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| 3 | %% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks! |
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| 6 | |
| 7 | [[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheQuietEarth https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/QuietEarthEndSmall_8894.png]]]] |
| 8 | [[caption-width-right:350:"There has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight, with devastating results."]] |
| 9 | |
| 10 | ->''"I could see the Earth and Moon in the sky of this strange world, Gaea... That's what they call this place."'' |
| 11 | -->-- '''Hitomi Kanzaki''', ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'' |
| 12 | |
| 13 | An unusual-looking sky is a [[ShowDontTell surefire way of showing the audience]] that the characters are not on Earth, or at least not on Earth as we know it. Maybe there are two moons, or three. Perhaps Earth's all-too-familiar moon, the one in so many love songs, is broken into so many pieces it's become a ring of debris around the planet. Or the sky is dominated by a huge gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn, suggesting you are in fact, technically, ''on'' the moon. The sun is a different colour, or has [[BinarySuns a little and a bigger sibling]]. The daytime sky is a lovely shade of deep purple. The stars are in strange shapes and colors, or the nighttime sky is ''[[TheStarsAreGoingOut empty]]''. Maybe the sky is simply home to cloudforms that are not of this world... or [[GiantFlyer life]][[LivingGasbag forms]]. Or [[FloatingContinent rocks]]. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | This is sometimes used to comedic effect when our heroes just won't believe that they've left Earth for good, and shrug off all other, often painfully obvious, hints as some kind of {{Masquerade}} ("Wow, great special effects! I'm on hidden camera, right?"). In other cases it may come along with alien SceneryPorn: the character knows he's on another planet, the plot made it clear already, but perhaps the audience still needs to let that sink in. This is a good way to do that. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | This is likely to be paired with an AlienSea or an AlienLandmass. You can also expect this to be paired with WeirdWeather -- whatever it is that will come down from those clouds, it sure isn't going to be regular old rain. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | A SuperTrope to BinarySuns, BadMoonRising, CrackInTheSky, TheStarsAreGoingOut and several others. Compare ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld. |
| 20 | ---- |
| 21 | !!Examples: |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 26 | * ''Literature/AllisonAndLillia'' has, in addition to its Alien Geography, a moon which is much closer to the Earth, orbiting every eight days and producing spectacular solar eclipses on a disturbingly frequent basis. Strangely, however, calendar months are still roughly 30 days long... |
| 27 | %%* ''Anime/{{Avenger}}'': Used to show viewers that it is really Mars where the action takes places. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 28 | * ''Anime/BrigadoonMarinAndMelan'': This is a major plot point. Because of the impending mutual collapse of the two worlds, Brigadoon is visible in Earth's sky for the entire series, and vice versa. (On Submaton Color you can see both worlds at the same time.) |
| 29 | * ''Manga/{{Capricorn}}'' is set in an alternate dimension in which our Earth is visible in the sky over the moon. The moon is itself a planet with Earth's density and gravity, if not its size. |
| 30 | * ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' has a cracked moon in Earth's sky and tons of debris that rains down upon the Earth on a daily basis. Few people live there, opting instead for other, terraformed bodies in the Solar System with even weirder views of the heavens. |
| 31 | * ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' has as part of the back story that the normal sky of the Earth disappeared when Hell's Gate opened 10 years ago, taking with it all constructs found above the Stratosphere. Attempts to reclaim space only result in silence from whatever is sent up there. Instead, the stars in the night sky are all artificial and bound to a particular contractor, blinking as the contractor uses its power and falling from the sky when the contractor dies. The moon has disappeared and the sun is altered; every few years, the sunspots move around so much that the sun looks like a giant glowing eye for a while. |
| 32 | * ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': |
| 33 | ** ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'': |
| 34 | *** In a downplayed example early on, Joe tries star-gazing to figure out their location, only to realize that none of the constellations match up to what they should be. |
| 35 | *** "[[Recap/DigimonAdventureE39TheBattleForEarth The Battle for Earth]]": In the wake of Myotismon's defeat, the sky is replaced by an expanse of upside-down continents and oceans that are seemingly invisible to anything but human eyesight and freeze anything that approaches them. Then Izzy notices Infinity Mountain in the sky-continents and realizes that this is the Digital World, somehow projected onto Earth's skies. When the kids return to the Digital World in "[[Recap/DigimonAdventureE40EnterTheDarkMasters Enter the Dark Masters]]", they find the opposite -- Earth's landscapes have replaced the Digital World's own sky, and different portions of the Earth continue to make up the "sky" for the rest of the Dark Masters arc. |
| 36 | ** ''Anime/DigimonTamers'': The Digital World has a digital representation of the Earth floating in the sky. |
| 37 | ** ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'': |
| 38 | *** The Digital World had three moons. |
| 39 | *** [[OurMonstersAreWeird Sakkakumon]]'s [[PocketDimension internal environments]] each have uniquely-colored swirling patterns in their skies. |
| 40 | ** ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'': The Digital World's sky is dotted with floating rocks and sometimes has electronic textures on it. |
| 41 | ** ''Anime/DigimonFusion'' had this, not just to show that they were in another world, but that they went from one section of the other world to another section, with the Island Zone having a pattern in the sky and the Sand Zone having three suns of different colors. |
| 42 | ** ''Anime/DigimonUniverseAppMonsters'' has the AR-Fields, whose skies are taken up by a blocky pattern whose color scheme depends on the Appmon that calls that particular AR-Field home. In cases where the AR-Field consists of [[WorldInTheSky floating platforms]] instead of the usual DarkWorld, the pattern is mirrored below as well. |
| 43 | * ''Anime/DoraemonTheRecordOfNobitaSpaceblazer'' have Doraemon and Nobita setting foot on Planet Koya-Koya for the first time, in the middle of night, and realize they're in another world from the two moons, respectively red and purple, in the skies. |
| 44 | * ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': |
| 45 | ** Namek has a green sky (and blue grass), and three suns that illuminate the planet's entire surface at all times. And lollipop-shaped trees. |
| 46 | ** The Sacred World of the Kais is always well-lit despite not appearing to have a sun, instead having hundreds upon hundreds of purplish spherical moons around it. Then again, it ''is'' in the Afterlife. |
| 47 | ** From the little we saw of the Saiyan home world, Vegeta, the sky was red with two suns and two moons. The land was all but barren with no wildlife or vegetation to be seen. It was also described as a war-torn world, which was probably why it appeared so dead. |
| 48 | * ''Manga/DragonKnights'': In the Demon World, the sky's a shade of purple. |
| 49 | * ''Anime/{{Endride}}'': A [[PowerCrystal giant crystal]] called Adamas lights up the sky in a very green hue during the day (with permanent rainbow streaks), and purple at night. |
| 50 | * ''Anime/EurekaSeven'': It's the not so much the sky itself that looks alien, but the luminescent clouds of light particles that blow across it. The ground's not exactly normal, either, what with the huge chunks of coral-like stuff jutting out of it. [[spoiler:Against all odds, though, it turns out to be Earth. Even the protagonists are shocked.]] |
| 51 | %%* Two moons in ''Literature/TheFamiliarOfZero'', ''Anime/QueensBlade'' and ''Literature/MoribitoGuardianOfTheSpirit''. %%Unrelated works shouldn't be clumped into one example. And there's no context beyond just "two moons". |
| 52 | * ''Literature/GoblinSlayer'': The setting has two moons, a green one and a pink one. |
| 53 | * ''Anime/LastExileFamTheSilverWing'': Earth has six moons. [[spoiler:Not all of them are actually moons]]. |
| 54 | * ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'': Midchilda seems to have, conservatively-speaking, at least ''six'' Earth-like planets hanging in its sky for no discernible reason. A number of other planets they visited in the previous season also have this unusually populated skyscape. |
| 55 | * ''Manga/MagicalGirlApocalypse'': A giant pentagram appears in the sky as Kii and the survivors flee the school. It shatters, releasing hundreds of Magical Girls. |
| 56 | * ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': The series ends up with Earth surrounded by reddish ring [[spoiler:made of blood, some of which also splattered on the Moon]]. The sky looks even worse in the middle of the film. |
| 57 | * ''Anime/NowAndThenHereAndThere'': A huge, red sun. |
| 58 | * ''Anime/PanzerWorldGalient'': Planet Arst, where the action happens, has two moons. |
| 59 | * ''Anime/PatemaInverted'': The final scene has Patema and Age/Eiji venture off to explore [[RuinsOfTheModernAge what's left of the surface world]] -- which includes a shot of what appears to be [[spoiler:the planet Saturn]] where the Moon should be. In the broad light of day! |
| 60 | * ''Literature/ReincarnatedAsASword'' has seven moons with an orbital pattern so complex, they are all "full" once every three months. |
| 61 | * ''AudioPlay/SaintBeast'': While the sky in Heaven may not make much sense, it's definitely very beautiful. |
| 62 | * ''Anime/SandsOfDestruction'': The night sky has two moons. No one comments on it, however, as it's normal to the characters and there's no reason they should think the sky ought to have only one moon; it's purely there for the viewer's interest. |
| 63 | * ''Literature/SentouYouseiYukikaze'': The atmosphere of Fairy is green-tinged, with a double star system as its sun. |
| 64 | * ''Anime/SDGundamForce'': The key to telling the difference between Earth (where Neotopia is) and the other dimension where the Dark Axis, Lacroa, and Ark are is the fact that the other dimension has two moons in the sky, each a different color. |
| 65 | * ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' takes place on a planet in a binary star system, which accounts for the FashionableAsymmetry in the clothes design of the Sybillae. |
| 66 | * ''Anime/StarOceanEx'': Expel, a medieval Earth-like planet where the action takes place, has two moons, one glowing blue and the other glowing red. |
| 67 | * ''Anime/StellviaOfTheUniverse'': Space, and thus the night sky, is green. This is because Earth is in a part of space still suffering the aftereffects of the supernova explosion of the star Hydrus Beta (which almost destroyed human civilization) and so occupies what seems to be a nebula. [[spoiler:Space changes color again later on]]. |
| 68 | * ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' played the double moon version during a chapter with the Moon [[spoiler:and the Hyper Galaxy Dai-Gurren]]. |
| 69 | * ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' appears to take place on wild west Earth at the beginning, but the twin suns, five moons, and purple night sky caused by three or more moons shining at one time is a tipoff to the contrary...along with all those alien-looking people and weaponry...and those giant Plant systems. |
| 70 | * ''Literature/TrinityBlood'': Earth has two moons: the normal moon, and a new "Vampire Moon", which is [[spoiler:the colony ship the Methuselah used to travel to Mars and back]]. |
| 71 | * ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'' had Earth hanging in the sky. |
| 72 | [[/folder]] |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[folder:Art]] |
| 75 | * ''Art/DanteAndVirgilInHell'': The orange sky is a sign that the painting depicts {{Hell}} and not our world. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Asian Animation]] |
| 79 | * ''Animation/HappyHeroes'': Planet Guling has multiple moons visible in the background, despite having only one sun. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Card Games]] |
| 83 | * ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': Numerous of TheMultiverse's panes have their own unique celestial features. |
| 84 | ** Dominaria has two moons, the Mist Moon and the Glimmer or Null Moon. The latter turns out to be an artificial {{Mana}}-storing construct and is destroyed during the climax of the ''Wheatherlight'' saga. |
| 85 | ** Mirrodin has four suns -- or four moons; the two terms are largely interchangeable there -- for four of the five colors of mana -- the White Sun, the Blue Sun, the Black Sun and the Red Sun. The third set in the original Mirrodin block, ''Fifth Dawn'', focuses on the birth of the fifth, Green sun, completing Mirrodin's [[http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/84.html five-orbed sky]]. |
| 86 | ** Esper, one of the Shards of Alara and known for being host to a civilization that keeps everything -- ''everything'' -- under minute control, has a star chart for a night sky and [[http://magiccards.info/ala/en/223.html clouds sliced into precise segments]]. |
| 87 | ** The realms of Kaldheim have no sun or moon -- they're lit by the light of Arnheim, the World Tree's topmost realm, which is visible as a sundog-like effect in the realms below it -- and the twisting branches of the World Tree are always visible beyond the clouds, rising from the horizon and out of sight. |
| 88 | * ''TabletopGame/TheSpoils'': The north and south poles are giant mountains hovering above the planet, with a large asteroid belt circling the rest of the planet. |
| 89 | [[/folder]] |
| 90 | |
| 91 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 92 | * ''ComicBook/Bodies2014'': The sky of 2050s London is perpetually an ill yellow, indicating its postapocalyptic status. |
| 93 | * ''Franchise/TheDCU'': |
| 94 | ** ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueGenerationLost'': Captain Atom is thrown across time for a couple of days due to absorbing immense amounts of energy. At first he thinks he's in the past as he stays with a rural family who lack modern technology. Once the night falls, he notices that half of the moon has been blown apart. |
| 95 | ** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 96 | *** An early story depicts prehistoric Krypton as being surrounded by what's only described as a "chrysalis", a semi-solid barrier encasing the entire atmosphere of the planet. On occasion slimy pieces of it can slough off and drip onto the surface, completely enveloping anything unfortunate enough to be caught under them. |
| 97 | *** ''ComicBook/DemonSpawn'': Supergirl is kidnapped and brought to an alternate dimension called the Innerverse, in which the sky is a dark-violet void. |
| 98 | *** ''ComicBook/TheKryptonChronicles'': Rokyn's humongous red sun and its red-hued skies are immediately apparent as soon as Superman's starship arrives in the planet. |
| 99 | ---->Putting the ship into hyper-drive, Superman takes a shortcut through sub-space, to emerge near a giant world beneath a mammoth red Sun... |
| 100 | *** ''ComicBook/LastDaughterOfKrypton'': Inverted. ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} realizes she isn't on Krypton anymore when the Earth Sun rises... and it's a yellow sun instead of red. |
| 101 | *** ''ComicBook/SupermanSupergirlMaelstrom'': When Superman takes his cousin to an alien world, a red star can be seen glowing in the sky, its crimson light dyeing the woods purple. |
| 102 | *** ''ComicBook/WayOfTheWorld'': Supergirl visits planet Krall, whose sky is orange colored. |
| 103 | *** "ComicBook/TheUnknownLegionnaire": The Legion of Super-Heroes travels to the Protean homeworld in pursuit of a dangerous criminal. When the team steps out of their ship, Superboy takes notice of the orange sun, feeling relieved because it will not take his powers away. |
| 104 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'': |
| 105 | *** ''[[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Wonder Woman Vol. 1]]'': The rings of Saturn dominate the sky of the Saturnian moon the Saturnian Empire slavers take Diana, Etta, Ginny and Steve to. |
| 106 | *** ''[[ComicBook/WonderWoman1987 Wonder Woman Vol. 2]]'': The Sangtee Empire planet termed Hope's End by Natasha has three moons and its sun is slightly purple tinted in appearance when viewed from the surface of the planet. |
| 107 | * ''ComicBook/TheDefenders:'' During a time travel story, involving the ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy, the two teams get split up due to a malfunctioning teleport beam. Major Vance Astro and Valkyrie land in a swamp, and Major Astro tells her they're not on Earth, pointing out the two moons in the sky as proof. They turn out to be on the Badoon homeworld. |
| 108 | * ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'': The series' setting has two moons and is called the World of Two Moons, in honor of the fact. |
| 109 | * ''ComicBook/FarSector'': In the City Enduring "That sky's not real. Each day, the city builds a new composite sky image from its citizens' imaginations." However, there is a single moment during the day when the image stops and you can see the actual sky and the red sun. |
| 110 | * ''ComicBook/TheMagnificentMsMarvel'': The sky of the alien planet Saffa is yellow during the daytime and purple at night. |
| 111 | * ''ComicBook/{{Mystic}}'': Subverted in the world-hopping arc, when Giselle initially assumes herself to be lost in a jungle in Shaman Guild territory. She reaches a clearing, looks up, and is startled to see that there's ''only one moon''. However, it's the ([[HumanAliens strangely human]]) locals' reaction to her magic that finally convinces her that she's not on Ciress any more. |
| 112 | * ''ComicBook/StarTrekEarlyVoyages'': In "Immortal Wounds", Neyda Prime has two moons. |
| 113 | %%* ''ComicBook/StormDonLawrence'': After the ninth volume, the story is set in a solar system the bizarre local laws of physics of which lend themselves excellently to this. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. It's not enough to say that local physics lend themselves to "this". |
| 114 | * ''ComicBook/TheTriganEmpire'': The planet Elekton has two moons and two suns. |
| 115 | * ''ComicBook/TrishTrashRollergirlOfMars'': Being set on Mars, the comic shows the sky in shades of light brown and yellow. |
| 116 | [[/folder]] |
| 117 | |
| 118 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 119 | * ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Calvin's imaginary worlds frequently feature strange suns and several moons. Watterson would eventually claim that, ultimately, print was an insufficient medium to capture the sheer scope of Calvin's imagination. |
| 120 | * ''ComicStrip/PhoebeAndHerUnicorn'': During the FreakyFridayFlip arc, Phoebe-in-Marigold's-body casts a muffin-summoning spell, but due to a "rookie mistake" it has the side effect of turning the sky plaid. Marigold fixes it after she and Phoebe return to their own bodies, then reveals that no one else noticed because she'd already turned the [[WeirdnessCensor Shield of Boringness]] up to maximum. |
| 121 | [[/folder]] |
| 122 | |
| 123 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 124 | * ''Fanfic/AdventuresOfTheSilverBullets'': Abydos has three moons. This is the first clue that the Bullets have arrived on another planet, rather than traveled back to Ancient Egypt. |
| 125 | * ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/4413/the-ambassadors-son The Ambassador's Son]]'': Sharpooth describes the lost homeworld of the diamond dogs as having a green sun in a yellow sky above a permanent layer of clouds. |
| 126 | * ''Fanfic/{{Aska}}'': The night sky in Asgard is blank, without a moon or any stars. |
| 127 | * ''Fanfic/BecauseWeCouldNotBeYou'': Having spent his entire existence inside Mata Nui's body, the true stars and broken moon of Remnant are completely foreign to Krika. |
| 128 | * ''Fanfic/ACrownOfStars'': The wildly different stars and constellations and the {{ringworld|Planet}}s shifting across the sky kind of hinted that Shinji and Asuka had arrived on a different planet, galaxy and dimension. |
| 129 | * ''Fanfic/DangerThanFiction'': The world inside the Vonyich Manuscript has two suns and three moons, all moving randomly. |
| 130 | * ''Fanfic/DigitalPhantom'': The Ghost Zone has a green and black zone with floating islands and doors, while the Digital World has three moons. |
| 131 | * ''Fanfic/OfElderScrollsAndHuntsmenDragonRose'': The two moons in the night sky of Nirn are what tells the characters that they are on another world. |
| 132 | * ''Fanfic/EquestriaAcrossTheMultiverse'': The Twin Worlds Arc sees Daring Do's team arrive on another Equus where they see another planet in the sky, revealing that they're in a double planet system. |
| 133 | * ''Fanfic/TheFall'': Inverted. Louise is used to looking up in the sky and seeing two large moons, one red, the other blue. Post-Summoning, she finds that one moon has vanished and the other is smaller and white. |
| 134 | * ''Fanfic/GameTheoryLyricalNanoha'': Schzenais' star is a red giant, which means the sky is darker and the sunlight is red. |
