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Terraforming in popular culture

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Terraforming is well represented in contemporary literature, usually in the form of science fiction, as well as in popular culture.[1][2] While many stories involving interstellar travel feature planets already suited to habitation by humans and supporting their own indigenous life, some authors prefer to address the unlikeliness of such a concept by instead detailing the means by which humans have converted inhospitable worlds to ones capable of supporting life through artificial means.

History of use

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Author Jack Williamson is credited with inventing and popularizing the term "terraform". In July 1942, under the pseudonym Will Stewart, Williamson published a science fiction novella entitled "Collision Orbit" in Astounding Science-Fiction magazine. The series was later published as two novels, Seetee Shock (1949) and Seetee Ship (1951).[3] American geographer Richard Cathcart successfully lobbied for formal recognition of the verb "to terraform", and it was first included in the fourth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 1993.[4]

The concept of terraforming in popular culture predates Williamson's work; for example, the idea of turning the Moon into a habitable environment with atmosphere was already present in La Journée d'un Parisien au XXIe siècle ("A Day of a Parisian in the 21st Century", 1910) by Octave Béliard [fr].[5] In fact, perhaps predating the concept of terraforming, is that of xenoforming – a process in which aliens change the Earth to suit their own needs, already suggested in the classic The War of the Worlds (1898) of H.G. Wells.[6]

Literature

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Date Title Author Planet/Moon Notes
1898 The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells Earth When the Martians invade the Earth, they bring with them red weed that starts to multiply rapidly and kill off Earth's indigenous plant life.
1910 «La Journée d'un Parisien au XXIe siècle» ("A Day of a Parisian in the 21st Century")[7] Octave Béliard Moon The Moon is gradually given an atmosphere, and vegetation is acclimated in order to turn the Earth's satellite into a natural reserve or sanctuary for endangered species, but also to allow human colonization.
1927 The Last Judgment J. B. S. Haldane Venus An essay that proposes how life on Earth might end and speculates on the evolution of humanity, space exploration and colonization, and adaptation to new environments. Venus is proposed as a new home.[8]
1930 Last and First Men Olaf Stapledon Venus and millions years after Neptune Following up where Haldane left off, Stapledon's future history provides the first example in fiction in which Venus is modified, after a long and destructive war with the original inhabitants.[9] Stapledon imagines a native Venus that is covered in oceans.
1950 Farmer in the Sky Robert A. Heinlein Ganymede A family emigrates from Earth to the Jovian moon Ganymede, which is being terraformed. Farmer in the Sky is a historically significant novel in relation to terraforming in popular culture, as it was one of the first to take the subject more seriously than simple fantasy, portraying terraforming with scientific and mathematical considerations.[10]
1951 The Sands of Mars Arthur C. Clarke Mars First instance of Martian terraforming. Clarke's fictional methods for terraforming the planet include generating heat by igniting Phobos into a second sun, and growing plants that break down the Martian sands in order to release oxygen.[11]
1952 The Martian Way Isaac Asimov Mars Terraforming of Mars using ice from Saturn's rings.[12]
1954 The Big Rain Poul Anderson Venus Terraforming Venus. Anderson considers the great time scale inherent in planetary engineering and its effects upon society. Later, the title ("big rain") became associated with scientific terraforming models.[11]
1958 The Snows of Ganymede Poul Anderson Ganymede Terraforming of Ganymede[12]
1960 Chirurgien d'une planète Gérard Klein Mars Terraforming Mars.[13]
1961 Second Ending James White Fomalhaut IV The fourth planet of Fomalhaut was secretly terraformed by robots over millions of years[14]
1969 Isle of the Dead Roger Zelazny Illyria Francis Sandow is the last surviving human born in the 20th century who becomes a "worldscaper" - a terraformer with godlike powers.[12]
1984 Greening of Mars James Lovelock
Michael Allaby 		Mars One of the most influential science fiction novels on the actual science of terraforming. The novel explores the formation and evolution of planets, the origin of life, and Earth's biosphere. Spacecraft are illustrated in a realistic manner, and terraforming models in the book foreshadowed future debates regarding the goals of terraforming.[15]
1986–1988 Venus of Dreams
Venus of Shadows 		Pamela Sargent Venus Terraforming of Venus.[12]
1992–1999 Mars Trilogy Kim Stanley Robinson Mars Three novels (plus one collection of short stories) provide a lengthy description of terraforming Mars spanning centuries. The novels represent contemporary scientific and philosophical developments in the field, and also pay homage to the already existing fictional literature related to Mars.[11]

