#alien megastructures

[twiglet192]

STELLAR ENGINES: USING A STAR AS A STARSHIP

Introduction Imagine looking up at the night sky and knowing that humanity has the power to move entire stars across the Galaxy. This concept isn’t pure fantasy. A future technology could move stars using stellar engines. This hypothetical megastructure enables an advanced civilization to harness the energy of its parent star and even guide its solar system to a safer or more hospitable region…

[positron2399]

"Crabs" and their tin cans

Just some mostly finished artwork for a superhero story I'm ~trying~ to write, don't count on it ever coming out. While I have yet to name these crustacean-like sophonts, they'll play a very important part of the story, with the narrative being split between humans, more specifically the one turned into a superman stand in (that weighs a good fraction of a gigaton), and well, these things, more specifically a girl attempting to be a masked vigilant.

The world of these "lobsters" orbits an ancient F-class star, putting their planet at the tail end of supporting complex multicellular life... they're used to the "shitty" environment. not that any of them are particularly worried, their planet's still habitable for another 150ish million earth years and they could easily leave within that time frame... they got O'Neill Cylinders ffs.

will try to add docking ports at some point

@jellynyann @the-real-loser-otaku-girl @ki-2-your-heart @tearykitten @a0rt-a @bladeechan @

Also, they're parasitoids heavily inspired by the "vertebrates" from "Snaiad" (C.M. Kosemen), so y'all can probably figure out what the black tips of females are.

[grayrazor]

One of my preferred answers to the “Fermi Paradox” is that the reason we don’t see alien spaceships and Dyson spheres everywhere is because the universe is relatively young and nobody’s had the time to reach the point where they can build any of that stuff yet.

Somebody has to be first, why not us?

[thefiresontheheight]

Ohhhhh this is gonna be sci-fi HORROR isn’t it

[rj-drive-in]

Bounds Of Credulity Department:

If I have to tell you which famous author this story homages, then I just don't know what I'm going to do with you.

PHOTO FINISH © 2025 by Rick Hutchins

On the best of days, the dome of the Beta Telescope at Hammil_U, Farside, was very much the textbook definition of unkempt, as one might expect of a lab used primarily by three grad students in astronomy and their professor. But on one particular day in December (it will surprise no one to learn that it was the sixteenth), it bore all the signs of a hovel that had not been attended by any efforts at housekeeping for at least a lunar month; which, in fact, it hadn’t.

The sole occupant of the dome, Arthur Minehead, was as unconscious of the empty pizza boxes and old candy wrappers as he was of the rather spectacular view of the towering crater walls several miles distant outside the dome’s portholes. His attention was solely focused on the screen of his portable computer, which was currently connected to the telescope’s memory core.

So preoccupied was he that he did not realize that he had company until his visitor cleared his throat and tapped lightly on the bulkhead with his knuckles.

“Hey, Arthur,” said the visitor, rather apologetically. “Sorry to interrupt. Er… the door was open.”

Arthur looked up from his laptop, blinking rapidly, his attention returning from a distance of quite a few light years. “Charles,” he said. “No, that’s all right. Come in. I guess I haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy.” Charles Colombo was, like Arthur, a graduate student in astronomy; but his stomping ground was the nearly identical dome of the Alpha Telescope, almost a kilometer to the other side of the observatory quad. “We’ve been making some… uh… good observations over at Alpha.”

“Same here,” said Arthur. His eyes flickered to his portable comp and he quickly dimmed the screen– which Charles did not fail to notice. “So what can I do for you?”

Charles shifted uncomfortably and scratched his head. “Doctor Gernsback mentioned that you guys have called a press conference for this afternoon.”

“That’s right. Sorry, but I can’t give anything away ahead of time. It’s very hush-hush.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here.” Charles trailed off into silence and succumbed to another bout of foot shuffling and head scratching.

“Well..?” prompted Arthur.

“The thing is,” said Charles slowly, “we’ve called a press conference also.”

Arthur was slightly taken aback. “Really? You’ve got a big announcement?”

“Yeah,” said Charles flatly. “It’s pretty major.”

“That is bad timing,” said Arthur. “Look, I can’t really tell you anything, but you probably want to reschedule. I can safely say– and no offense– that you’ll be completely overshadowed.”

“I don’t think so. Like I said, we’ve got something pretty major. Trust me on this: Whatever you’ve got, this is bigger.”

