Nicoll-Dyson Beam

Description

The Nicoll-Dyson Beam is a megastructure, which utilize Dyson Spheres, Dyson Swarms, and massive reflective constructs to utilize a star's energy. These buildings have the potential to focus a large section of energy into one point, as a phased array emitter. On newer Nicoll-Dyson Beam iterations, fine-point lasers have been used to be focused into one point, causing more potential for damage.

Nicoll-Dyson Beams are potentially powerful weapons, but their full potential has never been explored due to the difficulty of creating them. Rivaling forces could easily halt construction, unless the system was heavily protected. It usually take decades to build a single beam, and even then, parts of the device could easily fail from cosmic debris or accidents.

Ever since the War of the Ancients, Nicoll-Dyson Beams have rarely been used destructively. The Commonwealth was the primary user of Nicoll-Dyson Beams, which happened to be very useful for ridding distant forces. These were usually countered or deflected, though some managed to obliterate fleets belonging to the Quintet Puontari Federation.

In recent times, the Commonwealth has become less interested in using these devices for destruction, and more for defense purposes. The reason being that they are now capable of destroying entire worlds without much effort. This has caused the Commonwealth to focus on building new Nicoll-Dyson Beams to defend against possible future attacks.

Wormhole Usage

Combined with Wormholes, Nicoll-Dyson Beams can be exceptionally dangerous. Almost every modern Nicoll-Dyson Beam utilizes wormholes, which can transport the beam across numerous systems in very short periods of time. It is now believed that Nicoll-Dyson Beams can be used to destroy planets before they even get a chance to react. This technology has rarely been used in war, but modern-day editions of course carry wormholes now.

The primary problem with these kinds of Nicoll-Dyson Beams is that they are resource costly. The materials needed to create one are very large and uncommon, especially for the wormhole gates.. It usually takes years or even decades to create one, as the delicate systems are created. Wormhole alignment and placement may take even longer. This problem has caused many smaller governments to not even bother using these powerful devices, since most of their military problems could be solved much quicker and easier by a fleet of ships.

Non-Destructive Use

Destruction is not the only purpose for Nicoll-Dyson Beams. In fact, they are considered to be a 'last resort' type of weapon. Their other uses are usually in the form on sending energy in concentrated packets of solar energy. This solar energy can also launch object at near super-luminal speeds, which can be useful for interplanetary trade. These are used by less advanced civilizations with none or unreliable FTL to send probes to other star systems.

Utilizing wormholes in a non-destructive manner, Nicoll-Dyson Beams can send this useful energy to various star systems. This is particularly effective on high-mass hypergiant stars, which produce energy for eons at a time. Designated power banks in different system can easily receive the energy from a Nicoll-Dyson Beam, whether it be with wormholes or non-FTL means.

More refined processes have been innovated and aided with Nicoll-Dyson Beams, such as Terraforming and Terrasculpting. Terraforming of cold outer planets can be easily accomplished by lowering the reflectivity or power of the lasers. This task is usually done on systems with low-mass stars, since overheating cold planets with standard reflectors is much less likely. Many tens of instances of this kind of terraforming has been done in the past few millennia, and it is noted to be one of the quickest and most efficient ways

Terrasculpting has been made easier from Nicoll-Dyson Beams, as previously mentioned. A small focused beam or several tiny beams from a Nicoll-Dyson Beam can etch details onto a planet's surface, with a very high level of detail. These are usually used as 'rough' outlines for modifying a planet's surface. Higher options can be a bit destructive, but can melt down larger features like mountain ranges.