What's with the Rigel System in Star Trek? 

Thanks for this, I've always kinda felt that in Star Trek the Rigel system was dropped like the catch-all or "junk" drawer that has duct tape and gum and walnut crackers and a spool of wire in the kitchen. Writers at 5PM on Friday "Eh...just say it's from Rigel".

If we met aliens and they called their world Rigel. We probably wouldn’t argue that we already named a star that.

Rigel VII could have been a rogue planet captured by the system at a later date - could also explain its elliptical orbit and its tilt compared to the plane of the ecliptic. Theoretically it could have been a frozen ball of rock hurtling through space for billions of years that was captured by the system long after the Masters had moved on from the system, and just so happened to land within the habitable zone, with its orbit slowly stabilizing (albeit still elliptically) around the Beta Rigel.

I like the idea that Rigel has vulcaniod lifeforms.

So Rigel is the Corellian System (Star Wars) of Star Trek. That is so cool.

Not only do you know your Sci Fi, but real Science as well, which is very much appreciated. Great presentation.

Heroic attempt (and a good solution) to explain the "Rigel" discrepancies. Well done.

ah the Rigel System, everyone's favorite star system

For years I never cared about star trek at all but because of covid I was bored and needed something to do so I binge watched star trek from next generations to voyager and I loved it 😁

As always your real science in scifi related content is top notch 👌

It's depressing to think that in our timeline Rigel is probably just black rock floating around in deep space.

Rigel in Orion isn’t the only Rigel. There’s another star multiple system much closer that shares that name: Rigel Kentaurus, otherwise know as Alpha Centauri.

Lots of great theories! I always wondered if "Rigel" was an ancient empire which went around naming habitable planets after themselves in different star systems. So, "Rigel 12" is in a different system to "Rigel 3" and so forth. This skips the issue of having so many habitable planets in a single star system!

Sounds like the writers need to get together on what "Rigel System" is.

My headcanon has been that, like Orion, Rigel actually refers to some constellation or other stellar cluster in-universe. I like this theorising for how it could all fit in one star system though! One benefit of star-lifting is it also increases the star’s lifetime, though I don’t think sufficient enough to make up the time difference you mention at the end.

The simpler resolution to the Rigel problem, is that there are two Rigels, because they happen to lay directly in line with each other, which we only discovered after putting telescopes further from Earth. Then, we renamed the one we didn't expect to find "Beta Rigel". Then, whenever early trek went to "Rigel" it was obviously referring to the only explored Rigel system, Beta Rigel. But later treks which featured ships capable of reaching the further Rigel system, would call that one "Rigel" and the nearer one "Beta Rigel". Now you've got two systems with two different stars and two different habitable zones, and you can probably split the planets up between them until they make sense. I expect you can usually tell from context clues, in universe, which Rigel is being referred to, in the same way Earthlings have to know whether someone is talking about the state or the country named Georgia.

For the engagement algorithm! For Tyler's continued good work on Star Trek stuff.

Your videos have an amazing amount of information.

It's an A 5 main sequence. The Roman numeral V represents a main sequence star.

I liked the idea that Sol might be the capital of the Federation, but that Rigel is the most heavily populated

That was one of the best ideas to bridge what various writers across multiple shows and multiple decades have put to screen.

I never would have spent much time learning about Rigels. Like another person commented, they seem like a tool for the writers to fall back on. This video showed me all the connections and true extent that the Rigel system has had on Star Trek

I always love a new Trek video. Thank you for this one. Rigel is often mentioned but rarely described in any detail, so I appreciate the in depth dive. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

Very well done, as always Tyler!

I always thought there was just multiple different Rigel systems in different locations and they were all called Rigel for different etymological reasons.

as long as we're talking β canon, the T'Kon are supposed to have been able to move entire star systems. I don't think it would have been too hard for them to assemble one from disparate components, where the non-habitable rocky worldss and the gas giants are there too balance to orbits of the habitable worlds, possibly in response to one of more planets colliding and becoming the asteroid belt(s).

I didn't realize until I was an adult that when they said "Regalian" in TOS, TNG, they were just pronouncing Rigelian weird. ...at least I think? Excellent video as usual.

Fellow Tennessean here.. thanks for breaking this down for us..

Another great well written and well researched video Tyler well done.

_The Book of Common Knowledge_ and _The Book of Deep Knowledge_ were both part of the FASA _Orions_ publication. Two physical books in the same box or plastic wrap. Some FASA Star Trek RPG products were published this way. One book was meant for everyone (the players) and one book was meant for only the gamemaster.

I hadn’t known about the masters at all until now and I’m super curious now about all the extremely ancient races. I love the thoughts of Star lifting and also uplifting races. It’s really interesting to me.

I was under the impression that Wolf in the Fold sugests that Rigel was a combo preinhabited planet and Earth Colony. That Mr Hengist was part of the earth colony there.

Two spines? Think of the back pains they must have!

I like your videos about Star Trek et al. Many of them I'm unsure if you're talking real or the fiction of the media like with this, I wonder about the origins of Rigel and how many planets really revolve around that star and such. So these videos pique my interest 😀

This makes great sense. After all, once one figures out how to generate an A-type star, they then have that star's lifetime to improve their skills, so as to (eventually) be able to elongate the star's lifetime to however long is required.....such as to 5.5 billion years.

Great insight into the topic.

I've been a Trek fan for several decades and I've never heard that theory before; interesting. However, if the Beta Rigel system is artificial (to differentiate from the real Rigel star), why does the system seem older and more advanced than the Terran system when it should be the opposite? Perhaps I didn't fully grasp the theory. Either way, thanks for another great vid!

I love the idea of seeded worlds. Reminds me of The Foundation Series.

Funny that you and certifiably ingame mention star lifting on the same upload day(the t'kon video for him)

Rigel is the Tatooine of star trek. Everything leads back to there.

Happy 100th OR! Really enjoy the video!🖖

Thank. This was interesting.

thanks for the video, live long and prosper!

🤘😆🤘

My theory is that Starfleet simply renamed a closer star 'Rigel'. The real Rigel could have been given another name..

Good vid! Thank you. Off topic: the latest ep of Strange New Worlds, the musical one, was brilliant! STD and Picard S1 and 2 made me sick to my stomach. But SNW has won me back and the musical put it over the top.

In the real world, Rigel has three visual stellar companions, Rigel B and Rigel C - a binary system (or more likely, based on spectroscopic data, a trinary system with Rigel B having two component stars Rigel Ba and Rigel Bb), and Rigel D. Because of its companions, Rigel is now called Rigel A. At the ninth magnitude, the combined light of Rigel B and Rigel C would usually be enough for most telescopes to pick up, but they are too close to Rigel A to be distinguished apart. Due to their closeness to each other and ambiguity of the spectrum, little is known about the intrinsic properties of the members of the Rigel BC triple system. All three stars seem to be near equally hot B-type main-sequence stars that are three to four times as massive as the Sun. It is unclear whether Rigel D is physically related to Rigel A or a coincidental alignment. Gaia DR2 finds it to be a 12th magnitude sunlike star at approximately the same distance as Rigel A. Likely a K-type main-sequence star, this star would have an orbital period of around 250,000 years, if it is part of the Rigel A system. Also, the name Rigel comes from an Arabic phrase, "Rijl Jauzah al Yusrā," which means, "The left leg of the Jauzah," according to Richard Hinckley Allen's book "Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning" (Dover Publications, 2013). The phrase is also sometimes translated as "The left leg of the giant," referring to the constellation Orion, which Rigel A is a part of. Rigel A is more properly (to astronomers) known as Beta Orionis A. Thus, inventing Beta Rigel for Star Trek may cause some confusion since Rigel A is already officially Beta Orionis A, and it already has three visual companions, Rigel B (aka Beta Orionis B), Rigel C (aka Beta Orionis C), and Rigel D (aka Beta Orionis D). However, given the uncertainties about Rigel A's visual companions due to masking by the brighter star, it is possible that there is another yet to be discovered fainter visual companion star to Rigel A that is at a much closer distance to earth than Rigel A. In that case, however, that visual companion star should be called Rigel E or Beta Orionis E, rather than Beta Rigel. Perhaps, if the closer Rigel E were to exist and be discovered prior to the formation of the Federation, and become more important to the Federation than the more distant stars Rigel A, Rigel B, Rigel C, or Rigel D, then Rigel E may be referred to by the Federation simply as Rigel, with the more distant stars retaining their original designations Rigel A, Rigel B, Rigel C, and Rigel D to distinguish them from the important star Rigel, formerly known as Rigel E.

