ROTF: Tower of Babel Annotations

This document explains the continuity references, allusions, in-jokes, and scientific concepts contained in Star Trek: Enterprise — Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel (ROTF:ToB).   I assume that the reader is familiar with the basic characters and background of the Trek universe.  Readers seeking further information on references to past Trek episodes or movies are advised to consult the Memory Alpha Star Trek wiki.  Information about Star Trek novels can be found at the Memory Beta wiki.

ROTF advances the post-series Enterprise continuity whose previous installments include the novels The Good That Men Do and Kobayashi Maru by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin and The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor’s Wing and The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm by Martin. However, it begins a new storyline and stands largely on its own. ToB continues the arcs begun in ROTF Book 1, A Choice of Futures (ACOF).

Be aware that this document contains spoilers for the whole of ToB and for numerous episodes, films, and novels from all Trek series, particularly Enterprise.  I would strongly recommend not reading it until one has completed the novel, since many of the notes contain spoilers for things not revealed until later scenes or chapters.

Episode and book titles are ENT unless otherwise indicated.  Episode and short-story titles are in quotes, while film and book titles are italicized.

Abbreviations:

ENT — Enterprise	TOS — The Original Series	TAS — The Animated Series
TNG — Next Generation	DS9 — Deep Space Nine	VGR – Voyager
TGTMD – The Good That Men Do	KM – Kobayashi Maru
TRW – The Romulan War (duology)	BTRW – Beneath the Raptor’s Wing (TRW Bk. 1)	TBTS – To Brave the Storm (TRW Bk. 2)
ACOF – A Choice of Futures	STSC – Star Trek Star Charts

 Chapter Annotations

Pg.
vii	Epigraph: The “ancient human legend” is, of course, the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis Ch. 11.
Prologue
3	Sud Qav is Klingon for Last Chance.
	The onscreen graphic in TNG: “Conspiracy” which establishes the Kandari sector describes it as containing “subspace relay stations along the Rigel/Andor link.” Now, this could mean the sector is somewhere between Rigel and Andor(ia), but I found it convenient to accept Memory Alpha’s assumption that the Rigel system is within the Kandari Sector.
	The name raIjul is my rendering of “Rigel” into Klingon phonetics, based on the way the name was pronounced by John Fleck as Silik in “Broken Bow” when he interrogated Klaang in Klingonese. “RaIjul wa’maH” means “Rigel X,” the trade outpost seen in “Broken Bow” and “These Are the Voyages” (and its novelverse equivalent The Good That Men Do, which tells the “true story” behind that episode’s holoprogram).
	Lorillians were briefly seen at the Rigel X outpost in “Broken Bow.” T’Pol’s familiarity with them led to my conclusion that they were a client race of the Vulcans. Jeghpu’wI’ is the Klingon term for conquered peoples, introduced in TNG: Diplomatic Implausibility by Keith R.A. DeCandido. The Klingons have a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of Vulcan history and the birth of the Federation, though one that makes sense from their perspective.
4	“Luq, HoD!” means “Yes, Captain!” “Yajchu’” means “Understood clearly.” Source: The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand, 1992 edition.
4-5	To Brave the Storm established that the Klingons were withdrawing into their borders to deal with the racial crisis resulting from the emergence of the QuchHa’. The Undiscovered Country suggests that the ongoing state of conflict between the Federation and the Klingons dates from the 2220s, seventy years before the film; thus presumably the Klingons will be largely absent from interstellar affairs until that point—aside from the odd privateer or raider who might still crop up occasionally to cause trouble for Starfleet.
6	The “Mute crisis” was depicted in ACOF.
	HD 19632, also known as Hip 14623, is a type G5 main sequence star about 97 or 98 light-years from Earth. It’s about 12.6 light-years from Tau-3 Eridani, the star I’ve identified in these books as “Beta Rigel.”
6	Xiangqi is the Chinese version of chess. I wanted to feature a bit of non-Western culture.
7	Crewman Chen might conceivably be an ancestor of T’Ryssa Chen, the character I created for the 24th-century Enterprise crew in Greater Than the Sum. It’s a common name, though.
	Tobin Dax’s interest in sleight of hand was established in DS9: “Rejoined.” The story “Dead Man’s Hand” by Jeffrey Lang in the DS9 anthology The Lives of Dax (presenting a version of the Romulan War now overwritten by canon and the novelverse) showed Tobin learning card tricks, but since he is an alien, I wanted to show him doing something more unusual. Thus, I spent a hugely inordinate amount of time on this one scene, taking days reading up on card and coin magic and assorted non-Western games in the attempt to devise an original magic trick. It may have been more trouble than it was worth for such a minor scene, and put me farther behind schedule than was good for me.
	The two 23rd-century Starfleet historians established in canon, Marla McGivers in TOS: “Space Seed” and Lt. Erickson in TAS: “Yesteryear,” both wear operations red. However, I felt the post of historian made more sense as part of the science department. Presumably there was an organizational change sometime between 2163 and 2267. (The one 24th-century Starfleet historian we’ve seen, Whalen in TNG: “The Big Goodbye,” is never seen in uniform.) For my 2160s uniform design, see here.
8-9	My original draft of this scene gave away how the magic trick worked, but I decided it was better to preserve the mystery. Rest assured that I’m not cheating and the illusion as depicted could actually work (well, theoretically).
12	I’m trying for a bit of period terminology here. “Neutralize warp” was the command given in TOS’s second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” for what would later (in the TNG era and after) be called dropping out of warp.
	“Broken Bow” said that Lorillian children needed to breathe “methyl oxide” until they were four. As far as I can tell, there is no such gas as methyl oxide per se, though there are such things as methyl sulfoxide and methyl ethylene oxide (better known as propylene oxide), which I suppose could be called methyl oxides as a general category. In any case, I picked out a real gas, methylacetylene, that was chemically similar enough to be survivable for Lorillians, while distinct enough to have a different effect on them.
14	As became evident in ACOF, Val Williams is meant to be the paternal great-grandmother of James T. Kirk, so I occasionally give her Kirk-like dialogue and mannerisms, hence her epithet regarding the Klingons. Why she’s punching her hand with her fist like Burt Ward’s Robin is a mystery even to me, though.
15	William Shatner’s eyes are also hazel. Chris Pine’s are blue, however.
	Iota Pegasi is a main-sequence binary star some 38 light-years from Earth and some 28 ly from 61 Cygni, Tellar’s generally accepted home system.
