Serenity makes it clear that colonists left Earth due to overpopulation and resource deficiency. And it's referred to as Earth-that-was. But do we have any indication that Earth is actually depopulated?
122008
We know that Earth That Was became difficult to live on, so humanity spread out to terraform and colonize other worlds. Was Earth TOTALLY abandoned, or is it just a difficult environment?
95890
I've got a basic understanding of these facts:   The Universe is a little over 13 billion years old.  Our galaxy is almost that old. Our solar system is roughly 4.6 billion years old. The heavier elements (Carbon, oxygen, etc...) are only produced by stars.   When our solar system coalesced, the matter that makes up the planets came from a previous generation of stars.  (Meanwhile our Sun is busy making its own slightly-heavier elements, but those aren't ours.  Those belong to the next "generation" after our star dies.)  So we're all sitting on a rock whose matter was spewed out of a star (or stars) that preceded this solar system. But what I want to know is:  How many cycles of coalescing, fusing, nucleosynthesis, exploding -- and then repeating the cycle -- have this atoms in this ball of rock I'm standing on been through?    How do you know this?  Can you tell by the make-up of the matter in the solar system?  Looking around the Orion arm to see remnants of our former home?
45959
Trying to recall a short story I read decades ago. As best I recall, in an desperate effort to defeat humanity in a war they are losing, aliens send piloted bombs back in time to destroy the Earth before life has started. Miscalculation causes destruction of planet into asteroid belt and creates conditions for life on Earth.  The story was from perspective of a genetically engineered pilot of the bomb as it flew back in time to its suicidal goal.   I think the title was simply 'T' - the name of the pilot of the bomb - but trying to search internet for a title like that is not working out too well. Even tried 'shortest title for a story'.
68853
I am a student of class 9. When I was going through magnetism and read that an earth is a magnet I got some doubts. My question is: is earth really a magnet? Doesn anyone have any proof that earth is a magnet? Is there a magnetic core at the center of the earth? Has anyone reached the core of the earth?
32596
Some of the comments on the question  got me thinking. I've always assumed that after Newt's father got infected, all of the following happens off-screen:   He makes it back to the colony with an alien inside him. That alien "hatches" and kills a few people.   Some more people go back to the original ship looking for answers, and bring back more eggs to experiment on. Something goes wrong (probably due to the first alien), and more people get infected. At some stage the aliens go back to the ship and bring back a queen. Or perhaps the colonists do, but I always thought it was the alien.   User Beta has a different view. Beta says:     I assumed that the colonists in "Aliens" brought only a few parasites   (or one) from the derelict ship, one of them became a queen, and most   of the adults we saw were from her eggs   This seems perfectly valid to me, perhaps making more sense than my original assumptions.    Does anyone know for a fact where the queen came from?
90703
I just started on Agrarian Skies, and when I spawn in a normal world, there is no land to stand on. I immediately lose my 2 lives and have to start over. Is this intended behavior?
118566
When the good ship Serenity is traveling in deep space, the crew experiences what looks like an Earth-normal (or Earth That Was-normal) level of gravity. Is it ever explained how the ship is able to generate artificial gravity? The ship doesn't spin, so  is out.  is a possibility, but I think the gravity in the ship pulls in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction the ship is usually traveling in, not opposite, like this method would require.   So: how does she pull it off?   Extra credit: how does she pull it off in the episode ? Serenity's engine is totally dead, to the extent where not even life support systems are online. Yet Mal still has to valiantly haul himself around on the floor to replace the compression coil, so whatever creates the artificial gravity on Serenity is clearly still going. How?
109246
When Thanos described his planet, he mentioned that they were on the brink of collapse as a civilization. But I haven't seen anyone from his species in the movies.   Is he the only survivor? I guess many did have escaped Titan before their impending doom. Or nobody make it except Thanos?
