I don't even know what an Alderson Disk is, but I'm guessing "Niven Ring" is a "ringworld", while Dyson sphere is, obviously enough, a "sphereworld", right? If thats the case, wouldn't the sphere be better than the ring?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alderson_Disk

"ta erog what do you do for a living?"

Not really at liberty to say here,
But I can be general, I work at a large computer company (we make workstations to supercomputers) The systems I work on have lots of “0”s in the price tag , This is one of many different jobs I have had (all high tech). I can go down the hall and talk to people that have worked on just about any current “high tech” weapon system (though manly missiles) and sensor currently in use systems (you should hear lunch time talk). I also dabble in Military history, CAD, 3d animation, photography, lasers, high voltage experiments, and robotics . .
I also test games as a hobby

Sorry about being coy on exact info but this IS a forum
As you see I get to play around with allot (but then again my hair is also turning gray, so I have had time to) and my wife is effectively a walking library . . . very helpful.
But even then . . please do not take anything I say for total truth! I am not an authority, Look it up, ask me questions (but can point you in the right direction). . I do have opinions (though I try to highlight what they are) I do get things wrong or mess up on the translation to the more understandable version (allot of topics can’t be done justice with out a books worth of additional info . . hardly possible here).
It seems like people get here and other forums have some rather strange ideas on what IS reality, or how things work and what is not. I credit this to manly bad media (magazine and web mini articles), and lack of educate in rather focused areas. I try to quell some science myths and also have fun with QA ing a game and discussing it on these forums . . . something to do when the system in under test

Did anyone else just have the chorus to "Secret Agent Man" go through their head?

Oh well, at least his job is better than mine (not that thats very hard to manage...)

. . . well . . I wish. even though I have done allot of "fun" things . it is still often boring (why else would I check here during the day?) . Still some of the real life stories of some of my workmates are . . . wild.
At least for a geek ;0

what is that supposed to mean!?!?!

I come here for excitement of course   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alderson_Disk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niven_ring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Sphere

BTW Topopolis > Everything

Ya, these are great . . Niven does a good job with the ring world fiction though the story could have been better.

The Alderson Disk and Dyson Sphere while rather interesting also . .are really out there.

All 3 suffer from the fact that matter is just not strong enough to build these structures. (niven takes the least of the 3 and then nods at this problem)

But great Sci-fi nonetheless

The only support for dark matter is that galaxies have been observed to spin too quickly. Thus implying that there is more mass there then we can detect with our telescopes.

Ergo... Dark matter.


Likewise the only support for dark energy is that we've observed that all galaxies are thrusting away from each other at rates that can't be explained by any known force. We cannot detect what is causing them to move away from each other at that acceleration.


Ergo... Dark energy.



As to the TEC, I like to think of them as the US during WW2. By no means the most sophisticated player in the war. We had almost the worst technology of the allied and axis powers. The only power that was worse then us was perhaps the Russians and Italians. But we were surpassed by the English, Germans, and Japanese in almost all fields of science and engineering at the start of the war. And no one really caught up with the germans in most fields. The only thing we had that surpassed them was the Atomic bomb... but they might have developed it first if they weren't getting bombed and they knew how powerful it was...

Anyway, the TEC is huge... they have massive ship yards, massive mining operations, and an enormous work force upon which to draw.

Their primary advantage is that they can comfortably put two ships into combat for every one that any other party could bring against them... or perhaps 10 ships to every one... I'm assuming Advent and Vasari ships are superior on a 1 to 1 basis... but war doesn't work like that. Both sides throw everything they've got at each other... and for the TEC that means some serious number advantages.

I don't see why the TEC couldn't make a super weapon that was beyond the vasari or Advent... it would probably be something very crude and dangerous like the US's first atomic bombs... weapons don't need to be pretty. They just need to work.

I agree that both dark energy and dark matter feel like 'ether' for past ages.

true, but everyone knows that the big bang is wrong too