Earth in fiction

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Image:The Earth seen from Apollo 17.jpg

Although nearly all fictional work features the Earth, this page describes its fictional place in the Universe.

It is common, in science fiction set far in the future, for Earth to fall into one of five categories:

  • Earth's location could have been lost to the sands of time and with the planet presumed destroyed or rendered uninhabitable or even no one (human or otherwise) caring where it is. This scenario is expressed in the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, among others.
  • Earth's location could be unknown except for the few who live there, usually in some manner of utopia.
  • Earth could be a member of whatever interstellar community exists in the work, whether as a minor or major player. This is by far the most common option, and Earth (no doubt due to anthropocentrism) is usually a major power-broker. Perhaps the most notable example of this is Star Trek. Also, this scenario sometimes uses Earth as a corrupt empire.
  • Earth could have been completely destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, but its location (or at least its former location) is well-known. This last scenario is also popular, and was featured in the movie Titan A.E., as well as in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Earth could never be mentioned at all, i.e. Star Wars.

Contents

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Hitchhiker's Guide

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, the Earth is destroyed to make room for an interstellar bypass. One of the only two surviving Earthmen, Arthur Dent, is affronted to find that his planet's entry in the Guide is simply "Harmless." The Guide researcher reassures him that the next edition will improve upon this. The new entry will read "Mostly Harmless." Dent also learns of the creation of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Magrathea, as a giant supercomputer built to find the question behind the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The computer was so large that it was often mistaken for a planet. It also mentions that humans are descended from a convoy of middlemen (bureaucrats, telephone sanitizers, and the like), tricked into leaving another planet. The Earth was located in sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. An alternate version of Earth is the planet NowWhat, which is probably located at an improbable location along the probability axis.

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Star Trek

In the Star Trek universe, Earth was one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets. Several major federal organizations are found on Earth, such as the Federation Council which meets in the Palais de la Concorde in Paris. The Federation President also keeps offices in Paris, and Starfleet Headquarters is located in San Francisco. Major events on Earth included first contact with the Vulcans (Star Trek: First Contact), barely averted attacks by the Borg (in "The Best of Both Worlds" and Star Trek: First Contact), Founder infiltration ("Homefront"), and numerous attempted coups. Like most other major Federation worlds, Earth is a near-paradise where poverty and war have been eradicated and environmental damage has been reversed.

In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "The Forge", we learn that the name of the planet's actual government is United Earth. According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Attached", United Earth was formed in the year 2150. The episodes "Demons" and "Terra Prime" imply that United Earth is headed by a Prime Minister; in 2155, the prime minister is Nathan Samuels, played by Harry Groener.

In the Mirror Universe, Earth is the capital of the despotic Terran Empire which rules over large portions of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and is generally seen as the most powerful interstellar empire. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine revealed that the Empire had collapsed and fallen to a Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. The fate of Earth after the fall of the Empire and its role during this era are never revealed.

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Star Wars

Earth is never involved nor mentioned in the Star Wars story. However, the opening line to each film of "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" reveals that the story is being told from the perspective of someone who had witnessed these events. The line implies that the Star Wars galaxy exists far away from our own, therefore making Earth an actual planet within the fictional Star Wars universe. Early drafts of the script to "A New Hope" refer to Earth either as the home of the Alliance or as the capital of the Empire. By the final draft, references to Earth had been completely dropped from the script.

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Firefly

In the Joss Whedon series Firefly, Earth is long since uninhabitable. It is referred to with awe as "Earth-That-Was", having been abandoned centuries ago due to overpopulation and depletion of the planet's natural resources. After fleeing the planet, the remnants of humanity travelled in generation ships for decades (many humans lived their entire lives within a spaceship's walls) until finding a new star system. Collection of Earth-That-Was artifacts is a popular hobby, and ancient Earth artifacts are known to be very valuable.

It is unknown whether Earth has actually been destroyed, or if the planet still physically exists; in the feature film Serenity, ancient starships are shown leaving Earth, but its ultimate fate has never been revealed. A puppet show in the episode "Heart of Gold" implies that Earth has in fact been obliterated, but this has yet to be actually confirmed on screen.

