Nicoll-Dyson Beams: Weaponizing Stars

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Recommends Thucydides · 2018-01 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How to destroy a star system?”

A K2 level civilization should be able to harness the power of their home star (or any star they control) and create a Nicoll-Dyson Beam [LINK] . A very interesting video is here [this video] as well. [LINK] with enough energy, anything is possible Essentially, you will be sending so much energy into the system planets will ablate away (which should solve your pest control problem) and the extra energy impacting the star will upset the rate of fusion reaction, triggering giant flares as a minimum, and possibly evaporating the outer surface of the star as well. Mad scientist Alexander Bolonkin [LINK] even believes that adding extra energy to the star's outer layers could trigger a runaway fusion r

Recommends Ryan_L · 2020-11 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “In the far future would weaponizing the sun or parts of it be possible?”

This can definitely be done if you can build a Dyson Sphere. Imagine you have built a Dyson Sphere. Then a war breaks out between you and a neighboring solar system. If you open your Dyson sphere on the side towards your enemy, most of your sun's energy will be focused in that direction like a deathray. This is called a Nicoll-Dyson Beam or Laser [LINK] Here is a good video [this video] explaining the Nicoll-Dyson Beam.

Recommends Tom J Nowell · 2020-11 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “In the far future would weaponizing the sun or parts of it be possible?”

Of course! There are lots of ways to do that, here are several: Stellar Engines Supernova Nicoll Dyson beams Stellar Lifters Mirrors Blackhole bombs Ascending Toposophic Levels Tippler Cylinder Build a Stellar Engine Move your star to a more strategic location, or cause problems by moving it in unhelpful ways. Kursgesazt has a video about stellar engines [LINK] , here's several possible designs: [LINK] This is assuming you can't just apply the FTL technology your universe has to the star. Many scifi novels talk of entire planets being moved through hyperspace junctions etc, but stellar engine theory is based in our own universes physics. The shield version is called a Shkadov thruster and wo

Cites Thucydides · 2016-10 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “What power source could accelerate my O'Neill cylinder to fractions of c?”

For ships of this mass, the only sensible means for propulsion are off board power being beamed to the ship. Scaling a laser driven sail in the manner of Robert L Forward's proposal is a bit of a stretch at this scale, the small exploratory spacecraft he proposed required massive sails, a focusing lens over a thousand kilometres in diameter and a battery of solar power stations and lasers in orbit around Mercury with a beam power measured in Terawatts. Scaling this up is simply a matter of engineering. A post in NextBigFuture [LINK] about Tabby's star speculated the variable light curve was caused by large mirrors orbiting the star, with some the size of the Moon's orbit around the Earth. Wi

Cites Thucydides · 2016-10 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Effective range of laser weapons in space”

Two very interesting but quite different questions here. Lasers can be built at such scales that you could fire them at other star systems and deliver energy. Robert L Forward did the calculations for an interstellar starship powered by massive laser driven lightsail [LINK] . Of course to power it, you needed terawatts of energy to drive the laser, and a lens over a thousand kilometres in diameter to focus the laser on the target spacecraft light years away. Scaling the idea even further, you can create a Nicoll Dyson Beam [this video] and destroy entire solar systems across the galaxy [LINK] This is strategic level weaponry, and requires either a cooperative target, like the laser sail starship,

Cites Thucydides · 2016-11 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How do I build my Space Fleet?”

To put a different spin on things, you don't even have to leave the Solar System to conquer the Galaxy; just create a Nichol-Dyson [this video] beam and start vaporizing offending planets from light years away. With a bit of retuning, the beam can then be used to launch giant lightsails to target systems at a high percentage of c if needed. The other main method of rapid conquest (well, relatively rapid) is to send " Von Neuman [LINK] " machines. This can actually be complimentary with using Nichol-Dyson beams to propel them through space. The Von Neman machines can enter the new solar system and immediately begin converting matter and energy into a new generation of machines and launching appara

Cites Thucydides · 2017-08 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Are there any real reasons for interstellar conquest?”

Interstellar conquest will be far different from anything else that we have seen or done in history, so it really needs to be in another category. The energy, time, and resources needed to carry out an interstellar war will be so great that normal justifications we accept on Earth simply won't do. Resources? Any solar system [LINK] is overflowing with energy and material resources. The single moon Europa is estimated to have 3 times as much liquid water as the entire planet Earth, and that is one moon out of the 67 orbiting Jupiter, and not counting the other known moons, tens of thousands of asteroids or millions of comets (not to mention all the bodies in the Kruiper belt and cometary halo

Cites Thucydides · 2018-03 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “What weapon of mass destruction could theoretically vaporize a whole solar system?”

In terms of technological weapons with a sort of realistic hand wave, you could build a Dyson swarm [LINK] around a star and use it to power a Nicoll-Dyson beam [this video] . [LINK] Nicoll-Dyson beam in operation The energy of the beam would be sufficient to vapourize the planets and small bodies orbiting the star, and if focused on the star for a sufficient length of time, could provide enough energy to essentially "evaporate" the star as well. It is also possible to accelerate the rate of fusion reactions by dumping energy into the star, and essentially creating a flare star or perhaps even a false Nova, energized from without. The downside of this is the beam propagates at the speed of light.

Cites Enthusiastic Leviathan · 2018-08 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Planetary defense in an interstellar society”

Expand and fortify. If you can't stop the enemy from shooting, give them more to shoot at. Your homeworld should be your last line of defense, not your first. It's less a question of protecting a planet , and more a question of fortifying a solar system. As other answers have pointed out, if you've got efficient space travel, you can effectively annihilate a planet comparatively easily. One good asteroid nudged on a collision course, one big enough kamikaze ship (or fleet of kamikaze ships), and wham bam, no more planet (to speak of). It doesn't take much to render a planet uninhabitable. So how do you protect against your comparatively probable doom? You don't let them get close to your pla

Cites Thucydides · 2019-02 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “The Worldkillers - Method I: Oceans”

As noted in the comments, an RKKV [LINK] is by far the best way to destroy any planet, and it is pretty adaptable too. A race of alien beings living in the cloud banks of a gas giant planet would be vaporized just as easily be an RKKV impact in their planet as we would be. However, if the desire is to heat the planet to the point the oceans boil, you would have to do some pretty heavy duty engineering. As a BTW, once the stratosphere gets "wet", the ultraviolet radiation from the sun dissociates the hydrogen and oxygen in the water vapor and triggers a moist greenhouse [LINK] , effectively sterilizing the planet and rendering it unfit for future use. The simplest "low tech" means would be to