Vega in fiction


The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and its solar system are a staple element in much science fiction. Vega is a blue-white star in the constellation Lyra that is frequently featured in works of science fiction. Like its bright cousins Sirius, Deneb, and Altair, it is classified as a star of spectral type A. Roughly two and a half times the size of the sun, it is 40 times as luminous and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most radiant stars in the galactic neighborhood. Its luminosity joins with its relative proximity to the Earth—it is only 25 light-years away—to make it the fifth-brightest star in the night sky. Vega is rendered decidedly oblate by its rapid rate of rotation, and since it is pole-on to the sun, it appears significantly larger to earthbound observers than it actually is. For this and a variety of other reasons Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed "arguably the next most important star in the sky after the sun."
Based on an observed excess emission of infrared radiation, Vega appears to have a circumstellar disk of dust. This dust is likely to be the result of massive collisions between objects in an orbiting debris belt, and it is analogous to the Kuiper belt in the solar system. Irregularities in the disk also suggest the presence of at least one planet, about the size of Jupiter, in an orbit large enough to allow the formation of smaller rocky planets closer to the star. Regardless of its ultimate tally of planetary companions, the fact that it has an estimated age of just 455 million years suggests that the Vega system is too young to have fostered the development of life or a complex biosphere on any of its worlds.
The name Wega comes from a loose transliteration of the Arabic word wāqi‘ meaning "falling" or "landing," via the phrase an-nasr al-wāqi‘, "the falling eagle." The star figures prominently in the mythology of cultures as diverse as the Polynesian, ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese, Persian, and Hindu.

General uses of Vega

Vega may be referred to in fictional works for its metaphorical or mythological associations, or else as a bright point of light in the sky of the Earth, but not as a location in space or the center of a planetary system.
There follow references to Vega as a location in space or the center of a planetary system, categorized by genre:

Literature

Film and TelevisionDescription
Contact film written by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, and directed by Robert Zemeckis.. SETI researchers detect a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence—a transmitter array orbiting Vega. After an arduous decoding process, they first discover, then finance and finally implement the plans for a wormhole transport device that carries a single explorer to the center of the galaxy. There she speaks at length with a supernal sentience who manifests itself as her departed father, but she can bring back no proof of the contact—so that when she returns home few people believe her experiences actually happened.
"The Cage |The Cage" Rejected 1965 pilot episode of ' written by Gene Roddenberry and directed by Robert Butler, as part of the film, television, and print franchise originated by Gene Roddenberry. The USS Enterprise is traveling to Vega Colony to arrange care for casualties of the hostilities on Rigel VII, when it receives a distress transmission broadcast by a scientific expedition that has vanished on Talos IV. A landing party beams down; the Talosians capture Captain Christopher Pike and plan to breed him with Vina, an expedition survivor, to create a race of slaves. Cooler heads prevail.
"Mirror, Mirror |Mirror, Mirror" episode of ' written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Marc Daniels. This episode has a transporter mishap swapping Captain Kirk and his companions with their evil counterparts in a parallel universe. In the so-called Mirror Universe, the ISS Enterprise is a ship of the Terran Empire, a dominion as evil as the United Federation of Planets is benevolent. A horrified Kirk learns that his doppelgänger is guilty of multiple atrocities, including the massacre of 5000 human colonists on the planet Vega IX.
"One Moment of Humanity" episode of the television series ' written by Tony Barwick and directed by Charles Crichton. When the Moon intrudes into the sphere of influence of the planet Vega, a deputation of Vegans, beautiful to behold, arrives at Moonbase Alpha to remonstrate, and ends by kidnapping two Alphans to the Vega system—abetted by telepathic ensnarement and Positronic Transfer. It turns out that the Vegans are androids, Vega is an artificial paradise planet and a prison, and the Alphans are able to liberate a human population that has been enslaved by the robots.
UFO Robo Grendizer anime television series written by Go Nagai and directed by Tomoharu Katsumata. The planet Vega having become uninhabitable due to an environmental catastrophe, the Vegans first attack the peaceful planet Fleed in their own system, destroying it in the process, and then set their sights on the Earth as a world to conquer and colonize. Young Duke Fleed, who survived the holocaust and has fled to Earth with the Vegan super-robot Grendizer, organizes the defense of our planet and defeats the Vegans and their evil king.
Commander Perkins: The Vega Series German-produced audio drama series written by Hans Gerhard Franciskowsky as by H. G. Francis. Scientists on the Moon accidentally open a portal between the Solar System and the planet Vega VIII. A high-tech kidnapping to the Vega system—abetted by telepathic ensnarement and Dimensional Transmission—begins a complex unfolding of tit-for-tat moves by earthmen and the hostile Vegans, until finally the roots of their interstellar antipathy are traced to the unraveling of a long-ago alien expedition to the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Spaceballs sendup of Star Wars and other science fiction film classics written by Mel Brooks et al and directed by Mel Brooks. The planet Spaceball having become uninhabitable due to an environmental catastrophe, President Skroob first attacks the peaceful planet Druidia in his own system by attempting to kidnap its princess, Vespa. "Solo" operator Captain Lone Starr responds to the offer of a reward and rescues her but his plan is thwarted when he runs out of fuel and crash-lands on the nearby desert Moon of Vega. They find their way to a cave occupied by the wise old Yogurt, who introduces Lone Starr to the power of "the Schwartz". The film proceeds in this vein.
Babylon 5 television series created by J. Michael Straczynski. The Vega Colony is an outpost world of the Earth Alliance in the Vega star system, which hosts at least six other planets. Vega Colony appears frequently in the series as a space voyage destination and as the location of a medical center; the ice mines on Vega VII''' were raided for their explosives by the mad bomber Robert Carlson.

Comics