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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Imagine the energy crisis of a '''really''' advanced planetary civilization. They've used up all their fuels, they depend on solar power. An enormous amount of energy is generated by the local star, but most of the star's light doesn't fall on their planet. So perhaps, they would build a shell, to surround their star, and harvest every photon of sunlight. [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Such beings]], [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun
[[Big Dumb Object]] or [[That's No Moon]] not big enough for you? Look no further. [[Sci Fi]] authors have made ''solar-system-sized'' artifacts into a trope of their own. The [[Trope Namer]] is physicist and mathematician [
▲{{quote|''"Imagine the energy crisis of a '''really''' advanced planetary civilization. They've used up all their fuels, they depend on solar power. An enormous amount of energy is generated by the local star, but most of the star's light doesn't fall on their planet. So perhaps, they would build a shell, to surround their star, and harvest every photon of sunlight. [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Such beings]], [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun And Profit|such civilizations]], would bear little resemblance to anything we know.''|The Dyson Sphere, in a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|nutshell]], as described by [[Carl Sagan]].}}
While Dyson himself originally saw his concept as a ''cloud'' of many separate [[Space Station|orbiting habitats and power-stations]], most media depictions show a single continuous solid ''shell'' completely enclosing its star. This is an acute case of [[Sci
▲[[Big Dumb Object]] or [[That's No Moon]] not big enough for you? Look no further. [[Sci Fi]] authors have made ''solar-system-sized'' artifacts into a trope of their own. The [[Trope Namer]] is physicist and mathematician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson Freeman Dyson], who theorized in a 1959 scientific paper that, given the ever-increasing demand for energy typical of industrial civilization, [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] might need to capture ''all'' the energy radiating from a star.
▲While Dyson himself originally saw his concept as a ''cloud'' of many separate [[Space Station|orbiting habitats and power-stations]], most media depictions show a single continuous solid ''shell'' completely enclosing its star. This is an acute case of [[Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]. Constructing such an artifact would probably put a civilization at least 2.0 on the [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun And Profit|Kardashev scale]].
The technologies and resources needed to do it raise the [[Awesome but Impractical|question of whether a race that could build one would still need it]]. It has been estimated that constructing the sphere would require the energy equivalent of the lifetimes of ''several'' stars AND the raw materials of more than the entire solar system, which rather defeats the purpose of the initial construction.
For a real-life example: there is absolutely ''nothing'' stopping the human race from building a bridge across the Pacific Ocean. Humanity has all the engineering know-how and resources needed. So why haven't we? Well, we already have ships and airplanes, not to mention things like
The [[
This trope doesn't require an object to block ''all'' light from the star, but it does require construction on that scale. To be a Dyson Sphere, the artifact must:
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Subtrope of [[Hollow World]]. Compare [[Big Dumb Object]] and [[That's No Moon]]. [[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused with]] the Dyson Ball, [[Boring but Practical|which is part of a vacuum cleaner]].
* In response to letters prompted by his original paper, Freeman Dyson replied: "A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of 'biosphere' which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects travelling on independent orbits around the star." The evolution of the term "Dyson Sphere" is an example of [[Memetic Mutation]]. Dyson himself referred to his idea as a "shell" or "swarm", and his use of [
▲=== Some useful notes on the [[Real Life]] physics of objects this size: ===
* The surface gravity of the outside of a stereotypical 1-AU solid shell is likely to be negligible. Gravitational acceleration due to the Sun out there is less than 1/1000 g. Calculus and physics (the [
▲* In response to letters prompted by his original paper, Freeman Dyson replied: "A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of 'biosphere' which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects travelling on independent orbits around the star." The evolution of the term "Dyson Sphere" is an example of [[Memetic Mutation]]. Dyson himself referred to his idea as a "shell" or "swarm", and his use of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere "biosphere"] was in the ''ecological'', rather than any ''geometric'' sense. But then [[Rule of Cool]] caught up with him.
** Also, increasing the mass of the star increases its brightness, so the sphere would be larger as well.
▲* The surface gravity of the outside of a stereotypical 1-AU solid shell is likely to be negligible. Gravitational acceleration due to the Sun out there is less than 1/1000 g. Calculus and physics (the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem Shell Theorem]) tell us that the gravitational effect of any spherical shell we're outside of is equivalent to that of the same mass as a point source at the shell's center; we can assume that the sphere doesn't have mass orders of magnitude more than the Sun, considering that it has to be made of locally available materials and the Sun weighs much more than everything else nearby combined, so don't expect much.
▲** Also, increasing the mass of the star increases its brightness, so the sphere would be larger as well.
** It might be possible that a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] has a reason to build a Dyson Sphere around a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole, or has to build a smaller, 'hot' Sphere. In that case the gravity might be higher.
