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Terraforming is well represented in contemporary literature, usually in the form ofscience fiction, as well as inpopular 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.
AuthorJack Williamson is credited with inventing and popularizing the term "terraform". In July 1942, under the pseudonym Will Stewart, Williamson published a science fictionnovella entitled "Collision Orbit" inAstounding Science-Fiction magazine. The series was later published as two novels,Seetee Shock (1949) andSeetee Ship (1951).[3] AmericangeographerRichard Cathcart successfully lobbied for formal recognition of the verb "to terraform", and it was first included in the fourth edition of theShorter Oxford English Dictionary in 1993.[4]
The concept of terraforming in popular culture predates Williamson's work; for example, the idea of turning theMoon into a habitable environment with atmosphere was already present inLa Journée d'un Parisien au XXIe siècle ("A Day of a Parisian in the 21st Century", 1910) byOctave Béliard [fr].[5] In fact, perhaps predating the concept of terraforming, is that ofxenoforming – a process in whichaliens change the Earth to suit their own needs, already suggested in the classicThe War of the Worlds (1898) ofH.G. Wells.[6]
| Date | Title | Author | Planet/Moon | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 to allow colonization and make the Moon into a natural reserve or sanctuary for endangered species. |
| 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 of years later, Neptune | Following up where Haldane left off, Stapledon'sfuture history provides the first example in fiction in whichVenus 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 moonGanymede, 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 ignitingPhobos 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 greattime 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 ofGanymede[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] |
| 1965 | Dune | Frank Herbert | Arrakis | Initiated by the Planetologist Pardot Kynes and continued by his son Liet-Kynes (daughter inthe 2021 film adaptation), theFremen of Arrakis were slowly collecting water and environmental data to terraform the desert planet. Originally, this plan was expected to take several generations, or roughly 500 years. However, oncePaul Atreides takes the throne as Padishah Emperor, the process is sped up significantly. By the time ofChildren of Dune, merely 23 years after Paul Atreides became Emperor, half of the desert had been terraformed, and the process is long complete by the time ofGod Emperor of Dune, in which the desert only remains in a small personal sanctuary of theGod Emperor, completely surrounded by man-made mountains. Given thatsandworms are poisoned and killed by water, this process decimated their population and all of them were exterminated by the time of God Emperor of Dune, except for the God Emperor himself. This process is undone after God Emperor of Dune's ending, when the God Emperor dies after he is submerged in water and decomposes into sandtrout, the juvenile stage of sandworms, which likely turned Arrakis into a desert planet in the first place with their water-locking abilities. |
| 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] |
| Date | Title | Country | Notes | IMDb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982, 1984 | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan andStar 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 ahabitable 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-discStar 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] |
Deformable terrain, as used in e.g.Perimeter andRed Faction, is occasionally called terraforming but is not a form ofplanetary engineering.[citation needed]
| Date | Title | Genre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri | 4X | The player can clear native fungus and build infrastructure as part of colonizing an alien planet. Native life can be treated as allies or as enemies. Regional landscaping includesplanting forests, constructingcanals oristhmuses, adjusting mountains, and changing sea levels. Making the atmosphere breathable was considered,[18] but not implemented. |
| 2003 | Master of Orion III | Spacebound4X | Redesigned terraforming with more details than in the previous installments. Tracking planetary fertility by region rather than identifying each planet by one dominantbiome. 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 spaceboundsandbox 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 Planetdownloadable content allows the terraforming of Mars.[22] |
| 2020 | Per Aspera | City-building | The player controls an artificial intelligence with the objective of terraforming Mars for human colonization. |
| 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] |
| Date | Title | Genre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Terraforming Mars | 1-4 players | "Compete with rival CEOs to make Mars habitable and build your corporate empire." FryxGames, Designer: Jacob Fryxelius, Artists: Isaac Fryxelius and Daniel Fryxelius[25] |
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.
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