Talk:List of planets in science fiction/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

This list is vastly incomplete

I am an avid Sci-fi watcher and almost every planet I can think of isn't on here.

Look at this: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Category:Planets just see how many Star Trek planets we are missing.

Look at this: http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/planets/index.shtml just see how many stargate planets are missing. There are way more than that.

I don't think this article should exsit. It is impossible to complete. Even if somehow admazingly we found a way to get the 20,000+ planets that are out there, by the time we finshed, there would be thousands more. Tobyk777 02:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the appropriate thing to do is to link to existing lists of planets where that is appropriate: there are already lists and/or categories of Star Trek planets, Star Wars planets, and if there isn't a Stargate planets list then there should be. That should cut it down considerably. RandomCritic 03:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • That would be a good idea—otherwise this list will grow to monstrous porportions! BTW: you might want to include a link to Cthulhu mythos celestial bodies—this article is validated by both primary and secondary sources.
Great list, thanks - RandomCritic 18:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


I also have two unrelated concerns. First, I'm not so sure that Category:Fictional planets should be listed under Planets in science fiction#Similar fictions. This seems redundant may be a misuse of the template.

Good point. RandomCritic 18:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Secondly, the following line under Planets in science fiction#Planet lists may violate Wiki standards (italics added for emphasis):

For planets from specific fictional milieux, use the following lists and categories, or use Wikipedia's search box on this page:

I don't think articles are supposed to refer to Wiki-related things—primarily because if the article is duplicated elsewhere, the search box reference will be meaningless (moreover, if the page is printed, you can't very well use a search box on a paper copy!)
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 05:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, but how do you deal with the fact that this article is mistitled (since it is more a reference to articles about planets than an article about planets) and that, like all of Wikipedia, it can be used as fast reference. Somebody looking rapidly for more information on, say, Caladan and Alderan will not read all the detail of all the text of the article and jump instead to the most apparent alphabetical listing. Seeing that Alderan and Caladan are not in the list the person will immediatly go away with a bad impression, or will conclude that a much needed correction is in order and do it, adding Caladan and Alderan. --AlainV 08:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Related list

I converted the information here into the list List of fictional planets by medium which I think is probably easier to search. I don't know how anyone is supposed to find anything in this article, which seems to have been abandoned in mid-transformation.

Query

Would it be appropriate to return this page to a plain alphabetized listing, and to calve off the specialized sections (unusual environment, etc.) into their own pages? RandomCritic 03:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Deletions

Deleted the following:

Mentioned as a good example of what this list should not look like: four names with no links, one with a link to something that is not a planet, completely uninformative descriptions. What is "Tracker"? Novel? Video game? Why are these planets interesting? What makes them different from any other planet? RandomCritic 22:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Plans

Considering some of the concerns about the length of this list, I propose the following:

I. Needing Work

  • To omit any planet that does not have its own page.

