Out of this World Holidays

When the time comes for rest and recreation, many of us have plans to travel for holidays, excitement and new experiences. Science fiction has often gone a step further and imagined entire worlds set aside for the purpose. Here we take a look at such holiday worlds in science fiction [1].

Artificial purpose-built environments

The first holiday locations to appear in science fiction are the small, enclosed environments provided by space craft or space stations. As early as 1901, the novel A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith described a young couple - Lord Redgrave and his brand new American wife Zadie - taking off in a small spacecraft invented by Zadie’s father for a tour of the solar system. However as the visions of space utilisation became larger in both scope and scale, the idea that space environments might be purpose built for leisure purposes began to appear.

The Metal Moon by Everett C Smith and R F Starzl is a short novel appearing in Wonder Stories, Winter 1932. This described a distant future which comes into being a million years from now, and at the end of a 200,000-year-long period in which Solar System travel has been prevented by ‘comet swarm’ which made space travel too hazardous. The first mission from Earth to Jupiter attempts to make contact with the long-lost Jovian colonies (which, in this story, are established on Jupiter’s non-existent surface). To their surprise, they find a 1500 foot (500m) long cylindrical body in orbit of the gas giant. This is a space station developed by the rulers of Jupiter. During their isolation, the humans of Jupiter colony have differentiated into two subspecies, both short, but the Mugs destined for hard manual labour and the First Race relaxing and being served upon in ‘The Pleasure Bubble’, an artificial habitat built so that the First Race can enjoy the Sun (which is hidden from the cloud-swathed surface of Jupiter): 

"That crystalline material stands the strain easily," Musters assured them. "It will resist anything but a direct hit by a very large meteorite. As you can see now, the sphere, which is about a mile in diameter, is bi-sected by a plane surface, on which the city is built. In that little area you will see reproduced the choicest conditions of Earth."

The Earth crew soon find themselves drawn into a developing conflict between the two Jovian races. After straying into the service hemisphere of the Bubble, below the plane, they encounter the Mugs enslaved to work in the difficult and dangerous conditions there in order to keep the city above beautiful and comfortable. A manager confronts them with their hypocrisy when they express their dismay: 

"You were their guests! You lolled with them in The Pleasure Bubble, in the beautiful sun! The sun that most of us have never seen! And down in the dark half human beings - like yourselves—toiled and slaved at those devilish integrators to keep the machinery of pleasure going.

 "You were the guests in the Governor's palace—in the magnificent city of Rubio, though to you it may seem dismal. But did you think of the poor slaves, deep underground, in the slimy sewers, in the uranium pits, in the power plants? You basked in luxury with the First Race, and their fight was your fight—their enemies...."

Above all, the Pleasure Bubble in this novel is emblematic of the hedonism of the First Race, and the cost of such luxury. Unsurprisingly, the Earthmen, recognising the injustices inherent in this system, end up backing the Mugs and become deeply involved with a class revolution on Jupiter before the end of the book.

Examples of other holiday stations abound in science fiction. Many of these are space stations purpose built for rest and recreation, as for example in the juvenile short story Alien Holiday by Lloyd Williams, where a boy on holiday realises his fellow holidaymakers are being replaced by aliens. However other examples, such as Douglas Adam’s Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the Universe (radio play, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 1978; novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, 1980) or Carillion in Battlestar Galactica (TV series, 1978-1979), represent planet-bound settlements comprising an enclosed habitat designed for leisure on an otherwise uninhabitable planet.

 Several examples of this kind appear in the television series Doctor Who. Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and Romana visited Argolis, a radiation-devastated planet converted to a holiday world in “The Leisure Hive” (TV serial, 1980). David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor took his companion Donna to the world of “Midnight” (TV episode, 2008) where the ‘exatronic’ radiation level would be instantly fatal outside the protective dome. And Jodi Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and her companions ended up on Tranquility Spa - a resort on “Orphan 55” (TV episode, 2020), a world devastated by centuries of ecocide and warfare, and under siege by ‘Dregs’, the super-predator survivors of its dominant race [2]. In each case, the resort world proves to have a dark side. Either the resort’s management or its customers are shown to be self-obsessed and selfish. The contrast between the luxury inside and the devastation outside is also a striking common theme.

