Jupiter's moons in fiction

Jupiter's extensive system of natural satellites has been a common setting for works of science fiction, in particular the four large Galilean moons, two of which are planet-sized.

Galilean moons of Jupiter

Galilean moons in fiction

Io in fiction

Io

Io is the closest of the Galilean satellites to Jupiter. It is almost the same size as Earth's Moon. Because of its position, it is subject to constant tidal flexing and heavy radiation from Jupiter's magnetic field. Since 1979, it has also been known for its abundant volcanism.

Literature

• In Stanley G. Weinbaum's short story "The Mad Moon" (1935), Io is home to two native races, the moronic balloon-headed loonies and the ratlike slinkers.
• Io plays an important role in both the book and the film of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two (1984). The Discovery (the spacecraft featured in Clarke's previous novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey) is found in orbit around Io, coated with sulfur from the erupting volcanoes beneath it. In the story, the character Heywood Floyd states that Io's surface reminds him of the fictional land of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Michael Swanwick's Hugo award-winning short story "The Very Pulse of the Machine" (1998) is set on Io, and features elements of the volcanic, sulfurous landscape, as well as the powerful electrical flux between Io and Jupiter.
• In the novel Illium by Dan Simmons, Io's magnetic flux tube is used to hyper-accelerate spacecraft throughout the solar system. It is also the home of a moravec named Orphu.

Art

• In Frank R. Paul's series of back cover illustrations for Fantastic Adventures (May 1940) and Amazing Stories (July 1941), Io was inhabited by furry, black-and-white intelligent beings living in the city of Crystallis, built entirely of crystals.

Film and television

• Io plays an important role in both the book and the film of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two (1984). The Discovery (the spacecraft featured in Clarke's previous novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey) is found in orbit around Io, coated with sulfur from the erupting volcanoes beneath it.
• Peter Hyams, the director of 2010, had previously made a film called Outland (1981), set in a mining colony on Io.
• In the TV series V, what appears to be the moon Io is destroyed (vaporized) by the most powerful single weapon possessed by the Visitors from Sirius, the Particle Beam Triax.
• In the Red Dwarf universe, Arnold Judas Rimmer was born and raised on Io.
• In Star Trek Voyager when the EMH travels back to the Alpha Quadrant, arriving at Jupiter Station in order to save Lewis Zimmerman's life, Lewis tells him to "tour Jupiter's fourth moon. I hear the lava flows are excellent this time of year".
• In the animated television series Exosquad (1993–1995), Io is the location of an Exofleet base and the scene of several critical battles between Terran and Neosapien forces
• In the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 (1993–), Io is home to an Earth Alliance colony, second in size only to the colony on Mars.
• In the BBC docudrama Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets (2005), about a possible manned mission to various points of the Solar System, one astronaut lands on Io to collect samples of its rocks. However, due to radiation risks and the astronaut becoming exhausted, the EVA on Io is aborted early and the samples are abandoned.
• In the Australian ABC television series Escape from Jupiter, a mining colony exists on Io. The moon's core destablises and the colonists are forced to evacuate to the space station, KL5, in orbit around Io.

Games

• In the mid 1980s adventure role playing computer game Ultima II, the player must travel through various worlds, including Io, to complete the game.
• In the computer game ZeroZone, Io is one of the settings.
• Io is the setting of the computer game POD.
• A few missions of Battlezone I are set on the surface of Io.
• In the game Disruptor for the Sony PlayStation, there is a level that is set within "the sulphurine mines of Io".
• In the Xbox game Halo 2. During the award ceremony, Cortana interrupts and says to Lord Hood, "Another whisper, Sir, near Io. We have probes en route."
• The Superior Software game Pipeline is set on a sulphur mine on Io.

Europa in fiction

Europa

Europa is the smallest of the four Galilean satellites and the second farthest from Jupiter. It is theorized to have an ocean of liquid water underneath its icy surface; the thickness of the ice is much debated. The probable presence of the water ocean has made it a favored location for modern fictional speculation about extraterrestrial life in the Solar system.

