Earth

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Earth

"Earth? Never heard of it."

- various species encountered by the crew of Enterprise (NX-01)

Earth (or Sol III or Terra) was the inhabited third planet of the Sol system. It was a M-class planet and had a single natural satellite, Luna. Earth was the homeworld of the Humans and the Voth, amongst others, and was the capital planet of the United Federation of Planets.

In 2150, with the last nation-states joining, the planet was unified under the United Earth government. It was a founding member of the Coalition of Planets in 2155, and of the United Federation of Planets in 2161. The President's office, the Federation Council, as well as Starfleet Headquarters and the main branch of Starfleet Academy were located on Earth. During the Dominion War, Earth's strategic importance was on par with worlds like Andor, Berengaria VII, and Vulcan. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; TNG: "Conspiracy", "The Best of Both Worlds"; DS9: "Homefront", "Paradise Lost", "In the Cards"; VOY: "In the Flesh"; ENT: "Broken Bow", "Zero Hour", "Home")

Planetary data

Earth was a spheroid-shaped planet with a circumference of 24,874 miles (40,075 kilometers), a mass of 5.8e24×10²⁴ kilograms and a mean density of 5.517. Its atmosphere had an average temperature of 75 °F (24 °C) and consisted of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and smaller percentages of krypton, neon, and argon. (TOS: "Miri", "Metamorphosis", "Bread and Circuses")

Astronomical data

Location

A map of Earth in the 24th century

The location and orbit of Earth inside the Sol system was depicted on several ancient and modern planetary system charts (Star Trek: Enterprise opening titles; TOS: "The Cage", "The Changeling") and the location of the Sol system in relation to other stars in the galaxy was depicted on several star charts. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; TNG: "Conspiracy")

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, Earth marked the border between Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The display graphic on a PADD in Star Trek: Insurrection would seem to confirm this. [1] [2] Dialogue in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine however firmly establish that Earth was located on the Alpha Quadrant side of the border. The production artist and designer Geoffrey Mandel wrote, "...while the Sol system is divided equally between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, it is considered to be a part of the Alpha Quadrant." (This quote was from page 19 of Mandel's book, Star Trek: Star Charts.)

The location of Sol on "The Explored Galaxy" wall chart

The location of Sol on a star chart

Earth solar system, The changeling.jpg

The location of Earth on "Chart 14A: The Solar System"

The location of Earth

Earth as seen from Luna

"The Blue Marble"

Template:SolSystem

History

See also: Human history, Federation history, List of Earth conflicts

File:EarlyEarth.jpg

Earth as it appeared about 3.5 billion years ago

The first life was formed on Earth from a group of amino acids that combined to form the first proteins approximately 3.5 billion years ago. From this humble start, at least three known corporeal sentient species evolved on Earth, Human, Voth, and Humpback whales. The first two species shared the basic humanoid appearance, which may be the result of the genetic seeding that occurred long ago by the first sentient species to inhabit the galaxy. Tens of millions of years prior to the development of modern man, the Voth society abandoned the Earth, thrusting itself towards the stars, leaving no apparent trace on Earth of the civilization that existed. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; TNG: "The Chase", "All Good Things..."; VOY: "Distant Origin")

According to actual science, life already gained a foothold on Earth 4.1 billion years ago. However, this wasn't theorized until after the shooting of "All Good Things...".

Earth had been the birthplace of several major religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. Some of these religions, in one form or the other, have survived to the 23rd and 24th century. (TOS: "Balance of Terror"; DS9: "Penumbra"; VOY: "The Killing Game")

In the 17th century, the scientist Galileo Galilei taught the masses that the Earth moved around the sun. For these teachings, he was tried and convicted of heresy by an inquisition, and his books were burned. (DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")