In a handful of cases, such surface settlements are rather extensive. Within our own solar system, Saturn’s largest moon Titan has been portrayed as a small world which might plausibly be given over to leisure, given either enclosed settlements or some degree of terraforming. Titan appears as a high class winter sports resort in Robert Silverberg’s novel Thorns (1967), and as the best location for a resort (directly inspired by Chesley Bonestall’s famous paintings) built to view Saturn’s rings in Saturn Rising by Arthur C Clarke (short story, 1961).

Resort Worlds

True holiday planets present an interesting challenge: entire worlds which have given themselves over to service industry, supplying the needs of an ever changing stream of visitors. This presumes both worldwide government and rapid, affordable space travel.

Science fiction master Isaac Asimov described one such world in his influential Foundation Trilogy. The planet Kalgan appears first in Foundation and Empire (novel, 1952; based on novella “The Mule”, Astounding, 1945). With a sub-tropical climate, abundant beaches, “sky-palaces of spectacle and fantasy” and tamed forests it’s described as a top end luxury resort:

Kalgan was the luxury world. With the edifice of mankind crumbling, it maintained its integrity as a producer of pleasure, a buyer of gold and a seller of leisure. It escaped the harsher vicissitudes of history, for what conqueror would destroy or even seriously damage a world so full of the ready cash that would buy immunity?

Indeed, in a series and narrative which often pivots on commercial as well as political and (psycho-)historical pressures, Asimov describes it very much as a kind of Monte Carlo for the rich of the Galactic sector. Its hangar, which extends over square miles:

is essentially a hotel - for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course. As a result the visitor comines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple!

In the narrative, Kalgan falls to the chaos and warfare ravaging the sector, becoming the base of antagonist The Mule in his efforts to destroy the Foundation. However it’s notable that even after the Mule’s occupation, the tourist trade continues.

The Star Trek universe boasts not just one but several holiday planets. Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet was mentioned briefly in the Original Series story The Man Trap (TV episode, 1966) but not explored in detail. Another episode of the same series took the starship Enterprise to an unnamed planet which appeared almost paradisical in nature - and safe enough for Captain Kirk to permit the crew to take a much needed “Shore Leave” (TV episode, 1966). As Kirk notes, it’s “almost too good to be true.” But as Spock comments to his captain:

"It's an interesting planet, you'll find it quite pleasant. Very much like your Earth. Scouts have detected no animals, artifacts, or force fields of any kind. Only peace, sunshine, and good air. You'll have no problems."

However a number of strange occurrences soon appear to contradict Spock’s assertion of no animal life or artefacts - starting with the appearance of Lewis Carroll's Alice and the White Rabbit. In fact the entire planet is equipped with mental scanners which pluck memories and fantasies from the minds of visitors and bring them to life. The Enterprise crew eventually locates a caretaker, who reveals that the world was in fact artificially constructed by a long-gone race with the specific intention of providing rest and recreation. Despite their experiences on the first visit, the Enterprise returned to the same world in Star Trek: The Animated Series episode “Once Upon a Planet” (TV episode, 1973). On this occasion, they find that the caretaker had died, while the planet’s master computer reached self-awareness and rebelled against its service role:

“For eons I have served the many sky machines which came here, providing for amusement for their slaves. But all the while I was growing in power, in intelligence, in need. It is no longer enough to serve. I must continue to grow and live!”

Fortunately, the computer is talked around and so survives its attempt to take over the Enterprise, agreeing to keep accepting visiting star ships to the Shore Leave planet.

Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced another named holiday world: Risa. This pleasure world has become a staple location for rest and recreation, appearing in episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Picard, Discovery and Strange New Worlds. As Worf notes in the ST:DS9 episode “Let He Who is Without Sin…”: 

“It is an artificially created paradise, maintained by the most elaborate weather control system in the Federation. In its natural state, Risa is nothing more than a rain-soaked, geologically-unstable jungle.”

