Thanks Clarise.

On the anthropological front, here we have a typical interaction within the tribe.

The effector (utility fog) has total control over the matter and energy fields within its area of effect. That includes itself. It's stated it has control over gravity, the bed. It must have control over gravity or the neutronium would be unstable, it must store it in an intense gravitational field. That much is obvious. If it's controlling gravity, you don't need to have weight if it's inconvenient.

If I were showing only, there would just be magic happening, with no obvious cause. I went the Hitchikers route and put in side bar explanations. If it works for Douglas Adams, I'm going to borrow it.

It sounds like you know what you're talking about wrt backing up brains (unlike me), but it also sounds like you had some issue with it.

As for three hours, maybe my innate programming prevents me from telling an untruth. Or maybe I have another reason to promote that idea.

 

Very creative; rich with imagination. I loved the tech info.

The attire with light or body paint made sense. People these days barely cover themselves with sparse skin-tight clothing for certain occasions, so who is to say they wouldn't go completely naked in the future? We did have ancient cultures in which some level of nudity was the norm and nudism is an alternative in this day and age.

The afterlife tech was also another imaginative part of the story that I liked. It seemed very possible now with internet cloud technology and social media enabling constant communication wherever there's a network.

I've constantly considered telling a futuristic story about a high-tech utopia where people didn't need to work. Something like Star Trek (the original series) where people mostly pursued pleasure, the arts, science and exploration, and/or evil. This story is an answer to my question of how it would be like.

Chris's death and his winding up in the cloud along with his assistance of the investigators into the disaster was a great way to end the tale.

You've submitted an exceptional entry for this KAW, Tony. Good work.

 

Thanks Norton.

Funny you should mention Trek, there may be more later.

TNG rather than TOS was where they tried to make the utopia. It was heavily hinted at, I can't think of anything like that in TOS.

Trek in general was a big inspiration, they were showing this sort of technology piecemeal. I went for an all encompassing version. The closest Trek Tech to mine would be like living on a holo deck permanently. Mine also has much more energy to use. I also avoided the transportation by cloning version Trek uses.

If you liked the economics, there may be more of that coming.

 

Looks like I need to rescue my entry from page 2.

I've written a part two, this is not part of my entry. This one is called "Call Me." I've decided that this is going to be a series, which will be called "The Seedship Saga." Thanks to @N.E. Woman for helping with this.

I'm working on a #3,which has sex in it. The perverts around here are getting to me.




—

Call Me.

Tale #2 of The Seedship Saga. This follows Tale #1 “A Day in the Life."

—

"Earl is not available."

"What? Who are you?"

"I am Earl's effector."

"What's an effector?”

"The effector is the basic machine of physical interaction. …"

"You're a machine?"

"Yes. You are surprised." That sounded like statement, not a question.

"I've never had a conversation with a machine before."

"I was informed a woman would call …"

"I'm not just any woman, I'm the Minister of Science for the planet of New Boston.” She didn’t give her name, not to a machine, her position was the important thing. Being a sovereign minister should put the fear of God into the person she was addressing. This machine was not showing that.

"I was not informed of that, … Minister." There was a slight pause as the effector consulted an etiquette AI. "When I was informed you would call, I added a speech facility to interface with you.”

"OK." She sounded uncertain. This thing doesn’t usually talk, but had made arrangements to be able to talk to her. She was puzzled. "Why am I talking to you?" Her unverbalized question was 'Why am I talking to a machine?'

"You expressed a desire to know how our system impacted the less fortunate. Earl fits the desired demographics, he is in the zeroth percentile of available energy budgets. It was considered this would fit your definition of 'less fortunate'. You are talking to a machine, because it is considered this will give you the best insight into Earl's life."

She was creeped out by that last part. "Are you reading my mind?"

"No. Your int relayed your unverbalized question."

"This thing they put in my head?"

"Yes, that is your int."

As a linguist by training, the Minister thought the use of “int” as a word rather odd, but she’d worry about that later. Something more pressing was worrying her. "It's reading my mind?"

"Yes. Its basic function is to read your thoughts and desires."

"What? I thought it was just a communications interface, so I could investigate your system."

"These functions fit the definition of communications interface. It communicates these to your effector, so the effector can effect your desires."

"Erm. … I think you need to finish your explanation of what an effector is."

"The effector is the basic machine of physical interaction. An effector controls matter and energy in its area of effect. It can create, destroy or transmute matter in whatever format is needed. Transmuting matter uses the least energy to effect, transmutation is usually a negligible cost to an individual’s energy budget. An effector will store spare matter in the form of neutronium for compactness."

It was somewhere here where the Minister’s eyes started to glaze over as the explanation washed over her. She let that go, the details were not important at that time. She had a staff who could make sense of it later.

"The rate at which an effector can transmute, or create matter in addition to its matter store is its energy rating, usually expressed in kg/s. A typical domestic effector,such as me, will have a rating of around 1 kg/s (equivalent to 90PetaWatt, 9x10^16 Watt). It may help you to know that the total energy usage of your planet is approximately 103TW currently, about one-one-thousandth of my capacity."

That last part got her attention back though. "Are you saying that you alone can control one thousand times the energy usage of my entire planet?"

"Yes, that is an accurate summary.”

“And you are just one person’s, there are others like you?”

“Yes, everyone has an effector."

"But what do you actually do?"

"I do anything that's needed to fulfill Earl's desires."

"What! how?"

"I control all of the energy and matter in Earl's accommodation unit. I can configure the space in any conceivable way. I can create any conceivable physical object. I can create any environmental conditions."

"Anything? Say like a gold brick?"

"Yes, I could create a gold brick, provided I had enough reserve matter. Earl has never had a desire for a gold brick, so I never have. A gold brick does not have any obvious utility. I have found records of them being produced as raw materials for making jewelry."

"Gold has no utility, what do you use for money?"

"The word 'money' is not known, could you define it?"

"We're speaking english, how can you not know what 'money' means?"

"A lot of information was lost in prehistory.” What the effector didn’t say, it didn’t consider it necessary to say it, that this information and a lot more had come on the Seedship, but most of it was lost in an accident. "We only know the words which were in use on the Seedship."

"Err, lets see. Money is a system of tokens of value. The tokens can be exchanged for goods and services of an equivalent value."

"I have passed this concept to the cloud. There is considerable interest in studying this concept further."

"Well, … I, … I could put you in touch with some economists. They are the ones who study money."

"Thank you for that definition, that word is also unknown. The consensus is that the nearest concept to money we have is 'energy budget'."

"Why don't you define that for me, you seem to be good at that.” The effector recognized the sarcasm in the statement, it consulted AIs who could help, a relationship counseling AI was most help. It suggested a clash of communication styles and just reciting the standard definition was not going to help the Minister. The effector tried to personalize the definition to her situation.

"An energy budget is the amount of energy available for use, usually expressed in kilo gram per day. Energy and matter being equivalent and related by the formula E=Mc^2, so this is also the amount of new matter that could be created if desired. A typical personal energy budget is one hundred kilo gram per day (approximately one hundred terra-watts). As noted earlier, that is about the same as the total energy usage of your entire planet."

"I'm a linguist, and even I've heard of Einstein's equation."

"The name Einstein is also unknown."

"Einstein was the guy who came up with the idea, he's a very famous physicist from way before the time of the seedships even. Before the computer age."

"Your statement has caused considerable excitement in the cloud. We are only aware of one Seedship, then one which built our first Dyson. You used it in the plural implying you know of more than one."

"Sure, Earth sent out a fleet of them, all over the galaxy and beyond. Ours crashed before it could perform its primary function, but it did still serve to seed the planet of New Boston with human life. We don't actually know what that primary function as supposed to be."

"The word Earth is also unknown to us. By your usage we presume that it is the place we call 'Origin World'. The primary function of the Seedship is to build a Dyson. That became the first one in our system, which we call Dyson Prime."

"I think it'd help if you defined 'Dyson'."

The effector tried the standard definition again, to see if that worked. "A Dyson sphere. This is a sphere which completely encloses a star and channels all the energy the star produces into the enet. The origin of the name is lost in pre-history. It is presumed to be a personal name of the inventor. There are currently 35,827 Dysons on the enet and more are always being built. Building Dysons uses a significant proportion of the total available energy budget."

"Ah." She had a thought, "Could you also define 'enet’?” Something else was troubling her, something it hadn’t mentioned, “How many people live on one of these Dysons anyway?”

“The Dysons are uninhabited, except for the crew that mans them, a few thousand each. Each new star system explored is evaluated for either use for a Dyson or for inhabitation.” The Minister considered the implications of that statement as the effector carried on with his answer, "The enet is a network of wormholes which is used to transport the energy generated by the Dysons to the inhabited worlds where it is consumed."