| 135 | * ''Roleplay/HazbinHotelLucifersFolly'': Hell's skies are always red. Though, the other Rings's skies appear to be different colors, depending on where one goes. |
| 136 | * ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'': The planet Qward, where Supergirl and Satan Girl battle for the final time, orbits around two suns. |
| 137 | -->The star-system of Qward had twin suns for the last thousand years. The new one was rather small, as stars go, but a star is a star, for all that. |
| 138 | * ''Fanfic/{{HERZ}}'': After the FinalBattle against SEELE, the sky has two Moons. |
| 139 | -->''The party had been over for some time. Shinji and Asuka strolled hand in hand on the edge of the lake. Its waters glimmered in the silvery light of both moons.'' |
| 140 | * ''Fanfic/IntoTheFog'': In the Tv world there's no sun or moon, but a sky composed for moving black and red stripes. |
| 141 | * ''Fanfic/KaraOfRokyn'': The setting is Rokyn, a planet orbited by two small moons. |
| 142 | -->There was coolness in the early fall night, and the light of the stars and one of Rokyn's two small-but-full moons shining through the open window of her bedroom. |
| 143 | * ''Fanfic/LokiAgentOfDoomgard'': In Battleworld, there are no stars and no real moon, and at the start of the story not even a ''sun'' yet. There is light because Doom wills it so. |
| 144 | * ''Fanfic/NineDaysDown'': The sky in Tartarus is a black and empty, holding only a single perfect circle of flame surrounding a deeper black void. |
| 145 | -->''The sky was black as the darkest night. More so, for there were no stars. Dead center in that sable sky was a ring of slowly flickering red fire. The inside was empty, an impossible pit of deeper darkness in a sky that held nothing else.'' |
| 146 | * ''Fanfic/OblivionGabrielSeraph'': At the start of Episode 6, Tim realizes something's off when the sky is suddenly red. |
| 147 | * ''Fanfic/OrchestratingTheSilence'': When Asuka awakens, she quickly notices a ribbon of crimson streaking across the sky, a kind of planetary ring which Earth is not supposed to have. |
| 148 | * ''Fanfic/TheOtherSideOfTomorrow'': The desert planet from Chapter 6 has multiple suns, and Planet Gorlock has a crimson-tinted sky. |
| 149 | * ''Fanfic/{{Saerang}}'': One of the first signs the Golden Company get that they are in TrappedInAnotherWorld is being unable to recognize any of the stars in the night sky. |
| 150 | * ''Fanfic/TheServantsOfUngoliant'': Arvalin, the southwestern region of Mórenorë, has a sky that is red during the day and pitch-black at night dues to its significant distance from the Sun and the Moon. |
| 151 | * ''Fanfic/SharingTheNight'': Since the celestial bodies are made of and moved about by magic, the appearance of the sky is ultimately determined by the nature, needs and artistic inclination of the alicorns controlling them. As a result, the sky undergoes a number of dramatic revolutions over time: |
| 152 | ** As a general condition, the sky itself is essentially a field of magic that extends over the world and does not obey the same physical rules as the fully material planet below. Most prominently, rather than orbiting the planet, celestial bodies are part of one of two "blankets", the night and the day, that are moved wholesale between the visible world and a pocket dimension known as the Umbra during dusk and dawn. One result of this is that the sky always looks the same regardless of the angle of viewing; for instance, at sunset, the sun will always appear to be setting, in the same place and at the same angle, regardless of where the viewer is. |
| 153 | ** Luna liked carefully arranged, permanent patterns. This resulted in Equestria's canonical night sky of stable, evenly spaced stars and constellations similar to the real world's. |
| 154 | ** When Twilight bonds with the stars, they vanish entirely for the first night, leaving a black void until she figures out how to bring them back. When she does, they appear in a random pattern of dense clumps and strings separated by empty spaces. Afterwards, her habit of bringing them out all at once in a single sky-wide burst causes them to destabilize entirely, leaving them to flow across the sky in great eddies and currents until she eventually puts them away again at dawn. |
| 155 | ** In the ancient past, [[spoiler:there were neither sun nor stars at all, while the moons were two. The sky was instead lit by a diffuse glow by day and was a perfect black void at night the held only the bright white dreaming moon and the black nightmare moon, the latter usually invisible against its backdrop. The sun was born when the alicorns of light and of fire chose to fuse into a single being. Later on, the twin moons were destroyed when the alicorn of the nightmare moon used her orb to destroy the dreaming moon when it threatened to fall into and destroy the world; the stars are simply the burning wreckage that remained in the sky, while the current moon was born from a failed last-ditch attempt to restore the old ones.]] |
| 156 | ** In the climax, [[spoiler:Astri creates a rough, cracked and smaller moon by patching together chunks of moon rock dug out of the earth, which is soon after broken apart to become a fixed arc of stars and nebulae]]. In the epilogue, [[spoiler:Celestia fuses with the seed of Harmony and then splits back into two identical selves in order to evenly redistribute the magic of the ancient alicorns of light and fire, which causes the sun to split between a barely-visible "shimmering thermal bloom", which provides the world with heat, and a horizon-spanning rainbow arc, which provides it with light. They rise and set in opposite directions, and create a dazzling nova-like effect when they cross at noon. As a result, shadows become slightly smeared laterally and rimmed in rainbow effects, and no longer protect from the brunt of the daytime heat due to being cast by different bodies.]] |
| 157 | * ''Fanfic/ShatteredSkiesTheMorningLights'': Well, it's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. In worlds affected by the [[BigBad Big Bad's]] rampant tampering throughout time and space, the skies ''[[CrackInTheSky break]]'', and drop tangible pieces onto whoever or whatever is unfortunate enough to be below. |
| 158 | * ''Fanfic/StarWarsGalacticFolkloreAndMythology'': The Bith homeworld of Clak'dor VII has a series of thick rings, which feature prominently in local folklore. |
| 159 | * ''Fanfic/StarWarsTheSithZero'': After being told by Lord Juyn that she's not on her homeworld during their dinner, Louise takes a look at the night sky only to find that the two red and blue moons she's used to having been replaced with four smaller white ones. |
| 160 | * ''Fanfic/StrategicCyborgEvangelion'': One of the human-inhabited systems is a binary system with all the planets orbiting one of the stars, and have nights lit by a red glow from the smaller star for a full half year. |
| 161 | * ''Fanfic/{{Subsumption}}'': Every part of Ashtaroth's barrier, in different ways for each specific section she picks up. Ashtaroth's original outer barrier for example has an aquamarine sky, with what looks like veins of light stretching throughout it, while Saar's section starts as an eternal night cast in shadowy shades of green, before progressing to a massive, ever-swirling storm. |
| 162 | * ''Fanfic/TheVioletDemon'': |
| 163 | ** Areax IV has an orange sky and rings which create a constant aurora effect when the system's binary stars are both out. |
| 164 | ** Fornax orbits a red supergiant that's described as looking like a bloodshot eye looming down on the planet. |
| 165 | * ''Fanfic/VoltronDuality'': Because of the destruction brought about by an enemy attack that pulled planet Daibazaal out of its natural orbit, sunlight is so dim that it doesn't seem natural and debris orbiting the planet causes lights in the night sky that are too big to be stars and too small to be moons. |
| 166 | * ''Fanfic/WideningTheLens'': The first sign Celestia and Luna get that they're not in their home dimension anymore is being able to see the sun and moon in the sky at the same time. |
| 167 | * ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'': At the beginning, when Paul is awakened by John and discovers they're outdoors in a field somewhere, he angrily assumes John spirited him away, despite John's vehement and frightened denials. Trying to find a hidden camera crew, he notes that the full moon is setting over the nearby forest. Then, on the beach, he does a double take when he sees the crescent moon over the ocean... and then he knows John wasn't responsible for this predicament at all. |
| 168 | * ''Fanfic/YinYang'': An inverted perspective take on this trope, as Adora, who has spent her life inside a pocket dimension contains her planet, its moons and nothing else, is surprised to see ''stars'' in the sky once she gets to Eternia. |
| 169 | [[/folder]] |
| 170 | |
| 171 | [[folder:Film -- Animation]] |
| 172 | * ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'': Throughout the movie, Chicken Little repeatedly warns that "pieces of the sky" are falling down, but no-one believes him. They're actually [[spoiler:cloaking panels falling off a fleet of alien ships,]] and in the climax, the entire evening sky is revealed to be [[spoiler:a solid artificial layer made up of cloaked alien spaceships invading the town.]] When it breaks apart, the real sky -- broad daylight -- shines through the artificial one. |
| 173 | * ''Anime/FiveCentimetersPerSecond'': Takaki's teenage dreams take him to an unnamed planet with a green-tinted horizon, an orbiting ring of satellites, more rings of satellites in the sky, a visible spiral galaxy, and an impossibly close, large sun. |
| 174 | * ''[[WesternAnimation/TheMindsEye The Gate to the Mind's Eye]]'' shows a few different alien skies, the most prominent of which features a Saturn-like gas giant with two sets of rings that cross just above the horizon. |
| 175 | * ''WesternAnimation/Planet51'' takes place on a mostly Earthlike planet, except that there are ''multiple'' planets in the sky visible even in daytime, one of which is ringed. Also, it ''rains rocks''. |
| 176 | * ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'': Some shots show a large, partly eclipsed ringed planet shining in the night sky. In addition, the sky in the Land of Darkness is always partly occluded by the {{Floating Continent}}s overhead, and the actual sky is only visible through the occasional gap or hole. |
| 177 | [[/folder]] |
| 178 | |
| 179 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 180 | * ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'': Earth's own sky becomes an example when the Monolith's presence causes Jupiter to transform into a small second sun. |
| 181 | * ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': The gas giant that Pandora orbits, and its sibling moons, are prominent in its sky -- as is, in one scene, either Alpha Centauri B or the drive flame of an RDA starship. |
| 182 | %%* ''Film/CloudAtlas'': At the end, this trope appears to show that an aging Zachry is narrating his tale [[spoiler:from one of the off-world colonies long after being rescued]]. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 183 | * ''Film/{{Coneheads}}'': The Coneheads' home planet has three moons. The rare event of all three lining up perfectly in the night sky is commemorated as a holy day. |
| 184 | * ''Film/{{Contact}}'': The aliens create a setting with a fantastic skyline (including a wormhole) based on the drawing Ellie drew as a child. |
| 185 | %%* ''Film/DamnationAlley'': A symptom of the recently-fought [[WorldWarIII nuclear war.]] %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 186 | * ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'': The planet Thra has three suns; a small purple sun, a medium-sized red sun, and a large bright yellow sun. A big deal is made out of the Great Conjunction of the Triple Sun, during which huge world-changing events are known to occur. The prequel series ''Series/TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance'' adds three moons. |
| 187 | * ''Film/TheDarkTower2017'': Jake Chambers travels through a portal from a derelict house in New York and finds himself in a stony desert, giving a pleased "Wow!" on seeing twin planets setting over the horizon. Never mind that he's in the middle of the desert without food or water and no idea of how to get back; he's just happy his visions were real and he's not crazy. |
| 188 | * In ''Film/DunePartTwo'', Giedi Prime (the polluted Harkonnen planet) in daylight is shown to have a milky white sky with a black sun. The light from said sun washes out the color of anything it lands on, so that [[DeliberatelyMonochrome everything appears gray or pure white]]. |
| 189 | * ''Film/FlashGordon1980'' features an immense sky full of vivid, multi-colored clouds visibly surging and roiling, with continent-sized "moons" seen to float in it. The "sky" may in fact be more akin to a nebula than anything. Its relationship to the "Sea of Fire" the heroes fly through to reach Mongo is unclear. Another possibility is that Mongo may orbit a companion star that spins around a red giant that has become a planetary nebula. It looks similar to the Helix Planetary Nebula when Zarkov's ship approaches it prior to reaching the Sea of Fire (which would be the red giant's corona). Another option is that Mongo may be Jupiter; a lot of surface area and many moons. The view of the Solar System at the time when the original strips were written might support this and explain why the sky is a 'sea of air' filled with colorful clouds, even in the comics. |
| 190 | * ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'': Altair IV has a green sky and two moons. |
| 191 | %%* TheReveal in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', when the huge dome opens and Taggart finally realizes where he ''really'' is. In the theatrical showing, there is another level to this. The opening minutes, where the "clip" of Galaxy Quest is played, is in 4:3. When this ends, the aspect ratio pulls back to "standard" 1.85:1. When the doors open the ratio is again increased, this time to 2.35:1. The DVD ignores this. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 192 | * ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' has the forest planet of Berhert with four moons of various size looming in the sky, but the colorful and trippy skies on Ego's planet take the cake when it comes to truly alien environments. |
| 193 | * ''Film/HighlanderIITheQuickening'' is set in a dystopian future, where the sky has this reddish cloudy color. |
| 194 | * ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005'': On Magrathea the sky has two suns and a large ringed planet. |
| 195 | * ''Film/HunterPrey'': A big red planet hangs overhead. |
| 196 | * ''Literature/JoelSuzuki'': Spectraland has two moons, which are closer to the horizon than Earth's moon is. |
| 197 | * ''Film/JohnCarter'': The two moons shown look very little like the actual two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. |
| 198 | * ''Film/{{Knowing}}'': At the end of the film, the children are running through a field toward a purple alien sky and a gas giant in the background. |
| 199 | * ''Film/{{Krull}}'': The world orbits around two suns. There are no double-shadows, we never see the sky enough to find both suns, and there's no plot-significant reason for there being two suns. It's [[RuleOfCool just cool]]. Krull also has two moons. |
| 200 | * ''Film/ANewHope'' has Luke framed against a simple but gorgeous [[BinarySuns twin sunset]] in the first movie. It's the first shot in the film to really drive home the point that this isn't Earth, and succeeds spectacularly, despite being one of the film's simplest effects: it's just a double exposure of a real sunset. It also features the rebel base on an Earth-like moon orbiting a red gas giant. |
| 201 | * ''Film/Nightfall1988'': The planet orbits three suns; yellow, red, and bluish-white stars. People of the city have seen clouds, but had [[EndlessDaytime never lived without sunlight]]. When Boffin invents a "telescope for the blind", it works by making sounds, and she discovers a "dark sun", what we would call a moon. |
| 202 | %%* The wreckage of the destroyed Moon in ''Film/Oblivion2013''. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 203 | * ''Film/PacificRim'': The dimension of origin for the kaiju seems to have a ''black hole'' for a sun. |
| 204 | * ''Film/PitchBlack'': The unnamed planet has three suns, which causes it to be constantly daytime, except once every 22 years, when there is a triple eclipse. The several other celestial bodies in the system (moons and planets, some with rings) that are responsible for the eclipse are also visually impressive. |
| 205 | * ''Film/{{Predators}}'': The protagonists go "we're not on Earth anymore" when at a certain point they see a sky with at least two gas giants. |
| 206 | * ''Film/TheQuietEarth'' ends with Zac on an alien world, or radically changed Earth, immediately obvious because of the weird clouds and ringed planet rising in the sky. |
| 207 | * ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'': We catch a brief glimpse of the Mushroom World's sky [[spoiler:as Robotnik is stranded on it]], which appears to have an enormous eclipsing sun and moon. The planet also appears to receive an abnormally heavy amount of sunshine. |
| 208 | * ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' shows an alien sky on the planet Abydos with three full moons visible at the same time. This turned out to be the basis for the planet's point-of-origin symbol on the Stargate's dialing ring. |
| 209 | * ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002'' has a cracked moon and debris field circling the Earth, the product of the man-made disaster that prompted the Morlock/Eloi Earth in this version. |
| 210 | * ''Film/TheTrumanShow'': The "sky" has an artificial quality, as it's painted/projected against the interior of an enormous dome and the moon is stationary in the same place, day or night. The "moon" is really where the mysterious director of the Truman Show resides and watches over Truman's life, and can in emergencies be used as a giant searchlight. |
| 211 | * ''Film/TotalRecall1990'': On Mars, the asteroid moons of Phobos and Deimos loom in a bright red sky. |
| 212 | * ''Film/VanillaSky'': The sky is the same milky orange with white clouds because [[spoiler:it was David's mother's favorite time of day, so his subconscious made it that color ''all the time'']]. The film also toys with the perspectives of light, as in certain scenes the sunlight illuminates the set from impossible angles. |
| 213 | * ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'': Phobos and Deimos loom in the skies of Mars, looking like twin moons rather than asteroids. |
| 214 | [[/folder]] |
| 215 | |
| 216 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 217 | * ''Literature/{{Abarat}}'': The sky/skies of the Abarat are an odd example: each island has its own set of stars and its own sun and/or moon, and each island is permanently in a different hour of the day. The straightest example would be the sky over the Twenty-Fifth Hour, [[EldritchLocation the Time Out of Time]], where it's always night but the colour of the sky is ''inverted'': the sky shines white, while the stars are points of blackness. It's seeing the unfamiliar stars in the sky that really hits home for Candy Quackenbush that she's in another world. |
| 218 | * ''Literature/AgainstADarkBackground'' by [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]] is set within a lone solar system that is outside a galaxy. This is revealed two-thirds through the book, but hinted at a several points, notably in night-time scenes where starlight is not mentioned but "junklight" (light reflected from satellites & space junk in orbit above) is. |
| 219 | * ''Literature/{{Allastor}}'': One story is set on the planet Marune, which has four suns. The people of Marune have no concept of "day" or "night", but there are set phases of time depending on which suns are in the sky, explained in a chart at the beginning of the book. They prefer to do different things and adopt different moods depending on these phases. During Mirk, when none of the suns are in the sky... well, [[WorldGoneMad you'd better lock the door]]. Since the stories are set in a globular star cluster, stars are visible during the day on every planet. |
| 220 | * ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': |
| 221 | ** In the eighth book [[TokenNonHuman Ax, an Andalite]], looks at Earth's sky with the waning moon and thinks about how his planet has four moons, at least two of which are always visible. |
| 222 | ** In the prequel ''The Andalite Chronicles'', a piece of {{Phlebotinum}} create a small universe based on the memories of the main characters. The sky is a patchwork of bright blue with fluffy clouds (Loren's memories of Earth), deep red (Elfangor's memories of the Andalite homeworld), and sickly green with lots of lightning (Esplin 9466's memories of the Yeerk homeworld, [[ContinuityDrift despite the fact that he should have never been there]]). |
| 223 | * ''Literature/BookOfTheNewSun'' is set so far into Earth's future that the terraformed Moon is covered in green forests, and the sun has dimmed to the point that stars are visible in the daytime. |
| 224 | * ''Literature/TheBooksOfEmber'': In ''The City of Ember'', the sky is the same empty blackness as everything outside the City. This trope is later inverted when the people of Ember are surprised to discover that [[spoiler:the real sky is blue]]. |
| 225 | * ''Literature/{{Bounders}}'': |
| 226 | ** Paleo Planet's sun is much brighter than Earth's, requiring human tourists to wear sunglasses. |
