10 Star Trek Easter Eggs & References In Starfield

It has been semi-canon to canon since the beginnings of Star Trek that the planet Vulcan is located in the real-world trinary star system 40 Eridani — more specifically in orbit of 40 Eridani A. This star choice for Vulcan is thought to have begun with author James Blish's 1968 short story version of Tomorrow is Yesterday, later referenced in 1980's Star Trek Maps. In a 1991 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine, Gene Roddenberry then stated his preference for 40 Eridani as the galactic whereabouts of Vulcan's sun.

There's also an Eridani system to visit in Starfield, and the surface of the second moon of its eighth planet has some awfully Vulcan-like red rocky vistas. Sure, the sky on 'Eridani VIII-b' doesn't quite match up, and the atmosphere is thin (although that might be the most Vulcan thing about it), but there are too many similarities, we think, to be coincidence. It's Vulcan, Dusty, but not as we know it!

Of course, we all know Vulcan has no moon. That makes this Starfield nod to Star Trek all the more delightful, deliberate or otherwise. Further happenstance or Bethesda brilliance, the letter 'b' is also significant. In 2018, scientists thought they had discovered an exoplanet in the habitable zone around 40 Eridani A. Sadly, it appears this was in error, but for a time we had HD 26965 b, or 40 Eri(dani) b, as a real-life candidate for Vulcan.