I don't think this is a good idea. A little bit of information on a planet is better than none, which is what will happen for many planets this way. --AlainV 03:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I second AlainV's concern. One of the major advantages of this article over Category:Fictional planets is the ability to list planets without articles. The information provided here can also be used as a stub for editors who decide later to create an article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate these concerns, but I have some additional ones of my own. One which has already been discussed is space; not just that the article can get so long as to make the Wikipedia engine grumble, but that it can get long enough to stop being very useful as a search tool.
The more important issue, however, is quality control. When an entry has a corresponding article, it's possible to doublecheck the information given in the entry fairly easily; when there isn't one, checking the information can range from difficult to impossible. This article has already hosted some spoof entries - made up on the spot, I guess to check whether anyone was paying attention. There may well be more that haven't been discovered. There are also just ordinary errors, as well as the problem of making routine links by dropping a name within double brackets, without ever checking to see whether the link goes to the right place (assuming there's a place to go to). This absence of accuracy (and attention) makes the article much less useful than it could be.
When there's a planet list within an article, or group of articles, that fans and experts on a particular author or film or game regularly visit, then errors get spotted and deleted quickly. This page, however, is nobody's page of first resort; it's a combination jumping-off point for further research and grab-bag of miscellaneous information. Especially in a very long list, it's difficult to find and correct errors, and the people who best know the correct information are least likely to come here.
It's therefore highly desirable, in my view, to maintain some sort of linkage between this list and information which is being independently checked. That does not necessarily have to be a link to a specific planet article; it could be a link to an article which includes a description of the planet and the context/medium in which it appears. The entries for Majipoor and Solaris, for instance, don't take you to specific planet entries but to articles about the books in which the planet is mentioned.
If a fictional planet is significant enough to be mentioned here, then it ought to be significant enough either to have, at least, a stub, or a section within another relevant page. Where they aren't found, they can - and I think should - be created. RandomCritic 13:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right that each of those planets deserves at least a short article. But who's going to write it? Eventually, if there is little vandalism or negative editing most of the notable planets might get an article, but that might be far away in the meantime a list of planets with just some basic facts for each is really a useful reference. By taking out those lines of information you're destroying that reference tool as well as destroying a jump-off point. --AlainV 00:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Assuming that all the 90-odd planets that were there before should go back in (and that they all really have real referents, which I'm not sure of) then it's just a matter of time to fix all the links, create articles and/or sections where absolutely necessary, and put them back in. Probably a couple of weeks to a month. RandomCritic 01:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that you are going to do it? I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the classics of science fiction like Damon Knight did but looking fast at the ones you took out I can see at least half of the line entries refer to planets which have been featured in science fiction novels and stories which have been many times reprinted over the last 50 years and are certainly notable. --AlainV 08:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, most of them look quite worthwhile. I have been gradually putting them back into the main list as I find (or create) links. If you count you'll see we're already down to (73>)14 from 90. RandomCritic 15:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


No links

The following entries have no link to a planet page. They can be fixed by creating a planet page or finding a relevant link to or within another relevant article.

Planets of questionable significance

Apparently only tangentially referred to?
Westerfeld is a pretty obscure author. He does have a Wikipedia article, but only since the last couple of weeks.
Seems more like a casual reference than a prominent location in these books.
Unclear if this plays an important part in Williams' trilogy.
  • Eylor – In Rifts, a living world said to be the source of the magical Eyes of Eylor, living disembodied eyes of great power.
Seems like it's only a casual reference.
I don't feel competent to create a stub about this RPG.
Is anybody even playing these games any more?

Should go in a "List of Chronicles of Riddick planets"

Cannot find references outside Wikipedia

Ekeke is a very obscure author of juvenile space opera. Vanity reference?

Erra

While Erra is fictional in the sense of being an asserted planet that does not actually exist, it's not a fictional planet in the sense of "a planet appearing in a published work of fiction". There's a case to be made for deleting it, but I'd rather see that case made than just have it vanish without comment. RandomCritic 18:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Infinita

I removed the following because it is not clear that it is actually a planet:

*Infinita - Skeletor's planet of origin in Masters of the Universe.

According to the article Skeletor and other sources, Infinita is a "dimension", not a planet. I suggest listing it in Parallel universe (fiction). RandomCritic 18:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

RPGs

The following were removed because they do not contain links to lists of planets:

That is not to say that it would not be good to have a link to a list of planets in Traveller (role-playing game) and similar games, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to have those lists as yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomCritic (talk • contribs) 13:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Planet X

If there is some specific information about the appearance of "Planet X" in Godzilla movies (specifically, what movies it appears or is mentioned in) it can go to Outer planets of the Solar System in fiction, where material related to a fictional Planet X is gathered. RandomCritic 05:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Krankore

What about Krankore? I don't remember the movie it came from but a clip was shown in It Came From Hollywood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.117.205 (talk) 02:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You're talking about Krankor in "Prince of Space", aka "Planet Prince". Anyway, listed per your request! :) RandomCritic 20:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much, sir!!! -- Gerkinstock 23:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Disc world