Earth has also been visited, observed, and occasionally manipulated during its history, prior to official First Contact by the Vulcans. One of the earliest extraterrestrial visits was by a race known as the Sky Spirits, originally native to the Delta Quadrant. These also included an ancient humanoid species, the Preservers, descendants of Humans abducted around 4000 BC, and Vulcans themselves, although there is still dispute about this as there was no proof or evidence offered by the Vulcan High Command. The Humpback whales were being observed by an unknown entity, who upon loss of contact with the species, sent a probe to investigate the absence of whale song. In the 19th century, a race called the Skagarans abducted several thousand Humans from the American west and then used them as slave labor. The El-Aurian Guinan also stayed discreetly on Earth. In the 1930s the Briori visited Earth and abducted several individuals including famous pilot Amelia Earhart. In the 1950s a team of Vulcan explorers were temporarily stranded on Earth. (TOS: "Assignment: Earth", "The Paradise Syndrome"; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; TNG: "The Chase"; TNG: "Time's Arrow"; ENT: "Carbon Creek"; VOY: "The 37's"; VOY: "Tattoo")

From the mid-20th century onwards, manned and unmanned spacecraft have been launched from either the surface or the orbit of Earth. Several prominent craft that have been launched from Earth include Apollo 11, Nomad, Phoenix, Friendship 1, Enterprise, and the USS Enterprise. (TOS: "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Changeling"; Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Friendship One"} Starting in the 22nd century and continuing on into the 24th, there were major construction projects on the surface and in orbit of Earth that supported the burgeoning expansion of Humans into space. Some of these projects were the Warp Five Complex, the San Francisco Fleet Yards, Spacedock, and Earth Station McKinley. (ENT: "Broken Bow"; TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before"; Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; TNG: "Family")

In 2063, with the successful flight of the Phoenix, Earth became warp-capable. (Star Trek: First Contact)

Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual stipulated that at least two other species of marine mammals (Pacific bottlenose dolphins and Takaya's whales) served on board Galaxy-class class starships as either crew or civilian navigation consultants. This was supported in canon by a hatchway label, seen in "We'll Always Have Paris", that read "Tursiops Crew Facility".

According to Daniels, while Earth still existed in the 31st century, it did not exist in the same way as it was defined nine hundred years before. (ENT: "Cold Front")

Attacks on Earth

During its long history, the existence of the planet had been threatened by both natural disasters and actions of alien intelligences.

• In 2153, Earth was preemptively attacked by the Xindi, who were unwittingly helping a faction fighting the Temporal Cold War. Using a smaller, prototype version of the planned Xindi superweapon, the weapon destroyed a section of the planet stretching from Florida to Venezuela, killing seven million people. This event began what was later known as the Xindi crisis. (ENT: "The Expanse")

• On February 14th of 2154, a working version of the Xindi superweapon entered Earth orbit to destroy the planet. The weapon was destroyed by Captain Jonathan Archer before it could complete its task. This marked the end of the Xindi crisis. (ENT: "Zero Hour")

• In 2155, Terra Prime – under the command of John Frederick Paxton – used the verteron array on Mars to attack Starfleet Headquarters. Thanks to the efforts of Commander Charles Tucker III, the array fired harmlessly into the San Francisco Bay. (ENT: "Terra Prime")

• In 2273, a massive machine lifeform called V'Ger threatened to destroy all biological life on Earth if its demands were not met. The attack was narrowly averted by the crew of the USS Enterprise. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

• In 2286, an alien probe of unknown origin wreaked ecological havoc while trying to contact an extinct species of Humpback whale by transmitting massive amounts of energy into Earth's oceans and unintentionally caused them to begin evaporating. The threat was ended when the former crew of the USS Enterprise, having used a stolen Klingon Bird-of-Prey to travel back in time to before the species' extinction, returned to the present with two Humpbacks, and after the two whales gave a response to the probe, it departed the Solar System with little, if any, real harm done to the planet. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• In 2367, a Borg cube entered Earth orbit following the Battle of Wolf 359 with the intention of assimilating the planet and its population. It was destroyed by the USS Enterprise-D before it could attack the planet. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")

• In 2373, a second Borg cube attacked Earth, and after a devastating battle was destroyed in orbit by a Starfleet armada. As the cube exploded, a Borg sphere escaped from within the craft and subsequently traveled into the past, where its complement of Borg drones attempted to prevent Humanity's First Contact with Vulcans in 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact)

• In 2375, the Borg decided to create another strategy, since all direct assaults on Earth had failed thus far. They planned to detonate a biogenic charge in Earth's atmosphere, infecting all lifeforms with nanoprobe viruses, triggering a gradual assimilation. According to the Borg Queen, half the population would be drones before the effects were discovered. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

It is uncertain whether this plan came to fruition, but it was likely never applied. According to the non-canon novelization of "Endgame", the nanoprobe virus was brought to Earth and rapidly infected the population.

