Rigel II/Atugn

 


Notes

Rigel's II is a class K dust ball, barley terraformed enough to support life within it's limited gravity outside of enclosed colony sites. Unlike Rigel's III and IV which are class M words, collectively they are often referred to as the Rigel Colonies when they were settled by early Terran explorers more then almost 300 years ago. Their Native names are Atugn (Rigel II) Volumn (Rigel III) and Valosm (Rigel IV) and Supports a Combined Population of over 16 Billion people, and are Major Federation worlds.

A significantly cooler mining outpost then Rigel I, Rigel II is permanently inhabited and lies just outside a sparse and rocky Hakiel belt between it and Rigel I. It is the haunt of asteroid miners and corporate drudges working the pits and shafts on the surface, and its surface is covered in blue-white sands giving it an aqua hue of color from orbit. Centuries of settlement have never removed the frontier atmosphere, the tumbledown, rough-and-ready towns, and the bawdy cabarets and saloons full of down-and-out spacers, burned-out miners, and tanked cargo loaders. Rumors of a major belt strike galvanizes (and panics) the hopefuls who come and go.

Prior to Federation membership, Rigel II was the only planet in the Rigel system where Star Fleet vessels could monitor in system activity without violating Orion neutrality. With the advent of Federation membership and creation of the Starfleet Rigel Shipyards, Rigel II is no longer used for this purpose.