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Single-Biome Planet: Difference between revisions
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* [[City Planet|City Planets (Ecumenopolis)]] -- Urban sprawl has taken over the entire surface of a world. Only possible with extreme technology and a constant inflow of resources from off-world. May serve as home base to a culture of [[Planet Looters]]. Often has a population in the trillions. The concept supposedly first appeared in the writings of 19th century spiritualist Thomas Lake Harris. The first recognised usage in science fiction would be Trantor in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''Foundation'' trilogy. The planet Coruscant in the ''Star Wars'' movies would probably be the most familiar to modern audiences. The logistics of such worlds -- how they get food, dissipate excess heat and so forth -- can be a subject of geeky speculation, as shown in multiple ''[[Irregular Webcomic|Irregular Webcomics]]''. See also [[Planetville]].
* Cloud Planets -- The land is not where Newton wants it. If something or someone lives here, either the ground [[Floating Continent|floats through the sky in chunks]], or there are hover-cities. Either way, watch that first step. Sometimes [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]] by making them Jovian planets, although no known gas giants are anywhere ''near'' habitable. Venus again is a prime example, as some levels of its upper atmosphere would be pretty nice and potentially habitable -- if not for these pesky [[Death World|sulfuric acid clouds]] around.
* Dark Planets -- Like the Desert, but owe their lack of plant life to perpetual night; usually due to constant opaque cloud cover or spooky ominous fog. If inhabited, this might be the product of [[
* [[Death World|Death Worlds]] -- Not a biome in and of itself, but can be any of the aforementioned types. This is a world where [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You]], but you still have compelling reasons to go there. After all, except Earth (and, possibly, Mars) all other Solar System planets are unquestionably those (though Venus takes the cake, as if it's some sort of planetary Australia), and there is thriving research activity around, with a regular expedition and terraforming proposals popping up.
* Desert Planets -- These [[California Doubling|look like the cheaper parts of California]], and are thus very common. May have aliens that act like Bedouin or Touareg, and a thriving black market on water. Multiple suns are common. Mars is sort of a desert planet, but with no breathable atmosphere, although recent discoveries pretty reliably show that it's an Ice Planet as well -- it's just that all that ice is ''under'' the desert.
* Farm Planets -- If a Planet City is lucky, there will be another planet in the same system which is dedicated entirely for food production. Most of these are like a giant version of an American Midwest wheat farm. Complete with hicks. Technology level may range from highly advanced (in which case they are often largely automated with a population as low as hundreds or thousands) to feudal.
* [[Landfill Beyond the Stars|Garbage Planets]] -- The entire planet is being used as a dumping ground for useless waste. Likely to act as home for scavengers looking to make a quick buck, treasure hunters seeking some long-lost treasure, and large numbers of mercenaries and criminals. The actual surface conditions can range from desert-like to incredibly hostile if the Phlebotinum is leaking out of ships.
* Ice Planets -- Planets whose entire surfaces look like Greenland glaciers. Somewhat [[Justified Trope|justified]], as there actually are frozen over planets and moons (for example, several moons of Jupiter & Saturn). Planets that normally have large oceans (like Earth) can look like this during a ''really deep'' [[Ice Age]], and paleontologists believe that this may have happened to Earth in the past in a controversial scenario known as "[
* Jungle Planets -- Mind the bugs, they are positively ''[[Big Creepy Crawlies|enormous]]''. Often home to the [[Cargo Cult]] and vulnerable to a [[God Guise]]. Expect most things that crop up in [[Hungry Jungle]] stories. Equivalent in video games is the [[Jungle Japes]].
* Ocean Planets -- These tend to have few, if any, mountains tall enough to breach the surface and make islands; if there are, they're prime beachfront vacation spots. Earth is arguably an Ocean Planet, just one with a lot of tectonic activity to create islands and continents (and even so, the average elevation of the Earth's surface is still well below sea level). This was even more true 500 million years ago, when the only life that existed was in the sea, and there was much less land above water than there is today. An extrasolar planet, [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/super-earth/ GJ 1214b], has cropped up practically next door to us (a mere 42 light-years), which does appear to be an ocean planet, albeit a very hot one, and extremely non-livable.
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* In C.S. Friedman's ''[[Madness Season]]'', the protagonist at one point looks up archive footage of the Tyr's home planet. He's somewhat unnerved to find endless unbroken kilometers of lush blue plant growth from pole to pole, broken only by oceans teeming with life. {{spoiler|It turns out he's only viewing it during a very narrow portion of its solar orbit; nine years out of ten, the planet is either a frozen wasteland as its orbit carries it out to the far reaches of the solar system, or a boiling hellhole as it comes too near the sun. It looks as nice as it does during spring because all the planet's life has to put out as much growth as it can during the brief live periods.}}
* The trope is justified with planet Droplet in [[Star Trek Titan]]. It's an ocean world based upon genuine (and cutting-edge) scientific theories. While most such worlds wouldn't have higher order life, due to a lack of landmass to provide mineral runoff, the novel provides a reasonable explanation for the existence of a complex ecosystem on Droplet. Essentially, the life-cycle of a native plankton aids in bringing heavier elements from the hypersaline depths to the surface
* In almost every drawing or painting of Earth created prior to the famous [
* Beachworld, a short story by [[Stephen King]], is a very creepy deconstruction of an all-desert planet.