Starfleet Headquarters on Earth, damaged after a Breen attack

• Also in 2375, the Breen Confederacy attacked Earth in a surprise attack on Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco during the Dominion War. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil")

• In 2379, Praetor Shinzon attempted to destroy all life on Earth using a thalaron weapon built into the Reman warbird Scimitar. The Scimitar was destroyed by the USS Enterprise-E, IRW Valdore, and an unidentified Valdore-type warbird in the Battle of the Bassen Rift. (Star Trek Nemesis)

Climate and geography

From at least the dawn of Humans, Earth had been a class M world by 23rd century planetary classification standards. Earth had several major landmasses and a wide variety of climatic and surface conditions, ranging from tundra to desert. By the 24th century, Humans had installed a weather modification network to alter the natural weather patterns of Earth, including dissipating destructive weather phenomena such as tornadoes. (TNG: "True Q")

Land features, geographical markers, and formations

• Alps
• Caspian Sea
• El Capitan
• International Date Line
• Mount Cook
• Mount Everest
• Mount McKinley
• North Pole
• Pacific Ocean
• Tibetan plateau
• Tropic of Cancer
• Ural Mountains
• Yosemite National Park

See also: Geopolitical Regions (Countries and States), Cities and Towns

In art

Once Humans began leaving Earth in the 20th century, they photographed and drew pictures of the planet for various reasons. These pictures were then displayed in homes, offices, and recreation facilities. The earliest depictions of Earth were from the space agencies which sent Humans into space. These included official mission photos and insignias. Many of these images were preserved into the 22nd century and beyond. (TOS: "The Cage"; ENT: "First Flight"}

Human-created points of interest

• Eiffel Tower
• Golden Gate Bridge
• Great Wall of China
• Millennium Gate
• Stonehenge

The Atlantis project, if completed, would probably also be considered a Human-created point of interest. There was no evidence it was successfully finished, however.

Parallel universes and alternate timelines

Alternate timelines

Earth devastated

Earth devastated in the 31st century

Earth was devastated in several alternate timelines. Accidental time travel from 2371 led to the premature death of Gabriel Bell in 2024, an altered future was created where the more inhumane wars of the 21st century left Earth a pre-warp civilization that never even expanded to the solar system. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I", "Past Tense, Part II")

When the temporal agent Daniels was instructed to remove Jonathan Archer from the timeline in 2152 and bring him to the 31st century, an alternate future was created where the United Federation of Planets was never formed and Earth was almost completely destroyed. (ENT: "Shockwave", "Shockwave, Part II")

In 2370, a new past was created for Earth by the anti-time eruption, where 3.5 billion years ago, amino acids never combined with the first proteins, and life never formed on the planet. This was how the Q Continuum fulfilled its judgment to deny Humans existence. (TNG: "All Good Things...")

Nazi-Earth

Nazi Territory in North America

In two alternate timelines, the history of Earth was significantly altered when Nazi Germany was not defeated in World War II. In one, Doctor McCoy saved the life of Edith Keeler in 1930. Keeler went on to form a massive pacifist movement in America, delaying the country's entry into World War II, allowing Nazi Germany time to develop the A-bomb first and take over the world. (TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever")

In another alternate timeline, Lenin was assassinated in 1916, preventing Russia from turning to communism. This allowed Hitler to concentrate his war effort on the West. With assistance from the Na'kuhl, France and England were conquered before the American East Coast by 1944. (ENT: "Storm Front", "Storm Front, Part II")

Borg-Earth

Borg-assimilated Earth

In an alternate timeline, the Borg were successful at preventing First Contact in 2063 and assimilated the Earth. In 2373, the assimilated Earth had an atmosphere containing high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide, and fluorine. It had a population of approximately nine billion Borg drones. (Star Trek: First Contact)

See below for background information.

