Saturn's moons in fiction
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Several of Saturn's natural satellites have figured prominently in works of science fiction.
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[edit] Saturnian system
Some works of fiction refer to several of Saturn's moons, or to no specific moon.
- Animorphs novel series. The creature called the Veleek was originally found by the Yeerks on one of Saturn's moons.
- Exosquad animated TV series. Saturn's moons initially were home of the Pirate Clans before the discovery of the planet Chaos.
- The Warhammer 40,000 game universe (1987-) places the headquarters of the Grey Knights of the Ordo Malleus in Saturn's moons, owing to their defensive capability.
[edit] Janus
Janus is a small inner moon of Saturn notable for having an orbit nearly identical to the orbit of the moon Epimetheus; the two swap orbital positions every four years.
- Janus features prominently in Alastair Reynolds' science fiction novel Pushing Ice (2005). In the novel, Janus is revealed to be a shell containing an extraterrestrial spacecraft which unexpectedly departs the solar system in the direction of a giant structure orbiting the star Spica. The novel tells the story of the crew of a human mining ship who establish a colony on the moon as it leaves the solar system.
[edit] Mimas
Mimas is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, notable for being scarred by Herschel crater, whose diameter is very wide compared to the total circumference of the moon.
- In Isaac Asimov's 1958 novel Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn the hero, knowing that Mimas is almost entirely made of ice, guides his ship on a collision course towards it, melts its surface with his weapons, and thus hides the ship in order to escape from his enemies, the people from the Sirius System.
- In "Zero Summer," a short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan, Mimas is the destination of a starship manned by two androids.
- Comparisons have been made between Mimas' appearance and the appearance of the Death Star from the movie Star Wars (see picture). The appearance is a coincidence, as Mimas was not photographed until three years after the release of the film; the similarity has led to Mimas sometimes being called "the Death Star moon".
- In the Red Dwarf series episode Dimension Jump, Mimas hosts a Space Corps test base for test pilot Arnold J. 'Ace' Rimmer. In the first novel (based in an alternate universe), Dave Lister is stranded on Mimas, which has become a seedy tourist resort. Both the book and the series refer to the local delicacy "Mimean Bladderfish".
- "The First Duty" (1992), episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Mimas is the site of an evacuation station to which four Starfleet cadets, including Wesley Crusher, transport after their vessels collide.
- In Grant Callin's science fiction novel Saturnalia, Mimas is one of the locations of an alien artifact. It is also the site of human colonization and mining called "M-Base".
- In the table-top science fiction game Warhammer 40,000, Mimas serves as as a high-security prison for the most dangerous prisoners of the Ordo Malleus branch of the Inquisition.
[edit] Enceladus
Enceladus is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, notable for its extremely bright surface and the geyser-like plumes of ice and water vapor that erupt from its southern polar region.
- In the 1930s Buck Rogers old time radio show, Enceladus makes an appearance. In the story entitled "Killer Kane and Ardala on Saturn's moon," the titular villains try to take over the peaceful government of the Saturnian moon. The moon is depicted as having an atmosphere and supporting a happy population of humanoid life. Buck races to the moon to set things right.
- In Exosquad, Enceladus was the location of a heavily fortified Pirate Clans' outpost and the site of the second battle between them and the Exofleet just prior to the beginning of the Terran-Neosapien war.
- In Grant D. Callin's science fiction novel Saturnalia, Enceladus is one of the locations of an alien artifact.
- In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Enceladus houses the Inquisitorial citadel of the Ordo Malleus, where several of the Inquisitor Lords maintain personal estates.
- At the conclusion of the Time Machine book The Rings of Saturn (set in 2085), the spacecraft blows up Enceladus as it returns to Earth after meeting an alien life-form.
[edit] Dione
Dione is a medium-sized icy moon orbiting close to Saturn
- In Grant D. Callin's science fiction novel Saturnalia, Dione is one of the locations of an alien artifact.
[edit] Tethys
Tethys is a medium-sized icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, very similar to Dione.
- An unnamed Tethys is the setting for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3.
- In the American animated television series Exosquad, Tethys was the primary base of the Pirate Clans prior to the discovery of Chaos.
- Level 17 of the computer game Descent takes place in the Tethys H20 Mine.
- In Warhammer 40,000, Tethys is the location of the Librarium Daemonicum, a repositary of the knowledge of the Ordo Malleus branch of the Inquisition
[edit] Titan
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. Its substantial atmosphere makes it the most Earth-like moon in the Solar System and hence a popular science fiction setting.
[edit] Hyperion
Hyperion is the largest irregularly-shaped moon of Saturn, orbiting between Titan and Iapetus.
- Level 16 of the computer game Descent takes place in a methane mine on Hyperion.
- In Dan Simmons' Hyperion, the eponymous planet was first colonised by settlers from a colony on the moon Hyperion.
[edit] Iapetus
Iapetus is a large moon orbiting further from Saturn than any of its other large satellites. Half of its surface is very bright while the other half is extremely dark. Investigations since 2004 have also noted its irregular shape, immense impact basins, and a high mountainous ridge on the equator.
- Iapetus is the setting of Richard Hoagland's short story "Moon with a View".
- In Theodore Sturgeon's short story "The Comedian's Children" (1958), a manned expedition to Iapetus in 2034 creates a public craze for black/white designs and "bi-colored gimcrackery", but is later linked to iapetitis, a disease in children where one side of the body turns white and paralyzed, the other black.
- In Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), astronaut Dave Bowman finds an enigmatic alien monolith waiting for him on the surface of Iapetus. Iapetus's two tone coloration is caused by a vast white ellipse on the moon's surface, with the monolith appearing as a black dot in its exact center. When the Voyager space probes arrived at Iapetus thirteen years later, they discovered that there was indeed a black region within the moon's brighter hemisphere. Clarke reports that Carl Sagan, who was on the Voyager imaging team, sent him a photo, with the note "Thinking of you ...".[1] Because of difficulties achieving a convincing model of Saturn's rings, the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey relocated the monolith to an orbit around Jupiter.
- In Kim Stanley Robinson's futuristic novel The Memory of Whiteness (1985), Iapetus is populated by the descendants of Soviet colonists who retain a Communist political system.
- In Grant Callin's 1986 science fiction novel Saturnalia, Iapetus is one of the locations of an alien artifact. There is also human colonization and mining at an installation called "I-Base".
- In David Weber's novel The Armageddon Inheritance (1993), genocidal aliens (the Achuultani) attempt to use Iapetus as a kinetic energy weapon to destroy all life on Earth.
- In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Iapetus acts as a dockyard for the Ordo Malleus fleet, as well as that of the Grey Knights chapter of Space Marines.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Arthur C. Clarke, Introduction to 2010: Odyssey Two (1984)
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