Alpha Centauri in fiction

The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in much science fiction.

The Alpha Centauri system

Alpha Centauri (α) in the constellation Centaurus.

Alpha Centauri, a double star system with the binary designation Alpha Centauri AB, is the brightest visible object in the southern constellation Centaurus. Its component stars are Alpha Centauri A (the primary — somewhat larger and brighter than the Sun) and Alpha Centauri B (the secondary — slightly smaller and dimmer). These stars are of spectral classes G2V (as is the Sun) and K1V respectively; in the former case there is an obvious model and potential for planets capable of supporting complex biospheres, and in the latter, as it turns out, an even stronger probability of a stable habitable zone that is well suited for life.. Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri — a late-discovered red dwarf, and the closest known star to the Solar System) appears to be gravitationally bound to the AB system although at a considerable distance. The collection of three stars together is called Alpha Centauri AB-C.

Since both of the principal stars A and B are nearby and similar to the Sun, astronomers have pursued a detailed search for planets in the Alpha Centauri system. Several established planet-hunting teams have used various radial velocity and star transit methods in this quest, but their observations have so far (as of 2012) failed to find any evidence of such relatively easy-to-detect orbiting objects as brown dwarfs or gas giant planets, although this very lack actually improves the probability that Earthlike planets may yet be discovered in the system.

Alpha Centauri AB appears to the unaided eye as a single star with a combined apparent magnitude of –0.27, making it the third brightest in the night sky after Sirius and Canopus. However, it lies so deep in the southern sky that most Euro-American creators of science fiction have never seen it with their own eyes; their strong interest in the system, expressed in stories involving the early stages of interstellar travel, is based wholly on its astrometrically established proximity to the Earth. In these stories Alpha Centauri is often treated as if it were a single star. The dim tertiary companion Proxima Centauri is frequently overlooked as being our true closest stellar neighbor in favor of Alpha Centauri AB (see further Proxima Centauri in fiction).

Alpha Centauri is commonly referred to as Rigil Kentaurus (Arabic: رجل أقنطورس Rijl Qantūris), meaning foot of the centaur — compare Rigel in Orion — and also as Toliman (Arabic: الظلمان al-Zulmān), or the ostriches.

General uses of Alpha Centauri

Many stars may be referred to in fictional works for their metaphorical (meta) or mythological (myth) associations, or else as bright points of light in the sky of Earth (sky), but not as locations in space or the centers of planetary systems.

However, because Alpha Centauri is only visible from the remote south, it lacks the rich historical net of metaphorical, mythological, and sky-gazing associations, predating the scientific era, which have commonly propelled purely artistic references in the Western tradition to stars such as Aldebaran and Sirius that blaze brightly in northern skies. Although it makes plentiful appearances in science fiction, Alpha Centauri is rarely if ever used in a general sense.

There follow references to Alpha Centauri as a location in space or the center of a planetary system, categorized by genre:

Literature

Relative sizes of the Sun and the stars of the Alpha Centauri system.