	The Arkonian destroyer model from “Dawn” was reused as the Tellarite cruisers in season 4, as well as the Xindi-Arboreal ships in season 3.
16	For the service patches, see the uniform design link above. Tellarite script can be seen here.
17	Voortrekkers were the Boer settlers who colonized the interior of South Africa in the 1830s-40s, in what is known as the Great Trek (from the Dutch word meaning to travel or migrate). This event may have been an influence upon Gene Roddenberry in naming his science fiction series about frontier exploration. The name Roddenberry is apparently an Americanized form of Rodenburg, a name of German and Dutch origin; but as far as I can track back his genealogy, the Roddenberrys lived mostly in Georgia as far back as the 1750s. So it may just be coincidental.
18	Freya Stark is named in honor of the 20th-century British explorer of that name. Clearly these particular Boomers are heavily influenced by European colonial history.
22	Ross 271 is a red dwarf 4.7 ly from Iota Pegasi. It is indeed the closest known star to that system.
Chapter 1
29	Verex III was the site of the Orion slave market in “Borderland.”
30	“Fallen Hero” revolved around an investigation into the Mazarite crime syndicate. I’m assuming the syndicate was successfully brought down in the wake of that episode, hence “the purge.”
34	I hope it’s not too obvious that I’m retconning myself to correct an oversight. In ACOF, I had the Three Sisters reveal themselves openly to Garos and Maltuvis, in contrast to their established preference (in “Bound”) for ruling from behind their figurehead Harrad-Sar. Once I realized the inconsistency, I tried to come up with a belated justification for it.
	I’m also retroactively addressing ACOF’s inconsistent use of both “Malur” and “Maluria” for Garos’s home. Canonically it’s only known as “the Malurian system,” so either could apply. I got “Malur” from the story “Communications Breakdown” in Star Trek: The Manga—Kakan ni Shinkou, but that story uses “Maluria” at times as well. Also, in ACOF, I overlooked the fact that TOS: “The Changeling” established the Malurian system as having four inhabited planets, not just one. So my exposition about Malur the planet and Maluria the system/nation lets me address both problems at once.
36	Antonio Ruiz was originally going to be Andrew Scott, an ancestor of Montgomery Scott. But I decided I had enough TOS characters’ ancestors in the book (as will become clear later), and besides, I was writing Andrew indistinguishably from Scotty, which wasn’t very imaginative. Ruiz proved a more distinctive character.
37	I’ve recently become aware that the book Federation: The First 150 Years by David A. Goodman uses the name Maltuvis (a dictator name-dropped in TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”) for one of the genetically augmented conquerors in the Eugenics Wars (specifically “Bernard Maltuvis”), and that IDW Comics’ Khan miniseries has followed suit. In my case, given that “Maltuvis” doesn’t seem to be a real-world surname, I assumed it was meant to refer to some alien dictator, and used it accordingly. In any case, Federation: The First 150 Years portrays the entire Eugenics Wars, as well as the Romulan War, incompatibly with their portrayals in the novel continuity.
41	According to Robert Fletcher’s concept notes reprinted in The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Saurians have four hearts. I assume they have several smaller cardiac organs distributed through the body rather than a single large central one.
	Spoiler alert: Although it never becomes explicit, my intent is that Rolanis was a M’Tezir spy responsible for infecting the patrons at Redik’s in order to discredit offworlders. In retrospect, I probably should have made this clearer somehow.
43	I was hesitant to include any reference to “Daedalus,” because it’s a very flawed episode conceptually. It posits the existence of the Barrens, a void in space a hundred light-years in radius, at whose center Emory Erickson conducted the early transporter experiments in 2139, a dozen years before NX-01 was launched. Not only is this astronomically implausible—there is no such stellar void anywhere in local space—but “Two Days and Two Nights” established that no Earth ship had ever been more than ninety light-years from Earth prior to February 2152. And that’s far from the only problem with “Daedalus.” However, I liked the character of Danica as portrayed by the lovely Leslie Silva, so I wanted to bring her back despite the episode’s problems. I’ve come to realize it’s often best to do what Gene Roddenberry sometimes recommended to fans: to look upon Trek episodes and films (and books) as imperfect dramatizations of the “real” events of the Trek universe, in which certain details are occasionally exaggerated or mistaken. The reference in “Daedalus” to the size of the Barrens is only a single line in a voiceover, easy enough to disregard without tossing out the rest of the episode.
45	The name “Jelna” is partly an homage to “V’gelnian,” the name for an alternate version of Rigel V inhabitants from the FASA role-playing games, while also being meant to sound somewhat like “Rigelian.”
	The preference of Rigel’s species to consider themselves Rigelian first is necessary given that the various species are almost always called just Rigelians by Trek characters. Chelons are the only ones ever referred to by a different name in any novels besides this one (as of the current writing). This is also why I later establish the custom of referring to the planets by number rather than local names, although that may get confusing.
47-48	Margaret Mullin was established as a past love of Archer’s in “Twilight.” Caroline and Ruby (Brigid Brannagh) and their connections to Archer are from “First Flight,” though Ruby had previously been mentioned in “Shuttlepod One.” Rebecca was mentioned in passing in BTRW. Erika Hernandez is from “Home,” “Affliction,” and “Divergence,” and her disappearance was established in the Destiny trilogy by David Mack. Riann was from “Civilization.” The shapeshifter was from “Rogue Planet.” The spies referenced here are Keyla from “Two Days and Two Nights,” the title character from “Rajiin,” and Navaar from “Bound.” The producers of ENT really didn’t give Archer much of a romantic life—nor did the authors of the prior post-series novels. I felt it was time to address that.
Chapter 2
53	The various series’ references to Section 31 and its basis in the Starfleet charter have left it unclear whether it was part of the Federation or Earth Starfleet charter. So I came up with a way for it to be both.
57	Not so long ago, it would have been considered improbable for a star system to have more than one or two planets in its habitable zone. Our simulations of planet formation around other stars were all based on the assumption that our own system was typical and unextraordinary—generally a safe assumption, given that our theories and beliefs about humans being somehow exceptional or central to the universe have systematically turned out to be wrong (the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, it isn’t at the center of the galaxy, etc.). But as we’ve devised means of detecting ever more extrasolar planets, we’ve discovered that our own system may be far from typical. There are many star systems out there with planets packed closely together, or with planets of sizes and types not found in our own, or with Jovian planets extremely close to their stars rather than in outer orbits.
