Dark matter in fiction

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Dark matter is occasionally described in computer and video games and other works of fiction. In such cases, it is usually attributed extraordinary physical or magical properties. Such descriptions are often inconsistent with the properties of dark matter proposed in physics and cosmology.

Compare to exotic matter.

[edit] Examples of dark matter in fiction

• In several games produced by Squaresoft, including Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy X, dark matter exists as a powerful magical element, enabling certain kinds of major attacks. In Final Fantasy IX, when Dark Matter is equipped, it allows Dagger to learn the Odin summon spell.
• In Quake 4, the most powerful weapon is called the Dark Matter Gun. The gun contains a small dark ball surrounded by three rotating rings. When the gun shoots, it hurls a huge dark ball that emits rays of energy and absorbs any being close enough to it. After each shot, the ball inside the gun disappears; the rings are initially aligned with the barrel, then gradually start moving again, building up a new ball.
• Dark Matter plays a central role in the His Dark Materials - Trilogy by British author Philip Pullman.
• In many of the Kirby videogames, Dark Matter is an evil entity from space that possesses characters, such as King Dedede, to do its bidding.
• In the video game, Metroid Prime 2, Samus Aran's "Dark Beam" fires blasts of Dark Matter.
• In Shining Soul 2 and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, dark matter is used in forging very powerful but cursed equipment.
• In the video game Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Dark Matter is used as a component in some of the more powerful weapons in the game.
• In the popular comedy cartoon series Futurama, dark matter is a very dense piece of fuel used by the show's starships, excreted by Leela's pet Nibbler (and others of his race, the so called "Nibblonians"), "each pound of which weighs 10,000 pounds". A single one of Nibbler's droppings has been described as weighing "as much as a thousand suns".
• Dark matter is briefly mentioned in the description of a debris field in the Kepler and Galileo systems of Freelancer, a space combat game. Despite the use of dark matter in context in this last case, there is little similarity between the dark matter of Freelancer and anything we know about dark matter in real life.
• The webcomic Schlock Mercenary involves several battles with dark matter entities, who have been plotting to destroy the galaxy for several hundred thousand years.
• Dark Matter is the title of a science fiction novel by Garfield Reeves-Stevens involving mystery, horror, and physics.
• In the Alternity campaign setting Star*Drive, dark matter decay is used to fuel most modern starships as part of a "mass reactor." This reactor, in conjunction with a stardrive, makes FTL travel possible.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "In Theory", the Enterprise encounters a dark matter nebula. The dark matter temporarily disrupts the matter or energy fields with which it comes in contact.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "One Small Step", the crew encounter a Dark Matter asteroid while observing a gravimetric spatial anomaly.
• In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "First Flight" two members of the crew go looking for a dark matter nebula in a shuttlepod.
• In the animated television series Exosquad, dark matter was a material found naturally on the planet Chaos. The Pirate Clans and the Exofleet used it to cloak their spaceships; however, continued exposure causes humans to become violent and short tempered.
• In Stephen Baxter's "Ring", dark matter causes the sun to leave the main sequence (becoming a red giant) within only a few million years. It is currently believed that the sun will not leave the main sequence for another 5 billion years.
• In Ghost Legion, the fourth and last book from the Star of the Guardians series, Margaret Weis describes life forms made of dark matter. Among other powers, these life forms can fly in space and alter gravity.
• A 1995 episode of The Outer Limits, Dark Matters, revolves around the problems caused by a planetoid-sized chunk of dark matter.
• In the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane, dark matter increases the expansion of the universe, effectively helping the Lone Power.
• In a text adventure game, Alien Adoption Agency, Dark Matter was at one point the most powerful non-GM weapon and armor, costing 1 million credits each.
• In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, it is mentioned that scientists spent a huge amount of time and money looking for dark matter, before realizing it was the white pellets that all the equipment was packed in.
• In the fourth book of Larry Niven's Ringworld series, Ringworld's Children, it is revealed that the Hyperdrive used in the Known Space stories actually allows ships to travel through a dark matter universe, and this dark matter tends to cluster around gravity wells, indirectly causing the gravity singularity problem with hyperdrive.
• In the Earth: Final Conflict episode "Dark Matter", the substance collides with the energy-based Taelon Mothership, paralysing the ship and all the Taelons aboard in a slow-motion freeze frame mimicking stasis.