Ceres in fiction Monday, July 6, 2009

Ceres

As the largest body in the asteroid belt, the dwarf planet Ceres (formally "1 Ceres") frequently appears in science fiction:

Literature

• In Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars, published in 1898, the Martians from The War of the Worlds are engaged in a war with giant beings from Ceres.
• Ceres is mentioned in some of the stories of Isaac Asimov, who usually situates an observatory on Ceres, as for example in the juvenile novel Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids and the Wendell Urth mystery "The Dying Night".
• Mentioned in passing in Robert A. Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Podkayne of Mars, Red Planet, Time for the Stars and The Rolling Stones.^[1]
• In Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories (1964 onward), the asteroid belt has a government based on Ceres. It is also the site of the narrow but deciding victory against the Kzin Fourth Fleet during the First Man-Kzin War.
• In Jerry Pournelle's "Exile to Glory" (1974, republished 2007) Ceres is the site of an interplanetary mystery involving the theft of asteroid-mined super-heavy metals.
• In L. Neil Smith's novel The Venus Belt(1981), Ceres contains a large underground city and several small settlements and stations, connected by a network of inverted highways.
• In Joe Haldeman's novel Buying Time (1989; U.K. title The Long Habit of Living), Ceres is the home of a stateless society, which becomes important because of a secret research project to reinvent the Stileman rejuvenation process.
• In S. M. Stirling's Draka novel The Stone Dogs (1990), the Alliance for Democracy has a large base on Ceres.
• In Ben Bova's series Asteroid Wars (2001-2007), a small mining base is established on Ceres.
• In the book "The Doomsday Effect", Ceres is used to capture a small black hole, which was slowly devouring the Earth.
• In Alfred Bester's book "The Stars My Destination", the main character claims to be a wealthy lord from Ceres.
• In Bob Shaw's book "The Ceres Solution", extraterrestrials attempt to use Ceres to destroy Earth's moon thereby removing the effect of "third-order forces" that have been stunting human development since the dawn of civilization.

Film and television

• In the movie The American Astronaut (2001) Ceres has a bar called the Ceres Crossroads, where a dance contest is held.
• In the TV series Exosquad (1993-5), Ceres is the assumed location of the first Neo Mega breeding facility.
• In the episode The Lonely of The Twilight Zone, Ceres is used as a prison colony.

Games

• In the SNES videogame Super Metroid a Space colony named "Ceres" appears as the first playable area. it is unknown if it is related to the actual dwarf planet.
• In the computer game Zone of the Enders there is a space colony on Ceres.^[2]
• In the PC role-playing game Countdown to Doomsday (1990), Ceres is the location of an abandoned RAM (enemy) research base.
• In the PC Star Control series, Ceres Base is the place where formal contact with an alien species (the Chenjesu) is first made. Following the Ur-Quan war, the destruction of Ceres Station by the invading Ur-Quan fleet signifies the defeat of the human race, leading to their subsequent enslavement.
• In the PC Game Descent (1995), one of the secret levels takes place on Ceres.
• In the PC Game Descent³ (1999), one of the missions requires the player to extract virus data samples from an underground research laboratory.
• In the PC game Terminal Velocity (1995), one of the missions involves the player destroying a machine that would cause Ceres to crash into Earth.
• In the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Adeptus Mechanicus renews its alliance with the Imperium of Man with the Treaty of Ceres, following the Age of Apostasy.
• In the tabletop card-and-dice game Champions of the Galaxy, Ceres is home to futuristic wrestling superstars Massif and Earthquake (later known as Chopper Mattock and Powerhouse).
• In the RPG Mutant Chronicles, Ceres is the homeworld of Cybertronic Megacorporation.

Notes

1. ^ C - Heinlein Concordance at www.heinleinsociety.org
2. ^ ZONE OF THE ENDERS THE 2nd RUNNER at www.konami.jp