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Battlestar Galactica

A major plot point in all versions - both the remake and original - of Battlestar Galactica is the quest to find Earth, which is long thought to be the location of a 13th colony of Man. Both shows are similar in that initially, Earth's location is completely unknown, but clues to its location are gradually discovered over long years since the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. Most Colonial historians assume that Kobol is the homeworld of all humanity, and that tribes of humans fled that world to found the Twelve Colonies - with a 13th colony heading for Earth (in the remake, Kobol contains such detail regarding Earth and its location as to suggest that Earth, not Kobol, was the true homeworld of humanity.) Only in Galactica 1980 is Earth actually discovered; it is unknown whether, or how, Earth might be found in the remake of the series.

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Dune

In Frank Herbert's Dune science fiction series of novels, Old Earth/Old Terra is how Earth is referred to by the time of the original novel (the Sun is called Al-Lat). After the Butlerian Jihad, Earth had been devastated. Humanity left Old Earth and spread out to millions of other worlds. Some of the worlds humans migrated to included Caladan, Giedi Prime, and Kaitain.

In the time of Paul Atreides, the Earth is a forgotten, uninhabited legend. It is a wilderness and is recovering an ecosystem of its own as humans have abandoned it. The artifacts of Homo Sapiens have for the most part crumbled back into the planet, though a more than casual observer can find many traces of the old civilizations.

The God Emperor Leto II refers to the Earth many times in his journals. The God Emperor seemed particularly fond of the ancestors he had from the Western sections of Eurasia. He makes references to Israel, Urartu, also called Armenia, the plains of Central Asia, and the Greeks. He seems to have had ancestors among the Turks or the Mongols as he says that one of his memories involves a horse plain with felt yurts. Leto also has the memories of a famous politician from the United States whose name was Jacob Broom.

His father Paul Atreides in Dune Messiah refers to Hitler and Genghis Khan, in comparing the destructiveness of his Jihad to their wars.

The controversial prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson provide significant details on the lead-up to and aftermath of the decimation of Earth. In these books, humans used nuclear weapons to render the Earth uninhabitable by anyone.

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Stargate

In the Stargate television series (Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis), Earth (Stargate Address:Image:StargateGlyph28.pngImage:StargateGlyph26.pngImage:StargateGlyph05.pngImage:StargateGlyph36.pngImage:StargateGlyph11.pngImage:StargateGlyph29.png) is described as one of countless inhabited worlds, and is revealed to be the origin of humans. In ancient history many groups of humans were kidnapped and enslaved by powerful malevolent alien races, primarily the Goa'uld. Others remained to form present day Earth societies, which interact covertly with other extra-terrestrial races and civilizations.

The main interaction between Earth and the rest of the Universe is via three organisations;

  • Stargate Command, under the control of both the United States Air Force and the International Committee, sends through teams to other worlds on missions of diplomacy, tactical strikes, research and exploration.
  • The Atlantis Mission is based in the great city of the Ancients. An international team interacts with the other humans of the Pegasus galaxy (seeded by the Ancients, not taken by the Goa'uld) and the dangerous wraith. They have to rely on Earth technology and the great advances of the Ancients integrated into The Ancient's Atlantis.
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CoDominium

In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series (now largely alternate history) the Earth comes under the control of the CoDominium, an alliance between the United States and Soviet Union, in the year 1990. The CD imposes its control over all other nations of the Earth, halting scientific development and warfare. The CD is ruled by a Grand Senate located on the Moon, and eventually constructs interstellar colonies for the joint goal of economic gain and a means of exiling troublesome elements of society. Eventually in 2103, the CD dissolves, with the US and USSR engaging in the nuclear "Great Patriotic Wars" which destroy almost all of Earth (it is mentioned that Jamaica and the Tyrolean Alps are untouched).

The CD Space Navy escapes to the planet Sparta, which eventually becomes the nucleus of the "Empire of Man." During the Empire's Formation Wars the Earth is once more hit hard, but is eventually incorporated into the Imperium as the "honorary capital." When the Empire dissolves in the Secession Wars in the 27th Century, Earth is once more subjected to nuclear attacks, but by the early 31st Century has been reclaimed by the Second Empire. By that time, the Earth city of "New Annapolis" is a training center for the Imperial Space Navy.

To inhabitants of planets newly contacted planets, such as Prince Samuel's Planet in "King David's Spaceship", the condition of the the still largely desloate Earth is presented as an object lesson for the prohibitive price of war and a justification for Empire's claim to universal rule.