• "Far Centaurus" (1944), short story by A. E. van Vogt published in the collection Destination: Universe! (1952). A crew of Terran explorers who have been hibernating through a centuries-long voyage to Alpha Centauri discover on arrival that their technology has been radically superseded: Humanity has arrived at the Alphan planet Pelham via superluminal travel long before them, and has long forgotten about them and their primitive mission (compare Comics and animation: Guardians of the Galaxy below). The travelers must overcome their childlike naïveté to cope with the near Godlike human civilization that has evolved in their absence — a good example of the "quasimessianic ... transcendental omnipotence" with which van Vogt often furnishes his protagonists in order to generate a sense of wonder in his tales.
• Revolt on Alpha C (1955), juvenile and debut novel by Robert Silverberg. (In this case, "Alpha C" is an abbreviation of Alpha Centauri, treated as a single star, and does not refer to Proxima Centauri as the C component of the trinary system.) In the novel, when Space Patrol cadet Larry Stark visits the dinosaur planet Alpha C IV on a final training cruise before he receives his commission, its human colonists are on the verge of declaring a war of independence from Earth. Young Stark must balance his loyalty against his ideals and decide which side to support in this morally ambiguous confrontation.
• The Magellanic Cloud (1955), untranslated Polish language novel (Obłok Magellana) by Stanislaw Lem. Aboard a vessel called Gaia, 227 men and women leave the Earth for the Alpha Centauri system. After almost eight years of travel, they find signs of organic life on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, possibly coming from another planet within the Centauri system. One of the planets orbiting Alpha Centauri turns out to be inhabited by an advanced civilization.
• Childe Cycle (1959), unfinished series of novels by Gordon R. Dickson. The Alpha Centauri system has a total of 12 planets, among them Cassida in orbit around Alpha Centauri A and Newton in orbit around Alpha Centauri B. Cassida has a hard science splinter culture, known for its technicians and engineers. A poor world, it also provides mercenaries to other planetary governments. Newton also has a hard science culture. It is preeminent in science, and its physicists are without peer.
• Seed of Light (1959), novel by Edmund Cooper. An elite crew of men and women fleeing Earth after a nuclear holocaust reach the Alpha Centauri system, only to discover — to their vast chagrin — that there are no planets there. Reluctantly, they forge onward.
• Alpha Centauri or Die! (1963), novel by Leigh Brackett (fixup of The Ark of Mars (1953) and Teleportress of Alpha C (1954), originally published as an Ace Double with Legend of Lost Earth by G. McDonald Wallis). In this novel, a small group of colonists on Mars conspires to refurbish an abandoned starship hulk, with the goal of escaping from repressive Martian rule. Their destination is a habitable planet of Alpha Centauri, where they can govern themselves in imagined peace and security.
• Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), novel by Philip K. Dick. War between Earth and the insectoid-dominated planet Alpha II ended over a decade ago. The novel's plot revolves around an attempt by Earth to reassert authority over its former colony on the habitable second moon of Alpha Centauri's giant third planet: Alpha III M2 (called the "Alphane" moon from Dick's invented adjective form of Alpha Centauri, which he treats as a single star). The moon M2, once a psychiatric asylum, is inhabited by descendants of the original inmates who now populate tongue-in-cheek "Clans": Pares (paranoids), who form the statesman class; Manses (manics), who form the warrior caste; Skitzes (poets) and so on. In his novel The Blue World (1966) Jack Vance pursued a similar humorous conceit, where the castes evolved from the criminal métiers of prisoners aboard a crashed "Ship of Space": Swindlers (fishermen) who cozen fish into their nets, Bezzlers who form a priestly class, and so on.
• The Man-Kzin Wars (1966), Known Space novel by Larry Niven. Wunderland is a planet circling Alpha Centauri, and the location of the first extra-solar colony in the human history of Known Space. A salubrious world with a gravity 60% of Earth normal, it was invaded and its population enslaved for almost half a century by the Kzinti during the first Man-Kzin War. Alpha Centaurian men and women endured, or waged guerrilla warfare from remote and desolate bases, until the liberation.