* Trantor isn't the only [[Single Biome Planet]] in the [[Foundation]] series: ''Foundation and Earth'' features the planet Alpha, which is completely covered by water except for a single (though large) [[Terraforming|artificially created]] island.
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* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', which takes place on a Desert Planet. The thing is, three years before the series takes place, it was earthlike - and the series takes place in a [[Please Insert New City Name]] version of ''Boston'', most certainly not in a desert region, showing just how much of the planet is sandy wasteland. The cause of the mass desertification is subtly implied to be ''nuclear carpet-bombing''. The background radiation is so high that long-distance communication is all but impossible, and orphans with cancer are prevalent.
* Lampshaded on the episode of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' where the cast of Star Wars are the guest stars. "Seems we've landed on some sort of comedy variety show planet!"
* Usually in ''[[
* At the end of the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "The Message", it snows at Tracy's funeral, which is on an Ice Planet.
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** Also averted in Killzone 2 and 3 where Helghan has oceans and at least two biomes- arctic and desert in gameplay- and is described in canon as having predator-filled jungles. Mostly wasteland, having a toxic atmosphere, and everyone there trying to kill you makes it a [[Death World]].
* Completely averted in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''. Each of the randomly-generated planets created have dozens if not hundreds of diverse, interconnected biomes that track everything from vegetation, to temperature, to elevation, to even individual rock layers.
* Subverted in ''[[Major Stryker (Video Game)|Major Stryker]]''. The planets are referred to as "[[Lethal Lava Land|Lava Planet]]", "[[Slippy
* ''[[Descent]] II'': Quartzon=water planet, Brimspark=[[Lethal Lava Land|lava planet]], Limefrost Spiral=[[Slippy
* Every planet/track in the [[F-Zero]] series. Ranges from Mute City (not specifically stated to cover the entire world, but is commented on in the manual as a single city of BILLIONS of inhabitants) to Port Town to Death Wind, Sand Ocean, Fire Field, White Land, you name it. A veritable catalogue of one biome worlds.
* ''[[Dragon Quest]] [[Dragon Quest Monsters|Monsters 2]]'' has this: A desert world, an ocean world, an ice world, a cloud world, and [[Mordor]]. Also, all the "optional" worlds.
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* Gobotron from ''[[Challenge of the Go Bots]]'' is a city planet. This is [[Justified]] in that the planet's biosphere was destroyed ages ago in the inhabitants' civil war, forcing the race to become [[Brain In A Jar|cyborgs.]] They then set about salvaging their now-dead home by converting it into a technology-based world.
* ''[[Star Trek the Animated Series]]''
** "[
** "The Slaver Weapon", based on [[Larry Niven]]'s short story "The Soft Weapon". As in the original short story, one of the planets in the Beta Lyrae star system is a "icy little blob of a world", AKA an Ice World.
* In the old ''[[Flash Gordon (Animation)|Flash Gordon]]'' animated series, this trope was averted (as in the comic strip that was the inspiration for it) by Mongo, which actually boasts a wide variety of habitable environments ranging from polar ice to tropical jungle, passing through various shades of desert and temperate forest in between, along with underground labyrinths.
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== Real Life ==
* [
* [http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2009/pr200924.html GJ 1214b] appears to be a prime candidate for an ocean planet. It's estimated that the ocean on its surface would be roughly three to four ''thousand'' miles deep. Yes, the ocean depth is a large percentage of the total radius of the planet. Additionally, because the planet is definitely hotter than boiling point, the ocean doesn't have a defined surface. Instead the atmosphere just gets thicker and thicker as you go down until it becomes as dense as water, which can't compress anymore, meaning the ocean and atmosphere just blend together.
* Today, Earth is the ''only'' aversion in the solar system. In the very early stages of formation, Earth was a lava planet, and if the [
** Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere that distributes heat very efficiently around the planet, so its [[Death World|surface of volcanoes and sulfuric acid]] is hot enough to melt lead from equator to pole and through the 60-Earth-day ''night''.
** Mars is basically a desert world. A very cold desert world. It does have polar glaciers though--made of frozen ''carbon dioxide''.
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** Barring intervention, in a few billion years, the increasingly hot Sun will boil off the Earth's oceans, leaving a desert planet. Before, that is, it gets hot enough to [[Rule of Three|turn it into a lava planet again.]]
** Some of the moons also count:
*** Jupiter's moon [
*** If you want a volcano world, look no further than Io.
*** Titan (Saturn's moon) would be a dark (ice) world. It's far from the sun, and the atmosphere has an organic haze that blocks most of the sunlight that does reach it.
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[[Category:Space Does Not Work That Way]]
[[Category:Single Biome Planet]]
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