Terraforming is well represented in contemporary literature, usually in the form of science fiction, as well as in popular culture.[1] 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.
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).[2] 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.[3]
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 .[4] 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.[5]
| 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") | 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 | Possible Worlds and Other Essays | 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.[6] |
| 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.[7] 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.[8] | |
| 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. | |
| 1952 | The Martian Way | Isaac Asimov | Mars | Terraforming of Mars using ice from Saturn's rings.[9] | |
| 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. | |
| 1958 | The Snows of Ganymede | Poul Anderson | Ganymede | ||
| 1960 | Chirurgien d'une planète | Gérard Klein | Mars | Terraforming Mars.[10] | |
| 1961 | Second Ending | James White | Fomalhaut IV | The fourth planet of Fomalhaut was secretly terraformed by robots over millions of years[11] | |
| 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. | |
| 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.[12] | |
| 1986–1988 | Venus of Dreams Venus of Shadows | Pamela Sargent | Venus | Terraforming of Venus. | |
| 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.[13] |
| Date | Title | Country | Notes | IMDb | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982, 1984 | and | 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".[14] | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088170/ | |
| 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. Total Recall was one of the first films to portray terraforming on Mars, however it was criticized for its scientific inaccuracy.[15] | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/ |
Deformable terrain, as used in e.g. Perimeter and Red Faction, is occasionally called terraforming but is not a form of planetary engineering.
| 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,[16] 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.[17] | |
| 2008 | Spore | Multiple | Terraforming (or unterraforming) planets[18] 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.[19] | |
| 2019 | Surviving Mars: Green Planet | City-building, survival | Green Planet downloadable content allows the terraforming of Mars.[20] | |
| 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.[21] [22] |