• "Like Banquo's Ghost" (1968), short story by Larry Niven published in the collection The Shape of Space (1969). This ironic tale provides a twist on the more common "leapfrogged slowship" theme (compare Literature: Far Centaurus and Comics and animation: Guardians of the Galaxy in this article). The variation goes like this: A group of elite scientists and reporters gathers to hear a radio transmission from the Snarkhunter #3 robotic space probe as it finally arrives, after a 30-year interstellar voyage, at the planet Centaura of Alpha Centauri A. Among the invited guests is the strangely enthusiastic "Butch" — who is none other than the recently arrived (via faster-than-light ship) ambassador from ... Alpha Centauri.
• The Centauri Device (1975), novel by Michael John Harrison. The native Centaurians (humanoid aliens able to interbreed with humans) have been eradicated in a genocidal attack serving as an instrument of Earth's expanding colonization of the galaxy. The novel's protagonist John Truck, half-Centaurian on his mother's side, is "the last of the Centaurians," and as such the only person able to operate the "device" of the book's title: a sentient bomb which might just hold the key to settling a vicious space war ... (SPOILER ALERT) "... The Centauri Device is a significantly disgruntled space opera ... and one which demonstrates Harrison's persistent discomfort with the escapist conventions of this sort of science fiction. Unsurprisingly, the doomsday device of the title duly blows up the Galaxy."
• Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD (1978), a Terran Trade Authority handbook by Stewart Cowley. Alpha Centauri is the home system of the Alphans, the first alien race to associate with humanity. The Alphans become Earth's allies in a war with Proxima Centauri (the "Proximan War"). Cowley's book, a spacecraft handbook in the style of Jane's Aircraft 1977-1978 (current ed. Jane's Aircraft 2010-2011) rather than a novel, covers the events immediately before and after the Proximan War Era. It examines the 40 major types of craft operating during the period, including those of the inhabited systems of Alpha and Proxima Centauri, giving details of their development and operational history, and charts of their technical specifications.
• Downbelow Station (1981) and other Alliance-Union universe works, novels by C.J. Cherryh. Alpha Centauri is the site of Beta Station, one of the stations on the "Great Circle" chain of space stations that terminates at Pell Station in the Tau Ceti system. Beta Station was established in 2039 but mysteriously abandoned around 2160. Because it lies on no important trade routes, and apparently has no special resources of note, the system will not be recolonized for at least the next 300 years.
• Tale of Two Planets (1981), novel by Professor Morris Asimow. In this novel with a message, visitors from Alpha Centauri help to create a utopian planet Earth.
• Voyage from Yesteryear (1982), novel by James P. Hogan. An automated genetic Ark flees imminent nuclear catastrophe on the Earth, and locates a habitable planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri. Hundreds of human ova are programmed from the DNA databanks, then birthed and raised in untrammeled innocence by robotic nannies. As these "natural humans" grow to maturity they organize the polity of their colony world Chiron as a classless pastoral anarchy. When a resurgent and covetous Earth comes calling, the Chironians "governed according to [a] kind of Trickster Libertarianism ... effortlessly face down and flummox the attempt by Earth to re-establish control." Instead of seizing power, the invaders are happily assimilated.
• Neuromancer (1984), novel by William Gibson. The newly integrated AI Wintermute/Neuromancer has transcended Earthly concerns, and is looking for "its own kind" to talk to. It scans mountains of old records, and finds a series of transmissions recorded over a period of eight years back in the nineteen seventies that subtly indicate the presence of a peer intelligence "in the [Alpha] Centauri system." The two AIs are in communication, and their search for other advanced intelligences proceeds apace.

