In the Star Trek fictional universe, the Genesis Device was an experimental terraforming device. It was introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and we discovered that unlike existing terraforming methods, it could terraform an entire planet in hours. At the end of the film, we see the device detonating and forming a new, habitable world from scratch, out of the gas and dust of the Mutara Nebula.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock featured this world. We discover that one of the device's creators, Dr. David Marcus, son of Captain James T. Kirk, true to his father's legendary tendency to "think out of the box" when at a loss, had secretly utilized the dangerous and unstable substance "protomatter" in order to obtain functionality for the Genesis prototype. Also, the Genesis Device was intended to be used on a pre-existing planetary body. It was never intended to be used in a nebula, and never intended to be required to build an entire star system from scratch.
Both factors rendered the Genesis Planet unstable and short-lived, and so the experiment became a failure; however due to its destructive power beyond any known weapon, the device afterward became coveted for military purposes. It's debatable what effect the torpedo would have had if it was used as intended. The Genesis Device has not been seen since, and it is generally assumed its plans were destroyed or were being kept under lock and key, or else banned by treaty.
The Genesis Project was developed by a team of Federation scientists, led by Dr. Carol Marcus and her son Dr. David Marcus, working in an orbital laboratory in orbit around the Class D planetoid Regula.
The Genesis Project was termed a failure, and future terraforming efforts were done using a regularly slow, eventual process to transform a planet into a habitable world.
It is suggested in "Genesis Wave" that Starfleet intelligence actively sabotaged the efforts of the Romulans and Cardassians to replicate the technology, and that the disastrous explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis was actually due to the catastrophic failure of an experimental Genesis matrix.
The device initiated a process of rapid terraforming, by which previously uninhabitable planets could be turned into class M worlds ready for colonization.
Development and testing of the GenesisDevice took place during a year-long period on a space station orbiting Regula, a class D planetoid.
The intention of the third stage of testing was to introduce the device to a lifeless space body, such as a moon or barren planet.
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