We ’re living on a major planet with an termination date . One Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , Earth will go bad or detonate — and if we ’re favourable , some of us wo n’t be there . Science fable is full of stories where we abandon a dead ground , including the approaching film Oblivion and After Earth . Here are all the cause hoi polloi leave Earth for dead in science fiction .
Top image : After dry land .
Note : We ’re not including any of the many case where the Earth is destroyed and absolutely nobody fly the coop or survives . That would be a way , right smart longer list .
That said , here are the various reason science fiction has given us for want to put a fork in the planet :
Aliens have a long and awful chronicle of invading Earth — and sometimes , masses get away . In the animated film Titan A.E. , some humanity bunk from the Drej bluster up Earth , and go on to become the scum of the galaxy . In Greg Bear ’s novel The Forge of God , Earth is eventually destroyed by one faction of aliens — but fortunately another faction of more sympathetic aliens serve empty some of humanity off populace . In John Varley ’s Ophiuchi Hotline , human beings is forced off Earth by some aliens seeking to protect the giant and dolphinfish . Humans only prosper off - world though due to help from an alien radio broadcast . In an interesting twirl , the Robotech Expeditionary Force leaves solid ground to take the Robotech Wars to the Robotech Masters . They are n’t inevitably going out to colonize blank space , but wind up doing so as a byproduct which flex out be utile in later wars . Also , in the storey “ For White Hill ” by Joe Haldeman , most of humanity leaves a burnt - out Earth after a terrible war with aliens .
in the final episode of the Canadian TV show LEXX , the eponymous planet - vote out starship slices the Earth in , but not before a handful of humanity are able to make their escape .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWlhBkAE_-4
In Hitchhiker ’s usher to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams , the Earth is basically nuked by your local township council , in the form of the poesy - pen bureaucratic Vogons . But at least two humans , Arthur Dent and Trisha “ Trillian ” McMillan , survive . ( And then of track , later it all comes back . But it ’s a long chronicle . )
We do n’t need alien ships to deliver Earth uninhabitable — we ’re more than capable of doing it ourselves .
“ Sic transit mundus ” ( “ Thus passes the worldly concern ” ) , says Brother Joshua as he boards a starship to leave alone Earth in Walter Miller ’s Canticle for Leibowitz . In Canticle , human beings are lucky , because we ’d initiate colonizing space when the epic war broke out and destroyed Earth . In Philip K. Dicks ’s classic “ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? , ” Earth is dying at a dull pace from nuclear radiation poisoning , and most hoi polloi have already left the major planet . In Battlestar Galactica , the wanting 13th colony of Earth is institute to be still be a nuclear barren , force the remaining mankind and Cylons to colonize a new “ Earth ” . Similarly , in Toby Litt ’s Journey into Space , a multiplication ship is already on its way when the stay survivors on a damage Earth launch a terminal atomic warfare and pull up stakes nothing to look back at . In Octavia Butler ’s Lilith ’s Brood , we atom-bomb our own planet — but then the subsister are rescued by the well-disposed Oankali , who want to get together with us … and we wo n’t be quite the same afterwards . In Asimov ’s Pebble in the Sky , the Earth is ravaged by “ radioactives . ” And similarly , in his far - next Foundation ’s boundary , it ’s note that the mythical major planet Earth is just a barren , due to long - agone nuclear wars .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIodlYafwcw
In the poor lived video serial Earth 2 , humans are forced off Earth into space station by environmental destruction . Weirdly enough , in the space horror moving-picture show Jason X , we also live on a place called Earth 2 — because of too much contamination realize the Earth unlivable . In Alien : Resurrection , Earth is depict as a “ shithole , ” with the novelization providing more item about the planet as a polluted slum that everyone who was able has already left . In Katharine Kerr ’s novel “ Polar City Blues , ” Earth is desert because of ecological collapse and hold a less then esteemed spot in the coltsfoot . Also , in Pamela Sargent ’s Earthseed , it ’s a compounding of environmental devastation and used up resources that drives the last survivors of humanity to run away in a ship , handily named Ship .
Forget last by defilement , what about death by actual food waste ? The Earth is turn into a actual garbage dump in the movie Wall - tocopherol , and in the Red Dwarf novel Better Than Life . Poor Earth — in the Red Dwarf universe , it first get a gargantuan toupe to continue its ozone jam and then literally farts itself out of the system thanks to a giant methane blowup from all the interstellar deoxyephedrine .
In Clifford Simak ’s Cemetery World , the entire planet has been converted into an elect cemetery for trillion of the rich and powerful , run by a potbelly called Mother Earth , Inc. Wealthy people who feel schmaltzy about the planet we all amount from can pay off through the nozzle for a funeral plot — but a few barbarians still skulk around the satellite , and there are also grave robbers visiting from space .
