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Bajor's Dyson Swarm.
"Come in," Commander Ben Sisko called when the door chime to his office went off.
Jadzia Dax strode in. Sisko grinned when he saw her, but he was still seeing a ghost of his old friend, Curzon in her although there was a massive difference between the beautiful, elegant, serene beauty of the old, somewhat boisterous old man Sisko had known.
"Dax! What is it?" Sisko asked.
Jadzia handed him a padd she was holding. "The latest Dyson swarm report," she said, passing him the padd.
Sisko took it and read the first section before he looked up, "It's started, but there are still reports of the Kohm-Ma interfering."
The Kohm-Ma were a group of radical, xenophobic fanatics who had caused the relief teams sent to Bajor to help the planet rebuild following the Cardassian occupation. To them, there was no difference. They didn't care if the Federation brought medical supplies, food, power generators, or anything like that. They just wanted aliens gone and Bajor for Bajorans. When the Federation suggested putting a Dyson swarm around Bajor's sun to help them gain more energy supplies, many groups didn't like it.
"Yes, and even though the minerals for the swarm are coming from us as well as the robots and the drone fleet, they're still protesting," Jadzia said.
"It says here the Kohn-Ma are going for the robot ships."
"That's right. Starfleet's sending a Star Destroyer."
"That's dangerous and insane!" Sisko was on his feet without realising it. "Don't they realise this will give them the proof they think they need we're here to conquer them."
"Ben, I know," Jadzia said soothingly, which managed to calm him down. "But many Bajorans don't like what we're providing or even offering. Many of them want to do it themselves, which is stupid as they're accepting the money from traders, merchants, and civilians looking to go through the wormhole."
"You'd think the Kohn-Ma would have folded after the mess with the Circle," Sisko grimaced at the very thought of the powerful, shady group of xenophobes who'd come close to seizing political power and making their views a reality…but their reality would come crashing down when the Cardassians returned because they had secretly backed the Circle through proxies.
"You know as well as I do that the Kohn-Ma and the Circle are two different groups, Ben," Jadzia said.
Sisko switched on the desk monitor and turned it so that Jadzia could see the Bajoran Dyson swarm. Dyson technology was simple enough; you sent many simple, heatproof and radiation-proof mirrors into the sun's orbit, and would simply reflect the light. Nearby was the large, triangular bulk of a Star Destroyer. Constructed in the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf 359, boasting many weapons and a fighter complement, the Destroyer was the most advanced ship in the system.
And the most dangerous. If any Bajoran terrorist tried to attack it, Sisko would think little of their intelligence.
The robot ships were smaller. They were long cylinders attached to warp nacelle rings, firing the mirrors in the shape of small cylindrical capsules, fired strategically into the sun's orbit, where they would unfold and take a position before directing the beams of light towards the collecting stations.
At the same time, on the nearest planet to the sun, a secondary inversion of the Dyson swarm, a large patch of mirrors had been built to also point more light towards Bajor, and its colonies.
"What's the news from New Bajor?" Sisko asked.
"They've built a planetary mirror station on one of the nearby moons to the local star. They're going to build a few more in the next few years."
"Are they thinking of building a swarm?"
"I don't know. I don't think they've reached a consensus about that."
"They should and soon. What's the latest news about the Bajorans' moves into the Gamma Quadrant? They've got New Bajor already, but I've been kept out of the loop. Are any more new colonies going to be built?"
"Bajoran ones I'm not sure about, but Starfleet has found many planets in the Gamma Quadrant; thanks to the Time Drive, we've been sending more and more ships between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants."
"All of that came from the discovery of the wormhole."
When the Time Drive was discovered, it had originally been planned to just simply use it to slowly explore more of the Alpha Quadrant, and locate new colonies, discover new sources of minerals and chemicals while Starfleet and the Federation rebuilt after the Battle of Wolf 359; long term plans had been put in place to use the drive when the fleet was fully restored and rebuilt while new worlds were found to help the Federation dig in when the Borg threat returned to this part of the galaxy to send ships out on 5 to 10-year missions to distant parts of the galaxy, and even to others.
Time travel was a controversial subject at the best of times, but using a drive that forced a ship to drop out of the universe and travel through time to its destination in a flash while skipping over the intervening years and distances was leading to a lot of excitement where many officers wanted to push the limits and explore the Delta Quadrant in months rather than days.
The discovery of the Bajoran wormhole had loosened the ties on the Time Drive and the plans devised for the long term, and even though it didn't work there were plans to send ships with the drive to the Delta Quadrant through the Barzan wormhole, and now ships were exploring vast swathes of the Gamma Quadrant.
In the last year, scientific exploration has unveiled thousands of new worlds between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. There were plans to colonise them all, but that would likely happen within the next few years.
"We knew it was inevitable, Ben," Jadzia replied.
Author's Note - This is a sort of sequel to Star Destroyer, where in another world, Starfleet realised their methods of building ships were too optimistic and began looking down other avenues to protect their people.