Artist's conception of the view from a hypothetical airless planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A.

• Footfall (1985), novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The book depicts the arrival in the Solar System of an alien species called the Fithp, man-sized "elephants" with multiple trunks, that have voyaged from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft driven by a Bussard ramjet. The aliens are intent on taking over the Earth, but in a particular way: Herd creatures, their traditional mode of warfare is to fight until it beomes evident which antagonist is dominant; then fighting ceases and the losers are assimilated into the winning herd. The Fithp expect their contact with humans to proceed along these lines, and are confused by human attempts at peaceful contact.
• Foundation and Earth (1986), Foundation series novel by Isaac Asimov. The marine world Alpha orbiting Alpha Centauri A is home to the last human remnants of some dying, radioactive world. The survivors, encountered here by Foundation councillor Golan Trevize, dwell in seeming polynesian-style simplicity on the only land mass in Alpha's world ocean, a Jamaica-sized island called by them "New Earth" — the long-ago product of a charitable terraforming project carried out by Imperial engineers under the emperor Kandar V. Could their moribund homeworld be the long lost "Old Earth," supposed cradle of humanity?
• Starfire (1990-2002), series of novels by David Weber and Steve White based on the Starfire board wargame (1979-1980) by Stephen V. Cole. The Alpha Centauri system plays a key role in the Terran Federation because it is the location of a large number of warp-point junctions, including one that tunnels directly into the Solar System; it is the headquarters and principal shipyard of the Terran Federation Navy. In the second novel in the series, In Death Ground, the Arachnid race discovers an unmapped warp point opening near Alpha Centauri, by means of which they mount a massive invasion of Terran space.
• Harvest of Stars (1994), novel by Poul Anderson. The planet Demeter of Alpha Centauri is marginally habitable, but the Fireball Corporation sends a colony ship full of refugees anyway. "Everybody knew that in a thousand years the planet, Demeter, would collide with another. But those thousand years could be lived in, and perhaps during them the descendants of the colonists would find a means of surviving.
• The Killing Star (1995), novel by Charles R. Pellegrino with George Zebrowski. In the late 21st century a peaceful and prosperous humanity, just mastering the technology enabling it to explore the galaxy at relativistic speeds, is blindsided by a massive, devastating attack of relativistic kill vehicles. Boulder-sized chunks of metal, with kinetic energy in the multi-megaton range, they are impossible to track and impossible to stop. Humanity is all but wiped out by this horrific bombardment, which has its origin in the Alpha Centauri AB-C system. The cephalopod Alphans explain that the attack was pre-emptive: The moment we learned to travel at relativistic speeds was the moment we had the power to do to them what they did to us first.
• Drakon (1996), Domination series novel by S. M. Stirling. The planet Samothrace in the Alpha Centauri system is a colony of Alliance refugees from the Final War on Earth between the Alliance and the Drakon Domination. Samothrace comes under renewed Drakon assault in an alternate universe that is identical to our own except in the subtlest of details (Star Wars fans should be able to tell the difference). Stirling's work as exemplified in this novel is controversial because of its suppposed right-wing sensibility and perceived affection for the slave-holding, ultraviolent Draka.
• Encounter with Tiber (1996), novel written by John Barnes and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Nine thousand years ago an alien species inhabiting the moon Tiber of a gas giant planet in the Alpha Centauri A system was facing a cosmic catastrophe; their only hope of communal survival was to explore and colonize nearby space. In the story, one of their reconnaissance vessels visited the Earth and left an encyclopedia with the collected knowledge of their race, which is discovered by humanity in the 21st century and leads to a Terran expedition to Tiber to find out who the encyclopedists were.
• The Sparrow (1996), novel by Mary Doria Russell. In 2019 the SETI program detects radio broadcasts from the planet Rakhat in the Alpha Centauri system. The Catholic Jesuit order sends an unauthorized expedition to the planet, and their incomprehension of its radical differences from human culture lead to tragedy. The protagonist and sole survivor Father Emilio Sandoz returns to Earth shattered and disfigured, and his revelations devastate the order, leaving him personally to initiate the painful process of physical and spiritual healing.
• Centauri Dawn (2000), first novel of a trilogy by Michael Ely based on the 1999 computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The trilogy describes the struggles of the colonists on Chiron — a habitable world in the Alpha Centauri system, after their colony ship Unity suffers major damage and the survivors are forced to land on the planet in lifeboats. Subsequent novels in the trilogy are Dragon Sun (2001) and Twilight of the Mind (2002).
• Borrowed Tides (2001), novel by Paul Levinson. Mankind's first interstellar voyage will be to Alpha Centauri, but starship technology can only get the crew there, and not back again. There are still ample volunteers for the one-way trip, but a startling idea that just might bring them home is uncovered in the memoirs of Wise Oak, an Iroquois sachem who lived about 1500 CE on the banks of the Hudson, a tidal river that flows both ways: "The currents flow both ways not only in the Big River — the Hudson — but in the [cosmic] Big River to the star cluster that we call Alpha Centauri".
• Flight of The Mayflower Vol. One (2004), novel by Mark Carew and Josh Garratt. Earth is a mess, political and environmental issues are tearing the planet apart, and there doesnt seem to be much future to look forward to. A plan is devised to build a starship Ark carrying 100 colonists in suspended animation to an Earthlike planet of Alpha Centauri A, but it will take 10 years to travel there. No one knows if it will work, there is no contact with Earth and no help on the way, and the colonists are on their own. They do land successfully, and the planet is hospitable — but there are complications. At this point "Volume One" ends, leaving the reader on tenterhooks waiting for Volume Two.

X-ray/infrared image of SN 1572 or Tycho's Nova, the remnant of a Type Ia supernova (NASA/CXC/JPL-Caltech/Calar Alto O. Krause et al.)

• Three Body (2008), Chinese-language first novel in the Three Body Trilogy by Liu Cixin (Chinese: 劉慈欣). The three component stars of the Alpha Centauri system orbit each other in irregular and unforseeable ways due to the complicated gravitational interactions between them, and the single planet of the combined system wanders chaotically among them. Extremophilic life managed to evolve in its wildly variable environment and rise to the level of sentience, although the trisolarian civilization has been destroyed again and again by the unpredictable movements and distances of the suns in its sky. Seeking a more benign home, the trisolarians plan a subluminal invasion of the Earth. They won't arrive soon, though. (Cixin's application of three-body dynamics to the Alpha-Centauri system is an original and intriguing idea, but it is counterfactual: The Alpha Centauri AB-C system is actually stable and predictable. Components A and B orbit one another as an ordinary binary pair of stars, unperturbed by tiny, distant C. Component C, 0.2 light years away from AB, orbits the pair as it would a remote point source of gravity.)
• Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze (2010), second in the series of Johnny Mackintosh novels by Keith Mansfield. There is intergalactic war. As the novel opens Toliman (it is not made clear whether this is the A or B component of the Alpha Centauri system) is forced to go supernova — the "star blaze" of the title (see graphic) — with the military objective of destroying its planetary system(s) and possibly that of the Sun as well. It is not explained how Alpha Centauri A (at 1.10 solar masses, spectral class G) or Alpha Centauri B (0.91 solar masses, spectral class K) could produce either a Type Ia supernova, which requires a white dwarf star (spectral class D), or a Type II supernova, which requires a giant star of between 9 and 40-50 solar masses.