Television and film

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Date Title Country Notes IMDb
1982, 1984 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock USA Project Genesis, a device for rapidly terraforming worlds to make them suitable for settlement and food production is introduced. At the end of the film, a Genesis Device is detonated in the Mutara nebula resulting in the creation of a main sequence star and a habitable planet known as the Genesis Planet. Due to unstable "proto-matter" used in the terraforming process, the planet's evolution is accelerated, leading to the eventual premature destruction of the Genesis Planet. The nine-disc Star Trek: The Motion Picture Collection contains an extra featurette on the "real-science applications of terraforming".[16] [1] [2]
1990 Total Recall USA Aliens have built a terraforming device on Mars, which when turned on, fills the atmosphere with oxygen, allowing humans to live on the surface.[12] Total Recall was one of the first films to portray terraforming on Mars, however it was criticized for its scientific inaccuracy.[17] [3]

Video games

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Deformable terrain, as used in e.g. Perimeter and Red Faction, is occasionally called terraforming but is not a form of planetary engineering.[citation needed]

As a game mechanic

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Date Title Genre Notes
1999 Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4X Clearing native fungus and building infrastructure as part of colonizing an alien planet. Native life can be treated as allies or as enemies. Regional landscaping: planting forests, constructing canals or isthmuses or adjusting mountains. Changing sea levels. Making the atmosphere breathable was considered,[18] but not implemented.
2003 Master of Orion III Spacebound 4X Redesigned terraforming with more details than in the previous installments. Tracking planetary fertility by region rather than identifying each planet by one dominant biome. According to the manual, terraforming is unstable and will decay if not maintained.[19][non-primary source needed]
2008 Spore Multiple Terraforming (or unterraforming) planets[20] in a matter of seconds in the spacebound sandbox phase. A handful of tools to affect heat and humidity, then introduce life. Planetary landscaping.
2012 Terraform Turn-based puzzle Terraforming planets made of hexagonal tiles by using tools and different weather conditions to reach planet-specific goals.[21]
2019 Surviving Mars: Green Planet City-building, survival Green Planet downloadable content allows the terraforming of Mars.[22]
2023 Terraformers City-building The player builds a colony on Mars, starting underground, mining the planet's crystals before moving the population to the surface.[23][24]

Notes

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  1. ^ Flatow 2004.
  2. ^ Pak 2016
  3. ^ Fogg 1995, p. 16.
  4. ^ Fogg 1995, p. 9.
  5. ^ Bardini, Thierry (2014-01-02). "Decompicultures: decomposition of culture and cultures of decomposition". Green Letters. 18 (1): 9–21. doi:10.1080/14688417.2014.890529. ISSN 1468-8417. S2CID 144624019.
  6. ^ "Themes : Xenoforming : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia". www.sf-encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2021-08-24.
  7. ^ Béliard 1910
  8. ^ Fogg 1995, p. 13.
  9. ^ Fogg 1995, pp. 13–16.
  10. ^ Fogg 1995, pp. 17–19.
  11. ^ a b c Fogg 1995, p. 19.
  12. ^ a b c d e Bly 2005, p. 261.
  13. ^ "Chirurgiens d'une planète, Gilles d'ARGYRE".
  14. ^ Neil Barron, Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, Bowker, 1981. Pp. 297
  15. ^ Fogg 1995, pp. 19–22.
  16. ^ Goodale 2002.
  17. ^ Muirhead & Reeves-Stevens 2004, p. 228.
  18. ^ "GameSpot's Designer Diary for Alpha Centauri". www.gamespot.com. Archived from the original on 2000-01-24.
  19. ^ Master of Orion 3 Manual. Infogrames Interactive, Inc. 2002. p. 50. Any planet that has been terraformed pays maintenance to keep it at that terraforming level. If a planet can't pay terraforming maintenance, it will begin to slide back toward its original habitability.
  20. ^ "Terraforming". SporeNormous. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-06-29. Retrieved 2008-07-04.
  21. ^ "Terraform". HolgEntertain. 2014. Retrieved 2014-01-10.
  22. ^ Crowley, Nate (16 May 2019). "Wot I Think - Surviving Mars: Green Planet". Rock Paper Shotgun. Gamer Network. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  23. ^ Richardson, Liam (1 April 2022). "The top 10 games on PC in April 2022". Rock Paper Shotgun. Gamer Network. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  24. ^ Allsop, Ken (5 March 2023). "Mars-based city builder Terraformers adds moon cities as 1.0 arrives". PCGamesN. Network N. Retrieved 5 April 2023.

References

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Further reading

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