Earth destroyed

File:EarthExploding.jpg

Earth, moments before exploding

The Earth was completely destroyed in two alternate timelines. In one of the timelines, Jonathan Archer's brain was infected by interspatial parasites and Earth was destroyed by the Xindi superweapon in 2154. This timeline was erased in 2165 when the parasites were destroyed by a subspace implosion aboard Enterprise - because the organisms existed outside normal space-time, their elimination prevented Archer from ever being infected in the first place. (ENT: "Twilight")

In another alternate timeline, Earth and the entire solar system was destroyed by a massive temporal explosion in the 29th century. The explosion was caused by Henry Starling, when he used the stolen timeship Aeon to travel from the 20th century into the 29th century through an unstable temporal rift. (VOY: "Future's End", "Future's End, Part II")

Alternate reality

Narada firing on Earth

In the year 2258 of the alternate reality, the Romulan mining vessel Narada fired on Earth using a drill platform. Nero was attempting to dig a hole to Earth's core and create a black hole using red matter to destroy the planet. Luckily, Spock was able to destroy the drill well before it could reach the planet's core. (Star Trek)

Warning! This section may contain spoilers for new Star Trek material.

A year later, Starfleet traitor John Harrison masterminded a bombing on the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London and then attacked Starfleet Headquarters. He later returned to Earth, having commandeered the USS Vengeance, crashing it into San Francisco. (Star Trek Into Darkness)

Mirror universe

The USS Defiant in orbit of mirror Earth

In the mirror universe, Earth's counterpart was the capital of the Terran Empire. History followed a similar yet skewed course on this Earth, by comparison to the history of Earth in the United Federation of Planets, with a more violent, war-ridden past. According to Jonathan Archer, the Empire existed "for centuries" prior to 2155. As a result of the official First Contact with the Vulcans in 2063, Earth gained interstellar technology, allowing the Empire to expand. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly")

The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance conquered the Terran Empire sometime before 2370. (DS9: "Crossover")

Professor Jennifer Sisko had an image of Earth on a uniform she wore while working for the Alliance in 2371. (DS9: "Through the Looking Glass")

According to William Shatner's novel Spectre, dealing with the mirror universe, Alliance ships destroyed the Imperial fleet in their version of the Battle of Wolf 359, and proceeded to reduce mirror-Earth to a barren wasteland. Humans were enslaved by the Alliance.

In Decipher's Mirror Universe, Earth is subjected to a Klingon planetary bombardment during the fall of the Terran Empire. The western half of North America is reduced to wasteland, Ireland and New Zealand are smashed into tiny islets, and the new continent of East Africa is created when a fault line is cracked open. In the aftermath, Earth's cities are rebuilt by the Alliance as giant labor camps and factory complexes. Kolara (the former site of Paris) houses Alliance officials.

Reverse universe

Karl Four on the planet Arret

In the reverse negative antimatter universe, where the flow of time was reversed, Arret was Earth's counterpart. In 2270, Karla Five and her son Karl Four helped the crew of the USS Enterprise to return back to the prime universe. (TAS: "The Counter-Clock Incident")

Appendices

Appearances

A list of all actual appearances of planet Earth (excluding holodecks, simulations, visions, opening credits, etc.)

• ENT:
  • "Broken Bow"
  • "Shockwave"
  • "Shockwave, Part II"
  • "Carbon Creek"
  • "Regeneration"
  • "First Flight"
  • "The Expanse"
  • "Twilight"
  • "Carpenter Street"
  • "Zero Hour"
  • "Storm Front"
  • "Storm Front, Part II"
  • "Home"
  • "Borderland"
  • "Affliction"
  • "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"
  • "Demons"
  • "Terra Prime"
• TOS:
  • "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
  • "The City on the Edge of Forever"
  • "Assignment: Earth"
• TAS:
  • "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"
• TOS films:
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
  • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• TOS (AR) films:
  • Star Trek
  • Star Trek Into Darkness
• TNG:
  • "Conspiracy"
  • "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"
  • "Family"
  • "The First Duty"
  • "Time's Arrow"
  • "Time's Arrow, Part II"
  • "All Good Things..."
• TNG films:
  • Star Trek Generations
  • Star Trek: First Contact
  • Star Trek Nemesis
• DS9:
  • "Past Tense, Part I"
  • "Past Tense, Part II"
  • "The Visitor"
  • "Little Green Men"
  • "Homefront"
  • "Paradise Lost"
  • "Tears of the Prophets"
  • "Image in the Sand"
  • "Shadows and Symbols"
  • "The Changing Face of Evil"
• VOY:
  • "Caretaker"
  • "Non Sequitur"
  • "Death Wish"
  • "Future's End"
  • "Future's End, Part II"
  • "In the Flesh"
  • "11:59"
  • "Pathfinder"
  • "Inside Man"
  • "Endgame"