	In Ex Machina, I cited Rigel as one of a number of young giant stars around which some advanced ancient race had terraformed planets. By this point, though, I’ve grown tired of that being my go-to explanation for Trek systems that have inhabited worlds around stars too young for them, so I came up with a more creative explanation for why Tau-3 Eridani might be older than it looks. I’m not sure it actually makes sense, but I’ve hedged that it’s just the Rigelians’ leading theory as of 2164.
	There’s no doubt that when Albert Whitlock made his famous matte painting of the Rigel VII fortress, he intended the moon in the sky to be a rocky body like Earth’s Moon. At the time, it was not yet known that the moons of the outer worlds were made largely or primarily of ice. However, by coincidence, the depicted surface of the moon (or companion planet) in the painting bears a striking resemblance to moons of Saturn like Tethys and Rhea. Life imitates art!
58	Star Trek Star Charts assumes that while most of the Rigel worlds in ST are part of the “Beta Rigel” system, Rigel VII belongs to the real Rigel, Beta Orionis. Perhaps the thinking there was that in “The Cage,” the Enterprise goes from Rigel to the Vega Colony for repairs and medical treatment, rather than some other planet in the Rigel system (since, of course, none of the others had yet been conceived). The problem, though, is that the actual Rigel is 883 light-years from Vega, so that’s kind of untenable. Honestly, Tau-3 Eridani doesn’t work much better there, since it’s closer to Earth (89 ly) than it is to Vega (107 ly). But 107 ly makes marginally more sense than 883. It doesn’t explain why Pike didn’t just head for the Federation worlds next door, but aside from that, I felt it was less of a problem if all the “Rigel” worlds were together. And I was building on the version of Rigel VII from the Early Voyages comic, which established that the protectionism of the Kalar regime had kept the planet isolated for a century since first contact.
	Honestly, we’d be a lot better off if Trek’s creators over the years hadn’t been so strangely enamored of the name “Rigel”—or had made some effort to keep their various uses of it consistent. This book is my attempt to make sense of all the conflicting Rigel references, but there’s no perfect way to do that.
63	Gannet Brooks (Johanna Watts) was a reporter and romantic interest for Travis Mayweather in “Demons”/“Terra Prime.” She also played a significant role in TRW.
64	Thoris’s full name per the novels’ Andorian naming conventions was established in TGTMD.
	Yes, it says “Calrissian chameleon.” This is canonical: the creature was established in “A Night in Sickbay.”
66	Memory Beta claims that Vega IX joined the Federation in 2164, though no source for the claim is given. I found it useful to go along with it here, however.
69	The “Tregon Sea” is an in-joke nod to Tregonsee, the Lensman from Rigel in the Lensmen series of E.E. “Doc” Smith.
70	The glenget was introduced in Vanguard: Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.
71	Here’s my model of Jelna sexual differentiation, revised from my development notes:
	Jelna have one pair of allosomes, X and Y, plus an unmatched sex chromosome, Z. The ovum contains an X and either a Z or nothing (O). The spermatozoon contains either an X or a Y and either a Z or nothing (O). So the combinations are: XX OO XY OO XX ZO XY ZO XX OZ XY OZ XX ZZ XY ZZ Given that a redundant copy of a chromosome will generally be inactivated, this reduces to four distinct types:  X (XXOO): Endofemale (F) XY (XYOO): Endomale (M) XZ (XXZO, XXOZ, or XXZZ): Exofemale (EF) XYZ (XYZO, XYOZ, or XYZZ): Exomale (EM) M/F pairings would give either XX (F) or XY (M). EM/EF, EM/F, and M/EF pairings could produce any of the four sexes. In reproduction, the gametes split in two, so a gamete from a ZO exosex would have a 50% chance of lacking a Z chromosome. So only 1/4 of the offspring involving ZO sexes would be M/F. But any pairing with a ZZ exogender would be guaranteed at least one Z chromosome and thus would have to produce an exogender offspring. That’s 6 of the 9 possible exo-exo chromosome combinations. So exo-exo pairings would produce guaranteed exo offspring 2/3 of the time, with a 3/4 chance of exo offspring the other 1/3 of the time. Meanwhile, 1/3 of exo-endo pairings would be with ZZ and thus guaranteed exo, with a 3/4 chance of exo the other 2/3. All M/F pairings would lack a Z chromosome and thus produce only M/F offspring. Assume equal percentages of M/F, M/EF, EM/F, and EM/EF pairings. That means 50% exo/endo pairings with 1/3 guaranteed exo, 25% EM/EF pairings with 2/3 guaranteed exo, and 25% M/F pairings with 100% guaranteed M/F. So in a given generation, 1/4 of offspring are guaranteed endo, 1/3 are guaranteed exo, and the remaining 5/12 is a tossup with 3/4 chance of exo, meaning 5/16 exo and 5/48 endo. In total, about 64.5% exo and 35.5% endo per generation. This would seem to lead to a gradual diminution of the endosex population, but figures would fluctuate depending on actual demographics. Assume shifting social institutions stabilize population shifts. The nomenclature is used because prehistorically, exosexes would go out into the world (males hunting, females gathering) while endosexes would stay back and tend to the band (males defending, females childrearing/managing the community). This would lead to a higher mortality rate for exos, balancing out their higher fertility rate. Exos are more prone to travel beyond home and hearth, thus more common offworld, though the distinction is less important in modern times.
	I devised this as a hybrid of the XY sex-determination system used by mammals and the X0 system used by many insects. I initially tried having two types of each sex chromosome, with no intermixture between the two types to explain why they existed distinctly, but I quickly realized that was just two separate subspecies with two sexes each. The three-chromosome system (plus a fourth “empty” space) was the only way I could think of to make four sexes work.
	In “Cogenitor,” Phlox stated that “the Rigelians have four [sexes], or was it five?” My thinking is that the “five” may result from taking all three Rigelian species collectively. That way you have male (aka endomale), female (aka endofemale), exomale, exofemale, and hermaphrodite.
72ff	I’m not sure if it would be an effective parliamentary procedure to have the various board members and visitors free to speak up whenever they wanted rather than having to get recognition from some chair. I think that could get rather messy with people trying to talk over one another. But I had to streamline it for space and for dramatic effect.
