Paradise Planet

Sometimes the most important planet that you conquer is the one you can relax on after everything.

Hoshi: It's a beautiful day.
Risian: [laughs] You've obviously never been to Risa before.
Hoshi: How could you tell?
Risian: Every day is beautiful here.

— Star Trek: Enterprise, "Two Days and Two Nights"

A planet near-universally regarded as an ideal place to live and a beautiful place to visit: fresh air, bountiful soil, friendly people, vibrant culture and a peaceful atmosphere, this is a close to heaven as you're likely to find in a Sci-Fi setting without getting a Lotus-Eater Machine or an Artificial Afterlife involved, to the point that it can qualify as The Promised Land if it's the end destination of the story.

A key aspect of these worlds is natural beauty, so City Planets are usually not eligible for consideration, as are desert planets. Other than that, the biomes of Paradise Worlds are only limited by the imagination: they can be grassland, forest, ocean, natural or terraformed — or some alien combination of the above. Expect to see a Shining City with Crystal Spires and Togas if urban settings feature alongside nature; if it's more sparsely populated, expect to see Arcadia, or even the Ghibli Hills. If enough tourists come to visit and enough vice is on offer, this may also be classified as a Pleasure Planet.

Be warned, however: one of these may very well turn out to be a Crapsaccharine World. At other times, though, there may be no downsides at all, and this planet might be every bit the paradise it seems to be, enough to qualify as a Utopia.

All the same, best hope nobody tries to blow it up...

Compare and contrast Death World.

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Examples:

Anime

• Future Robot Daltanious: Helios is one of the most prestigious nations in the galaxy, having beautiful scenery and highly advanced technology. The titular Humongous Mecha was created by Heliosian scientists. However, Helios has a dark secret — the empire was built on the backs of enslaved clones. The Big Bad of the anime was one of them, and this is what spurred him to become a Galactic Conquerer.
• Starzinger: One of the planets is called "Planet Lovely", and it lives up to its name. Unfortunately, Queen Rasetsu turns that upside down when she dispatches Gamagin there, and the brute tears it apart.
• Voltes V: Boazania is the perfect place to live if your ideal planet is one where everyone dresses in fancy outfits, lives in luxury and enjoy the benefits of being a Higher-Tech Species...unless you're hornless, in that case you'll be Made a Slave and forced to serve the nobles from cradle to grave.

Comic Books

• Wonder Woman (1942): Desira's Venus is a planetary paradise, with abundant riches, lush forests and a population that will willingly deliver themselves to their luxurious prison should they break the law somehow. When Desira offers to take some earth criminals in her prison their viciousness, escape and attempt to take over surprise her and her people, and Diana ends up taking them back to earth for their incarceration.

Fan Works

• In the Teen Titans (2003) fanfic Transition, Jinx and Raven's storyline involves being stranded on one of these: lush, verdant and thoroughly idyllic. The only problem is the fact that the planet is completely deserted... or so it appears.

Films — Live-Action

• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • "The Garden"/Planet 0259-S, featured in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, an idyllic Arcadia-style paradise. Thanos's farm is the only settlement on the whole planet.
  • Ego's planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. A peaceful world of lush green cliffs, tranquil waterfalls and strange multicolored bubbles that float through the air, the only building is Ego's vast garden palace. As it turns out, the planet is actually Ego's real body, and it's very much a Crapsaccharine World given Ego's secret plans to assimilate the universe. It becomes more barren and Death World-like the angrier he gets.
• Star Trek: Insurrection takes place on one of these, an unblemished forest planet where the only community is agrarian in nature, and even that looks uncannily pristine. Also, the fact that its solar system is essentially an active source of the Fountain of Youth only makes it more desirable. Even the posters refer to it as "paradise".
• Star Wars features a few of these:
  • Alderaan was largely proclaimed to be one of these before the Empire blew it up in A New Hope. Works such as The Illustrated Star Wars Universe confirm this, portraying it as a mixture of lush grasslands and spectacular mountain ranges, complete with gleaming eco-friendly cities and a refined, diplomatic culture.
  • The forest moon of Endor appears to be one of these, particularly by the end of Return of the Jedi, consisting mainly of tranquil forests and villages of cuddly Ewoks. However, The Illustrated Star Wars Universe reveals that it's not without its share of extremely dangerous wildlife, and the forests aren't global — in fact, a sizable desert exists on the planet.
  • Naboo of The Phantom Menace is presented as being rich in natural beauty, featuring lush swamps, rolling grasslands, deep mysterious oceans, picturesque lake districts and a vast array of fascinating wildlife. For good measure, the cities of both the Naboo and the Gungans are prime sources of Scenery Porn, the former emphasizing grand stucco domes and wide sunlit boulevards, the latter making use of underwater structures made of luminescent bubbles.