Related topics

• Earth animals
• Duplicate Earth
• Objects in Earth orbit

Background information

Initial depictions

In such episodes as TOS: "The Cage" and TAS: "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", the name Earth was used interchangeably with Sol when referring to the whole Sol system.

During the making of Star Trek: The Original Series, representing Earth of the 23rd century was virtually impossible. This was due to budgetary limitations. (text commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) DVD)

For stories set on Earth in contemporary times, maintaining the audience's suspension of disbelief could be quite challenging. "It's always a dangerous idea to take the Star Trek characters into the present," stated Director Marc Daniels, who helmed the TOS installment "Assignment: Earth". "Suddenly you're in a very tangible situation. The show's reality becomes that much harder to maintain." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 63) Such episodes were often extremely successful, though. In a 1968 letter which Gene Roddenberry wrote in an unsuccessful attempt to pitch a new television series based on "Assignment: Earth", he commented, "It is a matter of record that Star Trek's most exciting and successful audience shows were those three in which Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock returned to 20th-century Earth and played out their story there." (Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry, p. 334)

First film appearance

Though an illusory version of 23rd-century Earth appeared in "The Cage", the first real glimpse of the planet in that century was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which includes only a single scene set on Earth's surface. The concept that the first Star Trek film would feature Earth being jeopardized with destruction by a massive object (which eventually became V'Ger) approaching the planet was conceived as early as the writing of the Gene Roddenberry script The God Thing. (The Longest Trek: Writing The Motion Picture, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Blu-ray) special features) Depicting the planet in Star Trek's future time period was made doable only because the filmmakers were able to take advantage of the higher budget associated with a feature film project. (text commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) DVD)

At first, Director Robert Wise was attracted to the prospect of directing The Motion Picture specifically because it entailed him doing a science fiction movie imbued with a greater scope than being set entirely on Earth, as The Day the Earth Stood Still had been. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 8, p. 14) On the other hand, Wise was insistent that part of The Motion Picture be set on Earth's surface, saying, "It is very important that we show the Earth in this film." (Star Trek Magazine issue 173, p. 63)

Various techniques were used to represent Earth in The Motion Picture. (audio commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Blu-ray) special features) The planet was depicted from orbit in the film via matte paintings illustrated by Matthew Yuricich. (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, pp. 211 & 212) These illustrations were incorporated into shots via use of a matte. Though Daren Dochterman – who served as a Visual Effects Supervisor for the director's edition DVD release of the movie – reckoned, "I don't think they built [a model of the planet]," Michael Okuda claimed that the different methods of depicting Earth in the movie included a dome onto which powder was sprinkled to create cloud shadows. (audio commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Blu-ray) special features)

Upon creating new views of the San Francisco Bay area for the director's edition of the film, the associated visual effects artists took inspiration from how Gene Roddenberry had imagined Earth. "Part of Star Trek's future is that it's not just more technologically advanced, it's more ecologically advanced," commented Adam Lebowitz, another Visual Effects Supervisor on the project. "Humans have taken great pains to clean up the planet, to remove the pollution from the atmosphere, and to beautify the landscape." (Star Trek Monthly issue 86, pp. 52-53) Some new CGI shots featuring the planet as seen from orbit, being encountered by V'Ger, were also created for the director's edition, generated by Foundation Imaging. (audio commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) DVD)

