Imagine you are a leader of an alien race currently at war with another race, and your natural habitats are drastically different. How would you perform a hostile takeover of a planet?

By making it so the planet is now inhabitable by you and not by the natives, of course! Converting the atmosphere, reshape the land and sea, overrun the native ecosystem with one more suitable - whatever is necessary to make the very ground your enemies tread on no longer their ally.

A specific context for {{Terraforming}}, and if it's an Earth-like world being changed for to another ecosphere, the term would be "xenoforming". Often overlaps with AtmosphereAbuse, though the latter doesn't have to occur specifically for terraforming purposes. Depending on methodology, it can involve GreyGoo, GaiasVengeance, or MeatMoss. Due to the destruction, this is an ApocalypseHow of the Planetary Species or Total Extinction variety, depending on how much of the planet's multicellular life is replaced.

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!!Examples:

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[[folder: Comics ]]

* The first issue of ''{{Sillage}}/Wake'' involves an alien who intends to terraform a jungle planet to suit his species, although in this case he's unaware that there's one sentient being (the human girl Navis) and lots of semi-sentient animals already living there.
* TheAuthority battles God ("The Outer Dark," issues 9-12). Earth's creator is a moon-sized alien being that created the planet as a retirement home. Since Earth's creation, changes to its orbit and ecosystem led to the rise of life as we know it, instead of somewhere its creator would be comfortable. God immediately sets about "fixing" that.
* In various media, villainous [[{{Superman}} kryptonians]] often attempt to remake [[DoomedHomeTown Krypton]] on Earth.

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[[folder: Film ]]

* ''The Arrival''. Aliens are causing global warming in order to kill off humans and make the planet more comfortable for their kind.
* ''TheyLive'' used a similar premise, with aliens "turning our world into theirs".
** Although it should be noted that this was only ''[[WildMassGuessing speculation]]'' from one resistance member as to what their motives were, which audience never actually ''does'' find out. It's also contradictory since they were capable of surviving on Earth ''anyway''.
* ''WesternAnimation/BattleForTerra'' - The humans sends a machine that can convert the air on Terra to be human breathable in seven days. This would leave the air unbreathable for the Terrians.
* ''TheTrollenbergTerror'' is about aliens' native air slowly enveloping a mountain and later the surrounding area.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* In ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', Martians use areoforming as a weapon, essentially. Possibly an UrExample.
* ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'', the Fifth Men escape a dying earth by terraforming Venus. Halfway through the process they discover that Venus is inhabited and oxygen is lethal to the natives, they keep at it anyways.
* ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr'' features this prominently.
* A specialty of the Yuuzhan Vong in the ''NewJediOrder''.
* This is the long-term plan of the alien invaders in Literature/TheTripods series.
* The Alectors of the ''Corean Chronicles'' carried this out against the Ancients when they began colonizing Corus.
* This happens to Earth in Thomas Disch's ''The Genocides''.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In ''Series/QuatermassII'' an alien vanguard takes over selected humans so they can build a chemical plant to make an atmosphere that will support their kind of life, and kill off all terrestrial life.
* The Genesis Device was first featured in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''. In ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'' the Klingons expressed concern that it would be used for HostileTerraforming.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Home Soil" featured a Federation terraforming project that was doing this by accident.
** And the locals didn't like the "Ugly Bags of Mostly Water" mucking up their planet.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Sisko used a specialized warhead to poison the atmosphere in such a manner that it would be uninhabitable for human life, but functional for Cardassian in an attempt to force Eddington to surrender. Though the Maquis did pretty much the same thing (except rendering it uninhabitable to Cardassian life but safe to human) to multiple Cardassian colonies.
* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode, "Scorched Earth", an alien vessel was terraforming a planet inhabited by {{Human Alien}}s into something hostile to their form of life. Unlike most of the civilizations SG-1 encounters, the aliens need a very specific environment to survive, meaning they can't easily be moved to another world. Eventually it's resolved when [[spoiler:it turns out the terraforming ship has information about said aliens' home planet]].
** By connecting to every Stargate in the Gate network simultaneously, the Dakara Superweapon is capable of seeding life across the entire Galaxy... or can completely wipe it out.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E4TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran Strategem]]". Weakened by their eternal war with another race of ScaryDogmaticAliens, the Sontarans hatched an uncharacteristically circuitous plan to bathe the earth in gas which is poisonous to native life but nutritious to themselves, so that they can use it to spawn more soldiers.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E5TheSeedsOfDeath The Seeds of Death]]" the Ice Warriors attempt to xenoform Earth using a fungus that will extract oxygen from the atmosphere.
* The ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' episode "Point of the Spear", the Pyreans (aliens that live in Venus-like environments) tried to forcibly pyroform a Commonwealth world. A large battle breaks out, and to prove that the Commonwealth is not one to be messed with, Dylan orders the planet's destruction via [[EarthShatteringKaboom Nova Bomb]].
* One episode of the new ''TheOuterLimits'' had this with a new model of car that would poison the atmosphere for infiltrated aliens.

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[[folder: Manga and Anime ]]

* Lord Slug wanted to freeze the Earth because of this in the fourth ''DragonBallZ'' movie. "DeTerraforming" was discussed in the DragonBallAbridged movie version.

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[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* Metagaming's [=MicroGame=] 12 ''Invasion of the Air-Eaters''. An alien race invades and uses Atmosphere Converters to change Earth's air to sulfur dioxide, which they can breathe it but we can't.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', "tyrantforming" is the first stage of devouring a planet by the Tyranids - the spores dropped onto the surface merge with local plantlife, turning it into HungryJungle - rapidly draining the ground of all nutrients. The Tyranids then devour the plants.
** Orks are described as "an invasive ecosystem by themselves", and shed spores to generate new creatures, which will grow to be squigs, grots, gretchen or full orks depending on the conditions. With enough orks, they create their own flora and fauna, and the whole ecosystem is "orkoformed".

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* The ''CommandAndConquer'' Tiberium series centres around humanity adjustments to a world being transformed by the eponymous [[GreyGoo Technicolour Crystaltech]] - which not only convert the atmosphere and the ecosystem, but also extract useful minerals from the Earth's crust for easy harvesting when the invaders finally arrive in person.
* ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'' in its released form contains hints of this - most notably, the Combine drain the Earth's oceans and use Xen species such as Headcrabs and Leeches as biological weapons. The original beta however went much further - a key location in the game was the "[[http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Air_Exchange Air Exchange]]", which replaced the air with noxious gases breathable by the Combine, and which meant that all human characters in the game had to wear gas masks.
* In ''VideoGame/StarControlII'', Mycon Deep Children reshape planets they collide with, stimulating their volcanic activity to the point where it's comfortable for Mycons - obviously, since they enjoy temperatures above 600 Kelvins, it's less than comfortable for pretty much everyone else. Mycons don't seem to care.
* VideoGame/{{Resistance}} has massive temperature shifts - most obvious in ''Resistance 3'' - due to the Chimera terraforming the planet to be more suitable their own needs.
* In ''{{Spore}}'', you can deterraform planets of an enemy empire to reduce the level of colony that planet can maintain (especially effective against enemy home-worlds, as it reduces them from thriving T-3s with extra settlements, to a basic T-2 with two settlements at best). Empires will regard this as an act of war. More in line with this trope, the Grox, EnemyToAllLivingThings, can be killed by terraforming their planets.
* Phazon from the ''MetroidPrime'' subseries tends to do this. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a SentientPhlebotinum PlanetaryParasite that originates from the planet Phaze, which deliberately seeds the universe with phazon meteors.]]
* The Korath Clan in ''GalacticCivilizations 2'' prefer to eliminate a planet's entire biosphere. They can then colonize the resulted toxic world.
* All ''K-D Labs'' RTS games employ combat terraforming to some extent. All sides in {{Perimeter}} and two sides in Maelstrom can terraform the battlefield to create passages and so on. Both sides in Perimeter 2 (Exosus being waterborn, Comeback being landlubbers) and Hai-Genti in Maelstrom instead make parts of land inhabitable only for themselves.
* In ''LostPlanet: Extreme Condition'' [[MegaCorp NEVEC]] is planning to terraform E.D.N. III in a way that would instantly thaw out the planet and kill the native [[BugWar Akrids]] ''and'' the rebelling colonists. Fortunately Wayne discovers an alternative that won't fry the colonists and by ''Lost Planet 2'', ten years later, most of the frozen wastes of E.D.N. III have been replaced by deserts and jungles, and several new Akrid species are coming out of hibernation.
* In ''Stars!'' [[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Claim_Adjuster Claim Adjuster]] trait can undo enemy terraforming via Retro Bombs. Claim Adjuster races also can use Orbital Adjuster on a planet without conquering it, and [[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Packet_Physics Packet Physics]] races terraform planets they bombard with mineral packets. If environmental requirements of the sides are different (frequently, as it's 3 independent values), it's deterraforming for the target.
* In ''Haegemonia: The Solon Legacy'', high-level spies can reverse-terraform enemy planets. It's not permanent (the enemy can simply terraform it back if they have the tech) but as planet quality is the primary factor in maximum planet population, killing off a few hundred million colonists or at least inciting revolution due to massive overpopulation with [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards a single spy]] can really wreck someone's day.

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[[folder: Webcomic ]]

* ''WhiteNoise'' had this happen in the backstory. The aliens who [[ApocalypseHow killed off everyone on Earth's surface]] then attempted to terraform the planet to suit them, resulting in a clouds of toxic Murk that roam the surface.

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[[folder: Web Original ]]

* ''OrionsArm'': Happened on occasion due to many early colonists preferring to [[HumanSubspecies adapt]] to new environments rather than terraform, putting them into conflict with later waves who would rather change the planet than themselves.
** Most notably when the original Martian Tweaks were forced to leave their homeworld when the atmospheric pressure and oxygen content were raised to intolerable (for them) levels.
*** However, the terraforming of Mars took long enough that a second clade of Martian tweaks emerged, and managed to halt the process at a level they are comfortable at.
** A similar thing happened on Venus, despite the extremophile tweaks wiping out the baseline colonists (the former were then banished from the solar system).
** When Zarathustra, one of the first exosolar colonies, was settled there was minimal terraforming and the tweaked colonists [[LostColony went feral]]. A couple centuries later [[MegaCorp Jupiter Transsystems]] arrived, enslaved the natives, and set up terraforming stations that would have killed off the tweak population if they hadn't also awakened and pissed off the [[DeusEstMachina original colony AI]].

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Oglethorpe and Emory of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' tried to do this in the episode "Universal Remonster".
* In ''JusticeLeague'', the Imperiex attempted to do this in the series premier, and for BookEnds, the denizens of Apokolips attempted it in the series finale.
* ''SuperFriends'' (1973-74). The inhabitants of the planet Solar Terrarium are moving the Earth closer to the Sun so it will become hotter and more comfortable for them. They are unconcerned that the increased heat and resulting climate change will kill most of the humans living here.
* In ''TransformersGeneration2'', the Cybertronian Empire's modus operandi was to kill all the inhabitants of each planet and then mechaform the planet itself to make replicas of Cybertron.