84225
I recently read  that suggested we might be able to determine if we are part of a computer simulation run by our descendants.  The idea seemed far-fetched, but after looking around, I see that it has been argued for by at least one philosopher.  Notably, this abstract from :     This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.&mdash;Nick Bostrom. Philosophical Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.     points out:     The concept is reminiscent of '  but posits a more futuristic .    As I think about it, however, I can't think of any material difference except that the generic "demon" (which is a stand-in for any powerful being) is replaced with a specific candidate: our own decedents.  While it certainly makes for some wonderful science fiction (and even seems inspired by it), there doesn't seem to be anything about the ontological and epistemological aspects of the theory that weren't anticipated by Descartes.  Is there some aspect of the Simulation Argument that improves on the Evil Genius?  Would not the same limitations on proving (or disproving) this sort of existence apply equally to both?
62750
A story from my [edit - son's] youth, so the description is sort of fragmented.   Humans are almost extinct, most that remain are mutated or cross-breeds. Earth's location is forgotten, but main characters find it. Earth surrounded by blockade of derelict ships. Aliens lack the ambition/survival drive of humans - a broken leg might be a fatal injury. Galactic civilization is decaying.
45600
I'm pretty sure the title was "T".  It's about an alien race at war with humans. They decide to end the human race by destroying Earth before humans evolve. They send some humans through space and back in time to do the job.  I think the humans have single letter names (A, B, C, etc) They have raised/cloned the humans just for the job and to save space in their ships they have only a head, a body and one arm. Most don't make it.   The aliens don't know that there were 2 more planets in the past and they count the planets in from Pluto. One human hits a planet and completely destroys it and T hits a glancing blow and just breaks up his target forming the asteroid belt.
56048
As we learned in the responses to the question  ,  the Federation (and Earth in particular) enjoys a post-scarcity economy.  As part of this, humans living inside the borders of the Federation do not earn or use money.  Picard makes this quite clear in his speech to Lily in First Contact, for example.  My question is about the fate in the Star Trek universe of human corporations, industrial conglomerates, and other profit-driven enterprises that once existed on Earth.  Is there any evidence that these enterprises still exist in some way, shape, or form in the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries?  If not, when and why did they disappear?  If they do exist, then do they "employ" individuals on a merit-based platform without paying them (much in the way that Starfleet does with its officers and enlisted personnel)?  One might guess that the Third World War in the 21st Century "reset" the economic playing field of Earth and perhaps put corporations into retirement.  In Star Trek (2009), however, we see a pristine Nokia phone / communicator in Jim Kirk's stepfather's car (although one might argue that the device may be from an earlier time but still functions, like the car itself).
118874
Does      If man continues to scathe all of Earth and its seas, then this isn’t   the world I thought it to be   make sense? Or should I just replace the 'to' with 'would'?
121499
I've noticed that there seems to be a noticeable absence of 'public holidays' in the Star Trek universe.  I imagine that the fact that we're normally with Starfleet personnel would impact this, but do we have any evidence to support that public holidays (on Earth specifically) still exist in the 24th century?
78725
Kind of an odd, random question that popped into my head. Tidal energy - earth's ocean movement, volcanism on some of Jupiter's moons, etc. - obviously comes from the gravitational interaction between large bodies. On earth the interactions with the moon are pulling water around the surface, creating some amount of heat due to friction, etc.   My question is, where does that energy come from exactly? More specifically, what potential energy source is getting depleted to do that work? Is the earth minutely slowing down in its spin - or are the orbits of earth and the moon subtly altered over time by the counteractive movement and friction of liquids and gasses?
99147
In ST:TNG episode "", we see that Wesley's nanites are dropped off on Kavis Alpha IV. Do we ever hear of these particular species of nanites ever again (perhaps in sources other than the TV series)?    doesn't give us much on this, basically what's below:     In 2366, nanites threatened the USS Enterprise-D with destruction of its main computer core during an experiment in the Kavis Alpha sector. After conflict with the crew of the Enterprise, and particularly the experiment's lead scientist Paul Stubbs, the nanites were relocated to Kavis Alpha IV, which Stubbs' influence had helped designate their new homeworld. The nanites left the Enterprise and began creating their own civilization on the planet. (TNG: "Evolution")
17654
I scarcely remember this animated series.  The gist of it is in the title: Earth vanishes (I can't remember the reason now but it was probably explained) and the only surviving humans were two astronauts on an interstellar spaceship. They decide to explore space and meet up with different aliens, hoping that one day they'll find out what happened to Earth.