Starbeam Collector
The Starbeam Collector is a planetary-scale power generation facility that forms the primary energetic backbone of industrially developed worlds, converting raw stellar radiation into usable power through coherent beam transmission. These installations receive concentrated stellar energy via massive orbital collector arrays that focus a system's stellar output into a single, impossibly powerful coherent beam. Atmospheric transit is made possible through gravitic lensing—titanic orbital platforms generate precise gravitational fields that create a vacuum corridor through the atmosphere, preventing beam-atmosphere interaction that would otherwise cause immediate atmospheric incineration. Upon reaching the collector dish, a multi-stage conversion process transforms the beam: exotic metamaterial arrays first refract the light into cascading wavelengths, then quantum-voltaic converters harvest each frequency band separately, achieving near-perfect light-to-electricity conversion efficiency exceeding 99.7%. The resulting power output is measured in exawatts, sufficient to supply the majority demand for planetary industrial networks, arcology habitation systems, and defensive grids simultaneously. While backup generation facilities handle critical loads and peak demands, a Starbeam Collector represents the primary power backbone—its loss forces worlds to operate on reduced capacity, crippling manufacturing and necessitating strict rationing across all sectors. During the Unity's height, these facilities operated with minimal security; in the fractured era of the Schism, they have become primary strategic targets whose capture or destruction can shift the balance of power across entire metachors.