Literature

• Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1936 short story "Redemption Cairn" pictures Europa with a small Earthlike area on its Jupiter-facing side.
• Europa plays a very important role in the book and film of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two and its sequels. Super-advanced aliens aiding the development of life take an interest in the primitive life forms under Europa's ice and transform Jupiter into a star to kick-start their evolution. In 2061: Odyssey Three, Europa has become a tropical ocean world.
• In Schismatrix (1985), Europa is inhabited by genetically re-engineered posthumans as a philosophical/political statement by Abelard Lindsay's Lifesider's clique.
• In Greg Bear's novel The Forge of God (1987), Europa is destroyed by aliens who use chunks of its ice to terraform planets.
• Bud Sparhawk's 1998 novella Ice Dragon's Song describes a 12 year old's trek across the face of icy Europa.
• Creatures from Europa feature prominently in the Dan Simmons science fiction novel Ilium (2003).
• In Europa Strike by Ian Douglas, a massive ancient alien spacecraft lies in an ocean beneath the moon's surface, the discovery of which leads to a battle between Chinese forces and US Marines in 2067.

Art

• In Frank R. Paul's series of back cover illustrations for Amazing Stories (September 1940, January 1942), Europa was inhabited by red, beetle-like intelligent beings who rode domesticated centipedes and lived inside immense transparent plastic domes in a city called Oor.

Film and television

• Europa plays a very important role in the book and film of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two (see above).
• The online script serial Banana Chan features Europa as a destination for Space Tourists in its 12th episode.
• In the anime Cowboy Bebop, the crew of the Bebop is heading towards Europa when, after being involved in a hit and run accident, end up stranded on Io.

Games

• In the video game Infantry, large cities lie underneath the ice sheets of Europa.
• In the video game Battlezone, Europa is featured as a cold, ice covered world, where battles take place in cracks between the ice.
• The computer game Abyss: Incident at Europa involves an underwater base in Europa's ocean.
• The computer game Descent 3 has a level on Europa in which the player must destroy an energy refinery. The game depicts Europa as a snowy landscape.
• The Transhuman Space roleplaying game features Europa as the setting for a conflict between a faction dedicated to preserving a native microbial fauna and one attempting to introduce Earth-based life.

Ganymede in fiction

Ganymede

Ganymede is the third of the Galilean moons from Jupiter. It is the largest moon in the Solar system, bigger than the planet Mercury. Ganymede's size made it a popular location for early science fiction authors looking for locations beyond Mars that might be inhabitable by humans. In reality, Ganymede is a cold, icy, cratered world with a vanishingly thin atmosphere.

