# Are there any stories where the Earth is blown up?



## Scifi fan (Oct 20, 2008)

There are lots of novels involving the end of the world, in particular, the end of the world as we know it after a nuclear holocaust. But these stories are typically set on Earth, and how the protagonists survive after the disaster.

I've never seen any stories of how the Earth is destroyed, and the protagonists set off in their spaceship to another planet. The closest I've seen is Beast Master by Andre Norton, where the hero resettles on an agricultural planet after Earth is blown up. Or, in a similar vein, Battlestar Galactica, where the "Earth", or Caprica, is captured, and the rag tag band of survivors have to find a new home.


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## Urien (Oct 20, 2008)

Well off the top of my head... Titan AE is an animated sci-fi movie set after Earth is blown up. Dan Simmons Hyperion is set in a human hegemony where Earth has been destroyed by a small black hole.


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## Pyan (Oct 20, 2008)

There's _The Killing Star_ by *C. Pellegrino and G. Zebrowski*.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Oct 20, 2008)

Hitch Hikers

Moon station Alpha (Yes I know TV, but there must be a book behind it somewhere)

There must be others.

However, soon we'll be able to write our own eye witness accounts given the short time we all have left


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## Pyan (Oct 20, 2008)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Moon station Alpha (Yes I know TV, but there must be a book behind it somewhere)



If you mean Moonbase Alpha in *Space:1999*, are you _sure_, TEiN? I was aways under the impression they were searching for the Earth after the Moon was blown out of orbit...


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## chrispenycate (Oct 20, 2008)

How about Steven Baxter's "Moonseed", giving a fairly graphic and nearly believable description of how to deconstruct Earth?

Actually, destroying it completely is not easy at all. Rendering the surface uninhabitable, that's an awful lot easier, and has been done by alien intervention, human endeavour or natural catastrophe. In this case, you can move to somewhere next door in the solar system (Mars is popular) and wait out the recovery time (ten thousand years? Nothing in the history of a species)

Favourite techniques Nuclear War (obviously) solar instability, asteroid strike, massive vulcanism, runaway nanotech and generalised DNA plague.

For total terrestrial destruction a solar nova is popular, and more recently strange matter or black holes (though both of these would give you time to evacuate, and the nova would involve moving a long way out to avoid the effects)


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## David Gullen (Oct 20, 2008)

Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.


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## Foxbat (Oct 20, 2008)

A couple of favourite movies of mine (_When Worlds Collide_ and _The Day_ _The Earth Caught Fire_) deal with the destruction of the Earth.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Oct 20, 2008)

pyan said:


> If you mean Moonbase Alpha in *Space:1999*, are you _sure_, TEiN? I was aways under the impression they were searching for the Earth after the Moon was blown out of orbit...


 
Bearing in mind it's been a while, Pyan I thought the Earth disappeared sending them careering off and boy did they make a career of it too.

Actually, on reflection, you may be right wasn't it some toxic waste explosion on the Moon that set them of and yes it was Moon base.

Anyway it couldn't have been any picnic on Earth after it happened I imagine there may have been some lunatics afterwards


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## Scifi fan (Oct 20, 2008)

Of course - When Worlds Collide is definitely one of those. I had read that decades ago. Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide is also a classic.

I have never read Hyperion, though I got the book years ago, and I also don't know about the Killing Star. But I'm thinking more along the lines of, the Earth is destroyed, and the survivors have to find a new home. There was an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, which dealt with that in an alternate timeline. 

There is also the children's novel, Watership Down, which tells the story of rabbits who have to find a new home when their home burrow is destroyed. In a sense, this is like Earth being destroyed and the survivors having to find a new planet. 

Space: 1999 has a similar theme, but it doesn't count because Earth was not destroyed.


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## BookStop (Oct 20, 2008)

andrew.v.spencer said:


> Well off the top of my head... Titan AE is an animated sci-fi movie set after Earth is blown up.


 
I love that film. The story was good, but the animation mix of computer gfx and hand drawn backgrounds was gorgeous. 

There should be more movies and books featuring the total annhillation of the planet, but there really aren't that many. I imagine the struggles of surviving would be immense.


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## Stormflame (Oct 22, 2008)

I saw a movie like this long ago.  The people of earth were shot into space on little escape pods and a few crashed on some foreign planet where the movie gets going at.  

You could reach out and mention "Planet of the Apes", though, Earth is not totally obliterated, to say.


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## Scifi fan (Oct 23, 2008)

Planet of the Apes is along the lines of Earth having suffered a nuclear holocaust.


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## Ice fyre (Oct 23, 2008)

Now there is one by Greg Bear "Anvil of the Stars?" or something like that  Earth is destroyed by an alien intelegence anda nother intelegence saves the Human Race and sends a group of children off to the stars to hunt down the criminal intelegence.

All I can say for sure is its by Greg Bear and its a good book.


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## dask (Nov 8, 2008)

There's a story in Science Fiction By Gaslight edited by Sam Moskowitz where the two main characters are left with not option but to stand there and watch as the earth is destroyed around them. A very powerful story by the way written in the early part of the 20th century.


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## Scifi fan (Nov 10, 2008)

Interesting. I'm just not up on my science fiction, I guess.


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## ironvelvet (Nov 13, 2008)

I have a very faint memory of a TV series where there's a team of NASA sanctioned astranauts on a mission and they return back to the co-ordinates of earth and there is no planet there anymore. At which point a super nice alien appears to them and says - yes your planet is gone and the seeds for this destruction were developing over the last four or five years on earth and if you fancy it I can send you back and you can try and intervene. So they say yes and wake up a few years in the past with all their memories; one of the female characters 'wakes up' on a space walk and is so disoriented she nearly dies. Anyway, I have a sneaking feeling that this could be quite a famous series but I didn't continue watching it so apologies for any glaring mistakes

By the way, while I have as much time for cute bunnies as the next fox and Bright Eyes will always bring a tear to my eye...well, nuff said


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## Scifi fan (Dec 6, 2008)

I've learned from this forum that Forbidden Planet is a re telling of Shaekespeare's The Tempest, and that there are really no new stories. 

I think that the story of refugees feeling a blown up Earth can go as far back as Watership Down, which is a story where rabbits flee after their Earth (ie, the burrow) is destroyed. But I have now just learned that there is an earlier predecessor - The Aeneid. This is the story by the ancient Roman scholar, Virgil, which tells the tale of refugees fleeing to look for a new home after their Earth (ie, Troy) is destroyed (by the Greek invaders, in this case).

I've known of this work by ancient Roman scholar, Virgil, and I know of the plotline, but I never connected the two points. Thanks for the education, everyone.


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