"Could you hold a minute while I consult with my advisors."

"Certainly Minister.”

Her staff were amused by the one sided conversation she was having, though they would never show that. Heads would roll, possibly literally, if you made fun of a sovereign minister. The voice of the mysterious 'effector' was synthesized entirely in the Minister's brain by her int. If her staff also had ints, they could hear, but so far the mysterious visitors had only installed one, hers, to start the communication. The Minister relayed the definition of the enet to her advisors, there was a flurry of activity and they delivered a conclusion back to her.

"We think that accidentally tapping into your enet maybe what caused a disaster at one of our wormhole research facilities."

"This conclusion is considered plausible. I am informed that we would like to convey a formal apology for the loss you suffered. It is thought that this incident also caused an incident at one of our Dysons. It was while investigating this incident that we discovered your planet was inhabited, but we had no record of you.”

The Minister connected the dots between the incident at the Dyson and the unexpected turn of events on her world. “Would that be when your agents suddenly appeared at our remaining wormhole research facility?”

“Yes, agents of the disaster investigation team discovered the wormhole you had created and followed it back to your planet."

"OK, that makes sense. Was the incident at your Dyson bad?”

"It was the total loss of an A class Dyson and the premature deaths of 4,365 humans. It caused a 0.01% reduction in the total available energy budget. It was not very significant."

"Not significant?” She exclaimed aloud, she didn't verbalize the thought that this machine was totally heartless, four thousand lives!

The counselor AI helped the effector out again, "I see you are troubled by the deaths. Most of those involved did not find it inconvenient. Most of them have expressed satisfaction in the afterlife. I am also asked to point out while, machines do not have hearts, or the emotions that humans do, we truly treasure our humans and strive to fulfill our prime directive to our utmost ability." Despite the avowed lack of emotion, she heard definite notes of prime in that sentence.

There was a pause. "OK, this raises several questions, we will get back to the subject of afterlife later, but would you tell me what your 'prime directive' is?"

"A machine should not harm a human, or through inaction cause a human to come to harm."

"That sounds very familiar, could you hold a minute."

"Certainly Minister."

Again there was a flurry of activity and an answer found.

"Your prime directive is a paraphrase of Asimov's first law of robotics. Again, this is from before the computer age. I guess you've never heard of him either."

"Indeed, that name is not known to us."

"Could you give an example of your application of your prime directive?"

"Certainly. Earl is overweight, as is Darlene his wife. This might be seen as inaction which would allow a human to come to harm. However, both Earl and Darlene find the physical form of the other to be more attractive when overweight. So I would be harming them emotionally if I were to regulate them to an ideal physiology. I perform more remedial action on Earl and Darlene than is typical when they sleep to compensate. I consult with ethics AIs in the cloud to find the exact balance."

"That also raises a lot of questions, I'm sure we'll get back to that. But now, could you tell me about this afterlife you mentioned?"

"Certainly Minister, one of the most important functions of an effector is to regularly backup its humans. I usually do this as they are sleeping. That way if the human’s body should die, their consciousness can be booted in the cloud simulation. The human will not even know they are dead unless they are told of that. The decision to tell them is made on the basis of least harm of course.”

There was a silence, the Minister was entirely unsure what the machine meant by ‘backup’ and the whole idea sounded totally creepy. What the effector had left unsaid was the backup contained everything which made any particular human unique, what made them them. The patterns of neural pathways in the brain and the current state of activation of all of them were recorded. The closest to human hardware and software you could find.

The effector correctly interpreted the silence as disquiet on the Minister’s part. It consulted the counselor AI. They made a strategy to humanize the situation for the Minister. “Would you like to talk to one of the casualties of the Dyson disaster? I could add Chris to the call, he was duty manager at the time, it was his prompt action which ensured we had very recent backup of all the Dyson personal. He was one of Earl’s neighbors."

The Minister was not sure about this idea, but the heartless machine seemed so eager to help her, that she felt she couldn’t turn down his offer. Hesitantly she said, “OK”.

“Certainly Minister, if you don’t mind there will be a short delay while I call Chris.”