Literature

• The planet Thrrrppp from Colony. Of all the planets found by the Willflower, it's the only one that offers the colonists a perfect chance for long-term survival: lush, hospitable and inviting, it has everything needed to house and rebuild the human race. Apart from the name bestowed upon it by the scuzzy teenage captain, the only downside is that the planet completely unreachable thanks to the current state of the Willflower. The story ends with the colonists finally reaching it.
• In Dune, House Atreides' home planet of Caladan is considered one of these. An ocean world, it offers a vast stock of natural beauty and happy memories for Paul; it also serves as an effective contrast to the villainous House Harkonnen's home world of Giedi Prime. However, Paul later claims the habitability of Caladan made House Atreides complacent and unprepared for the betrayals they'd face on Arrakis.
• Norby and the Queen's Necklace: In one time-track, this planet is named I-13 and is barren, tyrannical, and hostile to the protagonists. In the other time-track (the "true" timeline), the planet is well-terraformed, beautiful, with many children playing and a museum that is friendly to all visitors, even those illegal time travellers.
• Starship Troopers has an unusual example with Sanctuary, the Terran Federation's hidden backup homeworld. It's very Earthlike, but its sun produces less radiation than Sol so the native life has had fewer opportunities to mutate and simply cannot compete with imported Earth organisms. On the plus side, that means less skin cancer for the colonists.
• As with canon, Star Wars Legends has several:
  • Bimmisaari; a temperate jungle world known for its mobile plantlife, it's inhabited by the Bimms, a pacifistic race of small, furry humanoids with a strong emphasis on preserving the natural environment of their world. All told, the only real downside of the place is the fact that Bimms are also a Proud Merchant Race who consider bargaining a fine art, and their insistence on haggling over every purchase can make them a frustrating to deal with.
  • Chandrila, the home world of Mon Mothma. A peaceful rural world often compared to Alderaan, even its small cities are known for their large gardens and state parks; plus, the culture has a particular focus on the right to debate political opinions without fear of reprisal.
  • Drall, a quiet world of meadows and forests found in the Corellian System. Home to another race of small furry beings (this time the rodent-like Drall), it's known for a very lawful, peaceful society; in fact, it's so peaceful that very little of note happened until Anakin Solo and Centerpoint Station arrived on its doorstep.
  • Ithor. Ithorians are commonly known as a highly spiritual people with strong traditions of pacifism and environmental preservation, and their planet reflects this: having recognized the negative impact of permanent settlements, they now live in vast floating cities high above Ithor's rainforests. Given the beauty of the landscape and the welcoming culture of the natives, the planet has become a very popular tourist destination, particularly for honeymooners.
  • Subverted in the case of Khomm; a grassland planet of plains and hills, it doesn't experience storms or seasonal changes, and the cities are uniformly clean, efficient, and peaceful. However, Khommites prize conformity and continuity above all else, and innovation is a foreign concept to most of this cloned species. As a result, outsiders find Khomm unbearably boring.
  • Lao-Mon a.k.a. Sh'shuun is a lush jungle world that's remained pristine despite being home to a fairly advanced civilization. Of course, given that said civilization belongs to the Shi'ido, a notoriously shy race of shapeshifters, it's perhaps no surprise that they've done their best to avoid leaving their mark on the environment for fear of discovery. Indeed, the only reason why Lao-Mon hasn't been settled is because of its remoteness... and the fact that the Shi'ido are in the habit of faking monster attacks to get rid of unwanted guests.