77	“a partnership of several nations like your own”: My operating assumption here is that the UFP was founded not by five planets, but by five nations that each governed multiple planets and colonies. United Earth would encompass Earth plus most human colonies in the Solar System and elsewhere, excepting the independent worlds Mars, Alpha Centauri, and Vega IX. The Alpha Centauri Concordium would encompass Centauri III and VII and Proxima Colony (and possibly Centauri IV, which has been mentioned in some recent Trek literature as an inhabited world). The Confederacy of Vulcan would encompass Vulcan, its lunar colonies, outsystem colonies like P’Jem, and the like. The Andorian Empire would include Andoria, Alrond, formerly the Arken system (according to FASA material on the Arkenites), and possibly other subject worlds (it is an empire, after all). And heck, it’s right there in the name of the United Planets of Tellar, though my feeling is that those planets are basically just Tellar and a few small colonies.
Chapter 3
92	The First Families’ elaborate coiffures were inspired by the big-haired alien delegates from TOS: “Journey to Babel.” My intent is to suggest that those delegates may have been Zami Rigelians. (Hey, and maybe Janice Rand’s hairstyle was a Zami fashion.)
96	I wouldn’t have made the dominant Malurian culture so “planetbound” if I’d remembered earlier that there were four inhabited planets in the Malurian system. It’s possible the three colonies are rather small, mainly for mining or industry, or that they’re populated mainly by the Raldul alignment. Maybe I’ll develop this more in a later installment.
99	The “wise school of philosophers” is, of course, Monty Python, from the title sketch in series 2, episode 11, “How Not to Be Seen.” (The version linked herein, though, is the slightly modified version that opened the film And Now For Something Completely Different.)
Chapter 4
105-6	The Zami’s use of fire for land management is inspired by that of the Native Americans, as discussed in the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann, which also informed my depiction of Chelon culture on Rigel III. For more on Native American land management, see “The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management” by Robin W. Kimmerer and Frank K. Lake, Journal of Forestry Vol. 99 No. 11 (1 Nov. 2001), pp. 36-41.
106	I doubt that it would be possible to detect artificial light or signals from a neighboring planet without a telescope, at least not in this case. Since Rigel V is in a wider orbit than Rigel IV, it would never fall between Rigel IV and the primary star, and thus Zami observers would never see its dark side, only its sunlit side, which would appear only as a point of light to the naked eye. Localized artificial light sources on the dayside would not be enough to add noticeably to the perceived brightness of the planet. But Jelna astronomers had the telescope and the positioning to see Four’s night side whenever they made their closest approach, giving them the observational advantage.
107	Vons’s discussion of Rigel history is a summary of a more detailed historical outline I constructed, which is presented at the end of these annotations.
109	Sanctuary Districts are from DS9: “Past Tense, Part I” and “Part II.”
111	The Rigel I Trojan asteroids are based on the Jupiter Trojans in our own system. I consulted with asteroid expert Dr. Paul Abell (with whom I shared a panel on asteroids in fact and fiction at the 2013 Shore Leave convention) as to whether a hot Jovian close to its star could have stable Trojan asteroids, and he saw no problem with the idea.
112	Although I chose to include Rigel VII in the Beta Rigel system, I’m undecided on whether to include Rigel XII from “Mudd’s Women.” That struck me as a rather remote, isolated world, so it may have been in the actual Rigel system, or perhaps Mu Virginis, aka Rijl al Awwa (which is only 61 ly from Earth, but might be in a less populated region of space). So despite my goal of encompassing all the various Rigels of the Trek universe, I decided to leave that one out, although the text does imply that it might be one of the outer worlds described here.
113	The Kalar, and their subject peoples as seen in Early Voyages: “Our Dearest Blood,” are human enough in appearance that it seemed likely to me that they were related to the Zami.
116	Yes, I know that Dr. Crusher in TNG: “Disaster” told Geordi that he should hold his breath when exposed to vacuum. That was a malpractice-worthy bit of advice, completely and dangerously wrong. See http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html for more.
Chapter 5
119	“The Expanse” said that the Xindi weapon had “cut a swath four thousand kilometers long from Florida to Venezuela.” The damage to Florida and Cuba was directly depicted in the episode’s teaser. Consulting with an atlas showed me that any path intersecting those three countries would have to intersect Jamaica and Colombia as well, and be more curved than shown, though maybe the curvature of the Earth would account for that.
122	Albert is the name of Trip Tucker’s brother, established in TGTMD. “Sims” is in tribute to Sim, the short-lived clone of Trip from “Similitude.”
123	Ajilon Prime was established in DS9: “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” as a world where illegal genetic engineering could be performed. In TGTMD, it was the world where Section 31 sent Trip to be surgically altered to pass as Romulan.
125	Gliese 283 is also known as Luyten 745-46, a tiny binary red/white dwarf system 29 ly from Earth. The 1980 Star Trek Maps selected Wolf 424, a binary red dwarf at about half the distance, as the site of Babel, but “Babel One” established that Babel was on “the far side of Andorian space” relative to Tellar Prime, aka 61 Cygni. From that starting point, Wolf 424 would be on the far side of Earth space, not Andorian space. Thus it was necessary to choose a different location for Babel.
	The Menthar-Promellian war was established in TNG: “Booby Trap.” This is the second time I’ve fleshed it out, having also referenced it in The Buried Age. Tying them in with Babel may feel like small-universe syndrome, but my thinking is that “Booby Trap” established the Menthar-Promellian conflict as vast and important enough to be a storied part of history a millennium later, and thus it should have had some impact on known space beyond what was seen in that single episode. Moreover, there would have to be some reason that humans would have been aware of them well before TNG despite the evident distance to their territory. Having them be responsible for the creation of Babel (which William Leisner established as predating human spaceflight in Myriad Universes: A Less Perfect Union) provided such a reason.
126	The Promellian makeup in “Booby Trap” was a reuse of a makeup also used for the Algolians in TNG: “Qpid” and a race seen in the background of various episodes and films. Hence my suggestion that some Promellians survived and adopted other names and cultures.
127	The Ramatis’s reputation for diplomacy is a nod to Ambassador Riva from TNG: “Loud as a Whisper.”
128	Ysanne Fell is a nod to the ambassador from (and known as) Alpha Centauri in Doctor Who’s “The Curse of Peladon” and “The Monster of Peladon,” played by stuntman Stuart Fell and voiced (quite primly and shrilly) by Ysanne Churchman.
131	The book The Teachings of Surak by Skon was seen in “Two Days and Two Nights.” The term “Analects” for Surak’s teachings was established in Vulcan’s Soul: Exodus by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz, and previously referenced by me in Ex Machina. The term works perfectly for retconning the “teachings” of Skon’s book with the later discovery of the Kir’Shara, since the Analects of Confucius are secondhand accounts of his work and writings assembled by his followers after his death.
