Hi, so soft-science isn't a tag and I don't see any discussion about it. I didn't want to just remove it as you're a more experienced user than I am, but honestly I don't see any need for it and it doesn't make sense on this question. I would, however, add the tag stars.

@Cyn. I have added the stars tag. I have stumbled over the hard-science tag so often in my answers that I wanted to introduce an alternative, more speculation-friendly version. I considered calling "Sciency" or maybe "Specultive-Science-Welcome". I will take it to meta when I get a chance. Maybe get the members to agree to a tag with such a purpose.

@Henry The tag you're requesting is the implied tag of the entire site! We have hard-science, magic, and science-based for when we need to move out of that default mode.

Yeah I kind of have to agree with @SRM. The entire site is about "what if." Things like hard-science and science-based are to signal that the questioner is looking for more formal science than the site normally requires.

Regarding this question -- is deflecting the energy of the sun into a single direction an option for your story? I don't think preventing solar fusion is an option, but I'm wondering about inventing ways to make the sun shine only out of its poles. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but it seems like a more plausible option to search than stopping a star from shining.

@SRM, focusing the light into a single direction has interesting implications for the later stories... If the beam is sent off a direction exactly opposite the direction that the insects are coming in from, it would buy the planet time, but once the swarm was beyond the planet, some of the bugs might turn around and notice that they missed one. Interesting! Please do provide an answer with such a feature if you can figure out how to make it work!

I did some digging into sunspots... doesn't seem to be viable to just make them really big, but they can be a lot bigger than I thought... visible to the naked eye such that Chinese astronomers starting in 364BC were recording them! web.archive.org/web/20110702095337/findarticles.com/p‌​/… Maybe you can make something work in that vector. I decided to go a different way for my answer.

How big are these "insects" ? Can they be destroyed ? Are they intelligent ? How much warning is there ? I'd be thinking in terms of diplomacy, or failing that destroying them (not really an issue for a K2 civilization).

@StephenG, I am planning to make the K2 civilization's battle with the insects part of the back story. They have already tried all reasonable solutions (both peaceful or militant) and failed. The insects are as big, numerous and prolific as they need to be to totally dominate a K2 civilization. Earth is just an after dinner mint for these monsters. Even the hiding of the Earth will be backstory; something that is already complete when my stories begin. Trying for the syfy in fantasy clothing ruse like what McAffrey pulled off in Dragon Riders.

I'm not really qualified to write this out as an answer, but perhaps someone else could pick it up?: what about creating some kind of gravitational lens to try and make it look like the planetary system in question is somewhere else?

Since those insects eat planets and hiding the sun is pretty much ridiculous... why not hide Earth instead? Including its moon, of course. Hiding Earth should prove about a billion times easier and more straightforward. For insects with insect intelligence, even "painting" it in a different color might work...

Note: You can have underground greenhouses using LED lighting so can have all the plant life you choose to preserve. Question: Speed of Light issue, if we shut everything down today it maybe years before it disappears for them. How far away are they? (in light years). If everything goes perfectly how long will it take them to pass through our neighborhood and be safe again? Also the heat from our sun only reaches Mercury at best so is this really an issue? The solar winds go much further do we need to hide them because you say only heat and light so I am inferring a no answer.

@Damon Wouldn't they feel it as they went past? If they went close enough, that is. And then it's game over.

@cybernard, I'm not sure what you mean by "the heat from our sun only reaches Mercury"... On its face that statement is demonstrably false by just standing in sunlight versus shade, so I have to believe you mean something else.

Also each star has a habitable zone. In our solar system only reaches Mars at best so is heat really an issue? All the other planets in our solar system are cold dead rocks, except those with internal heat of their own. Also what are we doing about the light generated by the rest of the objects in our solar system. In order to get any heat from our sun they have to reach 150 million miles of our sun, are they really going to get that close? The other planets in our solar system generate even less or no heat so they have to be super close to detect heat

@TracyCramer Sorry I mean Mars not Mercury. Our sun has a habitable zone which the planet Mars is the last planet to receive enough heat to be habitable. If the bug creatures are at Pluto no useful amounts of heat will reach them from our sun.

@cybernard, Understood. Thanks for that correction. You might want to change your answer to match that as well.

I wonder what part of the visible light spectrum the bugs can see because light naturally red-shifts due to acceleration?

This is an over simplification, but if you put a red transparent sheet in front of a flash light all light from it appears to be red. Well if the insects can't see red, we don't exist. So shift the light into spectrum of light the bugs can't see, even if its infra-red,x-ray,gamma ray, or etc.