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Galaxies other than the Milky Way are popular settings for creators of science fiction, particularly those working with broad-scale space opera settings. Among the most common settings are the Andromeda Galaxy, the Magellanic Clouds, and the Triangulum Galaxy, all part of the Local Group close to the Milky Way. The difficulties involved in crossing the immense distances between galaxies are often overlooked in this type of science fiction.
[edit] Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy has appeared in a number of science fiction works, as a source of alien life forms that invade the Milky Way galaxy, or as a setting for alien worlds and territories. Examples include the following:
[edit] Literature
- The novel Andromeda Nebula by Ivan Yefremov is named after the Andromeda Galaxy, even though the galaxy itself is only mentioned once, towards the end of the book.
- The novel The Patterns of Chaos by Colin Kapp features an intergalactic assassination attempt originating in the Andromeda Galaxy.
- Much of the fighting in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds is caused by one race attempting to prepare the Milky Way for the impending collision with Andromeda, and attempting to wipe out any other race (including humanity) to prevent them interfering.
[edit] Comics
[edit] Film and television
- In the 1968 Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name", the starship Enterprise is hijacked by Kelvans, aliens from an empire spanning the Andromeda Galaxy; their home galaxy was approaching an uninhabitable state and thus they aimed to conquer our own. In another episode, I, Mudd, the lead android says their creators were humanoids from "Andromeda".
- The second season of the 1970s anime series Space Battleship Yamato (known as Star Blazers to Western audiences) featured the Comet Empire, a massive empire contained in an artificial comet, which sought to conquer Earth after having enslaved the entire Andromeda Galaxy.
- The television series Blake's 7 included a battle between Blake's ship (the Liberator) and invaders from the galaxy.
- In Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, the Systems Commonwealth had territory in the Andromeda Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy and the Milky Way.
- In the BBC television series A for Andromeda, co-authored by astronomer Fred Hoyle, a radio signal is received from the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy. The signal contained instructions for building a super-computer, as well as the code needed to make it run. A year later the sequel series The Andromeda Breakthrough was released.
- Doctor Who episodes (precise usage of "Andromeda" not always certain):
- Mission to the Unknown — The ruler of Earth's solar system mentions that he has attended an intergalactic conference in Andromeda.
- The Ark in Space — Star Pioneers from Earth reached Andromeda where they fought a war with the Wirrn.
- Castrovalva — The planet Castrovalva is in the "Phylox series" of Andromeda.
- The Pirate Planet — Mentions "Andromedan Bloodstones".
- The Mysterious Planet — Sabalom Glitz and the thieves who stole Matrix secrets from the Time Lords come from Andromeda.
- Evolution (novel) — The Doctor takes a group of humans who have mutated into mermaids to live on a water planet in the Andromeda Galaxy.
- Monsters and Villains (reference) — The Face of Boe was around when the stars of the Andromeda Galaxy were still dust.
- In the seventh episode in the first series of the British comedy sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus, blancmanges from the planet Skyron in the Andromeda galaxy were a major plot point. For instance, they are seen to convert people into stereotypical Scotsmen in order to win the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
[edit] Other uses
- The Andromeda galaxy has also featured heavily in the central theme of Enigma's sixth album A Posteriori, in which a collision involving the Milky Way is prophesied to occur in the distant future. The most explicit reference to this appears at the album's close with a doom-laden yet mysterious statement, suggesting a collision of the galaxies will give rise to a "new, gigantic cosmic world" being born.
[edit] Large Magellanic Cloud
- In Battlestar Galactica's season three finale, the location of the fleet is for the first time shown to be within the Local Group. At the very end of the episode, a dramatic zoom-out appears to place it within the Large Magellanic Cloud while it is searching for Earth, the existence of which is only rumoured by the beleaguered members of the fleet. Several seconds later, the shot zooms in again, this time focusing on the Orion Arm region of the Milky Way, and up to the orbit of our planet.
- The Large Magellanic Cloud is the destination of the spacecraft Yamato in the first season of the 1970s anime series Space Battleship Yamato (known as Space Cruiser Yamato or Star Blazers to Western audiences). The Yamato must use an untested faster-than-light drive to make the 296,000 light year round trip in one year.
- In the Robert Silverberg novel, Collision Course, a wayward space ship trying to fly back to Earth gets lost in "null-space" and ends up emerging into normal space within the Large Magellanic Cloud; the captain suggests they find a permanent home there as their chances of getting home are extremely remote and they are fortunate to have dropped into normal space within a galaxy. Ultimately, they are returned to the Milky Way by sympathetic, superior aliens. The Milky Way galaxy is easily visible, evoking a feeling of loneliness and separation when the crew realize they're looking at their home galaxy.
- In Scientology, these are said to be literal clouds. They are involved in the fictional story of Helatrobus.
- In Marvel Comics, the Magellanic Cloud is home to the Kree empire. Whether this territory occupies the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud or both is not clear.
- In Alan Dean Foster's novel Glory Lane, the inimical Sikan race is reported to have come from the Magellanic Clouds.
- In Arthur C Clarke's roman Rendezvous with Rama, the giant spaceship Rama is at the end directed against the Big Magellanic Cloud. The reader is supposed to think that Rama is a tool to colonise this galaxy.
- In Dan Simmons' Hyperion series, the planet Earth is thought swallowed up by a black hole but is actually transported to somewhere within the Large Magellanic Cloud.