Live-Action TV

• Alien Worlds (2020): Eden is a planet ideal for life, warmed by a pair of binary stars that foster the growth of lush forests that in turn fill the air with oxygen, allowing for the existence of extremely varied and energetic animal life. However, this also makes Eden a dangerous place, as this riotous growth of living beings means that its forests are also filled with deadly predators and parasites.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Eye Of Orion, as featured in "The Five Doctors"; the Arcadia-style scenery is pleasant enough, but the real draw of the planet is the fact that it's constantly bombarded with positive ions, encouraging a sense of peace and relaxation in visitors. Consequently, it's known as one of the most tranquil places in the universe.
  • New Earth, in the episode of the same name; one of the many worlds humans adopted following the destruction of Earth in the year Five Billion, it's a mixture of gleaming hyper-advanced cities and rolling meadows of Applegrass. The next time we visit it, a virus has wiped out most of the population, leaving only the inhabitants of New New York's undercity and motorway.
  • In "Utopia", the eponymous world is said to be one of these: supposedly a paradise where humanity can somehow survive the end of the universe, it's said that "the skies are made of diamonds." As such, everyone with the means to do so is heading there, aided by a signal sent by the Science Foundation to lead humanity to salvation. Then it turns out that the signal leads to just another dead world. In desperation, the survivors resort to desperate attempts to keep themselves alive, and by the time the Master visits, "Utopia" has become a Nightmarish Factory where human beings are converted into the Toclafane.
• Farscape: The Royal Planet. The capital world of the Sebacean Breakaway Colonies, it's a beautiful world of gleaming cities, elegant gardens and scenic cliffs, along with a great deal of bars and clubs; as Rygel puts it, the inhabitants enjoy their freedom from the Peacekeepers a little too much. Even Crichton considers it a wonderful place... up until he falls foul of the politics and ends up as a pawn in the Succession Crisis.
• Firefly: Many of the wealthy central planets appear to be this trope (at least on the surface); generally, the more similar a planet's environment is to Earth, the more desirable that planet is.
• The Mandalorian: Sorgan is a remote and very undeveloped Arcadia forest world, so much so that it does not have a spaceport anything that can be considered a major urban center. It's mostly beneath notice of even criminals and people seem to like it there.
• Red Dwarf: In "Rimmerworld", Rimmer manages to create one of these with some scavenged terraforming rockets, transforming a barren desert world into a verdant garden paradise. He immediately acknowledges that the newly-dubbed Rimmerworld would be the perfect place for him to live until the Starbug crew pick him up, except for the lack of female company... paving the way for him to screw the whole thing up with a very ill-advised attempt at cloning.
• Star Trek:
  • Risa is the Alpha Quadrant's number-one vacation spot, as seen in multiple episodes of TNG, DS9, and Enterprise. Notably, it used to be a rain-soaked, tectonically-unstable Death World before its inhabitants terraformed it into a tropical paradise.
    Riker: Warm tropical breezes, exotic foods, nothing to do but sit around all day...
  • Earth is universally considered one of these as well, having been transformed into a post-scarcity Utopia thanks to easy access to Matter Replicators and other advanced technology.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: In "The Way to Eden", the Enterprise plays host to a group of space Hippies who were on their way to a near-mythical world called Eden. A bit of skullduggery aside, Eden turns out to be real and they do manage to reach it. As advertised, Eden was an idyllic world of rolling landscapes of unspoiled natural beauty, and conditions ideal for human life. Except that the plant life was hideously incompatible with human physiology on the chemical level, making the plants acidic and the fruit lethally poisonous. The Hippies were distressed to find this out.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "The Wall", Major Alex McAndrews travels through the Gate and discovers that it leads to a peaceful, agrarian society. Its leader Baret tells him that there is no hatred, poverty or violence, no possessions to steal, no religion save the sancity of life and no law save kindness to one another. Captain Henry Kincaid compares it to Heaven and the Garden of Eden. 2nd Lieutenant Emilio Perez, who specializes in astronavigation, has determined that it is nowhere near Earth.

Myths & Religion

• The Vietnamese Cao Dai religion believes that there are 72 inhabited planets (and that Earth is ranked 68th); presumably, planets in the top ten would be close to Paradise Planet status.