Literature

• In the short story "Tidal Moon" (1938) by Stanley G. Weinbaum and Helen Weinbaum, most of Ganymede's surface is flooded every three months due to Jupiter's tides.
• In the short stories "Not Final" (1941) and "Victory Unintentional" (1942) by Isaac Asimov, a conflict arises between humans living on Ganymede and the inhabitants of Jupiter.
• Robert A. Heinlein's novel Farmer in the Sky (1950) depicts the terraforming and colonization of Ganymede. In Heinlein's novel Space Cadet (1948), one of the characters is listed as being a third generation colonist on Ganymede.
• Leigh Brackett's short story "The Dancing Girl of Ganymede" (1950) is set on a volcanic, jungle-covered Ganymede.
• In Poul Anderson's novella "The Snows of Ganymede" (1954), a party of terraformers visits a settlement on Ganymede called X which was established two centuries earlier by American religious fanatics.
• Ganymede is referred to in virtually all of Philip K. Dick's novels from the 50s and 60s, although it seldom receives more than a brief mention. In Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), we are introduced to Lord Running Clam, a species of intelligent slime mold from Ganymede.
• In the Lester Del Rey novel The Runaway Robot (1965), the main character Paul and his robot live in a colony on Ganymede at the beginning of the story.
• The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978) by James P. Hogan ISBN 0-345-31469-7. An alien spaceship is found on Ganymede.
• In the series of novels collectively called Bio of a Space Tyrant (1983-6) by Piers Anthony, the moon is analogous to 20th century Cuba, and is the focus of a futuristic missile crisis.
• In Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2061: Odyssey Three (1987), Ganymede is warmed by the new sun Lucifer and contains a large equatorial lake. It is the centre of human colonization of the Jovian system.
• The 1991 science fiction novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, by Bradley Denton (ISBN 0-688-10822-9 and ISBN 0-380-71876-6), begins when television sets throughout the world suddenly begin broadcasting a concert by an apparently living Buddy Holly, who says he is on Ganymede.
• The majority of events in "The Ganymede Club" (1995), a science fiction mystery by Charles Sheffield, take place on Ganymede.
• In the novel Orphanage (2004) by Robert Buettner, an alien race uses Ganymede as a staging area for a war against Earth.
• I visited Ganymede by Peruvian writer Yosip Ibrahim relates in first person the story of a friend Pepe that keeps contacts with a civilisation in Ganymede. In this perfect civilisation, whose inhabitants communicate via telepathy, there are no wars or illnesses. The book follows the UFO religion line and plays with the story being actually true.

Art

• In Frank R. Paul's series of back cover illustrations for Amazing Stories (October 1940, February 1942), Ganymede was inhabited by ferocious tiger-women who ride giant lizards. They live in the crater city of Gatos, which derives its power from the moon's magnetic field.

Film and televison

• In the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name" (1968), Scotty asserts a green beverage was obtained on Ganymede, but he might be mistaken.
• The made-for-TV German movie "Operation Ganymed" (1977) tells the story of five astronauts returning from an expedition to Ganymede. They find a seemingly desolate Earth and are trying to find out what happened while they were in space.
• In the Power Rangers TV series (1993-), Ganymede is the hiding place chosen by Zordon as the hiding space for a fleet of Zords known as the Mega Vehicles, which combine to form the Mega Voyager. The Space Rangers locate these Zords after winning Key Cards from Darkonda in a card game. ("Flashes of Darkonda", "The Rangers' Mega Voyage").
• In the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 (1994-1998), the Shadows bury a ship under the surface of Ganymede, which is dug up during the third season of the show (the Messages From Earth episode, 1996).
• In the animated television series The King of Braves GaoGaiGar (1997), many of the 31 Machine Primevals fuse with Jupiter's satellites as their last stand against heroic Gutsy Galaxy Guard. The Primeval to fuse with Ganymede is Lungs Primeval (ZX-17), which creates a "Klein Space" within itself (a pocket dimension bearing spatial geometry similar to that of a klein bottle) in an attempt to seal GGG away upon their arrival in Jovian orbit.
• In the anime series Cowboy Bebop (1998), Ganymede is depicted as an aquatic planet, a terraformed world that is entirely covered in water. Animal life, most likely created by human intervention, is also depicted, such as the Ganymede searat, a species of rodent-like seal. About 7 million people live on it in floating colonies which are supported on large barge-type foundations. The character Jet Black was a police officer on Ganymede, and presumably was born there. Jet also has a watch that is apparently from Ganymede.

Games

• In the 32nd Millennium of the Warhammer 40,000 (1987) Universe, Ganymede is destroyed during a Warp Core experiment that goes horribly wrong.
• In the DOS game One Must Fall: 2097, the prize for victory in the tournament is the development right to Ganymede, which is also the home of the Angels, who seek to prevent their home being developed.
• In the PC game FOM , Ganymede is a space colony which has been terraformed to support humanity.

