Monocosm

World builders often get criticized for single-biome planets – the Monocosm. The jungle planet, the swamp planet, the desert planet, the ice planet. . . All of these, “please avoid.”

For Monocosmatic planets right here, we got the subplanet Mars (desert) and the dwarf Pluto (ice). But Winchell Chung isn’t an idiot and knows all that. He would accuse me of cheating (not the first time a Houstoner’s heard as much…). His complaint is more against authors who have their avatars touch down on such a planet… and remove his helmet. Such planets cannot support complex life out in the nude. Not without good reason.

I notice that Chung leaves out “water planet”. Among extrasolar planets, several look like water-worlds with no land to breach its surface. I can well imagine a proto-Neptune drifting into Mars’ orbit before it got too big and gassy, here evolving a nitrogen / oxygen atmosphere over a 1.5 Earth-radius world-ocean. These CAN support life-as-we-know-it: James Trefil and Michael Summers, Imagined Life. It might be difficult for human life.

More to the point, we can stretch the definition of “monocosm” by such planets as are monocosmatic… as far as the explorer cares. It’s only the land that’s a monocosm. Oceans do exist. Everyone agrees to ignore them.