* The surface gravity on the inside of a 1-AU solid shell is also negligible. [
** Spinning such an object would allow for near-normal gravity at the surface, but as was discovered by [[Larry Niven]], the strength-to-weight ratio of the material required to withstand 1g of centrifugal force across this scale would be something around 1000 times that of steel.
** Of course, [[Speculative Fiction]] writers are allowed to [[Hand Wave]] it as 'a network of gravity generators', [[Functional Magic]], etc.
* A [
* A solid Dyson Sphere would not be stable around its star without some form of correctional thruster system or [[Applied Phlebotinum]] to keep everything bolted in place.
** [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|Harder]] settings may couple the star to the mass streams of active supports holding up the sphere.
* A point which is often ignored is that a solid shell will not only have eternal day, but also, instead of reflecting sunlight into space, will reflect it upon the sphere itself. This means that a shell around a Sun sized star will have to be not 300 million km across, but more likely about twice as much in order to maintain reasonable temperatures or using materials either with high efficiency in the production of energy (if the interior wall is dedicated exclusively to energy production) or with a high thermal conductivity coupled with an interior wall with high absorption of radiation.
** A reasonable partial solution to this is for a star-faring society (and any society able to build a Dyson Shell is likely to be star-faring at least potentially) to select a smaller, cooler star (say a class M) and build their Shell around it, letting it heat up to hotter intensities due to reflection.
* A Dyson sphere could be used as a computational node for a single massively powerful supercomputer, presumably either a segment of, or the entire physical being of, some kind of massively advanced [[Artificial Intelligence]] entity, presumably of the post-[[The Singularity|Singularity]] kind. Such an entity would be called a "[
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Blame]]'' takes place inside of one. This is hinted at throughout the story, but the biggest piece of evidence comes later on when the protagonist finds a chamber that is absolutely massive. Its measured diameter is the same as that of the planet ''Jupiter.''
** This theory is given more creedence in the prequel ''[[
* The [[Gainax Ending|ending]] of ''[[Futaba
* While not spanning the entire Solar System, in ''[[Sol Bianca]]'' {{spoiler|Earth}} is like this. Interestingly, the government tries to hide the fact that the plant is already dead and thus the people live ON the sphere, not shielded by it on the planet.
* Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
** Christopher Archlight (called simply V most of the time) uses an Xyz monster called Number 9: Dyson Sphere, which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. In fact, in terms of sheer size, it's no doubt the biggest Duel Monster in the history of the franchise, being the size of a small star, and it seems to be one of the most powerful Numbers. {{spoiler| Despite this, in his duel against Kaito, [[Not So Invincible After All| Kaito manages to destroy it and win the duel]].}}
** Later in the series, while battling against {{spoiler| Mizar of the Barian Emperor}}, he introduces an evolved version of this creature, Number C9: Chaos Dyson Sphere, which not only boasts more power, but can absorb opposing enemies into itself and inflict damage directly to the opponent without having to attack them. {{spoiler| Unfortunately, its effect is exactly what Mizar needed to break free of the lock he and Trey/III had set, costing them the Duel and their lives.}}
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[New Mutants]]'', an ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' spin-off from Marvel Comics, featured a Dyson Sphere belonging to Cannonball's then-girlfriend, Lila Cheney.
== Fan Works ==
* The Republic of Zeta Cygni in ''[[Undocumented Features]]'' is based inside a Dyson Sphere transported (!!) into place around that star by a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] for its founders.
== Literature ==
* In [[Alastair Reynolds]]'s ''House of Suns'', Dyson Spheres made out of perfectly reflective [[Ringworld Planet|Ring World Planets]] are used to encapsulate stars that are about to go supernova.
* ''Orbitsville'' and ''Orbitsville Departure'' by Bob Shaw featured a solid Dyson Sphere. (But in this troper's opinion totally wasted the concept on soap-opera plots.)
* [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[
** The [[
* A Dyson Sphere made of a forcefield holds the [[Sealed Evil in
* The humorously tiled ''[
** It also proposed a solar-cell sphere around the orbit of Mercury, held up by the solar-sail effect and leaving a gap around the ecliptic for the planets and the aforementioned cloud.
* ''Illegal Aliens''. 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.
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** Orbitals are actually a lot smaller that Ringworlds - think ''[[Halo]]'' (it's where Bungie got the idea in the first place). The Culture does have Ringworlds (they lost three in the war with the Idirans) but they're rare and regarded as somewhat wasteful since you could build thousands of orbitals with the same material.
*** Dyson Spheres are referenced in the ''casualty list'' of the Culture/Idiran War at the end of ''[[Consider Phlebas]]''.
* The ''[[
* Part of ''The Time Ships'' by [[Stephen Baxter]] is set in a Dyson Sphere.
