RIGEL-76
RIGEL-76
Official Name: Rimworld R-76
Nature: Extraterrestrial planet, on the "far side" (relative to Earth) of the Milky Way galaxy; star system unrevealed
Environment: Lush forests and vegetation, mountains, and various bodies of water;
previously apparently largely covered with technology
Gravity: Presumably Earth-like
Atmosphere: Unspecified combination of gases (nitrogen and oxygen) that humans could breathe without artificial aids
Natural Satellites: At least one moon was seen
prior to the planet's destruction, and it is unclear whether it was
destroyed as Rigel-76 was rendered molten, molded by one of the
Walkers, and then moved away;
as Rigel-76 was
re-formed, one larger and two smaller apparent moons stood out amongst
the other stars and planets in the sky...although the smaller ones
weren't that much bigger than some of the apparently distant stars.
Natives: None;
the
planet was colonized by the Rigellians; it is unrevealed whether there
were any native sentients (or other fauna) before the Rigellians colonized the
planet
Population: None;
the population of Rigellians who lived on Rigel-76 before the coming of the Servitors has not been revealed
Capital City: None;
the name of any capital city (if there was one) that
existed before the coming of the Servitors has not been revealed
Government: None;
before the coming of the Servitors, the Rigellian who led the colonization may have served as Emperor or Empress
Major Languages: None;
prior to the coming of the Servitors, presumably a Rigellian language
Monetary Units: None;
prior to the coming of the Servitors, presumably a Rigellian currency
Planetary Defense: None;
prior to the coming of the Servitors, presumably standard Rigellian weaponry
Places of Interest: None known (all now destroyed)
Visitors: Avengers (Moondragon/Heather
Douglas, Photon/Monica Rambeau, Quasar/Wendell Vaughn, Starfox/Eros,
Thor Odinson, Tigra/Greer Nelson), Jack of Hearts (Jonathan Hart),
Servitors of the Infinites;
after the planet was destroyed, it was restructured by one of the Infinites' Walkers;
the planet was subsequently restored by the Infinites
First Appearance: (Rimworld R-76) Avengers Infinity#1 (September, 2000);
(Rigel-76) Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Update#3: Rigellians entry (October, 2010)
(Avengers Infinity#1 (fb) - BTS / Avengers Infinity#2 (fb) - BTS) - Millions of Servitors burrowed through the surface and toward the planet's molten core. (Avengers Infinity#1 (fb)) - Jack of Hearts arrived on Rigel-76 and found himself under attack by the invading Servitors; though he thought to teach them the error of their ways, he absorbed too much data from one of the Servitors and was subsequently overwhelmed and his armor breached. As the armor contained his explosive energies, he figured his power would destroy all of the Servitors. (Avengers Infinity#1 (fb) - BTS) - While the other Servitors were apparently atomized in the explosive release of Jack's energies, those who were below the planet's surface were unharmed. |
 (Avengers Infinity#1) - Quasar received a trouble
signal from his deep space listening station#1287, and he quantum
warped to the Rigellian outpost world, which he found to be devastated
like it had just undergone all-out war. Sensing a powerful energy
source, he detected the barely alive Jack of Hearts. (Avengers Infinity#1 (fb) - BTS) - Quasar constructed a quantum tube to contain Jack of Heart's energies. (Avengers Infinity#1 (fb) - BTS) - Quasar scanned every inch of the planet, and he placed Jack's quantum tube in one of the only structures left standing.
(Avengers Infinity#1 - BTS) - Quasaer sent a quantum-tap to Avengers Mansion to request aid. Learning the active Avengers were all currently preoccupied, Quasar tapped into the monitor board to raise a few volunteers from the inactives. (Avengers Infinity#1) - Moondragon, Photon, Starfox, Thor, and Tigra answered his call, warping there and arriving in a pair of Titanian ships. Meeting with them in one of the few remaining structures, Quasar showed them Jack of Hearts, and Moondragon communicated with him telepathically, learning his fate. One of the Servitors then confronted the Avengers, and when Thor eventually shattered it, it reformed, using surround materials to replicate itself, and other Servitors emerged from the ground to confront them as well.