Radio

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) mentions the planet Bethselamin has been renowned for its natural beauty, drawing in millions of tourists every year. Unfortunately, all this tourist activity has had a negative effect on the local environment over the years; by now, the local government is so concerned over the cumulative erosion of so many tourists every year, that any net imbalance between the amount a visitor eats and excretes while planetside is surgically removed from the visitor's body weight when they leave. In other words, any time you go to the toilet there, it is vitally important to get a receipt.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000 features the Trope Namer: also known as Garden Worlds or Pleasure Worlds, planets classified as Paradise Worlds are set aside to pamper the Imperium's elite as far away from the front lines as possible. A key aspect of these planets is that, though they feature great sources of art, music, gourmet food and and entertainment, they also exhibit remarkable natural beauty that the local governments take great pains to preserve. Of course, given the nature of the overall setting, it's not unknown for Slaaneshi cults to spring up on Paradise Worlds...

Video Games

• Planet Gaia from Freelancer is a tropical paradise — a rich, green world of plants and animals the likes of which have not been found anywhere else in the Sirius Sector, with an environment compared to that of Earth 200 million years ago. It is currently under the control of Cambridge Research Institute, which seeks to create a genetic catalogue of all Gaia's native species, though a small number of tourist visas are available to guests of the nearby Orbital Luxury Liner Shetland. Unfortunately, rumors of the aphrodisiac qualities of certain animals have generated a prevalent poaching industry, and Gaia's tourism industry can sometimes create misplaced sympathy for the Gaian Eco Terrorists.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • Dantooine; as the first world you visit after leaving Taris, its rolling grasslands and Arcadia-style farms serve as an effective contrast to the urban decay of the opening stages of the game. For good measure, there's a Jedi enclave here, making Dantooine something of an island of safety in the increasingly dangerous galaxy. However, there's still a few stings in the tail: Mandalorian raiders are menacing the farms, a rogue Jedi has turned the Kath hounds hostile, and it's not unknown for feuds between farmers to turn violent. The Sith attack the place halfway through the game, destroying the enclave and leaving most of the farms in shambles.
  • Manaan, a stunningly beautiful ocean world; thanks to the native Selkath's environmentalism, it's been kept in pristine condition, and the only settlement above water is Ahto City. Manaan is also the galaxy's only source of Kolto, a powerful healing agent, allowing the Selkath to not only remain neutral in the war between the Republic and the Sith but also enforce a very strict Truce Zone on the planet. It's possible to screw all this up by poisoning the source of the Kolto. It also gets screwed over in canon; Manaan was a Terminally Dependent Society as a result of their kolto exports and once the more potent alternative bacta became mainstream their petition to join The Republic was ignored and their civilization collapsed. By the time of The Empire, they were reduced to a bunch of primal savages that were easily enslaved by Darth Sidious.
  • According to Carth, Telos IV used to be one of these... before the Sith bombed it barren. During the events of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, reconstruction efforts are underway and Ithorian ecologists have already begun rebuilding its natural beauty — despite obstruction from Czerka Corp. Depending on who you side with, Telos can ultimately be reduced to a machine world, or it can be restored to its former glory.
• Mass Effect:
  • Thee human colony of Eden Prime was one of these, a peaceable Arcadia where nothing much happened until a Prothean beacon was unearthed by an archaeological dig. By the time you get there, it's been attacked and ruined by Saren.
  • The same goes for Elysium, being described as an "alpine paradise" perfect for humans. Unfortunately, it's also seen its share of pirate attacks over the years and can actually form the basis of Commander Shepard's past if the "War Hero" backstory is chosen.
  • Bekenstein, a human colony in a more established region of Citadel Space; known for its pleasant climate, good weather and panoramic vistas, it rose to prominence as a manufacturer for the luxury goods market, and since then has become the planetary equivalent of a gated community: exclusive, expensive, and very, very white collar. It's also extremely ruthless as well, and some of the billionaires that live here are engaged in some rather shady business — hence why you and Kasumi attempt to burglarize one of them.
