Vega in Fiction - Games

Games

• Traveller (1977), role-playing game designed by Marc Miller and published by GDW. In this wide-ranging game the players' skills, tasks, gear, ships, and worlds are all built from tables using dice as a randomizing element. The worlds display a wide spectrum of conditions, from barren planetoid moons to large water worlds, from uncolonized territory to planets with tens of billions of people. The Vegan system governs an autonomous region within the Imperium several parsecs in radius, centered on the star Vega.
• Portal (1986), interactive novel written by Rob Swigart and produced by Brad Fregger. The player, in the role of the astronaut protagonist, returns from a failed 100 year voyage to 61 Cygni to find the Earth depopulated. Cars are rusted and covered with moss, buildings are crumbling and overgrown, the streets are strewn with debris, and the human race has utterly vanished (see graphic). The player happens upon a barely functioning computer terminal and begins playing the game, piecing together fragments of information, until he discovers the secret: a mass human migration in great ships powered by the "axion" drive, through a hyperspace portal to the Realm of Vega 26 light-years away. Mankind is waiting to return...
• Wing Commander (1990), computer game designed by Chris Roberts and published by Origin Systems. The player takes the role of a nameless pilot aboard the TCS Tiger's Claw, a Bengal-class Strike Carrier. He quickly rises through the ranks of the flight wing, and eventually leads a strike on the Kilrathi High Command starbase in the Venice system. This action is called the Vega Campaign, since it all takes place in a region of the galaxy known as the Vega Sector whose "sector star" is Vega.
• Frontier: Elite II (1993) and Frontier: First Encounters (1995), computer games written by David Braben et al. The Vega system is one of the biggest tourist traps in the Federation thanks to its jungle planet Tracy's Haven, famous for dramatic scenery and dangerous wildlife. While it is a politically stable system, Vega nonetheless maintains a laissez faire policy towards contraband: Goods banned elsewhere (such as live animals and weapons) find a lively market here, with the only proscribed lines of business being slaves, narcotics, and nerve gas.
• Escape Velocity (1996), computer game by Ambrosia Software. The Vega System is the site of a major fuel refinery.
• FreeSpace 2 (1999), combat simulation computer game designed by Dave Baranec et al, and published by Volition, Inc. When the brutal Shivans invade, the Terrans join with their erstwhile rivals the Vasudans to form the Terran Vasudan Alliance (ratified by the Beta Aquilae Convention). Vega starts out as a Terran colony, but is an early victim of the first Shivan invasion—requiring that the node connecting it to Capella be collapsed as a defensive measure.
• Escape Velocity Nova (2002), computer game developed and published by Ambrosia Software. The Vega System contains the planet Las Vegas. Unlike its terrestrial namesake, the planet is conservative and austere.
• Pirate Galaxy (2009), MMOG developed by Gustaf Stechmann and published by Splitscreen Studios. Players operate spaceships, explore various planets, mine minerals from orbit, and fight other players and computer enemies in planetary combat. The first-time player starts off on the nearly forgotten planet Kalebesh in the Vega system as a smuggler, learning the rudiments of the game and getting his first missions, which eventually lead him to the world Axiom. When the player proves his mettle, he proceeds via stargate to the Antares system where he pursues bigger and better adventures.