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(Avengers Infinity#2) - As the other Avengers battled the Servitors, Photon discovered millions of Servitors beneath the planet's surface. After the Avengers left the planet in their ship(s?), Moondragon read Jack of Hearts' mind, and she learned that millions of Servitors were breaking down everything on the planet's surface, burrowing down through the bedrock, and unleashing the fiery magma core. As Moondragon related this information to the Avengers, the planet was rendered into a uniform, molten mass, ready to be reshaped and rebuilt to the purposes of the Infinites. One of the Infinites' Walkers -- the size of the planet itself -- then emerged through an interdimensional warp (the Avengers present believed this to be one of the Infinites). |
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. .(Avengers Infinity#3) - After the Walker's task was complete, a number of other Walkers arrived with similar cylindrical structures, with which they merged to form a ring the size of Rigel-76's orbit, connected to its sun. Jack of Hearts then was able to recall/process the information he had gained from the Servitor, and he realized that what they thought were Infinites were just Walkers, and the ring they had formed was a handle for one of the Infinites to use to carry away the entire galaxy. One of the Infinites' immense hands then emerged through another dimensional warp. (Avengers Infinity#4 - BTS) - After Jack of Hearts revealed that they Infinites intended to place the Milky Way galaxy in a "wall of galaxies" some four billion light years away, the Avengers communed with Eternity, convincing the sentient manifestation of the universe to oppose the Infinites. The Infinites met with Eternity in the Dimension of Manifestations, where they explained that they were creating the wall of galaxies to improve the flow of their energies as well as the balance of the Multiverse beyond. |
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The Walkers' ring broke down into a number of swirling molten masses, re-forming the various worlds. The Infinite sent a portion of itself to coat the molten mass and transform it into a verdant world, although animal life would only follow in time. |
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Thor remained unsatisfied, as the Rigellians from that planet had still suffered and died, and they were not restored. Photon comforted him, noting that they had not died in vain, as their fall drew the Avengers into the conflict, and they had thus stopped the Infinites from destroying all of the planets in the Milky Way galaxy (and other galaxies). |
With Donald Campbell having recently submitted a profile on a destroyed planet, I copied and edited some of his text to save me some time.
I wondered how many planets the Infinites/Walkers/Servitors must have destroyed in order to shape their remains into a ring that spanned Rigel-76's orbit (with a planet-sized Walker being used alongside each planet, and the sun/star being included in the ring itself, too...so I asked Donald Campbell, who is quite helpful in astronomical matters, and he said:
When they put the ring together, each Walker's body transformed
into the solder holding two of those curved cylindrical structures together,
with only their heads left untransformed at the points of joining. I counted 25
Walker heads on the ring, plus one hidden behind the title of the "fateful
conclusion." And, since the star was also filling a gap between cylinders,
that brings to the total number of cylinders (and destroyed planets) to 27.
And since the star (in the magnified image I'm looking at) is 7 mm
wide while the ring itself is about 26 cm wide, that makes the diameter of the
ring about 37 times as wide as the star.
In any event, the size of the ring versus the star that was part
of it was MASSIVELY out of scale. Although the length of the cylinders would
have been greater than the diameter of the spherical planets from which they
were made, the circumference of our Sun is about 2.7 million miles.
If we ASSume that the star was as wide as the Sun, that would make
the circumference of the ring about 99.9 MILLION miles and would require
around 5,000 cylinders to make, assuming that each cylinder was about 20,000
miles long. Since they were probably somewhat shorter, significantly more cylinders
would have been needed.
So, since there are nowhere near that many heads visible on the
ring, the only alternative explanation is that the star, despite appearances,
must actually be FAR smaller than Earth's Sun.
Perhaps the star was something that resembled a star but was far smaller than any naturally-occurring star could be? Maybe it was a mini-sun created by the Infinites? Or possibly a small red dwarf that for some reason just didn't look red.
That is great information, much appreciated. I offer one counterpoint: Maybe it was just a
mathematical/astronomical/art error…the ring was a big as it was intended to
be, but they didn’t do the legwork to figure out how many cylinders/Walkers
they needed. Info was a bit harder to come by in the earlier days of the internet circa 2000,
so there’s some excuse. Either way, both options are worthy of discussion.
--Snood
Additionally, Donald said:
I agree with your read that the Servitor sacrificed himself
to restore all worlds, at least all of those used to make the ring, but
possibly also restoring the galaxies (however many of those there were)
from
the “wall of galaxies.” I think the "manta ray" thing that flew down
was just one aspect of that Infinite, but he/it took the time/effort to
manifest on Rigel-76 to thank and bring about a resolution with
the Avengers.
