Epsilon Eridani in fiction

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

The star Epsilon Eridani

An artist's impression of the "confirmed" planet Epsilon Eridani b orbiting its parent sun.

Epsilon Eridani is the fifth brightest star (by apparent magnitude) in the riverine southern constellation of Eridanus. An orange star slightly smaller and less massive than the Sun, and relatively close to the Solar System, it is frequently featured in works of science fiction. It is classified as a type K2 star, with the corresponding suggestion that it has a stable habitable zone and is well suited for life. However, one factor which weakens the case for habitability is its youth — as little as 200 million years old — and consequent high levels of ultraviolet emission (see Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, below).

In 1960 Project Ozma, led by the American astronomer Frank Drake, used the Green Bank radio telescope to conduct a SETI investigation into the stars Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. No signals of intelligent extraterrestrial origin were ever detected, but for years following the heavily publicized experiment Epsilon Eridani appeared in science fiction literature and television as a proposed destination for interstellar travel.

Epsilon Eridani is the closest star to the Sun known to host a planet. In the year 2000 a team of astronomers announced that they had used radial velocity measurements to confirm the existence of the gas giant exoplanet Epsilon Eridani b (see graphic). The star's system further boasts two asteroid belts (see Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, below) and a proposed second planet Epsilon Eridani c.

As only the fifth brightest star in the meandering course of the constellation Eridanus, and having an apparent magnitude of just 3.73, Epsilon is not particularly prominent in the sky, although it is the third closest to the Sun of the individual stars or star systems visible to the unaided eye, and the tenth closest overall.

The name Epsilon Eridani comes from the star's Bayer designation, with epsilon being the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, and from the ancient Greek name Eridanus (Ηριδανός) for the Po River in northern Italy (the same constellation was also depicted as a river in Sanskrit). In Greek myth, the youth Phaëton took over the reins of his father Helios' sky chariot (the Sun) but couldn't control it, and so veered wildly in different directions, scorching both earth and heaven, and tracing the twisting path of the sky-stream.

General uses of Epsilon Eridani

Epsilon Eridani is one of the more northerly stars of Eridanus.

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.

The constellation Eridanus flows north and south in the night sky, and Epsilon Eridani is one of its more northerly stars (see map), which allows it to be seen from most of the Earth's surface. However, because of its undistinguished appearance in the sky, and its want of a "good" traditional name to supplement its esoteric Bayer designation, Epsilon Eridani has rarely if ever been used in a general sense, either in traditional mythologies or in the arts and literature that draw sustenance from them.

The star's popularity as a subject of science fiction stems not from its general cultural resonance, but from the astronomical data:

• Its proximity, ~10.5 light-years distant
• It's similarity to the Sun, ~0.82 $\begin{smallmatrix}M_\odot\end{smallmatrix}$, spectral type K
• Its technical sounding name, in this context a benefit rather than a detriment
• Its demonstrated capacity to host a family of planets, with at least one confirmed

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

Literature

Illustration of the relative sizes of Epsilon Eridani, a small orange star (left) and the Sun (right).

