Rogue Rings

[Drashner1]

I'm still puzzled about the high mass of this structure. If it is an S4 brain with a thin coating of habitability on (or near) the outside, wouldn't a Jupiter-mass (or thereabouts) be adequate?

Agreed that in purely practical terms you only need a Jupiter brain (and equivalent mass - call it several hundreds Earth masses) to create a self-ascended S4. If the project is supported by an S5 or higher (and if that support includes the creation of the onboard S4), it could be even less as more advanced plasma processors or other computronium is employed.

However, also agreed with Selden that this project likely has more to do with creating a big habitat/structure than with actually producing a housing for an S4 (for which it is massively oversize). So the S4 is the onboard overseer rather than an end in itself.

Having said all that - I do think we should give some additional thought as to why this structure is being built/contemplated by Terragens. 5 million times the surface area of Earth is just a middling size habitat by Y11k standards. Places like Kiyoshi or Kepleria dwarf it in terms of habitable area and could readily replicate the environment if that was desired. A ringworld (1AU radius, roughly 1 million km wide) would be nearly as large and require only a fraction of the mass being used.

So what is it being built for?

Yes, we do have the MPA (and probably smaller groups scattered around) who like to build huge megastructures as art or for the challenge or for fun or the like. But in terms of raw living area (as described so far) this structure is not that impressive. Building a big habitable structure in deep space is also honestly not a big deal for a civ that has conversion tech readily available. Artificial illumination would be trivial with such tech.

Not arguing against doing this per se - but I think we need to come up with some larger purpose than just 'because we can' as a reason for why some group in the setting would construct this thing. For example:

We say that Terragens have attempted/are attempting some number of intergalactic expeditions or long range missions within our own galaxy (to galactic center for example). The relevant articles are all old and all make a point of saying the odds are not deemed good that the mission will succeed - but we can tweak that if we want. So - maybe this thing is an attempt to cross intergalactic space? To the Magellanics or maybe even Andromeda? Or maybe it's a form of 'deep time habitat' - intended to operate in the cold and dark of deep space while a slow living IR focused ecology lives on it and maybe while some number of sophonts slumber within it in stasis or as slow running uploads? Something else?

My 2c worth,

Todd