132	The 13-month gestation period for Vulcans comes from Gene Roddenberry’s 1976 spoken-word album Inside Star Trek. A.C. Crispin’s TOS novel Sarek asserted that Spock’s gestation took 10 months, but he was a hybrid, not a full Vulcan.
	In case it’s unclear, the child T’Rama is carrying is Sarek—a character introduced, appropriately enough, in TOS: “Journey to Babel.” I belatedly realized that it’s a little on the nose to have him journeying to Babel before he’s even born. But since he comes from a family of diplomats (“The Catwalk” established his grandfather Solkar as Vulcan’s first ambassador to Earth) and Babel is a recurring site of Federation diplomatic conferences (as “Babel One” implies through its plot and title), it isn’t that great a coincidence.
	TOS: “Amok Time” established T’Pau as a member of Spock’s clan.
Chapter 6
142	Sam is greatly exaggerating the risk from Federation transporters, which are only potentially dangerous upon cumulative use. Still, laypeople often do overestimate such risks.
147	A knife made by the hill people of Rigel IV was the murder weapon in TOS: “Wolf in the Fold.”
	TAS: “Mudd’s Passion” never specified what planet the Rigelian hypnoid came from, but as it is a reptilian creature, I figured it might come from the same planet as the Chelons. The fact that it has six limbs and Chelons have four would argue, however, that they’re from different taxonomic families.
152	If hypnoids are so difficult to find and train, how did Harry Mudd get his hands on one? I figure he probably stole or swindled it from whoever had found and trained it.
	The hypnoid in “Mudd’s Passion” created an illusory woman who could speak. But she only said two lines which were part of a rehearsed performance, so I figure it’s like teaching a parrot to speak (although parrots are startlingly intelligent, according to recent research). Thus, I’m assuming hypnoids are not fully sapient, just rather clever animals.
Chapter 7
167	I have no idea how to pronounce “Teixh.” Please don’t ask.
168	This digression about Tallarico’s backstory doesn’t contribute much to the narrative, but it’s a necessary fix for a conceptual error in ACOF. I established there that Mayweather had known Tallarico on Discovery, but overlooked that more than seven years had passed since that ship was lost. TrekBBS poster “Briet” pointed out to me that it was odd for her to still be an ensign after that much time.
171	It’s actually true that carbon composites are vulnerable to degradation by UV exposure, although composite manufacturers tend to coat them in UV-blocking coatings or mix in stabilizers. I missed that part when doing my research.
174	In case it’s unclear, vacuum is an insulator, so there needed to be an atmosphere between the exposed cables to create a current path. It is possible for an electric arc to form in a vacuum if the potential is large enough (which it wouldn’t have been in this case), although it would not be visible without a medium to heat to incandescence. (Which means that the “lightning storm in space” from the 2009 Star Trek movie could not have been an actual lightning storm.)
Chapter 8
186-91	Although I am drawing inspiration from events and individuals in recent American politics, my goal in this novel is not to favor one political leaning over the other, but to condemn the ideological extremism and dysfunctional, propagandistic tactics that have corrupted American politics and government in recent years, making it next to impossible for the reasonable voices in both parties to work together in the process of negotiation and compromise that democracy relies upon. Hence I strove to demonstrate that Thoris and others like him have legitimate grounds for their beliefs and policies, but are being held hostage to an extremist minority. Star Trek is about the value of diversity in combination, the importance of pluralistic and differing points of view working together to find balance and complement one another. Ideological extremism and factionalism are incompatible with that principle. We need a healthy mix of differing political and cultural values in this country and this world, but we need the ability to accept and appreciate those differences rather than hating one another over them.
Chapter 9
199	I’ve always been interested in language and its quirks, and so I’ve often imagined writing conversations in which alien characters questioned English idioms and the human characters had to explain them. Somehow I’ve never found the right opportunity until now.
202	My editor pointed out that wide receivers are usually of smaller stature. But according to my research, the actor who played Williams, Jim Fitzpatrick, was a wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Bandits from 1983-85. Indeed, that’s the only place I could have gotten the idea from, since I neither know nor care much about football. (My father was a big fan, but my few attempts to follow the game just left me bored and confused.)
	Although baseball had ceased to exist as a professional sport by this point in Trek history, we do have evidence that American football survived. In “Fortunate Son,” two Space Boomers throw a football in the cargo bay. In “Fusion,” Trip and Kov discuss a Vulcan cultural observer’s misunderstanding of a football game he witnessed. And in DS9: “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang,” Kasidy Yates is familiar with football. However, I chose to refer to the sport as “gridiron football” (a term encompassing the American and Canadian varieties) to distinguish it from the sport that most of the human race knows as football and that we weirdo Americans insist on calling soccer.
203	Williams is Val Williams’s father, remember, so that makes him an ancestor of Jim Kirk as well, hence the Iowa drawl. Fitzpatrick is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, which is right on the Nebraska/Iowa border, although he largely grew up in Florida.
	Once T’Rama arrives, this scene includes both Kirk’s great-great-grandfather and Spock’s grandmother. I never actually realized that until now, perhaps because Williams is such a minimal presence here.
206	It occurs to me that a Suus mahna sleeper hold is somewhat redundant given the existence of the Vulcan nerve pinch. But the pinch seems to be a more advanced and surefire technique that takes more instant effect, and it stands to reason that it would be commensurately harder to learn, or perhaps beyond the strength of a human. We know that Val’s great-grandson Jim Kirk will be unable to master the nerve pinch despite Spock’s best attempts to teach him (see TOS: “The Omega Glory”). Perhaps Spock would have had more luck teaching him this sleeper hold, but then, perhaps Spock was so good at the neck pinch (which he was taught at age seven by “Cousin Selek,” actually his own older self as revealed in TAS: “Yesteryear”) that he never bothered to learn Suus mahna.  Which means he literally has only himself to blame.
208	Rigelian yak butter was mentioned as an ingredient in the Star Trek Cookbook, according to Memory Beta. This implies the existence of Rigelian yaks.
	The resistance purges are the same ones that Vemrim Corthoc was boasting about in Ch. 3.
Chapter 10
218	I was rather fond of the NX-01 baseball caps that were an optional part of the Enterprise uniforms, and I wanted to acknowledge their continued use. Presumably they’re an ancestor of the captain’s hat glimpsed in Christopher Pike’s quarters in TOS: “The Cage” and the similar hats seen as part of the Starfleet dress uniform in the new film continuity.
