History Main / GhostPlanet

* In ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet'' the titular planet has been abandoned for at least a century, the only sentient inhabitant left is B.E.N. who was [[spoiler: marooned by Flint, presumably right before the pirate's death as his body is seen clutching B.E.N.'s memory circuit.]]

* Phyrexia was this in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' and ultimately became one again. Created by a powerful god-like being, the plane was abandoned after his death. It was eventually discovered by the outcast physician Yawgmoth. After suitable scheming Yawgmoth then fused himself to the plane arcane ritual, transforming himself into Yawgmoth the Machine-God, preeminent villain of ''Magic's'' multiverse. Phyrexia--composed of nine concentric spheres reminiscent of Dante's nine circles of Hell--was ultimately doomed. Without its creator to correct it, the unnatural plane would slowly collapse, eventually crumpling entirety. Yawgmoth's master plan was to invade his home plane of Dominaria and use it as a permanent seat of power. This invasion ultimately failed, killing Yawgmoth in the process. Years later, the godling Karona would visit Phyrexia, and find it again abandoned, awaiting it's final collapse.

Please keep in mind, a Ghost Planet should ''not'' be a future version of our own Earth (or at least not explicitly so). Only alien worlds which have gone through their own [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Armageddon]] (somewhere between Class 2 and Class 5 on the ApocalypseHow scale) need apply.

** The page quote concerns Ilos from ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', and the place is appropriately creepy to boot. Earlier on, you also visit Feros, a former CityPlanet built by ThePrecursors, now comprised only of lonely skyscraper spires jutting up from the perpetual layer of dust that ''still'' hasn't settled, 50,000 years since the planet's demise.

* ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars''. Shad goes to a notorious WretchedHive seeking TheMagnificentSevenSamurai only to find the planet deserted except for ProfessionalKiller Gelt (who's only there because he's hiding from everyone else).
-->'''Gelt:''' The other planets in this sector formed a protective league. They raised an army and cleaned us out. We made them nervous.
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': Morag, the planet Peter Quill finds the Orb on. At some point there was life on it, but something destroyed them a long time before and left the planet a volcanic ruin. It is strongly hinted to have been the deed of the Power Stone that's inside the Orb.
** ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': Titan, Thanos's homeworld, which suffered apocalyptic disaster related to their resources. All that's left is massive amounts of wrecked buildings and walkways, since Thanos long since left his home behind.
** It's also implied that something else strange happened to the planet, which by the time we see it is experiencing gravitational and rotational anomalies, but this is possibly separate from what killed Thanos' people.

** San Helios in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]]. Despite no signs of life apart from the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts planet-destroying]] [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial stingrays]], the city was fine a year a before the story.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

** San Helios in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead Planet of the Dead]]". Despite no signs of life apart from the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts planet-destroying]] [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial stingrays]], the city was fine a year a before the story.

* One ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' two-parter features a trip to the aptly-named "Deserted Planet".
* ''Series/RedDwarf:'' The episode "Back to Reality" has the main characters exploring an ocean moon where they've found a crashed ship, and despite the log mentioning plenty of life, all the boys find as they explore are lots of corpses. Suicide corpses. Turns out one specific example of that wildlife is responsible.

* Happened quite often in ''Series/StargateSG1''. Sometimes it was a plague, or technology gone wrong, or something else horrible happened to wipe out life on the planet. It was rarely not spooky. It's also mentioned frequently that the Goa'uld will take steps to cripple or wipe out any culture within their territory whose technology level begins to pose a threat.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* A stand-alone mission from ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' ran on this premise and started out with a TitleDrop of this trope, though further exploration reveals it to be TheNecrocracy.

* Phyrexia was this ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' and ultimately became one again. Created by a powerful god-like being, the plane was abandoned after his death. It was discovered by the outcast physician Yawgmoth. Yawgmoth then fused himself to the plane by arcane ritual, transforming himself into Yawgmoth the Machine-God and preeminent villain of ''Magic's'' multiverse. Phyrexia--composed of none concentric spheres reminiscent of Dante's nine circles of Hell--was ultimately doomed. Without its creator to correct it, the unnatural plane would slowly collapse, eventually crumpling entirety. Yawgmoth's master plan was to invade his home plane of Dominaria and use it as a permanent seat of power. This invasion ultimately failed, killing Yawgmoth in the process. Years later, the godling Karona would visit Phyrexia, and find it again abandoned, awaiting it's final collapse.

* ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun''[='=]s [[DownerBeginning prologue has the Stone-Like destroy all life on the planet]], leaving only four humans and their robot companion as the survivors because they managed to escape the Earth's atmosphere beforehand. The game's first stage takes place a year after the catastrophe, with the survivors having to return to Earth due to being low on supplies.

* Tomb worlds in ''Videogame/{{Stellaris}}'' start this way. [[spoiler:This is also the doom of colonies that have fallen to the Unbidden - the building remains, the colonists are just ''gone''. Which makes them a really nice spot to (re)settle once the Unbidden are taken care of.]]

* A stand-alone mission from ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' ran on this premise and started out with a TitleDrop of this trope, though further exploration reveals it to be TheNecrocracy.