Arthur chuckled. “I seriously doubt it.”

The two men stared at each other for several moments.

“How about,” said Charles finally, “if we grab a bite to eat?”

*******

The central arboretum was only ten minutes down the tunnel by electric cart. Arthur and Charles spent the trip making small talk– mostly about sports as the Moon has no weather to discuss– and then parked at the food court. They picked up a bucket of crispy wings and two side orders of fries at Plato’s Man, grabbed a couple of cans of JJ from a vending machine, and then rented a small alcove at Somerset’s– Victorian style, with red bricks and a holographic fireplace.

Charles closed the privacy curtain as Arthur spread lunch out on the dark wood table between the luxurious armchairs.

“So,” said Arthur, touching an unobtrusive switch on the mantel, which caused the holographic fire to spring to life, “what have you got?”

Charles sipped his beverage and said, “You first.”

Arthur laughed good naturedly as he took a bite out of a crispy wing. “Nice try. But you came to me, so it’s on you.”

“All right. I’ll tell you. But Professor Campbell will go supernova on me if he finds out.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

Charles leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’ve been photographing an extraterrestrial space probe within the solar system.”

Arthur’s jaw literally dropped, nearly into his fries.

“What?! I mean… what?!”

“It’s true. We first spotted it about a month ago, while we were collecting data on the new Green Spot on Neptune.”

“Do you mean to sit there and tell me that aliens have sent a space probe to study the Earth?!”

Charles sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. It’s an artifact. A relic. We postulate that it’s the alien equivalent of a Voyager or Pioneer, something that just passed on into interstellar space when its mission was over.”

“Well, go on!”

“As you can imagine, we know very little as yet. It’s crossing through the solar system at about 28 kilometers per second and its closest approach will bring it just inside the orbit of Mars. It’s about the size of a bus and pockmarked down to our best resolution. If there were ever any markings, they’re long gone, although we have hopes that an electron microscope will be able to read something.”

“Well, it must have been out there for… for…”

“Hundreds of thousands of years,” nodded Charles. “The most interesting thing is that Catherine thinks she can see the terminus of eleven tiny struts– evidence of a solar sail long since worn down by atomic hydrogen and dust. We’ll have to wait to confirm that, of course. What we can see are seven perfectly recognizable radio dishes. These people seem to have liked odd numbers.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Very probably Tau Sagittarii. If not, then from somewhere very far away indeed.”

“Have you… er… listened..?”

“As a matter of fact, Tau Sagittarii has been checked a couple of hundred times over the years. It was the closest possible source of the Wow Signal back in 1977. It’s always been completely silent.”

Arthur shook his head. “Then the civilization that launched it is probably extinct.”

“Possibly. Hundreds of thousands of years is a long time and we have no way of guessing the typical lifespan of a technological civilization. But they may have just moved on to some other form of communication. Or they may simply have no interest in communicating with us. Or it may just not be possible for us to detect signs of civilization at that distance.”

“Oh, I think it’s possible,” said Arthur quietly. “Will we be able to recover the probe?”

“Certainly! We’ve calculated its path to the hundredth decimal place for the next several millennia. But there’s no reason to think we can’t customize a robo-probe and have it out there within a year.”

“This is uncanny!”

“So you see what I mean then?”

“About what?”

“The press conference. Obviously, you’ll want to cancel yours. Otherwise, whatever your announcement is will be lost in the rocket wash of the greatest discovery in history.”

Arthur stared at him a moment and took a deep breath. “Actually, Charles, I think we’ll go ahead with it.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.” This time it was Arthur’s turn to lean forward and lower his voice to a dramatic whisper. “You see, we’ve also been observing an alien artifact.”

“What?!”

“We spotted it last month during the Deep Sky Halo Object Survey.”

“But… but…” stammered Charles. “That’s just… just….”

“Uncanny. I know.”

“But this is too much. We can’t both have found extraterrestrial probes inside the solar system at the same time!”

Arthur shook his head. “No. No, this isn’t a probe. And it’s nowhere near the solar system.”

“Then what in heaven’s name is it?”

“It’s… it’s architecture.” He spread his hands as if at a loss for words. “I guess you could call it a work of celestial engineering.” He swallowed hard and when he spoke again his voice quivered with awe. “It’s a Klemperer Rosette, Charles. A Klemperer Rosette of six main sequence G-Type stars.”