232	Reynaldo Sangupta’s paternal ancestry, given his surname, is South Asian; implied here is that his mother is of Latin American ancestry (hence his first name) and, like many Latin Americans, is descended at least partly from Native American populations. So Rey is “Indian” on both sides, in a manner of speaking.
Chapter 11
242-3	The book that introduced sh’Rothress, Articles of the Federation, established that as a Federation councilor, she engaged in an important series of debates with President al-Rashid about the qualifications for Federation membership. Her stance here anticipates that future phase of her career.
244	Tamara Ann Arouet’s name is a nod to Tamaran, a planet around Vega in DC Comics (and home of the Teen Titan Starfire), and Ellie Arroway, who traveled to Vega in Carl Sagan’s Contact. (Arroway’s name was an homage to the philosopher Voltaire, whose real last name was Arouet.) Sagan’s wife Ann Druyan is included in the mix of references as well.
253	The use of “Kalar!” as a battle cry comes from “Our Dearest Blood,” although in that story it’s spelled “Kaylar.”
256	Most of the names of the newly introduced characters in this sequence are derived from the creative team of “Our Dearest Blood.” The exception is the surname “Legatt,” which derives from the fact that I dictated the first draft of this scene into my mobile phone, so while I was trying to think up the character’s name, I looked down at the phone and saw the letters “LG” and “AT&T” on it. I guess we’re lucky he didn’t end up as Crewman T. Mobile.
Chapter 12
258	For more on terra preta, read Mann’s 1491 or the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta.
259	The Chelons’ attire here is similar to the costume designs seen in ST:TMP, though without the rigid materials and more suitable for the tropics.
260	It seems likely that the hermaphroditic Chelons opted or were persuaded (probably a mix of both) to adopt fixed gender identities once their world was settled by Zami and Jelna Rigelians, whose social institutions, laws, and expectations would have been built around the assumption of fixed genders and corresponding societal roles. (To clarify, while sex is biological, gender is psychological and cultural, more about behavior, identity, and social roles than reproductive anatomy. Some Earth cultures have had a third gender that was neither male nor female.) It’s quite possible that some Chelon subcultures already adopted permanent or semi-permanent gender roles before contact, but they would have been seen as more “civilized” by the humanoid colonists and thus been favored and become more culturally dominant in the generations after settlement. Conversely, the Hainalian traditionalists may have had the custom of adopting distinct male or female social roles at least to some degree before contact, but have come to embrace nongendered identities in modern times as fixed genders have come to be associated with offworlders and modernization. No doubt, though, they would insist that pure Hainalian culture has always been genderless.
262	Ganaiar is referencing distorted versions of the events of “Affliction”/“Divergence,” “Shadows of P’Jem,” and “Dear Doctor.”
272	I was uncomfortable using the trope of a falsified claim of rape. Too many rapists get away with it because their victims are presumed to be lying for some personal gain. So I tried to mollify it by making it clear that it was the father’s idea, not the mother’s, and was done for altruistic reasons. I’m still not crazy about it, though.
273	To be honest, I’m not happy with having Hemnask exposed by coincidence. It makes things a little too easy for the heroes. One of Pixar’s rules of storytelling says, “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” But I decided it was justified for thematic reasons, to show that the villains’ attempt to copy the Federation’s unity was doomed because they didn’t truly understand how to consider others’ interests. And I guess it’s far from the first story in which the villains have sabotaged their own efforts through their inability to work together.
279	“Gisjacheh” is an Orion expletive from Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of TAS: “The Pirates of Orion.”
283ff	Val’s Rigel IV mission and her capture weren’t part of my outline at all; I only came up with the mission because I wanted to do a “grand tour” of every populated world in the system (save Ten, which we’ve seen before). But once I realized I could bring Val into contact with Garos, it provided a means to tie things together and make Val more crucial to the story.
Chapter 13
299	I wasn’t sure what the best adjective would be for “Basileus.” My first thought was “Basilear,” but that word doesn’t seem to exist. “Basilic” seemed to be as close as I could come.
Chapter 14
303ff	Arm height for a typical adult male would be somewhere around 150 cm, so if it takes, say, 5 minutes (300 seconds) for something to fall, that comes out to an acceleration of a = 2d/t2 = 300/(300)2 = 1/300 m/s2, or about .00034g. That’s 340 millionths of a gravity, low enough to qualify as the “microgravity” I mention on p. 306. That’s about the gravity of Mars’s moon Deimos, but if we assume this is a denser, rockier asteroid (given its proximity to the star), it could be somewhat less massive and have a comparable gravity (since the surface would be closer to the center of mass). Still, “several minutes” might be understating things a bit.
307	The flying kick and the two-handed neck chop are classic Kirk Fu moves. Evidently they work in microgravity too. Although for the latter move, Val would probably have needed to brace herself against a solid surface to get leverage.
311	I totally cheated here. It should’ve taken considerably longer to accelerate the asteroid into rotation.
	I love it that the bridge consoles in ENT had cooling fans. It gave them so much verisimilitude, and it helps underline how much more futuristic 23rd- and 24th-century technology are that they don’t need them anymore. So I was glad to find an opportunity to mention the fans in the narrative. (I’m a fan of the fans.)
	Mass drivers do have theoretically unlimited range, since once something’s launched onto a ballistic trajectory in interplanetary space, it’ll just keep going forever (cf. the Pioneer and Voyager space probes). Once we start mining the Moon and asteroids, we’ll be able to use mass drivers to deliver the mined ores anywhere in the Solar System without needing crewed ships to pick them up. This is probably how the ores mined from the Rigelian asteroids are delivered to civilization, since the conditions so close to the star are fairly hostile for crewed vessels.
312	Spatial torpedoes were succeeded by photonic torpedoes more than a decade before this novel, but we saw that Enterprise retained the earlier weapons in its armory even after the newer ones came along. Thus, I’m assuming they’re still part of Starfleet arsenals, used for situations where a lower-yield torpedo is appropriate, or to avoid wasting the more important photonic torpedoes. (What’s the difference between a photonic torpedo and a photon torpedo? Probably just time and laziness, as people elide the term into something easier to say — like “cellular telephone” becoming “cell phone,” say. I suspect the same is true for “phase pistol” and “phaser.”)
