Jupiter in fiction

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A popular setting for science fiction writers and film-makers, there are many examples of the planet Jupiter in fiction. There is also fiction about Jupiter's moons.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 Literature
2 Comics and manga
3 Films and television
- 3.1 Animation
4 Games

[edit] Literature

In Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), the eponymous hero and his Saturnian companion stop on Jupiter for a year, where they "learned some very remarkable secrets".
In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos (1928–...), Jupiter was the one-time home of the flying polyps.
In Seetee Ship(1949) and Seetee Shock (1950) by Jack Williamson, the Jovian moons are colonised by the Soviet Union, which transfers its government there after the United States builds a nuclear base on the Moon, which enables the Americans to dominate the whole of Earth. The Jovian Soviet is one of the main powers contending for control of the mineral wealth of the Asteroid Belt.
In Piers Anthony's Bio of A Space Tyrant series (1983–2001), Jupiter is rendered into an analogue of North America. The moons are the Caribbean (and possibly Central America as well), Jupiter itself is inhabited by floating cities in its atmosphere to represent the United States, and the Red Spot represents Mexico.
The novels of Kim Stanley Robinson, including The Memory of Whiteness (1985), Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996) depict numerous ideas about the future colonization of Jupiter, although they focus more on the moons than on the planet itself.
Jupiter is an important location in The Night's Dawn Trilogy (1996–1999) by Peter F. Hamilton. This is where the first Bitek habitat was germinated and Edenism began.
Ben Bova's novel Jupiter (2001) also features a journey into Jupiter's clouds and the discovery of life there. See also: Grand Tour (novel series).
Arthur C. Clarke's novella A Meeting with Medusa (1968) depicts a journey into the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere, where vast, city-sized floating life-forms have evolved. This is similar to a scene in 2010.
In Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series, Jupiter is a major location. In the novelization of 2001 the spaceship Discovery flies by it on its way to Saturn. In the sequel novel 2010: Odyssey Two Jupiter was renamed Lucifer after its transformation into Earth's second sun, by fictional technology increasing the density of its core. (see also TV/Films)
Milton William Cooper's book Behold a Pale Horse described a secret illuminati plan to detonate the planet by means of the Cassini-Huygens space probe.
Larry Niven's A World Out of Time (1976) tells the story of a man who died in the 1970s who is awoken from cryonic suspended animation, hijacks the ship and visits the galactic central core and a vast black hole. When he returns, millions of years have passed due to relativity effects, the sun has undergone a transformation into a red giant, and the Earth has been moved into orbit around Jupiter.
In Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series (and more particularly, in The Cassini Division instalment of that series), Jupiter has been converted by transhumanists into a habitat for post-human uploads known as the Jovians, while the Solar Union (an inner system socialist collective) and New Mars (a capitalist extrasolar colony) consider whether to launch a pre-emptive strike against the potentially threatening civilisation.
In Isaac Asimov's short story Victory Unintentional (1942), human colonists on Ganymede send robots to Jupiter to contact the Jovians, who are planning a war with the humans.
James P. Hogan wrote a series that eventually spanned five books (Inherit the Stars May 1977, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede May 1978, Giants' Star July 1981, Entoverse October 1991 and Mission to Minerva May 2005) in which an alien race which inhabited a destroyed fifth planet between Mars and Jupiter is discovered in the hulk of an abandoned spacecraft discovered on Ganymede.
In Clifford D. Simak's City stories, most of mankind is eventually voluntarily transformed into creatures able to survive on Jupiter without life support. In this new form, Jupiter appears as a paradise.

[edit] Comics and manga

In the Marvel comic book series Guardians of the Galaxy, Charlie-27 is from Jupiter and was genetically engineered to survive in Jupiter's harsh conditions.
In Indian cartoonist Pran's Chacha Chaudhary series, one of the main characters Sabu is a Jupiter native, but lives on earth with his best pal Chacha Chaudhary.
In the Dragon Ball Z manga series created by Akira Toriyama, female character Bulma Briefs and Earth Kami assistant Mr. Popo reach Jupiter in less than a minute using Kami's spaceship, which they needed to reach the Planet Namek, which was impossible to reach with the technology available at that moment in the series. One month later Bulma's father completes a spaceship model capable of making the journey.