Callisto in fiction

Callisto

Callisto is the outermost of the Galilean satellites. It is a large moon, only slightly smaller than the planet Mercury. It is cold, icy, and heavily cratered, with a very tenuous atmosphere. Despite its size, it has not been featured in fiction as much as the other Galilean satellites.

Literature

• In Isaac Asimov's story "The Callistan Menace" (1940), Callisto has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide and is inhabited by large slugs that use magnetic fields to stun their prey.
• Lin Carter's eight-novel Callisto series (1972-1978) is set on an inhabitable Callisto.
• In Piers Anthony's sci-fi series "Bio of a Space Tyrant" (1983-), Callisto is the home planet of Hope Hubris, the Tyrant of Jupiter.
• The protagonist of Anne McCaffrey's telepathic-society novel The Rowan (1990) lives in a terraformed dome on Callisto.
• Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Blue Mars (1996) contains a description of a flourishing colony on Callisto.
• In H. P. Lovecraft's Beyond the Wall of Sleep, the writer mentions in passing "the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter."

Art

• In Frank R. Paul's series of back cover illustrations for Amazing Stories (August 1940, December 1941), Callisto was inhabited by blue-skinned, white-haired, four-tentacled humanoids. Their city, Serenis, consists of colonnaded dwellings around the rim of a green lake.

Film and television

• Jupiter Moon (1990) was a short-lived British soap opera. It was set on a space university that orbited Callisto.
• Cowboy Bebop (1998) features a snowy Callisto, filled with fugitives and populated only by men.

Games

• In the game Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (2003), the protagonist, Dingo Egret, finds the Orbital Frame Jehuty buried in ice under Callisto's surface.
• In the video game series G-police, your character is a pilot for a police force on Callisto.

Other moons of Jupiter in fiction

Amalthea

Two views of Amalthea

Amalthea, or Jupiter V, is the third moon from Jupiter and the largest of the inner satellites of Jupiter.

• Arthur C. Clarke's short story Jupiter V (1951) is set on Amalthea; its plot depends on the moon's weak gravity, and explores what might happen if an astronaut were thrown from its surface.
• The Way to Amalthea is a scifi story by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky written in 1959.
• In an early draft of 2001: A Space Odyssey novel the giant monolith is located on the surface of Amalthea (according to Arthur C. Clarke in The Lost Worlds of 2001 [1972]).

Leda

Leda, or Jupiter XIII, is a small irregular satellite of Jupiter discovered in 1974.

• Leda is technically the setting of the B-movie Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956), about a space mission to "Jupiter's thirteenth moon". However, the moon was not discovered until after the film was made (and its surface is depicted as remarkably similar to the English countryside).

Pasiphaë

Pasiphaë (Jupiter VIII) is used as a setting in John Varley's novel The Ophiuchi Hotline, though it is referred to by its pre-1975 name, 'Poseidon'.

Sinope

Sinope, or Jupiter IX, is a small irregular satellite of Jupiter. From the time of its discovery in 1914 until the discovery of Megaclite in 2000, it was the outermost of Jupiter's known moons. It is still the most distant Jovian moon to have a diameter of more than 10 km.

• In Exosquad, Sinope was the location of the Neosapiens' top-secret super-weapon, Fusion Pulse Cannon. After the Cannon has been destroyed by the Terrans, Sinope was blown to asteroids by the explosion and, thus, ceased to exist.
• In Isaac Asimov's 1957 novel Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, Sinope (Jupiter Nine) is the site of an experimental "Agrav" ship design. Asimov erroneously calls the moon "Adrastea", although in 1957 it had no official name and had been unofficially dubbed "Hades", while "Adrastea" was unofficially used for Jupiter XII (now called Ananke). Asimov's confusion may have arisen from the fact that, of the moons known in the 1950s, Jupiter IX was the twelfth most distant from Jupiter, and Jupiter XII was the ninth. To add to the confusion, Adrastea is now used as the name of an inner satellite of Jupiter that was not discovered until 1979.

See also

• Jupiter in fiction