Talk:Planets in science fiction

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[edit] Erra

While Erra is fictional in the sense of being an asserted planet that does not actually exist, it's not a fictional planet in the sense of "a planet appearing in a published work of fiction". There's a case to be made for deleting it, but I'd rather see that case made than just have it vanish without comment. RandomCritic 18:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infinita

I removed the following because it is not clear that it is actually a planet:

*Infinita - Skeletor's planet of origin in Masters of the Universe.

According to the article Skeletor and other sources, Infinita is a "dimension", not a planet. I suggest listing it in Parallel universe (fiction). RandomCritic 18:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RPGs

The following were removed because they do not contain links to lists of planets:

That is not to say that it would not be good to have a link to a list of planets in Traveller (role-playing game) and similar games, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to have those lists as yet.

[edit] Krankore

What about Krankore? I don't remember the movie it came from but a clip was shown in It Came From Hollywood.

You're talking about Krankor in "Prince of Space", aka "Planet Prince". Anyway, listed per your request! :) RandomCritic 20:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much, sir!!! -- Gerkinstock 23:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Fictional planet

I have had a go at creating an infobox for fictional planets. It can be seen at Template:Infobox fictional planet. Can some people look at it and give me feedback as to if they think it would be a good thing to add to article about fictional planets. Also at the moment there are only a few fields, but if people can think of any fields that could be added to improve the infobox, go ahead and let me know.--NeilEvans 21:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe include author, genre (e.g. film, television, comics, animation, RPG, videogame?). It also may not always be easy to find an image of the planet. RandomCritic 21:50, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh good idea, I'll add those.--NeilEvans 22:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Awesome template. --Savre 09:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Planet X

If there is some specific information about the appearance of "Planet X" in Godzilla movies (specifically, what movies it appears or is mentioned in) it can go to Outer planets of the Solar System in fiction, where material related to a fictional Planet X is gathered. RandomCritic 05:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disc world

Terry pratchett's disc world should be added to the section about fictional worlds. acecool79 12:58, 22 March 2007 (PT)

It is already included, and you'll find it down in the section titled Fantastic planets. RandomCritic 20:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The alphabetical list of planets in science fiction

(copied from my Talk page)RandomCritic 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

In a message to me about Planets in science fiction, you said "The alphabetical list is only for cases where just one or two planets are mentioned in a given work or series." I have several issues with this statement.

1. An alphabetical list implies a list of all items. You would never see an "Alphabetical List of Nations" where some of the nation were pulled out into a separate section of "those whose people speak German (or English, or Chinese)", while the others are dumped into a miscellaneous alphabetical listing. In my opinion, an encyclopedia would list them all. Perhaps in the "German" article would be a list of all nations that speak German.

2. If an alphabetical list is not comprehensive, then it is not useful for browsing. Somehow, you must "know" to look for some planets in one section and others in another section. If I'm looking for a planet from a book but cannot remember the name, I must currently browse through 25 different pages.

3. The criteria for inclusion in the Literature list are unstated and inconsistent. For example, only Asimov's Foundation planets are included -- where do his other planets go? And all of Heinlein's planets are lumped together -- why don't his Future History planets get their own category? How many planets must a universe/author/series have to qualify? How do you handle planets that are found in multiple media? For example, Star Trek planets might be found under Television, Film, Animation, or Books. I can see disagreements every time a few more planets are added.

Despite everything I have said above, I have no problem with separate lists of planets from various universes/authors/series; in fact I think it's a great idea. I just don't see why those planets should be removed from the alphabetical list.

The creation of a Jane's All The World's Worlds or a Worlds Almanac has been a goal of mine for decades and Wikipedia seems perfect for it. I have a couple of thousand planets to add and would like to have at least some confidence in what the final result would look like before I do all that work.

Regards, Cwogle 17:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason to imagine that this or any other alphabetical list is making a claim to be comprehensive. All "alphabetical" means is that its members are listed in alphabetical order.
If you are looking for a planet whose name, author, or work you do not remember, then you are pretty much out of luck and a very long (thousands of items) alphabetical list, that you cannot possible "browse", is not going to help you at all. If you remember the name but not the work, then there is a search box over on one side of your screen you can use if you are not up to looking through a few lists.
The criteria for "inclusion in the Literature list" is simply that there be a list on Wikipedia, and that it deal with works that are primarily written. Star Trek is not there because, as everyone knows, Star Trek is originally a television franchise, with various spinoffs. The marginal cases are really not that marginal and not worth quibbling about.
As for why there is a Foundation planets list but not an "Asimov's other planets" list, that's because there was already a preexisting list of planets from the Foundation series. This article can only list lists that exist. If you want to construct an Asimov's planets, that's your own lookout, though I'd suggest you let Asimov's other fans on Wikipedia know about it.
It was determined years ago that this list would be far too large if every single fictional planet were included. You may consult the lists of Star Wars or Star Trek or Stargate planets to see why this would be so. The list at one point had reached an unmanageable size and was no longer even reviewable by editors -- there were dead links, links that had never existed, false information, spoofs which could not be easily dug out from the reliable information. There were also conflicts between the list and the various milieu-specific lists. In pruning the alphabetical list, the decision was made to keep the list far shorter, and the information more subject to review, by leaving large lists belonging to specific milieux where they could be tended to by the fans of that milieu. There is absolutely no point in duplicating every Star Wars planet in the Planets in science fiction list, and it would indeed be impossible, were it to be carried out, to make sure that every change made to the one list were made to the other.
You are welcome to construct a "Worlds Almanac" if you like, but Wikipedia is not perfect for it; wiki software is out there if you want to construct a wiki of that sort of your own. There are also various science fiction wikis if you prefer to propose your concept on one of them.
The criteria for the alphabetical list are:
  1. That the planet in question must either have an article about it, or be mentioned in an article that can be linked to via the planet name;
  2. That the planet not be found in any already existing list. So "Krypton" is not found here because it is in the DC planets list -- which is found, naturally enough, under Comics, under the supposition that most people are aware that Superman is a comic-book superhero. Likewise Tatooine, Terminus, and a host of others. The alphabetical list is basically a grab-bag of "other planets"; that's why the List-of-lists section comes first, and the alphabetical second. You might also note that there are a few specialized lists further down.
If you have a lot of planets you want to create articles for on Wikipedia, then I suggest starting with the articles; put them under appropriate categories; if there are a lot of them, create a list which will link to them; if some are of minor significance, without much to say about them, group them into the list article; and then you can link to the list here.
If you have suggestions for improving the layout or navigability of this page, then please make them, but adding thousands or tens of thousands of names to the alphabetical list will simply make this page crufty and unusable, which I am sure is not your purpose.
RandomCritic 23:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)