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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Shadow Square | ||
| An enormous blind that orbits a star. |
The novel describes the discovery of an enormous artifact; a ring of material that completely surrounds a star, providing a staggering amount of living space. The alien species that discovered the star asks humans for their opinion on what they have found:
| The ring was checkered. There were regular rectangular shadows along its blue back.
"Can you give us a better picture?" "We can expand it," said the contralto voice. The G2 star jerked forward, then shot blazing off to the right, so that Louis was looking down on the lighted inner surface of the ring. Blurred as it was, Louis could only guess that the brighter, whiter areas might be cloud, that regions of faintly deeper blue might be land where lighter blue was sea. But the shadowed areas were quite visible. The ring seemed to be laid out in rectangles: a long strip of glowing baby blue followed by a shorter strip of deep, navy blue, followed by another long strip of light blue. Dots and dashes. "Something's causing those shadows," he said. "Something in orbit?" "Yes, just that. Twenty rectangular shapes orbit in a Kemplerer rosette much nearer the primary. We do not know their purpose." "You wouldn't. It's been too long since you had a sun. These orbiting rectangles must be there to separate night from day. Otherwise it would always be high noon on the ring." |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
Don't forget - you'll need about a billion miles of shadow square wire to keep the shadow squares in position.
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news articles:
- Find Extraterrestrial Civilizations By Their Works
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
