'star factory' that a planet orbits?
I am working on a novel of a fantasy world on another planet. I am not too concerned with scientific accuracy, as again, it's fantasy, but I am not interested in supernatural things for my world. That is, there is no magic in my world, and all the phenomena is natural or organic.
That said, my idea was to have my planet orbiting not a star, but some kind of "star engine" construct, composed of some kind of fantasy mineral/element that only exists in my world that births stars in the manner of a flowering plant. The solar energy would then be absorbed by another sort of material orbiting the planet, some kind of fantasy rock/asteroid chain that safely filters the radiation.
The idea would be that a sort of microstar is generated, absorbed, dispersed on the earth in various ways (some kind of storm/explosion) and then somehow reborn in a cycle, perhaps from a kind of 'pollination' process that is both organic and contributed from the (fairly ancient/medieval/non futuristic) technology of the inhabitants.
So therefore, there's no 'sun' or main star, and no daylight/seasons like there would be on a conventional planet orbiting a sun like star. There would still be seasons, but they would be based around the 'starbirth' of this hypothetical star engine that my planet rotates around.
I would assume the magnetic field of the planet would not be conventionally dipolar but would be more chaotic, but again this fictional mineral rocky chain would help to keep radiation from destroying life (most of the time - there'd be storms of course).
I would like all of this to follow some internal logic and not chalk it up to magic or gods, as there are none. I am not averse to inventing materials/minerals/systems etc., like I said above to explain them. My question is, is this feasible and how far would I go to invent constructs that ensure the planet can harbor life in this fashion?
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1 answer
Say it's a factory that takes hydrogen and creates fusion.
If the machine had a nebula with lots of hydrogen or a gas giant near by, then automated machines could collect it and bring it back to the factory.
The micro stars could be machines too, since anything that small would not be able to generate fusion on its own.
You need something a lot bigger than Jupiter to even get a red dwarf.
They would be fueled and charged by the factory, and then travel to the planet to start the fusion process to create light and heat.
Depending on how well the harvested machines did collecting hydrogen, you could either end up with a lot of sun machines in orbit making it hot, or a few sun machines in orbit making it cold. Mostly it would be somewhere in between.
Could life exist there?
Sure, but it might be seeded, since the sun factory is artificial, everything else could be to.
What would it look like?
Swarms of miniture Sun's traveling across the sky. If they weren't organized then day and night would be chaotic.
Alternative: just for fun
Ok, so going way the other direction, it could be an actual Plant.
Say it's a rogue planet, and at one point the planet was mostly ice. Somehow (panspermia?) a seed lands and begins to grow. It's basically a beanstalk space elevator, growing way out.
It also puts roots deep down to hold it in place and to harness the planets geothermal energy. (thanks Tim)
As it grows it begins to thaw the ice and break it down, liberating the oxygen, and burning hydrogen to create heat.
It might not even be fusion, just burning enough hydrogen could warm things up, especially as atmosphere develops to hold the heat.
At some point it grows tall enough to effectively be in orbit, and then proceeds to wrap around the planet as a living ring, still rooted on the planet, and still freeing oxygen, burning hydrogen, and creating heat, warming the planet up until it has a viable atmosphere. Also removing a lot of the water from the surface. Some of the burning hydrogen would reform as water and fall back to the planet as rain, giving a weird water cycle.
Life could develop the normal way, or the seed could be a terraforming engine, releasing life forms as conditions allow.
First single celled things would be released to prepare soil, then lichens.
The plants would be released next, followed by low level life like insects. Eventually higher level life would be released, and then intelligent life when the planet was all ready for them.
It would be similar to the way things develop naturally, but a lot faster. Thousands of years instead of millions.
The intelligent beings may or may not know how the world became the way it was, though the Plant could have a library that they would be able to find if they thought to look, which could be interesting...
It's a fun idea anyway.
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