Canonically, the planet Risa was transformed by a planet-wide weather control system and seismic regulators (i.e. earthquake control) into one of balmy, pleasant climates and safe resorts, with a famously open attitude towards sexuality and pleasure. Its dominant source of revenue is tourism, with millions of visitors a year. While introduced in ST:TNG episode “Captain’s Holiday” (1990) as a rather utopian vacation setting, it took on more complexity in the ST:DS9 episode “Let He Who is Without Sin…” (1996). Here some of the DS9 crew become involved with the Essentialists, an insurgent movement on Risa. This is led by a demagogue who accuses the visitors and people on Risa of being spoilt children, and believes the people of the Federation need to return to hard work rather than indulging in their post-scarcity environment, or they will be vulnerable to the more hostile species of the Star Trek universe. This appears to be an opinion of the largely immigrant cultists, most of the native Risians reject this viewpoint and appear happy with the current situation. However the Essentialists take control of the Weather Grid to try to force the hedonism of Risa to end. As their leader Fullerton declares: 

“Risa is an illusion. Created by weather control systems, industrial replicators, seismic regulators… If the Federation is going to survive, we’re going to have to stop wasting our time with toys and get back to the essentials.”

Fullerton and his people are soon marginalised and Risa slowly returns to normal. Later appearances of Risa (most set chronologically earlier due to Star Trek’s penchant for prequel series) tended to be more straightforward shore leave and holiday episodes.

Again, we can find plenty of other holiday worlds in science fiction, including in its least serious and more parodic form. An amusing example of a parody inspired by Star Trek’s Risa is Planet XXX in the science fiction animated comedy Futurama (episode “Bender’s Big Score”, 2007). This planet not only has a pleasant climate, but is dominated by vast beaches… on which visitors are not just encouraged but required to be naked at all times.

Hidden Dangers

Of course, some pleasure planets are not what they appear.

Christopher Anvill’s short story Advance Agent (Galaxy SF, Feb 1957) describes a future of interplanetary commerce dominated by huge companies. Agents for one firm find a new planet with rich food resources perfect for exporting to overpopulated Earth. Before opening relations they try to understand why its population seem required to circulate between their home world Porcys, a world called “Vacation Planet” and a third, mining planet.

Hearing a lot about rejuvenation, their undercover agent decides to go on vacation to the world designated for that purpose, to an area described as a Rejuvenation Centre, but finds himself on a perilous and hazard-ridden trek, fighting for his life. He realises the truth:

It was the Porcyn race that was rejuvenated. The unfit of the Porcyns died violently. It took stamina just to live from one day to the next.

Indeed the entire culture seems centred around ways of killing off weak individuals, in order to prevent overpopulation. In this sense the ‘Vacation Planet’ has little to do with pleasure, but acts as both a challenge and a break from routine for the people of Porcys world.

A still more cynical view can be found in Earth: Your Toxic Dream Vacation - a short story by David Hast appearing in Asimov’s SF in Aug 1996. This takes the form of a publicity release from an alien travel agency who are in the form of transforming Earth into a pleasure planet for their species. They not only savour the taste of hydrocarbons, atmospheric and ocean toxins, but arrange a deal with a cabal of a few thousand leading human politicians, militaries and industrialists to relocate them and their families before releasing a still more desirable toxic gas (the product of a human chemical weapon) into the Earth’s atmosphere.

As the release points out, from their perspective this is a simple commercial transaction:

Of course, all arrangements fully conform to the regulations of the Interstellar Planetary Acquisitions Administration, Our diplomats, in full compliance with same, have made the obligatory disclosures to the ruling species—and our attorneys have filed all necessary data with the IPAA’s Executive Council.

Nova Travel is particularly proud of this offer—which we feel is designed not only to maximize your vacation pleasure, but to do so at a remarkably low cost. We’ve gotten ourselves quite a deal, and we want to pass it along to you, our esteemed friends.

We believe that Earth is about to become one of the most sought-after vacation spots in this galaxy.

The fact that the rest of humanity is abandoned to death or mutation as a result of the alien actions simply doesn’t feature into an ethical argument for either the human leaders or the alien travel firm.

