normal stellar fusion (elements above iron have too high of neutron-to-proton ratios to be readily achieved), & while it's possible with the "s-process" (s meaning "slow addition of neutrons") by having iron nuclei seeded into a younger star from prior supernovae, the process is very slow (thousands of years), so not commercially viable. The r-process (rapid) usually happens in thermonuclear weapons, but apparently doesn't produce a whole lot of usable products necessarily. Best method for that would be fusion bombs contained behind force shields that then collect the remnants, & by concentrating the elements it might be possible to better commercially manufacture them. The p- and rp-processes could also work with normal fusion if controlled properly (relying on injecting protons instead of neutrons), but only work up to tellurium at best. Still, should be doable without resorting to Star Trek-like "replicator" technology.

I figured the CCW and TGE would most likely focus on planetary scale processes. Most of what you mention above is a result of how energy intensive this process would be. But, when you have matter/anti-matter reactors those energy costs start to look kind of small.

in the 3G's, i could see dyson swarms (vast collections of stations and statites orbiting stars) as viable, since those wouldn't require any technology the 3G's societies don't have. it just calls for an expenditure of resources that doesn't quite fit the canon factions and stuff like their fleet sizes. but it could easily be stuck into the hands of some alien race that decided to "build tall" around one or two systems instead of expanding into an interstellar empire. especially if they're some particularly long lived civilization that has been building the parts to the swarm over multiple ages of the galaxy.

I think this was my biggest problem when I started looking at this a few years ago. The timeline that we got in Fleets of the Three Galaxies really expanded the time a lot of these groups had been around and even the amount of time ship classes have been around. All of this really just added to a situation where the 3Gs is just stagnant. Add in the fact that it has been 11 years since the last book and this is a setting that is just kind of dead.

Watching a lot of these videos I started trying to figure out where you would add in some of these really impressive megastructures and technologies, but then it sort of hit me that most of them don't fit. In all the books the only place we ever saw developed was Phase World itself and truthfully most of that is just the City of Center. The rest of the planet, the orbital stations, the rest of the system and surrounding sector are completely bare. The rest of the 3G is really almost empty.

The megastructures in Iain Banks' Culture were created by a. society that was run by AI Minds, who had the mental power, patience, and long term vision ncecessay to oversee such projects. Given the general AI-phobia prevalent in the Three Galaxies, I don't see any of the major power blocs ceding administrative control to sophist AIs. The best/most the CCW has allowed them was a hand in designing their latest superheavy warship, which is hardly impressive by Clarke-tech standards.

tru enough. though they could certainly show up as creations of the various "elder races" in the 3G's, both those that currently exist, and those that once existed, and their creations survived.

i would also suggest that some of the concepts from the culture books could be adapted to lesser scales. a full 2 million km diameter banks orbital might be outside of the CCW's or TGE's abilities, but a Halo ring sized one (10,000km) might well be within reach, and while it would need to rotate faster and would have a shorter day/night cycle as a result, it would suffice for many of the kinds of stories you might want to set on such a space station.

I think the size of the stations are doable, I am just not sure if they would have any reason to build them or use spin gravity.

likewise a 50km long, 20km wide Culture General Systems vehicle might not work with the tech in the 3G's, but the idea of a city contained within a starship certainly is viable, and it wouldn't be hard to imagine something the size of a Packmaster carrier with civilian housing, and shopping ares, and dockyards for smaller ships, and even park areas with (small) forests and lakes and streams all contained within its hull. like a mobile space station.

If you were putting this in a game what would its purpose be?

I touched on this a little bit in a previous thread about industry in star systems. I agree that the tech is there but I'm not sure what the point would be to having a mile long mobile city that can move at FTL speeds. The only use I came up with was a facility to help new colonies get started. It helps build cities and orbitial infrastructure and then moves on. But to me this seems like something best suited for a prefabricated station that is dropped off by a large carrier and then expanded upon.

The other option is something that goes to a system that is being mined but for some reson not being permanently occupied. Almost a companion to an asteroid eater.

i mean, they did on battlestar galactica with the botanical cruisers and Cloud Nine, and those weren't even as large as a warshield cruiser. so there shouldn't be much to stop the 3G's from mounting something similar onto a ship over 2x the size of the Galactica. (for that matter, a packmaster is way larger than Terok Nor/Deep Space Nine, and is way more mobile)

Battlestar Galactica and the Quarians from Mass Effect are interesting examples that I am not sure we would see in the 3Gs. With the speed of FTL and the number of unoccupied systems it just seems that a large fleet would find a planet or moon and settle down.

Just some points of reference.
- A Packmaster is 1,600 meters (1 mile)
- A Warshield is 183 meters (600 ft)
- The Jupiter Class Battlestar is 1,445 meters. with a crew compliment comparable to a Packmaster
- Cloud 9, according to your source, is 450 meters, several times bigger than a Warshield
- Your source provided no length for the botanical cruiser but it looked about the same size as Cloud 9

That being said, I agree that the major powers could do this, again just not certain why they would. Now agricultural stations, like in The Expanse, seem pretty reasonable especially for systems that have no earth like planet, have wrecked that planets environment, or have tried to move agriculture off world to restore that planet (I figure Motherhome has a lot of these and so does Goldie Lox).

The one issue of imagining a Dreadnaught sized ship as a civilian ship is that we learned that the CCW only 'recently' got enough knowledge to build the Contra-gravity drives needed to push such a massive ship around. That being said, such a ship might either use a Rift Drive or a Phase Drive to get around. (Or it could be a gigantic Generation ship and move between systems at slower than light speed I guess).

that referred to ships bigger than the Packmaster. the packmaster class has been around since before the formation of the CCW, so 700+ years of service. that bit of fluff in fleet of the three galaxies was in reference to the Emancipation class Dreadnoughts, which are even bigger than the packmaster class, and less than 24 years old. and those were a reaction to the Khreegor Doombringer ,whcih was also bigger than a packmaster, which has been around for at least 100 years (when the FWC stole one) and definitively known to the CCW for only 50 years.)

the fluff also says the packmaster is the largest you could build an FTL capable ship previously to the new drive and the emancipation class. it is kinda silent on whether the kheeghor used a special drive like the CCW did, or if there was some sort of design trade off that allowed bigger ships prior but limited them in some way that most races wouldn't accept.

It actually talks about this in DB 13, pg. 79. They created a special kind of drive with "help" of the Machine People.

thus why i specified the packmaster in my comment. if 1 mile long and 1/5th of a mile wide and tall (call it 5,280,000,000 cubic feet) is the upper limit for an FTL capable ship using 'normal' 3G's contragravity tech, i don't see why you couldn't build civilian ships to the same scale. super-freighters of that size would be one of the only ways to make shipping bulk goods between systems economically viable, and there is no reason you wouldn't also see things like cruise ships of similar scale. and what is a cruise ship but a specialized mobile mini-city?

I agree with all of this. Given how long ships the size of the Packmaster have been being built in the 3Gs you would probably see tens of thousands of them flying around between systems and it is certainly the best way to move between galaxies.

I don't think the authors even considered these things when writing for PhaseWorld.

