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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Old man:''' ''Years ago, I climbed the mountains, even though it was forbidden.''
'''Kirk:''' ''Why is it forbidden?''
'''Old man:''' ''I am not sure, ''(writhes and gasps in pain from a control device)'' but things are not as they teach us. [[Title Drop|For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky]].''
|''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"}}
So, mainstream scientists today believe that the Earth under our feet has a lot of molten rock and metal filling it and have gathered a lot of pretty solid evidence for it. The only complication is that we've never been able to send a human down more than several miles to actually study it up close, largely because [[No One Could Survive That]]. Which is why since times that are [[Older Than Radio]], early scientists, writers and more than a few crackpots have believed that there just might be something...or indeed, someone (say, [[Ultraterrestrials]])...down there, possibly powered by a suitably sized sun in the center.
The most known early example is [[Jules Verne]]'s ''[[
Note that its usual configuration, with people walking about on the inner surface, wouldn't work; a hollow sphere has ''no'' net gravitational pull on any object inside it (although some theorists, such as [
A related belief is that of "Concave Hollow Earth": that Earth is actually a hollow bubble inside an infinite mass of rock.
A sub-trope of [[World Shapes]]. Compare [[Beneath the Earth]], [[Dyson Sphere]]. When the inhabitants don't know they're in a hollow world, it may become [[City in
{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* The Fushigiboshi in ''[[
* Dr. Suzuki in ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]'' believes the world is hollow, with a hole at the North Pole leading to the inside. She's wrong, but there is a big massive cavern full of ancient Decepticons.
* This is a main plot point in ''[[Spider Riders]]''. Hunter finds the Inner-World in the very first episode.
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==
* In [[The DCU]], [[The Warlord|Skartaris]] was originally inside a Hollow Earth. A later [[Retcon]] changed it into an alternate dimension enetrable through gates at the Earth's poles.
* Another DCU example: Steve Conrad, a [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] adventurer, explored a [[Lost World]] called Mikishawm inside the Earth.
* ''[
* There's a ''[[BPRD]]'' story ''called'' "Hollow Earth". It features mutant cavemen and what looks like Nazi submarines.
* In one issue of the Gold Key ''[[Underdog (
* In the [[Marvel Universe]], Saturn's moon Titan is this: barren on the outside, fully inhabited on the inside.
* In the miniseries ''[[
== Films ==
* The movie ''[[The Mole People]]'' featured a team of scientists going [[
== Literature ==
* ''[[Journey to
* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] cemented the concept in pulp with Pellucidar, an internal world where he set several of his stories, including a notable crossover with Tarzan at Earth's Core.
* ''[[Choose Your Own Adventure]]: The Underground Kingdom'', which had a star in the middle of the earth and an advanced civilization living inside of the crust.
** Likewise ''Through the Black Hole,'' in which the planets in the black hole appear to be spherical and smooth (and repel all other objects), but can be burrowed into with some difficultly to locate the lush wildlife and [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] on the inside.
* Olaf Stapledon's ''Star Maker''.
* [[Robert Silverberg]]'s ''Across a Billion Years''.
* Colin Kapp's ''Cageworld'' series.
* Bob Shaw's ''Orbitsville''.
* ''Farthest Star''
* ''Wall Around A Star''
* The eponymous structures in George Zebrowski's ''Macrolife''.
* The John Gribbin novel ''Innervisions''. This is meant to be a shock ending to the book, except [[Trailers Always Spoil|the cover announces]] "The world was a sphere ... and they were inside it!"
* In the sci-fi novel ''[[
* Due to a combination of its gravitic and atmospheric oddities, the world of [
* [[Hell]] in [[Philip Jose Farmer|Philip José Farmer's]] ''Inside Outside''. According to some characters, it used to be flat but changed as scientific knowledge advanced. {{spoiler|It's later revealed, however, that this is false and that hell is a space station.}}
* In the semi-sequel to ''[[The Time Machine]]'', called ''The Time Ships'' (by [[Stephen Baxter]]), the time traveller returns to the future once again, but finds it changed. The Morlocks are now "good" in this future, and are also incredibly advanced, having engineered a [[Dyson Sphere|hollow sphere]] around the Sun slightly inside Earth's orbit. Morlocks live on the outside of this hollow sphere in the dark, while the Eloi live on the sunlit inside of it.
* Also by [[Stephen Baxter]], a short story called "[http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf907 Shell]" is set on a planet that has been ''folded in on itself'' in the fourth dimension. There is no
* In the [[
* Nehwon in Fritz Leiber's ''[[Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser]]'' stories is a concave hollow world.
