Star sphere

The Star Sphere is a technology that captures the full energy released by a star. Because of this megastructure, the Homelanders can use all the abilities they have.

Overview
After the Homelanders discovered that the energy of a star actually can be captured via stellar power panels, they started to look for possible ways to harness the total energy. They started to build the sphere right after building and testing a nuclear propulsion drive, which allowed their spaceships to achieve velocity of approximately 3.3% of light speed (regular nuclear explosions) and 10% of light speed (antimatter-catalyzed nuclear explosions).

Discovery of antimatter and further antimatter drive creation, which made travels with up to 70% of light speed possible, was thought to be used to speed up the process of the sphere's construction, but in reality, too many problems with heating and storing large amount of antimatter, along with decreased payload capacity didn't allow these plans to be implemented.

It took around 450 SCs (stellar cycles) of intense construction and an enormous amount of energy and resources (primarily ultra-thin and light alloys) to build the sphere.

The Homelanders had also pioneered and developed asteroid mining to supply this megaproject with resources. Despite the fact that the planet's crust and core had enough carbon that could be transformed into strong and light allotropes, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes and planetary programming had ensured an effective and relatively easy way to get some of these resources, rising concerns about possible environmental risks had outweighed practicality. That's why Homelanders decided to use both sources sparingly and responsibly.

The other reason for developing asteroid mining was the Homelanders' need for a reliable way to get rare chemical elements they used widely, such as tungsten, because even the planet's supplies could not satisfy the demand for these elements, not to mention the existing particle accelerators and nuclear transmutation centers; however, many projects had been running to improve the output of these technological processes.

The sphere was made as a swarm of smaller energy accumulators, which are placed asymmetrically around the star so while they aren't connected with each other physically, they are able to consume practically all the energy the star produces.

The solid sphere was discarded at the stage of design because it would be inevitably destroyed due to irremovable flaws in its very concept.

Several energy storage units have also been constructed on the shards of two former natural satellites of the Home, that were demolished for this very purpose.

Four shards are designed to redirect stellar energy towards the Homelanders via a certain type of quantum teleportation of energy, directly powering the reactor cores within them. After a quick check and processing, energy is used to power all their systems, while the excessive energy accumulates within their bellies.

After discovering black rifts, the Homelanders replaced quantum teleportation with them.

The time that energy takes to reach the shards from the sphere is synchronized, which allows them to always be in the path of stellar energy. Advanced solar sails are also used to adjust the shards' route.

Each shard has a reserve energy supply to use in case of an emergent need to safely dissolve all the stellar energy that is released by the star within a second. Normally, unused energy they redirect and dissolve is shared between all shards. That extra energy is partly used to replenish energy reserves.

Star Sphere Power (SSP) became the most important ability of the Homelanders, easily rivaling all other abilities combined. Not only did it allow them to casually solve problems that used to be nigh-impossible to handle, but it enchanted and reinforced many other abilities, making them even more useful.

The star's potential isn't used entirely. It still gives the same energy to the Home planet as before and this energy still can be used by the orbital stellar stations.

