[quote=@LHG100]
Yeah, consistency is always important, after all. And, well, I always enjoy a series or universe more when even the huge-shit has at least a basic idea of how it'd actually work and be done and all that. Y'know?
[/quote]

Well if material resources is at least the basic major problem (engineering it all not withstanding) then you could maybe get away with claiming come civilization used drones to strip-mine every non-gaseous body in the system to construct a ring if not a full encasement of the star, and if you ever feel you need more than you could passingly say: "Well then they also mined less-important systems nearby".

This also being the future too, the value of human labor in this endeavor may be totally out of the question so the only thing is time being spent. What humans that are present may just be there for high-functioning work (program management, drone upkeep) so the crew would be pretty skeleton by today's standards but they can manage it all effectively, and be self sufficient in their little space-station.