The atmosphere of the disk is prone to being stolen by the Sun, so it is kept in by a massive retaining wall. In order to keep a day night cycle, the Sun is bobbed up and down between the disk. The structure would have about the equivalent of lunar gravity. (2/3)

The Alderson Disk is a massive waste of resources that is massively outdated by the time we'd even have the technology to construct it. It also would make space travel from its surface impossible without weird fuckery. It's awful and I love it.

@Punished_Jess The setting of my game is on an Alderson disc! Probably my favourite megastructure It uses ancient alien contrivances in order to work properly, most recent version is about a million kilometers across The sun is artificial and incredibly small, so it has to be recharged using…

@csaurageul Very cool!

@Punished_Jess Alderson Disk is fun idea but I have no idea how it would ever be feasible. But my favorite structure is the Banks Orbital like a Halo ring but better!

@Punished_Jess Ring World Larry Nivin

@Punished_Jess So it’s flat?

@Punished_Jess Flat earth is out Flat solar system is in Flat Stanley finally feels at home.

@Punished_Jess Most ridiculous megastructure I have seen = followed.

@Punished_Jess Holy shit flat earth but real

@Punished_Jess Someone call Master Chief. Right. Now.

@Punished_Jess It's also so space inefficient. Why do we need molten magma oceans closer to the sun and slightly-above-background-temperature desert, where lakes and snow is made from liquefied/crystallised atmospheric gases? Idk, but they are rad

@Punished_Jess I like the concept of building transparent spherical shells around decently sized asteroids, and filling them with breathable air. The shell would be supported by the air pressure inside, and coupled to the asteroid via tethers. Life inside is like an ocean of air, with low g.

@Punished_Jess It is used in the "Trilogia Padrões de Contato" by the Brazilian Jorge Luiz Calife. The disk is insane, but he describes it in such a cool way that it looks amazing!

@Punished_Jess I would have to put Bank's Orbitals as my favorite gigastructure. The simplicity of the rotation speed creating both perfect gravity and night/day cycling is just really elegant. Only drawback is the tensile material you'd need to build it might not exist :(

@Punished_Jess A giant CD

@Punished_Jess How would gravity even work? Would it need to be artificial? What direction would its own gravity tug in?

@Punished_Jess read "missile gap" by charles stross

@Punished_Jess Type 2 civilization builds 'worst gigastructure ever', asked to leave local cluster.

@Punished_Jess Alderson Disks are lovely, absolutely massive pieces of sci-fi engineering that are just awesome in the most biblical sense Too bad they’re generally outclassed by Birch Worlds.