Pleasure Planet

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

One of the many Planet of Hats where the theme of this entire planet is to enjoy yourself. This usually means sandy beaches and women in revealing outfits. This can also qualify for a planet that is "paradise", for which it's so good that no one would want to leave. If that is the case, then it may double as a Lotus Eater Planet.

Expect either the Busman to take his Holiday here or A Forced Prize Fight to ensnare our heroes. If this planet gets angry when anyone tries to leave, it may be a Possessive Paradise.

If you're looking for Treasure Planet, then you probably just hit a few different letters on accident.

Examples of Pleasure Planet include:

Anime and Manga

  • One Naruto Non-Serial Movie had a suspiciously Las Vegas-esque land that was under threat.
  • The Hot Springs Planet from Outlaw Star was terraformed specifically to be a giant resort.
  • Kiddy Girl-AND has an entire planet that serve as a resort where only females are allowed, and the dress code is they all must wear swimsuits.
  • Whiskey Peak was this in One Piece. They welcome with open arms any and all pirates, partying for an entire day when they land ashore. This is all a facade, for all of the inhabitants are bounty hunters for the crime syndicate Baroque Works.

Comic Books

  • Lobo once landed on a similar planet. After a while he got bored so he hacked into the planet communication systems and sent a broadcast, declaring that within a short time he will start killing everyone in sight. He never did but the resulting hysteria created much more amusing violence than he could hope to himself.
  • Ventura, the gamblers world, in The DCU.

Film

  • Star Wars has the Zeltrons, a species devoted to nothing but sex and pleasure. Accordingly their homeworld, Zeltros, is a pleasure planet.
  • The 1980 Flash Gordon movie had Princess Aura try to tempt Flash into joining her for a tryst on her personal pleasure moon, Cytherea. I think that's where a certain porn actress got her stage name.
    • Cytherea was also an epithet of Aphrodite, since Kythira was a prominent site of her cultus. "Cytherean" is also a somewhat archaic adjective describing matters concerning Aphrodite, namely sex and pleasure (hence the name of the moon).

Literature

  • The beach planet Ursa Minor Beta from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which is also home to the publishers of the eponymous Guide). It is mentioned that the planet's tourism bureau once ran an ad campaign with the slogan "when you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta, you are tired of life." And the galaxy's suicide rate quadrupled overnight.
    • HHGTTG also had the fabulously beautiful planet of Bethselamin, whose government grew so concerned by the cumulative erosion effects of billions of tourist visitors, that they passed a law whereby any net imbalance between what you eat and what you excrete while visiting that world is surgically removed before you are allowed to leave. Thus, it is vitally important to get a receipt each time you go to the bathroom there.
    • And of course, Magrathea will build planets specifically tailored for you. Want a planet made out of solid gold? What about one where everything's made of jello? The pebbles on the beaches are all precious jewels? Magrathea can build it.
  • Kalgan, in the Foundation series.
  • Beta Colony in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga has some elements of this, a warm planet (downright lethal outside of the habitats/caves in fact) where everyone walks around in sarongs and free love is the rule, but they are rather competent and not devoted to pleasure full time.
    • Indeed it is widely known as home to numerous centers of education, science, and technology. However it is also home to places where almost any sexual experience imaginable involving the consenting can be found. Sending someone to the former and finding out they have been nosing around the latter....
      • And then there was Ryoval's on Jackson's Whole, where every sexual experience involving the unconsenting can be purchased for the right price.
  • "Sanctuary" in Starship Troopers is essentially a planet used for soldiers' R&R.
    • It was also unknown to the Arachoids, so if humanity lost the survivors could hide there.
  • Hyperion deconstructs this trope with Maui-Covenant, a once-beautiful planet that has been much harmed by tourism.

