There is a sci-fi series that I am absolutely blanking on that features that concept - I remember a few characters each having access to a somewhat godlike ability to manipulate physics, and using it to restructure the universe to create computers to augment their own capabilities - definitely some planetary stuff and some quantum / atomic level stuff.. hmmmm maybe gpt can help
This sounds vaguely like the series that Peter F. Hamilton has written, possibly the Commonwealth Saga?
Man ‘Judas Unchained’ sounds like a real familiar title but the synopsis does not right any bells.
I think the artifact that could be tuned to pull power from celestial bodies was sold to the human / or traded or gambled or something - by an alien entity named ‘wheeler’ maybe?
The protagonist had a friend named Zero or Zeno that was kind of a techno mystic?
Idk my memories are pretty spotty
The book is Signal to Noise and its sequel A Signal Shattered by Eric S. Nylund.
A personal favorite of mine! Wheeler is such a convincing villain, and the existence of such a character as an explanation of the Fermi paradox is eminently believable.
would it happen to be "Zones of Thought" by Vernor Vinge?
Ooh no it is not, but I am coincidentally working my way through the third book in that series!