Film and television

• Lost in Space (1965-1968), television series created by Irwin Allen and variously directed. The TV series is an adaptation of the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss. The astronaut family of Professor John Robinson, accompanied by an air force pilot and also a robot, sets out from an overpopulated Earth in the spaceship Jupiter 2 to visit a planet circling the star Alpha Centauri, in hopes of colonizing it. They don't make it, instead becoming "lost in space" and forced to crash-land on a previously unknown planet. Although remote, this lost world soon becomes a stopping-off point for practically every space-travelling alien or monster in the galaxy, each episode seeing the arrival of some new visitor. (See Lost in Space, the film, below.)
• "Metamorphosis" (1967), episode of Star Trek: The Original Series written by Gene L. Coon, as part of the film, television, and print franchise originated by Gene Roddenberry. Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive, lived in the Alpha Centauri system for some years before his mysterious disappearance in 2119. He is discovered alive and living in obscurity with the Companion (an ethereal presence of pure energy) by the crew of the Enterprise, who agree not to reveal his whereabouts.
• "The Curse of Peladon" (1972) and "The Monster of Peladon" (1974), serials written by Brian Hayles and directed by Lennie Mayne for the television series Doctor Who. Alpha Centauri is home to a race of six-armed chameleon caterpillars. Timid and prone to panic, they are still loyal and dutiful members of the Galactic Federation. The members of this species lack individual names in the show.
• Into Infinity (UK, 1975), educational children's television drama (also known as The Day After Tomorrow in the US) written by Johnny Byrne and directed by Charles Crichton. The plot of Into Infinity involves the interstellar mission of the Altares, a science vessel of the future that can travel at the speed of light. Departing from its original destination, the nearby star system Alpha Centauri, the Altares moves deeper into space and her crew of three adults and two children encounters phenomena such as a meteor shower, a red giant star and, finally, a black hole, which pulls the ship into another universe.
• "Golden Man" (1981), episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (season 2) written by Calvin Clements Sr. and Stephen McPherson and directed by Vincent McEveety. Commanded by Admiral Asimov, the spaceship Searcher enters the asteroid belt of the Alpha Centauri system and becomes trapped against an asteroid by a powerful magnetic stormwhile responding to a distress radiobeacon signal. Investigating the source of the signatl, a boy Velis, member of a mythical race of golden people (humanoids possessing alchemical powers and ageing in reverse) is awakened from a state of suspended animation from his interstellar life pods and reveals that his companion, Relos, a more powerful golden man is missing, later tracked to the Earth-like planet Iris VII in the asteroid belt which is believed to be uninhabited. Upon searching the archives the ship's scientist Dr Goodfellow reveals that it is in fact a penal colony established by the Galactic Judiciary in 2301 and inhabited by human savages. Rogers, Hawk and Velis rescue Relcos from the planet's savages to employ his powers so that the Searcher could become light enough for it to escape the asteroid's gravity and destruction from the Centaurian storm.
• Lost in Space (1998), film inspired by the television series, written by Akiva Goldsman and directed by Stephen Hopkins. In the year 2058, Earth will soon be uninhabitable due the irreversible effects of global pollution. Professor John Robinson will lead his family to the habitable planet Alpha Prime of Alpha Centauri to prepare it for colonization by building a hypergate in the system. This time the Jupiter 2 is equipped with a hyperdrive that allows faster-than-light travel. Again, they become lost in space. (See Lost in Space, the television series, above.)
• Impostor (2002), film adapted by Scott Rosenberg from a short story by Philip K. Dick and directed by Gary Fleder. The film takes place in the year 2079. Forty-five years earlier, Earth was attacked by a hostile alien civilization from Alpha Centauri, and war has raged ever since. The story follows Spencer Olham, a government designer of top-secret weapons, who is detained on suspicion of unknowingly being a bomb carrying, replicant assassin created by the Centaurians. As things turn out, he is just that, as the body of the real human Spencer Olham is discovered at the crash site of an alien spacecraft — but the hidden bomb explodes prematurely and the planned assassination attempt fails.