| 227 | ** The [[SingleBiomePlanet tundra planet]] Gulaga is the opposite. Its sun is so distant and faint that noon feels like dusk. |
| 228 | ** The Alkalinian homeworld has [[BinarySuns three suns]], a bright blue sky, and pink clouds like cotton candy. |
| 229 | * ''Literature/AChorusOfDragons'': The world's sun is orange and swollen, and its day sky isn't blue. At night, there are three moons and Tya's Veil, a shimmering aurora visible all year at all latitudes. Notably, only the moons are a natural occurrence -- the sun is like that due to having been aged unnaturally, tinting the sky, and the Veil was placed in the sky by the gods to keep out its radiation. In-universe, very ancient literature and poetry are noted as unusual for making no mention of the Veil and using blue and yellow as primary color motifs for the sky. |
| 230 | * ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber'': Played with; sky color is one of the ways to tell where you are when walking between worlds. |
| 231 | * ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': In ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'', the sky of Charn is very dark even in daytime, and the children see a second, smaller star (implied to be a white dwarf) close to the red giant that is the world's primary star. When they tell [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Jadis]] about their sun she muses that they're from a "younger world". |
| 232 | * ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': The City has no sun, and a "sun" is merely a mythological creature said to have once lived in the sky and given light to humanity. Instead, daylight in the City comes from an unexplained Ambience that slowly rotates over a monthly cycle, lighting the City from various directions each Turn. |
| 233 | * ''Literature/CoDominium'': |
| 234 | ** ''Literature/WarWorld'': The Alien Sky is an important plot point, as the moon Haven has a day/night cycle 87 hours long, so having a heat-radiating Brown Dwarf in the sky can mean the difference between freezing to death and merely losing a few toes. |
| 235 | ** The twin planets of New Washington and Franklin are tidally locked, so that each sits unmoving in the same part of the sky every day when seen from the surface of the other. |
| 236 | * ''Literature/ColdfireTrilogy'': The planet Erna has three moons -- Prima, Domina, and Casca. |
| 237 | * ''Literature/TheCosmere'': |
| 238 | ** ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'': Scadrial has no moon, but its analogue to our Milky Way is bright enough to read by, on a clear night. |
| 239 | ** ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': Roshar has three moons; the largest one, Nomon, is bluish white; middle moon Mishim is green; and Salas is the smallest and purple. |
| 240 | * ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'': One story involves the World of Seven Suns which, as its name suggests, is orbited by seven artificial suns. |
| 241 | * ''Literature/{{Darkover}}'' has four moons and a dark red sun, colloquially known as "the bloody sun". |
| 242 | * ''Literature/DaybreakOnHyperion'': The world has something less of a moon and something that comes across more as a companion planet. Not many details are given, only that it's large and purple. |
| 243 | * ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': Earth has an artificial ring, still maintained by robots. Primitive humans now believe it is where the gods live. Occasionally, the gods speak, but normally the ring is just a handy navigation tool. |
| 244 | * ''Literature/{{Doom}}'': The aliens have "reworked" Earth's sky to their liking, which has the benefit of nullifying the fallout from the nuclear war. |
| 245 | * ''Literature/DownwardToTheEarth'': Belzagor has five moons at various distances. The closest three are usually visible in the night sky, usually either two or all together, but the farther two have distant and eccentric orbits that render them visible only in certain areas for a few times each year. They're all visible at once during a single night of the year, which is of significant spiritual importance to the nildoror. |
| 246 | * ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'''s sky is covered with a reddish-orange overcast as a side effect of using sorcery, making the light dimmer during the day but also less dark at night. When Vlad Taltos ventures outside the Empire, he's taken off guard by the blinding days and pitch-black nights. In ''Literature/{{Issola}}'', he visits an alternate dimension where the sky is very different from normal. |
| 247 | * ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'': The novels are set in Krynn, a planet which initially has three moons. Each one has a color, the larger one is white, the medium one is red and the smaller one is black, and also invisible on regular circumstances. Sometimes the moons align and make a "eye" in the sky. The ''Legends'' trilogy uses this as a plot point. Normally, the constellations in Krynn's sky are many, one for each god. When Caramon steps into the future, the sky is empty of stars, save only for a single constellation -- an hourglass signifying Raistlin, his twin brother. Every other god had been slain. |
| 248 | * ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'': Pern has two moons -- Belior is the larger one, Timor is the smaller one. Since the dragonriders often use the moons' positions as coordinates for going ''between'', it's likely that they can be seen during the daytime. However, the plot-important aspect of the sky is the Red Star, which starts raining Thread onto the planet once it gets closest to the sun. |
| 249 | * ''Literature/DrGretaHelsing'': In the [[spoiler:{{Cosmic Retcon}}ned apocalypse timeline]], the sky is a dead-black void broken only by [[SignsOfTheEndTimes the star Wormwood]], whose light is an EmotionBomb of such unbearable ''wrongness'' that no one is able to step outside. |
| 250 | * ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'': Arrakis has two moons. Similar to the Man In The Moon, people see pictures in both of them, in this case a mouse and a fist. |
| 251 | * ''Literature/EdenGreen'': The alternate dimension features a striped blue sky due to an atmosphere similar to that of Jupiter. |
| 252 | * Creator/GuyGavrielKay's FantasyCounterpartCulture novels (like ''Literature/{{Tigana}}'') take place on a world with two moons, one blue and one white. |
| 253 | * ''Literature/{{Evolution}}'': |
| 254 | ** The soldiers who awake many millennia of years in the future in "The Long Shadow" find a sky with no Mars and constellations that have somewhat changed as their composing stars have moved through the sky and new stars have been born. The latter fact is also mentioned in Remembrance's part, having happened to a much larger degree. |
| 255 | ** Earth's sky in Ultimate's time is dominated by the immense spiral of the Milky Way, due to the sun's orbit having taken it out of the primary disk. It also has an Andromeda Galaxy that appears larger and brighter as it has moved towards the Milky Way and a brighter Moon thanks to a more luminous Sun. |
| 256 | ** The skies end up Venus-like, covered in clouds, when the luminosity of the Sun climbs enough and much later on when the former has swollen into a red giant it's implied it dominates them. |
| 257 | * In ''Literature/TheExpanse'', humans eventually get ability to travel to other star systems and settle on Earth-like planets under unusual-looking skies: |
| 258 | ** Ilus, the setting of ''Cibola Burn'', has green-tinted clouds due to algae-like lifeforms that inhabit them. The night sky also looks very barren because the local moons are very tiny, and characters instinctively try to find familiar constellations on it despite being in a system light years away from Sol. |
| 259 | ** Laconia is orbited by five {{precursor|s}}-built stations that even from the surface are clearly visible as organic, tree-like structures that glow when activated. |
| 260 | ** On Auberon, it looks like dusk even in the middle of the day, which is not helped at all by the planet's rotation period being ''three'' times faster than the standard 24 hours. |
| 261 | * ''Literature/GodspeakerTrilogy'' takes place on a world with two moons, a large and a small one. The Mijaki call these "the godmoon and his wife". Whether the other cultures of the world have their own names for the moons is never mentioned. |
| 262 | * In ''Literature/TheGoldenWitchbreed'', the planet Orthe is close to the galactic core, so stars are visible during the day. |
| 263 | * ''Literature/GreenSkyTrilogy'' has descendants of an Earth colony living on a small rainforest planet with seven moons and a beautiful green sky. |
| 264 | * In "Literature/GrenvillesPlanet", a ShortStory by Creator/MichaelShaara, the planet discovered by Grenville and Wisher has four moons. |
| 265 | * ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': The planet Krikkit from ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' has no visible stars or moons because the entire planet is surrounded by a dust cloud. When a spaceship crashes into the planet, the locals hear it coming and it doesn't even occur to them to look up, because there's nothing ever there. The idea that there is something other than their world is an utterly alien one, and when they repair the ship and escape their atmosphere for the first time, allowing them to gaze upon the universe, they come to an inevitable conclusion: "[[OmnicidalManiac It'll have to go]]." |
| 266 | * In ''Literature/HoshiAndTheRedCityCircuit'', the planet Cassiopeia Prime has a greenish-blue sky during the daytime. At night, two moons are visible, silver Cepheus and red Phoenix. |
| 267 | * ''Literature/HyperionCantos'': It's mentioned that several planets have odd sky colours: Renaissance Vector has bronze skies, Nordholm has green, etc. |
| 268 | * ''Literature/{{Illium}}'': Earth in the 40th century is orbited horizontally and vertically by a pair of huge artificial rings where the [[{{Transhuman}} Posthumans]] live. |
| 269 | * ''Literature/{{Incandescence}}'': Rakesh has spent his whole life in the region between twenty and thirty thousand lightyears from the center of the galaxy, where all known biospheres are found. When he travels into the galactic core, he's struck by how bright and crowded the night sky is. |
| 270 | * ''Literature/InCryptid'': At the end of ''Imaginary Numbers'', [[spoiler:Sarah]] looks out the window and sees a bright orange sky, with a [[BigCreepyCrawlies giant]] [[CreepyCentipedes centipede]] undulating through it. |
| 271 | * ''Literature/{{Interworld}}'': A world briefly visited by Joey and Jay has no sun, the light comes from the sky itself which is a mess of swirling colours. Despite being extremely bright, the temperature is actually fairly cool. Joey also mentions that the sky somehow feels too low, like it's a ceiling directly above them. But then again, that was a fringe world near [[WorldOfChaos the In-Between]], so that sort of thing is to be expected. |
| 272 | * ''Literature/InvitationToTheGame'': Near the end, the small tribe of main characters believes they're still in a virtual-reality world until they realize that they can see the Milky Way from outside it, and there's no moon. |
| 273 | * ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': Mars' twin moons Deimos and Phobos feature prominently in the descriptions of Barsoom's night sky. |
| 274 | * ''Literature/TheLastContinent'': The appearance of the first clouds over Fourecks for thousands of years is very strange for some local Literature/{{Discworld}} wizards, who've never seen such a thing before. |
| 275 | * ''Literature/TheLostRegiment'': The first indication that they are no longer on Earth is the lack of familiar constellations and a strange wheel-shaped galaxy featured prominently in the night sky. |
| 276 | * ''Literature/LovelyAssistant'': The sky of Wonderland ([[spoiler:the world on the other side of the mirror that Jenny and the other [[TheGrimReaper reapers]] can travel to]]) is two kinds of alien skies in one: during the day, it's a weird, sketchy, abstract sepia-toned sky with jerkily moving clouds (most of Wonderland is kind of like that); at night, it's described like some kind of wildly colorful Jackson Pollock painting. The first time Jenny sees a sunset in Wonderland blows her mind. In ''Jackrabbit Messiah'', the place Jack has to go ([[spoiler:[[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind inside the Princess of Chicago's head]]]]) to save the day has another bizarre sky, described not just in terms of appearance but ''[[TastesLikePurple sound]]''. It's also suggested that the sky itself is like a giant eye [[spoiler:of the [[BigBad Princess]]]] [[BeingWatched watching Jack]] as he looks around the place. |
| 277 | * ''Literature/LucifersStar'': The sky of the planet Crius is described as possessing four moons and a ring. It is used to contrast to the more mundane Shogun's single moon and skyline. Interestingly, the four moons of Crius are all heavily industrialized ecumenopolises which look after the needs of the planet below. |
| 278 | * ''Literature/{{Mirabile}}'': The planet Mirabile has no moon; the main light source in the night sky is a nova. This mostly comes up when somebody uses a HoldYourHippogriffs version of an expression that would be moon-related on Earth. |
| 279 | * "Literature/MissileGap", by Creator/CharlesStross: The Earth is mysteriously transported to a giant artificial disk outside of any solar system, which lacks the traditional celestial objects of Earth -- and, indeed, the altered sky is the first thing to tip people off to the fact that something was wrong. By day, instead of a sun, the sky is lit by an incandescent jet projected from the star in its center, which some people have taken to calling the axle of heaven. By night, no moon is present, but the nearby star Lucifer shines brightly enough to provide considerable illumination and the (strangely red-shifted) swirl of the Milky Way features prominently in the heavens. |
| 280 | * ''Literature/TheNekropolisArchives'': Nekropolis is located in a parallel dimension called the Null Plains. There, it is permanently night, and the sky contains no stars. The only source of light is Umbriel, the shadowsun, which remains in a fixed position instead of rising and setting. |
| 281 | * Creator/IsaacAsimov: |
| 282 | ** "Literature/ABoysBestFriend": This story is set on UsefulNotes/TheMoon and the narration takes pleasure in describing the unusual sky; the way Earth is always in the southern sky and the abrupt nature of shade vs Earthshine (because there's no atmosphere to diffuse the light rays). |
| 283 | ** "Literature/FirstLaw": UsefulNotes/{{T|heMoonsOfSaturn}}itan is covered in [[PerpetualStorm almost constant storms]], which obscure Saturn and make the sun no larger than "a pale pimple". |
| 284 | ** "Literature/Nightfall1941": Lagash is a planet with six suns and one moon. Every 2,049 local years, the moon [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot eclipses the sole remaining sun]] on one side of the planet, causing the people of Lagash to go insane and destroy their civilization. It isn't just the darkness, something the Lagashites have normally no experience with, that drives the people insane; it's all the stars in it. Their astronomers had theorized that there might be other star systems, as many as twenty or even a hundred -- a number which another character whistles at, commenting that it would reduce their world to insignificance. Earth's sky would be enough of a shock, but Lagash is close to the center of the galaxy, and the splendor of a star-packed sky -- the sudden revelation of how vast the universe really is, and how indescribably tiny they are by comparison -- is enough to crush even the most "prepared" mind. |
| 285 | ** ''Literature/Nightfall1990'': |
| 286 | *** Six suns with a complicated orbit cause the sky to be a natural EndlessDaytime. |
| 287 | *** InUniverse, the characters observe the night sky and find [[spoiler:the large number of stars]] to be utterly terrifying. |
| 288 | * ''Literature/TheNightLand'' is a simple but terrifying example: There is no sun. |
| 289 | * Creator/LarryNiven |
| 290 | ** ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'': The Ringworld sky is dominated by the Ring, which appears like an immense arch over the heavens, and "night" is produced by the Shadow Squares that create very sharp, alternating bands of light and darkness without any twilight period -- the day-night cycles alternates precisely between high noonday light and deep star-studded darkness. |
| 291 | ** ''Literature/TheIntegralTrees'' is, if anything, more bizarre. The "planet" ''is'' the sky. The Ring is a (mostly) gas torus from a supermassive gas giant in close orbit around a neutron star, which is a binary with a yellow dwarf. |
| 292 | ** ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'': Niven gives us an Earth that has been moved to orbit Jupiter, because [[spoiler:a planet was dropped into the Sun during an interstellar war, making Earth's former orbit uninhabitably hot]]. |
| 293 | ** ''Literature/TheFlyingSorcerers'', which he co-wrote with David Gerrold, is set on a planet with two suns (a big red one and small blue one that orbits it) and no less than ''eleven'' moons ("...three body formation makes capture easy..."), as a plot point. The system also has no other planets and is inside a giant dust cloud, so there are no visible stars, although the formations of the moons are observed in a similar way to how we observe constellations. |
| 294 | * ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'': The territory Denduron has three suns. Eelong has a "sun belt", a thin line of sunlight that crosses the entire sky. |
| 295 | * ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' had for Earth or alternate main mankind worlds: |
| 296 | ** A failed teleport put Earth and Moon in interstellar space, with "atomic suns" in orbit providing light and heat, then was moved into a system with a red star. |
| 297 | ** During Earth's absence, the main human world was Gaea, around a normal star, but inside a dark nebula. |
| 298 | ** The newest "main" human worlds are in the Stardust system, with the 3rd to 6th planet habitable, the main (4th) having 2 moons, the 5th 4 moons, several gas giants further out in the system -- and the system is in a globular cluster so it only really gets dark when it's cloudy. |
| 299 | * ''Literature/TheReincarnatedVampireJustWantsToEnjoyHerNewLife'' has Scarlet, the main character, look up and marvel at three moons, with technicolor hues, red, green, and blue. |
| 300 | * Creator/RobertReed: |
| 301 | ** ''Literature/BeyondTheVeilOfStars'': Earth gets an alien sky. After scientists activate a massive telescope on the Moon, Earth's sky above 150 kilometers suddenly becomes like a slightly transparent mirror albeit one that shows the opposite hemisphere. Media networks a decade later use the slightly [[MundaneUtility reflective sky to bounce laser signals]] to and fro across the atmosphere as a backup for fiber-optic and radio transmissions. In the sequel, Porsche reveals that [[spoiler: the same phenomena happens to any civilization that points enough optical processing power out towards the greater universe, essentially causing a permanent breakdown in reality on that planet, albeit one that is largely harmless.]] |
| 302 | ** ''Literature/TheLeeshore'': The sun never shines on the surface on the planet, as the entire planet is encased in a sphere of {{Living Gasbag}}s, effectively creating a forest a mile above the sea. |
| 303 | * ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'': The sky is moonless, but has brighter stars than Earth, including some still visible in the daytime. |
| 304 | * ''Literature/SecondSons'' takes place on a planet with two suns. The driving event of the story is one sun eclipsing the other for a period of many years, allowing a corrupt cult to take over the world. |
| 305 | * ''Literature/TheSecretsOfDrearcliffGrangeSchool'': One of the school's secrets is that it's built on a ThinDimensionalBarrier. On the other side of the barrier is an EldritchAbomination-haunted otherworld known as "the Purple", where the only source of natural illumination is a trio of moons. The moons are the first thing the protagonist notices the first time she finds herself in the Purple. |
| 306 | * ''Literature/{{Semiosis}}'': Pax has two moons, one with a fast retrograde orbit, and plenty of floating vegetation in its lower atmosphere. |
| 307 | * ''Literature/SholanAlliance'' puts the action on the distant planet of Shola, which has two moons. One of which is missing a large chunk. |
| 308 | * ''Literature/TheSpaceMerchants'': Jack O'Shea gives a first-hand report on the un-Earthlike environment of Venus: |
| 309 | -->"It's something like the inside of a cave, sort of -- only not dark. But the light is -- funny. Nobody ever saw light like that on Earth. Orangy-brownish light, brilliant, ''very'' brilliant, but sort of threatening. Like the way the sky is threatening in the summer around sunset just before a smasher of a thunderstorm. Only there never is any thunderstorm because there isn't a drop of water around." |
| 310 | * Creator/CSLewis' ''Literature/SpaceTrilogy'': |
| 311 | ** Malacandra ([[spoiler:Mars]]) has giant chunks of pink coral for clouds, set in an electric blue sky. [[spoiler:It turns out the "clouds" are the Martian surface and the bulk of the story takes place in deep, narrow canals]]. |
| 312 | ** Due to the thick atmosphere of Perelandra ([[spoiler:Venus]]), the sky is solid gold during the day and pitch black at night. |
| 313 | * The world of ''Literature/TheSpiritThief'' has no stars [[spoiler:because they were all eaten by demons.]] |
