Dyson swarm

A Dyson swarm is basically a network of overlapping satellites that cover a vast region of stable orbits close to the star. Around Sol, the swarm covered a region between ~.09 and ~.2 astronomical units from the Sun. These orbited through an extremely complex set of mechanics, taking even light pressure into account, and were constantly readjusting themselves, consuming, at their peak (before the Holocene enacted the [[Skoll effect) nearly all of the sun's light. Most of the light that remained, aside from providing a soft glow, was allowed to shine on the innermost and jovian planets of the system.

Without such ubiquitous access to patterns, and most of the Galaxy somewhat wary of intense computing resources, most swarms do not consume more than half of a star's light. Most of this energy gets used to power satmets, coil arrays, and activate stargates, though occasionally things like stargrazings occur as well.