Chapter 15
317	Note that Hemnask’s successor is also a Zami, so the species balance of the board of directors remains unchanged: one of each native Rigelian species and one from the immigrant population. I deliberately avoided establishing whether there’s a racial quota in place, since I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to assign representation along racial lines rather than national/planetary lines. ST has an unfortunate tendency to treat those as equivalent, but the truth would likely be a lot more complicated.
319-20	Reed is referring to his experiences with Section 31, notably in “Affliction” and “Divergence.”
325	“the fourth time”: See p. 47-48 note.
329	Ruiz is attempting to say “Zavijava V,” which was established as an Earth colony in TRW.
330	The “Cubano” Ruiz quotes is Fidel Castro, 1959.
Chapter 16
334	It may look as though I came up with this whole subplot to explain the origin of the Venus drug from TOS: “Mudd’s Women,” but it’s really the other way around. I mentioned in ACOF that Navaar and D’Nesh were nearing the age when their allure might start to fade. This inspired the thought that there might be hormone treatments that Orions could use to maintain their pheromonal potency, and that led me to the idea that such treatments could be adapted into a drug for other humanoids, and that someone might attempt to steal the drug from the Sisters. It was only then that I realized there was already a drug just like that in the franchise, namely the Venus drug.
335	The placebo-effect precedent is a nod to the ending of “Mudd’s Women,” where Eve was able to “turn on” her allure despite only taking a placebo pill.
	The Vyun-pa-shan suicide ritual is also from Alan Dean Foster’s “The Pirates of Orion” adaptation.
337-8	In ACOF, I wrote Maras as simple-minded as a convenience; it let me get by with creating characterizations for only two Orion sisters instead of three. But afterward, I was concerned that it was too much of a sexist stereotype, so I wanted to give Maras more depth. The idea of a genius bombshell playing dumb was inspired by Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson) from the underrated Superman III.
Epilogue
342	Star Trek Star Charts by Geoffrey Mandel postulates the official name of the Rigel government as the United Rigel Colonies. That didn’t quite work for me, since not all its worlds are colonies, so I amended it a bit. I also differ from Mandel about which Rigel worlds are members.
	As mentioned before, Articles of the Federation established sh’Rothress and T’Maran as councilors and later presidents of the UFP. Qaletaqu was established in  TRW. Gral (Lee Arenberg) debuted in “Babel One” and was established as a councilor in TRW:TBTS. The others are my own creations. Nasrin Sloane is presumably a descendant of Lily Sloane from First Contact; I assume she joined Cochrane when he colonized Alpha Centauri. Zhi Nu Palmer is named for the Chinese name for Vega and Palmer Joss from Sagan’s Contact. Percival Kimbridge is a nod to Primus Isaac Kimbridge (Percy Rodriguez) from Gene Roddenberry’s 1973 pilot film Genesis II. I like to consider that film and its sequel Planet Earth a parallel timeline of the Trek universe (as discussed on my blog), in which case Percival Kimbridge may be the son of the Prime-timeline counterpart of Isaac Kimbridge (since G2 was set in 2133, a bit over three decades before this novel). Although for legal reasons this can never be overtly stated in-story (since the G2/PE universe is owned by Warner Bros.), so officially this is just an in-joke.
348	Your inquiry was not recognized.
Historical Overview of the Rigel System, 10th to 22nd Centuries CE
900s		Jelna of Rigel V invent the telescope. Before long, astronomers discover evidence of life on Rigel IV: seasonal changes of vegetation, etc. Eventually telescopes get good enough to detect light from Zami cities/use of fire to regulate/cultivate vegetation, a breakthrough made by astronomer Lovar Dleba in 938 CE.
1000s		Spectroscopy developed on Rigel V—allows confirmation of oxygen atmosphere on Rigel III, though planet is too cloudy to discern surface detail. Experiments undertaken to communicate with life on Rigel IV, with no success; Jelna conclude its natives are less advanced, lack telescopes. Communication and astronomical experiments lead eventually to development of electric power, radio.
1100s		Jelna develop aviation and work toward achieving spaceflight. By 1150 they achieve orbit, flight to Five’s two small moons. They send unmanned probes to Four, including plaques/recordings for natives. Return transmissions give them first look at Vulcanoid Zami. The Zami’s most advanced culture is at a medieval level, accepting the probes as divine visitations. Many Zami cultures have a clan-based organizational structure, and some clans exploit the probes’ arrival in their territory to gain power; these are the forebears of the First Families.
1163		First Jelna astronauts arrive on Four. They trade advanced tech for local goods, mainly spices, textiles.
		Trade relations between Jelna and Zami continue to develop; First Families continue to gain power from the exchange. This provokes new raiding from their ancient foes, the Kaylar tribe.
1200s		Jelna space tech advances, trade colonies grow. Probes to Rigel III reveal existence of chelonian natives leading pre-agrarian lives in jungle environments. Zami populations begin emigrating to Five to escape persecution by First Families, Kaylar.
		Jelna tech allows Zami to hold Kaylar at bay, but the threat continues. Yet the First Families are tough negotiators, reluctant to give ground to Jelna colonizers/developers. By mid-century, the Jelna agree to transplant entire Kaylar nation to Rigel VII. This massive operation takes decades and the Jelna must draw heavily on Zami economies and labor to enable it.
		In the crowded, dismal conditions of the Kaylar transport ships, disease organisms cross among Kaylar, Jelna, and Zami and mutate, eventually spawning Rigelian fever, a virulent infection that affects both Jelna and Zami. Plagues spread across both worlds, killing tens of millions even with the best medical care. Jelna come to see aliens as unclean and turn away from space travel, abandoning plans to contact Chelons. Zami emigres on Five are forced to move to isolated areas depopulated by plague; this ironically helps protect them from infection, and from the wars that break out among the stressed Jelna population as nations and factions jockey to fill power vacuums.
		Similar violence erupts on Four, with First Families battling one another for dominance. The Families that survive the disease and the wars consolidate power into a smaller group.
1370s		Zami émigrés develop a ryetalyn-based cure and vaccine for Rigelian fever, saving countless Jelna lives. This helps ease racial tensions, but Jelna still hesitate to pursue renewed space travel without greater precautions, and the surviving population is still recovering from the plague and focused on rebuilding, distracted by wars. Émigrés use radio to explain the cure to the folks back home, but First Families dole it out selectively to serve their agendas.
1400s		Trade between Jelna and Zami populations on Five brings new prosperity, peace. By late in the century, space travel resumes in pursuit of resources—both renewed trading missions to Four and mining expeditions to Rigel VI, Rigel II, and the Rigel I Trojan asteroid fields.