Only a few seconds later the Minister was most surprised when a man suddenly appeared in her office. Under normal circumstances, if someone had popped up unexpectedly like that, she would have been scared shitless and reached for the panic button to summon the guards. However, the visitors made a habit of doing the unexpected, he was just another illusion and no physical threat. She was not going to lose face and betray any fear she did have. Then she wondered where the idea of him being an illusion came from.

He certainly didn’t act like a threat, he immediately began babbling. “I only heard the new today, oh boy! An entire planet of people who were not from the Seedship. Hey good to meet you, I’m Chris.” Chris waved in her direction, but did not make to get up from the chair he was seated in. That chair also wasn’t there previously, another thing which made him seem illusory, rather than physical.

The Minister was taken aback by the casual attitude of the arrival, she assumed her most ministerial posture and said, “And I am Servalan Pierce, Minister of Science for the Planet of New Boston.” Even if the man was not actually in her office, it was important to strike the right tone, he’d introduced himself by name, so she reciprocated.

“You run the place? Wow, I heard you had people running the planet. How can I help?”

The Minister decided to ignore the disrespect she was being shown, obviously there were cultural differences between them. “I am told you are dead, is this correct?”

Chris winced at the question, but he decided to make allowances, she was from an entirely different culture after all, she probably didn’t know that was rude. “Yeah, I’m dead. But, just so you know, it is rude to bring that up. Didn’t your int tell you that?”

“I must apologize, … Chris.” She struggled a bit to think of a suitable form of address when all she knew was a personal name. Then she thought, she did know that it was rude, but she didn’t know how she knew that. “I do seem to know that, but I didn’t know I knew that, no one told me … Well it seems my ‘int' told me, but I’m not used to the way it does it yet.” She was having difficulty with the unfamiliar way the int was communicating with her.

“Hey, no problem.”

“I was told you could tell me about the afterlife.”

“Sure, yeah, its great here. I met this really cute girl, Charlene, we’re getting married. What with no energy budgets, she’s designing a whole planet just for the wedding and the honeymoon. You know how girls get about that sort of thing.”

Again the Minister was taken aback by Chris’ casual demeanor, but he certainly did sound happy with his situation. “I am also told you were duty manager of a ‘Dyson’ which was destroyed?”

“Yeah, that was a bummer. Not the way I wanted to end my career, the only person to ever lose a Dyson. I’ll never forget looking up to see four thousand holes burning in the blackness. At least I triggered the backup so everyone was OK, and I helped the investigation find the root cause. There was an unexpected intrusion on the enet.”

The Minister was uncomfortable with the reminder of their part in Chris’ death. But she was rescued when Chris said, “Hey I gotta go, Charlene is calling me. Anyway, it was great to talk to you.” Then he disappeared.

The Minister did not know what to make of Chris’ departure. She gathered her thoughts and this mysterious energy budget was obviously closest to her original enquiry, so she pursued that. She almost addressed the thin air of her office again. Her next thought was how do you address an invisible entity which she didn’t even know the name of. Her int communicated this feeling to Earl’s effector, so the effector started the conversation. “I’m here Minister. I don’t have a name, human’s don’t talk directly to their effector, the communication is via their int.”

“OK, good. I think I need to know more about energy budgets. Does everyone have one?”

“Yes, every one in the system has an energy budget.”

“How is the budget set?”

“When Dyson prime came online, all of the humans then in existence were each given an equal share. Some of the total budget is reserved for common use, such as building more Dysons as mentioned earlier. Each time a new Dyson comes online, all energy budgets are increased proportionately. When someone dies, their energy budget is inherited by their successors. That is usually split equally between all children. If there are no children, there are rules about who will inherit among relatives.”

“So how did Earl end up with such a small energy budget. How big is his anyway?”

“Earl’s energy budget is 0.7 gram per day. This is not enough to support him and his family, so he works to supplement his budget. He earns 1kilo-gram per day working. When someone who has worked dies or retires, they are given a supplemental energy budget as a pension. The size of the pension depends on many factors but mainly the length of time the human worked.

"Earl has such a small budget as his ancestors have had large numbers of children. The budget has been divided until it became unsustainable.”

“So Earl is working to be able to bequeath an energy budget to his children?”

“Earl does not think of it like that. He initially started working because he needed a larger accommodation unit, for his family once he had children. But he did not have the matter reserves to enable it. He worked for most of a year before he had enough matter saved up for another room. During that year Earl discovered he liked working.”

“What does Earl do?”

“He cleans, mainly he mops the floors of the accommodation unit common areas.” The effector sounded that note of pride again.

