Potential power source for a megastructure/space weapon

[ImperiumSega138]

Hi!
My current issue I'm having is that I need ideas for a potential power source that my megastructure/space weapon could use as to harness energy from and use as part of its primary weapons system, any ideas?

Info:
My megastructure/space weapon is a massive installation which, when activated, will emit a powerful wave of energy targeting the intelligence (by this, I mean the brain and certain areas of it which corresponds with intellect) of all sentient biological life forms within its effective blast radius. The purpose of it is to reduce all intelligent life within its range back to a biological capacity before any real "intelligence" evolved in said life forms (and by this, I mean anything post-caveman).

The reason: To save all life within the universe from a parasitic entity called the "Reign" which assimilates other biological life forms who have a certain level of intelligence. The more intelligent the life form, the more intelligent the Reign becomes.

As for the power source of the megastructure/space weapon, i was playing with the idea of a Celestial body of some description (I.e, a star, a black - or white - hole, a supernova or maybe even a wormhole), I'm not entirely sure.

If you need to know anything more which might help, please let me know?

 

[zmunkz]

Most mega structures in speculative science are often powered by a star, and for good reason. There is a LOT of energy output easy to grab.

A supernova is an interesting idea, although it would make your weapon single use until it was migrated to another star and the star was primed for collapse. Also, not sure what material would withstand a supernova in order to absorb its output. Black holes are a lot better at absorbing energy than emitting energy, but I suppose you could come up with something. It is not immediately obvious to me how a wormhole would give you energy.

 

[VinceK]

I believe Stephen Hawking has written about harnessing radiation from a black hole. As @zmunkz mentioned, I assume you would be looking for a stable form of energy and a star would probably be the easiest to harness. Look up the Kardashev scale, it might provide you with some inspiration.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I believe Stephen Hawking has written about harnessing radiation from a black hole.

Not quite. Hawking has written specifically about Hawking radiation which are predicted electromagnetic emissions caused by Quantum effects near a black hole (namely particle and anti-particle creation) however this is as a potential answer to the information paradox in rotating black holes. Very low energy levels.

Depending on the sort of energy output needed I would suggest somehow tying the technology with a Quasar or a Type 2 Supernova. As you are using really speculative science or science fantasy as I like to call it then you can play hard and fast with the rules.

Maybe the nova version of the device could be less powerful than the quasar version.

Alternatively you could have the device someone using the warped space-time of an SMB and blasting the entire galaxy! Bearing in mind there is potentially a SMB at the centre of every Galaxy this could be some sort of last resort - as in it sterilises the Galaxy of all intelligent life.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Not quite. Hawking has written specifically about Hawking radiation which are predicted electromagnetic emissions caused by Quantum effects near a black hole (namely particle and anti-particle creation) however this is as a potential answer to the information paradox in rotating black holes. Very low energy levels.

Depending on the sort of energy output needed I would suggest somehow tying the technology with a Quasar or a Type 2 Supernova. As you are using really speculative science or science fantasy as I like to call it then you can play hard and fast with the rules.

Maybe the nova version of the device could be less powerful than the quasar version.

Alternatively you could have the device someone using the warped space-time of an SMB and blasting the entire galaxy! Bearing in mind there is potentially a SMB at the centre of every Galaxy this could be some sort of last resort - as in it sterilises the Galaxy of all intelligent life.

Actually one could harness a great amount of power from a black hole, (for it is a very nice compact volume, making it nice to hide in a megastructure), by taking advantage of the gravitational gradient and controlling the accretion disk. i.e. deliberately throwing in mass and then exploiting the energy that will get liberated as the material is squeezed and rubbed out in its journey to non-existence. Gives you control on where the energy will come out etc.. Actually:

1) Utilising such gravitational gradient would probably work quite well with a relatively light black hole too (hey, why not have a primeval, non-stellar one - that we don't know exist, but hey it's speculative SF - or even an artificial one) so that the total mass does not weigh the megastructure down.

2) For added control, make it a charged black hole - the megastructure can then use the more powerful EM forces to keep the black hole corralled inside.

Well, possibly. It would make more sense that utilising a 'star' for me (I mean how does one make a star power a weapon...I like details.)

Supernovas - meh! so one shot (Plus how does one protect your megastructure from the indiscriminate nature of a collapsing star.) And Quasars? Even allowing for a bit of free forming and wild speculation, the sheer amount of mass needed to have one of them...I mean your megastructure would be, er... the size of a galaxy probably to contain it. Nah, not convinced.

EDIT

Further thoughts... a neutron star/pulsar is another very nicely compact star (~15km diameter I think) that will naturally emit radiation. And in a very nice 'beam' form. What this radiation pulse will be...well it's part of a machine, just say you can manipulate it to produce what you want to be a 'death ray'.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Supernovas - meh! so one shot (Plus how does one protect your megastructure from the indiscriminate nature of a collapsing star.) And Quasars? Even allowing for a bit of free forming and wild speculation, the sheer amount of mass needed to have one of them...I mean your megastructure would be, er... the size of a galaxy probably to contain it. Nah, not convinced.

