Planets that are entirely a single biome, ranked
When Paul Atreides moved from his home planet of Caladan to Arrakis, his life changed in countless ways. His dad died, he met a girl, and he… maybe became a dark messiah who will be responsible for the deaths of 61 billion people. But the most immediate change for Paul was that he moved from a gorgeous planet with oceans and cliffs to Dune, which is just a giant desert. That sucks.
With all due respect to Chani and the rest of the Fremen who find beauty in the sands of Arrakis, not all single-biome planets are created equally. Frank Herbert’s Dune may have come first (and Isaac Asimov had an all-city planet in Foundation before that), but Star Wars is responsible for making the idea of a one-biome planet such an enduring sci-fi trope. Certain planets are more scientifically likely than others — you only need to be too close to a star to be a desert, whereas an entire planet covered in forests strains scientific credulity — and certain types have been more represented in fiction than others.
Which biome is the best, though? If you are a resident of a galaxy (far, far away or otherwise), which type of planet would you want to call home? Here’s a ranking of single-planet biomes from best to worst. (The major examples of notable single-biome planets will guide this ranking, but vibes are just as important. For example, Namek from Dragon Ball Z appears to have only one biome, but it’s unclear what to categorize it as other than “Namek,” so it’s out. With that all said, let’s embark on an interstellar real estate tour.)
Notable example: Dagobah (Star Wars)
Absolutely not. An entire planet of gloom, sludge, and omnipresent alien mosquitoes? There are other biomes that are essentially uninhabitable, but that’s preferable to living in a planet-spanning swamp. Yoda really was punishing himself when he decided to seclude himself on Dagobah of all the planets in the galaxy. Seeing as I have not allowed an evil Sith emperor to overthrow a republic and kill a bunch of
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