History Main / ShatteredWorld

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfArise'': Late into the game, the party discovers that Rena -- contrary to everyone's belief -- is an all-but-dead world. Rather than being broken however, it's more that the planet has been literally sucked dry, leaving only enough mass on the outer edges to make the planet ''appear'' whole, when in reality it appears far more like a chewed-up apple.

** Malachor V. The reason it became this way was due to Mandalorian Wars, where the Jedi Exile was ultimately left with no other option but to drop a superweapon onto the planet, thus ending the war once and for all.

%%* ''The Chronicles of Spellborn''
%%* The Shadow Shard from ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''.

* There are those who think that the [[AnotherDimension Borderworld of Xen]] from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' is something like this. The Nihilanth's original home planet was destroyed in a war against [[TheEmpire The Combine]], and, in his retreat, he transported the fragments, atmosphere, and some of the wildlife to Xen.

* ''[[VideoGame/ShadowOfTheWoolBall Rise of the Wool Ball]]'': In the intro, the cat leader shatters the protagonist's planet into three larger pieces (plus a lot of debris floating around), so as to easier strip it of its natural resources. [[spoiler:Luckily it's pieced back together in the ending.]]

* In the earlier entries of the ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'' series, after [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up a planet]] you can colonize the resultant asteroid field. You are unable to colonize asteroids any more as of ''[=SEIV=]''. Note that you can also create planets in the games, and you can accidentally ([[VideogameCrueltyPotential or intentionally]]) create a planet out of the asteroid colony.

* On is shown in ''VideoGame/TachyonTheFringe'' in a [[LaResistance Bora]]-controlled mining sector. It is likely that Bora themselves did it in order to better mine the planet's resources.
* Late into ''Videogame/TalesOfArise'', the party discovers that Rena - contrary to everyone's belief - is an all-but-dead world. Rather than being broken however, it's more that the planet has been literally sucked dry, leaving only enough mass on the outer edges to make the planet ''appear'' whole, when in reality it appears far more like a chewed-up apple.
* In ''VideoGame/TheToneRebellion'' the goal is to reassemble your broken planet.

* The [=PS2=] game ''VideoGame/{{Vexx}}'' was set on an exploded planet, various parts of which are scattered across the sky, with each level being a different one. There is a definite downwards direction, with it being possible (and infuriatingly easy) to fall off the edge.
* The Great Spiral in ''VideoGame/Wizard101'' is one of these held in a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin spiral]]. Each island rock or rock cluster is called a world with a unique theme and races. Transport between the worlds of the spiral happens through {{Cool Gate}}s.

* Outland, the remains of the planet Draenor shattered by demonic energies, is the main setting for the first expansion of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. The main continent and a few outlying "islands" remain floating in the Twisting Nether.

** Argus in ''Legion'' is partway to this trope as entire fragments have either been pulled free or sunken into the surface due to the Legion's strip mining. Mac'aree in particular floats high above the rest of the surface.

* The Albion system in ''VideoGame/XRebirth'' (which first appeared in ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Albion Prelude]]'') has a rocky planet that has been shattered into a dozen massive fragments by unknown means. In the years after the collapse of the [[PortalNetwork jumpgate network]], the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Plutarch Mining Corporation]] has built up an entire industrial sector in the space between the segments. The first ride through the [[HyperspaceLanes Super Highway]] system towards it is pretty alarming due to the highway skimming mere kilometers away from a jagged edge of the planet.

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''MacrossFrontier'' shows one such world being made - with a bomb that warps a significant portion of the planet into fold spaces.

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* The Moon in a sense is a shattered world, as the massive impact that formed the large [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Imbrium#Characteristics Imbrium basin]] created also a series of both radial and concentric faults to such crater shattering the lunar crust, and had the impact that formed the still larger South Pole-Aitken Basin a different geometry it could have become such a kind of world for a time at least.

* As per the asteroids mentioned above, the large impacts suffered by the Moon[[note]]Which in a sense is a shattered world, as the massive impact that formed the large [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Imbrium#Characteristics Imbrium basin]] shattered the lunar crust[[/note]], Earth, Mars, and presumably Mercury and Venus too would have been powerful enough to expel a significant amount of chunks of them to space, especially in the case of our only natural satellite given its feeble gravity -some meteorites are know to come from either Mars or the Moon, having been sent into space in such way.

Maybe magic or science has GoneHorriblyWrong, causing an EarthShatteringKaboom, or maybe something else bad has happened, but a former planet is now broken into small pieces, floating through space. If this trope is used as a setting, these pieces will usually have settlements of some sort on them (not to be confused with {{Asteroid Thicket}}s, which are normally just obstacles). The question of [[FridgeLogic why the pieces have not clumped back together by gravitational pull]] may or may not be adressed.

Often a case of ArtisticLicenseSpace, as any round object that's large enough is held together by its own gravity too well to be broken apart like this.

A case of ArtisticLicenseSpace, as any object large enough to be round is held together by its own gravity too well to be broken apart like this.

* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion3'': As the result of an oversight, the AI always bombards planets from space before dropping troops to invade. Once a computer-controlled empire develops planet-destroying weapons, it becomes incapable of ever conquering colonies since it always blows them up first.

