Hollow World: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''Old man:''' ''Years ago, I climbed the mountains, even though it was forbidden.''

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.

 

 

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 [[wikipedia:John Cleves Symmes, Jr|John Symmes]], claim that this actually ''could'' work due to the [[wikipedia:Centrifugal force|centrifugal force]] caused by the planet's rotation).

{{examples}}

 

* The Fushigiboshi in ''[[Fushigiboshi no Futagohime]]'', which gives it its name (which translates to "Mysterious Planet").

* 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.

 

 

* 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.

 

 

* ''[[Journey to The Centre of The Earth]]'' implies that there is a second sun at the core of our own planet, meaning we live on the outside of such a sphere. At the time, before the discovery of radioactive elements, this was <s>the mainstream</s> [[Popular History|one of several speculated]] <s>scientific</s> explanations for the Earth's internal heat.

* [[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.

* Bob Shaw's ''Orbitsville''.

* ''Farthest 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!"

* [[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.

* In the [[Artemis Fowl]] series, the Fairies moved to inside the [[Hollow Earth]] in recent times - that or [[Beneath the Earth]] depending on how you interpret it.

* Nehwon in Fritz Leiber's ''[[Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser]]'' stories is a concave hollow world.

 

 

* They also turned up in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''.

** [[Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS]] episode "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky" had a variation, a shell covering an artificial planetoid to hold the atmosphere in.

 

 

* 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]].

** ''[[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.

 

 

* ''[[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.

 

 

* In [[Homestuck]] {{spoiler|The Battlefield has a very thick crust with a hollow center housing THE TUMOR (Before being removed) in its center.}}

* ''[[Reptilis Rex]]'' is based on the premise that Hollow Earth is real and that the [[Lizard Folk]] living in the center are forced to leave and integrate into human society [[Fantastic Racism|with limited success]].

 

 

* 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.

* [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]

 

 

* The city of Arkadia and the other "strata" in ''[[Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea]]''.

 

 

* 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 [[wikipedia:Theosophical Society|Theosophical Society]] were believers - their philosophy held all religion to have some virtue, all races were equal and they would promote studies in science, philosophy and religion. Popular through the early 1900s.