Live Action TV

  • Star Trek firmly plants this trope in the planet Risa. Introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation and seen at least once in every spin off since (except, for obvious reasons, Star Trek: Voyager).
    • The German word "reise", which is pronounced exactly like Risa, means "vacation."
    • The planet from the original Star Trek episode "Shore Leave", as the aliens who went there went for amusement, and in the Animated Adaptation Series episode the crew goes there again to chill.
    • Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Justice". The planet Rubicun III is a idealistic paradise with friendly inhabitants which up made up solely of blond haired blue eyed white people until the crew discovers its hidden dangers.
    • The Original Series episode has a throwaway reference to "Wrigley's Pleasure Planet" by Crewman Darnell. The planet itself has quite on lot of speculation on Trek's Fetish Fuel Page. There has been Fanfic suggesting that it's the same planet as Risa, during an unfortunate flirtation with corporate sponsorship.
    • Unfortunately, in the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, the surface of the entire planet gets sterilized by the Borg.
  • The Mars city New Vegas in Babylon 5 is very heavily implied to be such a place, right down to the name.
    • The characters in Crusade come across a destroyed planet that supplementary material describes as being one for aliens. It was also mentioned that there's a "Disney Planet".
  • The original Battlestar Galactica featured the casino resort world of Carillon, which turned out to be a way to keep the alien workers of the Green Rocks mines on the same planet supplied with Soylent Green foodstuffs, as well as the tourist liner Rising Star, a ship with casinos and hotel rooms where Viper pilots liked to go on leave.
  • The late-1970's Buck Rogers TV series had an episode titled "Vegas in Space", I think they re-used the sets and props from Carillon on Battlestar Galactica (show made by the same people).
  • The planet Midnight on Doctor Who, a planet made of beautiful gems and amazing sights, but deadly to anyone who touched it's sunlight. Naturally, humanity built a resort there. And naturally for the Doctor, things go horribly wrong...
  • The Red Dwarf episode Back to Reality mentions The Planet of the Nymphomanics.
  • The crew of Moya are basically kicked off the ship by Pilot due to their constant bickering so they take a sojourn on Lo Mo, called a pleasure planet in-universe. As usual, they manage to get in trouble.

Tabletop Games

  • The original Traveller game supplement 76 Patrons mentioned the "Imperial pleasure planets".
    • GURPS Traveller supplement Planetary Survey 1: Kamsii. The planet Kamsii is a planetary theme park similar to Disneyland.
  • Warhammer 40,000 calls these Garden Worlds.
  • Mongoose Publishing
    • Starship Troopers Role Playing Game had Zegama Beach, the most luxurious and decadent world in the Federation. Known for its endless coastlines of perfect beaches and crystal clear blue waters, it was the most popular vacation destination for wealthy Federation citizens.
    • Mongoose Publishing's Strontium Dog RPG.
    • Fargo III is a holiday world lush with vegetation. The entire economy is based on resorts and hotels, with the planetary population employed by them.
    • Bles was a pleasure world in the former Olol'Bian Empire. It was completely given over to enjoyment and self-expression. Unfortunately the Purity Party took control of the Empire and sandblasted the entire world, turning it into a Desert Planet.

Video Games

  • SaGa Frontier has Baccarat.
  • Smash TV has the Pleasure Domes, as does its Spiritual Successor Total Carnage. Notable in the TC version that when you unlock it, the dudes from Smash TV are still there.
  • Freelancer has Planet Curaçao, Planet Baden-Baden, and to some degree, Planet Cambridge and the luxury cruisers Hawaii and Shetland.
  • An entire class of planet in Wing Commander: Privateer. Pleasure planets will buy food, and almost any luxury goods (including legal ones like furs and pets, and illegal ones like drugs or slaves). The only products they produce are movies.

Web Comics

  • Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger references the planet "Queela Quoola," which, in the local tongue, translates to something like "Planet of casual sex and cheap beer...."

Western Animation

Real Life

  • One of the Roman Emperors had the island of Capri reserved as his personal Pleasure Island.
    • That would be Tiberius, predecessor to the infamous Caligula.
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