The idea of living worlds is incredibly prevalent in science fiction and fantasy.

Generally speaking these worlds are sapient but this isnt necessarily always true.

They propose that Earths biosphere itself may be considered; if not a real superorganism; at least a self-regulatory system with features of a living being itself.

According to this idea, the biosphere tends to have a stabilizing effect upon the habitability of Earth, in terms of regulating environmental factors such as temperature and atmospheric composition; the result being that the presence of life helps create an environment adequate for life.

The opposite idea; the Medea Hypothesis, as proposed by Peter Ward; claims instead that life tends to destabilize its environment in the long-run, therefore: the biosphere is self-destructive.

It is also possible that neither Gaia nor Medea represent an accurate picture of Earth, and that reality would fall somewhere between the two scenarios.

Generally speaking, though, there are three basic situations that can lead to the formation of a living world.

Some cases may draw elements from two or more of these situations.

For instance, the capacity for reproduction, which is usually considered a fundamental property of life, is rarely shown in such beings.

However, if a living world is considered a superorganism, perhaps the perpetuation of its own biosphere would be considered reproduction, rather than the creation of other living worlds.

Its also possible that many of the examples listed below are capable of reproducing, in some way of which we are simply not aware of.

Saybrooks planets attempt to convert Earth into another living world, for instance, could be considered an attempt at reproduction.

Still, for the purpose of simplicity, living stars will be listed on this page.

The distinction between stars and planets is made difficult by the existence of brown dwarves, multiple star systems and rogue planets.

Living clouds of gas, on the other hand, although quite commonly featured in science fiction, are usually not considered worlds (despite that they may be inhabited by some exotic forms of life) and will not be listed.

Therefore any life form that is space-borne could technically be regarded as a living world from this point of view.

It is unclear to what extent Juggler worlds are independently sapient.

Examples, for instance, the Planet-Eating Monster from Megas XLR, or the Darmats from Robert J.

Such creatures are quite common in fiction, see for example: Fred Hoyles Black Cloud.

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