Planetary biomes in Star Trek (& Sci-fi)

[Rahul]

Based on a quote from another thread:

But for real annoyances, worlds that are mono-climates. Star Wars did the same thing with worlds that are all desert (Tattoine), arctic (Hoth) or swamp (Dagobah), and it bugs me to see a world like Vulcan that is entirely a desert, or Andoria, which seems to be entirely arctic. Our world manages to have *both* deserts and arctic regions, and jungles, and plains, and oceans, and swamps... Why are so many alien worlds so same-y?

I kind of made my peace with single biome planets in sci-fi:

• Earth itself is very unique: Our "tilt" gives us seasons, our 24h rotation a fast day-and-night cycle, we're 70% ocean & 30% landmass, which creates massive, different global weather phenomena - a 90%/10% or 50%/50% water & rock planet would have much fewer climate zones
• Most "real" planets are single biome - usually deadly ones: Rocks & Desert (Mercure, Venus, Mars), Ice (Europa), Gas (Jupiter & Co), Water (e.g. K2-18b). If any of these develop "life", it would mostly be microorganisms for millenia
• people live on Tattooine because it has livable gravity & goldilocks temperatures - they just need to bring water & oxygen, which is do-able, but they don't have to live in spacesuits or exo-skeletons against the gravity. That makes it a very "livable" planet all things considered, compared to, say, Venus or Pluto
• Earth itself was a "mostly" mono-biome for long parts of it's history - ice ages & desertification (e.g. I think Andoria is just currently in an Ice Age, but hasn't always been)
• What WOULDN'T exist are 100% jungle or farmland planets - HOWEVER, IF a planet has either in large amounts - that would be the area where people live - not in the poles or equator (e.g. most aliens would settle in Asia, not Australia) - making it a "green" planet for story purposes
• It makes sense for narrative: If every planet has icy poles, desert equators and greens in-between - every planet would feel the same

Now what I DO want to see a lot more in sci-fi would be more interesting planet constellations:

• Tidally locked planets, where life only exists in the twilight ring where day & night meet
• Slowly rotating ones, where days & years are the same
• Livable Moons around gas giants, where the whole planet has day at the same time (because the sunny-side of the gas giant reflects the light back to the night-side of the moon), or total night (when the moon is entirely behind the gas giant)
• Planets inside nebulas, which are always "misty", because the sunlight gets reflected everywhere around the planet

....feel free to add any other considerations you could think of - I'm interested in all your ideas!

 

[Shawnster]

Most "real" planets are single biome -

Would this be because, currently, we know of only 1 planet that is both in the Goldilocks Zone and we can study? The other planets are not in that zone. Mercury is too close to the sun, barren, rocky, and no liquid water. Venus is also too hot, plus the atmospheric conditions and no liquid water prohibit the weather varieties.

Mars does, indeed, skirt inside the Goldilocks Zone, but still lacks much of an atmosphere and (apparently) liquid water.

It's a catch 22 with Earth. The water and vegetation influence the weather patterns while the weather influences the development of the various biomes.

Earth itself was a "mostly" mono-biome for long parts of it's history - ice ages & desertification

What was the equator like during the ice age? Would it still have been recognizable as a different biome? Ice free? I

 

[Rahul]

Would this be because, currently, we know of only 1 planet that is both in the Goldilocks Zone and we can study? The other planets are not in that zone. Mercury is too close to the sun, barren, rocky, and no liquid water. Venus is also too hot, plus the atmospheric conditions and no liquid water prohibit the weather varieties.

Mars does, indeed, skirt inside the Goldilocks Zone, but still lacks much of an atmosphere and (apparently) liquid water.

It's a catch 22 with Earth. The water and vegetation influence the weather patterns while the weather influences the development of the various biomes.

In Star Wars, it makes sense that there are settlements on every single Goldilocks planet with Earth-like gravity. I just assume the breathable atmosphere is the result of terraforming, not natural (e.g. Mustafar).

In Trek, it seems a bit more unlikely that whole alien civilizations would develop on single-biome planets. However most Trek worlds look like California anyway, and that would work again.