HI Tyler the TKon empire were renowned as builders of sola systems and even moving existing sola systems from one place to another I think these are the individuals your looking for the empire covered nearly all of federation Romulin and half of klingon space and stood for 700 Thousand years ....keep up the fantastic work my friend 👏

In alternate universes there are Tylers who are various kind of scientists, successful lawyers and hot-shot police detectives but they could not possibly have as much potential for personal happiness as this Tyler.

Made through almost the whole video and I just noticed we're wearing the same shirt.

I don't like that all these planets are in the same system. I would prefer that some of the planets (Rigel 2 - Rigel 6) are in the same system and the others were mapped or colonised by Rigelians in nearby star systems.

Thank you for including Orions FASA version. Which also talks about Orions being from Rigel before they moved on to the planet Orion. Retcon?

The inconsistencies of the Rigel system could come from politics and the nature of exonyms. The entire light year measurement system we use is likely not the same as what they use in the Federation. They may have given the name Rigel due to the shear size of the system, not necessarily location. Could have been a committee that chose the exonym Rigel, like they did with Vulcans and Romulans. The Vulcans could have named it that, because it was somewhat close to their name for it. So it was easier to remember. When working with truly alien species in a Federation system, i would expect all sorts of odd happenings. Lol.

I suggest the best approach to canon is that Rigel is a sector, not a single system, in the direction of actual-Rigel from Earth. So each number denotes a system within the Rigel sector.

probably your best video

There was supposed to be a Vulcanoid Rigelian species as well.

Wow, they could a few seasons of a show based on the Rigel system.

Those are some sus looking balloon knotters

I’ve heard the theory of a constructed planetary system before in some of the Star Wars novels in regards to the corellian system. It’s an interesting theory and is ripe for story ideas.

YES! YES! YES!

I thought that Broken Bow was pronounced to rhyme with cow, as in the front of a ship.

Simple. A highly advanced species - likely one of a series of 'Preserver' species - created the star (or moved it), in order to build an artificial system to house worlds and species that had 'refugee' status after a major galactic event. Thus, the planets (rogues?) were also taken from elsewhere, and in some cases terraformed to make habitable, and in others, the planets already housed the species that were being 'rescued', and were far older (like Rigel VII). Thus, everything in the fabricated system would be of all different ages. This could easily be linked (by an author) to the events that transpired around the creation of the First Federation (although the Beta canon surrounding that would be off, timeline-wise), since that war also involved Orions, who are present in the Rigel system (could that have been a PoW camp?) Of course, there have been numerous 'galactic wars' that could have lead to the creation of a 'refugee system'. However, all of this becomes VERY 'iffy' when you consider it only takes 90 years for the light of that sun to reach Earth. It may be better to link it to the Vegan Tyranny and its downfall (which I speculate lead to the sundering of the cat-like species into all different groups), since they were around much more recently. Reconciling extremely recent preservers into the timeline would be rough, though. So an ancillary idea - the system was somehow 'shielded', until recently, so it wasn't visible from outside, BECAUSE it was a place for refugees (so others wouldn't come looking for those species for revenge/whatever). Like I said, there is a lot of 'meat' for an author to work with there, and having an invisible planet/system is not something unheard of in Star Trek. And if we really wanted to be clever, we could somehow link it to Betelgeuse, which is actually going nova right now (and also happens to be in Orion). Betelgeuse is only about half the distance Rigel is, and perhaps its wonky behavior currently could somehow be obscuring Beta Rigel from us (until it blows up, after which time we would 'discover' Beta Rigel). Very thought-provoking video - great job.