Hey I didn't determine how speculative! With regards to a Quasar my thought was you just seed the Quasar with the energy or whatever particle you want to hurl at everyone and then just let the Quasar do it's well erm. Quasing?

I really like you accretion disk idea VB, that's a very cool concept - using a charged spinning accretion disk as an energy source - you could even thro stars at it - get a star close enough and it starts leeching into the accretion disk.

Peter Hamilton has a powered black hole in The Naked God - pretty cool stuff.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I was thinking about the proviso that Imperium wanted a megastructure - got to fit the power source in it, sort of!

But hey, you want speculative (VB has a look at his 'big gun' designs)....

Why not make a device that generates an unstable false vacuum, which in popping into existence automatically generates a new 'big bang' of some sort (unstable in that you probably need to switch it off before it takes over the rest of the universe). In fact a 'geometrically asymmetric' false vacuum, so that the resultant energy only goes one direction and not in a sphere. (Advantage - no need to cart around a lot of mass...) Or perhaps a wormhole that you open directly into the heart of a nearby star - hence letting all that compressed plasma burst out along the direction of the wormhole (Advantage, don't cart around the mass, and you could use a planet's own star for it's own weapon of destruction). Or perhaps cause the collision of two black holes. Or maybe one could tap directly in the multi-dimensional brane system of the vaster multiverse making a higher energy region connect with your relatively lower energy region, causing energy transfer...

 

[VinceK]

Not quite. Hawking has written specifically about Hawking radiation which are predicted electromagnetic emissions caused by Quantum effects near a black hole (namely particle and anti-particle creation) however this is as a potential answer to the information paradox in rotating black holes.

Livescience.com have an article in which it refers to a Stephen Hawking lecture where he puts forward the idea that tiny black holes could power all the world's energy needs.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Livescience.com have an article in which it refers to a Stephen Hawking lecture where he puts forward the idea that tiny black holes could power all the world's energy needs.

Yes, tiny black holes can reputedly generate a lot of energy. But as we don't get a free lunch in this Universe, at least as we understand it at the moment, scientific thinking is that the more energy they generate the quicker they evaporate and then disappear. And doubly unfortunately it is the size that is important. The smaller they are, the more energy they generate.

I guess one could use a relatively 'large' black hole* with a long lifetime to produce a good source of energy for making water into steam and generate electricity that way (as I guess you only need it to make a temperature above the boiling point of water)...but to make a weapon that destroys planets that is going to require a much larger burst of energy from the black hole - I guess - which is going to require a much smaller black hole (hence your power source will not last very long at all.)

I suppose if you had a machine that could generate a tiny black hole on demand and use it immediately - a bit like loading a gun with a bullet and firing - that'd make more sense. But then what powers that device to produce the black hole???...all a bit chicken and egg

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* I have the rough maths somewhere to estimate the mass required but I'm guessing you'd need something tiny compared to natural stellar black holes, but still quite big - proper planet sized maybe???

 

[Phyrebrat]

Pretty much everything I know about science I learnt from VenusianBroon.

And I just learnt some more.



pH

 

[Venusian Broon]

Pretty much everything I know about science I learnt from VenusianBroon.

And I just learnt some more.



pH

Apart from fish

I shall leave that cryptic comment lying there as a head scratcher.

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Thanks guys for the help! Erm, I don't know about it making a new big bang (wouldn't that destroy everything in my current universe? I only want to wipe out intelligent life not stars and planets etc) it seems the star may be the way to go having read all your comments but I tried to come up with something other than a star because that would make my megastructure resemble Larry Niven's Ringworld (as it too has a star - be it artificial or not) on its inside section. Fair enough, that he wasn't using the star as a power source for a universal weapon, so points to me there Thanks again guys.

 

[ImperiumSega138]

The only idea I have for the shape of the megastructure is a ring, or more specifically a "Dyson Ring" unfortunately that makes it close to both Ringworld and the Halo's. I was looking online for different types of megastructures and came across the different versions of "Dyson" rings, satellites, Spheres etc, but again that makes me feel like I'm being to close to the two existing megastructures mentioned above, is that ok? Or would you guys say it's a bit to close?

 

[Venusian Broon]

The only idea I have for the shape of the megastructure is a ring, or more specifically a "Dyson Ring" unfortunately that makes it close to both Ringworld and the Halo's. I was looking online for different types of megastructures and came across the different versions of "Dyson" rings, satellites, Spheres etc, but again that makes me feel like I'm being to close to the two existing megastructures mentioned above, is that ok? Or would you guys say it's a bit to close?

Go with what sticks in your imagination...however if whatever that is, is making you uncomfortable that it is close to some other creation, then maybe you just need a bit longer pondering and further researching. And then you may decide it's okay, or you may come up with something better. Personally, I think the rule with big dumb objects is to take the last authors creation that you've read and then add to it to make it bigger...

actually, Dyson Sphere - TV Tropes

gives a list of examples of DysonSphere type artefacts in all sorts of media (there is also an entry on Big Dumb Objects)

In fact if you have a couple of days, the whole of Tvtropes is a good read

Just off the top of my head I think it should be a solar system sized Tesseract. Sort of a big daddy Borg with an extra spatial dimension (Have a look in Wikipedia.) Telling you, fourth dimensional objects in three dimensional space are the next 'in' thing...