I agree, the problem that after almost 30 years the setting is extremely dated. It needs more sci-fi to balance all monsters and fantasy elements and I doubt we are getting any new books anytime soon so anything that gets added is just by the GM.

These technologies/structures are geared toward:
-material resource extraction
-energy extraction (does anyone in 3G actually need the entire energy output of their host star?)
-population growth (few races in Palladium have a population issue like this currently, and IIRC they all have access to off-world travel)

I think all of these depend on how you approach the setting of the Three Galaxies, since we really have no information on it. We know by the inclusion of asteroid eaters and gas mining ships, as well as descriptions of planets that are engaged in mining and other extraction activities, that resource extraction is a big deal. This isn't Star Trek with replicators they need to extract the resources they use. This means that creating scarce resources through fusion and star lifting might be useful.

As for the power, it depends on how you treat things like anti-matter. In a lot of settings anti-matter costs more energy to produce than it generates. It is used for things like starships because it is, for lack of a better term, energy dense you can carry a lot in small space. No matter what solar is always going to be the cheapest energy and something like a Dyson Swarm where you can just keep adding to it as you need more energy just makes sense.

As for population growth and FTL, this is my feeling too. No matter how big your population gets at some point it is just going to be cheaper for people to go to another system than continually build more habitable space.

A Dyson Swarm could be started by any of them and set to expand as needed w/o being noticeable (a Dyson Sphere/Ring not so much IMHO) per say, though it does raise the possible consequence from how the energy is beamed around the star system, it might allow creation of Super-Energy-Weapons (that are a hazard to planet/moons, never mind puny ships).

This is covered in one of the books, either Three Galaxies or Anvil Galaxy where one of the planets collects enough energy to use it as a defensive weapon.

On the other end structures like this would be really hard to defend against fighters, assault craft, and missiles so might be a strike against them.

Star Lifting might break things a bit in terms of making heat/energy resistant materials better possibly negating the usefulness of energy weapons (or specific types) for battle.

From what I have read and seen in the video star lifting doesn't require those things and in fact the advent of CG and energy fields would just make it cheaper and easier but I could be wrong.

Other aspects are going to come down to the economics in the game world. But unfortunately, the game world economics don't always translate into the real world (or make sense). Some of them might be developed if they had military applications either in offensive or defensive capacity.

Fortunately in a game like this the economics are what the author says it is and since there is really nothing about it in the books it just falls to the GM. All you need is a decent in universe reason for it and you can go from there.

Meant to add in something else. With CG tech, you will see skyscrapers be able to reach much higher into the sky. David Weber talks about it with his Honor Harrington series, particularly when they compare the architecture of governments & civilizations that have had CG-style tech for centuries (Haven, Manticore, Solarian League, etc.) vs. more "backwater" planets that either just managed to incorporate it in the last generation or so (i.e. Grayson). My assumption is that the civilian systems (with a bunch of backup systems) use the CG fields to lessen the apparent weight of each floor (ceiling/floor, walls, etc.) so that it lowers the load on the support members, without actually changing the gravity felt by the residents on each floor. So skyscrapers & buildings that set records here on Earth will be pipsqueaks compared to these types of buildings.

Just...heaven help them when all the primaries, secondaries, backups, & backups to the backups fail simultaneously...

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

Glitterboy is correct. In the books it goes into great detail about two aspects of there version of anti-gravity and city construction:
- One is what GB just said using it in construction allowing them to go higher and higher.
- Two is using gravity fields to create stronger materials for construction. It does specifically say in several books that there is still a limit to how high as the ground can not take the weight so pretty sure they don't have active fields running.

The only place I could see in the three galaxies them using active CG fields for a building is if it was some sort of CG powered space elevator but not sure how useful that would be since you can just put CG on a ship and lift it off world that way.

Thanks for the input everyone, lots of good ideas to think over.

[glitterboy2098]

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

Glitterboy is correct. In the books it goes into great detail about two aspects of there version of anti-gravity and city construction:
- One is what GB just said using it in construction allowing them to go higher and higher.
- Two is using gravity fields to create stronger materials for construction. It does specifically say in several books that there is still a limit to how high as the ground can not take the weight so pretty sure they don't have active fields running.

the Greyson SkyDomes segments in "Flag in Exile" make this pretty clear. they're usignthe same tech that allows the massive towers on haven and manticore to instead build massive geodesic domes to contain sprawling towns and farms. said construction involves blasting down to bedrock, then drilling deep holes for immensely strong metal support struts which are socketed into place using special shapes to the holes, and the hole is then filled around it using a cement that has to be cured using special devices and sets nearly as strong as the girders it is holding into place. basicalyl all designed to make it as close to immovable and part of the bedrock as you can get.
the only use of gravity control technology is when they start lifting the cross girders and transparent metal 'window' panels into place to finish the dome.

[green.nova343]

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

Glitterboy is correct. In the books it goes into great detail about two aspects of there version of anti-gravity and city construction:
- One is what GB just said using it in construction allowing them to go higher and higher.
- Two is using gravity fields to create stronger materials for construction. It does specifically say in several books that there is still a limit to how high as the ground can not take the weight so pretty sure they don't have active fields running.

the Greyson SkyDomes segments in "Flag in Exile" make this pretty clear. they're usignthe same tech that allows the massive towers on haven and manticore to instead build massive geodesic domes to contain sprawling towns and farms. said construction involves blasting down to bedrock, then drilling deep holes for immensely strong metal support struts which are socketed into place using special shapes to the holes, and the hole is then filled around it using a cement that has to be cured using special devices and sets nearly as strong as the girders it is holding into place. basicalyl all designed to make it as close to immovable and part of the bedrock as you can get.
the only use of gravity control technology is when they start lifting the cross girders and transparent metal 'window' panels into place to finish the dome.

I'm on my umpteenth re-read through the series, & not sure if I've gotten to the parts where they talk more about the Havenite/Manticoran skyscrapers. The domes, though...part of that was because of the environment they were dealing with (planet with huge concentration of toxic heavy metals in their soil & water, requiring massive decontamination every growing season of farmland, hence their initial push into building orbital farming & livestock facilities -- easier to clean up soil once then not expose it to the elements anymore). Their homes had integral filtration systems that would probably be the envy of any advanced bioweapons lab, but even the natives still had to use respirators if out in the atmosphere for too long...but the domes allowed them to build their standard buildings under a single dome without having to build the filtration systems into each building.

Most of the actual materials technology, however, doesn't seem to be involved with using CG tech to create the materials. For example, in The Short Victorious War, they talk about how Honor's new battlecruiser, HMS Nike, is using their new "grown" starship armor: essentially using nanotech to grow the armor as a single "crystal" (kind of like growing artificial gemstones in a lab). The benefit was to essentially leave no seams as potential weakpoints...but if they did need to fix anything, or access anything protected under the armor, it made it a huge b***h to do since the armor required special chemical catalyst cutting gear (apparently plasma/acetylene torches wouldn't cut it, pun intended). And from the terms Weber uses for a lot of the other tech -- the ceramacrete, for example, makes me think of "Jaynestown" from Firefly (where they took mud to make ceramic & used catalysts to make it harder & tougher than steel). Again, don't need to use a CG-based process to make it tougher than real-world metals if you can use a science-fiction catalyst-based product that at least sounds plausible (unlike most Star Trek "technobabble").