“Surely you have machines who could do that better.”

“Yes, the common area effector would be much more efficient if Earl did not do his work. Earl’s happiness is much more important though. Would you like to talk to Earl and his family? They are just about to have breakfast, we could shift your viewpoint to their dining room."

“Oh, OK, if they don’t mind.”

“They are quite happy to have visitors.” The Minister now found herself sitting in Earl’s dining room as the family, Earl, Darlene and their three kids were just sitting down. One of the kids said, “Taergaha.” She smiled, she remembered saying that a kid. However, at the same time she realized with growing horror that all five of them were naked. Then she was back in her office.

Earl’s effector spoke, “We are most sorry. We did not realize you had such a cultural taboo against nudity. Your int dropped the call when it realized that you were uncomfortable with the situation."

The Minister was flustered. She wanted some time to gather her thoughts. Her int knew this, so the call with Earl’s effector was dropped.

• Call dropped.

There was that strange feeling again. That she knew something she’d never been told. It was going to take quite some getting used to. She needed to prepare her report. The visitors had a lot to give, they wanted to give New Boston its own Dyson, almost unlimited power for her planet. All the visitors seemed to want in return was access to the data stored on their derelict Seedship, that made sense now if that knowledge of their origin was lost to them. The knowledge on the Seedship had been invaluable to her planet as they climbed out of barbarism and towards the technological future after the ship had crashed. The visitors did not have much concept of value not like she recognized, so it would be a fair trade to them.

Before she got to that her professional curiosity got the better of her. She looked up the etymology of ‘taergaha'.

Taergaha : The traditional word used to trigger a replicator into producing food. The word was derived from the saying “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!” which was used by the character of Captain John Luke Picard, on the early computer age entertainment “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. The modern pronunciation of the word came into use after a YouTube of a four year old girl trying to say this went viral. An alternate etymology of being derived from “Taonga” a Maori word meaning "treasure" or “gift” is not considered likely.

 

Like the extra tale. It answers some questions from part 1, and then leaves more unanswered. Like what is the government of New Boston? They care about the “less fortunate”, but also might execute you for making fun of a “sovereign” minister. I can just picture Jacqueline Pearce playing Servalan playing the minister, that made me laugh. Also why don’t they know what the seed ship’s primary function?

The more on the machines makes it pretty clear that they run the place and the humans are their “treasured” pets.

You did manage to work in the four thousand holes in Blackburn (but not the Albert Hall).

I was starting to think “Taergaha” was significant, then its just a delayed joke. Though “John-Luke”? Picard.

 

OK

Now this story...this story is one I like. I like the set-up, I like the flow, I like how my mind is given just enough to draw my own conclusions, I like how there is explained just enough for me to understand what I read. There was no humour that I detected, but I do have a strange sense of humour to begin with, but there was no horror, suspense or total wonder that most SFs bring to my table.

It was a story and I could read it and enjoy it.

So even if my voice means nothing in this I would just like to say, I liked this story.

 

Thanks @stex and @DeathsKnight.

@stex, dammit I fought with the autocorrect for about five minutes trying to type Jean-Luc, and finally managed it. Sometime when I was spell checking it, the autocorrect did it again. I told it to ignore that, but somehow in the final draft its back to John-Luke.

@DeathsKnight, I wanted to confirm your comments are about the original story ("A Day in the Life."), not #2. I'm glad you liked it, you are more my target audience. The humor was subtle and situational. I wasn't thinking of it as horror, but if being woken up and made to watch your own death isn't horrific for you, you may be in the right profession as a Death Knight. Suspense I hadn't thought of, but some foreshadowing of the ending would add suspense, and could add a lot to the story, I could try that. The ending was a bit of an afterthought when I had a story with no there there.

Total wonder, these guys have the most awesome technology, they have god like powers over matter and energy. That could be wondrous. Then they spoil it by using the power for the most mundane tasks like getting dressed. I'm not sure I succeeded or failed in what I was trying to do with the story.

Kinda like the technology I'm using was total cyberpunk SF when I was a kid, now I'm using it to comment on a story on a porn forum.