* The setting of the MMO ''VideoGame/{{Aion}}: The Tower of Eternity''. The war between the demonic Balaur and the holy Empyrean Lords destroyed the titular Tower of Eternity and split the planet of Atreia into 2 halves- the dark upper half became the home of those who would become the shadowy Asmodians, the brightly lit lower half the realm of the radiant Elyos.
* The setting of the ''VideoGame/{{Allods}}'' series is a multitude of disconnected lands with the eponymous name, surrounded by a magical substance, astral.

* The planet Ekkunar, homeworld of the Eldrid from ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'' is this. Some cataclysm fractured the planet several thousand years ago. While still basically spherical, huge geological chunks of the planet are separated from one another, exposing the molten core of Ekkunar. The brightest scientists in the remaining universe are still trying to ascertain why the planet hasn’t flown apart or settled back in on itself. The best guesses still fall back to near mysticism, citing the universe-law-bending Varelsi or some arcane machinery of Ekkuni Dwarves.

* In ''VideoGame/Haven2020'', the crust of the planet Source was shattered into floating islets by the breakdown and explosion of the colony's experimental power plant, leading [=ExaNova=] and the Apiary to abandon the planet.

* ''Malkari'' is a very obscure game about war in the asteroids left by a destroyed planet.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda:'' [=H-047c=], one of the Andromeda Initiative's "golden worlds" (and the only one they could determine was turian-amino acid friendly), thanks to the local NegativeSpaceWedgie messing with the mass of some local stellar debris, causing it to slam into the planet with much more force than it otherwise would have. End result, all that's left of the planet is a planet-sized collection of completely dead rock, only good for insane mercenaries looking for a mining opportunity. When Ryder goes on it, the logical result of it being completely dead is made apparent - if Ryder steps outside the protection of the Nomad or some pre-prepared barriers, the sheer amount of radiation will ''kill'' them in minutes. At least one other gas giant has a ring system created this way, and it is heavily implied that the {{asteroid thicket}}s found throughout the cluster were created when Earth-sized or larger planets were destroyed the same way [=H-047c=] was.
* As the result of an oversight in ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'' 3, the AI always bombards planets from space before dropping troops to invade. Once a computer-controlled empire develops planet-destroying weapons, it becomes incapable of ever conquering colonies since it always blows them up first.
* In ''VideoGame/MugenSouls'', it's eventually discovered that The Seven Worlds [[spoiler:were originally one big world, which was broken into seven pieces and reformed into seven different planets.]]
* The Age of Spire from ''VideoGame/MystIVRevelation'': According to the [[AllThereInTheManual supplemental materials]], it was a planet whose magnetic core became unstable, which repelled large chunks of metal (and lots of attached rock) right out of the planet. Enough time has gone by that the collective gravitational attraction of the chunks towards the center has reached equilibrium with the magnetic repulsion, long enough that the giant floating fragments have enough gravity to have an atmosphere and even some flora.

* Several planets in the ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' series, notably with Ardolis in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankRiftApart'', looking almost exactly like the page image. As well, Chairman Drek's plan in [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002 the original game]] and the movie was turning planets into these so he could assemble a new one from their best pieces.
* In the intro to ''[[VideoGame/ShadowOfTheWoolBall Rise of the Wool Ball]]'', the cat leader shatters the protagonist's planet into three larger pieces (plus a lot of debris floating around), so as to easier strip it of its natural resources. [[spoiler:Luckily it's pieced back together in the ending.]]
* The setting of ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'' is a world that was shattered in a war between the gods.
* After Sonic gets [[UnwittingPawn tricked]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero into giving the]] Chaos Emeralds to [[MadScientist Dr. Robotnik]], the world ends up broken like this in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' and it's then Sonic's job to fix everything.

* The planet Sauria in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'' had this happen, and the main quest is to put it back together before it gets ''more'' shattered and destroys the whole system with it.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' you usually find worlds like this in systems with black holes or signs of {{Precursor|s}} activity, or in rare cases you can make your own.

A case of ArtisticLicenseSpace, as any object large enough to be round is held together by it's own gravity too well to be broken apart like this.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': ** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E11TheProtectorOfConcordDawn "The Protector of Concord Dawn"]], a rather large portion of the planet Concord Dawn is trailing behind the planet proper as an asteroid field, as a direct result of the numerous wars fought by the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Mandalorians]] that live there.

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* Earth itself was like this for some time before the first reboot of the ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}}, being destroyed by the Dominators and rebuilt as a series of floating, interlinked, domed cities.

A case of ArtisticLicenseAstronomy, as any object large enough to be round is held together by it's own gravity too well to be broken apart like this.

** In Creator/DavidWeber's ''[[Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes Dahak]]'' series alien invaders hit it with a big rock to destroy First Imperium military base.
*** Many more asteroid belts are found in other systems [[spoiler:left after Fourth Imperium's civil war]].

** In the Seetee series by Creator/JackWilliamson a planet of AntiMatter exploded when it came into contact with normal matter.

* Many [[ScienceMarchesOn older SF books]] mentioned that the Solar System's asteroid belt is the remnants of a rocky planet Phaeton. See also Real Life section.
** In ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, there's a line that says it was destroyed by the Martians.
** In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/SpaceCadet'' the heroes find that Phaeton was destroyed in a nuclear accident.