Quote - > Quote - Then I was going to try a red desert / barren (Martian?)  alien planet of some sort I think...

Like this one? Minus the pyramid, of course... :-) 

Not far off... maybe redder soil and rock, I had in mind... with red agate like boulders in the foreground, and with some kind of alien looking, spindly, stalagmite type rocks / mountains rising from the ground off into and along the horizon line ;-)