Terry pratchett's disc world should be added to the section about fictional worlds. acecool79 12:58, 22 March 2007 (PT)

It is already included, and you'll find it down in the section titled Fantastic planets. RandomCritic 20:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Fictional planet

I have had a go at creating an infobox for fictional planets. It can be seen at Template:Infobox fictional planet. Can some people look at it and give me feedback as to if they think it would be a good thing to add to article about fictional planets. Also at the moment there are only a few fields, but if people can think of any fields that could be added to improve the infobox, go ahead and let me know.--NeilEvans 21:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe include author, genre (e.g. film, television, comics, animation, RPG, videogame?). It also may not always be easy to find an image of the planet. RandomCritic 21:50, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh good idea, I'll add those.--NeilEvans 22:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Awesome template. --Savre 09:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The alphabetical list of planets in science fiction

(copied from my Talk page)RandomCritic 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

In a message to me about Planets in science fiction, you said "The alphabetical list is only for cases where just one or two planets are mentioned in a given work or series." I have several issues with this statement.

1. An alphabetical list implies a list of all items. You would never see an "Alphabetical List of Nations" where some of the nation were pulled out into a separate section of "those whose people speak German (or English, or Chinese)", while the others are dumped into a miscellaneous alphabetical listing. In my opinion, an encyclopedia would list them all. Perhaps in the "German" article would be a list of all nations that speak German.

2. If an alphabetical list is not comprehensive, then it is not useful for browsing. Somehow, you must "know" to look for some planets in one section and others in another section. If I'm looking for a planet from a book but cannot remember the name, I must currently browse through 25 different pages.

3. The criteria for inclusion in the Literature list are unstated and inconsistent. For example, only Asimov's Foundation planets are included -- where do his other planets go? And all of Heinlein's planets are lumped together -- why don't his Future History planets get their own category? How many planets must a universe/author/series have to qualify? How do you handle planets that are found in multiple media? For example, Star Trek planets might be found under Television, Film, Animation, or Books. I can see disagreements every time a few more planets are added.

Despite everything I have said above, I have no problem with separate lists of planets from various universes/authors/series; in fact I think it's a great idea. I just don't see why those planets should be removed from the alphabetical list.

The creation of a Jane's All The World's Worlds or a Worlds Almanac has been a goal of mine for decades and Wikipedia seems perfect for it. I have a couple of thousand planets to add and would like to have at least some confidence in what the final result would look like before I do all that work.