| 314 | * Inverted in the Creator/DianeDuane ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Literature/SpocksWorld'', in which Sarek finds Earth's tiny, silvery moon a bizarre spectacle that helps him come to terms with the idea that he's really on another planet. The moon -- [[ExactWords sorry, sister planet]] -- that Sarek is used to seeing in the sky is a volcano-covered beast that takes up a third of the horizon, by the way. Our itty-bitty moon looks somewhat pathetic by comparison in his opinion. |
| 315 | ** In one TOS episode Uhura flirts with Spock, asking him what his planet looks like under a full moon. |
| 316 | --->'''Spock''': Vulcan has no moon.\ |
| 317 | '''Uhura''': I'm not surprised. |
| 318 | * ''Literature/{{Starsnatcher}}'': [[TrappedInAnotherWorld After arriving on Shadowmoon]], one of the first things that shows the protagonist he isn't on Earth anymore is a gas giant replacing the moon in the night sky. It's apparent diameter is eight times that of the moon and its magnetic field causes polar lights to be visible basically everywhere. Moreover, Shadowmoon's thick atmosphere makes it harder to see the stars. |
| 319 | * ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': |
| 320 | ** Used to drive the point home as to just how powerful the Yuuzhan Vong are -- they take one of Coruscant's moons and shatter it, turning it into a planetary ring. This ring and another of the planet's moons were thrown out of orbit when the living (and hyperspace capable) planet Zonama Sekot entered the system in the last NJO book. |
| 321 | ** In other novels sky colors are occasionally mentioned. Not a color as such, but it's said that Coruscant, with all that pollution, has an unbelievably beautiful sunset. |
| 322 | * ''Literature/TheSupernaturalist'': Sunsets (at least in [[MegaCity Satellite City]]) can be any colour, depending on what chemicals are in the atmosphere at the time. |
| 323 | * ''Literature/ThisAlienShore'': Paradise Station, a popular tourist destination, is located in a much denser part of the galaxy than Earth, so the sky is full of stars. |
| 324 | * ''Literature/ThisIsHowFloodsBegin'': The unnamed planet where the plot is set is completely covered, for most of the year, with silver clouds. From the ground of the planet, they look like an endless mirror reflecting the ground in detail. [[spoiler:They also make space and time below them act really weird]]. |
| 325 | * Literature/TolkiensLegendarium: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. The sky over Middle-earth is very familiar, right down to the constellations Menelmacar (the Swordsman of the Sky, known to us as Orion) and Valacirca (the Sickle of the Valar, or our Big Dipper). However, ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'''s creation lore reveals that the Sun is a golden fruit and the Moon is a silver flower, plucked from the light-bearing trees Laurelin and Telperion before they died. |
| 326 | * ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'': Fantasyland usually has a moon much like Earth's, but is occasionally described as having multiple moons, which may also be an unusual color such as pink, red or blue. There may also be a cluster of moons that stays unmoving in a single part of the sky, "revealing that Astronomy is not the Management's strong point". |
| 327 | * ''Literature/TressOfTheEmeraldSea'': Lumar has twelve moons that hover in a low dodecahedral pattern rather than orbit. Each is home to a powerful [[NatureSpirit Aether]], and each rains down an AlienSea's worth of magical spores on Lumar, covering most of the planet. Even the worldhopping TimeAbyss Hoid admits that it's unlike anything else in the Cosmere. |
| 328 | * ''Literature/UnderAlienStars'': The title actually refers to the alien character in the book (which involves Earth becoming a backwater world between two empires who are at war), since the book is set within Earth's gravity well. That is, it is Earth's sky that is alien. |
| 329 | * ''Literature/AVoyageToArcturus'': The planet Tormance has two suns. The natives of Tormance can see the unique radiation emitted from the suns that humans can't, in colours like "jale" and "ulfire". |
| 330 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 331 | ** In Creator/DanAbnett's ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''His Last Command'', when Mkoll and Maggs have gone through a [[CoolGate Chaos warp gate]] -- the stars are all wrong, and there are massive stone blocks floating in the air. |
| 332 | ** In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's ''Literature/{{Ultramarines}}'' novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', not only is the sun black, it never moves. |
| 333 | ** In John French’s ''Literature/ThousandSons'' novels, the Planet of the Sorcerers has nine suns. Given that it happens to be a [[EldritchLocation Daemon]] [[PlanetHeck World]], this is one of its more mundane aspects. |
| 334 | ** [[Literature/SpaceMarineBattles Malodrax]]'s sky is covered in a space reef so thick, you need a map to navigate through it alive. Somehow, however, it manages not to disrupt regular day-night cycle and the reef seems invisible from the surface. The fact that it's a daemon world and thus RealityIsOutForLunch round there may be the reason. |
| 335 | * ''Literature/{{Werenight}}'' by Creator/HarryTurtledove is set in a world with four moons, leading to [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent were]] complications when all four go full at the same time. |
| 336 | * In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the [[SealedEvilInACan prison of the Dark One]] is accessed through a simple tunnel into the mountain Shayol Ghul – but the view from the inside is "a sky that was not the sky of" the normal world, with "wildly striated clouds streaking by as though driven by the greatest winds the world had ever seen." Given the [[FireAndBrimstoneHell other atmospherics]] and the fact that the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Pit of Doom]] is outside the universe, this may just be to freak visitors out. |
| 337 | * ''Literature/WingsOfFire'' takes place on a world where the night sky has three moons. |
| 338 | * Giri in Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/TheWitling'' has two moons, one slightly larger than the other, and both are noted to be "basaltic", much like the Earth's moon and, a character notes, many other moons. Interestingly, the description comes across sounding as if the sky is ''less'' alien than might be expected, since the moons are of a familiar appearance, despite there being two of them. |
| 339 | * Creator/ChrisWooding: |
| 340 | ** ''Literature/TheBraidedPath'': The sky over Saramyr had three moons. When they all form a conjunction, a moon storm occurs, after which ice crystals fall from the sky (referred to as starfall.) |
| 341 | ** ''Literature/TheEmberBlade'': The world here has two moons, two competing sisters for the love of their father the god of the sky and sea. A night where only the darker moon can be seen is considered unlucky but [[spoiler: proves very useful if you're escaping from a heavily guarded prison camp.]] |
| 342 | ** ''Literature/TheFade'': This world is a moon orbiting a planet orbited by two suns. Given the suns are lethal to the inhabitants, most of them live underground. The exception to this are the Sun Children who travel on the surface but do their best to cover up. |
| 343 | [[/folder]] |
| 344 | |
| 345 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 346 | * ''Series/AlteredCarbon'' |
| 347 | ** In Season One, twin moons are used to show the difference between flashbacks set on Kovacs' planet of origin Harlan's World, and the contemporary scenes on Earth. |
| 348 | ** In Season 2 there's a [[RetCon somewhat different]] view of the night sky on Harlan's World, because as well as two moons there's also flashes of Angelfire to light up the sky. |
| 349 | --->'''Kovacs:''' You know another planet with a sky full of [[{{Precursors}} Elder]] [[KillSat Orbitals]]? |
| 350 | * ''Series/{{Angel}}'': Pylea has two suns, not that we see either more than once. Conveniently for any vampires present, neither are of the undead-frying variety. |
| 351 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': Pick an alien planet, it's there. |
| 352 | ** The Time Lord homeworld Gallifrey is perhaps the most well-known example with its fabled "burnt orange sky", although the Doctor never arrives there at random (and it isn't shown on-screen much at all). |
| 353 | ** An early example was the planet Vortis, in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E5TheWebPlanet "The Web Planet"]], which had an atmosphere so thin that the stars (and multiple moons) were visible during the day. |
| 354 | ** A story arc in the eighteenth season upped the ante with a trip to the pocket universe E-Space -- where all the planets had a particular sort of alien sky at night -- space is green in that universe (and since it's later established that inter-universe portals were built to drain off entropy, [[TechnicolorScience entropy is green]]). |
| 355 | ** During the eighties, a particular new postproduction technique resulted in a minor run of planets with colored skies, including Thoros Beta in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E2Mindwarp "Mindwarp"]] (teal) and the unnamed planet in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival "Survival"]] (pink). |
| 356 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E7TheLongGame "The Long Game"]]: In the year 200,000 Earth is allegedly orbited by four artificial moons, although we never see them. |
| 357 | ** The planet Krop Tor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet "The Impossible Planet"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E9TheSatanPit "The Satan Pit"]] had a ''[[UnrealisticBlackHole large black hole in the sky]]'', as well as hurricanes created by whatever said black hole is currently consuming. |
| 358 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]]: Donna is impressed by the view of a large ringed planet in the Oodsphere's sky. |
| 359 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]], the Library has a massive moon taking up most of the sky, which is actually a "doctor moon", a failsafe for the computer core that helped the core when the core forgot [[spoiler:she was carrying the minds of 4000 people]]. |
| 360 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]], Earth is transported [[spoiler:by the Daleks]] to the Medusa Cascade, where the 26 other stolen planets are clearly visible in the sky against the background of a greenish-yellow nebula. |
| 361 | ** Not exactly the sky, but according to the Expanded Universe, in the universe that existed before ours the void of space was pink and planets were toroidal. In the universe that will exist ''after'' this one, space is also pink, and filled with green stars that shoot out bolts of green energy and are connected by clouds of algae. Yeah. |
| 362 | * The skies of Arrakis in the miniseries ''{{Series/Dune}}'' deserve a special mention because of the final shot. The hero and his new wife are depicted silhouetted dramatically against a sky which has two moons -- ''in different phases.'' |
| 363 | ** Well, if two moons are at different points in the sky, then the viewing and lighting angles would be different, and the moons ''would'' be in different phases. For example, if the sun has just set in the "west", one moon is in the western part of the sky, and another moon is in the eastern part of the sky, the first moon would be a crescent while the second would be more gibbous. The problem with the scene at the end of the Dune miniseries is that ''the moons are almost in the exact same position in the sky'' and are still in significantly different phases. |
| 364 | ** The [[Film/Dune1984 David Lynch Dune movie]] had a colour process where the film shot 'on different worlds' was processed to give a different colour palette; Gold for Kaitain, Green for Caladan, etc. |
| 365 | * ''Series/Extraterrestrial2005'': The blue moon's sky is dominated by its parent planet, and the high quantities of aerial plankton color large patches of it green. |
| 366 | * ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' is set in a solar system with lots of gas giants and habitable moons. |
| 367 | ** The "first episode" features in its first scene a celestial object hanging in the sky that you really wouldn't want to see on Earth, because it would mean the moon had suddenly and drastically reduced the distance between itself and Earth and altered its surface features. |
| 368 | ** The solar system apparently has five suns (white, brown, red, black, and blue) that orbit around each other, each with their own planetary system, but despite them being close enough together to be the in the same system, you never see more than one in the sky at once. For once, sci-fi writers did have a sense of scale. The closest two suns are still about 70 AU apart -- that's much farther than Pluto is from the Sun even at its most distant. The Sun already looks like a point from Pluto -- it's still much brighter than any other star in the sky, but even that wouldn't be enough to overcome the brightness of a much closer star (all the inhabited planets in the Verse are much closer to their "parent" star, of course). Only one of the suns is bigger than the Sun (the central one) -- the others are similar to the Sun or much smaller. They're in the same system, but it's a very large system -- it has something like 400 AU across, and isn't even planar. |
| 369 | * ''Series/Foundation2021'': When Salvor Hardin walks out onto the desolate landscape in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbPSA94Rqg first trailer]], there's one enormous moon to the left, and a second moon to the right. |
| 370 | * ''Land Of The Lost'': The Land has three moons (and sometimes two suns): |
| 371 | ** ''Series/LandOfTheLost1974'': Might not be real objects in the sky, since it might be a PocketDimension. |
| 372 | ** ''Series/LandOfTheLost1991'' |
| 373 | * ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The DistantPrologue shown in the pilot happens before the birth of the Sun and the Moon, the sky of Arda being illuminated by the two trees of Valinor: Telperion and Laurelin. |
| 374 | * ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': |
| 375 | ** In "Relativity Theory", Tau Gamma Prime has two moons. |
| 376 | ** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E7TheHumanOperators The Human Operators]]", the man and woman visit a planet with four moons. |
| 377 | ** In "Rule of Law", Daedalus has a purple sky and two moons. |
| 378 | * ''Series/PlanetAjay'': The eponymous planet has three moons. This is shown in exactly one episode, fittingly titled "Three Moons"; in the episode, a legend is brought up that when three full moons pass by the planet, someone will turn into a werewolf. That person winds up being Mr. Killjoy, the fun-hating security guard of Ajay's palace, who turns into a fun-loving werewolf called "Party Animal". |
| 379 | * ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' |
| 380 | ** The series often depict alien planets as [[BBCQuarry generic rocky wastelands]]... but with a color filter over the camera so you know it's definitely not Earth. The Earth's moon ([[ArtisticLicense which has a breathable atmosphere]], by the way, [[MagicAIsMagicA ever since the first season]]), has a distinct blue colour, while the hot planet Kalderon has a red atmosphere, etc. |
| 381 | ** Done on ''Earth'' in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', to show just how much damage Venjix has caused. Outside of the DomedHometown of Corinth, which projects blue skies onto the underside of the dome, the world is covered with a yellow filter to suggest yellow toxic clouds, high radiation levels, and storms of dust. |
| 382 | * ''Series/{{Sliders}}'': "State of the A.R.T." changed the color of the sky to lilac. The RidiculouslyHumanRobot gives it a {{Handwave}} about pollution particles -- not one that makes scientific sense, but at least it was acknowledged. Later episodes bring us green skies (for worlds hidden in hyperspace), and a sky with a moon ''plus two additional Earths'' [[ArtisticLicenseSpace (incorrectly said to be "in syzygy")]]. |
| 383 | * ''Series/Space1999'' takes place on the Moon after it's been blasted out of Earth orbit and the solar system. |
| 384 | * ''Franchise/StargateVerse'': |
| 385 | ** ''Series/StargateSG1'' loves putting many moons and big moons into an alien sky -- probably because nine-tenths of the planets look like [[UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} British Columbia]], so you have to show variation somehow. The trend started in the Stargate film, where Abydos has three moons. This trope was used quite well in any episode where {{Muggle}}s were invited through the gate; they'd say the planet looks just like earth until either they encounter alien technology or a cast member tells them to look up... at the gas giant or pair of moons in the sky. |
| 386 | ** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' did this once to its own characters. Technically, everything's alien on Lantea, but for the 'Lanteans, the Pegasus night sky is familiar -- just part of what makes Atlantis home. When the city [[spoiler:leaves Lantea and settles on a new planet at the beginning of Season 4]], two moons hanging over the city let the expedition (and all of us viewers) know that things have changed... new sky, new world, new battle. It's a surprisingly moving, alien moment for a series that takes place in an entirely different galaxy to begin with. |
| 387 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 388 | ** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': |
| 389 | *** Planet Hell (the "planetary surface" soundstage) always has a different-colored sky. |
| 390 | *** "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]": The first illusion where Pike is placed has a lilac sky dominated by an immense moon and distant ringed planet. |
| 391 | %%*** The "demon-class" planet has both Alien Sky and Alien ''ground''. %%Example needs context so it can make sense on its own. |
| 392 | *** ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Vulcan is seen with a red sky with two very large discs, even though it had previously been said that Vulcan doesn't have any moons. This is usually explained as a twin planet of some kind. |
| 393 | ** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS1E9PrimeFactors Prime Factors]]", a beautiful alien woman takes Harry Kim onto a {{t|eleportation}}ransporter so they can find a MakeOutPoint. When Harry sees the BinarySuns however, he realises they've travelled to another star system and forgets all about the woman in his arms, as Voyager is in desperate need of a means to get back to Earth, being trapped on the other side of the galaxy. |
| 394 | ** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': |
| 395 | *** In the wide shot of North Station on Vashti, there are two suns in the sky. |
| 396 | *** Two red moons orbit around Coppelius. |
| 397 | *** Nepenthe has at least three moons. |
| 398 | *** Aia's sky is orange, and there is a shot of two of its eight suns. |
| 399 | ** ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': |
| 400 | *** In the first episode, a shot of the capital city of the planet Kiley 279 shows no less than five moons hanging in the sky. One of them is huge, another is very large, and the other three, all of which are much smaller but still spherical, are shown orbiting in close proximity to the larger moons. Two of the smaller moons are actually located between the planet and those larger moons. |
| 401 | * ''Series/TinMan'': When DG first wakes up in the O.Z., she finds herself in a huge forest with two suns in the sky, just to make it clear that (all together now) she's not in Kansas anymore. |
| 402 | * ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds2019'': In the Season 2 opener, Emily sees a vision of three people on another planet under an eerie-looking golden sun which is looming over them. |
| 403 | [[/folder]] |
| 404 | |
| 405 | [[folder:Magazine]] |
| 406 | * ''{{Magazine/Analog}}'': |
| 407 | ** The [[Recap/Analog1939 April 1939]] cover has a mountainous foreground with {{UsefulNotes/Saturn}} in the sky, suggesting a moon or asteroid. |
| 408 | ** The cover of the [[Recap/Analog1940 March 1940]] issue features [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot an eclipse of the sun]] by {{UsefulNotes/Uranus}}, as seen from a rocky surface with no atmosphere. |
| 409 | ** The cover of the [[Recap/Analog1942 October 1942]] issue shows an Earth in the sky, and a white sun with lots of flames, making the barren landscape appear to be on the moon, showcasing the setting for "Literature/LunarLanding". |
| 410 | [[/folder]] |
| 411 | |
| 412 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 413 | * "Music/AlternateRealities": Princess Pinkie Pie filled her Equestria's sky with glitter because she thought it looked cool. |
| 414 | * "Music/ClamaviDeProfundis": Irna's sky has nine moons. |
| 415 | * In the music video for The Sword's "Fire Lance of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians", the moon is cracked during a global nuclear war. This corresponds to the lyrics, "Within a shattered planet, beneath a broken moon." |
| 416 | * In the video for David Bowie's ''Ashes to Ashes'', the sky is black. |
| 417 | * Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers referenced the ''Film/DamnationAlley'' sky effects in the Post-Apocalypse themed video for "You Got Lucky". |
| 418 | * Luca Turilli's Rhapsody, spinoff band of Music/RhapsodyOfFire, sings of "frozen alien skies" in the song "Ascending to Infinity". |
| 419 | * The music video for "Buzina" By Music/PablloVittar is set on an alien planet with a pink sky. |
| 420 | [[/folder]] |
| 421 | |