[edit] Films and television

In the Doctor Who (1963 to date) story "Revenge of the Cybermen", Jupiter is the setting for the Nerva Beacon, a fictional space station that monitors its fictional new moon (Voga - the Planet of Gold) which once more brings the Cybermen into our Solar System.
In the Star Trek universe (1966–...), Jupiter is home to Jupiter Station.
Jupiter is the setting of Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), although the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur C. Clarke is set in the Saturnian system instead. In both the book and the film of the sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1984), fictional technology converts Jupiter into a star by increasing the density of its core.
In the Babylon 5 universe, created by J. Michael Straczynski, the Sol system's jumpgate is stationed in orbit around Io along with an Orion-Class Starbase serving as a transfer station for all spacecraft entering or leaving the system.
In Space Patrol episode - The Swamps of Jupiter - Captain Dart and his crew are sent to investigate the loss of contact with a scientific base on Jupiter and encounter Martian fur trappers who are killing the local Loomi creatures for their heat-retaining skins.
In Space Patrol episode - The Walking Lake of Jupiter - Scientists Dr Brown and Dr Smith discover that water from a Jovian lake has the power to cause inanimate objects to move as if with a life of their own. Dart arrives to witness the phenomenon. and ends up on the trail of the unfortunate Dr Brown, whose spacesuit has become energised by the Jovian water.
In the series Red Dwarf, Arnold Rimmer is originally from Io.
In the movie Outland, the action takes place in a mining colony on Io.

[edit] Animation

In the anime Gunbuster (1988), Jupiter is used to create the Black Hole Bomb, a massive weapon larger than a small planet, and capable of destroying part of a galaxy. (In fact, a Jupiter-mass black hole would be barely 6 m across, and no more of a threat to the Galaxy than it is right now)
The plot of the anime Martian Successor Nadesico (1996) revolves around a mysterious invasion force based on Jupiter, named the "Jovian Lizards", or simply the "Jovians", and the attempts of Earth's forces, and specifically the ship Nadesico, to subdue this invasion.
In the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998), various episodes take place on Jupiter's moons. In, "Mushroom Samba",the crew was on its way to Europa, but had to land on Io. The two part "Jupiter Jazz" episodes takes part on Callisto, and "Ganymede Elegy", obviously takes place on Ganymede.
In the anime Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992), Sailor Jupiter is a soldier representing the planet. Since her mythology character (Romans' Jupiter and Greek's Zeus) is a male, her character appears somewhat tomboyish, and more of a born-leader. Also in mythology, Zeus's weapon involves lightning, Jupiter's attacks are also based on the same element (e.g. Jupiter Lightning Blast). Her image colour is green.
The anime Planetes (2003) features a planned seven year trip to explore Jupiter and its moons, using a ship powered by a Tandem Mirror Engine.
In Star Blazers, the Space Battleship Yamato destroys a Gamilon base hidden on a moon of Jupiter with the wave motion gun.
In the TV show Futurama the planet is revealed to smell like strawberries, an out-of-order monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey is in orbit around it, and Amy mentions Jupiter State University.
On an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Shake sells Meatwad to a circus run by Randy the Astonishing, the Prince of Jupiter sent to infiltrate the human gene pool and enslave the planet.
In the Looney Tunes short Jumpin' Jupiter, Porky and Sylvester's desert campground is sliced away and towed into outer space by a green, bird-like Jupiterian searching for earthly animal life. But Porky remains blissfully unaware, leaving Sylvester to be terrorized by the alien.
In Exosquad, Jupiter's moons Io and Sinope were where the main battles between the Exofleet and the Neosapiens raged in the first years of the Terran-Neosapien war.

[edit] Games

The role-playing game Jovian Chronicles (1992) features a solar nation, the Jovian Confederacy, in a series of space colony cylinders called "Gray Viarium" colonies around Jupiter.
The PlayStation 2 video game Zone of the Enders (2001) takes place in a colony orbiting Jupiter. Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner begins on the moon Callisto.
In the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Earth and Beyond (2002), the Jupiter system is colonized by the explorer race of the Jenquai. Jove City rests in orbit around Jupiter, and was the second most populated station in the known galaxy before being devastated by the Progen Warriors.
In the role-playing game Transhuman Space (2002), life is discovered around hydrothermal vents in the oceans of Europa. Subsequently, a war began under the ice between those who sought to preserve the native life and those who sought to adapt sapient, non-native life to live near the vents.
In the "Golden Sun" role-playing game series for the Game Boy Advance, Jupiter is the ruling planet for air-based Psynergy and Djinn.
In Final Fantasy X for PS2, Wakka's Celestial Weapon, World Champion is powered by two rare items called the Jupiter Crest and Sigil.