Apart from messing with a lot of the plot (of course, the plot as understood by the characters within the stories as explined to them by various scientists who might have had their own agendas to serve), most of the effects in Urth could be explained by a really really big and continuous volcanic explosion (or comet collision? (The New Sun, beta/untested version?) kicking up a lot of dust in the atmosphere, making the sun appear red and cooling the whole planet, etc. This wouldn't account for stars visible during the day, though.
Maybe a better line of questioning is to assume that there is a black hole in the sun, and ask why we put it there? To make Venus habitable? Because of a greenhouse effect on Earth, and we needed to cool it down? Maybe the sun had begun to expand and this was to halt that? Or, was it a hierodule trick to, in the long run, help the humans to develop?
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"The most incomprehensible fact about nature is that it is comprehensible"
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