[Warshield73]

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

Glitterboy is correct. In the books it goes into great detail about two aspects of there version of anti-gravity and city construction:
- One is what GB just said using it in construction allowing them to go higher and higher.
- Two is using gravity fields to create stronger materials for construction. It does specifically say in several books that there is still a limit to how high as the ground can not take the weight so pretty sure they don't have active fields running.

the Greyson SkyDomes segments in "Flag in Exile" make this pretty clear. they're usignthe same tech that allows the massive towers on haven and manticore to instead build massive geodesic domes to contain sprawling towns and farms. said construction involves blasting down to bedrock, then drilling deep holes for immensely strong metal support struts which are socketed into place using special shapes to the holes, and the hole is then filled around it using a cement that has to be cured using special devices and sets nearly as strong as the girders it is holding into place. basicalyl all designed to make it as close to immovable and part of the bedrock as you can get.
the only use of gravity control technology is when they start lifting the cross girders and transparent metal 'window' panels into place to finish the dome.

I'm on my umpteenth re-read through the series, & not sure if I've gotten to the parts where they talk more about the Havenite/Manticoran skyscrapers. The domes, though...part of that was because of the environment they were dealing with (planet with huge concentration of toxic heavy metals in their soil & water, requiring massive decontamination every growing season of farmland, hence their initial push into building orbital farming & livestock facilities -- easier to clean up soil once then not expose it to the elements anymore). Their homes had integral filtration systems that would probably be the envy of any advanced bioweapons lab, but even the natives still had to use respirators if out in the atmosphere for too long...but the domes allowed them to build their standard buildings under a single dome without having to build the filtration systems into each building.

Most of the actual materials technology, however, doesn't seem to be involved with using CG tech to create the materials. For example, in The Short Victorious War, they talk about how Honor's new battlecruiser, HMS Nike, is using their new "grown" starship armor: essentially using nanotech to grow the armor as a single "crystal" (kind of like growing artificial gemstones in a lab). The benefit was to essentially leave no seams as potential weakpoints...but if they did need to fix anything, or access anything protected under the armor, it made it a huge b***h to do since the armor required special chemical catalyst cutting gear (apparently plasma/acetylene torches wouldn't cut it, pun intended). And from the terms Weber uses for a lot of the other tech -- the ceramacrete, for example, makes me think of "Jaynestown" from Firefly (where they took mud to make ceramic & used catalysts to make it harder & tougher than steel). Again, don't need to use a CG-based process to make it tougher than real-world metals if you can use a science-fiction catalyst-based product that at least sounds plausible (unlike most Star Trek "technobabble").

I could swear that in one of the books, it might have been House of Steele, it said they use grav fields to create denser alloys. However, it is also possible that I am just remembering something from a different series. They do use mas effect fields to create certain alloys in Mass Effect, among so many others.

I do remember the crystal armor as well because I thought that would be an interesting trade off for more protection but I believe the regular hull material was just called battle steels and if I am remembering correctly it would be the common stuff.

[glitterboy2098]

That being said, I agree that the major powers could do this, again just not certain why they would. Now agricultural stations, like in The Expanse, seem pretty reasonable especially for systems that have no earth like planet, have wrecked that planets environment, or have tried to move agriculture off world to restore that planet (I figure Motherhome has a lot of these and so does Goldie Lox).

the kind of ships i'm envisioning, which are basically more like the SDF-1 with its interior city than the BSG examples i gave, would serve a number of purposes.

1.) intergalactic travel, even with the speed boost that CG drives get, would still take months, possibly upwards of a year for some of the slower FTL ships. so having what amounts to a moving city and logistics hub that can lead convoys of smaller ships through the passage, and be able to provide facilities for shore leave, resupply, repair, etc to vessels and their crews in the convoys would be beneficial.

2.) When new regions open up, whether it is trade with a new empire or through colonization, having space stations at strategic points for trade and support is vital. but space stations take time to build, and that time while they are being built can be a real hindrance to a region's development, especially when it comes to stuff like colonization. so having what amount to mobile space stations which can move into place as the frontier and trade lanes expand and provide services while the more permanent stations get built is a significant role.

3.) similar to #1, travel over long distances within a galaxy, such as moving from one edge to the other, can take a very long time even with fast FTL speeds, and having ships that can handle large numbers of people for prolonged periods cycling through the galaxy allows population movement without said people always having to spend fortunes to contract a private ship specifically for the journey.

[ShadowLogan]

I agree, the problem that after almost 30 years the setting is extremely dated. It needs more sci-fi to balance all monsters and fantasy elements and I doubt we are getting any new books anytime soon so anything that gets added is just by the GM.

I agree, though I have to say I think the most "Sci-fi" book in the entire Rifts line is Mutants in Orbit, with the rest being closer to Science-Fantasy (at best) because the Fantasy element is alot easier to write and edit for than something more science based especially with the wacky physicis system the Palladium Engine is built upon. Some authors I will agree do attempt to add more science to the setting.

I think the best way to answer your basic question is to consider where on the Kardashev do you have to be to construct such Mega Structures AND where the Rifts/Palladium Space Powers fall on this scale? If these (for example) are K2 or better structures and the Palladium Space Powers are almost exclusively basically K1 that sort of answers the question you are seeking right there.

On the other end structures like this would be really hard to defend against fighters, assault craft, and missiles so might be a strike against them.

On the flipside, a Dyson Swarm Element is likely going to be hard to destroy/damage-significantly due to the shear mass/size (Wikipedia put a Collector at 1x10^7, or 10,000,000km diameter, which would dwarf the Planet Jupiter's ~143,000km diameter) of the thing with those methods. It is also worth considering what the purpose of an attack on a DSE is looking to accomplish. I also doubt it will be unprotected without active defenders of its own in those categories (if not capital ships), and due to energy transmission might have "no-fly-zones" nearby.

[green.nova343]

i would assuem that it less about using CG to support the building, and more the fact that IRL the biggest limiter in how tall you can build a building is how hard it is to lift construction materials to the upper reaches of it using cranes. with CG craft you can easily lift even heavy items to any height.

Glitterboy is correct. In the books it goes into great detail about two aspects of there version of anti-gravity and city construction:
- One is what GB just said using it in construction allowing them to go higher and higher.
- Two is using gravity fields to create stronger materials for construction. It does specifically say in several books that there is still a limit to how high as the ground can not take the weight so pretty sure they don't have active fields running.

the Greyson SkyDomes segments in "Flag in Exile" make this pretty clear. they're usignthe same tech that allows the massive towers on haven and manticore to instead build massive geodesic domes to contain sprawling towns and farms. said construction involves blasting down to bedrock, then drilling deep holes for immensely strong metal support struts which are socketed into place using special shapes to the holes, and the hole is then filled around it using a cement that has to be cured using special devices and sets nearly as strong as the girders it is holding into place. basicalyl all designed to make it as close to immovable and part of the bedrock as you can get.
the only use of gravity control technology is when they start lifting the cross girders and transparent metal 'window' panels into place to finish the dome.

I'm on my umpteenth re-read through the series, & not sure if I've gotten to the parts where they talk more about the Havenite/Manticoran skyscrapers. The domes, though...part of that was because of the environment they were dealing with (planet with huge concentration of toxic heavy metals in their soil & water, requiring massive decontamination every growing season of farmland, hence their initial push into building orbital farming & livestock facilities -- easier to clean up soil once then not expose it to the elements anymore). Their homes had integral filtration systems that would probably be the envy of any advanced bioweapons lab, but even the natives still had to use respirators if out in the atmosphere for too long...but the domes allowed them to build their standard buildings under a single dome without having to build the filtration systems into each building.

Most of the actual materials technology, however, doesn't seem to be involved with using CG tech to create the materials. For example, in The Short Victorious War, they talk about how Honor's new battlecruiser, HMS Nike, is using their new "grown" starship armor: essentially using nanotech to grow the armor as a single "crystal" (kind of like growing artificial gemstones in a lab). The benefit was to essentially leave no seams as potential weakpoints...but if they did need to fix anything, or access anything protected under the armor, it made it a huge b***h to do since the armor required special chemical catalyst cutting gear (apparently plasma/acetylene torches wouldn't cut it, pun intended). And from the terms Weber uses for a lot of the other tech -- the ceramacrete, for example, makes me think of "Jaynestown" from Firefly (where they took mud to make ceramic & used catalysts to make it harder & tougher than steel). Again, don't need to use a CG-based process to make it tougher than real-world metals if you can use a science-fiction catalyst-based product that at least sounds plausible (unlike most Star Trek "technobabble").

I could swear that in one of the books, it might have been House of Steele, it said they use grav fields to create denser alloys. However, it is also possible that I am just remembering something from a different series. They do use mas effect fields to create certain alloys in Mass Effect, among so many others.

I do remember the crystal armor as well because I thought that would be an interesting trade off for more protection but I believe the regular hull material was just called battle steels and if I am remembering correctly it would be the common stuff.

Is that one of the prequel series? I don't think I've read all of those yet (I still hadn't made it all the way through the later ones dealing with Mesa, to be honest).

[Warshield73]

the kind of ships i'm envisioning, which are basically more like the SDF-1 with its interior city than the BSG examples i gave, would serve a number of purposes.

I think the full cities with actual buildings might be a bit much. When I tried to picture what you were talking about I saw something more like a passenger liner with several interior areas that might be 4 or 5 levels deep and they would look more like a large mall with recreation areas and maybe even a holographic sky. I think Cloud 9 is probably more like what you would see than SDF-1 but hey it's a game so run with it.

1.) intergalactic travel, even with the speed boost that CG drives get, would still take months, possibly upwards of a year for some of the slower FTL ships. so having what amounts to a moving city and logistics hub that can lead convoys of smaller ships through the passage, and be able to provide facilities for shore leave, resupply, repair, etc to vessels and their crews in the convoys would be beneficial.

Something along the line of an amenities ship for large convoys. I could see that but not sure if you need a ship the size of a Packmaster, could probably get by with a ship the size of a Battlecruiser or even a Cruiser.

2.) When new regions open up, whether it is trade with a new empire or through colonization, having space stations at strategic points for trade and support is vital. but space stations take time to build, and that time while they are being built can be a real hindrance to a region's development, especially when it comes to stuff like colonization. so having what amount to mobile space stations which can move into place as the frontier and trade lanes expand and provide services while the more permanent stations get built is a significant role.

I can see this. In my games I tend to cover this with prefabricated space stations transported in sections by large, yes the size of Packmasters, transports and then deployed in system. Building an FTL capable ship for such a purpose seems difficult since there are so many frontier areas for the major powers. On the other hand, something along the line of a mobile platform that is constantly pushing into the frontier might make a lot of sense.

3.) similar to #1, travel over long distances within a galaxy, such as moving from one edge to the other, can take a very long time even with fast FTL speeds, and having ships that can handle large numbers of people for prolonged periods cycling through the galaxy allows population movement without said people always having to spend fortunes to contract a private ship specifically for the journey.

Air travel on our tiny little planet is complicated enough with most trips lasting less than a day. Can't imagine what the system is like when the time is days, weeks, months, years. I think you might see ships like this but I would imagine they would do "short" routes within a sector and you would have to move from ship to ship to ship to ship to get from one end of the galaxy to the other. I also wonder if most passenger ships would haul cargo. Since more cargo than people would be moving around I cauld see a class of large cargo ships with a variant that has a passenger area replacing 1/4 to 1/2 of the cargo area.

I agree, the problem that after almost 30 years the setting is extremely dated. It needs more sci-fi to balance all monsters and fantasy elements and I doubt we are getting any new books anytime soon so anything that gets added is just by the GM.

I agree, though I have to say I think the most "Sci-fi" book in the entire Rifts line is Mutants in Orbit, with the rest being closer to Science-Fantasy (at best) because the Fantasy element is alot easier to write and edit for than something more science based especially with the wacky physicis system the Palladium Engine is built upon. Some authors I will agree do attempt to add more science to the setting.

I agree with you about MiO but the fantasy element is just easier to write it is just easier to game in. I like the fantasy aspects of Phase World, just like I do in Star Wars, but to me Phase World just lacks those big sci-fi things. I think it is mainly the fact that the setting is just underdeveloped and with four different writers taking it in 6 different directions we got a setting with a lot of potential but no development.

I think the best way to answer your basic question is to consider where on the Kardashev do you have to be to construct such Mega Structures AND where the Rifts/Palladium Space Powers fall on this scale? If these (for example) are K2 or better structures and the Palladium Space Powers are almost exclusively basically K1 that sort of answers the question you are seeking right there.

I agree that the main powers of the 3G are K1 but that is focused mainly on power collection. All of these races have reliable FTL and full gravity control, something that from what I have seen is not addressed in the scale.

On the other end structures like this would be really hard to defend against fighters, assault craft, and missiles so might be a strike against them.

On the flipside, a Dyson Swarm Element is likely going to be hard to destroy/damage-significantly due to the shear mass/size (Wikipedia put a Collector at 1x10^7, or 10,000,000km diameter, which would dwarf the Planet Jupiter's ~143,000km diameter) of the thing with those methods. It is also worth considering what the purpose of an attack on a DSE is looking to accomplish. I also doubt it will be unprotected without active defenders of its own in those categories (if not capital ships), and due to energy transmission might have "no-fly-zones" nearby.[/quote]
I was thinking along two lines:
1) the way I have always interpreted the way FTL works, and I feel I am backed up by the Interdictor ship in fleets, is that a gravity will stop ships from approaching at FTL forcing what could be hours of sub light time for an attack. A swarm especially would not have enough gravity to provide that buffer so large capital ships could pop out right on tip of them.

Yes, they would have hours of notice of ships approaching at FTL but this strips away 1 layer of defense.

2) You don't need to destroy it, just wreck vital infrastructure.

I could swear that in one of the books, it might have been House of Steele, it said they use grav fields to create denser alloys. However, it is also possible that I am just remembering something from a different series. They do use mas effect fields to create certain alloys in Mass Effect, among so many others.