The movie's only scene set on Earth's surface was met with varying reactions. Michael Okuda described it as "such a simple scene, but it says so much about Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future." (audio commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Blu-ray) special features) Roddenberry himself was unhappy with an establishing shot that, in the film's theatrical cut, begins the scene and is the only establishing shot used to represent the planet's surface. "It didn't really present the look of 23rd-century Earth that Gene was hoping to show," explained Robert Wise. (audio commentary, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) DVD)

Later portrayals

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Earth was portrayed using matte painting in some cases and a model in others. Painted by Frank Ordaz, the model had two halves. Clouds and part of the planet's surface were on one half, whereas the other side showed only clouds atop a dark under-layer. The clouds on the latter half were later to be double-exposed over the planet surface at a slightly different rotation speed. (Cinefex, No. 18, p. 47)

The series that became Star Trek: Enterprise was originally imagined as having an Earth-bound setting, a concept that changed to become much less rustic. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 135, p. 19) Nevertheless, much of the series' pilot episode, "Broken Bow", was ultimately set on Earth. Brannon Braga remarked, "It's really a fun place to be, strangely enough, because it's kind of a fresh setting for us." The series turned out to be conceived in such a way that more stories than usual were to have ramifications on Earth and references to the planet. Even before it was decided whether the NX-class starship Enterprise would ever fly back to Earth, however, Braga announced that such visits to the planet would not be frequent. (Broken Bow (novel), p. 256)

In Star Trek Nemesis, views of Earth from orbit were derived from 20K NASA images. Though these high-resolution pictures were completely accurate illustrations of the planet surface and visually appealed to Digital Domain Supervisor Mark Forker, the producers and director of the film were initially not entirely happy with them. Recollected Forker, "They requested some changes – England was too small, Italy was too close to Africa, and the boot [shape of Italy] was too big." Manipulating the images, Digital Domain made the appropriate changes and added digital clouds. "Of course, by the time we added clouds and atmosphere," said Forker, "the changes weren't that noticeable." (Cinefex, No. 111, p. 93)

For depicting Earth in the J.J. Abrams films Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, it was felt important that futuristic cities be kept realistic as much as possible, incorporating practical elements. By way of an example, Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett stated, "It’s not a concept art version of [...] a city, it’s a working version." [3] To represent Earth in Star Trek Into Darkness, location filming was used, most of which was done in Los Angeles. The locations were picked by Production Designer Scott Chambliss. (Cinefex, No. 134, p. 72) The film's visual effects team created the look of multiple cities on Earth, including London and San Francisco. "Our philosophy about doing cities, and respecting the canon of how the [world] is described by Gene Roddenberry," explained Guyett, "is that you're only a few 100 years into the future. You're not that far away [....] We go through this process of, 'What would have happened? What buildings would they have hung on to? How would it have changed the nature of some of the design choices they made?' We like to take things that are real and try to make the architecture scalable. In other words, a scale that is not just totally ridiculous and massive. At the same time, you want a few landmarks in those shots to get the sense of what city you are in [....] But, at the same time, we want to elaborate on that and use our imagination on how that might have changed." (Star Trek Magazine issue 172, pp. 48-49) The futuristic cities took a design cue from the previous film, Star Trek. Director J.J. Abrams recalled, "We wanted terrestrial cities to be consistent with what we had established, but at a much higher resolution. We got to live, breathe and chase within the city streets this time, but we also wanted to maintain a level of potential truth and realism [....] We didn't want to get so fanciful that it felt unrelatable." Abrams selected recognizable urban landmarks for both San Francisco and London, before Industrial Light & Magic created a model showing each of the two cities, both of which were added to with high-resolution CGI buildings. Abrams also described the challenge of imagining how cities might be changed in the future, based on their present conditions, as "fun." (Cinefex, No. 134, pp. 72 & 74)

Trivia

The star chart seen in TNG: "The Naked Now", "The Last Outpost", and "Conspiracy", naming stars within twenty light-years of Sol, was drawn by Rick Sternbach for the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology in the late 1970s. Found on page 77, this chart showed Earth commercial and exploration routes after the use of warp drive began. The Explored Galaxy star chart was first seen, chronologically, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, set in 2293. It was also seen in several Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes set in the 24th century, from the year 2364 to 2370.