| 422 | [[folder:Mythology and Religion]] |
| 423 | * According to Myth/FilipinoMythology, at the beginning of creation, there were seven moons in the sky. The reason why only one is left is that the ''bakunawa'', [[OurDragonsAreDifferent a massive sea serpent]], devoured the other six one by one until Bathala (the androgynous omnipotent creator of everything) punished him severely. |
| 424 | * Similarly, in Myth/ChineseMythology, there were ''ten'' suns, which manifested as three-legged crows. They took turns being the sole sun day after day, until they got fed up and rose all at once. This prompted the archer Houyi to shoot and kill nine of them, leaving a single sun left. |
| 425 | [[/folder]] |
| 426 | |
| 427 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 428 | * The world in ''Podcast/TheAdventureZoneBalance'' has two moons, [[spoiler: but the second is soon revealed to be the Bureau of Balance headquarters in disguise.]] However, [[spoiler: the world that the protagonists originally came from]] had a purple sky with two suns. |
| 429 | * ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'': The skies above Night Vale are frequently host to strange lights, such as those above the Arby's, as well as other strange phenomena. |
| 430 | -->"Let's go to the seven-day outlook. Your daily shades of the sky forecast. Monday: turquoise. Tuesday: taupe. Wednesday: robin's egg. Thursday: turquoise-taupe. Friday: coal dust. Saturday: coal dust with chances of indigo in the late afternoon. Sunday: void." |
| 431 | [[/folder]] |
| 432 | |
| 433 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 434 | * ''TabletopGame/BluePlanet'': Poseidon has two moons, Proteus and Nereus; Proteus is larger than Mars and green with simple plant life. Neither moon is tidelocked, so given enough time their entire surfaces are visible from Poseidon. |
| 435 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'': The LostWorld of Zorandar, the setting for the ''Lands of Mystery'' supplement for ''Justice, Inc.'', has three suns. |
| 436 | * ''TabletopGame/CityOfSevenSeraphs'': Within the Seraph's Ring, the sky is nearly always lost to the shifting lights of the Radia far above. |
| 437 | * ''TabletopGame/DeltaGreen'': The otherworldly city of Carcosa has a white sky, twin suns, and black stars. |
| 438 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': |
| 439 | ** Many settings have multiple moons. |
| 440 | *** ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'': Athas has two moons, Ral and Guthay. Ral is the largest and is green, while Guthany is smaller and gold. The sun also looked weird in ages past: during the Blue Age, it was a deep blue like an ocean, during the Green Age it was yellow, and in the present it is scalding and red. The changes to the sun were due to overuse of magic. (Real stars also change colour, but on longer timescales and accompanied by changes in size.) |
| 441 | *** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'': Krynn has three [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience morally-aligned]] moons -- Solitari (good, white), Lunitari (neutral, red), and Nuitari (evil, black) -- but only so long as the gods are around. There's also a constellation for each of the gods, which vanishes from the sky when its god is wandering about on Krynn. |
| 442 | *** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has a whopping ''twelve'' moons, and it is said that there was once a thirteenth. To top it off, it also has a ring composed of [[MineralMacGuffin dragonshards]]. |
| 443 | *** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': Toril, while only having one moon (Selûne), has a string of asteroids called Selûne's Tears trailing behind it, clearly visible in the night sky. Plus, the moon's also worshipped as a goddess. Or seen as a personification of goddess. It's complicated. In ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' it's inhabited, but they think Toril wants to conquer them so entire visible lifeless surface is an impenetrable illusory disguise woven by a goddess. A late 3.5 sourcebook suggested the Tears may be a result of a powerful destructive spell missing its intended target (a certain comet) and hitting Selûne instead (which may explain why the Selûnites regard Toril as they do...). |
| 444 | *** ''TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}}'' has two moons. |
| 445 | *** ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'' has two moons, one of which is invisible and the other of which is home to the gods. |
| 446 | *** ''TabletopGame/ScarredLands'': Scarn has two moons. One is the home of the evil god Belsameth, and considered a bad omen. |
| 447 | ** ''Wilderlands of High Fantasy'' features a ring of asteroids in the sky, which change colour every few hundred years. |
| 448 | ** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'': Different Clusters within the setting may have different constellations, and specific domains' skies may differ in other ways. Bluetspur's sun never rises, but traces a path just beneath the domain's mountainous horizon; the Nocturnal Sea's skies are always overcast. Sithicus, being based on Krynn but as dominated by evil as the rest of the Land of Mists, has only the evil-oriented black moon Nuitari. Note that all Ravenloft "skies", if penetrated deeply enough via flight, give way to the Mists eventually. In effect, they're just Mist that ''looks'' like a sky from underneath. |
| 449 | ** ''TabletopGame/KingdomsOfKalamar'' has its own constellations, each symbolic of a different deity. Some of these constellations behave in a manner impossible for conventional astronomy, such as a goblet-shaped one appearing to tip up and pour, or a dagger seeming to "stab" at another constellation. |
| 450 | ** ''TabletopGame/DragonMech'': The moon has been pulled closer to the world, such that giant rocks (and occasional creatures) are raining down from it, and thus takes up about a third of the sky in most of the art. |
| 451 | ** In ''Elder Evils'', one of the generic SignsOfTheEndTimes described has the night sky grow more and more alien as the Evil's influence grows. At first, the stars appear in different locations and glow in strange and unsettling colors, while constellations warp, shift and move around the heavens. As the sign strengthens, arcane energies burn across the sky in strange auroras, alongside constant meteor showers. |
| 452 | ** Many of the Outer Planes -- esoteric dimensions, including {{Heaven}} and {{Hell}}, representing various alignments and their associate philosophies and home to gods, fiends, angels and the spirits of the dead -- have very weird skies indeed, which might include floating mountains (Ysgard) multiple huge moonlike spheres which are actually other layers of the same plane (Carceri), the other layer of the plane, inverted in respect to the one you're on and facing "down" on you (Bytopia), an endless field of geometric solids floating in space (Acheron), etc. |
| 453 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Epyllion}}'': Dragonia has five moons. |
| 454 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': |
| 455 | ** Yu-Shan, the celestial city and home of the gods, has the sky change depending on which god is currently winning the Games of Divinity. |
| 456 | ** There's also Malfeas, home to TheLegionsOfHell, whose fake sky is lit by a green sun, which is stated to have shared the sky with the Unconquered Sun before the Primordials were overthrown [[GeniusLoci and is itself an exceptionally powerful demon]]. [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu You can punch it.]] |
| 457 | ** Creation's physical sun and moon are gigantic artificial structures piloted across the sky, both of them entirely viable adventure settings in their own right. |
| 458 | * ''TabletopGame/FlyingCircus'': Himmilgard, the game's setting, is orbited by three moons, which the world's mythological traditions consider as Goddesses. |
| 459 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Godforsaken}}'': In the Godforsaken Lands, the sun and the night sky are both different from those of Bontherre and each other: |
| 460 | ** In Flevame, the sun is slightly smaller, its light is paler, and the night sky bears no moon. It is possible to stand on the River of Souls and see two suns, one on each side, or to see Bontherre's moon from the banks of the Flevame side of the river. |
| 461 | ** In the Firmament, two suns shine in the sky: one is similar to Bontherre's, while the other is very small and red but grows larger for one year every century or so. All of the Firmament's six moons are smaller than Bontherre's, and they are never all visible at the same time. |
| 462 | ** The pale white sun of Korak-Mar gives off far less light than the sun of Bontherre, and does not move across the sky. Its numerous tiny "moons" are actually pieces of stellar debris that orbit around the sun, but frequently pass close to the planet (which has no natural satellite). To people from Bontherre, they might seem like moving stars, unless they pass in front of the sun, at which point it's clear that they do not emit light. |
| 463 | * ''TabletopGame/GURPSSteampunkSettingTheBrokenClockworkWorld'': The most obvious sign for [[PortalFantasy characters arriving in the "Broken World"]] that this is a strange and alien realm is that the sky is full of phantom cogwheels and gears. |
| 464 | * ''TabletopGame/IronKingdoms'': The setting has three moons, on very different orbital planes. It's mentioned that the interplay between the moons causes violent and unpredictable tidal effects and maritime weather. |
| 465 | * ''TabletopGame/{{KULT}}'': [[spoiler:{{Hell}}]] has a black, dead sun. Just ''looking at it'' means it's time for a [[SanityMeter Sanity Check]]. |
| 466 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': |
| 467 | ** In the Worldwound, an area where [[WhenDimensionsCollide the Abyss has leaked into the material world]], the sky is as twisted and corrupted as the land. The sky itself, when the near-constant cover of sullen, roiling clouds breaks up, tends to be a variety of unpleasant colors -- gray, green, purple, yellow, red. Oily, foul-smelling and often toxic snow and rain fall from the skies alongside showers of blood, insects, burning ash or worse, and in the most corrupted places even the celestial bodies aren't right -- the sun rises and sets irregularly and in the wrong directions, and the moon and stars often appear too few or too many, or even to be ones which should shine on different worlds altogether. |
| 468 | ** Abaddon, a NeutralEvil[[invoked]] afterlife adjacent to {{Hell}}, is shrouded with black mist and rotten-smelling air beneath an unending solar eclipse. |
| 469 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Planebreaker}}'': |
| 470 | ** On the sky of Unithon, the sun equivalent is the Light Cube (which has three shining golden sides and three dull leaden sides), and the local moons are the Red and Green Pyramids. They travel in a circular path above the world cube, slowly spinning as they move. |
| 471 | ** At any particular time, Threem is lit by a sun directly overhead that takes the form of one of six possible masks, each resembling something a humanoid culture would craft for religious or ceremonial purposes. When a mask-sun sets, the sky turns dark and is lit up by hundreds of small mask-stars that resemble the setting mask-sun for a few minutes before a new mask-sun rises. Each mask-sun has a different effect on the plane, applying only when it is not rising or setting. |
| 472 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': The daytime skies on the planet Wormwood are yellow with hints of blue, and the night is dominated by two orange moons. |
| 473 | * ''TabletopGame/RuneQuest'': Glorantha's Blue Moon is tiny and rarely visible save as a streak of light. Then there's the Red Moon, which is huge, half red and half black, hangs fixed in the sky over the Lunar Empire, and represents the Moon Goddess (or rather, it actually ''is'' the Moon Goddess. This is Gloranthan theology we're talking about). |
| 474 | * ''TabletopGame/ShadowOfTheDemonLord'': Urth is orbited by Tarterus, the Prison Moon, which is apparently significant larger than our moon and has a perpetually storm-wracked atmosphere lit by flashes of red lightning, dense enough to completely obscure its surface. |
| 475 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' features a world with two moons, Mannslieb and Morrslieb. The first is a normal-looking silver orb, while the other us a sickly, evil green and its maria tend to resemble a grinning skull far more than people would like them to. The green moon is actually made entirely out of the powerful, but incredibly dangerous, [[GreenRocks magical substance]] known as Warpstone. |
| 476 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 477 | ** Every planet has, or is implied to have, a screwed-up sky to some extent. Considering the million-something habitable worlds that make up the galaxy, that's quite a lot, and it's justified as well. A Warp Storm over a world is liable to induce the most horrifying variety of this, too. This also includes Earth/Holy Terra, if you're curious. The [[CityPlanet planet-covering urban sprawl]] sees a sky of smog, pollution and storms, but on a relatively clear night you can see the moon... because it's covered with just as much infrastructure and glows brightly. If you're actually down on the surface (and not dying from millenia of refuse, toxins, radioactive waste/fallout and Warp filth) then you'll have a lovely view of the underside of the foundations of said planet-city. |
| 478 | ** Anything close enough to see the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Eye of Terror]] has an alien sky due to that fact that the Eye is pure Chaos leaking into realspace, but it gets worse the closer you get. "Close enough" in this case being several hundred lightyears at least, which includes Earth. Oh and it only opened [[DependingOnTheWriter about 11,000 years ago]] from the present day of the setting so the light from it shouldnt have reached reached earth yet. That's one of the least weird things about it. |
| 479 | * ''TabletopGame/WickedFantasy'': Estevere has six moons in the sky of various colors (red, silver, blue, green, yellow, violet), and some Dach'youn believe that the apparently moonless nights are actually governed by a seventh, black moon. |
| 480 | * ''TabletopGame/WorldTreeRPG'': The sky above the World Tree is very weird indeed. The sun is a flaming crystal sphere rolling in a great circle around the sky, there are two moons -- one of which is metallic and has a large hole through its middle, while the other careens through the heavens and sometimes runs into other objects -- the seven creator gods are always visible sitting in a circle and looking down at the world, the stars are numerous, oddly colored and not always limited to being twinkling points, and there are various lesser objects sparring with each other or running around the sky. All of this, save the stars, is visible by day. As you move down the World Tree, its trunk and upper branches also begin to occlude parts of the sky. Most people are used to this, and mostly just ignore it. |
| 481 | * ''TabletopGame/TheYellowKing'': Carcosa has twin suns, which set in tandem. Mentions of its perpetual gloom suggest that the day sky is gray and overcast. |
| 482 | [[/folder]] |
| 483 | |
| 484 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 485 | * It's shown briefly in ''Ride/ETAdventure'' at Ride/UniversalStudios that the sky colors of the green planet is always a mixture of red, orange, and pink. |
| 486 | [[/folder]] |
| 487 | |
| 488 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 489 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series has planet [[CrapsackWorld Pandora]], whose moon isn't exactly round, and there is no sun in the sky, all sunlight is reflected off the planet's moon. |
| 490 | * ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'': The skies are a tribute to and inspired by Creator/FrankFrazetta. They shift all kinds of brilliant colors, and are never a clear blue. At night, brilliant stars and nebulae in the shape of skulls light up the night. |
| 491 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has two moons, one large and familiar-looking and the other small and red. Its predecessor ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', set in the same world, only had one. [[spoiler:Turns out the second moon showed up after Dinopolis was pulled from an alternate timeline to the one the games are set in]]. |
| 492 | * In ''VideoGame/TheDarksideDetective'', when [=McQueen=] travels through a portal to the DarkWorld, the sky is full of sinister purple energies and {{Giant Flyer}}s. |
| 493 | * In ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'', the sky turns weird every time there are enemies around. |
| 494 | * ''VideoGame/DeadSpace1'': After you arrive on Aegis 7, you have a not so unusual red sky, but you also see ''Ishimura'' parked above the planet, along with an already dug-out chunk of surface. It's ''huge''. |
| 495 | * ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' features several variations on a red sky for FireAndBrimstoneHell, made more noticeable when Doomguy gets into Hell in the third episode. One sky, namely Hell's sky in ''VideoGame/DoomII'', is even ''made out of screaming, grimacing faces''. It gets better: One sky from ''The Plutonia Experiment'' in ''VideoGame/FinalDoom'' is made out of what looks like layered pieces of flesh. |
| 496 | * The skies of hell in ''VideoGame/DreadTemplar'' is a dirty, dark green shade filled with swirling clouds. |
| 497 | * ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'': |
| 498 | ** After the final seal is broken, the world's sky turns from a happy blue to a blood-red. This also accompanies fireballs that rain from heaven and explode with the force of a nuclear blast, turning your recent major military victory into a devastating loss. |
| 499 | ** In the bonus level of ''Drakengard'', Caim and his dragon emerge in [[spoiler:modern-day Tokyo]]. To emphasise that it's an alien dimension to ''them'', everything is disturbingly in black and white. |
| 500 | ** In ''Drakengard 2'' after the final seal is broken, the world's sky changes once again, only this time it literally shatters like glass to reveal the blood-red sky. It's mentioned that this is actually the natural state of the world, and the blue sky is an illusion. |
| 501 | * The final stage of ''VideoGame/DustyRagingFist'', right after [[spoiler:Elijah reveals himself to be the Ancient Darkness]]. The transformation turns the sky crimson red, and spawns a second moon, but after it's over everything returns to normal. |
| 502 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Eastshade}}'', a huge moon hangs in a stationary position above the horizon. Every day at noon, the sun passes behind it, causing a short-lived false "nightfall" as the moon eclipses much of its light and warmth. |
| 503 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 504 | ** In general, every celestial body visible from Nirn is implied to be something ''extremely'' alien, and its appearance is implied to be [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm your mortal mind making it into something you can grasp]]. Specifically: |
| 505 | *** The sun and stars are not mundane balls of flaming plasma and gas, but are instead holes punctured in the fabric of reality by Magnus (the et'Ada of light and magic who served as the "architect" for Mundus) and the Magna-Ge (his lesser et'Ada followers) as they fled Mundus during its creation. The holes lead to Aetherius, the realm of magic, and through them, magic flows into Mundus (which is visible in the night sky as nebulae). The Yokudan/Redguard tradition offers another theory, stating that the stars were placed in the sky by Ruptga, the "Tall Papa" and [[TopGod chief deity]] of the Yokudan pantheon, to guide weaker spirits to the [[WarriorHeaven Far Shores]] where they would be safe from Satakal's ViciousCycle of eating the world. |
| 506 | *** Nirn has thirteen recognized constellations (known as "birthsigns") forming a FictionalZodiac. The signs and their months are: Morning Star -- the Ritual, Sun's Dawn -- the Lover, First Seed -- the Lord, Rain's Hand -- the Mage, Second Seed -- the Shadow, Midyear -- the Steed, Sun's Height -- the Apprentice, Last Seed -- the Warrior, Heartfire -- the Lady, Frostfall -- the Tower, Sun's Dusk -- the Atronach, Evening Star -- the Thief, and 13th Sign -- the Serpent, which is easily the most alien of the bunch. It is said to be formed of "unstars" and travels in a somewhat predictable motion around the sky, having no month of its own but taking over one each year. |
| 507 | *** Nirn's two moons, Masser and Secunda, go through technically impossible phases and when they aren't full, you can see stars behind the dark parts ("hollow crescents"). They are said to be the "decaying remains" (or "flesh-divinity") of the [[GodIsDead dead creator god]], Lorkhan, remaining from when his body was sundered and his heart ("divine spark") was cast down onto Nirn. (An alternate theory, notably espoused by Mankar Camoran, is that Mundus is the Daedric plane of [[IHaveManyNames Lorkhan/Shor/Sep/Sheor/Shezarr/Lorkahj]], and the moons Masser and Secunda are the rotting corpses of the gods they were named after, and are minor planes in themselves.) |
| 508 | *** The eight planets visible in the night sky are said to be the realms of the Aedra, or Eight Divines, who made large sacrifices to aid Lorkhan in the creation of Mundus. (Another theory states that they are the remains of the Aedra, similar to Lorkhan and the moons, who actually died during creation but now "dream they are alive".) |