I do remember the crystal armor as well because I thought that would be an interesting trade off for more protection but I believe the regular hull material was just called battle steels and if I am remembering correctly it would be the common stuff.

Is that one of the prequel series? I don't think I've read all of those yet (I still hadn't made it all the way through the later ones dealing with Mesa, to be honest).

It is a prequel but not part of the Manticore Ascendant series. It has a short story about the building of the modern RMN and then the rest of the book is a great reference for ships and societies in the Honorverse.

[ShadowLogan]

I agree that the main powers of the 3G are K1 but that is focused mainly on power collection. All of these races have reliable FTL and full gravity control, something that from what I have seen is not addressed in the scale.

I agree the focus is on power collection and doesn't take into consideration things like FTL and gravity manipulation technologies. However since none of the societies being considered rate as K2, then that would mean Mega-Structures that require K2 level or higher are out of their reach. Neither FTL or gravity manipulation technologies would seem to change that IMHO, especially since we don't have some way to rate how much energy these technologies need in setting AFAIK. Which is one of those performance metrics that Palladium avoids listing in their stats that could be invaluable in general, but here could push them into K2 or higher.

I was thinking along two lines:
1) the way I have always interpreted the way FTL works, and I feel I am backed up by the Interdictor ship in fleets, is that a gravity will stop ships from approaching at FTL forcing what could be hours of sub light time for an attack. A swarm especially would not have enough gravity to provide that buffer so large capital ships could pop out right on tip of them.

Yes, they would have hours of notice of ships approaching at FTL but this strips away 1 layer of defense.

2) You don't need to destroy it, just wreck vital infrastructure.

Re: #2 first.
How do you wreck vital infrastructure on something that huge? The proposed DSE Collector size I could find on Wikipedia lists it at a size greater than the biggest Planet in this Solar System (Jupiter)? It might be more 2D than Jupiter, but to do any significant damage to it's infrastructure would be monumental undertaking I would think. Attacking a Dominator Star Fortress might be easier.

Re: #1.
A. What is the lower end in terms of mass that would have the same effect? Or put another way, how does mass of the object in space relate to the no-FTL shadow zone it creates? (and is it universal for all FTL types*) And how does the Star it is orbiting factor into this (and how close is the DSE to this shadow zone)?
B. Given the primary purpose of a DSE Collector, they could have protective shield(s) to protect against attack that would outclass anything a ship could carry (a DSE Collector is a power plants afterall, and one that is larger than any ship in the 3G). Their size alone also means they can have more than enough room (and power) to mount defensive guns in such number to out number a Fleet of ships. Nothing requires the DSE to be unprepared for conflict (or remain so if it was built originally unarmed).

*There are several: Contra-Grav (I think the main one of the setting), Rift, Worm-hole (Dominator), Space Fold (Intruders), and some seem to imply a Jump-Drive (it might be one of the others).

[Warshield73]

I agree that the main powers of the 3G are K1 but that is focused mainly on power collection. All of these races have reliable FTL and full gravity control, something that from what I have seen is not addressed in the scale.

I agree the focus is on power collection and doesn't take into consideration things like FTL and gravity manipulation technologies. However since none of the societies being considered rate as K2, then that would mean Mega-Structures that require K2 level or higher are out of their reach. Neither FTL or gravity manipulation technologies would seem to change that IMHO, especially since we don't have some way to rate how much energy these technologies need in setting AFAIK. Which is one of those performance metrics that Palladium avoids listing in their stats that could be invaluable in general, but here could push them into K2 or higher.

First I made an error. I meant to say the CCW and TGE are K2 but it was a typo. I should have said at least K2 so my error.

The problem with this scale is it is designed for hard science fiction so it doesn't fit well with science fantasy settings. I mean James S. A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) could probably tell you were on the scale the civilizations of the Expanse fall and I am almost positive the David Weber could tell you where the Honorverse is but good luck getting a definitive placement for Star Trek or Star Wars (I saw articles from level 2 to 3 for both).

The reason for this is simple we do not know what the power output of an advanced fusion powerplant or a matter/anti-matter reactor is. We also don't know how much of a cheat magic gravity and FTL will be or how much of those power requirements will skited by it.

Think of it this way. How much energy will it take to lift something 3 times your bodyweight off the ground? Now how much less is it if you use a lever or a pully? FTL, magic gravity, force fields these are some really powerful levers.

I was thinking along two lines:
1) the way I have always interpreted the way FTL works, and I feel I am backed up by the Interdictor ship in fleets, is that a gravity will stop ships from approaching at FTL forcing what could be hours of sub light time for an attack. A swarm especially would not have enough gravity to provide that buffer so large capital ships could pop out right on tip of them.

Yes, they would have hours of notice of ships approaching at FTL but this strips away 1 layer of defense.

2) You don't need to destroy it, just wreck vital infrastructure.

Re: #2 first.
How do you wreck vital infrastructure on something that huge? The proposed DSE Collector size I could find on Wikipedia lists it at a size greater than the biggest Planet in this Solar System (Jupiter)? It might be more 2D than Jupiter, but to do any significant damage to it's infrastructure would be monumental undertaking I would think. Attacking a Dominator Star Fortress might be easier.

How do you eat an elephant? Old joke but it applies, 1 bite at a time.

The segments are no different than a Battleship or other large ships. Individual areas will have MDC and they can be destroyed. You can hit transportation hubs, agricultural domes, power relays, etc.

Re: #1.
A. What is the lower end in terms of mass that would have the same effect? Or put another way, how does mass of the object in space relate to the no-FTL shadow zone it creates? (and is it universal for all FTL types*) And how does the Star it is orbiting factor into this (and how close is the DSE to this shadow zone)?

Good question. The four authors of the seven books (including one dedicated to military starships including an interdictor with gravity generators) have never told us. There even a lot of people who argue that gravity is not the issue but the atmosphere, even though we have that Interdictor with a gravity generator, and truthfully, they may be right given what little description we have.

The book says a CG needs to be deactivated 10k miles away, twice that is safe. In my game I say that a mas of an Earth sized planet requires that 10k mile limit and it goes up and down from there.

An individual section of a swarm would never have the mass necessary for more than a few hundred mile limit but again it is so vague that since it doesn't have an atmosphere at all then there would be no range restriction.

B. Given the primary purpose of a DSE Collector, they could have protective shield(s) to protect against attack that would outclass anything a ship could carry (a DSE Collector is a power plants afterall, and one that is larger than any ship in the 3G). Their size alone also means they can have more than enough room (and power) to mount defensive guns in such number to out number a Fleet of ships. Nothing requires the DSE to be unprepared for conflict (or remain so if it was built originally unarmed).

You are correct in all of this except weapons ranges. These segments can only mount the same number of weapons...lets say per square foot... as a warship, less if they want to use that space for civilian purposes.

Weapons have a range of a few hundred miles at most, with most weapons being in the 2 to 15 mile range and shield generators less than that. Missiles have great range except most ships have missiles of their own. This means that a mobile force would never have to deal with more than well a fraction of one percent of the array's defenses.

This also goes to what someone, maybe you, said about the fleet sizes. The fleet necessary to protect something like this would be huge and given everything about the setting I am just not sure if it is worth it for most governments.

