Earth

Name	Earth
Image
Class	Class M
Type	Planet
Native Species	Human
Location	Sol System, Sector 001, Alpha Quadrant
Affiliation	United Federation of Planets

Earth (or Sol III or Terra) was an inhabited M class planet. Luna was the planet's only moon. This planet was the homeworld for the Humans, a warp capable humanoid species. It was, also, the home for two other sentient species: the Voth, who emigrated to a new home in the Delta Quadrant tens of millions of years ago, and the humpback whales. The planet was located in the inner system. It was the third planet in the Sol planetary system. This system was located in Sector 001 (or Sol sector), which was a region of space in the Alpha Quadrant. For the Borg, the spatial designation for this region of space was Grid 325. In 2150, with the last nation-states joining, this planet was unified under United Earth, which was an uniglobal government. Earth was a founding member of the Coalition of Planets in 2155, and was a founding member of the United Federation of Planets in 2161. Earth was selected as the capital of this federation. The President's office and the Federation Council were located on this planet. The planet, also, served as the headquarters for the Federation Starfleet. The main branch of Starfleet Academy was located on this planet, as well. This planet was on a par with Andor, Berengaria VII, and Vulcan in the late 24th century.

Planetary Data

Earth was a spheroid-shaped planet with a circumference of 24,874 miles, a mass of 6, a mean density of 5.517, and an atmosphere of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. There were smaller percentages of krypton, neon, and argon in the atmosphere. The average temperature was 75 Fahrenheit

Astronomical data

Location

The location and orbit of Earth inside the Sol system was depicted on several ancient and modern planetary system charts and the location of the Sol system in relation to other stars in the galaxy was depicted on several star charts.

History

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.

Earth had been the birthplace of several major religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism. Some of these religions, in one form or the other, have survived to the 23rd and 24th century.

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.

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. The visit by this probe almost resulted in the end of life on Earth, but this was avoided thanks to the heroic actions of then Admiral James T. Kirk and his crew in 2286. In the 19th century, a race called the Skagarans abducted several thousand Humans from the American west and then used them as slave labor. In the 1930s the Briori visited Earth and abducted several individuals including famous pilot Amelia Earhart.

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 (NX-01), and the USS Enterprise. Starting in the 22nd century and continuing on into the 24th, there was major construction projects on the surface and in the 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.

In 2063, with the successful flight of the Phoenix, Earth became warp capable.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 NCC-1701.

• 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 NCC-1701, 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.

• 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 NCC-1701-D before it could attack the planet.

• 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.

• 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.

• Also in 2375, the Breen Confederacy attacked Earth in a surprise attack on Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco during the Dominion War.

• 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 NCC-1701-E, IRW Valdore, and an unidentified Valdore warbird in the Battle of the Bassen Rift.

Climate and geography

From at least the dawn of Humans, Earth had been a Class M world by 23rd century planetary classification standards. Since that time, Earth has 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.

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.

Parallel universes and alternate timelines

Alternate timelines

Earth devastated

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.

When the temporal agent Crewman 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 Federation was never formed and Earth was almost completely destroyed.

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.

Nazi-Earth

In two alternate timelines, the history of Earth was significantly altered when Nazi Germany was not defeated in World War II. In one, Doctor Leonard 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 Atomic weapon first and take over the world.

In another alternate timeline, Vladimir 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.

Borg-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.

Earth destroyed

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 spacetime, their elimination prevented Archer from ever being infected in the first place.

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.

Alternate reality

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.

Mirror universe

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.

The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance conquered the Terran Empire sometime before 2370.

Professor Jennifer Sisko had an image of Earth on a uniform she wore while working for the Alliance in 2371.

Reverse universe

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 NCC-1701 to return back to the prime universe.