[edit] Small Magellanic Cloud
- The Small Magellanic Cloud is the site of the climax of Robert A. Heinlein's novel Have Space Suit—Will Travel, in which the spectacular view of the Milky Way is admired.
- In two Star Trek books from Pocket Books - The Lost Era: The Sundered and Titan: The Red King, the Small Magellanic Cloud is home to the Neyel, an offshoot of humanity who dominated several species native to the Cloud.
- The Small Magellanic Cloud is the location of an Alderson disk onto which the surface of Cold War-era Earth is transplanted in Charles Stross's short story "Missile Gap."
- In the Star Fleet Universe, the Small Magellanic Cloud is home to a number of starfaring races, all of whom were conquered by the Andromedans, who then used it as their jumping off point into the Milky Way. The Cloud was subsequently the main objective of Operation Unity - the closing act of the Andromedan War.
- Iain M. Banks' novel The Player of Games is partially set in the Empire of Azad in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
- In The Forever War, a 1974 science fiction novel by Joe Haldeman, a significant battle takes place on a 'collapsar' portal planet in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
- In Larry Niven's Ringworld novels, the Puppeteers are fleeing the Milky Way core explosion in the five planet Fleet of Worlds. They are heading in the general direction of the Magellanic Clouds at sublight speed.
- In Edmond Hamilton's Star Kings series, a race of powerful telepaths called H'Harn originated in the Small Magellanic Cloud has made two attempts to conquer the Milky Way Galaxy.
- Salo, the space traveler stranded on Titan in Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, hails from Tralfamadore, which, according to the author, is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
[edit] Triangulum Galaxy
- In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Triangulum Galaxy is where the USS Enterprise-D is warped to after a being known as The Traveler uses his knowledge to influence the ship's warp drive. M33 is said to be approximately 2.7 million light years away from the United Federation of Planets territories. The galaxy was first encountered in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where No One Has Gone Before".
- Triangulum is a setting for a number of races in the related Star Fleet Universe, explored in a module currently in development.
- The second season finale of seaQuest DSV featured the seaQuest being transported to the planet Hyperion, over eleven million light years away from Earth in the Triangulum Galaxy.
- In Stargate: Horizon (a virtual series of Stargate written in script form), the Horizon Gate system connects to the Triangulum Galaxy; its gate system is different from Earth's and Atlantis's.
- On Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda the Systems Commonwealth had territory in the Triangulum Galaxy in addition to the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies.
- In the Belgian comic book series Yoko Tsuno written by Roger Leloup, M33 is the home of the blue-skinned Vineans, whom the main characters befriend. About a third of the stories take place in this galaxy.
- In the Orion's Arm universe, the Triangulum galaxy is home to the first and only known extra-galactic civilization, having sent a powerful warning message about a massive artificial object heading towards the local group several million years ago.
- In Crysis, the structure which crashed into Earth sends a signal targeted towards, and is most likely from, the Triangulum Galaxy.
[edit] Pegasus Galaxy
[edit] Whirlpool Galaxy
- The Whirlpool Galaxy or M51 was used as the basis for the galaxy in which the story of the Homeworld series of games takes place.
[edit] M81 Galaxy
[edit] Fictional Galaxies
- The Stargate movie and television series feature several fictional galaxies, including the Kaliem galaxy, in which the planet Abydos is located in the film (this was later retconned to be in the Milky Way), and the Ida galaxy, home of the Asgard alien species. The Ori in Stargate SG-1 come from another unnamed galaxy that's in a different supercluster of Galaxies, and use the Supergate to travel to the Milky Way galaxy.
- In Marvel Comics, the Shi'ar Imperium is within a region referred to as the "Shi'ar Galaxy" and is controlled by the Shi'ar race. As this region is said to be situated close to the Skrull and Kree Empires mentioned above, and is one the three main alien empires of the Marvel Universe, the Shi'ar empire may actually be the Triangulum Galaxy or one of the many dwarf galaxies within the Local Group.
- Star Wars is set "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...".
- In the Doctor Who series, the Face of Boe is said to be the oldest living inhabitants of the Isop galaxy. The insectoid inhabitants of the planet Vortis were also from the Isop galaxy. In Doctor Who novels[citation needed] the Daleks are said to have colonised the Seraphia galaxy where the Dalek Empire rules.
- In Power Rangers Lost Galaxy Terra Venture and the Lost Galaxy Rangers travel to the Lost Galaxy some kind of galaxy that seems to exist outside our dimension or can only be reached by portal. After many adventures in this galaxy Terra Venture and the Rangers escape the Lost Galaxy through a portal opened by reciting the Lost Galaxy Spell backwards.
- In the book Skylark of Valeron (part of the Skylark of Space series by E. E. Smith), the protagonists visit another galaxy after being rotated through the fourth dimension.
- The finale of the 2007 anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann features the titular mecha as being larger than a galaxy, and capable of wielding small galaxies as deadly projectiles.
- In the Mel Brooks film Spaceballs Captain Lone Starr hails from the Ford galaxy, in reference to Harrison Ford as well as the automobile Ford Galaxie.
- Part of the Lensman series by E. E. Smith takes place in Lundmark's Nebula. This is a clear reference to astronomer Knut Lundmark whose particular area of specialization was the study of galaxies.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ G. Plana (2005). GURPS Prime Directive, 4th Edition, Amarillo: Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc., 48 (Tholian data), 53-54 (Seltorian data). ISBN 1-58564-047-6.
- ^ (2007) Star Fleet Battles Omega Master Rulebook. Amarillo: Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc..