* The interior of Onyx in ''[[Halo]]: Ghosts of Onyx'' (part of Halo's [[Expanded Universe]]) has a portal to one of these.
* In one of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s stories in the rather epic Robots/Empire/Foundation chronology, some of the inhabitants of Trantor believe the universe to be an infinite mass of earth and rock, punctuated by occasional life-bearing bubbles. It is worth noting that the truth is more along the lines of [[Beneath the Earth]], but only the (increasingly rare and alienated) scientific and technical elite still believe this, with the others believing such a belief to be a quite frankly bizarre conspiracy, the details of which I can't quite remember.
* In Robert Rankin's ''The Greatest Show Off Earth'', our world is {{spoiler|the inner layer of}} a hollow world (in a kind of matryoshka style). {{spoiler|The inhabitants of the outer layer are planning to plug up the holes at the poles because they are fed up with our pollution spilling out.}}
* Margarat Weis and Tracy Hickman's [[The Death Gate Cycle]]'s second book, Elven Star, features one of these, where all the stars in the sky are {{spoiler|the equivalent of gigantic lighthouse beacons}}.
** The world of elemental Water is another example, with the slight difference that the islands are floating in air-bubbles in a vast sea - meaning that people travel around in submarines instead of airships - and the world of elemental Fire is another variation on this theme.
** Even the world of elemental Air apparently is this according to the map, even though the "walls" presumably consist of some kind of force fields rather than solid matter. The final book implies that all the worlds exist in what used to be our solar system, and can be reached through mechanical rockets even after the Death Gate is closed - after you get through the planets' artificial crust, in any case.
* ''[[More Information Than You Require]]'' features a long section on the mole-manic societies dwelling within the hollow Earth, including a list of 700 mole-man names and countless allusions to many of the other works listed on this page.
* In the ''[[Tunnels]]'' series, the Earth's core is hollow and contains an Eden-like paradise called "The Garden of the Second Sun".
* The ''[[
* ''Hollow Earth: The long and curious history of imagining strange lands, fantastical creatures, advanced civilizations, and marvelous machines below the Earth's surface'' by David Standish goes into detail on the fictions, theories, and wacky religions inspired by this trope, but even he doesn't bother listing all the stories based on this trope (it was, for example, quite popular in the 19th century to base utopian fiction inside a hollow earth).
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene
* ''[[
* The Shellworld(s) in Iain M. Banks' ''[[The Culture|Matter]]'' is essentially a nesting-doll series of these, although all the inhabitants live on the "outside" of each shell. What's on the inside? Why, artificial stars, some of which roll across the sky and some of which are fixed.
* [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s ''Against The Day'' seems to have this. [[Mind Screw|It's unclear]].
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== Live-Action TV ==
* They also turned up in ''[[Star Trek:
** [[Star Trek:
* The ''[[
** The planet that it orbits, Epsilon 3, confines an enourmous machine inside it, lots of hollow space and some inhabitants.
* ''[[Lexx]]'''s {{spoiler|planet Fire}} has an inner surface with inexplicable bright daylight and Earth-normal gravity. Given its supernatural nature, one can only shrug.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The indie [[Hollow Earth Expedition]] is all about this, using the fluidity of the pulp genre to meld the hollow earth with Thule, Atlantis, and prehistoric times, and any sort of lost civilization, and the whole thing is discovered on the cusp of [[World War II]]. Hey, how else are you going to feed Nazis to dinosaurs?
* The Hollow World is a D&D game setting inside another D&D game setting, being located inside the planet [[Mystara]].
** ''[[Spelljammer]]'' got Herdspace described in ''The Maelstrom's Eye'' by Roger E.
** ''[[Pathfinder]]'', as a nod to ''Pellucidar'', has a inverted vault in it's Underdark-analogue, complete with otherwise-extinct animals. it's more like a mini-world than an actual hollow planet, though; an ancient terrarium of Sufficiently Advanced...somethings.
** The ''World Builder's Guidebook'', a supplement for 2nd Edition D&D, discussed variant [[World Shapes]], including hollow worlds. Notably, it points out that the same blank globe-maps it provides for Earth-like spherical worlds are also perfectly usable for a hollow sphere.
* ''[[
** It's also been recently taken over by [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Nazis]]- to be precise, [[The Heartless|Manes]] formed at the end of [[WW 2]] when the real Nazis were crushed and almost all faith in their ideology crumbled.