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Earth and Outer Planets in Asimov's Future Histories

In much of Issac Asimov's fiction, the future Earth is an underpriveleged planet - impoverished, overcrowded and disease-ridden - which is regrded with disdain by the arrogant Spacers of the "Outer Planets" (at these stage, there are about fifty of them).

In the Robot Series the inhabitants of these planets are still aware that their ancestors came from Earth, but this does not make them fond of the place. Rather, they develop a racist theory by which "the best strains" had left Earth to colonise the other planets and left "the inferor strains" behind. However, they have no choice but to ask the help of the protagonist, a detective from the despised Earth, to solve murder mysteries which baffle their own police.

By the end of this part, Earth embarks on a major new campaign of space colonization, with the pious hope that the new colonists will prove more faithful to the Mother Planet than the earlier ones. But apprently it does not remain so for long. The Galaxy is being steadily settled, and Earth is gradually forgotten, and has undergone further grave misfortunes and disasters.

In the Galactic Empire series, taking place thousands of years later(originally conceived as completely seperate but made by Asimov in his later career into the direct sequel of the Robot Period), Earth has a largely radioactive crust with only patches of habitable land in between, and its people have to undergo cpmpulsory euthanasia at the age of sixty. It is a backwater province of an empire ruled from distsant Trantor, and among inhabitants of other planets there is a prevalent prejudice known as "Anti-Terrestrialism", (obviously modeled on antisemitism), with the main negative streotype having to do with the radiation-induced diseases prevalent on Earth.

By this time, Earth people still believe themselves to be the orignial home of Humanity, but nobody else shares this belief. Fanatical priests, based in a mysterious Temple erected on the ruins of Washington, cultivate the mystique of Eartrh's ancient glories and concieve a satanic plot to spread Terrestrial diseases thrughout the Galaxy and in this way take over the Empire (and incidentally, act out the stereotype). The plot is foiled by a middle-aged Jewish tailor from the Twentieth Century, who was accidentally transported to the far future and became there a reluctant hero.

In the later sequence of this future history, the time of the Foundation Series, the Earth has finally become completely uninhabitable and its remaining population evacuated to another planet, where they still feel highly suspicious of visitors.

A rather similar situation of humans throuout the Galaxy feeling disadain for the overcrowded and disease-ridden Earth appears also in Robert heinlein's Time Enough for Love. However, Asimov almost invariably depicts this situation from the point of view of the Earth people on the receiving end of the prejudice (and in one case, from the point of view of a visitor who arrives on Earth full of prejudice but falls in love with an Earth girl). To the contrary, in Heinlein's version the protagonists share witout reservation in the prejudice and the Earth people remain off-stage.

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Other fiction

  • In David Weber's Honorverse, Earth is the capital planet of the Solarian League, the largest and wealthiest political institution ever created by man. Prior to the League's creation, a large portion of humanity departed for other planets and solar systems in what came to be known as the Diaspora, leaving those who remained to rebuild from the effects of pollution, resource exhaustion, and the cataclysmic Final War. They did so, and Earth once again became the political, economic, and cultural center of humanity.
  • The Earth also plays a major part in the Doctor Who universe.
  • See also: Earth (Babylon 5).
  • In Warhammer 40,000, Earth, known as Holy Terra, is the Homeworld of Humanity and the central point of the Imperium of Man. It is the site of the Golden Throne, where the God-Emperor resides.
  • In the Noon Universe, Earth is a utopic world of immense power and the initial homeplanet of all humans scattered over the Universe.
  • In the alternate future universe of The Longest Journey, Earth has been divided into two twin worlds - technology-driven Stark, the world as we know it, and the magic world of Arcadia for over thirteen millennia.
  • In Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World, The Stainless Steel Rat travels to Earth, 1975, and then to Napoleonic France, to stop a madman known as He from destroying the timeline.
  • In the animated television series Exosquad, Earth is the center of the Homeworlds, the core of both Human and Neosapien Empires (at different times).
  • In the video game universe of, Halo, Earth is the center of all government, military and technology. Earth and its colonies are governed by the UNSC, or the United Nations Space Command. During the Human-Covenant War, the Cole Protocol was implemented, stating that ships must slef destruct rather than let the Covenant find the location of Earth Furthermore, any ship heading to Earth must take several random slipspace jumps rather than head straight for it.. In October of 2552, Earth was attacked by the Covenant and beaten by the UNSC Military, only to come back a few days later with more firepower.
  • In the video game Metroid, Earth is mentioned in Samus's backstory.
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See also


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