Regards, Cwogle 17:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason to imagine that this or any other alphabetical list is making a claim to be comprehensive. All "alphabetical" means is that its members are listed in alphabetical order.
If you are looking for a planet whose name, author, or work you do not remember, then you are pretty much out of luck and a very long (thousands of items) alphabetical list, that you cannot possible "browse", is not going to help you at all. If you remember the name but not the work, then there is a search box over on one side of your screen you can use if you are not up to looking through a few lists.
The criteria for "inclusion in the Literature list" is simply that there be a list on Wikipedia, and that it deal with works that are primarily written. Star Trek is not there because, as everyone knows, Star Trek is originally a television franchise, with various spinoffs. The marginal cases are really not that marginal and not worth quibbling about.
As for why there is a Foundation planets list but not an "Asimov's other planets" list, that's because there was already a preexisting list of planets from the Foundation series. This article can only list lists that exist. If you want to construct an Asimov's planets, that's your own lookout, though I'd suggest you let Asimov's other fans on Wikipedia know about it.
It was determined years ago that this list would be far too large if every single fictional planet were included. You may consult the lists of Star Wars or Star Trek or Stargate planets to see why this would be so. The list at one point had reached an unmanageable size and was no longer even reviewable by editors -- there were dead links, links that had never existed, false information, spoofs which could not be easily dug out from the reliable information. There were also conflicts between the list and the various milieu-specific lists. In pruning the alphabetical list, the decision was made to keep the list far shorter, and the information more subject to review, by leaving large lists belonging to specific milieux where they could be tended to by the fans of that milieu. There is absolutely no point in duplicating every Star Wars planet in the Planets in science fiction list, and it would indeed be impossible, were it to be carried out, to make sure that every change made to the one list were made to the other.
You are welcome to construct a "Worlds Almanac" if you like, but Wikipedia is not perfect for it; wiki software is out there if you want to construct a wiki of that sort of your own. There are also various science fiction wikis if you prefer to propose your concept on one of them.
The criteria for the alphabetical list are:
  1. That the planet in question must either have an article about it, or be mentioned in an article that can be linked to via the planet name;
  2. That the planet not be found in any already existing list. So "Krypton" is not found here because it is in the DC planets list -- which is found, naturally enough, under Comics, under the supposition that most people are aware that Superman is a comic-book superhero. Likewise Tatooine, Terminus, and a host of others. The alphabetical list is basically a grab-bag of "other planets"; that's why the List-of-lists section comes first, and the alphabetical second. You might also note that there are a few specialized lists further down.
If you have a lot of planets you want to create articles for on Wikipedia, then I suggest starting with the articles; put them under appropriate categories; if there are a lot of them, create a list which will link to them; if some are of minor significance, without much to say about them, group them into the list article; and then you can link to the list here.
If you have suggestions for improving the layout or navigability of this page, then please make them, but adding thousands or tens of thousands of names to the alphabetical list will simply make this page crufty and unusable, which I am sure is not your purpose.
RandomCritic 23:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Cybertron and Char (from Transformers) were left off the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.249.2.202 (talk) 13:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Range of variation

Does not the expression "Earth clones" understate the differences between habitable worlds? To me the expression indicates that the only differences where their geography, history and minor discrepancies in biology. There are considerable variations amongst the fictional worlds. These are the real world limitations I can come up with:

Amount of landmass A habitable world could be completely water-covered. The other extreme would be a world with just enough surface water to maintain a sufficient oxygen level. It is common for fictional worlds to have 50 percent landmass ore more. However, the climatological consequences of such much landmass are rarely taken. In reality, larger amount of landmass means longer maximum distance to the sea and as such a drier climate. I doubt that typical desert worlds like Tatooine or Arrakis would have enough vegetation to maintain a breathable atmosphere. Both Star Wars an Dune are space operas so you don't have to follow the laws of nature. However, I would definitely consider following the laws of nature an advantage.
Atmosphere The air must contain enough oxygen but not too much carbon dioxide. Typically, fictional worlds have atmospheres which humans have no problem to breathe. More unusual are depictions of worlds with poisonous atmospheres. The intermediate cases (breathable with difficulty or unhealthy in the long run) are rarely dealt with.
Axial tilt It is not the axial tilt itself that matters but the variation in it. On Earth global temperatures has varied with the tilt of the planet's axis. It is generally thought that no civilisation would survive a temperature change of more than 2 – 3 degrees Celsius a century. The degree of axial tilt is rarely described unless it is extremely high (such as in the case of Halvmörk), very small or absent. Very detailed descriptions of worlds may also include the amount of axial tilt.
Biosphere The life of a habitable world must be human compatible. This would mean carbon-based life using left-handed amino acids. Also, the biosphere has to contain non-poisonous organisms containing all essential nutrients for humans. Such circumstances may be due to coincidence or – more likely – terraforming with life of Earth origin. Typically, all carbon-based life is assumed to be mutually compatible. Some fictional universes do contain worlds with Earth incompatible life. In the web-comic Freefall it is clear that most life-bearing worlds have mutually incompatible biospheres. At least one planet has been found with Earth compatible life. However, it possess an other obstacle for colonisation, it is a native sentient species so disgusting that most humans would throw up if they saw one!
Gravity The world must have enough gravity to keep a substantial atmosphere yet not too high to allow humans to move normally. Most fictional worlds have ether gravity comparable to that of the earth or noticeably lower. In the later case results other than humans of greater physical strength are rarely considered.
Moon(s) Unless the world is a moon itself it would need a large moon (with at lest 1,350 kilometre radius) or two medium-sized (250 – 1,350 kilometre radius). Otherwise the axial tilt would vary too much resulting in an unstable climate. Fictional worlds typically have one or two moons. Alternatively, they may be moons themselves. More uncommon is three or more moons or no moon at all.
Orbital time The orbital time does not matter as much as the temperature. It is in turn the result of both the type of parent star, orbital time and chemical composition of the atmosphere. As far as I know the orbital time is only described if the fictional world is highly detailed. In such cases the description may contain a calendar based on it.
Rotation time For a high tech civilisation rotation time does not matter. However, if electricity would be lost a rotation time of 22 – 26 hours would be necessary. Most humans have a diurnal rhythm of ether 23 or 25 hours. So a human population could adapt to this interval without loosing too much genetic diversity. In fiction the rotation time is only included if it is very different from that of the Earth or if the description is highly detailed. Otherwise it is assumed to be similar to that of the Earth.
Seismic activity A habitable world could have no seismic activity at all. However, such a world – if naturally habitable – should most realistically be depicted as an ocean world with no landmass or who's only landmass consists or the rim of a meteor crater. On the other hand a world could have so much seismic activity that the least active areas are as active as the most active areas of the Earth. The degree of seismic activity is usually only dealt with if they are important to the plot. But some authors would include it in their very detailed world descriptions.
Size As long as the world falls within the limitations of gravity there are no limitations to its size. Like gravity this is a property authors typically don't think much of the consequences of.
Temperature A habitable world could be as cold as the Slushball Earth. On the other hand it could be so hot that even the coldest parts are tropical. It is common for fictional worlds to have a much more uniform climate than Earth. I don’t know if this is due to limitations of the authors' imagination or of their knowledge of climatology. For example, a uniformly tropical world would need a greenhouse effect so strong that the atmosphere would be toxic to humans. What I mean is that if a world's coldest parts are tropical then much of the surface would have to be uninhabitable in order to have a realistic temperature gradient. On the other hand a world with 50% or more permanent ice would soon become completely ice-covered due to runaway albedo. A more realistic alternative is Gethen. It has no tropical zone yet does not run any risk of becoming completely ice-covered.
Type of parent star For a naturally habitable world the parent star has to be long-lived enough to allow complex life to evolve since it probably takes about 3,000 million years from the first life to complex life. For a terraformed world the star can't evolve too fast for life to adopt. In any case life can't exist around a star whose luminosity varies too much since it would mean too much variation in temperature. On the other hand binary stars could well have habitable planets orbiting them. Either the maximum distance between the stars has to be one forth of the planet's orbital distance or the minimum distance between them four times the planet's distance to its parent star. Fictional worlds tend to have parent stars similar to the Sun. In case of aberrations the consequences are rarely considered.

A fictionally unusual world has been made up by Krister Sundelin for his planetary romance role-playing game "Skymningshem" ("Twilight Home" in Swedish). It is called Althea Four by the English-spoken colonists which settles on it in 2499. The roll-playing game is set in 3421 or 922 Earth years later. By then language has changed so much that the world is called "Fo'ur" by its human inhabitants. They actually speak more than a dozen different languages but "Fo'ur" seems to be the most common name. This is the name used in the game but since I write in English I will use the original name.