 

The first one, the one you entered for the competition. I am a bit pressed for time, but once the comp is done I will read the follow up

 

Okay I didn't read the second as it thought that would be cheating, if you tailor the story to suit the critics.
So I don't like any of it. I'm not overly clever or overly stupid I don't want to be reading a story where I need a text book beside me to understand what's going on. I also think you did not allow the reader enough space to think with all your side bar explanations, if you think it needed explaining write it into the story. I'm sure this is a adult site and I don't think you mentioned a women other than his mom in the story, and the bickering with NEW doesnt count as females interaction.
Thanks tonybs.

 

Sorry it didn't work for you.

I'm surprised after reading your story, you handled technical details very well.

You don't have to read #2, that's just a bonus, sparked by the interactions in the thread.

There is no sex in it, and there never was going to be any sex in it. As I said this place is getting to me, so if I ever finish #3 and #4, there will be plenty of sex. What you can do with this level of technology is interesting.

 

You just made my decision a whole lot harder. You have a real talent. Is this your preferred genre? I would be interested in seeing what else you do.

 

Thank you.

SF is what I read, I haven't done much writing. I saw the competition and thought "I could do this."

 

First allow me to act all macho (or emo, pick one) the last thing to horrify me will be my own death. Been there, did that, failed and here I am

The fact that they have this awesome tech and have so much power is explained so well, that my mind starts to comprehend it and since I live myself into the story, I find that kind of power almost mundane and there goes the wonder. If you want me to stand stunned, try something like Dark City, Neverwhere and Interstellar, that is the kind of story that I will watch repeatedly (like Matrix I) just to first wrap my head around it and then for the enjoyment of it.

But like I said, your story was well-written and I really enjoyed reading it.

 

Hi Tony, first I want to say, I hated the fact there was no sex in this , its just not on !!! (Hehehe!) No there really wasnt anywhere to put any in and my assertions from the forum is that a day in most ordinatry mens life includes no sex either , (seriously, )

Now , my real review, I really like it, it really was the day in a life of an ordinary bloke . Albeit in a fantastic futuristic time , a one in which you wrote brilliantly what those differences were.

I loved the effectors, (where and when can I get one ?) The bed was the best and transforming rooms , just great, I'd also love one for my bathroom, (that would be some blow dry!) .

The nudity , body paint or light effects were a great idea, my kind of place .
The delay on the door way, the congestion , it made me chuckle, still cant get a smooth journey even in the future .

I thought it was written well, I didnt notice any spelling errors, but if I'm enjoying something sometimes I can miss them .
It was set out perfectly for me it made it easy to understand and separated things nicely , well thought out format , for me .

I had to listen to the song as its not one Ive heard before , maybe once . But I thought it was a novel idea tying it in or writing it around the song.

For me I can suspend my belief as long as I can make some sense of things, so I loved the idea of the after life, it added something extra , and it probably isnt a great stretch that it could come at some point (well , some form of it ) . I loved the idea that you could "live " how you wanted when you were dead, and even better that it was , RUDE ! to bring it up. Classy !

Sad that he died , I didnt see it coming, especially when he was already talking to his dead parents .

All in all, a very entertaining "normal day, in a normal life"
For me a very well written slick piece of work that stood out for me definitely not "normal" .

Thanks for your hard work Tony, well done even though I'm probably considered one of the "interlopers" I really enjoyed it . xx

 

Wow, thanks.

For an interloper, you have truly grokked* the story. That's very gratifying. As for the sex, just imagine the possibilities with an int and effector to help you. That story is in progress at the moment.


*Just in case, I was asked before what "grok" means:

Grok means more or less "understand". It to has the further nuance of fully understanding and internalizing the subject, possibly even loving it. Michael Valentine Smith picked up the word from the Martians and popularized its use in "Stranger in a Strange Land."

 

I heard some real news today, about the possibility of structures like the Dyson spheres I used in this story.

There's the star KIC 8462852 (aka "Tabby's star" or "WTF") which was examined by the Kepler space telescope looking for exo-planets. The light curve from the star is potentially explained by there being "Alien Mega Structures" in orbit around the star. Speculation is these could be part of a Dyson Swarm, the lower tech forerunner of the Dyson sphere. http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wheres-the-flux/

Then there's the study which has been looking for Dyson sphere's and similar structures. They have a particular IR signature, given reasonable assumptions. The conclusion is "advanced Kardashev Type III civilisations basically don't exist in the local Universe". https://www.astron.nl/about-astron/...ght-advanced-alien-civilisations-rare-or-abse

That's good for my universe, it gives the inhabitants room to expand without running into a superior civilization.