* In the final ''[[Hyperion]]'' book, ''The Rise of Endymion'', the Ousters are growing an organic Dyson Sphere around a star. It does not have gravity. While {{spoiler|this particular one is destroyed by the Pax war fleet it is revealed that there are more in existence.}}
* The title object in ''Wall Around a Star''.
* ''Second Genesis'' by Donald Moffitt is mostly set on a Dyson Sphere composed of planet-orbit sized disks, used to power a massive interstellar transmitter. (The rest of the story is set on another of Dyson's conceptual objects, a [
* William Forstchen's ''Gamester Wars'' universe has a Dyson Sphere setting that's still being
* Half of ''[[Alastair Reynolds|Century Rain]]'' is set in one of these, but it wasn't built for the normal reasons. The inside of the sphere is patterned with stars that match the stars in our own solar system, and by some pseudo-scientific method they shift as our own stars would, so that those inside the sphere don't know that they're not really on Earth.
* In Robert Silverberg's ''Across a Billion Years'', some archaeologists discover an artifact left behind by a billion-year-old vanished civilization that leads them to the Dyson Sphere that the civilization disappeared into.
* ''[http://www.xenology.info/index.htm Xenology]'' lists [http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/19.2.5.htm several projects beyond even the scale of a normal Dyson Sphere.]
* George Zebrowski's ''[
* ''[http://www.xenology.info/index.htm Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization]'' discusses [http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/19.2.4.htm several types of Dyson Sphere-scale projects] and [http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/19.1.1.htm construction materials], as well as "[http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/19.2.5.htm Galactic Megastructures]" which are [[Up to Eleven|even larger]].
* The jungle world of Pryan (World of Fire) in the ''[[Death Gate Cycle]]'' is eventually revealed to be a Dyson's Sphere. Not much is done with this concept, apart from the facts that there is no night on the planet except in areas where night cycles are created by artificial means, and its nature makes navigating the planet when one was expecting a more normally arranged world rather difficult.
* In Housuke Nojiri's ''Usurper of the Sun'', the [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] start building one around ours.
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
** In a ''[[Star Trek:
** There's also one in ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]'', but called a Thul Sphere after the financier. Needless to say, it gets blown up.
** In the non-canon novel series ''[[Star Trek: Titan]]'', the crew of the U.S.S. Titan uncover evidence of the existance of what may be the largest lifeform in the galaxy, a living Dyson Sphere distantly related to an alien lifeform the Enterprise encountered in ''[[Star Trek:
** In one of the other non-canonical novels, part of the ''[[Star Trek: Millennium]]'' trilogy, O'Brien is trapped in one of these for what seems like years as the [[Fate Worse Than Death]] meted to him by the Pah-Wraiths.
* In Gene Roddenbery's ''[[Andromeda]]'' the [[The Mothership|Magog Worldship]] is somewhat closer to the original concept of a Dyson Sphere but even more fantastic in some ways. It consists of twenty inter-connected planets surrounding an artificial sun. If the stresses involved in connecting twenty planet-sized bodies in stable orbits around a sun isn't enough, the entire thing could ''[[That's No Moon|move]]''.
== Tabletop Games ==
* One of the C'tan stargods in ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Traveller]]''. A Klemperer Rosette created by the [[Precursors|Ancients]] exists in the Tireen system in the Vargr Extents.
* ''[[Spelljammer]]''... First, Crystal Spheres as such (e.g. Realmspace has pseudo-stars, walking cursed people and ''big magical scroll-like writings'' on its inner surface). Also, while [http://www.flickr.com/photos/23109322@N00/2059380289/ Penumbra]'s Stellar Well isn't a Dyson Sphere, it's a large enough part of it, and the disk behind it is of Dyson Sphere scale, as they separate Whildspace from the Phogiston. These may be naturally occurring Dyson Spheres, or maybe they were built by the gods, because the gods are afraid of the Phlogiston for some reason. Or because the gods are afraid of mortals and the Spheres are supposed to keep them in, or they were build by [[The Old Gods]]... [[Riddle for the Ages|Nobody knows.]]
* ''[[
* ''[[AT-43]]'''s Therians freaking ''love'' Dyson Sphere, so much in fact they plan on making the whole universe into them.
* ''[[Magic:
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', there is an Xyz Monster called [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Number_9:_Dyson_Sphere Number 9: Dyson Sphere], an OCG/TCG version of the card used by V in the anime, as well as its upgraded form, [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Number_C9:_Chaos_Dyson_Sphere Number C9: Chaos Dyson Sphere]. (See the entry in the Anime/Manga folder above.)
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Prey]]'' takes place, for the most part, in an organic/cybernetic [[Womb Level|living]] Dyson ''spaceship'', the "Sphere". It's essentially a smaller version of this trope, with a small dwarf star at its core.