Don't get me wrong, only the largest fleets could do real damage to a structure like this, but the attackers always have an advantage when attacking a system and that is they get to decide what to attack. Mobile forces then have to either concentrate to meet the attack, which leaves targets venerable to additional forces, or spread out and risk being defeated in detail.

I am not saying that this would be the reason not to build such a structure but it definitely would count against it.

*There are several: Contra-Grav (I think the main one of the setting), Rift, Worm-hole (Dominator), Space Fold (Intruders), and some seem to imply a Jump-Drive (it might be one of the others).

There is only one FTL Contra-Gravity drive. All of the others are more advanced forms of FTL with their own rules. I only care about actual CG FTL because this is just about the CCW and TGE,

[ShadowLogan]

The problem with this scale is it is designed for hard science fiction so it doesn't fit well with science fantasy settings.

Actually, the scale wasn't designed for Hard Sci-Fi, it can certainly be used this way due to the nature of hared sci-fi, but it was designed for levels of civilization (specifically early SETI).

I do agree soft Sci-fi and Sci-Fantasy are harder to place on the scale because it will have by their nature things that don't fit. However the definition for each level on the scale has been expanded by some to include other capabilities beyond just Energy Output...

https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scal ... vilization

If we go with the above Link it would suggest that K2 should be capable of moving planets (if not capable of destroying "smaller" ones). If this is included, then none of the 3G powers are at this level since CG Drives have trouble moving a 4.5km long ship never mind an actual planet.

The segments are no different than a Battleship or other large ships. Individual areas will have MDC and they can be destroyed. You can hit transportation hubs, agricultural domes, power relays, etc.

I agree they can do highly targeted strikes, but the raw size of the DSE likely will mean there will be all types of redundancy to keep things running along. It would be like razing Iowa to the ground and saying you've done significant damage to Earth's infrastructure.

The book says a CG needs to be deactivated 10k miles away, twice that is safe. In my game I say that a mas of an Earth sized planet requires that 10k mile limit and it goes up and down from there.

So at 10,000miles x Sun/Earth mass ratio (which is ~333,000) = ~3,330,000,000 miles (~5,328,000,000km) FTL no-go zone around Earth's Star.

Earth orbits at ~149,600,000km around the Sun, well with in a Stellar imposed FTL no-go zone based on mass using Earth as a reference point (IINM that distance works out to between Uranus and Neptune). So it would appear mass isn't the determining factor, but if it was...

You are correct in all of this except weapons ranges. These segments can only mount the same number of weapons...lets say per square foot... as a warship, less if they want to use that space for civilian purposes. (...)

I am aware of the weapon ranges. However, the Dominator Star Fortress has weapon ranges of 100,000s of miles (on par with 1E RT or Macross2 Zentreadi weapons). I also have to wonder if the reason those ships weapons with ranges in at best 100s of miles is because they are balancing available power and available space. Typically, an E-Clip powered weapon has less performance than one that can tap a Reactor in the setting, so imagine what the performance could look like if you had something that would make the Reactor look like an Eclip in terms of output.

I noted previously the size of DSE element, which is larger than the diameter of Jupiter (which is ~143,000km). For simplicity let's say someone built small and did one at the size of Earth in diameter (~12,000km). That would give them a surface area of ~127,800,491km^2. I am going to use the CCW's Emancipation Class Dreadnaught as the "standard" due to its size (IINM the biggest CCW spaceship), there might be ships with more guns in smaller package in the CCW or TGE.

The CCW's Emancipation Class Dreadnaught (Fot3G pg42-5) has an area of 4.5kmx0.6km=~2.78km^2 (x4 for all 4 sides will be factored in later), and it mounts 12x Anti-Ship Lasers and 48x GR/missile Batteries and 4 Cruise Missile Launchers (compared to a smaller Zentreadi Destroyer from Robotech/Macross2 that is really light). Based on the previous area, you could mount the equivalent of over 11,000,000 (that is 11 MILLION) Emancipation's into a DSE Collector the size of the Earth's diameter, never mind a DSE Collector at the correct larger size. And this ignores any Edge/Thickness mounted weapon emplacements OR any on the solar energy collection side.

Now due to range and elevation you aren't going to be able to bring all those guns to bear, but even if you restrict it to 100km radius zones on the DSE, that will still give you over ~45,000 Emancipation Dreadnaughts to contend with in each non-over lapping zone. And this assumes no energy weapon range improvements and using the Emancipation class as an average weapon quantity to area ratio.

Dominator Star Fortress Comparision

Spoiler:

at 48km in diameter, the sphere has a surface area of ~7 BILLION km^2, and packs in 5,103 beam weapons.

An Earth diameter sized DSE Collector would only be able to mount ~90 in terms of area (~.1.7%). Though any of these beam weapons out-class anything in the CCW or TGE

There is only one FTL Contra-Gravity drive. All of the others are more advanced forms of FTL with their own rules. I only care about actual CG FTL because this is just about the CCW and TGE,

Fair enough, but there are other powers in the 3G to consider... especially if we are talking about a hypothetical attack on a DSE. For example, while the Necrol DO use CG FTL, they are not actually subject to the 10k mile restriction (DB6 pg125), and I could see them attacking such a structure given their distaste for technology/machines (which a DSE is). Then you have the Intruders (DB3) who attack for who knows why.

[Warshield73]

The problem with this scale is it is designed for hard science fiction so it doesn't fit well with science fantasy settings.

Actually, the scale wasn't designed for Hard Sci-Fi, it can certainly be used this way due to the nature of hared sci-fi, but it was designed for levels of civilization (specifically early SETI).

I do agree soft Sci-fi and Sci-Fantasy are harder to place on the scale because it will have by their nature things that don't fit. However the definition for each level on the scale has been expanded by some to include other capabilities beyond just Energy Output...

https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scal ... vilization

If we go with the above Link it would suggest that K2 should be capable of moving planets (if not capable of destroying "smaller" ones). If this is included, then none of the 3G powers are at this level since CG Drives have trouble moving a 4.5km long ship never mind an actual planet.

I know the origins, I just meant how it is popularly appled. This seems radically different then what I have seen and seems a little out there. Now moving a planet would be a little much, but it really doesn't take much to destroy a planet, Deathstars not withstanding.

The segments are no different than a Battleship or other large ships. Individual areas will have MDC and they can be destroyed. You can hit transportation hubs, agricultural domes, power relays, etc.

I agree they can do highly targeted strikes, but the raw size of the DSE likely will mean there will be all types of redundancy to keep things running along. It would be like razing Iowa to the ground and saying you've done significant damage to Earth's infrastructure.

Yes actually you would. Just the number of people that state feeds vs. number of people in it would be catastrophic. Then there is horrible effect on transportation that would slow everything down, and that is if there is no debris in the air from nuclear strikes or asteroid impact. Iowa is also a major insurance and financial sector due to its extremely poor consumer protections and regulations so the financial disruption would be unreal.

