Pluto in fiction

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Artist's impression of Pluto and its tidally locked near-twin Charon.

Dwarf planet Pluto, declassified as a planet in August 2006, has been featured in many instances of popular culture. In addition to its common occurance in science fiction, Pluto has also received a large amount of publicity and public support following its demotion from planetary status.

1 Literature
2 Music
3 Television
4 Games
5 External links

[edit] Literature

Donald W. Horner, in Their Destiny (1912), described spaceflight to Alpha Centauri by astronauts who, as they leave the solar system, pass a planet beyond Neptune. This work was written before Pluto's actual discovery in 1930.
In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories, Pluto is called Yuggoth. In the stories, a fictional alien race called the Mi-go have a base there. There are some stories, though, that identify Yuggoth with a huge world situated beyond Pluto on an orbit perpendicular to the ecliptic.
Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto first appeared in the 1930 cartoon The Chain Gang; it was adapted into Minnie Mouse's dog Rover, and shortly thereafter became Mickey's Pluto, being named for the planet.
Stanton Coblentz's In Plutonian Depths (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Spring 1931) was the first story to take advantage of the newly discovered and named world.
The title character of Stanley G. Weinbaum's novella "The Red Peri" (1935) is a space pirate with a secret base on Pluto.
In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Have Space Suit-Will Travel (1958), Pluto is used by aliens as a remote base for Earth exploration. In Heinlein's story Sky Lift (1953), a torch-ship pilot flies on a mercy mission to Pluto. In Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959), the Terran Federation maintains a research station on or near Pluto, which was destroyed by enemy action.
In Larry Niven's novel World of Ptavvs (1966), Pluto was theorized to have been a moon of Neptune until it was knocked out of orbit by an interstellar craft. A fusion-driven spacecraft landing on Pluto in this story releases the frozen methane, oxygen etc and causes the entire planet to be engulfed in flames.
Martinex of the Guardians of the Galaxy is the last survivor of a human colony in Pluto. His ancestors were African. The character first appeared in January 1969 and operates in the 31st century.
In a Rick Random comic book story of the 50s Pluto was exploded.
In James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars (1977), first book of the Gentle Giants series, Pluto turns out to be the remains of Minerva, a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt 50,000 years ago.
In John DeChancie's Starrigger series (1983), Pluto is the location of our solar system's dimensional gate to the interstellar Skyway.
Pluto is featured in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Icehenge (1985), in which a mysterious artificial structure is found on the planet's north pole.
The final section of Dave Sim's graphic novel Minds (Cerebus the Aardvark, Volume 10, 1996) takes place on Pluto.
In Clifford D. Simak's short story Construction Shack (1973), the first mission to Pluto uncovers evidence suggesting that the solar system is nothing short of a huge alien engineering project gone awry.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In Stephen Baxter's novel Vacuum Diagrams (2001), in which Frank Poole's wormhole system has placed a portal in the orbit of Pluto, when a survey mission is sent to the planet, the gate malfuctions and the two women explorers make a forced landing. It is later discovered that Pluto harbors life in the form of snowflake-like creatures who reproduce during the brightest phase of Pluto, the perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, by sending strands of "cobwebs" from Charon, its moon to seed the surface of Pluto. The short story which in the book is called "Gossamer" or referring to the goose summer by which the creatures thrive and reproduce, Cobh and Lvov escape the planet in an alcubierre wave from the unstable wormhole portal.

[edit] Music

Christine Lavin's song "Planet X" (1996) is a good-natured protest against suggestions that Pluto is not a planet.
The Björk song "Pluto" (1997) uses the name of said planet, and its astrological connotations, to represent death and rebirth.
The 2 Skinnee J's song "Pluto" (1998) is an impassioned defense of Pluto's status as a planet.
"Pluto Drive" from Boomerang by The Creatures (1999) implores the listener to join them on a journey to Pluto, but is not notable for astronomical accuracy.
Jonathan Coulton's Thing a Week podcast featured a song about Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet on August 25, 2006. The song, "I'm Your Moon", is from Charon's point of view.
The Bloodhound Gang song "Fire Water Burn" contains the line "I'm hung like planet Pluto hard to see with a naked eye," indicating that the singer has a small penis.
Composer Colin Matthews was commissioned to write an eighth movement "Pluto" to add to Gustav Holst's Planets Suite. The movement was premièred in 2000 [1].
Singer Mr. B wrote a song and made a video about Pluto's recent demotion. It is available here.

[edit] Television

In the 1974 Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato, also known as Star Blazers, the eponymous starship destroys an alien base on Pluto and fights a subsequent battle in an asteroid belt beyond Pluto. Eighteen years later astronomers confirmed the existence of the real-life Kuiper belt.
In the 1978-1981 anime series Galaxy Express 999 Pluto exists as a planet where those people who have abandoned their physical bodies for mechanical ones discard their former organic bodies
In the Doctor Who (1963–) serial The Sun Makers (1977), set far in the future, Pluto is covered with vast cities that are warmed by artificial suns, but access to sunlight is controlled by a sinister ruling elite.
In the anime Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992–1997), Sailor Pluto is the first Outer Senshi to be discovered, and her talisman is the Garnet Orb. She guards the gates of time, and her Greek god equivalent is Hades, the lord of the underworld, which she derives her attacks from (e.g. Dead Scream). On her forehead, she bears the planet's symbol and her image colour is black (sometimes purple).
In Earth: Final Conflict (1997–2002), a mission to Pluto is abandoned when the alien Taelons provide core samples from Pluto for Earth scientists.
In the Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop (1998), it is mentioned that a "supermax" maximum security penitentiary is located on Pluto.
The first five episodes of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles are set on Pluto.
The television show Futurama (1999–2003) featured Pluto in an episode as a habitat for penguins.
In the television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000), two of the show's "Villains", Oglethorpe and Emory (The Plutonians), are from Pluto.
In the cartoon Fairly Oddparents (2001–) Cosmo destroys Pluto with a button the president lost. It was also the place where he hid his corn.
In the second part of the BBC drama documentary Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets (2004), Pluto is the penultimate destination on a hypothetical human space flight to planets of the Solar System
In Space Patrol (1962 TV series) - episode The Fires of Mercury - Professor Heggarty's device for translating the language of ants also converts heat waves into radio waves. Maria realises that this might provide a way of transmitting warmth from Mercury to the Colony on Pluto, where freezing conditions worsen as the planet nears the point in its orbit farthest from the Sun.

[edit] Games

The player visits Pluto as the second planet on the way to the Sun in the NES port of Gyruss
In the computer game Star Control II (1990), and consequently in The Ur-Quan Masters, the Spathi Captain Fwiffo can be found on Pluto.
In the game Starsiege (1999), Pluto is destroyed at the end of the game.
In the 2003 PC game Freelancer, an introduction movie that was cut from game during development shows Pluto being destroyed by an extraterrestrial race 800 years before the game starts.
In the game Epoch Star (2004), Pluto is the home planet of the Anthropite civilization.
In the 1994 PC game Descent, Pluto serves as the final planet, and the last stages of the game.
In the upcoming Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect (estimated as Q1 2007), Pluto's moon, Charon, is one of 'Mass Relay', which is an ancient civilization's kind of teleporter, encased in ice.