Epsilon Eridani in Fiction - Games

Games

• BattleTech (1984), wargame and related products launched by The FASA Corporation. Epsilon Eridani is one of the inhabited worlds closest to Terra. Originally a member of the Terran Hegemony, it passed into Capellan control after the collapse of the Star League. In subsequent years it changed hands multiple times as the result of various wars and treaties.
• 2300 AD (1986), role-playing game designed by the Game Designers' Workshop. Dukou (Epsilon Eridani I), a habitable but glacier-bound world, is the location of the Manchurian semi-penal colony Xixiang. In the game, the Epsilon Eridani system is the main point of access to the Latin systems.
• Battlelords of the 23rd Century (1990–1998), role-playing game designed by Lawrence R. Sims and published by Optimus Design Systems. There are many alien races in the Battlelords universe, but twelve are presented in the basic rulebook and form the basis for the Galactic Alliance. One of these is the race of Eridani Swordsaints, who inhabit the cold methane world Eridine in orbit around Epsilon Eridani.
• Frontier: Elite II (1993) and Frontier: First Encounters (1995), computer games written by David Braben et al. The planets of the Epsilon Eridani system are dedicated to luxury-class and adult tourism, primarily directed towards the terraformed planet New California. The system does not fall under Federal laws, despite being deep in the core of the Federation. As a result, narcotics and slavery are both legal commodities in a thriving commercial market.
• Independence War (1997), space combat computer game developed by Particle Systems and published by Infogrames. In the game, the player takes the role of a 23rd century spaceship captain in the Earth Commonwealth Navy, commander of the Dreadnaught. The primary antagonists are rebellious insurgents called the Indies, a group distinguished by their elaborately and colourfully painted ships; it is the captain's job to bring them back under the control of Earth. The headquarters of the Indies lies somewhere in Epsilon Eridani.
• The Beast (2001), influential early alternate reality game created by a team at Microsoft to promote the Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Epsilon Eridani is the nexus of rogue space-faring AIs, and the birthplace of the advanced androids that appear at the end of the movie.
• Halo (2001- ), video game franchise created by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The planet Reach of Epsilon Eridani is a UNSC military stronghold, a shipyard, and the site of the SPARTAN-II super-soldier project which trained the series' role-protagonist John-117. The planet was glassed by Covenant forces from orbit and made largely uninhabitable in 2552, as a part of the enemy's final campaign to subdue the Earth. The game Halo: Reach is plotted around these events and the planet's eventual destruction (see Halo: The Fall of Reach, above).
• "Race for the Galaxy" (2007), card game designed by Thomas Lehmann and published by Rio Grande Games. Players lay down cards representing worlds and economic development initiatives to build galactic civilizations. Epsilon Eridani is one of the start worlds in the base game, depicted as a dwarf planet orbiting the star inside the radius of one of the system's two asteroid belts.
• Face of Mankind (2009), MMORPG designed by Marko Dieckmann and published by Nexeon Technologies. Players interact with each other in a freeform universe, comprising multiple locations spread across various planets. One of these is an ice planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani.