History Main / Terraform

* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/Asteroid5251'', you're given a "Bio-Terrain Kit" that includes grass, saplings, flowers, wheat seeds, cacti, and sugar cane, allowing you to terraform the crater you crash-landed into, which then prompts cowa, pigs, wolves, etc to spawn in.

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' has [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4851e16f514d0 an article]] on the topic, and numerous examples. Mars has been terraformed just enough for genetically modified "tweaks" to live there. Venus, after millennia of terraforming and wars, is practically a second Earth. Many exosolar planets have also been terraformed to varying extents, and some alien species such as the To'ul'h have their own versions of terraforming (To'ulforming). One of the tools used for terraforming is the [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4851e2d2e443f terraformer swarm]], which consists of {{Nanomachines}}.

** However, a totally different explanation is given at the end of Creator/WarrenEllis's run of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' (not surprisingly, since it's Warren "WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs" Ellis). Here, the Earth was placed in its proper orbit by what is, essentially, God: a pyramidal being the size of our moon with four thousand hearts and pores the size of Staten Island. God even placed some "watch spores" on the planet to make sure everything stayed perfect, then went off to wander the universe for a bit. In the meantime, a big chunk of something hit the Earth, then started orbiting, becoming our moon. By sheer chance, the watch spores were among the matter blown off by the impact. This tilted Earth's axis, altered the atmosphere, and eventually led to the development of life as we know it today. God eventually comes back to discover that its vacation home has suddenly developed a totally poisonous (to it) atmosphere and grown a six-billion-strong infestation. In order to return the planet to its "proper" state, God drops some disgusting organic machinery into the African veldt that begins restoring the original atmosphere. It's not so much terraforming as ''un''-terraforming. The Engineer even tries to come up with a term for it:

* ''LetsPlay/AfterlifeSMP'': InvertedTrope. Goolien Lizzie turns half of a [[https://stardustlabs.miraheze.org/wiki/Yellowstone modded Yellowstone biome]] into a blue, gooey land reminiscent of "her home planet" of Zorgensploosh 12. This confuses Lauren as she lives in the other half of the biome that wasn't Zorgensploosh-formed.

* ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'': The titular world is a gas giant's moon that was terraformed and [[TransplantedAliens seeded with a selection of Earth life]]. By whom, how, and why, the author never explains.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarComTheUSSpaceForce'', parts of Mars have been terraformed. The canyons have breathable air, Earth-like temperatures,[[note]]thanks to a network of mirrors on the canyon walls that catch sunlight and focus it on the canyon floor[[/note]] and fertile soil, allowing the people who live down there to walk around without space suits and even practice agriculture. The rest of Mars is considerably less hospitable.

** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': The Omega Lock, when activated, has the potential to restore the dead Cybertron to a pristine and hospitable state, and reactivate the Energon production that's essential to the maintenance of Cybertronian life. [[spoiler:In Season 2, the Decepticons test the Lock on a desolate Cybertronian building, restoring it, and then they decide that they'll try the Lock's power to [[HostileTerraforming cyberform Earth]] first, restore Cybertron second. In the Season 3 finale, the Autobots succeed in stopping the former and accomplishing the latter]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', the crappy clone of Master Shake made by the Plutonians is sent to Earth to "de-terraform" it. This plan is not well thought out. Not only does the clone not feel obligated to do so, but it also has no idea what "de-terraform" means, or how he'd do it, or if it is in fact a real word.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'', the Blizzarians used a blizzard crystal to turn a desert terra into something more suitable for themselves after their original terra was conquered by [[TheEmpire Cyclonia]]. The Raptors, who had originally intended to come to the desert for a vacation, decide to try and reverse it with inferno crystals. Thanks to some miscalculation by the dumbest of them, they end up starting a volcanic eruption.

** In the season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', [[spoiler:Megatron tries to use the Omega Lock to terraform Earth into a Cybertron like world (which would have fatal consequences for humanity). Optimus is forced to destroy the Omega Lock, dooming Cybertron in the process, to save humanity]]. Season 3 ends with [[spoiler:Megatron re-creating the Omega Lock on board his ship, attempting once again to use it on Earth. But Bumblebee kills him, and the Autobots take the ''Nemesis'' back to Cybertron, where they use the Lock to restore Cybertron instead]].

Often applied to the ColonizedSolarSystem. As seen in the trope picture, UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} is likely to be a popular target for any terraforming operation in both fiction and reality. It has one of the shortest travel distances (second only to UsefulNotes/{{Venus}}), and is solid. Venus is also a popular candidate in fiction, being almost completely similar to Earth in terms of size and gravity, but it's second to Mars because warming something up is a lot easier than cooling it down[[note]]And there'd be a ''lot'' of cooling to do; Venus has a surface temperature of a whopping 462°C (864°F), over 100°C hotter than the melting point of ''lead''. And even if it had an identical atmosphere to Earth, it would still average 73°C (163°F) due to its greater proximity to the Sun.[[/note]], and unlike Mars, Venus's slow rotation would have to be dealt with.

More recently, some shows turn this around by showcasing how terraforming an already-living world can be ecologically disastrous, or ethically questionable, or even weaponized; or just plain pisses off the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien near omnipotent residents]]. Some works even turn the concept inside-out, showing how aliens arrive on Earth and mess the ecology up so badly that the planet becomes barely habitable, if at all, for humans (with [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic similarities]] to GlobalWarming). This is HostileTerraforming, sometimes termed xenoforming or un-terraforming.

* ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' features as a mid-level quest chain fights against the froglike Gadroon who are seeking to Xenoform Earth into a much warmer, swampier habitat -- starting in the middle of Canada.

* ''VideoGame/CreatureShock'' is set in the future where an apocalypse has drained earth of it's resources, and humans now live in space stations while seeking a new home before resources runs dry. In the best ending, you managed to reverse-engineer an organic terraforming device that terraforms Mars' surface from a wasteland to a world filled with trees, water, and assorted resources, thereby securing a future for the human race.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'', the Traveler terraformed several planets across the Solar System when it arrived, making those worlds in habitable for humanity, including making the incredibly inhospitable Venus and Mercury into lush garden worlds and making Mars an inhabitable, if still dry and desert, planet. ''VideoGame/Destiny2'' shows that it did the same for many smaller moons, such as Io. Titan was terraformed by humanity into a world with a giant liquid methane ocean and yet a breathable atmosphere (they hoped the Traveler would come and do a better job after it was done with Io). On the other end of the spectrum, the alien Vex have also terraformed worlds in the system, including [[HostileTerraforming reversing the Traveler's work on Mercury to make it into a massive machine-world]], and turning 7066 Nessus into a strange mixture of Vex machine architecture covered with a verdant alien ecology.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'': The invading aliens, the Combine, aim to strip the planet of its atmosphere and water leaving it desolate and uninhabitable in what is an effective reverse terraform.

** As part of their process of absorbing a world's entire biomass, the Flood will convert the planet's atmosphere to one more suitable for expansion.

* In ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRising'', the "aliens" embark on a great xenoforming project of Earth itself, starting with Greenland. Given that they are, in part, living universal constructors, it becomes of vital importance to stop them.

* In ''VideoGame/Jak3'', Jak has to fight the BigBad operating a massive machine called a Terraformer, meant to be used to fix the unfinished planet. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:as it's Dark Maker technology]], "fix" here means "ruin and make completely uninhabitable to current life".
* In ''VideoGame/JeffWaynesTheWarOfTheWorlds'', much like [[Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds1898 the novel]], the Martians engage in xenoforming with their red weed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'':
** By using various upgrades to your starship, or purchasing other, various, one-shot machines, you can improve the "T-score" of a planet (which range from T-0 to T-3), which allows it to sustain life better, which, in turn, allows you to plunder it for more Spice to sell. [[spoiler: It can also be used to kill all Grox on a planet by raising the T-score to at least 1.]] Colonized planets can only sustain a number of settlements equal to the T-score. T-0 planets can be claimed by placing a colony, but they will not be able to produce any spice until the atmospheric conditions are improved and then a basic ecology is introduced, establishing a T-score of at least T-1.
** It's also possible to deterraform a planet, lowering the T-score, reducing its habitability and extincting its indigenous lifeforms. Doing this on a foreign planet is considered an act of war (while improving a foreign planet's T-score can earn you their gratitude). It is, however, one of the simplest strategies for wiping out or conquering the home-world of a hostile race before your ship has top-tier weaponry available. Home-worlds are almost always T-3s with extra settlements (as many as 10 fully defended sites with fleets of defending ships). Using terraformer tools to lower the T-Score even a single level will wipe out almost all the settlements, leaving the place far more vulnerable to conquest or extermination and recolonization.

* While not on a different planet, in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'', the Undead faction produces Blight from its buildings, which kills the ground around them and turns trees into dead wood (though it's just as useable as before). Undead units only regenerate while on blighted ground, and unlike creep other factions can put their buildings down on it (it even dispels the blight in a wide radius).

** Earth has been subject to HostileTerraforming. The [[AbusivePrecursors Orokin]] turned it into a massive forest in an attempt to keep anyone from doing anything useful with it, though this might have been done by a rogue Orokin to allow the Earth to recover after the rest had ruined it. Earth maps have massive trees winding through technological ruins. The Grineer are trying to poison the forest so that they can use the planet as an industrial base, while the primitive tribes of Ostron have adapted to it without too much trouble. There are also a few clear areas, such as the Plains of Eidolon.

* ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Godzilla and other monsters like him can cause terraforming on a regional cause, causing [[FertileFeet ecosystems to regenerate where they tread] and even creating whole new ecosystems in formerly-barren environments. For example, one of the creatures causes an entire rainforest to sprout up in the Sahara of all places. Hence why the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] want to set all the monsters free on the world. King Ghidorah on the other hand destroys the world's ecosystems instead of healing them, although one of the humans remarks that even ''he'' is probably in actuality [[HostileTerraforming xenoforming the planet to suit himself instead of humans]].

* The bad guys in ''Anime/SpaceCarrierBlueNoah'' want to terriform the planet Godom for their own needs.

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Film/TheArrival''. An astronomer discovers that a worldwide rise in carbon dioxide levels and [[SpaceWhaleAesop resulting global warming]] is due to aliens seeking to kill off humanity and make Earth more like their planet. One of the aliens remarks that humans don't deserve Earth; we're already killing ourselves off, they're merely speeding up the process.

* ''Cthulhu's Reign'', edited by Darrell Schweitzer, is a ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' anthology of short stories on what existence on Earth would be like when the Old Ones return. There are several references to the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s 'terra-deforming' the Earth to make it more suited to themselves.
* In ''Literature/DaystarAndShadow'', [[spoiler:this turns out to be the motivation of both the Hemn and the Others. The Others want to turn the world into a desert, kill most humans, and infect everyone else with a parasite that [[BodyHorror turns them into plants]] the Others can eat. The Hemn want to use runaway GlobalWarming to create a hot, humid ocean planet where their civilization can flourish]].

* "Literature/MotherEarth": Each of the fifty Outer Worlds were colonized by terraforming them into something hospitable by human standards. Aurora is used as an example to provide {{Exposition}} on the vagaries of taming a new world to human preference. However, much of the terraforming was based on transplanting swathes of Earth onto the planets. The steady processes of erosion and adaptation produce microscopic changes in the plants, affecting the animals, and eventually the humans. Having forbidden trade with Earth, the humans on each of the Outer Worlds will [[PlanetOfHats develop quirks unique to the chemistry of their planets]].