According to Star Trek: Star Charts (pp. 32, 36-37, 56-57, "United Federation of Planets I"), from 2113, Earth had been governed by the uniglobal United Earth government. The government of Earth was divided into six major regional powers that were governed from their respective capitals. These capitals were San Francisco (North America), Paris (Europe), Kyoto (Asia), Lima (South America), Cape Town (Africa), and Christchurch (Oceania). In 2161, Earth was a founding member of the United Federation of Planets. The dominant species were Humans and Cetaceans. Earth was a hub world on the mid-22nd century Earth trade routes. It traded with Alpha Centauri, Altair, Andoria, Denobula Triaxa, Draylax, Ophicus Colony, Tellar Prime, Trill, Vega Colony, and Vulcan. In 2378, Earth was a hub world on the major space lanes. In the census of 2370, there were counted 4.2 billion Humans and 8.1 million Cetaceans living on Earth. Points of interest included the UFP Council Chambers, Starfleet Headquarters, Starfleet Academy, Cochrane Memorial, Yosemite Valley, and Angel Falls.

Borg-Earth info

At a very early stage of Star Trek: First Contact's development, the film's writers – including Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore (as well as possibly Rick Berman) – discussed the possibility of beginning the film in a Borg-assimilated city on Earth. (audio commentary, Star Trek: First Contact (Special Edition) DVD/Blu-ray)

In its assimilated state as shown in the movie, Earth was represented with CGI done by Alex Jaeger. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, p. 335) He depicted the heavily polluted version of the planet by creating a series of digital matte paintings. (Cinefex, No. 69, pp. 113 & 117) As Jaeger had only ever worked in the model shop at Industrial Light & Magic before serving as the company's visual effects art director on First Contact, he found the challenge of creating the altered Earth slightly daunting. "They kind of tossed me into this and said, 'Oh, yeah, we're going to need a Borg Earth,' and I go, 'Oh, OK,' so I did a few early Photoshop pieces that just showed a section of the Earth. Then they said, 'Yeah, that's good, but can you just make a texture for the whole planet that we'll just use in the movie,' and I'm like, 'Uhhh, OK – I've never done that before, but sure!' So, basically what I did was, I took a texture map of the Earth – it was this gigantic Photoshop file – and started changing it around." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 23, p. 88)

Included in the assimilated Earth are details hardly visible in the actual film, such as industrial pipes spanning the oceans. (Cinefex, No. 69, p. 113) "I saturated all the ground so it was gray and I added all these sort of factory-looking sections so it looked like the ground was completely covered by cities," remembered Alex Jaeger. "Then, I painted little bridgeways across the oceans and turned the oceans brown. [First Contact Director] Jonathan Frakes kept saying, 'No, the oceans have got to be brown, like they're full of crap! Just, you know, nasty; you don't want to be there.'" (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 23, p. 88) Jaeger also noted that, in addition to turning the oceans brown and making the land masses "desaturated and gray, as though they have become overrun with Borg power plants and machinery," he also turned the clouds and atmosphere yellowish-green. (Cinefex, No. 69, p. 113)

Alex Jaeger was ultimately pleased with how he created the assimilated Earth, essentially destroying the planet visibly by doing so. "It turned out fairly well [....] And to have something that I actually painted end up on screen, was kind of cool." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 23, p. 88) Brannon Braga agreed that the optical of the assimilated Earth was "very cool." (audio commentary, Star Trek: First Contact (Special Edition) DVD/Blu-ray)

Apocrypha

• According to Gene Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, there is a dam across the Straits of Gibraltar. This allowed the level of the Mediterranean Sea to be lowered, creating new farm and park land along the coast, and the world's largest hydro-electric project.
• In the alternate future in the Deep Space Nine book series Millennium, Earth was destroyed in 2388 by the violent Grigari. Among the casualties were William T. Riker, Deanna Troi, Geordi La Forge, Beverly Crusher, Tom Paris, B'Elanna Torres, and the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F.
• In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dominion Wars video game, if the player plays as the Dominion, the Founders destroy the Federation, bombard Earth, and then declare it to be a secondary homeworld from which to rule.

External links

• Template:NCwiki
• Earth at Wikipedia