This seems like the right venue for this so I'm just gonna throw it out there. More keeps coming the longer I think about it, but here's what I've got so far.
I'm envisioning a communication network held in place by starlight...

Let me draw you a picture.
Put 3 balls in tight formation on a flat plane. Now picture another ball above the center at a slight distance. Imagine the 3 balls inflating so that their boundaries overlap. The hole in the center now forms a 3-sided pit.
Before we inflate the 4th ball, imagine dropping a small bubble into that pit. Now expand the 4th ball so that it's boundaries also overlap the 3. The bubble in the middle is now compressed into a 4-sided pyramid.
What I'm describing, of course, is an arrangement of 4 stars, the minimum number to create the zone in the middle. For this example we'll make the distance between each of the three about one light year, the 4th one perhaps a little more. The expanding boundaries are the radiation emitted by those stars. The bubble is a large sphere of lightsail material around a relay in the center.
Once placed within the group the bubble will be forced to that zone of equalized pressure, a dead zone, if you will. The form it takes there might have to be engineered in advance, but I think the stellar winds would press it into that 4-sided pyramid shape on their own over time.
Once in place and shaped to take maximum advantage of the forces holding it there, it should, I believe, be locked in a fairly permanent position relative to the universe around it and not spin, and could be expected to remain there until it disintegrates or those stars drift apart or become unstable.
This network would have the advantage of being away from the immediate vicinity and noise of stars and planets and permit a signal to be sent from one relay to the next without going through those areas. In an average star field there would probably be many zones of this type, some more stable than others.
And - we might be able to see them. IF one existed it would be highly reflective, and IF one of it's faces were angled in our direction we might see it as a tiny star, easily overlooked, but also easily identified - it's spectra would be a mirror image of one of the stars in the group.
I'll leave it to someone else to figure out what powers it or what type of signal it would use.

So - there it is. Have at it.

solar-sail in that orbit would be ENORMOUS! & it would show on WISE scan in our close neighborhood... ;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

solar-sail in that orbit would be ENORMOUS! & it would show on WISE scan in our close neighborhood... ;)

It would have to be big, yes, but we're talking about something that wouldn't necessarily show up on infrared. The shell would reflect light, and while the machine in it would probably put out heat it would be so tiny that in the larger field we wouldn't notice it.

solar-sail in that orbit would be ENORMOUS! & it would show on WISE scan in our close neighborhood... ;)

It would have to be big, yes, but we're talking about something that wouldn't necessarily show up on infrared. The shell would reflect light, and while the machine in it would probably put out heat it would be so tiny that in the larger field we wouldn't notice it.

nothing is 100% effective...so it would heat up!
also, that heat could be a "power source"...

but:
1. we have to prove or disprove Solar sails...no thrust was confirmed till today!
2. don't know about efficiency of Solar sails enough, that one would work that far from d Star...
:/

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

solar-sail in that orbit would be ENORMOUS! & it would show on WISE scan in our close neighborhood... ;)

It would have to be big, yes, but we're talking about something that wouldn't necessarily show up on infrared. The shell would reflect light, and while the machine in it would probably put out heat it would be so tiny that in the larger field we wouldn't notice it.

nothing is 100% effective...so it would heat up!
also, that heat could be a "power source"...

but:
1. we have to prove or disprove Solar sails...no thrust was confirmed till today!
2. don't know about efficiency of Solar sails enough, that one would work that far from d Star...
:/

I've asked an astrophysicist about the concept and am still waiting for a response. There may be dynamics involved that make it impractical.
But when you look at pictures of interstellar dust being blasted and carved out around emerging stars it's hard to imagine that something that can be pushed by light would not be held by a balance of opposing pressures.
I think the idea has a certain elegance in it's simplicity but that could just be in my head. If it's unworkable I'll try to come up with something else.
In the meantime it's fun to play with. It occurred to me last night that a system like this could be put in place by automated vessels following a route, and the technology could be simple enough that anyone could add to it so that over time it would be extended by collaborative effort.

I would rather put device in some Lagrange point of those systems...

& put big lenses on them - 1 for every Star, to warm up the fluid 4 electricity generation...'cause a cold ex-changer of heat dump is easily made by radiating to cold Space!
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU