04-30-2018, 07:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-30-2018, 07:36 AM by stevebowers.)
A star-straddling 'hoopworld' like this would be significantly smaller in surface area than a ringworld, unless the ringworld were very narrow. We have a few ringworlds in the OA scenario, so a star-encircling hoopworld would probably only be made as a tour-de-force by some grandstanding archai. Maybe there is a certain amount of social capital among certain archai, associated with the manufacture of extravagant megastructures.
If the hoopworld were made of relatively rigid slices a few kilometres wide, and connected and reinforced by a fairly sparse grid of magmatter cables, it could probably be made to work. The slices would be separated by a variable gap of a few inches, which would probably be a constant source of mild earthquakes.
Anything made of baryonic matter alone would probably break up into a string of different-sized planetoids, which would then continue to collide until you got a dense superplanet or two. Not a particularly inhabitable scenario.
If the hoopworld were made of relatively rigid slices a few kilometres wide, and connected and reinforced by a fairly sparse grid of magmatter cables, it could probably be made to work. The slices would be separated by a variable gap of a few inches, which would probably be a constant source of mild earthquakes.
Anything made of baryonic matter alone would probably break up into a string of different-sized planetoids, which would then continue to collide until you got a dense superplanet or two. Not a particularly inhabitable scenario.