		By this point, the First Families have consolidated their rule over the surviving population in a feudal system where the remaining (deteriorating) high technology left by the Jelna is controlled by the FFs and the common people live in cruder conditions as their serfs. The FFs resist any outside interference that could undermine their dominance, and the Jelna are wary of renewed interference after the Kaylar debacle. But Four has resources Five needs, so the government adopts a policy of ethical neutrality toward its trade partners, not asking questions about how goods were made or obtained.
1500s		The Jelna begin tentative contact with the Chelons, in search of trade goods. The Chelons have little access to stone or metal in their jungle/swamp environments, using them mainly for art and adornment, and have instead developed a sophisticated biotechnology, domesticating and cultivating native plants and insects into useful forms and mastering construction with organic materials, building large villages on massive earthworks of sophisticated engineering. At first, the Jelna are slow to recognize their sophistication, seeing them as backward, and there are some early attempts at a civilizing mission, since some have forgotten the lessons of Rigel IV or don’t think to apply them to the Chelons. Fortunately, Chelons and the more humanoid Rigelians are not susceptible to one another’s diseases, so the Chelon population remains undiminished, able to resist outside imposition on its culture and to engage in trade negotiations from strength. The Jelna eventually learn the benefit of negotiating with the Chelons as equals, particularly once the Zami-émigré medical experts discover the benefits of Chelon-developed crops and pharmaceuticals.
		Meanwhile, a permanent mining colony is established on Rigel II, settled by both Jelna and Zami.
1582		Founding of the Raij’hl Trade Commission, a business venture empowered by the Genar government to manage and regulate interplanetary trade and develop offworld resources. The importance of interworld trade gives the RTC significant power. Initially its board consists only of Jelna and Zami, with only token Chelon representation.
1600s		The RTC draws on Jelna technology and Chelon environmental expertise to terraform the borderline-habitable polar regions of Rigel II, allowing a larger colony to grow there. The First Families, seeing the rising prosperity of their neighbor world and wishing to compete, establish mining interests on the burgeoning colony, grudgingly allowing some of their people access to higher technology for the sake of their own profit.
		Zami corporations from Rigel V increasingly migrate to Rigel III to study and develop its pharmaceutical resources, leading to an influx of Zami (and some Jelna) population.
1680s		The influx of new ideas triggers a revolution on Four, overthrowing the dominant Families. A new wave of emigration begins, with large numbers of Zami traveling to both Five and Two, though Four’s population is still low compared to Five and even Three. However, other Families move to fill the power vacuum, granting nominal improvements to their subjects’ way of life such as improved medical care, while still hoarding the bulk of the wealth and technology to themselves.
1700s		The Chelons rebel against the RTC’s policies, insisting that they deserve equal representation in return for their important role in terraformingRigel II, and protesting the demands of the growing corporate colonies for more land. The sitting RTC board resists, both out of racism and to protect their own entrenched commercial interests. An extended guerrilla campaign by the Chelons, who can easily disappear into the swamps and jungles and relocate their communities at will, becomes an enduring thorn in the RTC’s side, and they are unable to put the rebellion down without devastating the ecosystem and the profits it brings. Eventually the board resigns and a new board is emplaced, giving equal representation to all three species.
1760s		By this point, the RTC has become the de facto interplanetary government of the Raij’hl system, though it interferes little with the local governments of its constituent planets. This includes Rigel II, where crime and corruption in service to the First Families have become widespread. But the new RTC board, smarting from the Chelon rebellion, is more reluctant than ever to interfere in local “customs.”
1800s		The interplanetary community grows and consolidates, built around trade and business. Rigel II continues to grow, as do mining colonies in the asteroids and around the moons of the Jovians Rigel I, VI, and IX.
		Offworld settlement and development on Three lead to increasing urbanization. Many Chelons fear the loss of their way of life, while others readily embrace modernization. These factions jockey for control of the Chelon seat on the RTC—fortunately through economic and legal maneuvering rather than open conflict.
		Increasing corruption on Rigel II and FF- run piracy in interplanetary space provoke a reform movement in the RTC that cracks down on the crime, bringing it under control. The First Families remain in power, however (though some are weakened and brought down by rival Families who take their place), and will continue their illicit operations less brazenly.
		Jelna physicists develop early stages of warp and subspace theory, but the attention of the Rigelian community is on the above political and security concerns and the resulting economic recession. They have enough to deal with in their home system without traveling to the stars.
1934		The first interstellar contact occurs when a Coridanite warp cruiser arrives in the system. The Coridanites are open to trade, providing new technologies and goods that stimulate the ailing economy. The Rigelian peoples start to see each other as a single community more than before, now that they have others to compare themselves against. This inspires them to resolve their differences and cooperate in embracing the potential for interstellar trade. They soon purchase warp drive and subspace radio from the Coridanites and begin trading with other species including the Axanar, Orions, and Xarantine.
1950s		Recognizing the diversity of customs and value systems among other species, the RTC resumes its traditional nonjudgmental policy toward its trading partners.
2000s		The resources of the Rigel system and trading savvy of the various Rigelians bring more abundant interstellar trade and prosperity, and members of many species come as visitors or immigrants. Rigel II becomes a popular tourist destination for offworlders, many of whom fall prey to FF-backed criminal interests. But other offworlders come to stay, establishing colonies on the moons of Five and Six and enclaves on the surfaces of Two and Five.
		The Vulcans visit Rigel early in the century, having heard of the Zami’s anatomical similarities to themselves. They are not similar enough to be descendants of the Sundered who left Vulcan nearly two millennia prior, but Zami prehistory shows anomalies similar to those found in Vulcan prehistory, suggesting to some that both species may have been seeded by a common ancestor some 5-600,000 years in the past.
		The Xarantine obtain RTC permission to open mining operations and an interstellar trading post on the uninhabited Rigel X. The agreement guarantees that the RTC will maintain a hands-off policy, treating the post and all territories beyond the orbit of Rigel IX as foreign soil. Rigel X will become an active center of both legal and illegal trade. The Klingons, who trade with the Xarantine when they aren’t fighting with them, soon begin visiting Rigel X. As interstellar trade grows, the Orions establish a presence there, including a slave market.
2100s		By this point, the Rigel Colonies include populations such as Coridanites, Xarantine, Axanar, Orions, Lorillians, Malurians, and Suliban. The Colonials have gained their own seat on the RTC council.
2151		First contact with humans as the Earth ship Enterprise comes to Rigel X.