Dyson spheres in fiction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a listing of the use of the Dyson sphere concept in popular fiction. For a discussion of the general concept and its history, see the main article.
In science fiction some additional fictional technologies are described to enhance convenience and possibilities. One of them is the use of "gravity generators" to bind an atmosphere onto the surface of the sphere, inside or outside.
Most fiction depict the Dyson shell variant. Unless otherwise noted, that is the type of Dyson sphere in the instances below.
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[edit] Television
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics".
- Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda - the episodes "Its Hour Come Round At Last" and "The Widening Gyre" - The Magog Worldship. Several planetary objects with cave systems, physically locked in close proximity to a small sun, somewhat like the Dyson net variant of the Dyson sphere.
- In Crest of the Stars, the capital of the Humankind Empire Abh, Lakfakale, contains and is likely powered by a Dyson Swarm.
[edit] Written
- Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. The novel which inspired Freeman Dyson to propose the concept of the Dyson sphere.
- The Star Trek novel The Starless World by Gordon Eklund.
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dyson Sphere by George Zebrowski, Charles R. Pellegrino. A follow-up to "Relics".
- The novels Orbitsville, Orbitsville Departure, and Orbitsville Judgement by Bob Shaw.
- The novel Spinneret by Timothy Zahn (Dyson net).
- The novel The World is Round by Tony Rothman.
- Two novels by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson - These are notable in that the sphere in these novels is inhabited on the outside, producing an unusual environment with both very low gravity and an atmosphere hundreds of miles deep.
- The novels Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton.
- The novel Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg.
- The novel The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter.
- The novel The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons, featuring a partly completed sphere, being grown using advanced biotechnology.
- The short story Star Light, Star Bright by Robert J. Sawyer.
- The novel Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer.
- The Doctor Who New Adventures novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch.
- The novel Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks; several Spheres mentioned only in passing as casualties of the Idiran-Culture War.
- The novel Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds.
- The novel Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds.
- The novel Russian Spring by Norman Spinrad. (Brief mention in a news blurb)
- The "Cageworld" novels Search for the Sun!, The Lost Worlds of Cronus, The Tyrant of Hades, and Star-Search by Colin Kapp. Features concentric nested Dyson shells built from collected interstellar matter, also inhabited on their outer surfaces.
- The novel Illegal Aliens by Nick Pollotta and Phil Foglio mentions two Dyson shells. The first, simply called "Big", is the headquarters of a galactic federation. The second is unnamed and apparently consists of nothing but nested Dyson shells built by an insane race to cope with their sun getting smaller.
- The novel The Singers of Time by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson visits a parallel universe totally covered in Dyson shells, where only the farthest quasars are visible (already covered, but the light from them is still travelling). They were constructed by a formerly biological race that slowly converted their bodies to cyborgs and then full robots, the only logical evolution being the creation of a Type V or VI civilization.
- The novel Heaven's Reach by David Brin explains a more advanced (and more fragile) form of the Dyson sphere known as a Criswell Structure. This type of sphere utilizes fractal geometry to further maximize the light capturing inner surface as well as increase natural stability. Billions of these have been placed around slow burning red stars for extended periods of habitation by ancient lifeforms awaiting transcendence to a higher form of life.
- The novel Polity Agent by Neal Asher He describes under 'The Cassius project' a Dyson sphere under construction.
- The lengthy series of "WebErotica" by Elf Mathieu Sternberg about many races of Anthromophs (Centaurs, etc.) that inhabit a Dyson Sphere created by a human at the beginning of time can be found at http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/journals/index.html
- The short story Hold Until Relieved, by William H. Keith, Jr. Part of Keith Laumer's Bolo universe. Galactic core surrounded by Dyson shell.
- The novel "Federation World", by James White, partially set in a terraced Dyson sphere, which rotates to provide internal centrifugal force as a substitute for gravity. Since the terraces have different radii of rotation, alien species native to multiple gravity levels can be accommodated.
- In the novel Accelerando by Charles Stross, a Dyson swarm (possibly a Dyson bubble) of computronium forms a massive matrioshka brain around the sun providing virtual space for trillions of uploaded human minds and corporate AI.
- At the conclusion of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, the majority of the human survivors travel through a rift in slipspace to reach a habitat built by the ancient Forerunners that is separated from normal space and guarded by a massive latticework of automated drones. This habitat is actually a compressed Dyson Sphere, and is to serve as an effective bomb shelter from the activation of the Halo network.
[edit] Comics
- The sci-fi webcomic Schlock Mercenary by Howard Tayler features an alien race known as the Gatekeepers, who live in habitats hanging from the interior surfaces of Dyson Bubbles they call Buuthandi (an abbreviation of the Gatekeeper phrase "Buut go buut-buut nnaa-nnaa cho handi", which translates to "This was expensive to build", or more literally as "Expensive and expensive-expensive [expletive] we built").[1] They use these Dyson bubbles to collect power with which to operate a galaxy-wide network of transportation wormholes.
- The manga BLAME! by Tsutomu Nihei. In the artbook, BLAME! And So On it is revealed by the artist that the "city" the characters keep referring to and are currently wandering in is actually a Dyson Sphere extending to the orbit of Jupiter.
- In the Marvel comic series New Mutants (original series) the rock star Lila Cheney, a mutant with the power to teleport across interstellar distances, had a home on an abandoned Dyson Sphere.
[edit] Games
- The PC game Freelancer by Microsoft Game Studios shows a Dyson Sphere in the last system visited in the game campaign. It was constructed by either the highly advanced "Dom Kavash" civilization, or their servant race the "Nomads".
- The PC game Homeworld by Relic Entertainment contains what appears to be a half completed Dyson Sphere in Mission 13, The Karos Graveyard. It later turns out to be the site of a massive ship battle, where the vessels were never salvaged. Homeworld 2 later revealed the large bits of wreckage viewed in the distance to be from a massive ship that broke apart many years ago.
- The PC game Mission Critical by Legend Entertainment
- The PBeM Game Quadrant Delta
- In the Warhammer 40,000 fictional universe, The Outsider, a C'tan, is said to inhabit a Dyson sphere.
- The PC game Space Empires IV and Space Empires V by Malfador Machinations allows the construction and colonization of Dyson spheres (called "sphereworlds")
- The PC game Prey is played inside an alien Dyson Sphere.
- The PC game Alpha Centauri by Firaxis Games refers to a Dyson Sphere in one of the game endings.
[edit] Websites
- The collaborative worldbuilding website Orion's Arm describes several fictional planetary systems which incorporate Dyson Swarms, which orbit the local star and collect energy to use for life support, industry and computation.[2]