Althea Four is the forth moon orbiting the gas giant Althea. The planet in turn orbits a yellow dwarf star about 2,600 light years from the Sun. The moon is very close to the Earth in size but not as massive resulting in gravity being 80% of that of the Earth. The orbital time is 89½ Earth days and the rotation time slightly more than 25 hours. Althea Four is so seismically active that the ground shakes noticeably every day in most areas. The very most of the surface is ocean. There are no continents: only islands. The atmosphere is considerably thinner than that of the Earth. However, the air contains much more oxygen so humans have no problem to breath. Althea Four receives a considerable part of its heat through electromagnetic interaction with Althea. This effect is most intense at the magnetic poles which are virtually identical to the geographic ones. Consequently, climate is as hottest near the poles and coldest at the equator. (I am not sure if this would work in the real world.) Within ten degrees of the equator is a band of permanent ice comparable to the polar icecaps on Earth. This belt is hard to cross at ground level due to the instability of the ice. The alpine climate extends to twenty degrees north and south. The rest of the latitudes are equally divided between temperate, subtropic and tropic climates. Due to photosynthetic micro-organisms hovering high up in the air the sky is greenish except near the equator where it is dark blue. After large volcanic eruptions the sky temporary turns red instead of green. Daylight is not very intense on Althea Four. At best the sun provides as much light as on a cloudy day on Earth. But the sun emits enough heat for the difference in distance to cause global seasons. As such all latitudes experience the same differences in temperature over the year. On the other hand the nights are never completely dark dues to the year-round auroras visible all over the moon. Most land has naturally lush vegetation. Areas with less vegetation may have too cold climate such as sub-arctic zones and mountaintops. Or they may have too little topsoil such as young islands and areas newly covered by volcanic eruptions. The areas completely without vegetation are ether within ten degrees of the equator or plagued by constant gas emissions from volcanoes. This is the most common type of volcanic activity. There are a few with constant eruptions but most only have single ones every few centuries.

There are tree species of mammal on Althea Four: humans, iynisin and dogs. The iynisin are genetically engineered humans. Originally intended as super-soldiers they have long, pointy ears, hair along the whole spine and cheetah-like claws. They are significantly more aggressive than humans. However, they are typically able to control their anger through the systematic use of martial arts. They can interbreed with humans but such cross-breeds are always sterile. Another important species is the moon's native thrakinde. An illustration of how they look can be found here. Please note that in the role-playing game thrakindes rarely wear any clothes. They don't need any since their fur keeps them warm enough in most climates. They are the size of a tall human and can move both bipedally and quadropedally. However, the anatomy of their hips means they have to lean forwards when moving bipedally. Other than women being larger than men there are no secondary sex characteristics. Thrakindes' intellectual abilities are a little lower than humans' but they are fully sentient. In the northern hemisphere the thrakinde live as hunter-gatherers organised in independent tribes. They live from the equivalent of arthropods and fish, meat from land animals and their aquatic relatives, water plants, fruits and nuts. The five largest tribes have formed a league known as Five Tribes. In the southern hemisphere thrakindes live as both hunter-gatherers and farmers. Their farmers form two democratic federations. Althea Four has two indigenous types of gain which are farmed in a way similar to rice. There are no legume-like plants or starch-rich rots. There is a starch-rich fruit comparable with the breadfruit but it is of little economical significance. Other than sledge dogs there are no bests of burden since Althea Four lacks large land animals suitable for domestication. Gain and seafood is staple food for the moons resident inhabitants. This includes the very most of the humans and iynisin. The iynisin have a culture quite similar to Japan but with very strict equality. They don't even have political leadership. However, they do have very formal rules for solving conflicts. Together with virtually everyone being trained for controlling their anger this prevents their society from splitting due to internal conflicts. The humans have a more Western-like culture. They live in city-states that form regional alliances. The most common form of government is a mix of plutocracy and meritocracy but some city-states are more democratic then others.

