Dark Fortress
Names: Dark Fortressthe barrierbarrier generatorthe generatorDyson Alpha barrier generatorWatchtower
First appears in Book 1: Pandora's Star, chapter 15 (FOURTEEN)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: Pandora's Star
- Ch 15A hemisphere on the barrier with a glowing opening; its light is periodically eclipsed about every seven and a quarter hours by moving lattice struts.
- Ch 15Inside the fourth lattice sphere are concentric rings of varied form, nicknamed God's own orrery, in an energy maelstrom where human technology cannot survive.
- Ch 15The crew concluded it is the barrier generator, though they cannot prove it; the opposite side of the barrier has no hole.
- Ch 15After the barrier vanished, the Dark Fortress appeared smaller, with its outer lattice sphere rotating, its shell gone, and an unrecognized quantum fluctuation signature inside.
- Ch 16The barrier around Dyson Alpha vanished when the Second Chance's crew began to examine it.
Book 2: Judas Unchained
- Ch 9Nine satellites were lost there, four of them Armstrong-class, shortly before the barrier came down.
- Ch 13An unusual quantum signature appeared inside it when the barrier fell, matching a flare bomb's principle.
- Ch 15The planet-sized barrier generator was only disabled, not destroyed, per Clouddancer; it may have a self-repair function.
- Ch 16The Dark Fortress is the Dyson Alpha barrier generator, a set of lattice shells around rings, disrupted by a continuous quantum signature.
- Ch 19The Dark Fortress is a planet-sized lattice-sphere structure with a plasma storm inside, which MorningLightMountain suspects is the barrier generator.
- Ch 19The Dark Fortress has lattice spheres around a core of rings; outer ones are electro-repulsive, the fourth is neutral and offers no resistance.
- Ch 19The Dark Fortress survived two quantumbusters, built by the Anomines to last; a flare bomb flash hit it, then a shell appeared around its outer lattice sphere.
Connections
- part ofthe barrier
- inDyson Alpha
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 15Exploring the Dark Fortress
Using Galileo and Armstrong satellites, the crew maps four lattice spheres and the central rings, discovering electro-repulsive and negative mass layers, and finds no hole on the opposite side.
- Book 1 · Ch 15The barrier vanishes
Dyson Alpha's barrier loses cohesion and disappears as the Second Chance approaches, revealing a civilized, heavily colonized system and a changed Dark Fortress. Oscar fears something knows they are there.
- Book 1 · Ch 16The Second Chance returns
The Second Chance returns to Anshun reporting that the barrier around Dyson Alpha vanished and that the aliens seem hostile. Mark follows the news in Randtown.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Charybdis attacked at the Dark Fortress
Ozzie and Mark approach the Dark Fortress, activate active sensors, and are detected; MorningLightMountain opens wormholes and launches missiles at them while they accelerate at twelve gees.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Quantumbuster strikes at the Dark Fortress
Nigel Sheldon's Scylla fires a quantumbuster, annihilating the Prime fleet. Ozzie and Mark then reach the core and launch a quantumbuster at the Sparks ring distortion.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Flare bomb hits the Dark Fortress
Ozzie's flare bomb flashes at the Dark Fortress; afterwards Dyson Alpha's light and MorningLightMountain's signals vanish and the crews head home.