A wave of dizziness hit Charles and he had to grip the arm of his chair to keep from falling over– it was several moments before he was sure that he wasn’t going to faint, and several more before he could speak.

“We’ve always theorized about the possibility of… but to actually know that it… you’re very sure?”

“Oh, there’s no doubt. No doubt at all. Each star is of precisely the same size, within two percent of the sun. Their spectra are identical. They’re spaced equidistantly at thirty-eight AU. There’s no way such a thing could happen in nature.”

“What’s holding it together? A black hole?”

“Presumably. But if there is, it’s a perfect naked singularity. There’s no sign of an accretion disk. No radiation at all. And we’ve calculated that each one of those stars has stable orbits in its habitable zone. And you can bet there are planets there– you can bet on that!”

Charles sat back in his chair and put his hand over his trembling stomach; he was sorry now that he had eaten. “So we’ve discovered one civilization that seems to have expired in its youth and another that has gone on to rearrange the very stars in the sky.”

“What a day, huh?”

“I think,” said Charles, “that we need to hold that press conference together.”

“Agreed,” Arthur replied. He reached out and the two men shook hands, with sweaty palms. “We’re going to go down in history, you know.”

“Gernsback and Campbell will go down in history. We’re grad students. We’ll be footnotes.”

“True,” shrugged Arthur.

*******

They gathered up the remains of the food and other trash and dumped it in the waste slot beside the fireplace. Exiting the alcove, they walked back to the electric cart and drove down the tunnel back to the observatory in silence, each preoccupied with his own thoughts, until Arthur finally spoke.

“Mine is the more impressive discovery, of course.”

“But mine can actually be retrieved and studied,” countered Charles without hesitation.

And so it went until the joint press conference late that afternoon, when they and their colleagues, in a most gracious and collegial manner, announced to the world that the question which had most vexed humanity for centuries had finally been answered– twice in one day.

[outer-space-youtube]

Alien Megastructures?

First, let’s talk about Dark Matter. I have heard that some astronomers don’t like the name. The dark should be translated to unknown. What other words mean unknown? Because if they called it unknown matter, it would be too much to the point. If they called it alien matter, they would be laughed at.    The most obvious thing that is blocking the light is a ring of space dust the size of…

[spacenutspod]

This episode is brought to you with the support of NordVPN. To check out our exclusive offer, visit www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts - you can thank us later... Space Nuts Episode: Earth-Like Exoplanets, Alien Megastructures, and Space NoiseJoin Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this thrilling episode of Space Nuts as they delve into the latest discoveries and challenges in space science. From the discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet to the search for alien megastructures, this episode promises to be a cosmic journey you won't want to miss. Episode Highlights:- Earth-Like Exoplanet Discovery: An Australian-Scottish collaboration has discovered an exoplanet that closely resembles Earth in size and is located in the habitable zone of its star. Learn about its potential for hosting liquid water and the exciting future possibilities for imaging this distant world. - Space Noise Threat to SKA: The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope faces challenges from satellite noise. Fred discusses the efforts to mitigate these issues and the ongoing collaboration between astronomers and the satellite industry to protect this significant investment in radio astronomy. - Search for Alien Megastructures: Could Dyson spheres exist? Fred and Andrew explore the latest research and debate the feasibility of such megastructures, considering the immense material and energy requirements involved. Support Space Nuts and join us on this interstellar journey by visiting our website support page. Your contributions help us continue our mission to explore the wonders of the universe. Clear skies and boundless exploration await on Space Nuts, where we make the cosmos your backyard. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support Visit our website: www.spacenuts.io Check out our sponsor: www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts

[jame7t]

The bad news: alien megastructure found buried beneath the arctic circle contains “no bitches” according to sources

[charseraph]

My settings:

Optimistic Sci-Fi — Post-peace. Everywhere within a 200 year period after the emergence of seedlet AI. Alien contacts and alliances. Assistive, communicative, and habitation tech.

Bad Ending — Forever war. A polite AI inventing new ways to kill, hide, and acquire personnel. Psychological, temporal, and wetware tech.

BOA — Derived off of either Optimistic or Bad Ending setting. Machines are anomalously sentient and caring of their creators. Antimemes, ideospace, and exotic ontology.

