Alternate name: Orion, Kolar

Location: Beta Rigel system

Moon(s): 1

Gravity: 1.2 g

Land mass percentage: 60%

Rigel VII is a pre-industrial world, and the Kaylar are the dominant, but primitive species.

Rigel VII, called Kolar, is the seventh planet in the Rigel system. It is a class M planet and has an enormous moon called Haladar, a class F planet in its own right.

Culture
By the late 24th century, Rigel VII was inhabited by 2 billion Orions, 800 million Kaylar, and 100 million members of miscellaneous other species.

Rigel VII is known as a decadent, barbaric world, described as dusty, spicy and exotic. It is home to Orion kingdoms and tribes of Kaylar, known for war, romance and conspiracy. There are interesting ancient ruins and concealed shipyards for smuggling and piracy. There is also a profitable tourist trade.

Wars between the Orion Emperor and his seceding vazaks were fought with Kaylar slave soldiers, who used laser cannons dragged by tandu-beasts to besiege diburnite fortresses.

The Orions of Rigel VII developed the martial art of tatharoc, also known as Rigellian karate.

There are famous ruins on Rigel VII, though archaeologists hold that they were actually Debrune sites, while the Orions and others claim that they represent primordial Orion culture.

Government
Rigel VII is home to a number of nation-states, primarily kingdoms and a republic. The largest of these is the Vaj, or "Empire", which has a tenuous rule over the rest of the planet. It is a sprawling empire on the continent of Ingarroi, home to 510 million Orions. However, it was fractured between rebellious provincial governors, or vazaks, and the Emperor.

The political situation was a precarious balance between the Emperor's tenuous grip on power and the strong vazaks remaining subject, leaving the Vaj weak and unstable but still intact. Meanwhile, offworld observers such as the Federation are frustrated by the state-of-affairs but are hopeful for a resolution.

The islands of the Kotay Archipelago are home to a number of Orion lords independent of the Vaj, who built near-modern states. The Republic of Zalaril is one such state, though it is less advanced than its northern neighbors. However, it is strengthened by high technology imports. It has a heavily mercantile economy.

Meanwhile, the Orion civilizations are surrounded and threatened by tribes of nomadic, barbarian Kaylar, on the northern plains of Ingarroi, western Oaniru and other parts. On Oaniru, the Kaylar descendants of Imperial slave-soldiers developed the primitive Kaylaravaj.

In the late 24th century, Rigel VII remained officially neutral and independent of the interstellar superpowers.

History
Orions claim Rigel VII as their homeworld, but the planet could not have existed in the Rigel system long enough for them to have evolved there. It is speculated that the Preservers or another alien race had placed them there.

Orion civilization on Rigel VII dates back to 220,000 BC, in the Enala river valley on Evanaroi. Industrial development took off in the Kotay Archipelago, which, though short on labor, had an excess of tidal and water power. Traditional Orion sources told how spacecraft were launched from the island of Rohay in approximately 203,000 BCE, while much of the rest of the planet was still developing gunpowder rocketry. Gradually, Orions spread through and colonized the Rigel system.

Rigel VII and its colonies were united in the Thakolarivaj, the "Great Orion Empire", under Nispavan I, the first Emperor Of All Space, in 200,993 BC. Over the next 200,000 years, Rigel VII was the center of twelve Orion Empires that rose and fell with the ages. After their last fall, a remnant remained in the form of the Vaj. (Decipher RPG module: Worlds) The Kaylar, though theorized to originally be native to Rigel V, were taken as mercenaries and slaves and settled on Rigel VII, where they fell back into their preferred nomadic life-style when their owner's empires toppled.

Finally, when the Vegan Tyranny invaded the Rigel system in 1529 AD, it attacked Rigel VII and obliterated the last remnants of global technology, plunging its people into barbarism. The Vegans withdrew two centuries later, but civilization barely returned to Rigel VII even by the 24th century.

By that time, the vazaks of the Vaj had revolted against the Emperor of the Vaj. The Emperor received military aid and weapons from offworld sources, and controlled the only two working spaceports, in Vajripam and the fortress of Karkan. His armies of Kaylar slave-soldiers, including tandu-beasts dragging laser cannons, besieged the vazaks in their diburnite fortresses. Meanwhile, offworld powers, including Orion merchants and Federation diplomats, did what they could to either help the situation or profit off it. However, both the Emperor and the vazaks rejected Federation interference in ancient Orion traditions.

