History Main / RingWorldPlanet

* ''Literature/Aeon14'': The Transcend's capital Airtha is a ringworld built around a white dwarf. The ring is a giant diamond made from carbon drawn from the star.

Bigger hoop-shaped worlds are depicted as ribbon-like affairs, and are usually "roofless" due to rotating fast enough that centrifugal force keeps their air in. This version was popularize by Creator/LarryNiven, who thought it up as a mid-point between a DysonSphere and a planet, in his 1970 novel ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'', which depicts a version as wide around as the orbit of the Earth and with an absolutely massive habitable area. Colossal rings of this sort, with a star in their center, are still referred to as "Niven rings". Since something this big turns out to be impossible in real life, harder science fiction leans towards using smaller hoops, still large enough to host more than a world's worth of land but which orbit stars like regular planets do. These are usually called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Orbitals "Banks orbitals"]] or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) "Bishop rings"]].

* ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'' is set on a world shaped like a vast ring with a sun at its center. It's made of {{Unobtanium}} called ''scrith'' and is so massive that its geographical features include 1:1-scale maps of several ''planets'' (including Earth). ''These maps are significantly less than 1% of the ring's surface area''. Day and night is created by massive solar panels in spinning in orbit between the sun and the ringworld. [[RamScoop Bussard ramjets]] on the rim of the ringworld keep it centered. The whole thing is reasonably RagnarokProof, which is good, as it's also quite Ragnarok-''prone'': once high-technology civilization there collapses, the absence of available metals means that it can never arise again without outside interference.

* In the ''VideoGame/OuterWilds: Echoes of the Eye'' DLC, you discover "the Stranger," a small ringworld capable of flying between star systems. The inner ring features an artificial river complete with houses on stilts, wooded hills, rocky rapids, and finally a dam. Over the course of your exploration of the Stranger, said dam cracks and eventually breaks, letting you watch the GiantWallOfWateryDoom as it travels the circumference of the ring.

** [[ArtificialIntelligence Ancient]] [[TheRemnant Caretakers]] [[VestigialEmpire Fallen Empire]] has ring worlds built in its star systems that [[spoiler:formerly served as a shelter for biological sapients trying to escape from some unknown threat]].

** Sigil from the Planescape setting is a small version of this with the inner surface completely covered by city, and floating on top of an infinitely tall spire in one of the Outer Planes. It's also a sort of hub that connects to all the other planes of existence.
** There's also Penumbra, the illithid homeworld, which is an Alderson disk [[note]]A megastructure in the shape of a giant CD with habitable surface on both of its sides and a star in the middle of its spindle hole. Alderson disc is thick enough to generate its own gravity and a wall along its inner edge prevents the atmosphere from escaping into the central sun[[/note]]. It [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble may or may not exist yet.]]

* "VideoGame/BlazingStar": One is seen in the background of level 2.