Now you could choose plenty of examples in the U.S. or world where the only cost would be the human one but even then, you are going to have an outsized psychological impact. Then you have to look at replacement and repair costs. Now will this effect the entire planet, it depends on what effects you are looking for but sure maybe not. It will however impact the immediate area. You will reduce population of course but also whatever you destroy will be lost. If you want to see how that can effect a large, complicated structure you only need to look at how local events, like hurricanes or geological events such as regular volcanic eruptions like the 2010 Iceland eruption. It doesn't take much to disrupt a large complex structure and sometimes disruption is as good or even better than destruction.

No matter how big something is damaging or destroying a specific area will reduce the capability of that structure. On its own that may be a small, even imperceptible amount, but never underestimate the follow-on effects of something like this. In the end a structure like this becomes a lot like a planet and it will have all the same vulnerabilities as one.

The book says a CG needs to be deactivated 10k miles away, twice that is safe. In my game I say that a mas of an Earth sized planet requires that 10k mile limit and it goes up and down from there.

So at 10,000miles x Sun/Earth mass ratio (which is ~333,000) = ~3,330,000,000 miles (~5,328,000,000km) FTL no-go zone around Earth's Star.

Earth orbits at ~149,600,000km around the Sun, well with in a Stellar imposed FTL no-go zone based on mass using Earth as a reference point (IINM that distance works out to between Uranus and Neptune). So it would appear mass isn't the determining factor, but if it was...

We had the same problem in our game, and I think you are giving it too much credit for how well it was thought out. FTL is tricky because, especially in a game setting, you want limits. FTL in real space, not a hyperspace system, comes with real problems of "if you can go this fast why not ram an unmanned ship the size of Packmaster into a planet and 6 LYpH" which basically ends all wars, or more precisely ends the kind of war and conflict that is fun to play in.

Looking over my notes we used "real gravity" and for stars we just created a list of distance based on types and size. It is not canon but we know gravity shuts it down due to the statement in DB2 and the interdiction cruiser. Like I said some people say atmosphere is what stops it and they may be right, but that doesn't account for the interdictor, but in that case a Dyson swarm is even more screwed.

No matter what it is a Dyson Swarm will never have the same exclusion zone as a planet, even if it has a mass larger than most planets it will be dispersed over such a wide are that the actual gravity, magic plating notwithstanding, will be too low to do much.

You are correct in all of this except weapons ranges. These segments can only mount the same number of weapons...lets say per square foot... as a warship, less if they want to use that space for civilian purposes. (...)

I am aware of the weapon ranges. However, the Dominator Star Fortress has weapon ranges of 100,000s of miles (on par with 1E RT or Macross2 Zentreadi weapons). I also have to wonder if the reason those ships weapons with ranges in at best 100s of miles is because they are balancing available power and available space. Typically, an E-Clip powered weapon has less performance than one that can tap a Reactor in the setting, so imagine what the performance could look like if you had something that would make the Reactor look like an Eclip in terms of output.

First, and believe me this particular expired quadruped has been assaulted more than once, the weapons ranges are what they are. Now your idea about greater power giving greater range is interesting but there is nothing in any books that I have seen that would back that up. As for the Dominator Star Fortress that is just...well let me put it this way we ran the numbers and unless ever Phaseworld ship they used against the Dominators was 5 times more powerful than the defenses of Center it would have been impossible for them to beat even one of those ships. If even 5 of those ships existed there is no reason that the dominators don't control the entire three galaxies, and that is generous. A friend of mine equated it to the Spanish Armada of the 1800's trying to attack one Arleigh Burke Destroyer. The only problem the Burke has is running out of missiles.

Until someone revises the setting, which since there hasn't even been a new book in almost a decade is not likely, the weapons ranges are what they are.

I noted previously the size of DSE element, which is larger than the diameter of Jupiter (which is ~143,000km). For simplicity let's say someone built small and did one at the size of Earth in diameter (~12,000km). That would give them a surface area of ~127,800,491km^2. I am going to use the CCW's Emancipation Class Dreadnaught as the "standard" due to its size (IINM the biggest CCW spaceship), there might be ships with more guns in smaller package in the CCW or TGE.

The CCW's Emancipation Class Dreadnaught (Fot3G pg42-5) has an area of 4.5kmx0.6km=~2.78km^2 (x4 for all 4 sides will be factored in later), and it mounts 12x Anti-Ship Lasers and 48x GR/missile Batteries and 4 Cruise Missile Launchers (compared to a smaller Zentreadi Destroyer from Robotech/Macross2 that is really light). Based on the previous area, you could mount the equivalent of over 11,000,000 (that is 11 MILLION) Emancipation's into a DSE Collector the size of the Earth's diameter, never mind a DSE Collector at the correct larger size. And this ignores any Edge/Thickness mounted weapon emplacements OR any on the solar energy collection side.

Impressive math and your numbers look fine. Two points:
1 This would radically increase the cost of such a structure
2 This would mean that less resources are available for any, non-defense, related activities

All that being said if you are going to build one of these might as well go all out. It doesn't change my original point that only a fraction of those weapons would be available to repel any given attack due to range and while the attackers can constantly cycle in and out of range fixed defenses just have to sit there and take it.

I will say that this goes back to an early point that such structures seem unlikely given the ridiculously small military fleet sizes for the two major powers.

Now due to range and elevation you aren't going to be able to bring all those guns to bear, but even if you restrict it to 100km radius zones on the DSE, that will still give you over ~45,000 Emancipation Dreadnaughts to contend with in each non-over lapping zone. And this assumes no energy weapon range improvements and using the Emancipation class as an average weapon quantity to area ratio.

Dominator Star Fortress Comparision

Spoiler:

at 48km in diameter, the sphere has a surface area of ~7 BILLION km^2, and packs in 5,103 beam weapons.

An Earth diameter sized DSE Collector would only be able to mount ~90 in terms of area (~.1.7%). Though any of these beam weapons out-class anything in the CCW or TGE

These numbers are interesting, if you sphere was nothing but Dreadnoughts welded together with no other purpose and if this is a solid sphere and not swarm. In that event you would be looking at more firepower than the entire CAF military in one 100k radius which seems beyond ridiculous. This is like looking at the U.S. border and saying "in my example it ringed on all sides by naval guns and cruiser grade missile launchers". This is already a wildly fantastic discussion let us at least try not to get it into the absolutely ridiculous.

There is only one FTL Contra-Gravity drive. All of the others are more advanced forms of FTL with their own rules. I only care about actual CG FTL because this is just about the CCW and TGE,

Fair enough, but there are other powers in the 3G to consider... especially if we are talking about a hypothetical attack on a DSE. For example, while the Necrol DO use CG FTL, they are not actually subject to the 10k mile restriction (DB6 pg125), and I could see them attacking such a structure given their distaste for technology/machines (which a DSE is). Then you have the Intruders (DB3) who attack for who knows why.

Rift drives and Phase drives both have a similar limitation to coming out near planets and that accounts for most. As I pointed to earlier if you are attacked by a Dominator, you just die. You will never scratch his paint and he will obliterate everything you build from hours outside your range. Seriously look at the range of weapons comparison between an emancipator and then look at the speed of the fastest fighters. It takes hours for regular ships to close the range gap and all that time your just getting blasted by Dreadnought killing beam weapons.

