It's always cute when sci-fi treats a whole planet like it only does one thing - as if the entire Earth could be devoted to mining or pastry.
this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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This one planet is though. The whole thing is terra formed, has controlled weather, the works. The inhabitants who run it love doing so, it's part of their culture or something. I think it's the only one ever mentioned in the federation, kind of like a Disneyworld planet.
I would like to live on the pastry planet
I mean, if you consider an economy that spans thousands of inhabited worlds and your planet just happens to be uniquely suited for leisure, I could certainly see that planet specializing exclusively in this one economic branch.
Maybe a planet with unusual resources, like say rich dilithium deposits, but I don't see a planet being uniquely ideal for leisure. You can create any kind of resort or facility you want on any planet that has the right climate zone somewhere. Especially with transporters, because you don't also have to build a spaceport there.
edit: one thing I just thought and mentioned in another comment is unique genuine experiences, such as surfing at a particularly spectacular beach.
Honestly, finding a paradise has always been a part of exploration. Unfortunately, exploitation is probably cheaper.
It can actually make sense under certain conditions, like if you colonize a planet specifically to fulfill some purpose an you have an interplanetary supply chain that makes it feasible to just supply it externally. In the real world this is highly unlikely to ever happen as even travel to nearby planets in the same solar system takes months, has highly limited cargo capacity and uses substantial amounts of resources in comparison.
One example of a single purpose planet that I found somewhat feasible was in TNG. There were two neighbouring planets of which one had it's entire population addicted to some drug. They mistook withdrawal symptoms for symptoms of some plague which could only be mitigated by that drug. The drug could only be produced on the other planet, which allowed them to solely produce the drug and exploit the other planet for everything they need.
That's grafting present-day thinking onto the future though. With replicators any world could create almost everything it needs. There are a few exceptions like dilithium and Romulan ale, but most planetary economies should be self-contained. Non-exportable things would mostly be genuine experiences, like surfing down a 3-mile waterfall on some world.
But isn’t Risa canonically running an artificial weather and climate system to make it a pleasure planet?
It’s kind of like Las Vegas or something. A monument which shouldn’t be, but is, due to pure inertia and hubris.
Like Phoenix.
I've played this game before. It's because we haven't colonized enough planets to start specialising districts.
And only has one biome.
"You call it a desert planet, but we have other regions, ya know!"
Reminds me of that one SG-1 episode where they can't get the gate to work and Carter leaves the cave to see a frozen tundra. She comes back in and says they're stuck on an ice planet.
They later find out it was a second gate lost on earth in Antarctica.
I love the out-take from that episode where she tells RDA "C'mon, seven years on MacGuyver and you can't figure something out?!"
Come to think of it, Dune could have polar regions that are fairly pleasant.
It’s a major plot point. Only the Fremen live outside polar areas.
Oh, it's been decades since I read it. According to the internets the novel does mention small polar regions but I don't remember them. What's the major plot point?
The north polar area is where Arrakeen and other settlements are. They are the more pleasant areas, they only have to close up during the hotter parts of the day.
The equator is where the constant sand storms occur that are "impassable". One thing I didn't realize, Arrakis isn't large, it's about the size of the Moon, but more dense, so the gravity is about 0.9 of Earth.
If it is a somewhat recent colony I don't think it is that unreasonable. Generally you would want it to be self sufficient in most regards though, which should bring some diversity to the culture even if the focus is on a certain resource being extracted from the planet.
The geeks from the Cerritos after listening to one of Picard's symposiums:
He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic. It was really quite hypnotic.
You know what you've done, right?
Wow that’s a throwback
I can hear this link even before opening it
Ahem: symposia…
Eh, I've seen both used. What's English without exceptions and outright ignoring established rules?
It literally wouldn't be English!
"Well, I suppose I could settle for an exhilarating dune buggy chase through hostile territory."
"..."
"Why do people even come to this place?"
Where does this scene rank on the list of most paused moments in the series?
For the dudes, it's probably a number of scenes in ENT with T'Pol in decon. But given that Picard looks likes smuggling a small squirrel in his bathing suit this might be Top 3 with the ladies.
For me it's Beverly getting ghost-banged in Sub Rosa.
seems like her mother was also into it too.
She died doing what she loved.
This is bigotry against the Ace.
“How is there not a library of physical books??”