SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Star Wars franchise always has been long on imagination. Fantastic creatures, giant spaceships, man-made death moons—the galaxy far, far away has them all. It also contains a rich array of planets, each with a unique environment. But one thing about those celestial bodies always stood out: the singular adjective—desert, ice, etc.—describing each of them.
Whereas Earth hosts a wide diversity of biomes, the planets of Star Wars boast far fewer climates and topographies. The ice planet Hoth never thaws. The desert planet Tatooine seems to never see rain or cold. Meanwhile, the forest moon Endor orbits the temperate zone of a gas giant and a diminutive Jedi master trains in a world covered by an unchanging bog.
While a world of sorcerers, faster-than-light travel, and fussy robots may not meet the standards of the hardest of hard sci-fi (why was the T-65 X-wing starfighter a long-range vehicle but the TIE Fighter wasn’t?), seeing the mono-ecosystem worlds of Star Wars raises the question: Is a world with a single, homogenous weather pattern the exception or the rule? Earth has many environments, but does the rest of the universe look more like our home or Luke Skywalker’s?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday April 25 2015, @08:39PM
Which planets are diverse of climate and topography, and which are more or less monoworlds?
Earth is by far the most diverse, probably followed by Jupiter (given its bands and spots of weather). Conversely our own moon varies only by "cratered" and "not so cratered". Mars is only slightly more varied. Lack of gas/liquid to react to solar input makes for a dull climate.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:18AM
It also makes for no support of life.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:47PM
Exactly my point. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.