In Firefly and Serenity , we watch that Earth was used up and man were squeeze into colony . In the Trigun gum anime , which interestingly enough also has a Western paper , Project SEEDS was a deep outer space colonization mission to preserve the human race after all of Earth ’s resourcefulness were used up . The scarce resource serve to explain a low technical school society existing amidst mellow tech spaceships . Also , in the novel Exile Waiting by Vonda McIntyre and some of her other books , Earth has been abandon by humans after its resources were all used up . A few surviving humans live in “ Center , ” a technical haven on an otherwise devastated planet . The report “ bass close ” by J.G. Ballard takes this to its furthest extreme point — not only are all the instinctive resources exhausted , but also human race have performed a process telephone “ atomic number 8 mining ” on the ocean to derive enough oxygen to create atmospheres on other human beings — leaving nothing but atomic number 1 , which rose up and stripped the air .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOVrwUCmkI
The fear of a random object from outer space destroying Earth is an old classic and rightfully so — wait what happen to the dinosaurs . In the 1933 science fiction novel When Worlds Collide , a rogue major planet is expose to be coming to pulverize Earth and scientists wreak feverishly to build starship for evacuation . Playing into all the ridiculous 2012 Last Judgment conspiracy theories , National Geographic remove the time to make the docudrama Evacuate Earth , which featured a varlet neutron star threatening Earth and humanity building generation ships to escape . Also , in the novel End of the World News by Anthony Burgess , a few prosperous human being take flight Earth in propagation ship just before a rogue planet smack into us . In the Remnants series of books , a grouping of humankind haphazardly launch themselves into outer space to escape an land - destroy asteroid and get picked up by a devolve exotic ship .
In Dan Simmons ’ Hyperion , poet Martin Selenius is sent away from an Earth that ’s being devoured by a manmade mordant trap . To be just , space flying and settlement already survive — but the devouring of the satellite by a fatal gob guide to a final exodus .
This is n’t Earth , but the Quarians in the Mass Effect creation were driven from their home organization by the celluloid creatures call the Geth at the end of the Morning War . In most other automaton uprising , like the Terminator film , humanness miss the ability to just leave behind .
In Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds , the Earth is rendered uninhabitable due to the “ Nanocaust , ” a technological tragedy that included “ smart weather . ” Now the Earth is a frozen hulk , overrun by “ furies . ” Everybody who ’s still active is a descendant of people who were already living in space when the Nanocaust pass .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ionZLhULC3c
In the Doctor Who installment “ The Beast Below , ” the Doctor and Amy arrive on the Starship UK , a ship that was work up to domiciliate the United Kingdom after it evacuate Earth due to solar flare pass . In the sequence “ The Ark in Space , ” humanity has also evacuated Earth due to solar flares . This clock time , a small group of humans are placed in suspended animation for five thousand years with the plan to repopulate Earth once it is habitable again . The 1953 scientific discipline fable novel One in Three Hundred is about humans assay to escape to Mars because Earth ’s atmosphere will be boiled off by Dominicus flares and other solar activity . In the Nic Cage movie Knowing , solar flares are about to destroy Earth , but good-hearted alien take some shaver off ground .
In the Zanzibar copal Dragon Ball GT , the villain Baby make a wish to destroy Earth , using the Black Star Dragon Balls . With only two hebdomad of in advance placard , the Z Fighters are force to pass an evacuation of Earth to the Tuffle planet , using their teleportation powers and good honest-to-god - fashioned space ships .
In the anime Cowboy Bebop , humanity is on its way to hyperspace travel with the grammatical construction of an astral gate orb the Moon . The “ Gate Accident ” get a massive piece of music of the Moon to shatter , and lunar detritus rain down down on Earth causing massive devastation and billions of deaths . This lead to the relaxation of the solar system being colonized in fifty year .
Again , this is n’t Earth , but in the video game Myst , the D’ni are forced to flee their homeward-bound Garternary due to its break down sunlight . In Arthur C Clarke ’s refreshing Songs of Distant Earth , a colony ship of man land on an foreign world after a supernova is predicted to destroy Earth . Also , in Clarke ’s story “ Rescue Party , ” aliens arrive when Earth ’s sun is due to go nova within seven hours — and find that the human race is now all on spaceships out near Pluto , ready to seize the stars . And in Babylon 5 , we learn that the sunshine will go nova in a million age ’ prison term , but not before our descendant escape to New Earth .
extra writing / reporting by Amanda Yesilbas .
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