Difference between revisions of "Rigellians"

Revision as of 11:05, January 2, 2010

Rigellians are aliens from the planet Rigel VII. Their most famous members are Kang and Kodos, although Serak the Preparer is also Rigellian.

Biology and culture

Rigellians are approximately 7-feet-tall, continuously drooling one-eyed beings with eight tentacles. They wear space helmets, but not space suits. They speak the Rigellian language, which, by coincidence, is identical to English. Their number four looks like a human skull^[1]. Peculiarly, they occasionally vomit through their eye (which looks like tears), but Kodos said they 'always secrete ocular fluid at weddings'^[2]. They must hold hands to exchange long protein strands. They have declared that their religion is to be "Quantum Presbyterians", and that they were present at the beginning of the universe (when it was created 5,000 years ago, by God).

In The Simpsons Hit & Run, it is shown that not all members of the Rigellian species are green. The game's ending features Rigellians of various colors, including red, yellow, blue, pink, red orange, light aqua-green, light blue, dark pink, tan, and orange.

Homeworld

Rigel VII is a rocky, desert-like planet with an asteroid field, that orbits the star Rigel. They are the only form on life on the planet, and their sole preoccupation is assembling a galactic empire for their planet, starting with the conquest of Earth. Kang and Kodos once claimed to live near a ringed planet close to the Earth, implying that it is Uranus.

Technology

Rigellians have access to advanced technology including interstellar travel, ray guns, a fertilization ray, and in their society's standard of games, "Pong".

Origin

The overall appearance of Kang and Kodos is derived from the aliens appearing on the cover of an old EC Comic. They are named after two characters from Star Trek; Kang, a Klingon captain, and Kodos the Executioner, a human villain. Their cook, Serak, derives his name from an inversion of vowels in the name Sarek, the Vulcan father of Spock.

Star Trek would often mention planets in the Rigel system. Rigel VII, the home of Kang and Kodos, is mentioned in the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage". Rigel IV, to which Kang and Kodos intended to take the Simpson family in Treehouse of Horror I, is in the episode "Wolf in the Fold".

References