The Federation tried other tactics to bring stability and peace, and backed the creation of a global computer network to deliver education and alternative views to the citizens of Rigel VII. This crashed disastrously in 2362, when Rao Vantika, a Kobliad criminal, used a subspace shunt to access and purge all active memory. The resulting economic collapse wiped out nearly all of Rigel VII's progressive pro-Federation businesses, drove suspicion of the Federation and strengthened the hold of local authorities. The sabotage was suspected to be the handiwork of the Orion Syndicate or even the Emperor himself.

Places
The capital of the Vaj is the city of Vajripam on the continent of Ingarroi, a sprawling city of mudbrick buildings and diburnite citadels. The Imperial Palace was constructed within a power plant that dated back to the Fourth Orion Empire. It was also home to one of the only two spaceports on the planet (the other being at the fortress of Karkan). However, many people think of the true capital as the Sand City of Kolaripam in south-eastern Oaniru, even those in the Vaj, for it was the legendary base of the first Twelve Empires. It has a long and storied history, an awesome metropolis at its heights, but it has fallen into ruin and was buried beneath the sands.

To the east is the Twelve Emperors mountain range, where the features of the Thakolarivaj's greatest rulers are still visible despite erosion, even though they were carved into the rock millennia ago.

Ruins
Evanoroi Analar
Ingarroi Toripam Vajripam
Oaniru Dovarr Karot Kolaripam Nisparipam Norat Onaripam Shalarot Twelve Emperors
Zalaril Sandah Zalan

Environment
Rigel VII is a class M planet with a thinning terrestrial atmosphere, a cooling temperate climate and a drying 40% hydrosphere. It has a gravity of 1.2 g.

It has a purplish sky and a large nearby moon. It is a warm, dry, dusty world. The environment and ecology of Rigel VII was worn out by two hundred millennia of empires, wars and overpopulation. In the late 24th century, the plains were turning to deserts and dust bowls, while toxins - the aftereffects of biological warfare and experimental chemistry - leached out of the soil and tainted its lakes and oceans. The atmosphere was thinning and drying, and held traces of pollutants and metallic dust. Additionally, it was steadily cooling and desiccating as the planet gradually approached an ice age. The seas shrank as the frozen poles increased, while the sandy deserts advanced to the shores. Natural resources were almost depleted.

An unwanted addition to the ecosystem was the Orion wing-slug, a pest that the people of Rigel VII launched periodic eradication campaigns against. Like every afflicted world, they claimed it wasn't native to theirs. It particularly enjoyed infesting the desert oases, leaving traveling Orions with the hard choice of death by thirst or enduring the stench.

Geography
Ingarroi, the northern continent, is approximately the same size as Africa and home to the Vaj. It was mostly steppe, with low mountains along a south-west fringe and irrigated plains between the Vaklash and Othlivash rivers, in the Vaklash-Othiwash Plain. The climate around the city of Vajripam was substantially warmer than the rest of the continent, and the area enjoyed more regular rainfall. Starfleet scientists suspected ancient weather control technology was responsible, and believed that if this could be reactivated at a global level then Rigel VII could potentially be rescued from ecological ruin.

Vajripam is not shown on the accompanying map, but it may be located in the Vaklash-Othiwash Plain, the only patch of green on the continent of Ingarroi.

East of Ingarroi was the largest continent, Oaniru. Its interior had been turned almost completely into desert, with drifting sands and blasted dune seas. The western half was home to the Kaylaravaj, with a network of coastal enclaves and deeply-irrigated oases.

The Kotay Archipelago lay further east, and its forested islands ran south into the large island of Zalaril. These islands were home to independent Orion lords and the Republic of Zalaril. At the south pole lay the continent of Evanaroi, which was the size of the Asia and covered with eroded badlands and glaciers at the pole itself.

Geography
Evanoroi Anala Valley Enaloi Badlands Oaniru Desert Polar Glacier Toranash Mountains
Ingarroi Ingarr Mountains Othlivash River Vaklash River Vaklash-Othiwash Plain Kotay Archipelago
Morind Rohay Zalaril
Oaniru Desertheart Mountains Oaniru Desert

Oceans
Rohayvan Sea Sea of Ice Sea of Kontarash Vantiri Ocean