memes

A lot of stargates seem suspiciously located in abandoned quarries in the Pacific northwest

Imagine how jank that game would have been on release if they tried varied procedurally generated biomes hahaha.

Don't forget that if the planet is inhabited, it has only has one civilization that is mono-ethnic and mono-cultural. Star Trek is the most prominent ~~offender~~ example of this. Still a good series though.

In fairness, seasons and varied terrain aren't guaranteed.

Of all the bodies in the solar system, only Earth has such a wide variety of landscape. Mars is rocky desert or rocky desert with canyons. Pluto is ice ball or rocky ice ball. Etc.

Also, if humans were colonizing earth from outside, we would probably just build cities on the river deltas and skip the less habitable spots. Stories set here would then just be cityscape or river delta, even though the ice caps/mountains/jungles/deserts still exist. Colonized worlds will have different population distribution that organically settled ones.

"Wait wait, you're from Doloron? Oh my god, I work with someone from the Swamp Planet!"

"Why does everyone call it that. It's a planet with one or two famous swamps."

"What was it like growing up in a mud hut?"

"We have other ecosystems! You know, mountains, fields, outlet malls..."

"How did you get to school? Bark canoes? On the back of a swamp snail?"

"No, like everyone else... In hover cars."

"Is it true you all have eggs sacs? Take off your pants."

"No I'm not taking off my pants!"

"Aha! We got a swamp monster here!"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! (sigh) 50 years ago, Dread Trooper scouts landed in a swamp on our planet, and for some reason didn't bother exploring anywhere else. If they had gone one mile to the left, they would have found some beautiful beachfront condos. But they didn't. And now... we're the (air quotes) swamp planet. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"I uh..."

"Don't say anything. Let's just eat our lunch in silence."

"... Is that moss!?"

"It's a delicacy!"

Stargate: every planet is either desert or Canada.

To say otherwise would be to admit your story has no need for aliens.

Well, look, the show has a budget. And the game also a gameplay.

Hey, be good if we wreck all this, which belongs to us all by birthright, so the ultra-rich could get to one of them and build a massive slave colony, with a green house exclusively for themselves to masterbate in, while we fight over oxygen, right?

The word for world is forest

I imagine No Man's Sky is doing this specifically to reference the trope as was originally commonly portrayed in e.g. Flash Gordon serials and various golden age comics. Similar to Starbound, this also has an intentional gameplay implication in that it forces you to leave the planet and find another one with the biome appropriate for whatever resource it is you need. Otherwise you could park your butt on one planet and never have any compelling reason to go anywhere else which really rather defeats the intent of the game.

As far as other works of fiction go, though, yes. It's just lazy.

My favorite is how there is only ever one city and like 10,000 people on any planet.

Oh he went to this planet? Well, lets just go to the market, he's bound to turn up at some point.

Honestly i think it's quite possible that earth actually is rare on that regard. Most planets are majorly more uniform than earth. Conditions have to be juuuuuust right for a single planet to have water that exists in all 3 forms at the same time on different areas of the planet. That fact alone creates 4 of the 6 boxes.

Laughing in Metroidvania.