Helioforming

Helioforming was the process of using nano-compression technology to compress and ignite a brown dwarf, turning it into an artificial sun (also called a "protostar"). Burnham was the first brown dwarf in the Verse to be helioformed. It was determined that Burnham was the best candidate for this very experimental and dangerous procedure, due to its distance from the more populous core worlds, and its small size. After the process was refined at Burnham, it was then applied to the other six brown dwarfs in the Verse. The last brown dwarf to be helioformed was Qin Shi Huang, and only after the process was deemed as error free as humanly possible. The helioform process reduces the body's diameter to 60% of its original value while the mass remains constant.

Sources

• The Verse in Numbers