The thrakindes are technologically rather primitive. At best their technology is comparable to that of the Sumerians. The humans and iynisin possess technology roughly equivalent of early 18th century Europe. There are some later inventions such as chronometers. However, there are no gunpowder weapons since the ingredients of black powder can't be found in the necessary quantities and qualities. Due to the scarcity of ores metal is very expensive, most people can only afford a knife. You could imagine people using stone tools instead but the kind of stone most commonly used for this purpose – obsidian – is as expensive as copper. Tools do not contain much more metal than necessary and large machines needing a significant fraction of metal does not exist. Pots and pans out of metal can only be afforded by the richest and houses are frequently built without nails. However, ships need nails in order to keep together. The weapons available are wooden clubs and staffs, spears with stone or metal tips, naginata-like halberds, light swords, daggers, bows and crossbows. Shields are not used on Althea Four. The closest equivalent would be a wooden sword closely resembling a bokken. Armour is made out of leather, raw hide or a type of bamboo-like plant. The most common currency on Althea Four consists of small pigs of iron but bills and cheques are used too. There is one big exception to those technological limitations: the so called "wizard towers". These are actually the rocket-like starships in which the ancestors of the mammals arrived. Preserved through the centuries by successions of owners called "wizards" they contain technology so much more advanced that almost everyone mistake it for magic. Inside the landed starships are immense amounts of knowledge saved from the collapse of the star-faring society that created them. They also contain medical technology that allows humans to live for 200 years or more. Finally, they contain fully automated machinery capable of making any object if there are just a drawing and the necessary raw material. Consequentially, objects of high-tech origin turns up a little now and then. One example is anthropomorphic soldier robots. Having ceramic shells and built-in firearms they are called "trolls" by ordinary people. Their existence is well-known among the general population but extremely few know their real nature and origin.

Still, a limited kind of magic exists in the form of psychic abilities: extra-sensory perception, mind reading, telepathy (sending only), telekinetics and astral projection. These can only be used by people with a special magic talent and then only the specific ability or abilities you have talent for. Such talents are quite rare and are generally refereed to as "the Gift". There are two schools for training such abilities but they are neither good nor evil, they just have different views of magic. Anyhow, there is no objective good or evil in the role-playing game. The antagonisms that do exist are ethnic, political or economic in nature.

Althea Four was featured again in the space opera role-playing game “Second Empire”. Most of it is written by Krister Sundelin (the English title is Krister’s own translation) but considerable parts are written by Simon Berger. Smaller contributions are written by Fredrik Ostrozanszky and Olle Linge. “Second Empire” takes place in 4170 or 749 Earth years after the previous roll-playing game. We learn that in the 3440’ies enough science and technology leaked out form the “wizard towers” to kick-start a new Industrialism on Althea Four. In 3449 the still functioning starships left the moon leaving its population to live on their own. After a little more than three centuries they were ready to colonise space again. Within four centuries faster-than-light travel was reinvented leading to interstellar colonisation. At the end of the 39th century the Hanara War broke out. The word “hanara” means “intruder” in Pejoran, a daughter language of English. It refers to the enemy species which vaguely resembles small carnivorous dinosaurs. However, they are hermaphrodites and have four arms instead of two. They are extremely violent and seemed to hate humanity. When Althea Four itself was attacked the iynisin sided with the human dominated nations. The anger they had struggled so hard to control was realised against the enemy. This turned the war to humanity’s favour. Although there was no formal peace treaty the hanara declared that humanity was no longer their enemy. Shortly after the war the human dominated allies formed the Federation of Althea. It is based on fundamental civil rights for all sentient beings. Those includes rule of law, religious freedom, free speech, the right to vote, the right of ownership and freedom to travel or migrate. However, you have to pay for all transport other than local mass transit.

The moon is now divided between states which developed from the regional alliances previously formed by city states. The iynisin once had their own archipelago named for the main island of Tikana. This archipelago was so destroyed by weapons of mass destruction during the Hanara War that it is unhealthy to live there. The destruction of their homeland divided the iynisin between two fractions. Almost half of them emigrated to a few habitable worlds lacking permanent population. Soon they formed their own Empire of Tikanarin which is independent of the Federation of Althea. The rest ended up living in the human-dominated nations as if their where an ethnic minority. The thrakindes are accepted as the Althea Four's original inhabitants. They posses the same technology as the humans and iynisin and typically wears clothes in order to appear civilized. In fact, the image I previously linked to is taken from “Second Empire”. But the moon's population is still dominated by humans. Apart from the iynisin there are several species of genetically engineered humans and even bonobos made sentient and more human-like through genetic engineering. There are also several alien species although they are not as numerous.