Artist's conception of the gas giant Polyphemus. The habitable moon Pandora orbits Polyphemus, which in turn orbits Alpha Centauri A — giving Pandora itself a complex cycle of day, night, and twilight.

• Transformers (2007), film written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and directed by Michael Bay. Optimus Prime, leader of the benevolent Autobots, narrates the collapse of the Transformers' home world, Cybertron. It was destroyed by war between the Autobots and the malevolent Decepticons, led by Megatron in his quest to get hold of the AllSpark. The Autobots want to find the AllSpark so they can use it to rebuild Cybertron and end the war, while the Decepticons want to use it to defeat the Autobots and take over the universe. Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, originally orbited Alpha Centauri, but was thrown out of orbit in the war and sent wandering through the galaxy. Cybertron has a metallic surface; the atmosphere is breathable by carbon-based life, but liquid water is rare enough on the planet that its existence is in doubt (see Comics and animation: The Transformers below).
• Avatar (2009), film written and directed by James Cameron. The film is set in 2154, when Earth's RDA Corporation is mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri A system (see graphic). Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, 10-foot-tall blue-skinned intelligent humanoids who live in harmony with nature. The film's title Avatar refers to the genetically engineered Na'vi-human hybrid bodies used by a team of researchers to interact with the natives. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of the Na'vi, and sympathetic humans use their Avatars to lead them in a revolt against the corporate security forces.

Comics and animation

• Eagle (Dan Dare) #1 et seq (1950- ), title in the Eagle comic book series. In the Dan Dare stories "The Man from Nowhere" and its sequel "Rogue Planet," Dare (The World's No. One Space Hero!) visits an unnamed star system less than 5 light-years from Earth that has three suns, one of which is a red dwarf. Since all the components of Alpha Centauri are closer to the Earth than 5 ly (AB at 4.36 ly; C at 4.24 ly), and the second closest star to the Earth (Barnard's Star) is 5.96 ly distant, Dare's destination was Alpha Centauri.
• Showcase #17 et seq (1958- ), comic books in the DC Comics universe. Rann is a planet originally located in the Alpha Centauri system whose capitol city is Ranagar. Rann is most famous for being the adopted planet of the Earth explorer and hero Adam Strange and for its teleportation device called the Zeta Beam, invented by the noted Rannian Sardath. Natives of Rann are for all intents and purposes identical to terrestrial humans.

Erstwhile planet Cybertron of Alpha Centauri, as portrayed on the 2007 film's website. (see Film and television: Transformers above).

• Marvel Super-Heroes (Guardians of the Galaxy) #18 et seq (1969- ), comic books in the Marvel Comics universe. The Guardians of the Galaxy (1969 team) are a band of super-heroes active in the 31st century. An original team member is Major Vance Astro, an astronaut from 20th-century Earth who spends a thousand years travelling to Alpha Centauri in suspended animation. Upon his arrival on the planet Centauri IV, Astro learns that space travelers from the Earth have beaten him there by two hundred years, having developed a faster-than-light drive during his journey (compare Literature: Far Centaurus above). In spite of this, the Centaurian people give him a hero's welcome.
• The Transformers #1-80 (1984-1991), comic books in the Marvel Comics universe. Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, originally orbited Alpha Centauri, but was later thrown out of orbit and sent wandering through the galaxy. Cybertron has a metallic surface; the atmosphere is breathable by carbon-based life, but liquid water is rare enough on the planet that its existence is in doubt.

