Single Biome Planet

Basic Information

Single Biome Planet is a speculative fiction trope where a planet is presented as having just a single type of terrain. One single environment dominates and defines the entire planet.

• Ice Planet - ranging from Ice Age to Ice Giant (planet)
• Desert Planet
• Water World - similar to the realistic hypothetical Ocean Planet
• Jungle Planet
• Swamp Planet - potentially almost viable if arranged correctly.
• Dark Planet
• Vancouver Pine Forest Planet
• Cloud Planet - overlaps with Gas Giant, except the cloud planet is habitable
• Volcano Planet - in our solar system, this actually defines Io (moon) pretty well, and the first few million years of any planet will fit this trope to a T.
• Planet City (see also Ecumenopolis)
• Planet Farm
• Death World

Related Tropes:

• Fantasy Counterpart Culture
• Horse of a Different Color
• Planet of Hats
• Planetville

Contrast with:

• All Planets Are Earthlike
• Patchwork Map

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki

Game and Story Use

• While it sometimes stretch believability a bit, this trope can prove very helpful in a campaign where the PCs are going to visit a lot of different planets. Rather than having to worry about carefully balanced ecosystems and details like axial tilt and orbital period, you just say "the whole planet is one big grassland, complete with ferocious space lions and cute little space monkeys". You just saved yourself a lot of work.