| 509 | ** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'': The sky would occasionally turn green for a few hours, with no reason given. Perhaps it was a bug; perhaps it was intentional and meant to drive home the point that Nirn isn't Earth. |
| 510 | ** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'': The sun is extremely large, larger than it would appear in any other games in the series. Additionally, concept art and early betas had the daytime sky as a pleasant shade of orange. This was scrapped in favor of a normal blue one in the released game. |
| 511 | ** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'': |
| 512 | *** When traveling through the Oblivion Gates, one is really traveling to the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Deadlands]], the Daedric Plane of [[BigBad Mehrunes Dagon]], the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Prince]] of [[OmnicidalManiac Destruction]]. Fittingly, the sky features constant swirling red storm clouds, similar to {{Mordor}}. |
| 513 | *** In the ''Shivering Isles'' expansion, the titular Shivering Isles are the Daedric Place of Sheogorath, the [[MadGod Daedric Prince of Madness]]. They feature huge, multicolored stars and nebulae streaked across a deep purple night. The first time you enter the Isles and look up, it's hypnotizing. And it changes (becoming no less alien and beautiful) depending on where you are. Including a large, distorted line going the length of the sky, which follows the single prominent border in shivering isles, for its entire length. |
| 514 | ** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'': |
| 515 | *** The northern reaches of Skyrim feature spectacular auroras. Whilst they fit with the northern, snowy province, they are far more extravagant than those featured on Earth and come in some pretty otherworldly colors. One of the Dragon Shouts you can learn even clears away all the clouds/mist/rain, and induces an aurora to [[TheWorldIsJustAwesome show off how pretty the sky is]]. |
| 516 | *** Sovngarde[[note]]essentially a Valhalla analogue[[/note]] is a plane within Aetherius and features glorious multi-colored nebulae. |
| 517 | *** The ''Dawnguard'' DLC adds the Soul Cairn, a realm of Oblivion where the sky has a swirling vortex around a black hole. |
| 518 | *** Finishing ''Dawnguard'' as a vampire allows you to temporarily make Nirn's sky even more alien. Using [[spoiler:Auriel's Bow and Bloodcursed Arrows]], you can blot out the sun and turn the sky into a reddish-black hole. |
| 519 | *** In the ''Dragonborn'' DLC, you can visit Hermaeus Mora's (the Daedric Prince of [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Knowledge]]) realm of Apocrypha's. The sky is permanently blocked out by Mora's [[EldritchAbomination mass of floating eyes and tentacles]]. |
| 520 | * ''VideoGame/EndlessSky'': Every planet that can be landed on has an accompanying landscape image, with some of the images having features ranging from a different-colored sky to a binary planet being visible from its twin, and visa versa. |
| 521 | * ''VideoGame/FableI'': The moon takes up a fifth of the sky, even during daytime. |
| 522 | * ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': One of the things you have to watch out for while roaming the Commonwealth are the occasional Radiation Storms that blow in from the Glowing Sea[[note]]the irradiated hellhole created by the one nuke that hit the Boston area[[/note]]. These storms will dye the sky in an ominous yellow haze, severely reduce your visibility, and radioactive lightning strikes will start poppin all over the place. Thankfully the radiation levels aren't high enough to be dangerous, but it's still not particularly healthy to be wandering around without protection; best course of action is to duck indoors until the storm passes. The Glowing Sea, meanwhile, is perpetually bathed in these storms. |
| 523 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'': |
| 524 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'': The sky holds two moons, one of which you get to visit in person. The game confirms that [[spoiler:the world of ''Final Fantasy IV'' is (sort of) Earth, and that the Lunarians on the second moon (which wasn't always there) came from a planet that was between Mars and Jupiter before it was destroyed, causing the Lunarians to move to a second moon orbiting Earth. The moon that the heroes don't get to visit is the one that exists in real life. The Lunarians move their moon away in the epilogue of the game.]] |
| 525 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' has a fairly normal blue sky with one moon... except that the moon is enormous, taking up at least a quarter of the sky in most of the backdrop images. It is also, as the characters learn during the third disc, covered with monsters, and the "Lunar Cry" which carries those monsters to the planet below causes the planet-facing side of the moon to temporarily sport a huge blood-red spot with a milky white center that makes it look like a giant alien eye. |
| 526 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX '': The planet Gaia has two moons, one blue and the other red. |
| 527 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': The world of the First has a sky that is a perpetual glowing shade of golden yellow. This is a result of the balance between Light and Darkness being so badly disrupted that a Flood of Light started destroying the world, in addition to causing EndlessDaytime. [[spoiler:As the story progresses, the light blanketing the world is dispelled, revealing a normal sky with regular nighttime.]] |
| 528 | * ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'': A scouting expedition is send through an ancient subspace portal. The other side of the portal lies deep inside a massive stellar nebula that limits sensor range to a few kilometers and visual range to only a few hundred meters, while usually being of a pale blue or green color. One infamous, but optional mission takes place in the center of a massive electromagnetic storm that completely shuts down sensors and missile targeting, while turning the vapors to an almost black dark red, with massive lighning discharges all around you. |
| 529 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fishgun}}'' is a game set in an unknown, borderline eldritch environment, with the skies being rainbow-coloured in every single stage and swirling energy circles in place of clouds. |
| 530 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fusionfall}}'': If you look up, you can see the evil titular planet (Planet Fusion) with half-swallowed planets from ''our'' Solar System in it. |
| 531 | * ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'' has a moon similar to ours, and a smaller red one -- Valmar's Moon. [[spoiler:You get to land on it.]] |
| 532 | * ''VideoGame/{{Grow}} Cinderella'': In the secret ending, the sky turns [[spoiler:orange after the purple Onky steals the fairy godmother's magic staff, which is fitting since the secret ending is Halloween-themed.]] |
| 533 | * Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' is an archipelago of rocky islands suspended in some sort of nebula extending all the way below the horizon with no ground below you, just more startlingly alien sky... it's a pretty cool moment. |
| 534 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': |
| 535 | ** The eponymous ringworlds have skies which look like a normal Earth sky....except that you can see the horizon curling up and narrowing in the distance, stretching up above you, and coming back down around to the other side. |
| 536 | ** ''VideoGame/Halo2'': The sky of the gas giant Threshold is filled with angry swirling clouds. |
| 537 | ** ''VideoGame/Halo3'': When you reach [[spoiler:the Ark]], the sky is blue but stars are visible. The Milky Way itself dominates the skyline. |
| 538 | ** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'': The sky on Reach features two moons. However, since Reach is a human colony it is an atypically friendly alien sky. |
| 539 | ** In ''VideoGame/Halo4'', the [[DysonSphere Shield World]] of Requiem has this. Mostly because there's a ceiling. |
| 540 | ** In ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', Sanghelios has two moons and a sky that's usually reddish (it also has ''three'' suns, but you don't see them in the game itself). |
| 541 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' game has coloured space(s); in imitation of the art of Chris Foss, often seen on paperback covers of the seventies and eighties. Ship design and colours, too. |
| 542 | * ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'': the unnamed planet has three celestial bodies: a sun, a moon, and a green, glowing planet that is out independent of day and night. |
| 543 | * ''VideoGame/JamestownLegendOfTheLostColony'' opens with a view of distant Earth and Moon which pans down to reveal Phobos and Deimos -- presented as nicely rounded planetoids -- hanging over the scene of Sir Walter Raleigh looking at a human settlement built on an island hovering above Martian landscape. |
| 544 | * ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'': Kerbin's sun Kerbol is a red dwarf, but the sky looks pretty Earthlike until you look closely -- or zoom out to map mode -- and see the extra moon. Duna, meanwhile, is based heavily on the real-world planet of Mars, and has a roughly similar atmosphere. The strangest one of all, of course, is the planet Eve, which is, well, purple everywhere. |
| 545 | * ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'': The game's world has twin moons, Ronald and Grimace. The light of a full Ronald influences magic recovery, while full Grimace-light speeds healing. After a comet slammed into Grimace during a world event (which sent a chunk of Grimacite hurtling down to Loathing, where it crushed the Observatory), the resulting debris clustered together and formed the sub-moon Hambuglar, which orbits the two of them but has no real impact on anything. |
| 546 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'': The world has two moons. This also plays a large role in the second game where its revealed that [[spoiler:when they eclipse each other, it allows evil spirits to roam the world from the Well of Souls and during this time, [[UnseenEvil Malefor]] can be set free]]. |
| 547 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 548 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': The Sacred Realm is said to have a gold-colored sky. It is blood-red by the events of the game. |
| 549 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'': An intimidating moon growing ever-larger in the sky serves as both a timepiece and to remind players that (despite widespread recycling of character models) they're in the parallel world of Termina, not in Hyrule. Additionally, as the moon nears collision, the sky turns a sickly green during the day and reddish during the night. |
| 550 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': The Twilight version of Hyrule has a yellow-brown sky, and there are black squares floating upwards. In the "real" Twilight Realm, the sky (such as it is) is swirling black, blue and purple. |
| 551 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': The top of the Depths has a sickly green and white miasma that becomes visible once enough Lightroots in the area are lit. While not the true sky, it functions as the "sky" of the Depths, helping to give the feel of it as less of a cavern and more of [[DarkWorld a bizarre parallel world.]] |
| 552 | * ''VideoGame/LostSoulAside'': Trailers show that the game's world has a sky with two moons. |
| 553 | * ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' takes place, appropriately enough, on the moon, so it has a huge Earth (known as the "Blue Star") floating in the sky. |
| 554 | %%* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'': Every time you get to go outside. Especially on the planet Lh'owon, where most of the second and third games take place. %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 555 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect''. One of the few things that was unique about the otherwise cookie-cutter secondary planets were the sometimes awesome exotic skies. This is particularly true with moons. |
| 556 | ** Some explorable areas had skies that contained ''enormous'' planets and moons. One planet visited in the first game is actually locked in orbit with another planet and their gravity fields are slowly tearing each other apart. It's stated that the planet only has a few years to go before it becomes uninhabitable. In the second game it's suggested that mass effect fields were commonly used by visitors to compensate for different gravity levels among worlds. |
| 557 | ** One planet in the first game orbited a dying star, and was rather close. On the planet itself, this star dominated the sky. You could actually watch the surface of this alien sun boiling with its own heat. [[SceneryPorn Awesome.]] |
| 558 | * ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'': |
| 559 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'', Dark Aether naturally has a purple or reddish sky, and in Light Aether, around the Temple Grounds, the sky will occasionally become unstable and shift between normal and a deep purple color. |
| 560 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', the planet Bryyo is {{Tidally Locked|Planet}} to its star, so one half of the planet is stuck in perpetual daylight, and the other is stuck in perpetual night. The area Samus explores is where the two hemispheres meet and the sky there is in a permanent state of sunset. |
| 561 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'': |
| 562 | ** The "mundane" sky of the Overworld is illuminated by a large quadratic sun. At night, there's a moon which is also square-shaped and even waxes and wanes, despite always being opposite to the sun. |
| 563 | ** The End has a dark, starless, cloudless sky that looks like TV static. |
| 564 | ** [[PlanetHeck The Nether]] doesn't have a sky, but [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds the Void]] (normally hidden by a ceiling of bedrock) is red rather than black like outside the Overworld. |
| 565 | ** Several third-party mods are examples of this as well: |
| 566 | *** In ''VideoGame/TheAether'' it's always noon until [[spoiler:you kill the Sun Spirit]], and after that the day is still three times as long as in the Overworld. |
| 567 | *** In the Twilight Forest it's always dusk. |
| 568 | *** You can build all sorts of these with ''Mystcraft'', ranging from static void skies of various colors, to mixing and matching the day's skies with different setting and rising horizon colors, to a world with multiple moons. |
| 569 | *** Mods that let you visit the Moon (including Solar System and Galacticraft) have the Earth featured prominently in the sky. |
| 570 | ** There are also several Texture Packs that do weird things to the sky, mostly making the sun and/or moon large and/or a weird colour, and some that have ''two'' suns. |
| 571 | *** There's one Pack that has ''five'' suns, and one where the "suns" are technicolour vortexes connected by streams of energy. |
| 572 | * ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'': Heavily utilized in the franchise, to distinguish Ages located on different planets. Some cases are more subtle than others: Myst looks like it could be on Earth, but the island features a stellarium with which you can view the constellations, which are wholly unfamiliar. Whereas, Teledahn has a sun that wheels around the sky every couple of minutes without changing its height above the horizon (possible if the observer is at one of the poles and the planet spins ''very'' fast) and Todelmer orbits a gas giant. |
| 573 | * ''VideoGame/MysteryOfMortlakeMansion'': The shadowy mansion's {{Portal Picture}}s all show scenes with a vivid blue-green sky as a backdrop. |
| 574 | * ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'': There is constant sunlight, but you actually never see the sun itself in the sky. |
| 575 | * ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'': Of the game's main selling points are countless [[ProceduralGeneration procedurally generated]] planets with atmospheres and clouds in amazing Technicolor, which are additionally prettied up by such features as planetary rings (which are not {{asteroid thicket}}s, by the way) and other planets being unrealistically close to each other. Depending on how small the planet or the moon is, you can even clearly see a curvature of the cumulosphere. |
| 576 | * ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': The first planet that you arrive on, Terra 2, is surrounded by a ring and orbited by three moons. Another planet, Monarch, is itself a moon, so the sky is dominated by the much larger planet it orbits. |
| 577 | * ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': In the opening animation, Hocotate's daytime sky is filled with faintly visible stars and dominated by the planet's rings and its huge moon. |
| 578 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'': During events focused on the doings of the mythical Pokémon Hoopa, the sky is locked to a starfield. If the player zooms in to their character, its rings can be seen in the sky. |
| 579 | * ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'': The sky was filled with ominous purple clouds; in ''VideoGame/QuakeII'' the sky of the alien planet Stroggos was reddish-orange and sometimes had orbiting asteroids visible. |
| 580 | * ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'': The series, taking place on multiple worlds, naturally gives a good number of odd skies to look at when you're not blowing everything to Kingdom Come. ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction Tools of Destruction]]'' in particular has a memorable part during the final battle. You teleport to another dimension, where you fight above a raging black hole against a crashing asteroid ring. |
| 581 | %%** From the same developer: Insomniac Games did the same thing with their Playstation 1 ''Franchise/{{Spyro|TheDragon}} games. Enchanted Towers from ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' is one example.%%ZCE; describe how/why it's an example. |
| 582 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ravenmark}}'' takes place in the world of Eclisse. While we are never shown the sky, the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] explains that Eclisse has three moons. Additionally, a comet passes by every couple hundred years and "shines brighter than the three moons combined". There's also a strange black spot visible in the upper-right section of the sun. That last one is a little difficult to narrow down, since that would imply either that the sun rotates in the opposite direction of Eclisse's orbit and at the same rate, or that a small object is always located at the same relative spot between the sun and Eclisse. Naturally, the religions of the people of Eclisse are based on their heavens. The evil Kaysani are the worshipers of the sun god Kayes, while the Tellions revere Kayes's pet raven Corvii (the aforementioned black spot). The months on the local calendar are likewise named after the gods of the pantheon (AKA heavenly bodies). For example, the months Kayesin and Coresin are named after Kayes and Corvii, respectively. |
| 583 | * ''VideoGame/RedFaction: Guerrilla'' takes place on Mars, so yellow-orange sky is pretty understandable. There is also an oddly-shaped object in the sky that looks definitely out of place unless one knows that Phobos and Deimos actually have highly irregular forms. According to [[http://www.spaceacademy.net.au/library/guides/marsmoon/marsmoon.htm this]] article, both moons can be seen from the Martian surface by the naked eye (Phobos even causes partial eclipses) but Deimos is too small and faint to be identified as non-circular. Therefore, the object in question is probably Phobos. |
| 584 | * ''VideoGame/{{Rodina}}'': All of the planets in the game have different colored atmospheres, and the sun appears different colors in each of them. |
| 585 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ryzom}}'': The skies of Atys are crossed by giant tree-branches to drive home the idea that the planet you're playing on is, in fact, a giant tree. Beyond them, the sky holds a moon, a ringed world, and a sun that never leaves the sky and periodically dims and brightens to create a day/night cycle. |
| 586 | * ''VideoGame/ScarletNexus'': The sky typically has an orange fog representing the "extinction belt", an alien substance from a comet that has polluted the stratosphere of earth. This fog jams communications, and on rare occasions, descends down to land. The particles making it up turn any animals or people they contact into the OurMonstersAreWeird "others". Either due to this, or the earth’s atmosphere having been damaged and then re-terriformed before the extinction belt came into being, seeing lightning is very rare. |
| 587 | * ''VideoGame/ScienceGirls'': When the player character enters the alien world, they remark on the "shifting discharges in the sky", and the sky is black. |
| 588 | * ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'': In the Lofty Mountains, multiple moons are visible in the daytime sky. |
| 589 | * The first few levels of ''VideoGame/SeriousSamTheSecondEncounter'' are supposed to take place in South or Central America, on our Earth, in the Mayan age. However, as you near the end of this set, the sky goes completely dark, and a bit later on the night-time sky is blue-purple and... is that a nebula? Cool and beautiful but quite bizarre. |