* Shows up in the final level of ''[[Freelancer]]''.
* Strangely, the world of Atreia in the MMORPG ''[[Aion]]'' was one. [[The End of the World
* ''[[Halo]] Wars'' has a micro Dyson Sphere in the finale. The [[Expanded Universe]] has one the size of a solar system; time passes much slower inside the sphere than it does outside.
** Here an actual reason for ''why'' an advanced civilization would build one is given. The Shield Worlds were bunkers where the Forerunners would take shelter when the Halo Array was triggered; considering they were trying to shelter the entire population of an interstellar empire and possibly less-advanced sentient species, it is understandable they would need a lot of room.
** ''[[Halo 4]]'' will take place largely from within a Dyson Sphere called Requiem. It is similar to the Halo Wars example, but instead of an "inside-out" planet, this sphere is a shell which contains another planet inside. The shell does appear to have a geology of its own, though.
* In ''[[Infinite Space]]'', {{spoiler|the Dyson Sphere covers the Sun, absorbing its energy to empower the True Void Gate}}. {{spoiler|Taranis successfully destroyed it in the end of the game at the cost of his own life, preventing the Overlords from destroying the universe further}}.
* In ''[[
* You can actually ''build'' one, as of ''[[Space Empires]] IV''... or you could build a massive war fleet for [[Awesome but Impractical|one-tenth the cost]].
* One alien race in ''Fargate'' has one of these as their home system. As these aliens possess no apparent mechanical technology but are the masters of biological manipulation, the entire double-layered Dyson Sphere is grown organically. It looks very fleshy.
* In ''[[X (
* The [[Ascend to
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]''
** The F'sherl-Ganni have built several of these. They call them "buuthandi", a shortened version of a F'sherl-Ganni phrase that roughly translates to "This was [expletive] expensive to build" (fully transliterated as "expensive and expensive-expensive [expletive] we built."). At one point, the characters gather a fleet to ''assault'' one. The author tried to depict them more realistically then a solid shell build around a star. In this setting Dyson Spheres (there are 5, well 4 now after one was destroyed) are constructed from a flexible material. They are practically
** Also, there's "All-Star", a "matryoshka brain" designed to [[Brain Uploading|"ascend" consciousness]] of vast amount of sophonts (the whole population of a thriving galactic civilization would take less than 1% of its capacity) into its hardware. That one is solid.
** A typical [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|Exodian]] exogalactic vessel is "only" the size of a big gas giant. But they still count, if only due to the power source: little white dwarf star, purpose-made by [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2019-10-21 blowing up an existing larger star].
* The ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Punyverse is revealed to be contained in one.
* In ''[[Dreamwalk Journal]]'' the world of Cyeatea, with its immense jungle housing a peaceful culture of sexually-insatiable anthropoid insects and spiders, is apparently a habitat within a Dyson Sphere called Velveteen. However, there is only one reference to this in a [[All There in the Manual|related text piece]].
== Web Original ==
* [http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4845fbe091a18 Many types] appear in ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* Umbra, the Big Bad in the 1984 animated series ''[[Mighty Orbots]]'' WAS a Dyson Sphere. He was the core of the Shadow Star, a world so large it contained its own internal sun.
* In ''[[Rick and Morty]]'', the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Cromulons]] have one, which they transport planets to for their [[Deadly Game]]. Seeing as the Cromulons themselves are the size of planets, it's not too much of a stretch that they could build it.
== Real Life ==
* There are quite a few stories of small children getting the misconception Earth is like this.
** And of some grown-ups mimicking this, completely disregarding the fact that Earth would be a Dyson Sphere if the [
* Some folks at SETI want to use some recently installed IR telescopes for searching after Dyson Spheres. While some feel it would be a waste of the usage time of a scientific instrument, others say that these spheres should stick out like sore thumbs and therefore it would be silly at least not to check.
** This has been done, as part of the [https://web.archive.org/web/20100112144939/http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/ WISE] spacecraft's all-sky infrared survey. Among other things, WISE was designed to discover brown dwarf stars with surface temperatures similar to Earth's within ~30 lightyears of the Sun. It would also have found 1-AU-radius Dyson Swarms around Sun-like stars out to >3000 lightyears. [[Absent Aliens|It didn't find any]].
* Between 2015 and 2018 there was serious speculation among astronomers that, based on extreme and irregular fluctuations observed in the light received from it, the star [[w:KIC 8462852|KIC 8462852]] might be home to an "alien megastructure" such as a Dyson Swarm or other such non-solid, non-contiguous structure. However, by January 2018 additional observations of KIC 8462852 taken continuously over an extended period suggest that it's more likely a dust cloud causing the variations in its light.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Otherworld Tropes]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
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