Applications

 * The main application of SSP is powering up the bodies of the Home's inhabitants, along with powering electrical devices. Using this ability, a Homelander can switch energy to the type they need and accelerate the flow of charged particles with the required amperage and voltage to the device. Powering the bodies is even easier, because the CPU uses pre-made patterns. Charged particles are automatically accelerated towards their energetic hubs, powering them up. From them, the energy distributes all over the body.
 * SSP is widely used as protection from hazards and natural disasters. A Homelander can use energy from SSP to accelerate the air molecules of shockwaves or tornadoes backwards, so they won't reach inhabited land. The same method is used to counter kinetic energy from heavy objects, to stop tsunamis and floods and even to stop forest fires by accelerating molecules of oxygen away from the fire.
 * Moderate acceleration is used as a way of transporting objects from one place to another. This method of transportation is vastly superior to the portail transportation, because the latter is limited to 1,326,000 pounds, while the former's limits are so large that not a single one transportation need can reach them.
 * Another SSP application is the self-acceleration that allows Homelanders to fly without moving a single muscle. The speed and distance of flight is limited only by the accumulated stellar energy and a Homelander's ability to withstand acceleration (any Homelander can endure up to 20,060 g for ten to fifteen seconds.) Air resistance is handled by accelerating air molecules out of the way, creating a route within a vacuum. Space flights are also possible.
 * Various production techniques require SSP for better quality. The simplest example is that SSP can provide a very high pressure which is very useful in engineering.
 * Homelanders utilize SSP in a variety of mundane situations, such as accelerating particles of dirt away from surfaces or burning them by using thermal energy converted from SSP.
 * Within the Homelanders' bodies, SSP is used as a cooling device that slows down molecules' movement and prevents body parts from overheating.
 * SSP reinforces chemical bonds between atoms and between molecules of various materials, including Homelanders' bodies. Given enough stellar energy, SSP reinforcement can make pretty much any material virtually indestructible.

Propulsion
SSP moves freely withing the Homelanders' bodies, but to use it for any other purpose, one must channel this energy. Homelanders stretch tails to the desired location and use them as improvised superconductors.

A more advanced way of channeling SSP is to move it directly at the desired target via a black rift each Homelander has within their body. Since such propulsion doesn't take nearly as much energy, because only energy being transported, the efficiency of this method is extremely high as well.

Source
The power of the Home's star serves as an energy source for the Homelanders and contains within their bellies. A typical Homelander can hold up to 6.33×1018 J or 77.53 pounds, expressed in mass-energy equivalence per second.

The additional amount of 6.33×1018 J of energy cannot be stored, so it should be used the same second it is created in the reactor core.

For comparison -- the most powerful hydrogen bomb detonated had released approximately 2.38×1017 J of energy.

In theory the Homelanders can accumulate twice as much energy they currently use, but so far only limited progress has been achieved in this.

The energy the Homelanders have at their disposal is pure, as in all possible losses, processing that require additional energy and other things like these are already taken into account. These 77.53 pounds in mass-energy equivalence can be used completely without any drawbacks, just like extra energy of the same amount.

But while the major uses of energy, such as SSP reinforcement, material objects acceleration (including protection from hazards) and powering up the Homelanders enjoy the efficiency right below the fundamental limit, other uses are significantly less efficient.

For example, to achieve the minimum amount of thermal energy to melt a metric ton of steel, which requires around 1,400,000,000 joules, a Homelander will use 14,000,000,000 joules of stellar energy. So the energy conversion efficiency will be only 10% in this case. That's why a noticeable chunk of the Homelanders' projects is dedicated to increasing the energy conversion efficiency.

But even in this case, with only 10% efficiency, it is possible to melt around 64,000 metric tons of steel using only 1 gram of mass-energy equivalence.

All extra stellar energy that wasn't used is either accumulated within the shards or safely dissolved in space.

Daily energy consumption
Maximum daily energy consumption per Homelander is around 2.59× 10 15 J, or 28.8 grams expressed in mass-energy equivalence. Therefore, maximum daily total energy consumption is around 1.55× 10 23 J, or 1,728.98 metric tons, expressed in mass-energy equivalence.

Additional energy is used to compensate energy losses and to contain it within the Homelanders' bellies. The efficiency of this power source is right below the fundamental limit.

Potential application
The most promising potential application of SSP structure is tightly bonded with nanotechnology. The name of this application is atomic manipulation. Given enough energy coming from SSP to power advanced nanorobots and their CPUs, appropriate programming and a more or less suitable way of manipulation, the application can potentially be used to create anything from anything, with little to no limit.

Scientific hypotheses predicted that atomic manipulation technology will become a gateway to another Singularity, even more significant than the one the Homelanders went through by creating SSP.

After Final Singularity
Construction of the first stellar sphere became a starting point of the singularity, allowing Homelanders to turn every star in the supercluster into a source of energy.