* In the ''Literature/ParadoxTrilogy'', Hyrek gives a wry commentary on the various types of terraforming performed by different governments. Paradox uses robots to terrform planets for colonization, blithely wiping out all indigenous species. The Terran Republic, by contrast, takes great care to catalog all native life on potential colony worlds... then wipes it all out in order to transplant human-friendly organisms.

* In ''Literature/{{Seveneves}}'' humanity has to re-terraform Earth after a "[[DeathFromAbove hard rain]]" of bolides from the [[DetonationMoon exploded moon]] sterilize the surface.

* In ''Literature/TheTripods'', anti-Terraforming is on the Tripods' agenda somewhere after 'enslave humanity'. The alien Masters plan to replace the Earth's atmosphere with one like that of their own planet.

* Many of the planets in ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' have to be terraformed to a greater or lesser extent. The inhabitants of Komarr have had four hundred years of domed living, with another four hundred to come, while the solar mirror array and genetically engineered plants make the atmosphere breathable and warm enough. Barrayar is at the other end of the scale: the colonists just had to dump Earth soil and Earth-descended plants in place and burn away the native stuff, although as of ''A Civil Campaign'', there has been some interesting progress in genetically engineering life-forms that convert the native plant life into something compatible with the human biosphere.

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr''. Alien creatures are transplanted from their home planet to the Earth to replace our entire ecology.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds1898''; the Martians try to areoform the Earth as part of their invasion plan. (Its publication date makes this possibly the UrExample of xenoforming.)

* ''Series/AlienWorlds2020'': In order to escape their homeworld's imminent destruction, the Terrans decide to settle on a safer, outer-system world. However, their prospective planet is frozen over and has not atmosphere, a problem that they resolve by sending robots and automated systems to thaw out the ice, produce an atmosphere, and make the planet habitable before they move in.
* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' has the Pyreans, aliens who exist on planets like Venus -- super-hot, toxic, and deadly to most organic life. They "pyroform" planets by burning them to their tastes. The [[TheFederation old Commonwealth]] had to seriously fight them not to lose precious human habitable worlds.

* In ''Series/{{Defiance}}'', the Votan terraformed at least one planet in their home system and brought the technology with them to Earth. They decided not to use it when they found that earth was already inhabitable and inhabited but when the Arks were destroyed, the equipment they were carrying malfunctioned and created a variety of bizarre hybrid creatures when it crashed.

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E5TheSeedsOfDeath The Seeds of Death]]", the Ice Warriors try to modify Earth to make it more habitable for them — i.e., colder.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'' features an independent Mars that is currently in the middle of its terraforming process. While it's still not possible to walk on the surface without a suit, the atmosphere has become noticeably blue. Part of what fuels Matian resentment of Earth is that the Mars should have been fully terraformed decades before but the ongoing cold war between the two planets means that resources have been diverted to the military and the terraforming project is now a hundred years behind schedule. An older Martian laments that he fears the terraforming will never be complete, as the younger generations are used to living under domes and aren't as driven to complete the project as their parents and grandparents who remember the open sky of earth.

** There's also a "pyroforming" species, similar to the Andromeda example above, except these are {{Actual Pacifist}}s, who wouldn't fight back when they were attacked by the Goa'uld. They have no problems "pyroforming" a world filled with plant and animal life (indicating they aren't ''completely'' "nonviolent"), but on the other hand when they learn that sapient beings (namely, some of the aforementioned transplanted humans) have made their home on the planet, they are understanding and do their best to help.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' has Mars terraforming in-progress. They had the atmosphere thickened enough to allow people on the surface without pressurized suits, and that's about it. By 2155 you still need oxygen tanks and thick clothing to stay alive.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E17HomeSoil Home Soil]]", the Enterprise tries to help terraform a desert planet by pumping water for irrigation. Unfortunately, the planet is occupied by sapient lifeforms who are annoyed enough at the attempt to terraform to sabotage the drill. It takes a while for everyone to figure this out because they're microscopic [[SiliconBasedLife silicon lifeforms]], and thus mistaken for parts of the sandy scenery. However, Federation Terraforming regulations require a planet to be devoid of any trace of life, so that not even possible future species might be [[AlienNonInterferenceClause prevented from evolving naturally]].

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', this is done by two factions, {{inverted|Trope}} by another, and {{subverted|Trope}} by a fourth.

** Inverted by the [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]], whose idea of creating the perfect environment [[OmnicidalManiac is to purge it of any and all life]], down to the molecular level if necessary.
** The Tyranids use a process called Tyranoforming on worlds they take an interest in, seeding their atmosphere with spores that bring about runaway plant growth and global warming as Tyranid structures begin to emerge in the overgrown landscape. This is actually a subversion, however -- the explosive plant growth is in anticipation of the world's ''harvesting''. The digestion pools and capillary towers help the HordeOfAlienLocusts consume every last bit of biomass and pipe it up to the [[LivingShip hive ships]] in orbit, which proceed to eat everything down to the bedrock, drink the world's oceans, and even siphon up its atmosphere, leaving behind a barren rock. They eventually want to do this to ''all'' of the galaxy, though there is at least one system they're avoiding [[AlwaysABiggerFish because it scares even them.]]
** The Orks can also do this, thanks to their spore-based biology. Left unchecked, Ork spores will gradually "Orkyform" entire planets. Orks are, in fact, even more virulent than the 'Nids in this regard. Where the Tyranids use a complex system of vanguard organisms, hive fleets and other specialized organisms, ''every'' Ork and related organism (orkanism?) contains the DNA of the entire Ork ecosystem (Orkosystem?) in its body. Once a spore lands in a spot with the appropriate resources, it will first form plants and fungi, then lesser orkoids like [[WaddlingHead Squigs]] and [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Gretchins]] and finally proper Orks. The only thing that stops them from orkyforming the entire galaxy, let alone completely overtaking the ecosystems of most planets they wind up on, is that, unlike the hive-minded Tyranids, the Orks are ChaoticStupid incarnate and so [[BloodKnight inveterately belligerent]] that they quickly resort to killing each other whenever there's nothing else around to fight.
** Demons can't normally survive in the material world, so Chaos also aims to terraform worlds. In this case that tends to mean sucking them into hell and covering them with demons rather than simply altering the environment.

* In ''VideoGame/TerraGenesis'', the player is tasked to terraform the uninhabitable inner planets, Earth's moon, and even Earth itself![[note]]There are moons of the outer planets, dwarf planets, plants of the TRAPPIST-1 system, a set of fictional planets, Earth in its past (and future) forms, and even a randomly generated planet to terraform, but those are paid.[[/note]] Terraforming is done through setting up cities and its buildings to control the world's components: temperature, pressure, water, and oxygen. If Biosphere is toggled for a game, the player can manage the world also by controlling the organisms.
* In ''VideoGame/TerraNil'', you use limited terraforming (reintroducing plant and animal life, controlling temperature and humidity, and dig canals) to restore a PollutedWasteland into a lush healthy ecosystem.

Harder scifi settings can construct entire books about the sciences and engineering involved, not to mention the political and social effort these huge undertakings would entail.

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' has numerous terraformed planets, moons and asteroids; it appears only small sections of Mars that are protected by some sort of force-field dome are livable, though on Venus the plants used to terraform could cause some people to develop "Venus Sickness" with such side effects as going blind. Ganymede is [[SingleBiomePlanet completely covered in ocean]], while Titan is [[SingleBiomePlanet all desert]].
** Terraforming has become a necessity since, inversely, Earth has become almost uninhabitable due to the moon getting destroyed and debris bombardment that continues. Pretty much the only people who still live on Earth are those who can't afford to leave, and underground shelters are needed because of the constant meteor storms.

* ''VideoGame/ZoneOfTheEnders'' also features a partially-terraformed Mars. in ''Dolores, i'', it's shown that some of the planet's oxygen supply is being generated by seaweed that has grown ''huge'' in the new environment, with fronds hundreds of feet long. You still don't wanna go out there for long without a spacesuit.
* It's in progress on Mars as of the first ''Anime/ArmitageIII'' OVA. In the epilogue to the sequel, it gets oceans courtesy of a lot of dropped comets.

* The beginning of an attempt to terraform Mars is mentioned in the finale of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing''. The sequel novel ''Frozen Teardrop'' has it completed roughly 20-30 years later thanks to an accident involving algae from Jupiter's moon Europa (previously studied but deemed too impractical).
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE'' makes this central to the backstory. Around a hundred years prior to the series, a serious attempt at terraforming Mars was made. An unexpected and extremely deadly plague made the Federation give up, [[spoiler:in the process abandoning the settlers already there because they expected them to die out pretty quickly anyway, and sweeping the whole matter under the rug. A few colonists survived though, and formed a nation called Veigan... which is now attacking the Earth Sphere for revenge and is known to them only as the "Unknown Enemy", or UE.]]
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'': Mars has been mostly terraformed: it has a breathable atmosphere and crops can grow on its surface. The process is not yet complete though, and the planet is still mostly barren.

* Near the end of ''Manga/GetterRobo Go'', [[spoiler: [[HumongousMecha Shin Getter Robo]] instantly terraforms Mars with a blast of Getter Energy]]. It does this so it can hibernate on the planet long enough to ''combine with it and become an even larger robot.''
* The world-settlers in ''Anime/{{Trigun}}'' set out to terraform a new planet, but unfortunately ended up crashing onto a desert world (losing much of their tools and resources in the process) and what resources they still have are almost solely devoted to surviving. Due to this, the work has barely even started at the time of the series, and it's implied they'd already been there for several decades or more.
* Almost all populated planets in ''Anime/KiddyGrade'' became inhabitable through terraforming. One episode even has Éclair and Lumière scavenge terraforming-equipment for usable parts.
* ''Anime/MarsDaybreak'' features a Mars where terraforming has GoneHorriblyWrong, somehow flooding the entire planet except for the peak of Olympus Mons.

* In ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', [[spoiler:Negi's plan to save [[MagicLand Mundus Magicus]] is revealed to be terraforming Mars so that it can support life.]]
* Supplementary materials for ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' reveal that Adam and Lilith are actually alien terraforming biotechnology called Eggs meant to seed life on worlds. The problems on Earth are the result of Adam and Lilith landing on the planet -- planets are only supposed to get one of the "Eggs". Fortunately, the Eggs' creators included control rods (the Lances of Longinus) with each Egg that automatically seal them if another Egg had already landed. This is what happened to Adam since Lilith landed on Earth first. Unfortunately, curious humans removed Adam's Lance, kicking off the series.
* The main premise of ''Manga/TerraFormars'', when the terraforming process GoneHorriblyWrong as the partially terraformed Mars now filled with swarm of titular hyper-evolved cockroach.

* In the Creator/{{Wildstorm}} universe, it's eventually revealed that Earth was in fact terraformed by technology created by the ancestors of the Kherubim, who were far more {{Sufficiently Advanced|Aliens}} than even the present-day Kherans were aware. This explains in part why humans and Kherans can [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreed]]; our DNA is partially based on theirs.
* But in ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', another Wildstorm series, a totally different explanation was given at the end of Warren Ellis's run (not surprisingly, since it's Warren "WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs" Ellis). Here the Earth was placed in its proper orbit by what is, essentially, God: a pyramidal being the size of our moon with four thousand hearts and pores the size of Staten Island. God even placed some "watch spores" on the planet to make sure everything stayed perfect, then went off to wander the universe for a bit. In the meantime, a big chunk of something hit the Earth, then started orbiting, becoming our moon. By sheer chance, the watch spores were among the matter blown off by the impact. This tilted Earth's axis, altered the atmosphere, and eventually led to the development of life as we know it today. God eventually comes back to discover that its vacation home has suddenly developed a totally poisonous (to it) atmosphere and grown a six-billion-strong infestation. In order to return the planet to its "proper" state, God drops some disgusting organic machinery into the African veldt that begins restoring the original atmosphere. So it's not so much terraforming as ''un''-terraforming.
** The Engineer even tries to come up with a term for it:
--->'''Engineer:''' What would you call that? Un-terraforming? Monsterforming? Disgusting stuff. Turdscaping.
* In ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire,'' the Prime Mover (a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien and ObstructiveBureaucrat) is Terraforming a planet as a hobby, in his room, ''by hand.''
** In his defense though, he did have a really big bucket.