| 590 | * ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' is set in the Alpha Centauri star system, which consists of two mid-sized, sunlike stars (Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B) and a red dwarf (Alpha Centauri C or Proxima Centauri). The planet you colonize (officially called Chiron, usually called Planet) is the second planet of Alpha Centauri A; Alpha Centauri A and B orbit around each other in an 80-year cycle.[[note]]Proxima is over 10,000 AU from the AB binary and takes over half a million years to orbit them, and would be barely visible in the night sky of any planet in the AB system, so its inhabitants would likely consider it a separate star system from their own for most practical purposes.[[/note]] Since the orbit is elliptical, this means Alpha Centauri B's actual distance from Planet varies noticeably, and every time Alpha Centauri B approaches perihelion (i.e., gets its closest to Alpha Centauri A) Planet gets warmer, causing the [[StarfishAliens native life]] to pester your bases even more for a period of 20 years. However, you rarely get to see the actual sky of Planet in cutscenes. |
| 591 | ** [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] indicates that Alpha Centauri B appears as a very bright object in Planet's night sky -- brighter than the Moon is from Earth, enough to read by in the right conditions. It also indicates that the sky on Planet is yellowish as a result of the various conditions (including the particles in the atmosphere and the atmosphere's composition -- thicker than Earth's and 90% nitrogen). |
| 592 | ** Chiron/Planet also has two moons, called Pholus and Nessus. We should pause at this point to note the [[ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming connections between the names in this system to the Greek myths about the centaurs]]: Chiron is one of two "good" centaurs, the tutor of many minor gods, demigods, and heroes, including [[TheMedic Asclepius]], Perseus, Jason, [[Literature/TheIliad Ajax, Achilles]], and in many tellings Heracles; Pholus is the other "good" centaur, a tutor of Heracles; and Nessus is an uncharacteristically crafty centaur, responsible for killing Heracles' wife. An inner planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, analogous to Mercury, is called Eurytion -- Greek mythology records ''two'' centaurs by that name, both evil, and it is not made clear which one the planet is named for. Alpha Centauri B is itself named after Heracles (by his Roman name, Hercules), who killed many of the Centaurs, as an analogy for its proximity being devastating to the human colonists on Chiron. (There is no mention of any planets orbiting Hercules.) |
| 593 | ** The name of the trope is also used, when the [[OpeningNarration opening video]] refers to the settlers seeking a new life "beneath an alien sky." |
| 594 | * ''VideoGame/TheSims2'': It's possible to take screencaps showing that the Sims' world has a binary sun. |
| 595 | * The world of ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' has six moons (and no visible sun, despite there being a normal day/night cycle) which are arranged in such a way that you can only see each one in a particular region of the world. Besides the Moons hanging over their country of choice, just try to fathom how that map works when you really think about it. (The two ends of Glacia should not be connected to each other if the world is round...) The game is premised on the assumption that there's no ocean and [[FloatingContinent all the landmasses of the world are floating in the sky]], so [[MST3KMantra maybe we should just relax]]. |
| 596 | * ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'': All of the Special Stages are set in exotic locations seemingly on other planets. The first Special Stage has an Earth-like planet, only the black sky itself has ripple-like waves alternating red and blue. The sixth Special Stage has a sky consisting of a pattern resembling sine waves that rapidly shifts through the colors of the rainbow. The seventh Special Stage has a speckled green sky with a planet covering much of it. |
| 597 | * ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'''s space stage allows you to use "atmospheric coloring tools", which let you dye the skies of various planets. Some planets that simply have strange skies by default. In addition to unusual colors, low-atmosphere planets have black starry skies and unusual features like binary stars, rings, or nearby gas giants can also be seen from the ground. |
| 598 | * ''VideoGame/StarControl II'': The Slylandro, a sentient race of {{Living Gasbag}}s who live in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet, state their skies are an opaque swirl of colors (read: multi-coloured clouds), with no possibilities of knowing about the external Universe. |
| 599 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 600 | ** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'': The Parallel World has a daytime sky that's black on the horizon with a gradient to a deep purple directly overhead with no Sun visible. Combined with the clouds and the land, which are lighter in color than the sky, they create a rather unnatural, creepy, unsettling effect. (The nighttime sky is never seen, as Mario visits only during the day.) |
| 601 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'': Quite a few galaxies have these. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' reveals that the Mushroom World has six large moons, along with the hundreds of small clusters of rocky bodies that serve as galaxies. |
| 602 | * ''VideoGame/{{Psychopomp}}'': |
| 603 | ** The Moon is shown to be ''bleeding'' from a particular vantage point in the Children's Hospital labyrinth. [[spoiler:This is because it's a part of the Bleeding Earth.]] |
| 604 | ** [[spoiler:A bleeding version of the Earth is visible from the Earth the King of Mercury is on, explicitly called the Bleeding Earth by the King of All Dogs.]] |
| 605 | * ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'': |
| 606 | ** The Great Maze's save points take place in what appears to be another "bubble" of an area taken in by Subspace bombs, except that for some reason, the sky in the background appears to be ''ripping'' to expose the actual Subspace itself. |
| 607 | ** Captain Falcon's Final Smash involves sending whoever gets caught into a track, where he soon runs them over with the Blue Falcon. It may just be an usual cloudy storm, but the sky in this setting is [[http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080323215131/ssb/images/f/fa/C._Falcon_FS2.jpg purple and has several "warped" shapes in it.]] |
| 608 | * One of the many links between ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' and ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' is the names of Phantasia's two moons: Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, the names of the two worlds in Symphonia. When the original world was split in two, the residents of each world named the one moon that remained in their world after the other world, to "explain" where the missing people went. This caused some confusion when someone from the world of Tethe'alla came to Sylvarant (whose people had long forgotten about the other world). After the magical seal holding Sylvarant and Tethe'alla together [[spoiler:-- as well as a 3rd world, Derris Kharlan -- gets broken]], the both world's skys get all purple and cloudy. |
| 609 | * In ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'', and [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2 its sequel]], there are two moons orbiting the world of Rieze Maxia and Elympios, one smaller/farther than the other. |
| 610 | * ''Tass Times in Tonetown'' (a game mostly set in a TotallyRadical dimension) has a triangular moon that, although never seen on screen, is mentioned in the manual. |
| 611 | * In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', the map Ctf_Doublecross originally had ''seven moons''. Although one could write this off as a glitch or a mistake due it being nixed in a later update. |
| 612 | * ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': |
| 613 | ** Each world will have one of a set of moon appearances chosen during the world generation and will not change, with 1.4 adding a number of possibilities. In addition to a "regular" Moon, there could be a moon resembling Mars, a moon with two small moons orbitting it, or a pink moon with candy-like stripes. The sun will similarly appear as a cartoony sun with sunglasses if the Sunglasses vanity item is equipped. |
| 614 | ** Blood Moons turn the moon red and wash the entire world with a red shade. All water except that in the Oceans turns dark red to match, even deep underground. |
| 615 | ** Getting near one of the Lunar Pillars at any time of day washes the screen with its respective color and makes a giant moon appear in the sky. How this is possible when the Pillars are within at farthest the range of a large island of each other and how the giant moons vanish when near none of them is never answered, but the Pillars are eldritch enough that [[AWizardDidIt their magic causing it]] is a reasonable explanation. The sky also has pink beams of light lifting up chunks of earth when near the Nebula Pillar, sparkling "stars" near the Stardust Pillar, a massive lightning storm near the Vortex Pillar, and a perpetual meteor rain near the Solar Pillar. |
| 616 | * ''VideoGame/{{Tobal}}'': Tobal is a fictional Earth-like planet and has a similar atmosphere, but it also sports rings and at least six moons that can be seen in the sky during rounds, along with neighboring ringed planets. Oddly, ''Tobal 2'' removed much of the more exotic features, leaving its skies to look much more typical save for an occasional moon. |
| 617 | * ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'': The skies of the Realm of Chaos have no celestial bodies, and burn with powerful magical energies. The sky of Tzeentch's realm, for instance, is a mixture of vivid blue and coruscating pink clouds, with rocks floating up from the horizon and away into the vastness. |
| 618 | * ''VideoGame/TroverSavesTheUniverse'': The sky is green in some levels [[spoiler: and the color of the sky becomes very relevant in one level]]. |
| 619 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'': The world of Britannia has twin moons, whose positions determine the opening and endpoint of [[CoolGate moongates]]. In ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII: Pagan'', you travel (or rather, are banished) to the world known as Pagan, where there's no sun in the sky -- to the point one man summons a demon to ''ask him what the sun is''. |
| 620 | * ''VideoGame/UnrealI'' takes place on Na Pali, which has two suns and two moons, which lead to some interesting landscapes and light effects. ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' has some skies being almost completely dominated by other planets and their rings. |
| 621 | * ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': The skies you can see are a sure sign that it's not the Solar System as we know it. |
| 622 | ** Earth's sky looks pretty normal... until the night falls and instead of the Moon you see only [[DetonationMoon its huge chunks floating in orbit]]. The quest "The Second Dream" shows what actually happened to it: [[spoiler:The Lotus hid the Moon (or Lua, as the characters call it) in the Void to protect the Reservoirs, the source of the Tenno's power, against the Sentients. You end up returning Lua back to normal space, and it still is quite a sight, what with three circumlunar golden rings supported by six spires of [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Orokin design]], all visible from Earth's surface with naked eye.]] |
| 623 | ** Above Orb Vallis, you can see Venus' stormy orange atmosphere as well as an orbital mirror providing heat to the surface cooled by ancient {{terraform}}ing towers. |
| 624 | ** Thanks to {{terraform}}ing, Mars' sky wouldn't look out of place on Earth, but when you look up you will see a massive asteroid with Grineer installations on it. |
| 625 | ** Missions on Europa give a magnificent view on Jupiter partially obscured both by the moon's horizon and by the pink haze comprising its atmospheres. You can also see a Corpus Obelisk duking it out with Grineer Fomorian in orbit. |
| 626 | ** Ceres has a thick cover of green and brown clouds over PollutedWasteland produced by the Grineer. |
| 627 | ** Jupiter has brown atmosphere like one would expect, but one can also see large remains of the Sentient floating in the distance. |
| 628 | ** Uranus has a very murky dark green sky with at least two moons in the skybox, and the entire planet is an ocean with very few natural islands on it. However, there are quite a few underwater research bases, with beacons of light that shine up at the sky. |
| 629 | * ''VideoGame/WildArms1'': The sky contains two moons. The usual boring old moon, and the new moon Malduke [[spoiler:which is actually a huge orbiting military base built by the {{precursors}} and also serves as TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon]]. |
| 630 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has Alien Skies all over the place. Often, merely walking from one zone into the next is enough to turn the sky a completely different color (ostensibly it's always an effect of smoke or haze or the like, but it's far more dramatic than this could account for). The skies of Outland are even more exotic (and utterly gorgeous), full of an effect akin to a particularly dramatic aurora. |
| 631 | ** The aurora-like things you see in Outland are actually parts of the Twisting Nether that is bleeding physical world after Draenor was ripped apart by opening too many portals to the Nether. The Netherstorm zone is a result of an extreme version of this process. |
| 632 | ** Azeroth used to have two moons, but the smaller one disappeared in a patch that introduced weather effects. It's still mentioned in the background, tho. |
| 633 | *** The second, smaller moon returned with the expansion "Cataclysm". There is another weird thing going on, though. The sun always rises and sets in the same part of the sky, basically stopping its rise at noon and beginning to set again along the same trajectory. The same happens to the moons. The larger moon rises and sets in the night in the same position as the sun does during the day, the smaller moon rises and sets in another part of the sky, sometimes during the day, sometimes in the night. The planetary rotation seems incomprehensible. Also the moons are always full moons and it is always the same time of day in all parts of the world, regardless Azeroth is thought to be a round planet. |
| 634 | *** ''Legion'' added more to Azeroth's alien sky in 7.2, when [[spoiler:Illidan opened a giant portal between Azeroth and Argus, the Burning Legion's home base. After completing the Tomb of Sargeras raid you can see it in the sky from almost any zone.]] |
| 635 | ** The expansion "Mist of Pandaria" also features an alien sky. Particularly when [[spoiler: in presence of the [[EldritchAbomination Sha]]]], the sky will turn into a weird, white tunnel with a grayish center, a substance looking like oil is running down the walls of the tunnel, giving the impression that the world is being swallowed by a bizarre creature. |
| 636 | ** The world has additional weird skies for the dead, existing in the twisting nether the sky looks like swirling vortes of energy when ones character is dead, the same applies for several toys that can locally change the skybox for a small amount of time. |
| 637 | ** The "Warlords of Draenor" Expansion features an eternally nightsky in the Shadowmoon Valley. |
| 638 | * ''VideoGame/WorldsApart'': Dyr's sun, Areilya, is far away but very hot. The planet's natives have to retreat underwater at midday to escape her harsh, focused rays. |
| 639 | * ''VideoGame/XaindSleena'' offers us on its 8-bit glory the ones of Cleemalt Soa, with Saturn and its rings looming as background in a starry pitch black sky, and Cleedos Soa -- pale blue with two moons. |
| 640 | * ''{{VideoGame/Zigfrak}}'': Many areas utilize colorful nebulae or bright stars in the background. Justified as this serves to provide contrast to the dark void of space in which the game takes place. |
| 641 | [[/folder]] |
| 642 | |
| 643 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 644 | * The world of Remnant in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has a moon which has been partially shattered. [[WordOfGod Monty Oum]] explained that this moon is not tidally-locked, so it appears more intact at times because the unbroken side happens to be facing the planet. Additionally, it has no phases, always appearing fully illuminated. |
| 645 | [[/folder]] |
| 646 | |
| 647 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 648 | * ''Webcomic/AliceGrove'': An unusually subtle one. The night sky looks like ours, except for two major factors: there's no light pollution, and the craters on the moon are wrong. [[spoiler:It's Earth, but several thousand years in the future.]] |
| 649 | * ''Webcomic/Aurora2019'': The night sky contains two moons: a blueish-white moon called Shield and a slightly smaller red moon called Sword. The stars also regularly move, and the titular auroras, formed by ambient magic energy in the atmosphere, are a common sight. |
| 650 | * ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20100318023628/http://brokenspacecomic.com/ Broken Space]]'' features Veldin, a world with an electric yellow sky, made all the more shocking for the protagonist because his home [[DomedHometown lacks a visible sky]]. |
| 651 | * ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': |
| 652 | ** [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003904 Alternia]] has two moons (third panel on the linked page), one green and one pink which has its own little natural satellite. ([[spoiler:The green one isn't natural.]]) Its sun is also large, red, and invariably described as blistering. |
| 653 | ** Then you have the various Lands inside the game's Incipispheres: |
| 654 | *** Land of Wind and Shade: While the sky is blue and the near-omnipresent cloud cover is dark gray, said cloud cover is filled with ''fireflies''. |
| 655 | *** Land of Light and Rain: While the sky is blue, the clouds (and the eponymous rain) flash colourfully. |
| 656 | *** Land of Heat and Clockwork: The sky is simply black and featureless. |
| 657 | *** Land of Frost and [[spoiler:Frogs]]: The sky seems normal... Except there are auroras everywhere! [[spoiler:Even when the snow melts.]] |
| 658 | *** Land of Quartz and Melody: The sky is purple, and there appears to be a glowing ring around the planet. |
| 659 | *** Land of Sand and Zephyr: The sky is yellow, and yellow-tinted wind swirls constantly. |
| 660 | *** Land of Brains and Fire: The sky is brown. |
| 661 | *** Land of Pulse and Haze: The sky is red, the clouds are purple, and there is a constant gray mist. |
| 662 | *** Land of Little Cubes and Tea: Both the sky and clouds are yellow. |
| 663 | *** Land of Rays and [[spoiler:Frogs]]: The sky itself is a featureless black, but the rays probably afford an amazing skyscape when viewed from the ground. |
| 664 | *** Land of Thought and Flow: The sky and the giant neurons that fill it are all various shades of teal. |
| 665 | *** Land of Maps and Treasure: The sky is a hodgepodge of maps, with brightly-coloured compass roses. |
| 666 | *** Land of Caves and Silence: The sky is black and featureless. |
| 667 | *** Land of Tents and Mirth: The sky has a glow in various shades of brown, dark yellow, and dark green. |
| 668 | *** Land of Wrath and Angels: The sky is an all-consuming, oppressive white glow. |
| 669 | *** Land of Dew and Glass: The sky has all fluorescent, spiral shell shapes everywhere. |
| 670 | *** The [[spoiler:Alpha Kids]]' Lands all have featureless black skies. |
| 671 | ** On Prospit, the sky is mostly taken up by Skaia, which looks like a giant sphere made of, ironically enough, sky. On Derse, almost all the light from Skaia is blocked by the Veil, leaving a black void. |
| 672 | ** In the [[spoiler:Yellow Yard]] the "sky" is a black void lit by green, yellow and white flashes. |
| 673 | ** On the [[spoiler:Cherubim]]'s planet, the sky is taken up by the sun, a red supergiant, which is later joined by [[spoiler:a black hole]]. |
| 674 | * On [[https://jennyandthemultiverse.thecomicseries.com/comics/14 Chapter 2 Page 2]] of ''Webcomic/JennyAndTheMultiverse'', one of the locations Jenny teleports to has an orange sky with a big, green, ringed planet overlooking the horizon. |
| 675 | * In ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'', the colossal city of Throne is a WorldInTheSky set against an infinite black void. The sun has been broken for millennia and no longer moves across the sky, leaving the seediest district in perpetual darkness from the shade of its colossal central spire. |
| 676 | * ''Webcomic/MyDeliriumAlcazar'': The sky in Plaire's nightmare is [[http://mda.thecomicseries.com/files/page_115-2.png all yellow and writhing]] as an EldritchAbomination is trying to break it from behind. [[spoiler:Later on, it's revealed that this is just a tinted [[DeflectorShields magical barrier]] protecting the place from the PrimordialChaos surrounding it, like a snowglobe with the castle within.]] |
| 677 | %%* ''Webcomic/{{Pibgorn}}'': [[http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2003/02/03/ Where the ghost throws Dru.]] %%Example needs explanation to make sense on its own. |
| 678 | %%** [[http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2008/11/05/ And the give away in the computer game]] |
| 679 | * ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'' has hell with a featureless sky that gets bright or dark instantly. Medius itself has a red moon and green moon. It's also offhandedly mentioned that it never really gets dark in heaven which leaves the angels with very poor night vision. |