--Snood.
I thought that I had read something about
how many Rigellians lived on that planet so I reread that miniseries. However,
I was wrong. The only population reference I could find was in Avengers
Infinity#2 when Thor mentioned that "Billions of Rigellians were
exterminated by Thanos" (in the Thor 2000 Annual). Apparently, Thanos was
drastically underestimating the death toll when he told Warlock (in Thanos I#1)
that "more than five million Rigellians died" when
his doppelganger and Mangog attacked Rigel-3. Of course, technically, he
wasn't lying since billions is definitely more than five million
The fact that Rimworld R-76 was an
"outpost world of the Rigellian Empire" suggests that, as an outpost,
it was probably FAR less densely populated than the homeworld or most colonies.
I would say that the population may have been in the millions, at most, but
that would be a total guess. It could have been much higher or much lower.
The image of the ring on the first page of
issue #4 is slightly different than the one on the last page of issue #3, with
28 Walker heads instead of 27. Also, it seems that I miscounted when I said
that there were 25 visible heads + 1 hidden head = 26 heads in that image you
sent me.
Anyway, the newer image also shows
that the two Walker heads closest to the star are connected to it with anergy
arcs instead of cylinders. This would reduce the number of cylinders to 26 (in
issue #3) or 27 (in issue #4).
Although the fact that many Rigellians
were killed by the Servitors is mentioned several times in the miniseries, none
of their dead bodies were seen on the planet before it was rendered into a
uniform, molten mass. However, during the confrontation with the three
Infinites, Eternity shows them (in the palm of his hand) an image of a horde of
Servitors advancing towards at least four Rigellians lying on the ground,
presumably dead. That single panel is the only image of any Rigellian in the
miniseries.
It's probably worth noting that, when
Tigra first sighted the other Walkers arriving with their cylinders, she
mentioned that she didn't know from where they were coming. I've always assumed
that they were coming from other star systems but they could have come from
other planets in the same planetary system as Rimworld R-76.
As for the four spherical objects that
were visible (in the last panel on page 18 in issue #4) when the ring was being
broken down, I agree that they were definitely meant to be solid celestial
objects and not distant stars. Some of them were probably among those spherical
objects depicted in the vicinity on pages 18, 20 and 23 of issue #3.
Although only some of them are shown with surface features, all of them must be
nearby solid objects because at interstellar ranges any and all stars would
only ever appear as dots and not as circles.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Rigel-76 should be distinguished from:
images: (without ads)
Avengers
Infinity#1, pg. 6, panel 1 & 5 (general devastation);
pg. 14, panel 4 (from orbit);
panel 5 (remaining structure);
#2. pg. 20, panel 1 (Servitors swarming over surface);
panel 2 (Servitors tunneling toward core);
panel 4 (core erupting);
pg. 21, panel 1 (molten planet);
#3, pg. 2-3 (molten core with Walker);
pg. 6, panel 1 (Walker manipulating molten planet);
pg. 14, panel 1 (reshaped into arc);
pg. 20, panel 1 (Walkers merging with arcs to form ring);
pg. 23, panel 2 (Infinite reaching for ring);
#4, pg. 19, panel 1-3 (planet reforming);
pg. 20, panel 1 (verdant, forests reappearing);
panel 2 (verdant surface, with ship);
panel 4 (Infinite's face in the water)
Appearances:
Avengers
Infinity#1-4 (September-December, 2000) - Roger Stern (writer), Sean
Chen (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Update#3 (October, 2010) - Jeff
Christiansen (head writer/coordinator), Mike O'Sullivan, Stuart Vandal,
Markus Raymond, & Mike Fichera (assistant coordinators), Mike
O'Sullivan, Stuart Vandal, Sean McQuaid, Michael Hoskin, Madison
Carter, Markus Raymond, Rob London, Kevin Garcia, Chris Biggs, Jacob
Rougemont, & Ronald Byrd (writers), Dennis
Janke (Rigellians penciler; refurbished), James Emmet & Joe
Hochstein (editorial assistants), Alex Starbuck & Nelson Ribeiro
(assistant editors), Jennifer Grunwald & Mark D. Beazley (editors,
special projects), Jeff Youngquist (editor)
First posted: 06/12/2022
Last updated: 06/16/2022
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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