* In the ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' comics Project Ossus was a collaborative effort between the Jedi and the Yuuzhan Vong to terraform several planets that had been devastated in the Vong invasion nearly a century before, using their OrganicTechnology to repair the damage it had been used to wreck. They were successful on Ossus, the Jedi's new homeworld, but on later planets the Sith sabotaged the process in order to start a war between the Empire and the Alliance.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/TheImmortalSuperman'', the titular hero travels to the far-flung future and discovers Earth has been turned into a lifeless rock after millennia of wars and environmental damage, so he sets out to make Earth inhabitable again with his own hands.
** ''ComicBook/TheUntoldStoryOfArgoCity'' reveals that Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} turned a random uninhabited planet into a copy of Krypton as a giant memorial monument.

* Deconstructed in ''Fanfic/{{Forward}}''. The terraforming process in the planet of Silverhold resulted in the unexpected creation of a deadly, heavy silvery gas that renders it nearly impossible to survive below a certain altitude.
* In ''Fanfic/KaraOfRokyn'', the survivors of Krypton have settled in a desert world called Rokyn, and their collective efforts to make the planet inhabitable are progressing neatly. The City of Kandor has grown, more cities are being built and there're large tracts of cultivable land being farmed.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'' had the Titan, which could completely and quickly remake a planet, just like the [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Genesis Device]]. Unlike the Genesis Device, though, the planet didn't collapse back on itself after a year [[note]]...as far as we know; It would be a good idea for the humans to wait a while before settling[[/note]]. The Titan didn't so much remake a planet, as make a whole new planet using a local nebula for raw materials. They just happened to call it "New Earth". Besides, we all know it's really called Planet Bob.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* The original ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' does this to Mars, supposedly by rapidly melting the planet's icy core to flood the atmosphere with oxygen. All at once, with no harmful side effects to billions of tons of air suddenly blasting on to the surface faster than any tornado. A window gets broken, that's it. There's not even any dust kicked up. ''On Mars''.
* The Genesis Device from ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' turns a nebula into an Earthlike planet. Sadly, the planet tore itself apart within a year. If it had been used on a rocky planet instead of a nebula, the planet probably wouldn't have fallen apart if that terraformed underground location Khan imprisoned Kirk and co. in was any indication.
** In ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'', David Marcus admitted that he had used "Proto-matter" ([[AppliedPhlebotinum a highly-unstable element]]) in the design of the Genesis device. Even if Genesis had been aimed at a rocky planet, it would have fallen apart.
** While the film never gave the fate of the test cavern inside the asteroid by Regula 1, the novelization of the film has David and Saavik revisiting the little world and discovering that the little world, too, doesn't seem right, a {{Foreshadowing}} of the Genesis World's fate.
* Although it's not seen on-screen, the dialogue in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' suggests that the Moon has been at least partly terraformed by the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' era. When Riker, a FishOutOfTemporalWater, stands in awe at the sight of the 21st century Moon and Zefram Cochrane rolls his eyes and sarcastically asks whether they still have a Moon in the future, Riker answers that it simply looks "a lot different": in the 24th century, "Lake Armstrong" and several lunar cities are visible from Earth. This does contrast a few earlier episodes, where the 24th century moon put in an appearance and looked the same as ever, though it may be possible that he was referring to it being colonized, not terraformed.
* An inversion in ''The Arrival''. An astronomer discovers that a worldwide rise in carbon dioxide levels and [[SpaceWhaleAesop resulting global warming]] is due to aliens seeking to kill off humanity and make Earth more like their planet. One of the aliens remarks that humans don't deserve Earth. We're already killing ourselves off, they're merely speeding up the process.
* Possibly occuring to parts of Mexico and the US in ''Film/{{Monsters|2010}}''. Trees in the "Infected Zone" are being used to host alien spores.

* Creator/JackWilliamson:
** Actually coined the term in a 1942 novella called "Collision Orbit," which can be considered the TropeNamer.
** A later Williamson book, ''Terraforming Earth'', involves Earth itself being terraformed. Not once, but several times, due to asteroid impacts, alien invasions, runaway technology, etc...
* Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'' is the definitive hard sci-fi account of terraforming, going into [[ShownTheirWork exhaustive detail]] about Martian terraforming. He portrays a process that runs for more two hundred years over the course of the three novels, which themselves are named in allusion to key steps in the terraforming project (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). One of the ongoing themes of the series is the increasing conflict between the Reds, who want to maintain the pristine beauty of Mars, and the Greens, who want a second Earth. The novels strongly imply that neither outcome is possible; [[spoiler:Mars will change the terraformers just as they change it.]] In the final installment (Blue Mars), [[spoiler:we see humans expand out to live on the moons of the gas giants, and inward to establish a constantly-moving city on Mercury.]]
** ''Literature/TwentyThreeTwelve'' picks up a hundred years after the final installment of the Mars Trilogy, showing humans living throughout the solar system (the main character is a native of Mercury). A minor (but crucial) plotline deals with the terraforming of the planet Venus, which brings its own subtle conflict; [[spoiler:do you rush the job, sealing up the remnants of the thick atmosphere under tonnes of rock and using a sunshade to give you artificial days and nights, or do you use the mass of the former atmosphere to spin the planet up -- a project that will take far longer, but leave a far more sustainable end result?]] In the process of terraforming, Robinson's solar system has become an endless playground for sci-fi tropes -- giant robots scooping up frozen carbon dioxide on Venus, 'hanging ships' floating in the clouds of Saturn and fully-tented moons that physically hold their atmospheres in.
* In ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'', the Fifth Men begin terraforming Venus when the Moon starts falling towards Earth. Pre-terraforming Venus is apparently an ocean under the cloud cover inhabited by various creatures that feed on radioactive materials, unfortunately oxygen is extremely toxic to them and the Fifth Men don't realize that some of Venus's native life is sapient until they've already started the oxygen enriching chain reactions so they just keep on going. Three more incarnations of Man evolve on Venus before the sun expands and the Eighth Men migrate to Neptune.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds1898''; the Martians try to areoform the Earth as part of their invasion plan. (Its publication date makes this possibly the UrExample of xenoforming.)
* Another reverse-example is David Gerrold's ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr'' novels. Alien creatures are transplanted from their home planet to the Earth to replace our entire ecology.
* In Creator/JohnChristopher's ''Literature/TheTripods'' (which may well be an AlternateUniverse sequel to ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''), anti-Terraforming is on the Tripods' agenda somewhere after Enslave Humanity. The alien Masters plan to replace the Earth's atmosphere with one like that of their own planet.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** "Literature/FoundingFathers": A crew of multinational astronauts crash-lands on an uncharted planet with just enough ammonia in the atmosphere to be unsuitable for human life. There are live plants on the ship, though, and if they can be coaxed to thrive somehow, a tipping point could be reached where the extra oxygen would wipe out the ammonia in a cascade. As the astronauts die, they never reach the tipping point. The last surviving human tries to bury his dead friends in their garden. It still doesn't work. He dies in the garden without having ever seen the plants grow vigorously enough to cause the atmosphere to change to a human-compatible oxygen-nitrogen mixture. [[spoiler:However, they deliberately died in the garden so that their body would be added to the fertilizer as well, and the narration says that when humans ''do'' eventually come to the world, there would be no sign that there had ever been too much ammonia in the atmosphere.]]
** "Literature/MotherEarth": Each of the fifty Outer Worlds were colonized by terraforming them into something hospitable by human standards. Aurora is used as an example to provide {{Exposition}} on the vagaries of taming a new world to human preference. However, much of the terraforming was based on transplanting swathes of Earth onto the planets. The steady processes of erosion and adaptation produce microscopic changes in the plants, affecting the animals, and eventually the humans. Having forbidden trade with Earth, the humans on each of the Outer Worlds will [[PlanetOfHats develop quirks unique to the chemistry of their planets]].
* In one of Creator/PhilipKDick's stories, Earth and Titan were in an uneasy peace because of a war that was held because humans terraformed Mars. There were already people of Titan on Mars, but they couldn't breathe oxygen. By the time the humans learned of the Titanians, the terraforming had already begun, and "you can't terraform just part of an atmosphere..."
* Many of the planets in ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' have to be terraformed to a greater or lesser extrent. The inhabitants of Komarr have had four hundred years of domed living, with another four hundred to come, while the solar mirror array and genetically engineered plants make the atmosphere breathable and warm enough. Barrayar is at the other end of the scale: the colonists just had to dump Earth soil and Earth-descended plants in place and burn away the native stuff, although as of ''Literature/ACivilCampaign'' there has been some interesting progress in genetically engineering life-forms that convert the native plant life into something compatible with the human biosphere.
* ''Literature/ChildrenOfTime'': Colonists fleeing a dying Earth make their way to a planet already terraformed by one of humanity's earlier projects, started when humanity was in its hey-day before it almost managed to destroy itself. Unfortunately for them a rogue scientist's plan to fast-evolve sapient monkeys hadn't exactly gone to plan (giant sapient spiders, anyone?). In the course of the story, they also end up visiting a world where the terraforming attempt had gone horribly wrong and created a world covered in grey goo.
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' universe:
** Most life-bearing planets were seeded with life by the Slavers; not to terraform, but simply to grow enough food for their vast and inefficiently-run empire. Specifically most planets only had a strain of yeast their prey animals enjoyed eating. When the Slavers War ended with the Suicide Night that [[OmnicidalManiac killed all life]] on the level of lobsters and higher in the entire Galaxy, the majority of new life evolved from their yeast farms, which explains why we are biochemically compatible.

* In Niven's non-series novel ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'', delivering biological terraforming packages to suitable extrasolar planets is the job given to the [[HumanPopsicle corpsicle]] Corbell.
* In the ''Literature/CoDominium'' universe, New Caledonia is a formerly barren world still being terraformed; for already life-bearing planets, the process is more a matter of altering the local ecology to support Earth life (which is usually grossly simplified for story purposes).

* The Creator/RobertAHeinlein story ''Literature/FarmerInTheSky'' is about a terraforming effort... [[ScienceMarchesOn on Ganymede]].
* Dan Simmons' ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' universe has in its backstory humanity terraforming all their worlds, regularly committing genocide against sapient indigenous species. This bothers pretty much no one, [[HumansAreBastards human]], [[AIIsACrapshoot AI]], or transhuman.
* The major theme of ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' is the back-and-forth attempts by humanity to terraform [[SingleBiomePlanet the desert planet Arrakis]] inhabited by the various life-cycle stages of sandworms (which create an extremely necessary commodity) and by the (non-sapient) sandtrout phase of the worm species to counter terraform Arrakis (and later other worlds) ''back into desert''.
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' has a major factor in the economics of the various colonies being how well they were terraformed. This is largely a function of when you left Earth and how much money you had when leaving. Haven and Manticore were settled fairly late with good resources. Other planets like Grayson were settled by [[SleeperShip cold sleepers]] who left very very early, had poor terraforming technology, and ended up on a planet full of heavy metal poisoning.
** The state of the terraforming efforts combined with the cultural base also give planets such as the Albino Zulus whose gene engineered solution to a poor Ozone.
** In Manticore's case it's stated that the only terraforming that was needed was the introduction of a few Terran plants, and that the unusual compatibility of the native life allowed a hybrid plague to develop. And it's probably no coincidence that the most populous planet in the Manticore system is the one that doesn't have high gravity or turbulent storms.
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'': The Magratheans seem worthy of a mention, taking this idea to its logical extreme by creating a custom planet-building business.
* ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'': Anabis, a galaxy-spanning consciousness that has terraformed all planets in its own galaxy by ripping a piece of its planet's surface off and sending to to the target planet through hyperspace (called junglescaping).
* Like the Magratheans two entries above, Creator/RogerZelazny's character Frank Sandow in ''Isle of the Dead'' and ''To Die in Italbar'' made a business of building planets, to order, or to his own design. Near the end of the first book, he has a vision of every planet he's built. After seventeen names, it trails off with "and so on." (He's over twelve centuries old; he's had time.)
* In ''Literature/{{Spin}}'', when the Earth is placed under a membrane that slows down time (which means that for the people of Earth the Sun will expand in a few decades), humans successfully terraform Mars; a whole civilisation appears there within a few years (for those on Earth)/a few millennia (for the people of Mars -- humans who have evolved slightly differently.)
* In the ''Literature/NewJediOrder'', this is a specialty of the invading Yuuzhan Vong. Picture a cross between [[Anime/DragonBallZ Super Saiyajin]] and [[Series/StarTrekVoyager species 8472]].
* ''Cthulhu's Reign'', edited by Darrell Schweitzer, is a Franchise/CthulhuMythos anthology of short stories on what existence on Earth would be like when the Old Ones return. There are several references to the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s 'terra-deforming' the Earth so it's more suited to themselves.

* In ''Literature/{{Helm}}'', Epsilon Erdani II -- known to its settlers as Agatsu.
* In part three of Alexander Kazantsev's ''Destruction of Faena'', Mars' surface is made inhabitable by bombarding it with rockets made of ice, which melts, creating the first ocean.
* ''Savior'' by Creator/RobertReed -- A rapidly failing alien starship uses a massive laser cannon to melt the ice bergs to try and make the Earth habitable for them. Naturally, this [[NukeEm doesn't go to well]] for the aliens.
* ''The Forgotten Planet'' by Murray Leinster is about a planet that was partially seeded and then lost in the galactic bureaucracy. Microbes and insects were seeded but not vertebrates resulting in a planet of giant insects.
* The ''Literature/VenusPrime'' novel ''The Shining Ones'' involves the protagonists traveling through a black hole into distant past and witnessing a race of [[StarfishAliens squid-like aliens]] attempting to remake Venus based on a very specific template. They redirect comets to crash on Venus and create water. Unfortunately, they fail to ancitipcate a meteor storm that destroys their efforts. The settlers then split based on their opinion towards the official doctrine, which states that settled planets must be ''exactly'' like their homeworld. The rebels end up joining the humans and traveling to Mars to terraform it. One of they ways they do that is by inserting artificial spinning black holes (in containment, of course) into the poles in order to increase gravity to Earth-norm. In the end, though, the loyalists end up attacking Mars and destroying their efforts, returning the planet into the desolate rock we know. The rebels settle for traveling to Earth and lying dormant in the oceanic depths for human life to emerge.
** In one of the earlier books in the series, Sparta muses that at the same time that humans are trying to make Venus more like Earth, Earth is becoming more like Venus, thanks to extensive use of coal power, coupled with humans' over-reliance on air-conditioning.
* In ''Literature/{{Aristoi}}'', terraforming is so easy that humanity's spread through the cosmos is limited only by the Aristoi not wishing to have to run any more planets.
* In SA Swann's ''Literature/TerranConfederacy'' universe, the [[{{Precursors}} Dolbrians]] terraformed a number of worlds before vanishing, including Mars. Humans reterraformed Mars, and also terraformed Titan and several other large moons of the outer planets. Those colonies were later destroyed in a GreyGoo incident and the reactions to same.
* In the ''Literature/ParadoxTrilogy'', Hyrek gives a wry commentary on the various types of terraforming performed by different governments. Paradox uses robots to terrform planets for colonization, blithely wiping out all indigenous species. The Terran Republic, by contrast, takes great care to catalog all native life on potential colony worlds... then wipes it all out in order to transplant human-friendly organisms.
* In ''Literature/{{Hammerjack}}'', multiple attempts were made to terraform Mars, but all ending up failing. The most recent attempt was destroyed by an outbreak of a deadly alien pathogen termed the Mons virus.

* In ''Literature/SpinwardFringe'', terraforming is a long, slow process; many inhabited planets are at risk of becoming uninhabitable if the constant wars and corporate takeovers disrupt the constant oversight and maintenance required. The organisation which largely carries out exploration and terraforming is also one of very few entities largely left out of said wars and intrigue, since no-one else wants to be stuck with the effort and expense involved.
* In the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' novels the terraforming efforts on Mars and the first extrasolar colony were disastrous. Something in Mars' atmosphere killed the first colonists to breathe the air within a day, the extrasolar world spawned some nasty plagues and macro-life. By Kovacs' time colony barges are loaded with specialized AIs that thoroughly plan out the new ecology, including what parts of the native ecology to destroy, before the colonists are even decanted from their cloning tanks.
* Kin Arad's job in the Creator/TerryPratchett book Literature/{{Strata}}.
* ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'': The Nazis have drained much of the Mediterranean Sea and turned it into arable farmland. There's also mention of them launching space exploration and establishing colonies on Mars and Venus (but bear in mind that in 1962, when the book was written, it was not yet known that [[VenusIsWet those planets were as inhospitable as they are]]).
* In ''Literature/WeAreLegionWeAreBob'', the first system Bob travels to (Epsilon Eridani) has a ''barely'' habitable planet one of his clones dubs Ragnarok. After all but one Bob leave the system, Bill (Bob-3) decides to slightly improve the planet's habitability by bringing in Kuiper belt objects (composed of ice) and parking them in a slowly-decaying orbit above Ragnarok. The atmospheric friction would melt the ice, allowing it to rain down and raise the sea level. The intention is to create a world ocean rather than a series of inland seas. Later, Milo (Bob-4) finds two habitable planets in 82 Eridani, plus a large moon with a thin atmosphere. The Bobs speculate that they could bring in atmosphere from elsewhere for the moon. While it would eventually dissipate, the process would take a ''very'' long time, from a human perspective. The other two planets have some minor annoyances, such as extremely annoying bugs and an extremely smelly jungle, but are perfectly habitable.
* In ''Literature/DaystarAndShadow'', [[spoiler:this turns out to be the motivation of both the Hemn and the Others. The Others want to turn the world into a desert, kill most humans, and infect everyone else with a parasite that [[BodyHorror turns them into plants]] the Others can eat. The Hemn want to use runaway GlobalWarming to creat a hot, humid ocean planet where their civilization can flourish.]]
* ''Literature/Aeon14'' has the Future Generation Terraformers, who for thousands of years were frontrunners for human space colonization. By the 9th milennium they have become [[TheIlluminati The Illuminati]] [[InSpace In Space]], seeking to guide humanity from behind the scenes while fostering extended colonization in far-away places which might survive a general galactic catastrophe.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' has the Pyreans, aliens who exist on planets like Venus -- super hot, toxic, and deadly to most organic life. They "pyroform" planets by burning them to their tastes, the [[TheFederation old Commonwealth]] had to seriously fight them not to lose precious human habitable worlds.

* The ''Series/CosmosAPersonalVoyage'' episode "Blues for a Red Planet" discussed the possibility of terraforming Mars with dark-colored, hardy plants.
* In ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' the Votan terraformed at least one planet in their home system and brought the technology with them to Earth. They decided not to use it when they found that earth was already inhabitable and inhabited but when the Arks were destroyed the equipment they were carrying malfunctioned and created a variety of bizarre hybrid creatures when it crashed.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E5TheSeedsOfDeath "The Seeds of Death"]]: The Ice Warriors try to modify Earth to make it more habitable for them — i.e., colder.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E1TerrorOfTheZygons "Terror of the Zygons"]]: The Zygons plan to modify the Earth’s climate to make it more suitable for their species.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]]: The planet Messaline is turned from a desolate wasteland into a beautiful planet full of life by using a terraforming device.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 "Orphan 55"]]: Tranquillity Spa turns out to be secretly located on the titular DeathWorld, and is trying to raise enough capital to terraform the planet to make it prime real estate.
* ''Series/TheExpanse'' features an independent Mars that is currently in the middle of its terraforming process. While the it's still not possible to walk on the surface without a suit, the atmosphere has become noticeably blue. Part of what fuels Matian resentment of Earth is that the Mars should have been fully terraformed decades before but the ongoing cold war between the two planets means that resources have been diverted to the military and the terraforming project is now a hundred years behind schedule. An older Martian laments that he fears the terraforming will never be complete, as the younger generations are used to living under domes and aren't as driven to complete the project as their parents and grandparents who remember the open sky of earth.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': The system where the series takes place is small cluster of five stars with "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons." Very nearly every one of them is terraformed using massive machines brought from EarthThatWas, but human labor is still needed and it's hard, dangerous work. Plus, terraforming often has unintended side effects, like the newly introduced atmosphere interacting with minerals or gases to cause a massive plague. Sometimes the terraforming fails entirely, leaving nothing but an uninhabitable "black rock." Which makes a convenient excuse when the Alliance wants to hide an entire planet...
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': In season 2 Reichsminister Heusmann shows Joe Blake plans for the creation of new land and energy by draining the Mediterranean, something carried over from the book (although there it was already implemented). This was based on the real [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa "Atlantropa"]] plan by German scientists who favoured a "southern policy" of European settlement in Africa over the conquest of territory in Eastern Europe preferred by the Nazis. The younger generation of Nazi youth oppose this plan, as environmentalism is gaining traction in the Reich.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'' did it twice, both due to Rimmer and both resulting in complete catastrophe.
** The first episode, "Terrorform", was based on a sentient moon which formed itself based on the psyche of those who landed -- and it's long been established that Rimmer's psyche is not a good place to be...

** The second time was "Rimmerworld", where Rimmer, abandoned to his own devices (by his own cowardice) on an uninhabitable world for 600 years armed with only a planet seeding pod, creates a SingleBiomePlanet of Rimmers -- he lasted barely forty years before being slung in jail by the rest of him.
** Terraforming was the backgound plot of ''Back to Reality'': Planet engineers in an ocean seeding ship had terraformed an ocean moon and created a marine ecosystem teeming with lifeforms by vastly speeding up evolution. Unfortunately it backfired when one lifeform arose that wiped out everything else: the Despair Squid.
* On ''Series/Space1999'', the Moon is terraformed to have a livable atmosphere by aliens on the episode "The Last Sunrise". They did it because they believe real hard that HumansAreTheRealMonsters, the terraformed Moon's atmosphere makes it impossible for the Alphans to deploy ships to check the Moon (let alone visit other planets), [[YankTheDogsChain and they remove it once the Moon is too far away for the Alphans to explore their planet]] ([[PunyEarthlings which they foresaw as a massive potential contaminating hazard and didn't wanted to take their chances]]).

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' has Mars terraforming in-progress. They had the atmosphere thickened enough to allow people on the surface without pressurized suits, and that's about it. By 2155 you still need oxygen tanks and thick clothing to stay alive.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had a surprisingly good first season episode where the Enterprise was trying to help terraform a desert planet by pumping water for irrigation. Unfortunately, the planet was occupied by sapient lifeforms who were annoyed enough at the attempt to terraform to sabotage the drill. It took a while for everyone to figure this out because they were microscopic silicon lifeforms, and so were mistaken for parts of the sandy scenery.
** However, Federation Terraforming regulations require a planet to be devoid of any trace of life, so not even possible future species might be prevented from evolving naturally.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': The episode "Voices in the Earth". All life on Earth was wiped out and the planet made uninhabitable by a disaster a thousand years ago, including changing the atmosphere to methane. At the end of the episode a group of ghosts restores the biosphere, including changing the air back to normal, recreating life in the oceans and accelerating its evolution.
* The Neo Frontier of ''Series/UltramanDyna'' was a terraforming project to colonize the solar system. during the series itself, Settlements had been created on Mars.

[[folder:Podcast]]
* In the ''Podcast/TwilightHistories'' episode “Blue Dragons” this has happened to Venus. You’ve been sent to investigate who did it and how they accomplished it.

* In the ''Centauri Knights'' setting for ''TabletopGame/BigEyesSmallMouth'', the planet being colonized has had its ecosystem wiped clean to the bedrock by {{nanomachines}} made by the natives. The native ecosystem survives on a couple of still-working, but unoccupied, space habitats near the planet. One of the conflicts in the game's politics is: Do we terraform the planet into a new Earth, rebuild its own ecosystem by transplanting from the colonies, leave it a barren desert and mine it for technology, or abandon it and go home?
* In ''TabletopGame/EmpireOfThePetalThrone'', humanity made some (relatively minor) adjustments to the world of Tékumel to make it habitable for themselves. The locals naturally took this as a {{Hostile|Terraforming}} act. 50,000 years later, they still bear a grudge.

* Basically done by all the Colors in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', as gameplay revolves around players putting lands into play in order to summon creatures or cast spells. However, Green is ''particularly'' known for this, due to having a lot of cards that allow players to either play more than one land per turn or to add lands to their hands, which makes sense given the color's propensity of doling out the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever using creatures that have high power and toughness and fittingly high mana costs.
* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' this is done by two factions, inverted by another, and subverted by a fourth.
** [[TheEmpire The Imperium]] still has the know-how to terraform planets that aren't already inhabitable by humans, but may end up turning them into {{Polluted Wasteland}}s dotted with [[MegaCity hive cities]] and [[EternalEngine manufactorums]] regardless.
** Back at the height of the [[SpaceElves Eldar]] empire, the aliens started long-term alteration projects to make some worlds on the galactic fringe inhabitable. Ten thousand years later these Maiden Worlds have developed into pristine paradises that unfortunately are very attractive to human colonists. Often the first sign that humans have settled a Maiden World is an Eldar warhost bent on exterminating the vermin infesting what they consider part of their ancestral empire.
** Inverted by the [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]], whose idea of creating the perfect environment [[OmnicidalManiac is to purge it of any and all life]], down to the molecular level if necessary.
** The Tyranids use a process called Tyranoforming on worlds they take an interest in, seeding their atmosphere with spores that bring about runaway plant growth and global warming as Tyranid structures begin to emerge in the overgrown landscape. This is actually a subversion, however -- the explosive plant growth is in anticipation of the world's ''harvesting''. The digestion pools and capillary towers help the HordeOfAlienLocusts consume every last bit of bio-mass and pipe it up to the [[LivingShip hive ships]] in orbit, which proceed to eat everything down to the bedrock, drink the world's oceans, and even siphon up its atmosphere, leaving behind a barren rock. They eventually want to do this to ''all'' of the galaxy, though there is at least one system they're avoiding [[AlwaysABiggerFish because it scares even them.]]
** The Orks can also do this, thanks to their spore-based biology. Left unchecked, Ork spores will gradually "Orkyform" entire planets. Orks are, in fact, even more virulent than the 'Nids in this regard. Where the Tyranids use a complex system of vanguard organisms, hive fleets and other specialized organisms, ''every'' Ork and related organism (orkanism?) contains the DNA of the entire Ork ecosystem (Orkosystem?) in its body. Once a spore lands in a spot with the appropriate resources, it will first form plants and fungi, then lesser orkoids like [[WaddlingHead Squigs]] and [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Gretchins]] and finally proper Orks. The only thing that stops them from orkyforming the entire galaxy, let alone completely overtaking the ecosystems of most planets they wind up on, is that, unlike the hive-minded Tyranids, the Orks are ChaoticStupid incarnate and so [[BloodKnight inveterately belligerent]] that they quickly resort to killing each other whenever there's nothing else around to fight.
** Demons can't normally survive in the material world, so Chaos also aim to terraform worlds. In this case that tends to mean sucking them into hell and covering them with demons rather than simply altering the environment.
* In ''TabletopGame/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'', Mars, Venus and Titan (the largest moon of Saturn) are all in the process of being terraformed.
* Life on most of the Known Worlds in ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' is supported by [[LostTechnology ancient]] terraforming engines. Unfortunately, many of them are now failing.
* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' the Planetary Consortium is terraforming Mars as part of their plan to make the planet transhumanity's new home; at the current point genetically modified "Ruster" morphs are capable of breathing the atmosphere. They were planning to do a similar thing on Venus but when the Morningstar Constellation seceded they adopted a more cost-effective plan to only alter the upper atmosphere (where the majority of Venusian habitats are located anyways). The [[PortalNetwork Pandora Gates]] have been used to discover dozens of more easily terraformable planets (as well as a few that don't need it) and the [=TerraGenesis=] hypercorp has made it a speciality of theirs. Finally, the Reclaimers hope to eventually re-terraform {{Earth|ThatWas}}.
* In ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'', terrraforming was started illegally on Mars by an anarcho-capitalist group called the Duncanites. After driving them off world, the nations colonizing Mars decided the damage was done and continued the project. In 2100, modified humans can breathe the atmosphere. The Duncanites are currently attempting to terraform Europa, and are at war with environmental activists trying to protect the native (microbial) ecosystem.
* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' Mars has been turned into practically a lower-gravity copy of (pre-nuclear war) Earth, while Venus tried to preserve as much of the original landscape as possible and the eco-engineers got a bit creative with the flora and fauna. Ganymede also has a breathable atmosphere but it's so cold that most of the population still lives in domes. Transcendent Technologies Inc only terraformed Europa a little bit for their research into the Monolith.
* In Metagaming's ''Invasion of the Air Eaters'', as part of an AlienInvasion, creatures form another planet try to convert the Earth's atmosphere to sulfur dioxide so they can colonize it.
* The board game ''TabletopGame/TerraformingMars'' makes each player a [[MegaCorp corporation]] or other entity tasked with building up Mars's atmosphere, surface temperature, and ocean coverage to increase their “Terraformer Rating,” and thus their final score. Other factors necessary for human life can also increase the TR on a case-by-case basis, such as ringing the planet with superconducting wires to give Mars a magnetic field. The creators have also ShownTheirWork by making the endgame parameters the same as in RealLife (9% ocean coverage, 8 C temperature, and 14% oxygen).
* In the board game ''Terra Mystica'', the players take on the roles of fantasy races expanding their empires across a continent, which involves transforming the terrain to meet their various needs. The sci-fi themed sequel ''Gaia Project'' plays the trope straight, replacing fantasy races with aliens and a board made up of multiple planets.
* ''TabletopGame/TheRoboticAge'': In the 22nd Century, Humanity developed the technology, to halt and somewhat reverse the worst effects of climate change on Earth. And now it being used to terraform Mars.

* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' has terraforming as a big part of the gameplay, even allowing you to decide how much you want to incorporate the native environment (which is a good idea, because this environment [[GeniusLoci fights]] [[DeathWorld back]]!). The SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' has three main paths for your faction to take: Harmony, Supremacy, and Purity. Only the Purity path involves terraforming the planet to be more Earth-like in order to allow humans to breathe the air (it's normally poisonous). The other two paths, instead, focus on adapting the human body in either the biological (Harmony) or technological (Supremacy) manner to survive on the planet without the need to terraform it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ascendancy}}'' had terraforming as something that could be done only after discovering a fairly high-level technology. In this game, all territory considered of "squares", which could be different colors, each color corresponding to its suitability to different tasks (green for prosperity, red for industrial, for example). Black squares were uninhabitable (except to one species) unless terraformed. Further, the Lush Growth Bomb project increased the maximum population of a planet.
* ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaDeadlock'': Called "kobolforming" in this setting, after Kobol, humanity's original home world. Not done within the game itself, but mission briefing text notes that Aquaria (think planet-sized Antarctica with one somewhat habitable continent) was the last of the Twelve Colonies to be kobolformed.

* ''VideoGame/Doom3'': Terraforming Mars is part of the sales pitch for two of the UAC's products: the Elemental Phase Deconstructor[[note]]a system designed to break down iron oxide into subatomic particles[[/note]] and the Hydrocon[[note]]a secondary to the EPD that reassembles the particles into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, synthesizing hydrogen fuel, breathable oxygen and clean water[[/note]]. However, by the time of the game's events, these technologies are still in the experimental stage, and Mars is still inhospitable.
* ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'': [[BroadStrokes In these games]], Mars was always the first planet to be terraformed. In the first game it didn't really take, leaving Mars a rather dry, harsh place, in the second game the Martian terraforming just hasn't gone on for long enough for there to be all that much of a difference yet, and in the third game things went wrong, souring general attitudes on terraforming for generations to come. Said third game, ''EV Nova'', also lets you see somebody get terraforming right in one quest line. And the [[HigherTechSpecies Polaris]] have largely mastered it, with several planets listed as terraformed in the "communicate with planet" dialog box.

* ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'' has multiple levels of terraforming techs that improve the quality of your already-inhabited worlds, while the second game's first expansion introduced planets with extreme conditions -- high gravity, radiation, toxic atmospheres, etc -- that required expensive technology to be researched before you could even settle them. Meanwhile, one particular mega-event involves someone randomly poking a {{Precursor|s}} artifact that immediately turns every uninhabitable world within a couple of parsecs into a verdant planet (including, oddly, the gas giants), sparking a galactic scramble to settle as many of them as possible or a major power shift if it goes off in the middle of someone's empire.

* ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRiising'': The aliens embark on a great xenoforming project of Earth itself, starting with Greenland. Given that they are, in part, living universal constructors, it becomes of vital importance to stop them.
* In ''VideoGame/ImperiumGalactica II'' you can use Genesis-type devices on planets that explosively terraform them to your civilization's needs.
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', one of the planet/levels that you visit, Citadel Station, exists for this purpose. This is a different take on the trope, however, in that the planet, Telos, was originally habitable, but the Sith [[KickTheDog razed]] the planet for no particularly good reason.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Only very mild degrees of terraforming take place in-universe, as the process is noted to be extremely expensive. With CasualInterstellarTravel on the level of several thousand times the speed of light for conventional Alcubierre drives and millions of times the speed of light for mass relays, it's much cheaper and easier to just find a planet that's life-sustaining on its own than it is to spend years and absurd amounts of money to make a lifeless rock livable, rendering terraforming AwesomeButImpractical on a galactic scale. The codex entry for Mars actually notes that the humans ''were'' terraforming it, but abandoned the idea when they discovered FTL travel and had effectively limitless planets to pick from, leaving the only livable places on Mars dome cities that they'd already built.[[note]]For reference, astronomers estimate that there are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_analog 40 billion]] Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars or red dwarves in the Milky Way. If even a thousandth of those are life-bearing, and keeping in mind that the codex notes that about 1% of the galaxy is explored, that still comes out to several hundred thousand known habitable planets. You can see why no one would bother to terraform something like Mars in this case[[/note]]
** However, in the ''Arrival'' [=DLC=] for ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', it's revealed that the Batarian Hegemony has been trying for years to force Aratoht to support life via heavy importation of cyanobacteria. According to the codex, after 23 years of labor, their efforts have resulted in a 1% increase in atmospheric oxygen.