With all this talk about the new possible superconductor LK99, could you make a video covering what Star Trek like technologies are possible because of this discovery?

The density of the Rigel system is reminiscent of the Rigel Concourse in Jack Vance’s The Demon Princes.

I believe Rigel was just thought as a generic star system name and they didn't think back on the previous episodes.

Giant stars are unsuitable for habitable planets anyway, so i guess starlifting makes sense. If done with material from our Rigel it might even explain the Name. Or they changed/will change/will have changed the astronomical naming conventions in the near Future.

Christopher L. Bennett's "Rise of the Federation" novels are my favorite explanation for the Rigel disambiguity. All the different species and races, in a huge trading block that spanned its sector and some surrounding sectors, with immigrants from neighbouring powers. I only wish I could have kept it all straight in my mind. If I recall correctly, I think he explained that the real-life star Rigel is still Rigel but the locals of the Rigel system are a completely different star, and called themselves Rigel, so the humans started referring to it as Beta-Rigel, and the name sort of stuck. Or something like that. Simpler, without having to get into out of print RPG source books. (edit; correcting the author name.)

I just wish that CBS & Paramount cared this much about closing plot holes

I am not well versed in the exact specifics of this tech but if the creators of the Beta Rigel system had access to starlifting technology then the age of the system primary would not be such a big issue. Starlifting is one of the ways you can rejuvenate and prolong the life of stars, by extracting the heavier elements formed as fusion byproducts (Which are useful things like rare metals, regular everyday metals, carbon and the like) and leaving the hydrogen you can effectively sift out useful things and keep your star alive for much, much longer. This could even point to there being some hidden supertech space station in a subspace pocket or something in the Beta Rigel system that's still working to rejuvenate the star, even if there's noone left to enjoy all the free materials it's gathered. Kind of brings to mind the great Kicksey Winsey from the Death Gate cycle.

This might be the first OrangeRiver video I fell asleep watching.

Will you make a video on Star Trek Resurgence? Since you like Mass Effect and TNG, I feel like it's the perfect game for you.

"How could this be reconciled?" Oh, let's say that it was added -- possibly retroactively to the timeline -- in 2026 by one of: any member of the Q Continuum, God (aka "I need to bum a ride on your starship, my dudes"), Carl (known to his drinking buddies as The Guardian of Forever), The Traveller, Westley Crusher, or if Karen asked for them, any of their Supervisors, Excalbians, Douwd, Organians, Megans, Nacene, Metrons (I mean, we know they introduced humans to green aliens), Charlie X, the thing near the Edo (it liked building stuff), Nagilum, Kes (if she got some Wellbutrin), Zero, 0, Null, Elizabeth Dehner, Gary Mitchell, or anybody else who hit the galactic barrier with some Esper ability. I do like the speculation that it was constructed. It's also possible it was moved there, or right now it has a Dyson sphere, the destruction of which (which may have occurred in 2000), is what led the place to be such a mess. Moving it there would be interesting, because it could have originally been a protostar or group of wandering gas planets near Rigel that were collected and moved to the current position to fuse, thus the reason for the name. I doubt that a matter of a few centuries would be enough time to have fusion become stable, but I'm no stellar engineer.

I bet Q moved it sometime in the late 21st century. I can picture John DeLancie saying "We don't talk about the Rigel Incident."

Quite a mess that I wasn’t aware of. How about we refer to that area of the sky in the direction of Rigel and simply calling the group there as Rigel? The various numbers related to something like distance relationship to Earth? The stars could still be not found until later after warp drive letting us check out the area.

I only go with TOS for any cannon cause that’s the original version of everything, when I can anyways

Maybe it's another Rigel after the inhabitants completely coincidentally identified their home system as Rigel to Starfleet (which also means something different than the original Arabic meaning of the "real" Rigel)

Hey, Tyler... Guys, here. You are a smart nard.