What was the equator like during the ice age? Would it still have been recognizable as a different biome? Ice free? I

Depends on which Ice age
But no, I think Earth had thick jungle zones at the equator & ice caps at the poles as long as life exists, for example back with Pangea, but sometimes no ice zones at all during warm periods.

But Earth has an average temperature of 15°C, with a range of +/-80°C.
Other Earth-like planets might still have fluid water, but be several degrees lower or warmer on average/at peaks, leading to no ice at all, ever, or to fluid water only at equator levels or near geological activities - which would severely reduce the habitable area of the planet, but not rule it out (especially if it has more land-mass than earth).


Generally though one, single planet-wide biome seems unlikely to impossible. But most planets - even earth-likes - would not have as many biomes at the same time as Earth has, purely based on angle, rotation, geological activity, proximity to sun, percentage of overworld oceans etc.

Btw I'm curious about planets that rotate in a right angle towards the solar plane (though that seems to be more rare)? Like during day & night the equator & pole caps change positions?

 

[Paul Weaver]

Btw I'm curious about planets that rotate in a right angle towards the solar plane (though that seems to be more rare)? Like during day & night the equator & pole caps change positions?

That wouldn't be stable, even if you could create such a situation, other planets in the system would pull it out of alignment. I guess if you had a moon orbiting equatorially that might keep it in place for more than a few millenia.

 

[FredH]

Per DISCO, seems Vulcan is only mostly desert. We see at least one forested area (presumably there are others), I assume an oasis.

 

[Rahul]

That wouldn't be stable, even if you could create such a situation, other planets in the system would pull it out of alignment. I guess if you had a moon orbiting equatorially that might keep it in place for more than a few millenia.

Erm, actually no, Uranus famously has such a rotation ()

Nice graphic here:

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(Or where you talking about orbits? On which case, yeah, there are bodies with crazy angles compared to the solar plane - but never in a right angle towards it).

 

[XCV330]

Plate tectonics, life processes and their effect on weather have to be taken into account, also.
Earth spent a billion years *the boring billion" where there wasn't much glaciation and things seemed to have been fairly uniformly static, and at least two periods of Snowball Earth which lasted many millions.

Titan may be the closest analogue to an earth like climate we have, even though the chemistry is very different. You have liquid areas, solid areas, temperature differentials, regional climates, weather.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Erm, actually no, Uranus famously has such a rotation ()

No, that's just a normal planet which has been knocked sideways

I'm talking about keeping the axis of rotation in line with the prograde/retrograde of the movement, so that the poles always see the sun

eventually precession will mean that's lost and it just becomes a typical high tilt planet

 

[XCV330]

A lot of planets in the Goldilocks Zone might also be tidally locked and so fairly uniform with just a viable living zone in the literal Twilight Zone of the terminator up to both polar areas. You could still have life there, a lot of it , but it might seem somewhat the same, an there would be no day/night cycle.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's hard to say with any authority how well this sort of fantasy/science fiction stacks up with reality, when we have only one data point of a planet known to be inhabitable.

Not to mention, I'm not inclined to come down hard on anything about the fictional universe, when we have to accept humanoid extraterrestrials who can interbreed with humans, as well as numerous other implausible elements.

Star Trek really needs to be judged on how entertaining its adventures are, whether it captures the imagination. Not whether it measures up to the standards of hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi Star Trek ain't, nor was it ever intended as such.

 

[XCV330]

It's hard to say with any authority how well this sort of fantasy/science fiction stacks up with reality, when we have only one data point of a planet known to be inhabitable.

Not to mention, I'm not inclined to come down hard on anything about the fictional universe, when we have to accept humanoid extraterrestrials who can interbreed with humans, as well as numerous other implausible elements.

Star Trek really needs to be judged on how entertaining its adventures are, whether it captures the imagination. Not whether it measures up to the standards of hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi Star Trek ain't, nor was it ever intended as such.

True but there were zero exoplanets confirmed when Star Trek began. 90 by the time the last movie was filmed. Now there are over 5000 catalogued and though information on them is pretty vague, its possible to understand things about them like orbital inclination, and so forth.

 

[Shawnster]

Outside of Vulcan, how many planets were described as a single biome? Which ones?

Ferenginar: rained all the time. Does that preclude other biomes besides swampy?

Andorra was an ice world. Someone suggested it's in an ice age.