** Central to the plot of ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', where the heroes have to reset some malfunctioning {{Precursor|s}} terraforming machines to alter planets in the Heleus Cluster to their liking (the planets had originally been inhabitable, but were damaged while they travelled there). The technology is considered dangerous however, since no one has a clue how the machines work, and anything that can alter a planet's weather patterns in ''seconds'' is some seriously powerful tech.
* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'': In the first two games, terraforming goes on for much of the game. Together with the tech for planetary gravity generators, radiation shields, enriching biospheres and ''installing'' biospheres, it's possible to transform an empire into a verdant garden where previously inhospitable planets have between three and fifteen times their original population limits. In the second game it's then possible to fashion asteroid belts and gas giants into new planets and terraform them as well. It's great fun for [[VideoGameCaringPotential those who get attached]], and well out of place in games of galactic politics and warfare where genocide is what's for dinner.

** The third game has a more complex system, with each planet having a certain temperature and atmospheric pressure, and each species having a different preferred value for each. Instead of having a few discrete states, terrforming is a continuous process of slowly moving each along the scale towards your sweet spot. Gravity is also important, but the effects of it being too high or too low are countered by specific buildings and technology rather than being included in terraforming. Since an empire can contain several different species, it could be tricky to know exactly what conditions a planet is being terrformed at any given time, and this could change as population growth and migration change the demographics.

* ''VideoGame/Outpost2'', in its GenreShift to real-time strategy, made terraforming into the ''cause'' for the game's plot -- a huge increase of natural disasters and the unleashing of an all-consuming biological nightmare likely to be TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Second world, that is -- Earth was already gone by that time.

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'': The Mycon use their "Deep Children" to pyroform worlds to their standards.
* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': Zerg buildings are built on a thick matting of purplish organic material called creep that is spread from certain buildings. It prevents other species from building on it, but recedes if the producing building (creep colonies in the first game, creep tumors in the second) is killed. In the second game, zerg ground units move much faster while on creep. In ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'' the Protoss on the icy planet Kaldir were attempting to alter its orbit to be more hospitable to Protoss life, but their efforts were interrupted by the arrival of the Zerg Swarm.
* ''VideoGame/StarFox:'' Andross apparently planned to terraform Venom, a rather barren planet with acidic oceans. In ''VideoGame/StarFoxCommand'', this becomes central to the better endings since these oceans are also the home of the hostile Anglar. In 2 endings, his invention is used successfully and causes Venom to be as fertile as Corneria.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' terraforming is an expensive process using mid-game tech to change a planet's type (arctic, arid, continental, ocean, etc) over decades to something more easily inhabited by one or your empire's species.
** Initially, you can only terraform worlds within the same climate/moisture range (arid to desert, continental to tropical, arctic to tundra, etc). Researching another tech allows you to terraform between climate ranges. The third terraforming tech allows you to terraform tomb worlds [[AfterTheEnd devastated by nuclear war]], as well as make certain barren planets habitable. Finally, a rare late game tech lets you turn any habitable planet into a Gaia world, which are 100% inhabitable by all species regardless of the nature of their homeworld. The more complex the terraforming operation, the longer it takes. Terraforming within a climate range takes just 5 years, while terraforming between climate ranges takes twice as long. Restoring a tomb world's habitability or making a barren world habitable takes about 20 years, and creating a Gaia world takes over 40 years.
** Other late-game terraforming options include an Ecumenopolis, ie, making the [[CityPlanet entire planet a city]]. This massively increases living space and room for buildings, but deprives the planet of most of its natural resources. Machine civilizations eventually have the option of turning planets into Machine Worlds, which are [[HostileTerraforming completely uninhabitable by living creatures]] but optimized for industrial production.

* ''VideoGame/UFOAfterlight'' has this as much of the point. Humans, forced off of Earth, travel to Mars to create another habitable planet. Terraforming technology very slowly changes the red planet to a blue and green planet in real-time, and tactical combat maps change from red and deadly to green and (relatively) safe. In fact, if you fail to start the terraformation process shortly after the beginning of the game, the environmental hostility will quickly go out of control, and your space suits will not protect you. The terraformation is also shown in "stages", with the dead, red planet as stage 1, small "plant" organisms and cacti as stage 2, and the appearance of water and more complex organisms as stage 3.

* ''VideoGame/{{X}}'': The games have terraforming as the event that started the whole series. The Terraformer fleets at first worked very well, but after a ''[[AIIsACrapshoot glitched software update]]'', the Von Neumann machines that man had sent out to terraform the [[PortalNetwork gate system]] started "[[ColonyDrop terraforming]]" ''everything'', including inhabited planets and ships. Mankind fights back, the Terraformers swat them out of the way, and all seems lost until they're tricked into moving en masse to a distant part of the universe -- which they promptly start "terraforming" as well[[note]]planets found in Terraformer-controlled areas are often incapable of supporting life, usually because the Terraformers ruined their environments[[/note]].


* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheGunganFrontier'' has the player setting up a complete ecosystem on one of Naboo's moons so that the Gungans can colonize it.
* In ''VideoGame/JeffWaynesWarOfTheWorlds'', much like the novel, the Martians engage in xenoforming with their red weed.
* ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' features as a mid-level quest chain fights against the froglike Gadroon who are seeking to Xenoform Earth into a much warmer, swampier habitat -- starting in the middle of Canada.
* ''VideoGame/LostPlanet'', though the original plan for making E.D.N. III hospitable would have fried the Akrids and more importantly the colonists already on the planet.
* ''VideoGame/SimEarth'' has terraforming machines for its Mars and Venus scenarios.
* ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'': {{Deconstructed}} when Jak has to fight the BigBad operating a massive machine called a Terraformer, meant to be used to fix the unfinished planet. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:as it's Dark Maker technology,]] "fix" here means "ruin and make completely uninhabitable to current life".
* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'': Deconstructed in ''Space Quest 5'', where a biological agent meant for terraforming planets turns out to have [[BodyHorror horrible, HORRIBLE]] effects on actual living beings, including humans. The company that made it bribes a corrupt starfleet captain to get rid of the stuff by dumping it on "unwanted" planets, which ends up causing something similar to a ZombieApocalypse.
* ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace'':
** The first game features this deep in the colonization and exploration tech tree. However, terraforming a hostile world isn't easy, and there are multiple stages of planet types that must be successfully transformed in order to slowly turn a hostile world into a garden: Barren becomes arctic becomes tundra becomes terran, for example. Terraforming sideways within tiers, or even down tiers, is also possible. Gas giants and asteroid belts, however, can't be improved at all. In a separate form of terraforming, negative and mixed planetary anomalies such as strong magnetic fields, seismic activity, and toxic environments can be alleviated through other technologies in the same tech tree -- the first stage allows the removal of minor anomalies, then later the ability to remove severe anomalies. Played with in that descriptions for remedied anomalies indicate that it's just as often the result of adapting the colony's systems to the environment.
** ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace2'' continues the tradition of terraforming for the majority of races with the stipulation that a planet can not be converted into a less hospitable type. The Riftborn however are unique in that they ''prefer'' the more hostile planet types and can terraform planets into more hostile variants.
* ''VideoGame/WildStar'': The Eldan have left plenty of these devices on Nexus. Sometimes, it works on a very small, local scale (Deradune), and sometimes, encompasses an entire region (the Northern Wilds).
* ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'': Part of the background. At one point, you visit a newly discovered planet still being terraformed and the resident MrExposition scientist explains how it all works.

** The Orokin originally planned to terraform the Tau system; this seems to be the only extra-solar activity they engaged in. [[spoiler:The robots they sent to do the job evolved into the Sentients, who decided that the Orokin would just screw up the Tau system like they did the Origin System. So they went to war to destroy the Orokin]].
* ''VideoGame/TerraGenesis'' is a strategy game based on this trope. The player is tasked to terraform the uninhabitable inner planets, Earth's moon, and even Earth itself![[note]]There are moons of the outer planets, dwarf planets, plants of the TRAPPIST-1 system, a set of fictional planets, Earth in its past (and future) forms, and even a randomly generated planet to terraform, but those are paid.[[/note]] Terraforming is done through setting up cities and its buildings to control the world's components: temperature, pressure, water, and oxygen. If Biosphere is toggled for a game, the player can manage the world also by controlling the organisms.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', sort of -- planting lots of trees to ensure a healthy wood supply is an important part of the game, and if you're in a desert or a tundra it can come off as turning the wastelands into a forest; the largest building projects also tend to result in this, especially once the player engages in sufficient sculpting of the landscape, and the process of reshaping hills, valleys and plains into more pleasing or convenient shapes is typically referred to as "terraforming" by players. However, the weather patterns won't change, and creatures specific to your intended biome still won't spawn.
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', like Minecraft above, lets you plant trees and build mountains and such, but you can also change the surrounding biomes!
* ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'' added terraformers in the 1.2 update, which allow the player to turn a part of the planet (or even ''all of it'') into another biome at the cost of some ancient essence. Actually making them is a different story, as it requires the player to gain access to a Terraforge, which in turn requires going through an [[BonusDungeon Ancient Vault]], which in turn requires obtaining a Vault Key, which in turn requires [[spoiler: defeating [[FinalBoss the Ruin]]]]...
* ''VideoGame/{{Ogame}}'': You can do this with one building, the Terraformer, that gives you extra fields to build in.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': While not on a different planet, the Undead faction produces Blight from its buildings, which kills the ground around them and turns trees into dead wood (though it's just as useable as before). Undead units only regenerate while on blighted ground, and unlike creep other factions can put their buildings down on it (it even dispels the blight in a wide radius).
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': The Koroks are periodically sent out by the Great Deku Tree to plant trees on the islands of the Great Sea, in an attempt to create forests and to reclaim land from the sea.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'', the Traveler terraformed several planet across the Solar System when it arrived, making those worlds in habitable for humanity, including making the incredibly inhospitable Venus and Mercury into lush garden worlds and making Mars an inhabitable, if still dry and desert, planet. ''VideoGame/Destiny2'' shows that it did the same for many smaller moons, such as Io. Titan was terraformed by humanity into a world with a giant liquid methane ocean and yet a breathable atmosphere (they hoped the Traveler would come and do a better job after it was done with Io). On the other end of the spectrum, the alien Vex have also terraformed worlds in the system, including [[HostileTerraforming reversing the Traveler's work on Mercury to make it into a massive machine-world,]] and turning 7066 Nessus into a strange mixture of Vex machine architecture covered with a verdant alien ecology.
* ''VideoGame/SurvivingMars'': The expansion "Green Planet" is all about terraforming Mars, using a wide variety of methods, either exploiting existing technology (such as deliberately burning carbon fuels to warm up the planet with greenhouse gas) or the local geology (setting off a Martian supervolcano, or steering comets into the planet, to increase its atmosphere). There are four independent stats that have to be improved: atmospheric density, temperature, water availability, and flora biomass. Every method to increase these takes a long time to give up results, and the planet's lack of a magnetic field and natural soil toxicity will hinder progress.
* ''VideoGame/Code7'':
** The purpose of the crew of [[SpaceStation Schrödinger Station]], the first station beyond UsefulNotes/TheMilkyWayGalaxy, is to find out if Gershwin 610 B could become a new habitable planet for humanity.
** [[SpaceStation Oriens Station]], located on UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}, was the successful testing colony before the interstellar settling program was launched.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestBuilders2'', being a ''Minecraft'' inspired game, puts a great deal of focus on altering your environment to suit your needs and gives hundreds of different types of blocks and foliage to work with.[[note]]You could technically do this in [[VideoGame/DragonQuestBuilders the first game]] too, but it was on a much smaller scale and you had a lot less to work with.[[/note]] This isn't purely for decorative purposes either, as changing enough terrain in an area will alter how it appears on the minimap and (within The Isle of Awakening) [[GeoEffects control what type of monsters spawn there]]. Certain building projects during the main story also put specific focus on this, like making an entire river from scratch.
* ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' has a few terraformed planets, including Mars in the Sol system. Candidates for terraforming are a rare and valuable find while exploring.
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': [[spoiler:The titular Project Zero Dawn was in fact this. Knowing that the war against [[RobotWar the Faro Plague]] was hopeless and that the robots would consume Earth's biosphere long before humanity could successfully hack their systems, humanity's top scientists created the GAIA AI system that would first deactivate the machines and then restore the organic life they destroyed. Most of GAIA's subordinate functions handled fixing the damage; AETHER and POSEIDON detoxified Earth's polluted air and seas, DEMETER and ARTEMIS restored its flora and fauna, and finally, once Earth was habitable again, ELEUTHIA restored the human race.]]
* ''VideoGame/TerraNil'' is an upcoming (as of April 2022) SimulationGame where you use limited terraforming (reintroducing plant and animal life, controlling temperature and humidity, and dig canals) to restore a PollutedWasteland into a lush healthy ecosystem.

* ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience'' has a terraformed Mars that has become a HiveMind of post-human and AI inhabitants.
** They also terraformed Venus and Europa to give the rest of [[TheSingularity pre-singularity]] Humanity more places to live. In the case of Mars and Venus the process is still ongoing: Venus is [[CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain constantly raining]], while one character (a Martian of course) works on a project to restart Mars' plate tectonics and make the atmosphere self-sustaining.
* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' [[IncrediblyLamePun Butane, the planet of dragons]] is a terraformed world in the Kuiper Belt. [[https://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/419 Jolly the Giantess]] has been given the job of helping to maintain it.

* ''Webcomic/FarOutThere'' uses this to explain its habitable planets (as well as why [[http://faroutthere.smackjeeves.com/comics/1027072/page-5-dun-dun-duuuun/ Trigger grew up in an underground bunker]])
* In ''[[Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles Campus Safari]]'' the Cyantians are terraforming Mars and Venus as gifts for humanity when they make FirstContact. Their colony on Mars doubles as a WackyCollege.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler: [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy Betty Crocker]] ]] tries making Earth more like her homeworld Alternia, introducing Alternian life and flooding the planet.
** She also tries to subvert human culture to more closely resemble her species', but it fails miserably because of basic biological differences (''really'' basic differences). Her attempts to genetically alter humans to use the Alternian [[LoveDodecahedron mode of reproduction]] and [[FantasticRacism blood castes]] results in complete extinction.

* ''LetsPlay/{{Mahu}}'': In "Second Chance" the Galactic Commonwealth reaches such a technological and logistical level, they are able to do this to many previously-empty planets within their domains.
* WebOriginal/{{Serina}} is a gas giant's moon that was terraformed and seeded with a selection of Earth life. By whom, how, and why, [[MST3KMantra the author never explains]].

** In some continuities Unicron was originally created as a quick and dirty terraforming engine by an alien named Primacron. He was meant to eat lifeless rocks and shit out planets suitable for habitation, but he decided to skip step two and absorbed planets of any kind into himself to increase his power.
** In the season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', [[spoiler:Megatron tries to use the Omega Lock to terraform Earth into a Cybertron like world (which would have fatal consequences for humanity). Optimus is forced to destroy the Omega Lock, dooming Cybertron in the process, to save humanity]]. Season 3 ends with [[spoiler: Megatron re-creating the Omega Lock on board his ship, attempting once again to use it on Earth. But Bumblebee kills him, and the Autobots take the ''Nemesis'' back to Cybertron, where they use the Lock to restore Cybertron instead]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', Mars and Venus were terraformed. This is a key part of the {{Backstory}}, since it's the job the exoframes and Neo Sapiens were invented for.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', the crappy clone of Master Shake made by the Plutonians is sent to Earth to "de-terraform" it. This plan is not well thought out. Not only does the clone not feel obligated to do so, it has no idea what "de-terraform" means, or how he'd do it, or if it is in fact a real word.
* Mars has been terraformed in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', as explained in the opening quote. Later episodes, however, show that much of the planet is still desert. Oddly enough, the native Martians that still live there don't seem to have any negative effects from the wholesale transformation of the atmosphere.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Moon Farm", the main characters decide to terraform the moon so that they can take cows there, and make the best ice-cream ever, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext as detailed in the lost sacred stanza of "The Cow Jumped Over The Moon".]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' An inverted version in the 1973-74 episode "Too Hot to Handle" when the Solar Terrarians try to move the Earth closer to the Sun so it will get hot enough for them to move here and live comfortably. Unfortunately, that would make it so hot that humanity would perish.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' it's revealed that Galvan B was terraformed by the Galvans (Leaded by Azmuth) but their terraforming attempt created a new sentient species that they called Galvanic Mechamorph.
* The Gems of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' have colonized multiple worlds in this fashion, and would have ''hollowed out the Earth'' if the Crystal Gems hadn't rebelled. There's been off hand mention of certain types of Gem with powers designed for this purpose, which explains quite a bit about [[MakingASplash Lapis]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction Lazuli]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'', the Blizzarians used a blizzard crystal to turn a desert terra into something more suitable for themselves after their original terra was conquered by [[TheEmpire Cyclonia]]. The Raptors, who had originally intended to come to the desert for a vacation, decide to try and reverse it with inferno crystals. Thanks to some miscalculation by the dumbest of them, they end up starting a volcanic eruption.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarComTheUSSpaceForce'', parts of Mars have been terraformed. The canyons have breathable air, Earth-like temperatures[[note]]thanks to a network of mirrors on the canyon walls that catch sunlight and focus it on the canyon floor[[/note]], and fertile soil, allowing the people who live down there to walk around without space suits and even practice agriculture. The rest of Mars is considerably less hospitable.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxy''. The Magratheans seem worthy of a mention, taking this idea to its logical extreme by creating a custom planet-building business.

* In Creator/RobertCharlesWilson's ''Literature/{{Spin}}'', when the Earth is placed under a membrane that slows down time (which means that for the people of Earth the Sun will expand in a few decades), humans successfully terraform Mars; a whole civilisation appears there within a few years (for those on Earth)/a few millennia (for the people of Mars -- humans who have evolved slightly differently.)

* In one Creator/ArthurCClarke novel (''The Sands of Mars'') Mars is being terraformed by selection and spread of oxygen-generating plants native to Mars, as well as by turning Deimos into a continuous thermonuclear explosion, effectively providing the planet more sunlight than the Earth gets for a hundred years. It's sometimes regarded the first sci-fi novel on terraforming (1951).

* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer3TiberiumWars'', it's revealed that the onset of [[GreenRock Tiberium]] on Earth was part of an alien mining operation. The Scrin seed worlds with the substance, which leaches resources from deeper within the crust and brings them to the surface in the form of green (or blue) crystals which can then be converted into just about anything. Any native populations will naturally seek to utilize this miraculous mineral and fight for control of it, while at the same time Tiberium's mutagenic properties will corrupt native lifeforms and the world's ecosystem. So, both directly and indirectly, Tiberium serves as a DepopulationBomb that lets the Scrin descend upon a planet all but unopposed before harvesting the crystals at their leisure. The only reason they can't do the same to Earth is because [[MagnificentBastard Kane tricked the Scrin into arriving early]], [[HumansAreWarriors in the middle of a world war]].

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'': The Mycon use their "Deep Children" to pyroform worlds to their standards.
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', one of the planet/levels that you visit, Citadel Station, exists for this purpose. This is unique, however, in that the planet, Telos, was originally habitable, but the Sith [[KickTheDog razed]] the planet for no particularly good reason.
* ''VideoGame/UFOAfterlight'' has this as much of the point. Humans, forced off of Earth, travel to Mars to create another habitable planet. Terraforming technology very slowly changes the red planet to a blue and green planet in real-time, and tactical combat maps change from red and deadly to green and (relatively) safe. In fact, if you fail to start the terraformation process shortly after the beginning of the game, the environmental hostility will quickly go out of control, and your space suits will not protect you. The terraformation is also shown in "stages", with the dead, red planet as stage 1, small "plant" organisms and cacti as stage 2, and the appearance of water and more complex organisms as stage 3.
* ''VideoGame/Doom3'': Terraforming Mars is part of the sales pitch for two of the UAC's products: the Elemental Phase Deconstructor[[note]]a system designed to break down iron oxide into subatomic particles[[/note]] and the Hydrocon[[note]]a secondary to the EPD that reassembles the particles into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, synthesizing hydrogen fuel, breathable oxygen and clean water[[/note]]. However, by the time of the game's events, these technologies are still in the experimental stage, and Mars is still inhospitable.

* ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'' has multiple levels of terraforming techs that improve the quality of your already-inhabited worlds, while the second game's first expansion introduced planets with extreme conditions -- high gravity, radiation, toxic atmospheres, etc -- that required expensive technology to be researched before you could even settle them. Meanwhile, one particular mega-event involves someone randomly poking a {{Precursor|s}} artifact that immediately turns every uninhabitable world within a couple of parsecs into a verdant planet (including, oddly, the gas giants), sparking a galactic scramble to settle as many of them as possible or a major power shift if it goes off in the middle of someone's empire.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ascendancy}}'' had terraforming as something that could be done only after discovering a fairly high-level technology. In this game, all territory considered of "squares", which could be different colors, each color corresponding to its suitability to different tasks (green for prosperity, red for industrial, for example). Black squares were uninhabitable (except to one species) unless terraformed. Further, the Lush Growth Bomb project increased the maximum population of a planet.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Only very mild degrees of terraforming take place in-universe, as the process is noted to be extremely expensive. With CasualInterstellarTravel on the level of several thousand times the speed of light for conventional Alcubierre drives and millions of times the speed of light for mass relays, it's much cheaper and easier to just find a planet that's life-sustaining on its own than it is to spend years and absurd amounts of money to make a lifeless rock livable, rendering terraforming AwesomeButImpractical on a galactic scale. The codex entry for Mars actually notes that the humans ''were'' terraforming it, but abandoned the idea when they discovered FTL travel and had effectively limitless planets to pick from, leaving the only livable places on Mars dome cities that they'd already built.[[note]]For reference, astronomers estimate that there are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_analog 40 billion]] Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars or red dwarves in the Milky Way. If even a thousandth of those are life-bearing, and keeping in mind that the codex notes that about 1% of the galaxy is explored, that still comes out to several hundred thousand known habitable planets. You can see why no one would bother to terraform something like Mars in this case[[/note]]
** However, in the ''Arrival'' [=DLC=] for ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', it's revealed that the Batarian Hegemony has been trying for years to force Aratoht to support life via heavy importation of cyanobacteria. According to the codex, after 23 years of labor, their efforts have resulted in a 1% increase in atmospheric oxygen.
** Interestingly, it's also suggested in the codex that some degree of terraforming is taking place on Earth in an attempt to undo the environmental damage that resulted from present day burning of fossil fuels.
** Central to the plot of ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', where the heroes have to reset some malfunctioning {{Precursor|s}} terraforming machines to alter planets in the Heleus Cluster to their liking (the planets had originally been inhabitable, but were damaged while they travelled there). The technology is considered dangerous however, since no one has a clue how the machines work, and anything that can alter a planet's weather patterns in ''seconds'' is some seriously powerful tech.
* ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'':
** By using various upgrades to your starship, or purchasing other, various, one-shot machines, you can improve the "T-score" of a planet (which range from T-0 to T-3), which allows it to sustain life better, which, in turn, allows you to plunder it for more Spice to sell. [[spoiler: It can also be used to kill all Grox on a planet by raising the T-score to at least 1.]] Colonized planets can only sustain a number of settlements equal to the T-score. T-0 planets can be claimed by placing a colony, but they will not be able to produce any spice until the atmospheric conditions are improved and then a basic ecology is introduced, establishing a T-score of at least T-1.
** It's also possible to deterraform a planet, lowering the T-score, reducing its habitability and extincting its indigenous lifeforms. Doing this on a foreign planet is considered an act of war (while improving a foreign planet's T-score can earn you their gratitude). It is, however, one of the simplest strategies for wiping out or conquering the home-world of a hostile race before your ship has top-tier weaponry available. Home-worlds are almost always T-3s with extra settlements (as many as 10 fully defended sites with fleets of defending ships). Using terraformer tools to lower the T-Score even a single level will wipe out almost all the settlements, leaving the place far more vulnerable to conquest or extermination and recolonization.
* ''VideoGame/StarFox:'' Andross apparently planned to terraform Venom, a rather barren planet with acidic oceans. In ''VideoGame/StarFoxCommand'', this becomes central to the better endings since these oceans are also the home of the hostile Anglar. In 2 endings, his invention is used successfully and causes Venom to be as fertile as Corneria.