** On the spinoff series StargateAtlantis, the main team operates out of a formerly dead city left behind by the Ancients ten thousand years ago, and finds many more ruins left behind by them.

-->-- '''Garrus''', ''VideoGame/MassEffect1''

* Happened quite often in ''Series/StargateSG1''. Sometimes it was a plague, or technology gone wrong, or something else horrible happened to wipe out life on the planet. It was rarely not spooky.

* The planet Miranda in ''Film/{{Serenity}}''. [[spoiler:When the Alliance tested a drug meant to curb violent emotions on the people of the planet, the result was nearly all the population ceasing to do...pretty much anything, eventually laying down and dying. The tiny percentage of people who survived had the exact opposite reaction, becoming the psychotic and cannibalistic Reavers]].

** The page quote concerns Ilos from ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', and the place is appropriately creepy to boot. Earlier on, you also visit Feros, a former CityPlanet built by ThePrecursors and still covered in dust that hasn't settled 50,000 years after their demise, with only lonely skyscraper spires jutting up from the perpetual dust storm.

** The page quote concerns Ilos from ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', and the place is appropriately creepy to boot.
** In [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 the sequel]], once you start looking at places off the beaten track [[FridgeHorror you'll notice]] that there are a ''lot'' of dead planets out there. Time and again seemingly empty systems will have burial grounds, ruins or even just million-year-old mass accelerator craters spread across the planet. The phrase "Bombardment was focused on population centres" appears [[ParanoiaFuel far too often for comfort]]. Of course, this all makes sense, since every 50,000 years [[spoiler: the Reapers show up and kill all sentient lifeforms.]]
** [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 The third game]] reveals that [[spoiler: [[AdvancedAncientAcropolis Ilos]] was a ghost planet when the ''Protheans'' found it, and the statues are implied to depict the once native Inusannon. Subsequent playthroughs of the first game, knowing that both the [[RecursivePrecursors Inusannon]] and the [[BenevolentPrecursors Protheans]] became extinct on this world makes it even ''more'' creepy.]]

* The Ghost Planet from ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhost'' wasn't an example of this trope ''until'' the DarkerAndEdgier [[ContinuityReboot reboot]] comic published by DC.
* The Pocket Universe Earth from where Superboy of the Legion of Superheroes had come was turned into one by the Phantom Zone criminals that the world's Lex Luthor had released in ''ComicBook/TheSupergirlSaga'', when they decided to destroy all life on the planet by destabilizing the Earth's core and [[AtmosphereAbuse destroying its atmosphere]].

** Several examples in the old series, too, including Exxilon in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E3DeathToTheDaleks Death to the Daleks"]].
** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary planet-sized]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Library]] has a million million intelligent lifeforms following a catastrophe 100 years prior, though the Doctor and his allies can't seem to find any of them. [[spoiler:There's a species of flesh-eating bacteria that can move small objects and think through a hive mind, but are generally stupid due to their weakness to light and subsequent minimal populations — then they get into a library through infected paper, and it turns out there's enough darkness, unwitting civilians, and information to develop sentience.]]

** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary planet-sized]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Library]] has a million million intelligent lifeforms following a catastrophe 100 years prior, though the Doctor and his allies can't seem to find any of them. [[spoiler:There's a species of flesh-eating bacteria that can move small objects and think through a hive mind, but are generally stupid due to their weakness to light and subsequent minimal populations - then they get into a library through infected paper, and it turns out there's enough darkness, unwitting civilians, and information to develop sentience.]]

** Several examples in the old series, too, including Exxilon in ''Death to the Daleks''.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy:'' Morag, the planet Peter Quill finds the Orb on. At some point there was life on it, but something destroyed them a long time before and left the planet a volcanic ruin.
* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar:'' Titan, Thanos's homeworld, which suffered apocalyptic disaster related to their resources. All that's left is massive amounts of wrecked buildings and walkways, since Thanos long since left his home behind.

** San Helios in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]]. Despite no signs of life apart from the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts planet-destroying]] [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial stingrays]], the city was fine a year a before the story.
* Brunnis and TV World in ''Series/{{Lexx}}''.

[[folder:Tabletop RPG]]

* Happens occasionally in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe. Sometimes it happens when a planet gets swallowed up in a Warp space related-anomaly, and that world is physically twisted, or sometimes it becomes a haunted planet with no sign of the original human population. Most often, however, this trope describes worlds that were all that was left behind after an [[ApocalypseWow Exterminatus]].

** During one notable incident, a Literature/NightLords raid killed the population of an entire planet…without damaging ''a single building''.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''Schizm'' cribs from ''Forbidden Planet'' as well--everyone on the world you're exploring just ''vanished'' in what must have been a single day, leaving behind unfinished work and uneaten meals. The initial research team vanished more slowly, and had enough time to leave behind increasingly panicky [[ApocalypticLog audio diaries]] speculating on what the hell was going on. What's left is a rather sinister BeautifulVoid. [[spoiler: Subverted in the end. Everyone is still alive, but they were transported into separate dimensions so that the planet's defense system could observe them and determine if they were a threat.]]