Like I have said before we ran the numbers, did the spreadsheet it is just unbelievable. Truthfully outside of a Zentraedi fleet from Robotech there is not much that can threaten even one Dominator much less a group and if you do start to damage them they can fly away at speeds nothing in any PB setting can match, regenerate, return a day or so later at 100% while you are still picking up pieces and start all over again.

If you are trying to gage what defenses are necessary to defend a place based on the Dominators you might as well give it up.

[Warshield73]

Getting back to the OP I think it would probably be fine to have examples of star lifting and using fusion to create elements as this is not likely to effect PC's at all or the setting much.

As for megastructures is seems unlikely that the people of the Three Galaxies would invest the time and resources into things like shell worlds or Dyson Spheres/Swarms. We know that we have examples of planets with space stations that are effectively artificial rings around the planet (Terra Prime is one of a few places mentioned that has this) as well as few other places that have large shells of solar collectors to collect large amounts of a star's energy but a full sphere seems unnecessary given the extremely fast FTL and the number of uninhabited planets still available.

That being said I think we all agree that there are probably more than a few of these laying around parts of the Three Galaxies left over from some of the ancient races from the Second Galactic Era and maybe even from the First Race.

[ShadowLogan]

I know the origins, I just meant how it is popularly appled. This seems radically different then what I have seen and seems a little out there. Now moving a planet would be a little much, but it really doesn't take much to destroy a planet, Deathstars not withstanding.

For the most part it is a pretty arbitrary scale.

I'm actually of the reverse opinion, moving a planet or moon should be a lot easier than vaporizing one... especially if you are not in a hurry.

No matter how big something is damaging or destroying a specific area will reduce the capability of that structure. On its own that may be a small, even imperceptible amount, but never underestimate the follow-on effects of something like this. In the end a structure like this becomes a lot like a planet and it will have all the same vulnerabilities as one.

I don't discount the psychological aspects, just the ability to deal SIGNIFICANT damage to the overall physical infrastructure of the entire platform. As you say, dealing with one of these is going to be like dealing with a planet basically.

As for the Dominator Star Fortress that is just...well let me put it this way we ran the numbers and unless ever Phaseworld ship they used against the Dominators was 5 times more powerful than the defenses of Center it would have been impossible for them to beat even one of those ships.

I agree the DSF is out there in terms of power, and I have recently run the numbers but in a Megaversal Matchup, I'll post the results soon (separately), but RT-1E and Mac2 settings both have numerous ship types that in small numbers/combinations can match/exceed what a DSF can soak in terms of damage, their main weakness is soaking the damage a DSF can counter with so unless they win initiative on all ships you'll need a larger fleet. I haven't done PW or RT-2E due to the range gap, so unless the Dominator allows them to reach weapon range before he/she starts firing (which any analysis is going to be complicated by various ranges and other factors) and to note the previous mentioned all involved weapons of the same range, so no one had a range advantage and that damage was an all out 15-30sec of firing (depending on how one handles firing the 1x per 8minute BFGs w/faster firing weapons during/after/before).

mpressive math and your numbers look fine. Two points:
1 This would radically increase the cost of such a structure
2 This would mean that less resources are available for any, non-defense, related activities

Thanks.

A society capable of building a DSE though is likely going to be a post scarcity world, so "cost" and "resource" may not be as big a consideration as in our own. Plus, there is no reason they have to go that deep in terms of weapons emplacements, they could go lighter. It would also really depend on who/what they expect to attack them, and who would be foolish enough to attack them (remember these people are going to have to disassemble planets to build this thing, very few powers in the Megaverse are said to have or implied to have this capability AFAIK which is probably another strike against the idea of 3G having Mega-Structures like this among the 3rd Era Races, anything would likely be left over from the 1st or 2nd Era).

Rift drives and Phase drives both have a similar limitation to coming out near planets and that accounts for most.

I agree, but magic travel isn't just limited to Rifts Drives. Theoretically there are other options via Magic that aren't subject to those specific limitations or could be used in conjunction with the more conventional drives to get you close enough and then use secondary/alternate magic methods to close that last gap faster (not that there aren't counters to magic available).

[Warshield73]

For the most part it is a pretty arbitrary scale.

I'm actually of the reverse opinion, moving a planet or moon should be a lot easier than vaporizing one... especially if you are not in a hurry.

I agree it is arbitrary, that was sort of the point of my earlier post. One of the reasons I don't like to use it outside of theoretical long term discussions and especially in the more fantastical settings.

Neither of us said vaporize before, we said destroy. Now long before you can move a planet you would be able to move a Luna sized object to throw it at a planet. This is all you need to completely destroy a planet while making its resources available for extraction, right down to the planets core.

I don't discount the psychological aspects, just the ability to deal SIGNIFICANT damage to the overall physical infrastructure of the entire platform. As you say, dealing with one of these is going to be like dealing with a planet basically.

And as I said disrupting a planet is not that hard, especially when dealing with civilian level equipment.

I agree the DSF is out there in terms of power, and I have recently run the numbers but in a Megaversal Matchup, I'll post the results soon (separately), but RT-1E and Mac2 settings both have numerous ship types that in small numbers/combinations can match/exceed what a DSF can soak in terms of damage, their main weakness is soaking the damage a DSF can counter with so unless they win initiative on all ships you'll need a larger fleet. I haven't done PW or RT-2E due to the range gap, so unless the Dominator allows them to reach weapon range before he/she starts firing (which any analysis is going to be complicated by various ranges and other factors) and to note the previous mentioned all involved weapons of the same range, so no one had a range advantage and that damage was an all out 15-30sec of firing (depending on how one handles firing the 1x per 8minute BFGs w/faster firing weapons during/after/before).

Thanks.

A society capable of building a DSE though is likely going to be a post scarcity world, so "cost" and "resource" may not be as big a consideration as in our own. Plus, there is no reason they have to go that deep in terms of weapons emplacements, they could go lighter. It would also really depend on who/what they expect to attack them, and who would be foolish enough to attack them (remember these people are going to have to disassemble planets to build this thing, very few powers in the Megaverse are said to have or implied to have this capability AFAIK which is probably another strike against the idea of 3G having Mega-Structures like this among the 3rd Era Races, anything would likely be left over from the 1st or 2nd Era).

We ran those numbers when Fleets first came out. A Marduk base has a shot, if it gets initiative in can destroy the outer shell of the ship, which is all it takes as once that is down to zero the weapons can't fire, or at least that is how my group interpreted it. If however the DS gets to shoot, at all, the Marduk Base dies. We added in a few large Marduk and Zentran ships and eventually you can get to killing it but the losses are always horrific.

Zentraedi / Robotech doesn't do as well as Macross II. The biggest thing to remember is that the DS can basically retreat almost instantaneously and it regenerates.

The other thing to keep in mind is that in Macross II and Robotech the weapons damages and ranges are comparable across factions. There is nothing in the Three Galaxies that can touch a DS.

I agree, but magic travel isn't just limited to Rifts Drives. Theoretically there are other options via Magic that aren't subject to those specific limitations or could be used in conjunction with the more conventional drives to get you close enough and then use secondary/alternate magic methods to close that last gap faster (not that there aren't counters to magic available).

Possible. It is also possible that there are other tech options too, they just aren't in the setting and we have no stats to compare.