• Dorsai! (1960, also published as The Genetic General), and other novels in the unfinished Childe Cycle by Gordon R. Dickson. Donal Graeme, warrior extraordinaire from the mercenary homeworld Dorsai, and second incarnation of the series' evolutionary superman, launches his meteoric military career with service in several police actions on the vividly drawn planets Harmony and Association lying under the small orange Epsilon Eridani sun (see graphic).
• "Conquest by Default" (1968), short story by Vernor Vinge originally published in Analog and later included in The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (2001). An alien civilization native to Epsilon Eridani II (the planet Miki) arrives in full force at the Solar System to place the third %wrlyg Support Fleet in a parking orbit high above the Earth, their looming presence decidedly intimidating thanks to a significant edge in technology. The Mikin culture is anarchic, acquisitive, cosmopolitan, and wildly diverse. In the story, as told by Scholar Ron Melmwn (a Mikin anthropologist who establishes tentative inter-species rapport with his human counterparts, professor Dahlmann and his daughter Mary), culture shock abounds as men and women interact with visitors who are bent on immigration, trade — and maybe exterminating the human race.
• The Napoleons of Eridanus (1976), The Emperor of Eridanus (1983), and The Eridani Colonists (1984), translations by Stanley Hochman of the French language Eridanus trilogy written by Dr. Claude Pierre Marie Avice, as by Pierre Barbet. A squadron of Napoleonic soldiers are kidnapped by aliens and hustled off to the Epsilon Eridani system, whence they unaccountably conquer a space empire.
• Downbelow Station (1981) and other Alliance-Union universe works, novels by C.J. Cherryh. Epsilon Eridani is the site of Viking Station, one of the stations on the "Great Circle" chain of space stations that terminates at Pell Station in the Tau Ceti system.
• Foundation's Edge (1982), novel by Isaac Asimov. In this transitional novel between Asimov's Robot novels and his later-set Galactic Empire novels of the Foundation series, the planet Comporellon of Epsilon Eridani (previously named BaleyWorld after Elijah Baley's son Bentley) was the first non-Spacer extraterrestrial planet settled by Earthmen, in the second wave of stellar emigration after the events that wrapped up the robot series.
• Eon (1985), novel by Greg Bear. The Solar System is visited by the Stone, a Big Dumb Object that appears to be an artifact sent backward in time from a future human civilization. Records left aboard by the futurians suggest that in their remote past — the Earth's present — the asteroid starship, called by them the Thistledown, was dispatched to Epsilon Eridani to found a new home for humankind following the devastation of the Earth in a nuclear holocaust, an account that causes understandable present-day consternation. However the Thistledown never fulfilled the mission, instead getting whip-snapped into an alternate universe immediately upon the activation of the Way, an endless jump street her builders somehow managed to embed within her finite confines.
• The Stones of Nomuru (1988) and The Venom Trees of Sunga (1992), novels in the Viagens Interplanetarias series written by L. Sprague de Camp, with collaboration by Catherine Crook de Camp. Kukulkan, a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, is inhabited by an ancient civilization of intelligent reptilian creatures that has plateaued at a swords-and-steam level of technology. The "Kooks" are honest, honor-bound, and dull in personality; in both novels, the planet serves as the setting for a number of more or less conventional pre-industrial adventures.
• Starquake (1989), novel by Robert Forward. Dragon's Egg, a neutron star, has wandered into the vicinity of the Solar System and into the ken of Earth scientists. It has some "dazzling" statistics: a surface gravity 67 billion times that of the Earth, soaring mountains as high as a few inches, ruinous starquakes, and tiny intelligent inhabitants whose life processes are accelerated over ours by a factor of almost half a million. Over a period of a day, human observers inadvertently introduce the rudiments of civilization, and within a man's lifetime the "immensely enjoyable" alien cheela have lived a whole history, progressing even to interstellar exploration and leaving the secrets of FTL travel in an unmistakable landmark on a planet of Epsilon Eridani — as a reward for a humanity enterprising enough to get there.
• Shivering World (1991), novel by Kathy Tyers. Dr. Graysha Brady-Phillips is suffering from a genetic disease that causes early death. When she is offered a position on the newly terraformed Goddard, a refuge from the ecological ruin of the Earth where the average life span exceeds 150 years, she leaps at the chance; the colonists' radical — and illegal — science just might be her only hope for a cure. The world Goddard is accompanied in Epsilon Eridani orbit by the older artificial habitat Copernicus, ensconced in one of the planet's stable LaGrange points. But whole planets are better: "On broader worlds like this — he squinted towards the red sun his people had once called Eps Eridani — a wiser humanity might start again..."
• Worldwar (1994-1996), tetralogy of novels written by Harry Turtledove. Earth is invaded by a fleet assembled for the purpose by The Race. Only three times in its 50,000-year history has this expansionist species of reptilian aliens organized such an armada, each time with the goal of subduing another civilization: the Rabotev (inhabitants of Epsilon Eridani), the Halessi, and now humanity. However, the invaders are in for a surprise, as their most recent intelligence on the Earth dates from the Middle Ages.
• Echoes of Honor (1998), novel in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. The Havenite Navy launches a devastating barrage of simultaneous surprise attacks on Manticore and her allies. Lester Tourville, in command of the task force attacking Zanzibar, plans a risky maneuver to knock out its orbital installations — but if any of his missiles hit the planet, there'll be hell to pay: "... violation of the Epsilon Eridani Edict’s ban on indiscriminate planetary bombardment was the one thing guaranteed to bring the Solarian League Navy down on any star nation like a hammer." The prohibitions in the Edict stem from the Epsilon Eridani Incident, an early space war atrocity entailing the mass destruction of one of the League's oldest worlds.

