How was New Avalon built? And why does Gryphon continue on as it's head of state and not Lord F? Is WDF the offical miltiary force of New Avalon, or are they still independent?

Also, I admit total ignorance on how a Dyson Sphere is suppose to work. I understand that it harnesses the power of a sun (in this case Zeta Cygni) to create the Sphere...but what is the advantage of having a Sphere? Militarily, does it make a good shield? Why use a Dyson Sphere at Zeta Cygni? Is it just something that's cool?

curious,
t.

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

Alright, lemme try my hand here... I'm not going to be entirely accurate, as I have a bad habit of not keeping the info in my brain current, but this ought to clear things up a bit.

First of all, a Dyson Sphere is a huge, ridiculously huge, really damn big hollow sphere, which one could conceivably construct around an entire star, perhaps an entire solar system, thusly enabling one to harness almost the entire sum of energy said star radiates. This energy can be used for a variety of purposes, not the least of which are climate control and terraforming of planets inside the sphere.
If I recall correctly, New Avalon is a rather large city that was built on the inside surface of the sphere. As such, it can and probably does stretch to the horizon, but if one took the time to circumnavigate the vast circumference of the sphere, one could eventually return there. I suppose it would make for an imposing military blockade, a spherical, cosmic scale Maginot Line, and the chances of its destruction are lowered by its sheer size. However, if it were destroyed, the results would be catastrophic to the point of making Sonset look like a cheap firecracker.
I leave the socio-politikal (sic) questions, and the correction of my errors, to Those Who Know (tm) ^_^

TRB

"I wish I was reaper, culling lost souls. I wish I could cast them into deep and lonely holes."

It's on a pseudocontinent suspended from the inside of the sphere by a complex system of plot mechanics which cause it to, among other things, turn so that there's day and night, and tilt so that there are seasons.

I have no intention of figuring it out any further than that.

>How was New Avalon built? And why does Gryphon continue on as it's
>head of state and not Lord F? Is WDF the offical miltiary force of
>New Avalon, or are they still independent?

The Republic of Zeta Cygni and the Wedge Defense Force are separate political entities. The WDF are, and in fact have always been, mercenaries; it's just that they've only ever had one customer (the United Galactica before the Exile, the UFP afterward).

The Republic is an extremely free-form state, whose inner workings I haven't gone into for the same reason I've never bothered defining precisely how the day/night/weather thing works on the Avalon pseudocontinent - because it's fiddly crap that's not important to the story.

>Also, I admit total ignorance on how a Dyson Sphere is suppose to
>work. I understand that it harnesses the power of a sun (in this case
>Zeta Cygni) to create the Sphere...but what is the advantage of having
>a Sphere? Militarily, does it make a good shield? Why use a Dyson
>Sphere at Zeta Cygni? Is it just something that's cool?

It's a Nifty Thing, and it also makes for very easy system defense. Its original purpose was to shelter the (massively expanded) Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyards complex during the build-up for the War of Corporate Occupation, a function it performed most adequately.

Out-of-story, it was a keen idea I didn't think through very well, and if I had UF4 to do over again, I wouldn't use it. It's given me far too many headaches since.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/