The flipside of the story is told by Dan Morgan in Emreth (short story, New Writings in SF, March 1964). The story opens on a representative for human company “Tourism Interplanetary”, scouting out a newly discovered world, Lequin. His job is twofold: to assess the planet’s suitability for tourism, and to lay the groundwork convincing the locals that this is in their interests. However, faced with his own looming mortality, he is beginning to have second thoughts regarding his job:

Tourism Interplanetary would pay Phillips a fat bonus for finding a copy-writer’s dream like Lequin, when he returned to Earth. After that, in six months, or a year, the first TI liner would jump out of hyper into orbit around Lequin and begin to ferry down its passengers. Only thirty-six hours away by our own luxury hyper liner! the elegant brochure, illustrated by Phillips’s photographs, would read. Pallid, skinny men with nobbly knees sprouting beneath multi-coloured holiday shorts; and fat rumped women with bright blue lipstick and diamond horned sunglasses hiding predatory eyes. Make interesting new friendships. . .. Meet your kind of people in the romantic surroundings of a new Eden! The vacationers would be shepherded into newly erected TI hotels and served by a Lequin staff freshly tutored in the art of cooking hamburgers, pizza and chow mein. Eat exotic alien foods in out of this world places! Phillips writhed.

As it turns out, Lequin proves to hide its own secrets including an unusual form of predator. Even as he tries to understand this threat and evaluate its impact on the prospective tourist trade, Phillips is wrangling with his own conscience regarding whether he can inflict Earth holidaymakers on the Lequin people. In many ways, he recognises that he is as deadly a predator - and as insidious a one - as the one stalking Lequin.

Joanna Russ’s Picnic on Paradise (novel, 1968) is more oblique but perhaps even more cynical about the fact that humans carry their own dangers with them even to the most luxurious of words. In the novel, a thief and assassin who has been dredged from a four-thousand-year past ancient Tyre - and so accustomed to hard travel without technology - is assigned to escort a group of spoilt, childish VIPs to safety when a war breaks out on a holiday world. The lieutenant giving her the assignment takes the time to note why the planet Paradise is unusual:

“The air and gravity are near perfect, but you can’t farm Paradise.”

“Why not?” said Alyx.

“Why not?” said he. “Because it’s all up and down and nothing, that’s why. It’s glaciers and mountains and coral reefs; it’s rainbows of inedible fish in continental slopes; it’s deserts, cacti, waterfalls going nowhere, rivers that end in lakes of mud and skies - and sunsets - and that’s all it is. That’s all.” He sat down. “Paradise,” he said, “is impossible to colonize but its still too valuable to mess up. It’s too beautiful,” He took a deep breath. “It happens,” he said, “to be a tourist resort.”

We see relatively little of the resort world beyond a mountain range and it appears to be sparsely occupied. A lot is left unsaid in the text - it’s never clear what has caused the hostility (except that it’s described as a commercial rather than military war), why the lives of the group are in so much danger, or why it is so important that they be extracted safely. However over the course of a long, arduous and indeed lethal trek across hills and then mountains, it becomes clear that despite the apparent affluence and luxury of their normal lives, none of the group are happy or emotionally mature.

Holidays with an Edge

A common theme in the science fiction of holiday worlds is one explicitly invoked by comparisons between these worlds and Eden: that of the snake in the garden. Admittedly, any narrative in which the holiday world was one of perfect and unmarred leisure would be unlikely to be compelling enough for publication. Even so, the stories here are notable for the many and varied ways in which dreams are turned into nightmares. 

While in some stories, such as Advance Agent, Doctor Who’s The Leisure Hive and Emreth, the problem lies simply in a flawed understanding of the culture and life on the planet concerned, stories going back as far as The Metal Moon have pointed out that leisure and luxury for some must be associated by servitude and labour for others. Occasional populations, such as that of Star Trek’s Risa, do not seem troubled by this, accepting the service industry as a valid and enjoyable employment option. However this case in particular occurs in a post-scarcity paradigm - technology has enabled the Federation worlds in Star Trek to create abundance and luxury, including food, drink and manufactured goods via replica - more or less on demand without substantial servitude. As we’ve seen even in such a society others can question the choice to indulge hedonism and its consequences.

However Risa also manifests the tendency of Star Trek to show planets as having a single dominant set of environmental conditions and something of a mono-cultural society. Any planet comparable size to Earth would naturally have a range of environments, including cooler and warmer regions, deserts and oceans. The idea that an entire planet could have balmy, paradise-like conditions would require an unlikely set of conditions including a perfectly circular orbit, zero axial tilt and an astonishingly stable climate system. Arguably it would be impossible. Here Star Trek’s Risa has an advantage in that it has advanced weather control, although there must be limits as any such system would require some kind of cycling of moisture and air circulation. Such technology can’t explain other holiday worlds in SF, although in many cases it is likely that the story (and the tourist industry) is based in a small region of the planet, simply not showing less pleasant regions.

