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Neptune in fiction

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On Neptune

The planet Neptune has been used as a reference and setting in various films and works of fiction:

  • The first fictional visit of Neptune, portrayed as glacial but nevertheless inhabited, occurred in Spirito gentil (1889) .
  • In the Captain Future series, Neptune is portrayed as a sea planet, not out of any scientific theory but evidently because Neptune is the Roman sea god.
  • In Olaf Stapledon's 1930 epic novel Last and First Men, Neptune is the final home of the highly evolved human race.
  • In Hugh Walters' 1968 novel Nearly Neptune, the first manned expedition to Neptune ends in apparent disaster as a fire destroys vital equipment on board the spacecraft as it nears the planet.
  • Neptune was the intended destination of the mining ship Red Dwarf in the books based on the BBC sitcom of that name, but an accident on board sends it into deep space instead.
  • The planet served as the backdrop for the 1997 sci-fi/horror film Event Horizon.
  • The humorous short story, The Elephants on Neptune by Mike Resnick, was published in Asimov's Science Fiction, and was nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula award (2001).
  • The Futurama spin-off movie Bender's Big Score, shows the main characters flying to Neptune after evacuating earth. Neptune is shown as frozen land where Robot Santa lives. According to the inhabitants of Earth, Neptune is an unpopular planet and if you visit there, you will be "cold and heavy", that being because of Neptune's massive amount of gravity.
  • The plot of the TV movie Virtuality centers around a starship preparing to make a flyby of Neptune before leaving the solar system.

Neptunians

The planet is also used as the home of various alien species and characters:

  • In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Neptune is known as "Yaksh" and is inhabited by curious fungoid creatures (Clark Ashton Smith's The Family Tree of the Gods, 1944).
  • In the animated TV series Futurama (1999-2003, 2007-2009), Neptunians are a purple-skinned, four-armed race of humanoids that coexist peacefully with humans across the solar system. Elzar the cook, is a Neptunian. Neptune itself is only seen in "A Tale of Two Santas" and in "Bender's Big Score," where its North Pole is the location of Robot Santa's Death Fortress, with stunted Neptunian "elves" working for him. The planet is depicted as icy, but again, since only its north pole is shown, this may not be indicative of the entire planet.
  • In the Japanese Anime Urusei Yatsura, Neptune is an icy, cold place which is the home of Oyuki, one of Lum's childhood alien friends.
  • Neptune had a Boskonian base on it in E. E. Smith's Lensman series (later destroyed by the Galactic Patrol).
  • In Space Patrol (1962) - episode The Slaves of Neptune, the crew of the Galasphere are sent to solve the mystery of a spaceship sending colonists to Pluto which disappeared near Neptune. On approach to Neptune Dart, Slim and Husky fall under the hypnotic influence of Neptunian overlord Tyro who is using his powers to trap Earth colonists as slaves.
  • In Mork and Mindy, the character of Kalnik claims (whether truthfully or not) to be from this planet; since the character is devious, it is possible he comes from much further away, since an advanced race on a planet as close as Neptune should be able to detect Kalnik's mischief at such close range.
  • The 1986 video game Sqoon names the antagonists 'Neptunians'.
  • In Grant Morrison's DC One Million (1998), all the planets of the solar system are overseen by one member of the future descendants of the Justice League. Neptune is overseen by the Aquaman of the 853rd century, and is described as being covered in oceans.
  • In 1975, the Mego Corporation created an eight-inch "Neptunian" [1] action figure doll for its first line of "Star Trek Aliens." Although elaborately designed as a monstrous reptilian with a long, thin head, a scaly green-and-red jumpsuit (with wings sewn under each arm), and removable, reptilian, plastic green gloves and boots, the Neptunian is particularly noteworthy because it never appeared in any Star Trek TV episode or movie, before or since.

Neptune's moons in fiction

  • Three levels of the Descent take place on Neptune or its moons. Level 22 is set on Neptune in a storage depot. The setting for level 23 was also a storage depot, this time on Neptune's largest moon, Triton. Level 24 took place on Nereid, in a volatile materials mine.
  • In Ringworld by Larry Niven, a segment is set on an Outsider settlement on Nereid.

Triton

  • Samuel R. Delany's 1976 novel Triton has humanity colonizing several parts of the solar system, including Neptune's largest moon.
  • Part of the Piers Anthony novel Macroscope is set on Triton, with the protagonists terraforming an area to set up as a settlement for themselves.
  • In Jeffrey A. Carver's novel Neptune Crossing, there is a crew from Earth digging for ancient alien artifacts on Triton. Most of the story takes place on this moon.
  • The background story of the computer game Supreme Commander makes note of a test of a Quantum tunnelling system being used to transport humans to Triton.
  • Triton was used as a temporary base of operations for the so-called 'Earthguard' by the Spathi in the computer game Star Control II.
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