Species: Rigelan
Home System: Rigel
Quote:
“These stars are ours. These worlds we curate. We guide you, we serve you, and you will in turn serve us.”
Description:
The Rigelans are self-replicating plasmas that live in the coronas of stars. How they came to be a spacefaring species is lost to history. They claim home to Rigel, a Dyson Sphere at the center of the galaxy. Whether they constructed the sphere as they claim, or are but its most recent occupants is unknown. For millenia the Rigelans have worked on their “grand design” a stellar conservation project to convert the entire galaxy into Dyson Spheres to guide organic evolution along the paths they desire. The Arcturans resisted, and the Great War nearly destroyed the galaxy. Rigel was locked at the heart of the galaxy behind impenetrable spatial anomalies and Arcturus vanished. As time passed, the galaxy began to heal from the war. The Rigelans were able to send probes to every system that could harbor life in the galaxy with an invitation to join them. The reappearance of Arcturus has started a cold war. Out of fear for a war that will destroy the galaxy, the Rigelans created the Galactic Council with the Arcturans, hoping to sway new species to accept their grand plan.
Designer’s Notes:
The Rigelans are the first of our two elder species, and the titular “Lords of Rigel.” They control the Dyson Sphere of Rigel at the start of the game. The Rigelans gave FTL technology to all of the player species and aim to convince the different species to support their plan of constructing more spheres instead of ascending. The Rigelans are heavily influenced by the various energy based “godlike aliens” in Star Trek such as the Q and Organians along with Babylon 5’s Vorlons. The Rigelan obsession with an orderly universe following their plan and actively guiding species to follow their plan drives their cold war with the Arcturans. The plot macguffin of the Rigelan is also meant to follow Arthur C. Clark’s short story “The Sentinel” and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Rigelans giving FTL technology and driving species down a certain historic trajectory is similar to what actions of the aliens behind the artifacts in Clark’s stories. Despite all of the power that the Rigelans have, in the end they are flawed since their actions are driven out of a fear of being unable to ascend and their species eventually ending.