* In ''VideoGame/MachinesWiredForWar'', this is the Machines' primary function before they get into a war.
* In ''VideoGame/ImperiumGalactica II'' you can use Genesis-type devices on planets that explosively terraform them to your civilization's needs.
* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' has terraforming as a mandatory part of colonization. You can get techs that boost terraforming speed and the range of environments that are cost-effective to terraform, though some planets will always remain out of reach. However, since up to five different races can live on a planet at a time, all with different ecological backgrounds, sometimes some population juggling is necessary. It's possible for a race to colonize planets that are completely inhospitable to another -- and conquering these planets ''instantly'' pops their habitability zone right to yours (when using assimilation plague missiles). Useful when most planets are hostile.
* ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRiising'': The aliens embark on a great xenoforming project of Earth itself, starting with Greenland. Given that they are, in part, living universal constructors, it becomes of vital importance to stop them.
* ''VideoGame/HaegemoniaLegionsOfIron'' has terraforming capabilities for all races. Planets can be sorted into four groups: for humans, the first group is gaia/terran/oceanic (can be colonized from the start), the second is forest/swamp/desert/arctic/plains/volcanic/rocky (needs research), the third is barren/acidic (needs more research) while the final one is gas (uninhabitable). Kariaks and Darzoks have different qualifications; for example, both like barren. If it's not good enough, it can be terraformed once which improves the quality of the planet; once the next level is researched, it can be terraformed again. For example, level 1 human terraforming can turn plains into forest while level 3 instantly pushes any planet to oceanic/terran. In the expansion ''The Solon Heritage'', spies can actually '''reverse-terraform''', causing an ecological catastrophe (talk about overkill...).
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'' reveals that the Four Elemental Crystals that show up in so many games of that series are actually terraforming implements. They're a bit less reliable than slower methods though, given that their terraforming effects tend to wear off once they're removed or destroyed.
* ''VideoGame/{{X}}'': The games have terraforming as the event that started the whole series. The Terraformer fleets at first worked very well, but after a ''[[AIIsACrapshoot glitched software update]]'', the Von Neumann machines that man had sent out to terraform the [[PortalNetwork gate system]] started "[[ColonyDrop terraforming]]" ''everything'', including inhabited planets and ships. Mankind fights back, the Terraformers swat them out of the way, and all seems lost until they're tricked into moving en masse to a distant part of the universe -- which they promptly start "terraforming" as well[[note]]planets found in Terraformer-controlled areas are often incapable of supporting life, usually because the Terraformers ruined their environments[[/note]].
* ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'': [[BroadStrokes In these games]], Mars was always the first planet to be terraformed. In the first game it didn't really take, leaving Mars a rather dry, harsh place, in the second game the Martian terraforming just hasn't gone on for long enough for there to be all that much of a difference yet, and in the third game things went wrong, souring general attitudes on terraforming for generations to come. Said third game, ''EV Nova'', also lets you see somebody get terraforming right in one quest line. And the [[HigherTechSpecies Polaris]] have largely mastered it, with several planets listed as terraformed in the "communicate with planet" dialog box.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' has an example in the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK), which turns several square miles of nuclear wasteland into a lush, green paradise. ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' features one side-quest involving a mutated tree and its offspring which are (thankfully) non-hostile and thriving in the wasteland. A small cult has sprung up around worshipping this tree and they believe it may eventually ''re''-terraform the entire planet (or at least the DC area) into a state more capable of sustaining life and human populations.

* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': Zerg buildings are built on a thick matting of purplish organic material called creep that is spread from certain buildings. It prevents other species from building on it, but recedes if the producing building (creep colonies in the first game, creep tumors in the second) is killed. In the second game, zerg ground units move much faster while on creep. In ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'' the Protoss on the icy planet Kaldir were attempting to alter its orbit to be more hospitable to Protoss life, but their efforts were interrupted by the arrival of the Zerg Swarm.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' terraforming is an expensive process using mid-game tech to change a planet's type (arctic, arid, continental, ocean, etc) over decades to something more easily inhabited by one or your empire's species.
** Initially, you can only terraform worlds within the same climate/moisture range (arid to desert, continental to tropical, arctic to tundra, etc). Researching another tech allows you to terraform between climate ranges. The third terraforming tech allows you to terraform tomb worlds [[AfterTheEnd devastated by nuclear war]], as well as make certain barren planets habitable. Finally, a rare late game tech lets you turn any habitable planet into a Gaia world, which are 100% inhabitable by all species regardless of the nature of their homeworld. The more complex the terraforming operation, the longer it takes. Terraforming within a climate range takes just 5 years, while terraforming between climate ranges takes twice as long. Restoring a tomb world's habitability or making a barren world habitable takes about 20 years, and creating a Gaia world takes over 40 years.
** Other late-game terraforming options include an Ecumenopolis, ie, making the [[CityPlanet entire planet a city]]. This massively increases living space and room for buildings, but deprives the planet of most of its natural resources. Machine civilizations eventually have the option of turning planets into Machine Worlds, which are [[HostileTerraforming completely uninhabitable by living creatures]] but optimized for industrial production.
** There is also a random event that may pop up on one of your colonies involving ancient terraforming tech that was left behind. You can either turn it on or scrap it (the latter reveals the Terraforming tech and gives you some resources). If you scrap it, there's a chance that the planet may return to its original barren state. If you choose the first option (which is a huge project that sucks up your science resources), after a long time it will produce one of several results:
*** It turns the planet into a ''worse'' climate (who said it was supposed to terraform it to terrestrial standards?).
*** It releases dangerous creatures that will likely overrun your ground forces, unless you prepare ahead of time.
*** It turns the planet into a Gaia world. SaveScumming is an option for this one.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** Several human worlds are at least partially terraformed to make them inhabitable, though their technology has its limits. After the end of the Human-Covenant War, humanity has been actively (re-)terraforming glassed worlds to make them livable again; this can be seen in both ''VideoGame/HaloReach''[='s=] epilogue and the ex-colony of Meridian in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''. Slipspace FTL travel being both slow and incredibly convoluted and dangerous justifies this for humanity; they can't travel very far and thus make use of every vaguely habitable planet they can get their hands on (every single star system with a specified location, and there are dozens, is less than a hundred light-years from Sol). Due to having infinitely faster FTL travel and mastery of slipspace, the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunnners]] were a lot more picky with what they colonized (despite having ''far'' more advanced terraforming technology), "only" having 3 million planets at their height despite ruling most of the galaxy while the humans have several hundred while stuck in a ~100 light-year bubble on the Orion Arm.[[note]]With the galaxy modeled as a disk with a radius of 100,000 light-years and an average thickness of 1,000 light-years, its volume would be 3.14 × 10^13 cubic light-years, as opposed to the 4.19 x 10^6 cubic light-years that is UNSC space. That's about one tenth of a millionth of the galaxy.[[/note]]
** Covenant terraforming is advanced enough that they can even engineer planets to naturally produce large quantities of plasma for their industries.
** As part of their process of absorbing a world's entire biomass, the Flood will convert the planet's atmosphere to one more suitable for expansion.

* ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaDeadlock'': Called "kobolforming" in this setting, after Kobol, humanity's original home world. Not done within the game itself, but mission briefing text notes that Aquaria (think planet-sized Antarctica with one somewhat habitable continent) was the last of the Twelve Colonies to be kobolformed.

* In Olaf Stapleton's ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' the Fifth Men begin terraforming Venus when the Moon starts falling towards Earth. Pre-terraforming Venus is apparently an ocean under the cloud cover inhabited by various creatures that feed on radioactive materials, unfortunately oxygen is extremely toxic to them and the Fifth Men don't realize that some of Venus's native life is sapient until they've already started the oxygen enriching chain reactions so they just keep on going. Three more incarnations of Man evolve on Venus before the sun expands and the Eighth Men migrate to Neptune.
* H.G Wells' ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' inverts this; the Martians try to areoform the Earth as part of their invasion plan. (Its publication date of 1898 makes this possibly the UrExample of xenoforming.)

* Many of the planets in Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' have to be terraformed to a greater or lesser extrent. The inhabitants of Komarr have had four hundred years of domed living, with another four hundred to come, while the solar mirror array and genetically engineered plants make the atmosphere breathable and warm enough. Barrayar is at the other end of the scale: the colonists just had to dump Earth soil and Earth-descended plants in place and burn away the native stuff, although as of ''Literature/ACivilCampaign'' there has been some interesting progress in genetically engineering life-forms that convert the native plant life into something compatible with the human biosphere.

* Creator/AEVanVogt's ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'': Anabis, a galaxy-spanning consciousness that has terraformed all planets in its own galaxy by ripping a piece of its planets surface off and sending to to the target planet through hyperspace (called junglescaping).

* Basically done by all the Colors in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', as gameplay revolves around players putting lands into play. However, Green is ''particularly'' known for this, due to having a lot of cards that allow players to either play more than one land per turn or to add lands to their hands, which makes sense given the color's propensity of doling out the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever using creatures that have high power and toughness and fittingly high mana costs.

* Basically done by all the Colors in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', but Green is ''particularly'' known for this, which makes sense given the color's propensity of doling out the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever using creatures that have high power and toughness and fittinly high mana costs.

More recently, some shows turn this around by showcasing how terraforming an already-living world can be ecologically disastrous, or ethically questionable, or even weaponized; or just plain pisses off the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens near omnipotent residents]]. Some works even turn the concept inside-out, showing how aliens arrive on Earth and mess the ecology up so badly that the planet becomes barely habitable, if at all, for humans (with [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic similarities]] to GlobalWarming). This is HostileTerraforming, sometimes termed xenoforming or un-terraforming.

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': Terraforming Mars is mentioned in ''Doom 3.'' You have to go outside a few times, [[OxygenMeter and you can last only a few minutes]].

Terraforming itself is an actual area of study right now, as scientists try to design methods to create both self-contained environments (Bio-Domes being famous examples) and species that can survive in a hostile environment and improve it until it has a self-sustaining biosphere that can sustain humans. Easier said than done. ''Literally,'' because soft sci-fi settings tend to sneeze out terraforming efforts and planets like Martians with a cold. According to the NASA, terraforming Mars is simply not possible with our current technology (see press release [[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/mars-terraforming here]]).