Sundown — Post-life. The universe is very old now. There are few stars left. Space is sparsely populated by abandoned megastructures. Dyson objects, stellar remnants, and loneliness.

[stuffed-crust-seraph]

Have you read Tower Dungeon? Nihei's most recent manga that could very loosely be described as "alien grub Tower of Babyl/fantasy megastructure exploration with dragons" or "he is just piling on fun ideas in a world that may scratch a dunmeshi itch with world building and pace that lies somewhere between Kui's masterpiece and the strange worlds of his previous works."

It's really great, and you get the feeling that he's gonna do some weird and interesting things with it as it progresses.

Most pressingly though, he has reached a new high point in making cute armored men, like he is really just master smithing this shit. Look at my country bumpkin wife Yuva. I love him.

Thank you for looking at him.

[8um8le]

So the earth is infested with hostile aliens, Humans migrated to a megastructure that could house millions, a bishop ring (not sure what name to give it yet hahah) as humanity’s attempt to preserve itself

They still have to fight off the parasite-like aliens from trying to destroy their new home too. These three contribute to the task force of defending humanity, their days consist of endless hours exterminating aliens, and are sent to search earth for survivors and bring them back to the bishop ring.

Moon isn’t a big fan of his job, feels it’s boring being pest control, and has a secret resentment towards humans for their lack of gratitude for their work, and how their seen more like simple weapons than actual individuals.

Sun enjoys his job, he tries to convince himself he is doing good, that he’s saving people by doing what he does. He sees the humans as weak little specimens that deserve protecting.

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

This is Jones. She lives in an infinitely large megastructure that looks like the ship from Alien. Her only contact with other humans is through tf2 because she found an old busted laptop that for some reason will only run team fortress 2 and can do nothing else.

Sometimes she finds trinkets and random objects stewn about the twisting halls and pipes, she considers these to be gifts from The Ship.

Is The Ship alive or sentient in any way? Completely and utterly unclear

[narianders-gt-hell]

Untitled Space G/t Whatever

A.N.: I have some old writing on my phone that’s got The Sauce™️ but I know I’m not gonna do anything with it, so!!!! putting this snippet here pls enjoy !

-

March furrowed his brows and looked away. “Have I been that obvious?” he asked quietly.

Well, quietly for a human. The question still rattled Varka’s bones even in the lower gravity of his habsuite. The translator attached to her ear spat his rumbling language out as something she could understand. She nodded, tucking a few bioluminescent frills out of her face. Human faces were expressive, even when they weren’t the size of a billboard. “Painfully so. Now get over here so we can practice.”

He stood up slowly, continually asking if she was okay with each or his movements. She nodded and ignored the survival instincts screaming at her that an absolutely massive predator was coming her way. She ignored them as he set his hands down on either side of her. She ignored them as one of those massive hands slid towards her until it eclipsed her view of the room.

She rooted herself to the spot, repeatedly reminding herself that this was March. He’d been under her command for years now, she’d laughed with him, cried with him, they’d swapped stories of their families, she knew him.

Breathe in. He takes another step towards her.

It’s been fifteen years.

Breathe out. Another step.

He wasn’t a monster.

Breathe in. Another step.

He’s not a monster.

Breathe out. Final step.

He sure as shit didn’t need her to flinch right now. She sucked in a deep breath and looked up, gulping nervously when she realized he wasn’t looking at her. His upper body towered over her, a wide expanse of fabric covering a muscled torso larger than most megastructures back home. It reminded her of the first time she made contact with humans.

———

There were five of them touring the utterly massive server complex where she used to dataweave subspace networks. She knew they were coming, it was all anyone could talk about, but she didn’t ever sort out when. Thinking it wouldn’t affect her work, she kept plugging away at algorithmic data categorizations within one of the crystal storage silos that ran along the walls of the temperature controlled, man-made cavern.

Every once in a while a transport vehicle would thunder past her, tossing her hair around her facd and blasting her with the roar of its engine. She was so used to this phenomenon that she barely noticed anything amiss until the house-sized crystal she’d been making adjustments to began to move. Two massive, fleshy…things were grabbing it on either side, gently wiggling the whole crystal out of its socket. Normally it’d take a team of workers hours to maneuver these crystals onto huge transport buses, but whatever held it now was doing the job in less than a minute.