The unconfirmed planet Epsilon Eridani c (Yellowstone?) as seen from a hypothetical moon (Marco's Eye?). The distant star is surrounded by a faint disk of dust particles.

• Factoring Humanity (1998), novel by Robert J. Sawyer. SETI astronomers detect an artificial signal from Alpha Centauri A, the harbinger of a ten-year flood of cryptic data that protagonist Heather Davis devotes her life to deciphering. She finally succeeds, and comes upon plans for a starship that could open up interstellar contact, starting with the "Centaurs." Meanwhile, a single despairing message is received from Epsilon Eridani, easier to translate but much more alarming: "It couldn’t be plainer: biological life, based on carbon, being supplanted by silicon-based artificial intelligence ..." And it turns out that the AI "overminds" of Earth and Alpha Centauri are already in contact. Is humanity on the threshold of an era of limitless exploration — or of extinction?
• Revelation Space (2000- ), and other novels, novellas, and short stories in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds. The Epsilon Eridani system includes:
  • Yellowstone, home to the universe's most advanced human civilization, and a focal point of the series as a whole (see graphic). During the so-called Belle Epoque (ending with the nanovirus Melding Plague), Yellowstone society is centered in the Glitter Band and in Chasm City.
  • Marco's Eye, a moon of Yellowstone (see graphic).
  • Tangerine Dream, a gas giant (see above).

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (2001) and Halo: First Strike (2003), prequel novelizations to installments of the Halo series of video games, written by Eric Nylund, and meant to provide back-stories for the popular games. The first novel begins as Covenant forces attack the planet Reach and vitrify the surface, turning its landmasses into glass. In the books (and games) the Epsilon Eridani system hosts a total of six inhabited planets: Reach itself, which had been a stronghold of humanity, second only to Earth itself, Tribute, Beta Gabriel, Circumstance, Tantalus, and Epsilon Eridani IV.

Artist's conception showing two dust clouds, multiple rocky bodies, and a planet (left) orbiting Epsilon Eridani (right).

• Vorpal Blade (2007), novel written by John Ringo with Travis S. Taylor. William Weaver, PhD. and SEAL Chief Miller are back and Bill got himself a ship! The former SSBN Nebraska has been converted, using mostly garage mechanics and baling wire, into a warp ship ready to go "out there": the ASS Vorpal Blade. Quite by accident, the Epsilon Eridani System is her first destination.
• Implied Spaces (2008), novel written by Walter Jon Williams. It is the epoch of the technological singularity. Humanity numbers in the hundreds of billions, but only a few million remain in the solar system. Many have traveled on generation starships to establish colonies around other stars, such as Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and Epsilon Eridani, which was a "prime candidate for settlement — a young star with planets, ... surrounded by a cold dust cloud which [someday] would have congealed into an inner system of rocky bodies..." (see graphic) However, the star is unstable, with energy levels that flare and fade unpredictably, and it undergoes a "stellar event" — not quite a nova; more like a "burp" — that is nonetheless enough to burn to a crisp every last colonist.

