Something I don’t understand about science fiction: why does every planet have to have just one ecosystem? In “Star Wars,” Tattooine is desert, Hoth is ice, Endor is forest, and Coruscant is one big city. “Dune” is another example. Is this true of most sci-fi literature? Don’t they think we can understand that an entire planet might include more than one climate? Is Earth some kind of wacky exception? This sort of thing bugs me.
And yes, I will be seeking treatment.
No, I can see why it would bug you.
Part of it’s probably lack of imagination. A single set of mental set pieces, so to speak.
I think it’s also meant in some cases to provide some added sense of alien-ness … “See, this is a really weird place! It’s all desert! All of it! Wooooooo!”
I’ve always wondered that myself. And also, why does each planet have only one culture and ethnicity? Maybe that’s what happens when the climate’s the same all over the world.
In Dune the only planet like that was Arrakis. As for the Star Wars movies, well, Lucas stole a lot from Dune 🙂
I was just commenting this morning that in space opera no planet has more than one government, either.
I imagine it is because planet = country in most sf. FTL travel removes any sense of scale from space, so the entire Star Wars saga might as well be the 100 Years War with light sabers and blasters.
Well, in defense of Star Wars, Tatooine does seem to have three distinct cultures — the majority Republic/Empire sorts (which run the cities and the scattered moisture farms), the Jawas, and the Sandpeople/Tuskans.
And Naboo had both the humanish folks who build cities up on the surface and the Gungans who build cities underwater.
How come Naboo got all the good architechts?