  • Horizon, yet another human colony world, features verdant forests, benign microorganisms, abundant water, and fertile soil — making it very attractive for pioneers hoping to escape from the strictures of Citadel Space. Unfortunately, it's exposed to the same dangers as every other human colony outside Citadel governance: it's attacked by the Collectors in Mass Effect 2 and almost depopulated. In Mass Effect 3, it becomes quite well-known as the site of Sanctuary, a facility built to house refugees fleeing the Reapers... up until it's revealed that the whole thing is a Cerberus-run research facility, and anyone hoping to find shelter at Sanctuary ended up being funneled into Henry Lawson's experiments.
  • Though the player doesn't land on it, Nevos is a popular tourist destination due to being largely undeveloped, which also makes it a popular spot for corporate research of questionable legality.
  • In Mass Effect: Andromeda Habitat 7, which was originally meant to be the human homeworld, was supposed to be a tropical paradise perfect for human civilization. However, by the time the human colonists arrive 600 years later, the planet's ecosystem and atmosphere have been destroyed, almost beyond repair. The other "Golden Worlds" sought by other colonists fared slightly better or worse, depending on the example.
  • Aya is the largest city of the angara race, and the only safe place they have left after the Kett invaded most of their worlds and the Scourge destroyed the rest. It's a lush world with beautiful landscape, whose population is determined by a regular lottery; lottery winners are allowed to live on Aya for a set time, before they must leave and allow another angara to take their place to live in relative peace. It's so important to them that several angara give up their spots so that humans and other races from the Milky Way can live on angara and create peaceful relations, knowing that they may never get another chance.
  • The main port and trading post on the planet Elaaden (a harsh desert world with lethal levels of heat where the krogan have settled) is named Paradise. When asked about it, a krogan says "Paradise is different for a krogan."
• No Man's Sky has a category of planets explicitly called this. They're often the safest of all planet types, with next to no Sentinels, a lack of harmful plants or animals, and very little environmental hazards. They also tend to be full of Scenery Porn, making them perfect to make cool bases on or just wander around admiring the surroundings.
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time begins on Hyda IV, which is described as being abundant in natural beauty and lacking dangerous animals. The protagonist is on a family vacation on the planet's largest resort.
• Stellaris:
  • Gaia worlds are 100% inhabitable to all species: normally species only find their own homeworlds and megastructures to be that inhabitable, and even other planets of the same class are only 80%. Unfortunately, Gaia worlds are also incredibly rare and if a Holy Guardians Fallen Empire spawns in the galaxy, they designate four Gaia worlds as holy planets and get very angry if another empire colonizes them.
  • By contrast, Rogue Servitors make their planets perfectly hospitable to their organic charges in order to ensure maximum happiness. The zenith of this goal is the Organic Paradise, an AI-controlled biome specifically designed to satisfy all the needs and wants a sapient being could ever possess... except for self-determination.
  • Any non-gestalt empire can create "Resort Worlds" that have massive immigration pull and increase amenities throughout the empire but can't have districts, thus at least half the population tends to be unemployed.
• Wing Commander: Privateer:
  • Bex is known as a peaceful, laid-back Arcadia with little in the way of conflict, and renowned for producing some of the best liquors in the Tri-System. In fact, the only real downside to this place is that it's a spawning ground for some rather bizarre fringe religions. For this reason, it's considered kind of dull by thrill-seeking privateer types, but the trade is well worthwhile.
  • Janus IV is a tropical paradise: warm, verdant, sunny, and featuring some of the most opulent architecture in the galaxy, it's made possible only through terraforming. Known as "the playpen of the gods" for the fact that it's home to numerous politicians, executives, celebrities and crime lords, it's unfortunately also the home of the Tri-System's most expensive real estate. Living here costs a mint, and visitors are advised to be very careful about their purchases, as the debt collection agencies are authorized to sell the organs of anyone unable to pay up.

Western Animation

• In the second season finale of Rick and Morty, Rick tracks down three uninhabited worlds suitably idyllic enough for the Smiths to resettle on. All of them look promising, but unfortunately, it turns out that all three have unexpected drawbacks: the first is barely big enough for their ship to land on; the second is a planet where everything is on a cob, prompting Rick to flee in terror for unspecified reasons; the final looks to be perfect... up until the sun rises and begins screaming loudly. They immediately decide on the first planet.

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