Althea Four is the capital world of the Federation of Althea spanning 1,200 inhabited worlds. About 200 of them are core worlds with a population of 10,000,000,000 – 20,000,000,000. (Due to its relatively low amount of landmass Althea Four is most likely at the lower and of this range.) These are highly urbanized an have a well developed welfare system based on a system of basic income. But most of it is bound as goods (food and other consumer goods, clothes, a home) and service (communications, compulsory education, health and medical care). Some people feel controlled by this system and choose to emigrate to a rim world. There are about 400 inner rim worlds with a population of 1,000,000,000 – 10,000,000,000. These are the Federation of Althea's counterpart of developing countries. This includes unevenly distributed wealth, more or less widespread destitution, public crime and often violent conflicts. About half of the worlds controlled by the Federation are outer rim worlds with a population of less than a thousand millions. These are typical pioneer environments where people make a living out of whatever they have available. Although the Federation has contact with several neighbouring star-faring civilisations there is no contact with the Earth which is commonly refereed to as “Terra”. The position of the Sun in the galaxy is approximately known. However, the error margins are so large that there are thousands of yellow dwarf stars which could possibly be our Sun. So the Earth is considered lost an will probably not be found for generations.

This text ended up being mostly about one particular fictional world. This was not intended from start. However, it was so much I wanted to tell that it become this way eventually. Although there is a wiki-type website about “Second Empire” it is written in Swedish. In fact, the use of English and Swedlish are advised against because in the fictional universe English has been an extinct language for one and a half millennium. The main author of the game only uses English only as isolated words and only about the state of New Camelot. The indigenous language of this state is said to be similar enough to 26th century English to be mutually understandable. On the other hand words and phrases from Japanese are commonly used. The explanation is that the Federation of Althea's lingua franca is a kind of “revived” Japanese. The language was long considered extinct but has been roughly reconstructed. Through the effort of many determined people this reconstruction has become a living language. Anyway, my original idea it that fictional worlds – even when life-bearing – differs so much from each other that the expression “Earth clones” is misleading. I did not write this text just because of that expression. Instead I wrote it in order to describe the possible range of variation. Something I found both interesting and fun.

2010-07-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.167.71 (talk) 15:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

"Galileo discovered that the Moon had surface features" ??

Some surface features of the Moon are quite visible to the naked eye. So how can Galileo have discovered "that the Moon had surface features"? -- 77.7.149.205 (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The visible variations in light and darkness on the surface of the moon were not, prior to Galileo, known to be due to the presence of variations on the surface of the Moon. In fact, it was not even known prior to Galileo that the moon had a surface, or even that it was a material object made of rock! In any case, what the sentence is referring to is the mountains, craters, and so forth of the Moon, in addition to the visible _maria_ being part of the surface of the Moon (rather than, say, clouds or shadows). RandomCritic (talk) 02:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Warhammer, etc.

This page's list of planets is only provided for those planets that don't belong in some special category; e.g., one-off planets in a book, movie, or game which is focused on that planet and doesn't include many others. If you have three or more planets in the same category (e.g., from the same book, movie, or game) then you should see about creating a new list for them. For the time being, I've moved the ten Warhammer 40,000 references to the Warhammer 40,000 article; I'm sure the editors of that article will want to do something else with them. Whenever that is decided, the link under Planets in science fiction#Other games may be modified accordingly. RandomCritic (talk) 12:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Additions

Do the planets from Dragon Ball belong here to? Like Namek, Vegeta and that version of Earth and possibly the alternate timeline versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.10.220.248 (talk) 19:34, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Rimmer's psy-moon

I saw 2 other Red Dwarf entries, and wondered whether the planet featured on Terrorform was worthy of the list. The problem seems to be that it doesn't have a name other than “the psy-moon”. N4m3 (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This looks like a TV Tropes page

The "List" section especially is in the style of TV Tropes, and the overall page seems to have a lot of fancruft. Also, its uses idoms. --User J. Dalek (talk | contribs) 22:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

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