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Earth That Used to Be Better: Difference between revisions
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Earth just isn't what it used to be, running low on resources and living space, and humanity has started to move out in a significant way. There's at least a genetically stable offworld population, but plenty still live on the planet. Contact is maintained, but the planet is generally implied or stated to have downgraded, sometimes significantly, in health from today. The two variables are what percentage of total humanity is offworld and what the standard of living is for the remaining peoples been done, both of them related to how far down the road from now the story is. Sometimes they take place after the low point, when Earth has undergone some healing but still bears scars on the land or in memories. The important things are that the planet is measurably worse off (even if only by our increased numbers) and no longer home to the only viable population of humanity.
A pervasive idea in this trope is that, once space colonization became possible, the best and the brightest will leave Earth for the colonies, leaving behind the dregs of humanity. The idea that colonists ''are'' "the best" (as opposed to being, say, malcontents and exiles) is a notion mostly put forth by Americans, for obvious reasons.
Sometimes goes hand in hand with [[Gaia's Lament]]. Occasionally prone to starting [[The War of Earthly Aggression]] out of jealousy or selfishness. May become [[Earth-That-Was]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Aria]]'': Despite the extremely optimistic atmosphere, it's an essential part of the setting that the oceans rose and among other things submerged Venice. Luckily, terraforming Mars went extremely well and a new Venice was built there. Characters mention other changes; Ai has never seen a blue sky and Akari comments that people can no longer swim in the oceans or dig in the earth.
* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'': Due to an unfortunate gate accident that split the moon, the Earth is surrounded by a brand-new asteroid belt and most of the atmosphere the asteroids would normally burn up in was blown off, so it is constantly being bombarded by pieces of moon raining down on it. Most of the Earth's surface now consists of ruined cities, craters, and various parts of nature reclaiming the urban sprawl and industrial zones. While Earth is considered something of a meaningless backwater, only known for its budding hacker culture, many people still live there in underground areas.
* ''[[G Gundam]]''
** Chibodee.
** Earth in the Universal Century may be a more subtle example, as while it doesn't have cyberpunk-esque ruined ecosystems, its been a successful target of [[Colony Drop|Colony Drops]] on at least four occasions, with more attempts being barely stopped at the last moment. Furthermore, at least half of the Human population had long since moved into orbital colony structures, and said colonists tend to blame ''all'' of Earth's population for their problems and claim Earth-dwellers to be a bunch of decadent hedonists.
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* ''[[Blade Runner]]'': Overcrowded and rainy. The book goes into more detail on the damaged biosphere; real animals are rare enough that owning one (as opposed to a replicant animal) is a status symbol.
* In ''[[Alien Resurrection]]'', the crew of the ''Betty'' are stunned and horrified that the ''Auriga'' is set on autopilot to return to Earth, which is well known to be a "shithole". According to the novelization, Earth has basically become a giant, polluted slum; the only people who still live there are the people who can't ''afford'' to get off-world. It obviously still has some significance as the birthplace of humanity, judging from the horrified reaction of Call when she realizes that the ''Auriga'' is programmed to return to Earth in the event of an emergency, which would unleash the Xenomorphs on Earth.
* ''[[Lost in Space]]'': The starting of this is the impetus for the Jupiter project.
* Earth in ''[[Avatar]]'' is still the center of humanity but the ecosystem is or has been destroyed and the planet is covered with a towering urban sprawl. Extraterrestrial colonies primarily serve as resource gathering outposts.
* The music video to [[Katy Perry]]'s ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Sd5c4o9UM E.T.]''.
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** In the second novel it's revealed that a few hundred years after Red Dwarf left the solar system, it became a case of [[Earth-That-Was]] in an incredibly beyond-the-impossible fashion.
** Earth is never seen and rarely described in the TV series, but it doesn't appear to be quite as far gone as in the novels. However, it is still said to have a giant artificial "toupee" hanging over it to cover the hole in the ozone layer.
* In [[John Scalzi]]'s ''[[Old
** Worse, Earth is basically used as a soldier- and colonist-farm by the Colonial Union.
*** Up until {{spoiler|John Perry leads the Conclave to earth and reveals the truth.}}
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* ''[[The Eschaton Series]]'' presents an ambiguous version: Earth had relatively recently gone through some hard times, and while life there is hardly hard, it is a bit chaotic, and other planets are definitely much more powerful. However, Earth still has a lot of pull for reasons related to (1) its mythological status as homeworld of humanity and (2) its role in enforcing the laws of causality.
* Earth becomes this in the later books of Allen Steele's ''[[Coyote]]'' series - {{spoiler|to the point that the alien league encountered in the last two books deliberately disallows starbridge travel back there.}}
* [[Gordon R. Dickson]]'s novella "The Man the Worlds Rejected" invokes but then perhaps subverts this: as in the ''Space Viking'' example, everybody strong and adventurous went out to colonize, and the weaklings stayed on Earth and eventually became irrelevant and despised. '''But''' it's revealed that {{spoiler|turning into an impoverished backwater wound up [[The Spartan Way|toughening]] the remaining Earthpeople and forcing them to learn skills that the civilized colony worlds forgot. The protagonist claims to be barely competent by the standards of Earthmen of his time ... and he can [[Genius Bruiser|out-think '''and''' outfight]] any three or four colonials.}}
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