Soft Headcanons about Vulcan’s Star System
So I saw this post which talks about using space orbits to write about relationship dynamics, and I was reminded of something I came across while researching the Vulcan star system.
In case you were not aware, Eridani 40, is the commonly accepted location of the Vulcan system. It is a triple star system approximately 16.26 light years away from Earth. The main star is a big orange star that’s analogous to our sun, which would provide most of the necessary sunlight for life to survive on the planet. And the other two stars are much smaller, satellite stars that orbit the bigger star and each other.
From the planet Vulcan, these two satellite stars wouldn’t be visible circles the same way their sun would be, but according to this source they would “appear as… very bright points of light.” One would be “silver-white” and the other would be “a brilliant blood-red star” And both would be bright enough to be visible during the daytime, but not bright enough to not let it get dark at night.
artist’s rendition of what these stars might look like on Vulcan, courtesy of me.
Now here’s the part that really gets me. Even though the apparent distance between the two stars would change as they orbited each other, “to an observer on Vulcan, [these stars] would always appear near each other—in fact, even when [they] are as far apart as they ever get, they would appear together in the Vulcan sky only as far apart as the width of your fist held out at arm’s length.”
So basically, even though they’re actually 4.1 billion miles apart, these two stars never stray from each other in the Vulcan sky.
Or, in other words… these two stars are parted, but never parted.
Excuse me while I scream.
And going off this, I have to think that Vulcan astronomers in their pre-reform days (and probably still, cause let’s face it Vulcans are SLUTS for symbolism) might have likened these stars to two lovers. Perhaps famous lovers from their history?
And maybe as a result the symbol of a pair of red and white stars are like… their equivalent of valentines day hearts? Or maybe their couple dances mimic the orbital patterns? Maybe there’s some sappy Vulcan poets out their comparing their relationship to the ceaseless orbit of these two stars? Maybe Spock shows Kirk these two stars at some point and compares them to their relationship?
There’s so many possibilities.
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