Star sphere

### Functions

Captures the power of a star, which is able to make a wide amount of different effects, extremely useful pretty much everywhere.

### Limitations

Limited only by the total stellar energy output.

The **Star Sphere** is a technology that captures the full energy released by a star. This megastructure provides energy that powers all the abilities the Homelanders use.

## Overview

After the Homelanders discovered that the energy of a star actually can be captured via stellar power panels, they started to look for possible ways to harness the total energy. The construction began several hundred SCs (stellar cycles) after they became a spacefaring civilization.

Discovery of antimatter and further antimatter drive creation which made travels with up to 70% of light speed possible was thought to be used to speed up the process of the sphere's construction. In reality though, too many problems with heating and storing large amount of antimatter along with less than acceptable payload capacity didn't allow these plans to be implemented.

It took over 10,000 SCs of intense construction and an enormous amount of energy and resources (primarily ultra-thin and light alloys) to build the sphere.

The Homelanders had also pioneered and developed asteroid mining to supply this megaproject with resources. Despite the fact that the planet's crust and core had enough carbon that could be transformed into strong and light allotropes, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes and planetary programming have ensured an effective and relatively easy way to get some of these resources, rising concerns about possible environmental risks had outweighed practicality. That's why Homelanders decided to use both sources sparingly and responsibly.

The other reason for developing asteroid mining was the Homelanders' need for a reliable way to get rare chemical elements they used widely, such as tungsten, because even the planet's supplies could not satisfy the demand for these elements, not to mention the existing particle accelerators and nuclear transmutation centers; however, many projects had been running to improve the output of these technological processes.

Due to aforementioned, most spacecraft used for sphere's construction was manufactured in space with resources mined on the asteroids and uninhabitable planets with weak gravity. Energy was generated by already existing parts of the sphere. Ergo, the more spacecraft was constructed, the more energy was available, creating exponential progression.

Anoter obvious benefit of manufacturing spacecraft in space was lack of need to overcome Home's gravitation well.

The sphere was made as a swarm of smaller energy accumulators, which are placed asymmetrically around the star so while they aren't connected with each other physically, they are able to consume practically all the energy the star produces.

The solid sphere was discarded at the stage of design because it would be inevitably destroyed due to irremovable flaws in its very concept.

Stellar energy is beamed towards the Homelanders via a black rift, directly powering the reactor cores within them. After a quick check and processing, energy is used to power all their systems.

Star Sphere Power (SSP) became the most important ability of the Homelanders, easily rivaling all other abilities combined. Not only did it allow them to casually solve problems that used to be nigh-impossible to handle, but it enchanted and reinforced many other abilities, making them even more useful.

## Applications

* The main application of SSP is powering up the bodies of the Home's inhabitants along with powering electrical devices. Using this ability, a Homelander can switch energy to the type they need and accelerate the flow of charged particles with the required amperage and voltage to the device. Powering the bodies is even easier because the CPU uses pre-made patterns.
* Moderate acceleration is used as a way of transporting objects from one place to another. This method of transportation is vastly superior to the portail transportation, because the latter is limited to 1,326,000 pounds, while the former's limits are so large that not a single one transportation need can reach them.
* Another SSP application is self-acceleration that, while supported by orbital infrastructure, allows Homelanders to fly without moving a single muscle. The speed and distance of flight is limited only by the accumulated stellar energy and a Homelander's ability to withstand acceleration (any Homelander can endure up to 20,060 g for ten to fifteen seconds.) Air resistance is handled by accelerating air molecules out of the way, creating a route within a vacuum.
* Various production techniques require SSP for better quality. The simplest example is that SSP can provide a very high pressure which is very useful in engineering.
* Within the Homelanders' bodies, SSP is used as a cooling device that slows down molecules' movement and prevents body parts from overheating.

## Source

The power of the Home's star serves as an energy source for the Homelanders and contains within their bellies. A typical Homelander can use up to 6.33×1018 J or 77.53 pounds, expressed in mass-energy equivalence per second.

The energy the Homelanders have at their disposal is pure, as in all possible losses, processing that require additional energy and other things like these are already taken into account. These 77.53 pounds in mass-energy equivalence can be used completely without any drawbacks, just like extra energy of the same amount.

But while the major uses of energy enjoy the efficiency right below the fundamental limit, other uses are significantly less efficient.

For example, to achieve the minimum amount of thermal energy to melt a metric ton of steel, which requires around 1,400,000,000 joules, a Homelander will use 14,000,000,000 joules of stellar energy. So the energy conversion efficiency will be only 10% in this case. That's why a noticeable chunk of the Homelanders' projects is dedicated to increasing the energy conversion efficiency.

But even in this case, with only 10% efficiency, it is possible to melt around 64,000 metric tons of steel using only 1 gram of mass-energy equivalence.

All extra stellar energy that wasn't used is either accumulated within the shards or safely dissolved in space.

## Daily energy consumption

Maximum daily energy consumption per Homelander is around 2.59×1015 J, or 28.8 grams expressed in mass-energy equivalence. Therefore, maximum daily total energy consumption is around 1.55×1023 J, or 1,728.98 metric tons, expressed in mass-energy equivalence.

Additional energy is used to compensate energy losses and to contain it within the Homelanders' bellies. The efficiency of this power source is right below the fundamental limit.

## After Final Singularity

Construction of the first stellar sphere became a starting point of the singularity, allowing Homelanders to turn every star in the supercluster into a source of energy.

This groundbreaking feat eventually led to creation black hole spheres.