| 680 | * ''Smoke Comics'' (a sub comic of ''Webcomic/WTFComics'') shows the sky as an indication Smoke isn't on Earth any more. |
| 681 | * ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'' has two moons in the sky, one of which is twice the apparent diameter of the other, and which have 7 and 28 day orbits (a 13 month year, with 4 weeks to a month exactly. You can tell what day of the week it is by the phases of the moons.) |
| 682 | * The entire world of ''Webcomic/{{Tellurion}}'' seems to be a giant mechanical device set over a [[FlatWorld disc-like earth]], complete with day- and night-simulating glowing orbs that move on rails, like an artificial sun and moon. The comic has a fitting title, since [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurion a tellurion]] is a type of clock that shows the actual positions of the sun and moon. |
| 683 | * ''WebComic/WithinAMileOfHome'' has an {{inver|tedTrope}}sion. Jinjo, from a FloatingContinent with the sky in perpetual twilight, is completely thrown off by the day/night cycle at first. |
| 684 | [[/folder]] |
| 685 | |
| 686 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 687 | * Many of the planetscape wallpapers at [[http://www.digitalblasphemy.com Digital Blasphemy]] qualify. |
| 688 | * ''Felarya'' has this trope, with a slight twist. The world is a dimensional plane which randomly connects to a sun, switching suns at, it seems, equally random intervals. Denizens wake up now and then to find a different sun in the sky -- and a different night sky once the sun goes down. |
| 689 | * ''Blog/HamstersParadise'': The planet HP-02017 has two suns, [[BinarySuns a yellow dwarf called Alpha and and a red dwarf called Beta]], and two moons, one the size of Earh's moon named Pyramus and a smaller, more reflective moon named Thisbe which can lead to strange sky arrangements such as a [[https://tribbetherium.tumblr.com/post/684016512154075136/a-simultaneous-sunrise-and-sunset-highlights-the simultaneous sunrise and sunset]] and all of the conflicting colors and Lunar phases that come with it. It's also stated that eclipses are much more common thanks to the planet having two suns and two moons and can occur two the three times a year. |
| 690 | * In ''Literature/JunctionPoint'', Mulolowa's sky is dominated by Kapteyn's Star, and Rayleigh scattering from the red dwarf makes the atmosphere appear a pale blue, almost white. |
| 691 | * ''Literature/LandGames'': Dark green at night, pale yellow during the day. |
| 692 | * [[http://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oa-page&page=gen_skyonalienworlds Here's an article]] from the ''Website/OrionsArm'' encyclopedia that makes detailed predictions of what conditions would produce what sort of Alien Sky. |
| 693 | * ''Website/{{Planetcopia}}'' usually has the sky colors of alternate worlds carefully described. Note that this includes unusual weather patterns, such as Lyr's polar rain belts. |
| 694 | * ''Website/SCPFoundation'': |
| 695 | ** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2264 SCP-2264 ("In the Court of Alagadda")]]. The sky over the city in SCP-2264 is colored yellow and filled with an unknown number of black stars. The stars don't match any known Earth constellations. |
| 696 | ** One of the documents extracted from [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-1437 SCP-1437 ("A Hole to Another Place")]] speaks of an apparently alternate version of Scotland where the sun is blue and the sky is yellow. |
| 697 | ** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2922 SCP-2922 ("Notes from the Under")]] describes [[AfterlifeAntechamber Corbenic]], a world with a green sky, no day/night cycle, no sun or stars, and three unmoving moons. Other articles involving Corbenic reveal that [[spoiler: those moons weren't originally there; they're actually doomed alternate Earths that were transported there.]] |
| 698 | * ''Website/{{Serina}}'': The titular moon orbits a blue gas giant which is constantly visible in the sky. It also reflects much more light than our moon, making nights much brighter there then on Earth. |
| 699 | * ''Website/TheWanderersLibrary'' has [[http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/system:page-tags/tag/unwaking The Unwaking]] setting. The sun changes color with the days of the week: On Tuesday and Thursday it's red, on Monday and Wednesday it's yellow, and on Fridays and Saturdays it's blue. It used to be dark on Sunday, when Sunday was still alive. Don't ask. |
| 700 | * The world of The Worldbuild Project has two moons: Telusis and Quintus. |
| 701 | * ''Website/TaerelSetting:'': Taerel as stated in the Diwarale Kin'toni Clan page has three moons. There is a moon near the Eastern horizon, a moon near the Western horizon and an moon near the Northern horizon. |
| 702 | [[/folder]] |
| 703 | |
| 704 | [[folder:Web Videos]] |
| 705 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2sQ7KIQ-E This video]] shows what Earth's sky would look like from various locations if a scale replica of Saturn's rings was placed in orbit around our planet. |
| 706 | * ''{{WebVideo/Nightfall}}'': Although the video doesn't show us, the news mentions the existence of their six suns, and the upcoming [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot eclipse]] of Beta, the only sun left in their current sky. |
| 707 | [[/folder]] |
| 708 | |
| 709 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 710 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'', the planets Wait-Your-Turn, Tell-a-Lie, Rigel 13, and Cross-Your-Heart have this. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Lazy Daze'' |
| 711 | -->'''Midgel:''' Blue grass, green skies, and no ants.\ |
| 712 | '''Michelle:''' Don't you mean green grass and blue skies? |
| 713 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': The planet the show is set on has two moons. But one [[ThatsNoMoon isn't really a moon]], revealed as part of the [[EarthAllAlong ending]] of Season 1. |
| 714 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Fangbone}}'': Skullbania has a red sky, with three suns and two moons. |
| 715 | * Creator/{{Filmation}}: Most shows set in outer space have planets with green skies. |
| 716 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 717 | ** "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E7MyThreeSuns My Three Suns]]" takes place on a planet with three suns, one of which stretches from horizon to horizon. The humans and robot have no problems functioning there, though it's Death Valley-level hot. |
| 718 | ** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E15TheFarnsworthParabox The Farnsworth Parabox]]", the second AlternateUniverse visited has a psychedelic-colored sky. Later on there's a shot of the (alternate) Earth from space, and it shows that the weird psychedelic sky is only a small patch over New New York. The rest of the planet looks normal, which indicates that it's probably Farnsworth's fault, as all differences between the two universes are caused by coin-flips going one way instead of the other. That must have been some coin-flip... |
| 719 | * ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2002'': The sky of Eternia is gold-coloured, with a gas giants visible, and two moons. |
| 720 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Imago}}'' has a fractured moon with a crystal-like interior. |
| 721 | * ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'': The planets Foodcourtia and Conventia have magenta skies. Hobo 13 has a yellow one, and others have a mostly transparent atmosphere. The stylization is truly apparent when Earth has a hideous red sky during the day, and the only time it looks normal is during a snowstorm. |
| 722 | * In ''WesternAnimation/JellyJamm'', the sky of Jammbo has a bunch of lamps that seemingly hang from nowhere. |
| 723 | * ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': [[AHellOfATime Miseryville]] has three suns, and the sky is usually orange. "Rocket Jimmy" revealed that there are multiple moons as well. |
| 724 | * ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E19And20Hereafter Hereafter]]", Superman [[spoiler:is sent to a post-apocalyptic future Earth]], where the sun is red and the moon has a ring around it. This is later revealed to be the work of [[spoiler:Vandal Savage, as an unfortunate side effect of his invention: a machine that controlled gravity. Superman only realises he's been on EarthAllAlong after finding the crashed remains of the Watchtower.]] |
| 725 | * ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': At the end of ''Jumpin' Jupiter'', Porky and Sylvester end up landing on another planet. The sky has a purple tint, and the Earth can be seen. Porky, who has been playing the {{Arbitrary Skeptic|ism}} throughout the short, [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight just notes that he hasn't seen that planet before]], wondering which one it is. |
| 726 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyAndFriendsE51TheQuestOfThePrincessPonies1 The Quest of the Princess Ponies]]", one of the signs that Ponyland's magic is out of control is that its sky becomes a field of psychedelic swirls of color. |
| 727 | * ''WesternAnimation/ObanStarRacers'': There are many extra moons or planets in the sky. |
| 728 | * ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Etheria has multiple moons in various sizes, which periodically align, and the night sky has no stars. Day and night are determined by which moons are dominant; the moons that light up the day are much more luminous. [[spoiler:The lack of stars is because Etheria is trapped in the dimension of Despondos; when the portal is active during the closing arc of Season 3, the night sky filling with stars is a big sign that the problem needs to be solved ''quickly'', and when they're fully brought out of Despondos at the end of Season 4, it adds normal stars to the already crowded sky.]] |
| 729 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': |
| 730 | ** Based on a holodeck simulation of the Adashake Center, the Orion sky is green. |
| 731 | ** The Galardonian homeworld's sky is yellow and its clouds are beige. |
| 732 | ** Gelrak V has a green sky with green clouds. |
| 733 | * ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': It's a cloudy day, and [[CardCarryingVillain Luminous]] taunts Superman, saying he can bring Superman to [[BroughtDownToNormal normal human levels]]. Indeed, Superman has been getting weaker and weaker. Finally Superman goes outside city limits to punch rocks and the clouds break. And that's when it hits him... the sun is RED.[[note]]Actually, Luminous used a satellite array to filter certain wavelengths of the sun's rays, which essentially has the same intended effect.[[/note]] |
| 734 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': In the last few seasons, the sky is red instead of its normal blue. This wasn't actually done by an alien but rather to convey the relatively more serious tone of those seasons. |
| 735 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'', the Moon was broken in half by a "runaway planet" passing between the Earth and the Moon, plunging the world into a new dark age. |
| 736 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' has Third Earth, which orbits a gas giant with a great spot visible on its surface. Two moons are also visible. |
| 737 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Visionaries}}'' The alignment of Prysmos's triple suns acts as a catalyst for the Age of Magic/Science. They are often seen throughout in the background of the series. |
| 738 | * ''WesternAnimation/Xyber9NewDawn'' has Terrana, which has two moons, with both usually visible in the night sky at the same time. |
| 739 | [[/folder]] |
| 740 | |
| 741 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 742 | * Many real-life planets have skies that look very different from Earth's. Mars, for instance, normally has a tan-gray sky and two tiny moons. Weather does affect it; a violet sky has also been photographed. Venus is enveloped entirely in yellow-brown clouds, which don't change. Furthermore, there are many differently-colored stars in the universe that have planets orbiting them, meaning that those planets do indeed have differently-colored suns. That, in turn, means that not only are atmospheres different, [[http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2009/02/sky-colors-for-exoearths.html they are differently highlighted]], which widens the variety of dayglow hues. |
| 743 | ** That without including the effects of stellar evolution (from a sun that looks not very different from ours to a huge red one when the star becomes a red giant, and finally just a very bright star when the star has become a white dwarf) or where the planet is located: just imagine, for example, the view of the Milky Way from the Magellanic Clouds or the star-studded sky of a planet in a globular star cluster. |
| 744 | ** Both Mercury and Venus lack friendly moons illuminating their nights (in Venus it would be better say the nights of its uppermost atmosphere, above the clouds). However, Venus appears from Mercury considerably brighter than from Earth[[note]]As it's seen in full phase and not as a thin crescent, as when it's closest to us[[/note]], enough to project shadows, and the latter not only can be seen brighter than how we see Venus for the same reason but also comes with the Moon accompanying it. From Venus itself the Earth and the Moon are even more impressive -- pity those damned Venusian sulfuric acid clouds -- even if they never appear as more than a really bright blue star and a very bright white star respectively. |
| 745 | ** The Earth also has vastly different skies. The Moon has a perpetual black sky, due to lacking an atmosphere. The same effect can also be seen at high enough altitudes on Earth. Titan (the largest moon of Saturn) has a dark tan-orange sky, due to its thick atmosphere, and so lacks a view of Saturn. |
| 746 | ** Also, Earth's moon is tidally locked, so from any one place in the near side the Earth barely moves in the sky. It just hangs there rotating on its axis and waxes and wanes depending on the time of the month i.e. the phase of the moon/earth. The sun would likewise rise every 28 days. |
| 747 | ** The color of the sky is because of the particles in the air scattering the colors in the light spectrum from the star, blue-violet is scattered and reflected back into our eyes giving the look that the sky is blue, and the sun is yellow because the other colors of light made it through the particles without completely scattering. This is because of frequencies and wavelengths, the specifics sounds utterly ridiculous so it's better if you don't know. Interesting trivia: If our sky had enough particles to scatter most of the spectrum light from the sun while letting the rays through, the sky would look white and the sun an extremely deep dark shade of red. |
| 748 | *** That does happen on occasion, when cloud conditions are right. Sometimes, people even take [[http://www.brianovercast.com/sunsets/h148140D8#h148140d8 pictures of it.]] |
| 749 | * Occasionally one has such experiences on Earth, too. Ever wake up in a dust storm? When the millions of residents of Sydney, Australia woke up on September 23 2009 to a completely opaque red sky, there seemed to be only two things they could describe it as, neither of which any of them had experienced: The Apocalypse, or Mars. |
| 750 | * Big enough volcanic eruptions can change the coloration of the sky over the places where the dust travels. The Krakatoa eruption is said to have given a green hue to the sun. |
| 751 | * Changes in barometric pressure (such as before a tornado) turn the sky [[WindIsGreen green]] or orange, which can look very strange, especially to people who aren't used to that sort of thing. |
| 752 | * Our own Moon can be this quite frequently: |
| 753 | ** Lunar eclipses make the Moon look like someone took a bite out of it, or blood red in totality. |
| 754 | ** Sufficient levels of smoke from forest fires or volcano eruptions can make the Moon appear blue. Krakatoa's eruption reportedly turned it green. |
| 755 | ** When the Moon is low in the horizon, especially if the atmosphere is loaded with dust, it can look eerie shades of orange and red, such as the Hunter's Moon, and quite less bright than what it should be. A full moon rising during sunset can look bright pink. |
| 756 | ** Pollution and water vapor in the sky can distort the shape of the Moon to the viewer, making a full moon look squashed, or a crescent moon look like a banana floating in the sky. |
| 757 | * The Aurora Borealis, better known as Northern Lights (Aurora Australis if you're on the South Hemisphere) which are caused by the effect of certain solar particles on Earth's magnetic field, can look like someone was having fun finger-painting the sky. |
| 758 | * Excessive light pollution on Earth at night, especially on cloudy nights, can produce a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Empire_State_Building_Night.jpg yellow sky.]] |
| 759 | * Those living in close proximity to a widespread forest fire will see the sky become a uniform yellowish-gray, with filtered sunlight that appears dark orange or even blood red. |
| 760 | * The skies of some planets that could fall into the category of SceneryPorn. Imagine, for example, how it would be to see Saturn's rings from the planet itself, with them stretching from one side of the sky to the other like a huge rainbow (albeit with different colors)[[note]]As a side note the moons of Saturn would appear somewhat unimpressive, all smaller than the Moon seen from Earth[[/note]]. Or the skies of Jupiter, with its moons (although only Io would appear larger than ours).[[note]]And in both cases accompanied of (more than often ''huge'') clouds extending as far as the eye can see plus large storms far more powerful anything Earth's in comparison puny atmosphere can bring on.[[/note]] |
| 761 | ** Perhaps the most spectacular view in the Solar System would be from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon) Saturn's moon Iapetus.]][[note]][[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon) One]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_(moon) of]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon) those]] that look like the Death Star from ''Film/ANewHope'', which is pretty cool in itself.[[/note]] It's the furthest away of Saturn's large moons and orbits at an incline. Both are important; the former bit means you can see the whole ring system (except the part on the opposite side of Saturn from you, of course!), while the latter bit means you can actually see the rings in all their glory -- the other moons all orbit on the same plane of the rings, so at best you'll see them as a thin line (at worst you're on Titan and can see nothing but orange haze). But on Iapetus, you see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saturn_from_Iapetus.jpg this.]] Also, Iapetus has some fantastically gorgeous mountains, plus half the moon is bright white and half is almost pitch-black; one imagines that Iapetus would be a great place for tourism. |
| 762 | ** Saturn 's outermost "classical" moon, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(moon) Phoebe,]] has an even more inclined orbit than Iapetus and the views of Saturn's rings are even more impressive. However the planet appears no larger than the Moon as seen from Earth, losing part of the attractiveness of that sight. |
| 763 | ** Heck, from the perspective of the skyscapes of other Solar System planets Earth's one with the Moon is quite alien. Except for Io (and Pluto's Charon when the former was considered a planet), no other planetary satellite as seen from its planet appears as big as ours and especially not as luminous due to their large distances to the Sun -even Io in full phase shines with just a fraction of the light given by our Moon. |
| 764 | * [[http://www.space.com/22614-blue-alien-planet-glass-rain.html HD 189733b,]] a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet 63 light years from Earth, has a day temperature of 930 C, and 7000 km/h winds carrying molten silicate particles, which give the planet its bright blue color. In other words, [[DeathWorld it rains molten glass sideways]]. |
| 765 | * Given a few billion years, Earth's sky may be very different from what it is today, [[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120604.html when the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy collides with our Milky Way galaxy]]. |
| 766 | ** Also, in a few billion years, Earth's sky may be different due to the sun becoming a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant red giant]] -- assuming the Earth even survives that event. |
| 767 | ** Going a few billion years back, currently the most popular hypothesis for the formation of the Moon is a Mars-sized planet crashing into Earth, creating a large ring of debris, that eventually condensed into the Moon. |
| 768 | * On [[http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39034050 the newly discovered Trappist-1 star system,]] all seven Earth-like planets would be visible to each other in detail, much like the view from Earth to the Moon as opposed to solid dots. This is because they travel in a very tight orbit around a very cool star. |
| 769 | * [=J1407b=] (or any moons it may have) definitely qualifies. The planet is presumed to be a gas giant, and it has a ring system, similar to Saturn's... except 200 times larger! If you placed it where Saturn is, the rings would appear larger (from Earth) than the full Moon does. If placed where the Sun is, the rings would reach out to the orbit of Venus. Gaps in the rings indicate that it has moons, and if so the view from them would be utterly spectacular. |
| 770 | [[/folder]] |
| 771 |
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