Dark matter in fiction

Dark matter is occasionally described in computer and video games and other works of fiction. In such cases, it is usually attributed extraordinary physical or magical properties. Such descriptions are often inconsistent with the properties of dark matter proposed in physics and cosmology.

Examples of dark matter in fiction

 * In several games produced by Squaresoft, including Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy X, dark matter exists as a powerful magical element, enabling certain kinds of major attacks. In Final Fantasy IX, when Dark Matter is equipped, it allows Dagger to learn the Odin summon spell.
 * In Quake 4, the most powerful weapon is called the Dark Matter Gun.
 * Dark Matter plays a central role in the His Dark Materials - Trilogy by British author Philip Pullman.
 * In many of the Kirby videogames, Dark Matter is an evil entity from space that possesses characters, such as King Dedede, to do its bidding.
 * In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, dark matter is used in forging very powerful but cursed equippable items.
 * In the popular comedy cartoon series Futurama, dark matter is a very dense piece of fuel used by the show's starships, excreted by Leela's pet Nibbler (and others of his race, the so called "Nibblonians"), "each pound of which weighs 10,000 pounds".
 * Dark matter is briefly mentioned in the description of a debris field in the Kepler and Galileo systems of Freelancer, a space combat game. Despite the use of dark matter in context in this last case, there is little similarity between the dark matter of Freelancer and anything we know about dark matter in real life.
 * The webcomic Schlock Mercenary involves several battles with dark matter entities, who have been plotting to destroy the galaxy for several hundred thousand years.
 * Dark Matter is the title of a science fiction novel by Garfield Reeves-Stevens involving mystery, horror, and physics.
 * In the Alternity campaign setting Star*Drive, dark matter decay is used to fuel most modern starships as part of a "mass reactor." This reactor, in conjunction with a stardrive, makes FTL travel possible.
 * In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "One Small Step", the crew encounter a Dark Matter asteroid while observing a gravimetric spatial anomaly.
 * In the animated television series Exosquad, dark matter was a material found naturally on the planet Chaos. The Pirate Clans and the Exofleet used it to cloak their spaceships.
 * In Stephen Baxter's "Ring", dark matter causes the sun to leave the main sequence (becoming a red giant) within only a few million years. The sun is nowadays believed not to leave the main sequence for another 5 billion years.
 * In Ghost Legion, the fourth and last book from the Star of the Guardians series, Margaret Weis describes life forms made of dark matter. Among other powers, these life forms can fly in space and alter gravity.
 * A 1995 episode of The Outer Limits, Dark Matters, revolves around the problems caused by a planetoid-sized chunk of dark matter.
 * In the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane, dark matter increases the expansion of the universe, effectively helping the Lone Power.
 * In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, it is mentioned that scientists spent a huge amount of time and money looking for dark matter, before realising it was the white pellets that all the equipment was packed in.
 * In the videogame Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, the protagonist Samus Aran obtains the Dark Beam. The weapon causes major damage to inhabitants of the Light World, half of the multidimensional planet Aether (fictional planet).