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Thanks for the advice! I'll keep that in mind while I continue to ponder and research

 

[Venusian Broon]

See, now I've started reading it again. There are little gems and nuggets everywhere in that website -

(On Dyson sphere's in literature)

Illegal Aliens by Phil Foglio and Nick Pollotta. The inside of the shell was covered in solar collectors, and the people lived inside the shell, as basically it was a big spherical shaped space station.

• Two(?) spheres are actually mentioned. The second was discovered in a previously-unknown sector of space. When opened, it was found to contain a slightly smaller sphere. Which itself had another inside, and so on. The discoverers abandoned their investigation after going several layers deep, positing that "With so many amateur lunatics around the universe, nobody wanted to meet professionals."

 

[ImperiumSega138]

See I did some reading to and well I thought that instead of a star I could use a "theoretical" white hole or a supernova...

White Hole: Considering that white holes supposedly spit out matter, the megastructure could use said matter, breaking it down and convert it somehow into a form of energy. The white hole would be contained with the center of the megastructure by use of a or several "gravity well's"

Supernova: Like the white hole scenario, the supernova could somehow be contained within the center of the megastructure. It could be squashed inside it and as it tries to explode outwards the inner edge of the megastructure could have some way of folding the explosion back on itself, so if I'm correct but don't quote me on it, the supernova would in theory, be "feeding" itself energy as it tries to move outwards and the inner wall pushes it back on itself thus making it a contained, continuous explosion. This would also stop the megastructure/space weapon being a "one time weapon" and has no need to move across space to find another supernova or star ready to be primed to collapse....would that work?

 

[Venusian Broon]

mmmm depends on how 'realistic' you are wanting to make your weapon....

The physicist inside me says NO to white holes. Partly because they really don't look like they exist and so therefore are really very arbitrary. But particularly as they break the second law of thermodynamics. (Mind you, so would starting a new big bang with false vacuum, so there is that. )

As for a supernova's bouncing off the inside of the megastructure....supernova's are very energetic. (I mean we have use them to find the distance to galaxies that are about 20 Giga light years away*, because they are temporally as bright as the whole of the galaxy they are situated in!) So your megastructure would have to be impossibly robust to maintain itself, as it would be extremely close to ground zero. Should really be vapourised by the supernova**. And even if it could cope with the event...the explosion would eventually die down (purely by energy being transferred by light and material hitting the megastructure and leaving the system by transferring through the shell of the megastructure.) You would end up with a sphere filled with shattered star - clouds of heavy atoms, radioactive and a small remnant (white dwarf/neutron/black hole take your pick.) And you'd have an extremely hot and radioactive megastructure. So still one shot in my mind

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* To give you a rough idea how far away that is, the Andromeda galaxy is only 2.5 M ly's away. 20 G ly's is 8000x further away.
** I'm guessing here but the megastructure could be glowing at the wholesome temperature of a good few million kelvin after a few minutes of thermal equilibrium with a supernova at least. That better be some damn fine (non-physical and totally made up) material that you are going to make your megastructure out of!

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Ok you make a valid point on the white holes but isn't everything in the universe technically bound by nature's rule of equal opposites? I mean like light and dark, life and death, creation and destruction, the beginning and the end. So even if it is theory, would it be a realistic probability? I mean if a black hole sucks everything in what's not to say that each black hole is connected by some form of Einstein-Rosen Bridge to another dimension where the matter sucked in by a black hole is throw out as it's basic atoms via a white hole, either in a different dimension or some other part of our universe or even another point in time and space? I know that what I'm saying is just wild speculation and theoretical but it might be possible. As for breaking the second law of thermodynamics and that being a law of physics, some people say that we simply dont know enough or can gather enough knowledge and information at our current technologically stage because we are not advanced enough yet to travel and explore the universe and all its natural phenomena, so how can we definitely say that this is this and that is that, so who knows, our entire understanding of the laws of the universe and physics may not be so written in stone as we think. Isn't that worth a thought? I mean we only calculate how the universe works through the only way in which we can perceive it and that is mathematics, what's to say that the universe doesn't work in a different way to which we as a young species, can perceive? We once thought the world was flat and made by a divine being. We have atleast prove that the world isn't flat. (Also not confirming nor denying the universe's creation was by a divine being. I am not religious myself and consider my life to belong to science more than a religious nature but that's my point, we simply dont know enough yet.) There may come a day when we discover a new law of thermodynamics or physics which either contradicts another one or replaces it all together. Just a speculation, mind.

As for the supernova, it could be contained within an energy field/shield of some description (thought it would most likely have to be a VERY strong one at that) Then the problem of heat becomes irrelevant, as the energy field/shield would contain the heat within itself.

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Or to remove the problem of the energetic force of a supernova all together, the aliens who built the megastructure would be smart enough (obviously, if they could built a megastructure in the first place) to be able to create either an artificial star or supernova that was small enough, but powerful enough to power the megastructure. Huh? That's an idea which also doesn't break any laws of the universe, etc.....right? Lol