Why Build a Planet-Sized Space Station When You Already Have a Planet?

I’m about a fifth of the way through Martha Wells’ Platform Decay, the eighth entry in The Murderbot Diaries, and so far one of my favorite things about it is simply getting to explore somewhere new.

This time, that somewhere is the Torus, an enormous artificial habitat that rings an entire planet.

As a lifelong sci-fi fan, my immediate reaction to that concept is pretty predictable:

That’s awesome.

Murderbot’s reaction is basically:

That’s stupid.

And annoyingly, it has a point.

Murderbot observes that if you have the technology and resources necessary to construct an artificial structure around an entire planet, you could probably just terraform the planet and end up with a tremendous amount of habitable space without building an incomprehensibly massive ring around it.

Which is exactly the kind of practicality I don't bring to science fiction.

I hear "planet-sized megastructure" and immediately want to know what it looks like, who lives there, how it works, and whether something horrible is lurking in its maintenance tunnels. Murderbot wants to know why anyone wasted this much time and money building the thing in the first place.

But as I've gotten farther into the book, I'm starting to see the answer.

A planet might be easier to live on, but it's also a planet. It's enormous. There are countless ways on and off of it, enormous amounts of territory to monitor, and all the security problems that come with that.

The Torus is different.

It's artificial. It's controlled. Its entrances, exits, systems, and defenses can all be designed intentionally. Suddenly the ridiculous megastructure starts making a little more sense, particularly in the kind of dangerous corporate space Murderbot inhabits.

And that's one of the things I've always enjoyed about The Murderbot Diaries. Martha Wells gives us the giant sci-fi ideas I came for, but Murderbot itself frequently refuses to be impressed by them.

I'm sitting there thinking, "Holy shit, a ring around a planet."

Murderbot is basically thinking, "Do you know how inefficient this is?"

And somehow, we're both having a good time.

More thoughts once I actually finish the damn book.