Games

• 2300 AD (1986), role-playing game designed by the Game Designers' Workshop. The Alpha Centauri system has a number of habitable worlds:
  • Alpha Centauri A I. Tirane, the first planet of Alpha Centauri A, is a habitable "garden" world where a number of Terran nations each maintain one or more colonies. It was the first habitable extrasolar planet discovered by mankind, and it has grown in importance until it is considered to be one of the core worlds.
  • Alpha Centauri B I. Sheol, the first planet of Alpha Centauri B, is a hothouse world with significant mineral deposits and a thriving mining industry (compare Cordwainer Smith's use of the variant spelling Shayol as the name of his "terrible" prison-planet).
  • Alpha Centauri B III. Limbes, the third planet of Alpha Centauri B, is a post-garden world, sterilized by the greenhouse effect. Scientists maintain a research station in orbit around this world. Despite almost a century of study, no surviving life forms have been detected, but fossil evidence still bears witness to a rich ecology that long ago perished.
  • Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri) I. Moiroi (with its associated satellites: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) is the sole planet of Proxima Centauri. Several nations maintain scientific or mining stations on the moons of this planet.
• Civilization (1991), video strategy game developed by MicroProse and designed by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley. One of the potential victory conditions in Civilization and its sequels involves being the first civilization to send a colony ship to the Alpha Centauri system. If more than one civilization is in a position to do so, a space race may result.
• Frontier: Elite II (1993) and Frontier: First Encounters (1995), computer games written by David Braben et al. The Alpha Centauri system is the location of Eden, the first extrasolar planet discovered with flowing surface water. Despite this amenity (and its name) Eden is uninhabitable, although a small research station is located there, and difficult to visit, since its starport is 900 to 1000 AU away from the nearest hyperspace jump point.
• Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (1996), first-person shooter video game developed and published by Looking Glass Studios. In the year 2327, a faction of humans has colonized the Alpha Centauri star system to escape from a totalitarian Earth government. The player assumes the role of Nikola ap Io, the leader of an Alpha Centauri military unit, and undertakes missions against space pirates and the Earth Hegemony. The Alpha Centauri system has a total of eight planets with a number of moons orbiting them; the game takes place on three of the planets including NewHope and the ice-planet Thatcher, and on one of the moons.
• Independence War (1997), space combat computer game developed by Particle Systems and published by Infogrames. In the game, the player takes the role of a 23rd century spaceship captain in the Earth Commonwealth Navy, commander of the Dreadnaught. The primary antagonists are rebellious insurgents called the Indies, a group distinguished by their elaborately and colourfully painted ships; it is the captain's job to bring them back under the control of Earth. The Alpha Centauri system lies at the center of an interstellar jump point network, making it one of the most strategic in the game.
• Colony Wars (1997), Sony PlayStation video game developed by Psygnosis and produced by Sony. The player of this game assumes the role of an unnamed starfighter pilot in the League of Free Worlds, fighting for independence against the despotic Earth Empire and its Colonial Navy. Alpha Centauri was the first star system colonized by humanity; it has been depleted of its raw materials in the subsequent centuries, and subjected to a long and violent civil war between League Supporters and Navy Loyalists. Alpha Centauri is also home to the Faction, who serve as the main antagonists for missions based in the system.
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999), video strategy game developed by Firaxis Games and published by Electronic Arts. Inspired by Meier's earlier success Civilization, and set in the 22nd century, this game begins when seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, the planet's growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists.

A screenshot of Zweihander, a habitable Super-Earth orbiting Alpha Centauri A, as viewed from an orbiting shipyard in the MMORPG Earth & Beyond (see text).

• Earth & Beyond (2002), massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts. Alpha Centauri is a star system colonized by the Earth that has two habitable planets: Zweihander, a Super-Earth orbiting Alpha Centauri A (see graphic), and Witburg, a Mars-sized planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B.
• Killzone (2004), Sony PlayStation video game series developed by Guerrilla Games and produced by Sony. The Alpha Centauri system is the location of two habitable planets, Vekta and Helghan. The backstory features the war between the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) and the Helghast, inhabitants of Helghan. The main antagonist is Helghast Emperor Scolar Visari; his death in the second installment of the series precipitates a succession struggle among the Helghast, and provides the motivation for plentiful game action.
• Mass Effect 2 (2010), role playing game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. In the setting of this game, an expedition originally left the Earth for the Alpha Centauri system in 2070, but contact with the crew was soon lost. In 2185, the Asari, a race allied with humanity, reports the discovery in the system of an independent colony descended from the original explorers.

See also

Alpha Centauri is referred to as a location in space or the center of a planetary system unusually often in fiction. For a list containing many stars and planetary systems that have a less extensive list of references, see Stars and planetary systems in fiction.