* There is some mentions in the [[Warhammer
* The plane of Mirrodin (formerly {{spoiler|Argentum}}) in ''[[Magic:
* The [[World Of Synnibarr|Synnibarr]] roleplaying game's titular planet is hollow. According to the backstory, Earth's sun was becoming unstable, and because Earth itself was physically unsuitable, the planet's stellar engineers took Mars and expanded it, hollowed it out, and terraformed it until it was completely unrecognizable to serve as a new home for the evacuated human race. Overlaps with [[That's No Moon]], as a suitably huge power generator was installed in Synnibarr's core to power the artificial planetary heating and atmosphere systems as well as the engine designed to propel the planet to a new star system to take up orbit in. After dozens of catastrophes, wars, and invasions during the 40,000 year journey, the inner core of the planet was abandoned, with the planetary machinery almost completely inaccessible at the top of a thousand-mile high mountain ascending to the planet's geographical core.
== Videogames ==
* ''[[Terranigma]]'' has this at the beginning, and later the protagonist drops through a hole to find himself on the surface of Earth.
* The world of La Gias from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' (only visited in the [[Gaiden Game]] ''[[Lord Of Elemental]]'', but referenced throughout the series) is like this. Its specifically in the center of the Earth, but its more of a magical dimension.
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'': At [[The End of the World
* Atrea, the world in ''[[Aion]]'' was hollow with the Tower of Eternity through the center as the [[Physical God|manifestation of the god Aion]] who provided the inside of the world with heat and light. However, after the [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Cataclysm]], the center of the tower and a good deal of the planet's equator were destroyed leaving an apple-core shaped world held together only by magic. Although the planet orbits a nearby star, only one half of the planet gets any light from the star.
* Macbeth from the original ''[[Star Fox (
* FunCom's upcoming MMO ''[[
* The world of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' may or may not be spherical, but it's hollow alright, as your dwarves may discover [[Dug Too Deep|the hard way]]. Specifically, {{spoiler|it has a sort of "swiss cheese" layering of an unminable rock called slade which is covered in semi-molten rock and adamantine, depending on where.}}
* ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. It has a unique configuration in that, instead of two habitable surfaces opossed to each other, the Underworld IS the basic, solid planetary sphere, while the Overworld encases it. As proof, the Tower of Bab-Il rises from the Underworld and continues ''upwards'' through the Overworld. The Underworld is also considerably smaller, and, being located between the solid sphere and its shell, it lacks a Sun. The magma flowing through it is more than bright enough to do the job, though.
* The final stage of ''[[
* ''[[Septerra Core]]'' takes place, as the name suggests, on seven massive continents or "Shells" whose orbit and level are controlled by a [[Master Computer|central core]] with [[Magical Computer|mythical wish granting powers]].
* While [[Word of God]] [[Shrug of God|remains silent about it]], most fans interpret [[World of Warcraft]]'s Elemental Plane to work in this manner.
* Some of the planets in both ''[[
** The Spin-Dig Galaxy level from ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'' appears to be located inside one of these.
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[
* In [[Homestuck]] {{spoiler|The Battlefield has a very thick crust with a hollow center housing THE TUMOR (Before being removed) in its center.}}
* ''[[
== Web Originals ==
* The Web site [http://www.psypets.net/ PsyPets] has this as part of its [[Framing Device]]; you're a volunteer working for the Hollow Earth Research Group (HERG). However, "Hollow Earth" in this setting is not ''actually'' inside Earth; rather, it's just a ''name'' given to an alternate dimension because the researchers were reminded of the old myth. References to the actual "Hollow Earth" pop up sometimes, though.
* In ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'', a Hollow Earth appears that combines [[Shout
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130818033028/http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/dgriffin/Research/Griffin-HE_in_Science.pdf What Curiosity in the Structure: The Hollow Earth in Science] by Duane Griffin, is a short historical paper surveying scientific thinking about the hollow earth up to the present day.
* [http://www.thehollowearthinsider.com/news/index.php The Hollow Earth Insider]
== Western Animation ==
* The city of Arkadia and the other "strata" in ''[[Spartakus and
== Real Life ==
* As alluded to above, this was an early theory of the Earth's structure dating back to the 1800. And like the [[Flat World|flat earth]] theory, some people on the fringes continued to advocate it.
** The [
** The [
* As recently as 2007, some guy got some attention for his fundraising for an expedition to the poles to enter the holes to the hollow earth supposedly located there.
* An unfalsifiable (and therefore scientifically irrelevant) claim is that the earth is in fact a hollow sphere with the universe inside and geometry transformed to match (i.e. the closer in you go, the smaller you get).
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Earth]]
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