• In Steven Gould's novel Helm, Epsilon Eridani is orbited by the planet Agatsu, which is terraformed and inhabited by fugitives from a devastated Earth (1998).
• Jeron "...brought the fleet of golden globes to the third planet of Epsilon Eridani" in the final chapter of Starburst (1982) by Frederik Pohl.

Film and television

Star Trek

• In the Star Trek franchise, Epsilon Eridani was once suggested as a possible location of the planet Vulcan, and was listed as such in the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology. Canon Star Trek later confirmed 40 Eridani as the Vulcan star system, but Epsilon Eridani was established as the location of Axanar in Star Trek Star Charts.

Other film and television

• In the television series Babylon 5, the titled space station orbits the third planet (Epsilon 3) in this system.
• Gerry Anderson's television show Space Precinct is set on a planet in the "Epsilon Erandi" system, which may be an error for Epsilon Eridani.
• In the anime series The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, the planet Glorie is stated to be in the Epsilon Eridani system.
• In the TV Series Space: Above and Beyond, the first encounter with the hostile Chigs occurred at the Vesta Colony, the first human extrasolar colony, which orbited Epsilon Eridani.
• In Ronald D. Moore's backdoor pilot for Virtuality, the crew of the starship Phaeton is on a mission to this system
• In the series The Big Bang Theory, Rajesh Koothrappali, Howard Wolowitz and Bernadette Rostenkowski spend a night observing Epsilon Eridani for fading, to indicate a planet in orbit around the star. (4x09 "The Boyfriend Complexity")

Games

• In the Battletech universe Epsilon Eridani is one of the worlds closest to Terra. It was originally a member-world of the Terran Hegemony. The planet passed into Capellan control after the collapse of the Star League. It was conquered by the Federated Suns during the 4th Succession War, and remained under the control of the Federated Suns, later the Federated Commonwealth, until 3057, when the world became independent in the aftermath of the conflict between the Federated Commonwealth and an alliance between the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League.
• In the video game series Halo, the planet Reach is in this system. Reach is a UNSC military stronghold, a shipyard, and the site of the SPARTAN-II super-soldier project which trained John-117 (Master Chief). The planet was mostly glassed by Covenant forces from orbit and made largely uninhabitable on August 30, 2552, as explained in Halo: The Fall of Reach and seen in Halo: Reach.
• In the game Face of Mankind there's a space colony on one of the ice planets orbiting Epsilon Eridani.
• In the Alternate Reality Game The Beast, Epsilon Eridani is mentioned as the destination of rogue space-faring AIs, and therefore the birthplace of the advanced androids seen at the end of the movie A.I., which the game was promoting.
• In the Frontier-series of games (including Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters), Epsilon Eridani is a system dedicated to luxury-class and adult tourism (primarily directed towards the terraformed planet known as New California). The system does not come under Federal law, despite being deep in the core of the Federation. As a result, narcotics and slavery are quite legal here and does brisk business as a major import. Like most other systems, military-grade weaponry and nerve gas are illegal here.
• In the card game Race for the Galaxy, Epsilon Eridani is one of the player start worlds. In the game system it has a military capability at the start of the game larger than three of the other player start worlds, but not as large as another (New Sparta). The world also has the inherent ability to consume goods to generate victory points and additional card draws.
• In Independence War and its expansion pack, the Indies have a HQ in Epsilon Eridani.
• In the GDW's 2300 AD, Dukou is the first planet of Epsilon Eridani, an habitable but glacial world, and it houses the Manchurian semi-penal colony of Xixiang. Epsilon Eridani is the main access to the Latin systems.
• In Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century, Epsilon Eridani is the home star system for an alien race known as Eridani. Their homeworld, Eridine, is a cold methane world.

Notes and references

Bits of thistledown carry dandelion seeds on the wind.