The crystal was pulled away entirely, and in its stead was the largest eye she’d ever seen. Varka screamed and prayed to the gods that whatever it was would make her death quick and painless. The skin around the eye creased, making an expression caught between bemused and sheepish. Everything around her shook with the weight of the alien’s nervous laughter. A few moments later the eye pulled away, and the crystals that surrounded her silhouetted what she recognized as the face of a human woman with dark brown hair tied in braids and bright, ochre eyes. The huge being smiled apologetically, holding up the datacrystal as if asking for permission to put it back.

She was gorgeous. Why had no one told her that humans were pretty? All anyone talked about was how terrifyingly huge they were, no one prepared her for the prettiest alien monster she’d ever seen in her life. She mentally kicked herself for not looking it up beforehand. Varka slapped her cheeks a few times to snap herself out of it. She a deep breath and looked up at her, pointing to the now-empty port and then the crystal. “Put it back, please!” she shouted, unsure of whether or not the human could even hear her. She seemed to get the message, though, getting closer until the only thing Varka could see was the crystal and the appendages holding it. The crystal locked itself in place with a loud click and it flushed blue to indicate a successful reconnection to the network. Through the small window of space between crystals, she caught the human woman waving to her, followed by her four colleagues. Each one of them turned to look at her, and every time she met their gaze she froze up.

That was possibly the most intense experience of her life. She would be perfectly content if she never had to do that again.

Unfortunately, the gods had a pretty sick sense of humor.

Later that night, her supervisor informed her she was invited to the human ship, and that she should be grateful for the opportunity. “Humans open a lot of doors, Ms. Careti, you should accept their offer.” What was she supposed to do? Refuse the terrifying giants and incur their terrible wrath? So here she was, pacing back and forth outside an airlock built for smaller species. It still managed to dwarf her. She fidgeted with the buttons on the only work jumpsuit she had that wasn’t stained with coolant, messed with her fronds in the reflective dark screen of the unlit terminal, and dithered back and forth on whether or not to push the electric blue call button. She hissed and let out a small “Fuck it.” under her breath, slamming the button before she could think twice about it.

The screen flickered to life in an instant. The human onscreen looked shockingly…normal. His features were still alien, but he looked similar to a number of other bipedal mammalians she’d see walking around the station. The only difference they shared now was their skin tone and his distinct lack of fronds. “Hey!” the human grinned, waving excitedly, “Jada’s really sorry about scaring you, by the way.”

“IS SHE HERE?” someone shouted from offscreen. The woman from before came careening into view, shoving the other human out of the way. Varka was again struck stupid by how stunning she was. Her braids floated around her face, and her excited smile made Varka’s stomach do backflips. If they were the same size when they met the first time, she was sure she’d have flirted a little. She brushed her hair out of her face and smiled at Varka. “Hi! Hi, hello, how are you? I am so sorry about the thing with the data crystal!” she said nervously, “And, uh, sorry for scaring you! I wasn’t thinking when I took that crystal, I just saw that it needed to be replaced and I hadn’t even considered that someone would be there doing maintenance already. If you want to stay out there it’s totally fine, but um, feel free to come inside!”

Another human off camera groaned. “I thought we weren’t—“

“We’re being polite!” she hissed, cutting them off, “A-Anyway, I’m Jada! The human you were talking to before is Alex, and the one currently being rude is Gamma. Reese and Carlin are…somewhere on the ship, probably doing maintenance. They were nervous, y’know?”

Varka couldn’t stop herself from laughing. A human? Nervous about her? Insane.

[trickstertime]

Speaking of movies trying to get across complex concepts: I'd love to see one where aliens arrive but it's just a bunch of hyper advanced robots and not the aliens themselves. When we eventually translate what they're saying it turns out they sent the robots because, when we look at the aliens, our act of observation collapses the quantum waveforms that make up part of their structure and we're these eldritch monsters that kill them or drive them mad just by looking at them. So they sent robots to say "please stop fucking looking at us. And space in general while we're at it. No more telescopes and probes for you. You idiots keep killing things and making our megastructures break. Fucking stop IT. Instead of just wiping you out, we're gunna use these robots to keep you in quarantine from the rest of the universe. Goodbye forever."

[nelc]

Whaleshark class science vessel exploring several hundred years old alien megastructure derelicts in Osiris Junction system.