Addendum

Obviously the surface will be coated with glue so the aliens get stuck when they land, but much also will be written of the Mousetraps of Mars.

The Ultimate Fate of Mars

Sorry Mars, but we're going to have to turn you into a fake Earth so that aliens will attack that one instead. I'm sure you understand.

The Zoo of Mankind's Yearning

We limped away from the encounter fortunate only by comparison.. The Yuengians, who style themselves independently minded but are in fact pirates, suffered what they intended for us and what still might transpire, unable to resume our course as we were.
Our researches yielded a planet nearby which was registered as habitable. We could do no better. The prospect improved upon approach when we detected signs of not just potential but the thing itself: A vast compound existed near an artifically regular lake easily capable of accommodating our entire convoy.
The job of trying to raise the inhabitants devolved to me based on the reasoning that many who closed their doors to regular strangers opened them for correspondents, particularly ones as famous as the captains pretended me to be. My rejoinder that the opposite often pertained did not win me free from the responsibility. I proved, not the respect accorded my profession, but to have some small knowledge of interstellar celebrity when I recognized Herzerd Klobsarn, the genuinely famous gene theorist. Nor was he displeased at the recognition; in that at least I may have aided my fellow survivors a little.
Klobsarn provided hospitality far beyond the most optimistic projection. The many empty furnished rooms, he said, had been used by laborers who had long since departed. He had seen no reason to bother with tearing down the surplus quarters, negligence which seemed to us a miracle. He maintained stores such as sufficed to feed us and effect repairs out of what he described as two excesses, one of caution and the other of curiosity, for his projects demanded resources.
He was happy to show us one. The complex housed an unthinkable menagerie of creatures created by mingled design and serendipity. If I tell you to imagine horns that are not horns and wings that operate according to unconventional mechanisms, you will not understand me, and in that I have succeeded. For I did not understand what I saw there.
"But why?" I asked. More detail seemed a superfluity.
"Across greater humanity, some seventy-six million sports teams are called the Wildcats. Another twelve million are Bears or Bruins, and barely fewer are the Cardinals. Each planet, each continent, each region must have its own species. I leave it to the denizens to name them, but I take it upon myself to make them."
I was impressed more than ever by the benevolent character of Herzerd Klobsarn.
Finis

Arguments for Giving Your Science Fiction Setting One Moon

If most of the galaxy was destroyed in an interstellar war, what do you expect? The remaining one probably has all the wizards on it.

Secrets of the Star Master

Rarely was a cargo transfer performed with such jollity. Even considering the extensive use of robotic assistance, the habit of the laborer is complaint. The special consideration which delighted those workers who were facilitating a transfer from the great drone freighter, half a mile long, to their own fleet was that none of those goods belonged to them according to any laws contemplated by an orderly government.
Greater than their good humor at the prospect of the customary piratical division of plunder was their dismay and confusion when their flagship abruptly disengaged, sending many tumbling through space, though not to an irretrievable distance. The consternation extended to the ship's bridge where entrepreneurs unaccustomed to deference demanded an explanation for the captain's intemperate behavior.
His explanation satisfied. "Our guys came through with a warning. The Star Master is already past the outer peepers."
The only objection to that dealt with referring to a person as "the" anything, and that was muttered so as to be heard by nobody but an adjacent officer who replied he had always believed the Star Master to be the ship, not the captain. Soon even the quietest speech died that was not relevant to ship operations.
After the missile exchanges, the electronic rakings and counter-sweeps, and the insulting impacts of DeMarten pellets which did more in alerting the recipients about the failures of their defenses than in damage, the pirates yielded to the notorious pirate hunter. Reduced to suffering from gratitude to their attacker for allowing them to live, the conquered struggled to preserve a pellet of pride by gaining information, trivial as it was.
"So which is Star Master? The ship or the man?"
The grand figure beyond the screen did not hesitate to answer. "It's no wonder you lost, if you think a distinction exists!"
Finis