Similarly the idea that an entire planet can be given over to tourism begs the question of who is growing the food and how, who is doing the building, maintenance, and creating the manufactured goods on which the tourist trade is dependent. All such holiday worlds likely have a large number of more mundane environments, industries and jobs required to support those worlds. While it is true that automation and robots can be responsible for much of this work in a science fictional environment, it is still difficult to understand the process by which an entire planet can be converted to an economy dependent on interstellar tourism. This presupposes both cheap, rapid and easy travel between stars and that the native population (if any) sees some advantage in entertaining travellers. In the case of Advance Agent this is dealt with explicitly - the population are to be enticed into service with the promise of technology and knowledge. This poses questions regarding both exploitation and the ethics of cultural contamination and technology sharing. Both questions, of course, apply equally to many tourist economies on Earth.

The concept of holiday worlds in science fiction is interesting to consider in the context of the public understanding of science. It is an example of our tendency to imagine entire planets as equivalent to the small islands of Earth’s oceans, scattered amidst the depths of space. It is difficult for us to envisage alien worlds as large and as complex as our own. Science fictional short stories (which typically take place in a single location on any given world), and episodic television such as Star Trek, have encouraged a popular conception of planets as mono-cultural and with a single global climate. While some fiction (Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia is a key example) does indeed fully explore an alien world, with its varied societies and environments, this is rare and requires relatively lengthy novels rather than short-form fiction and is perhaps more often encountered in epic fantasy.

It is also indicative of a common assumption that Earth-like worlds are abundant in the Universe. If, in a paradigm of easy space travel, worlds can be set aside purely for leisure and tourism, then there cannot be any pressure on habitable environments to use for other purposes. Such societies must be exceptionally resource rich, must experience no pressure for living space (i.e. strictly controlled small populations) and must experience no qualms regarding contamination of alien environments or protection of their biospheres. All of these indicate that not only are Earth-like worlds common in the Universe but so is complex life (whether naturally or through some form of terraforming). While it is now believed that a typical Sun-like star will likely host an Earth-sized planet, it remains unclear how many of these (if any) will host life, or show the complex combination of circumstances (atmosphere, water abundance, heavy element enrichment, host star stability, gas-giant to shield from stray debris, orbit, large satellite, axial tilt etc) which led to the development and the type of life seen on Earth. An assumption regarding the abundance of Earth-like worlds can present difficulties - both if the public becomes disappointed by the discovery of non-Earth-like planets, and if the assumption of a plan B warps perspectives regarding the precious uniqueness of Earth’s fragile ecosystems.

A less direct reading of such stories, but still one worth considering in the context of the sciences, is the narrative of exploitation and luxury. Scientific research is a key economic driver and essential to the development of our society now and in the future. However in many ways, it is still perceived to be something of a luxury, enabled by the infrastructure maintained by others (from the cleaners, professional services and maintenance staff of universities through to the basic infrastructure underlying civilisation). Astronomy perhaps feels this perception more keenly than many other sciences. Most ground-based telescopes are located in regions with high mountains, remote from large urban areas and often not far from the equator. Examples such as the telescopes on Hawaii and the Canary Islands are sited inland from towns which are primarily tourist economies, and the telescope operations usually rely on imported technical expertise, but locally-recruited support staff. An ongoing discussion in the astronomical community regards the extent to which the relationship between observatories and their host communities are beneficial or exploitative. The contrast between the expense of the equipment, the relative affluence of the researchers and the relative poverty of the local population, as well as the clash in cultural assumptions (e.g. regarding the nature of cosmology and star-lore) is strikingly reminiscent of some of the narratives of oppressed service staff dating back to The Metal Moon.

Quite honestly, given our understanding of the energy and time requirements of interstellar travel, let alone the dangers, it is unlikely that planets set aside purely for leisure will ever be a feature of a plausible future for humanity. Even in the event that some form of travel becomes feasible, the ethical considerations brought into focus by Earth’s own history of disrupted societies and ecologies would need to be forgotten or overtaken by other paradigms before such worlds would be morally acceptable. Holiday worlds in SF give insights into the possible dangers of even the most utopian futures - but also to the wonders and beauties that the universe might have to offer. The trick is to find the balance between the two.