Although there are definitely species in Star Trek that we could assume would be capable of moving stars The only example of of civilization attempting to move a star that I can recall was in one of the novels I believe it was the novel Q Space where we're showing ancient civilization that has long since passed replacing its home star. Admittedly though I have not been great at keeping up with all the new Star Trek series and at times not even sure how many there are including now what is it like 5 or 6 or we back down to 4? 3's about the most I want to handle 😂

🖖🏽 Peace, and long life

Maybe I am mis-remembering - but at some point weren't the Orions considered to be inhabitants of the Rigel system?

Hey Orange River everyone gets this wrong. It's Broken Bow, Bow as in the front of a ship not archery.

You should introduce the concept of storytelling to the ST clouds

to be honest when it comes to both Canon and Non-Canon Star Trek, it gets very messy when it comes to the Fictional Worlds within it. ( *i'm looking at you, Andoria* )

what if the rigellians already used rigel for their star/planet and the just renamed the star in orion?

Rrigel,Riigel,Riggel,Rigeel, and Rigell are the correct star names. The Feds didn't know till later that they had left spell check on and the names were corrected to Rigel so like multiple Springfields on Earth, there are multiple Rigels on the star charts.

The science of starlifting is actually fairly cut-and-dry (Easier with viable fusion technology.) - Essentially, you store the Hydrogen and various materials you otherwise want in the 'stellar nebula' - And then you drop it somewhere you want an appropriately-sized young star and stand back. It's just mass-intensive. Lots of brute force.

Seems like you missed a potential easy answer- the names were changed over time

10:02 that ad. What are those things?

Bolians and Tellarites please!

Really, the ability to starlift is the kind of technology one would need to extend a star's lifespan. Reducing the stellar mass prolongs the life. Of further note, nearly all stars only go through a fraction of the fuel in their entire mass. The supply of fuel that normally determines stellar lifespan is limited to that in or near the core itself, where the actual fusion takes place. Anything that could churn this region with fresh fuel from higher up could potentially increase the lifespan of a given star by an order of magnitude or more. Once again, is you can starlift, I don't think it too much of a stretch to to think you could core-churn as well.

I wouldn't mind an ep on the doomsday device

I always thought about Rigel 30 planets and 1000 moons and 4 different sentient species..

7:00 What a cool space charting program. At least, I assume it's a program and not a game. What is it?

Another hit! How do you even research this shit? I would be so lost

A5V the V is the letter, not the roman numeral. I get it. Given how much of science uses Latin, it gets confusing, but since it says B-V, I'm guessing it's using letter classifications at the end.

The series runners could have easily fixed the Rigel problem by saying Rigel sector to explain all the habitable worlds or the Enterprise writers could have looked in astronomy book or thrown in an Encarta Online CD and looked up Rigel. But lets face it, Star Trek is always about speed of the plot, whether its Worf and Martok going all the way to the Klingon homeworld from DS9 which should take days if not weeks at high warp show back up with a whole fleet two days later or the NX-01 getting to the Klingon homeworld in a couple days travelling below warp 5.

If I remember right wasn't Rigel supposed to be the fifth founding member of the Federation?

All of these planets are unrelated, but coincidentally use a unique source of food comprised of gelatinized wheat. the translator converts the name of this food into "Rye-Gel" but it's misspelled by the time the audience sees it. This food source is unique enough that it's actually used as a planet classification. What do you think of my theory?

It doesn't really make any sense that this would be all one system. Maybe Rigelians are just like George Forman (who named all his sons George) and they just call all the systems in their territory the Rigel system.

Hmm well I would only ask this. Since it was said in Enterprise that they got their knowledge of the "Rigel system" from Vulcan star charts. Could it be just purely an amazing cosmic coincidence that the Vulcans had a star system also that they just happened to name "Rigel" as well? Then, to differentiate from our own Rigel over 800 light years away it could be the humans, and not the Vulcans, who then decided to add the "Beta" tag to it. That would free up the possibility that it could in fact be a real star after all somewhere with our immediate cosmic neighborhood.