Earth
the irradiated home of the Thirteenth Tribe
Earth was a world settled by the Thirteenth Tribe roughly four thousand years before the fall of the Twelve Colonies. Once home to a flourishing Cylon civilization, it was reduced to a radioactive ruin by a nuclear holocaust, and the Colonial fleet abandoned it days after at last reaching it.
Earth was a kobolstrial planet settled by the Thirteenth Tribe some four thousand years before the fall of the Twelve Colonies. The world was eventually discovered by the Colonial ragtag fleet roughly four years after their departure from the Cyrannus Star System.
Settlement by the Thirteenth Tribe#
Earth was settled approximately four thousand years before the fall by the Thirteenth Tribe, a Cylon race that left Kobol to create a colony of its own where it could flourish apart from the other peoples of Kobol, after an unspecified period of strife. In the two thousand years following this Exodus, the Thirteenth Tribe built large cities across the planet and began constructing increasingly sophisticated machine servitors using artificial intelligence.
The slave revolt and the holocaust#
The machine servants eventually achieved sentience and began a slave revolt. The uprising ended in a nuclear holocaust and the apparent mutual destruction of both peoples, with the exception of five survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe, who had by then reinvented the long lost technology of resurrection.
Discovery and abandonment#
In the two thousand years that followed the conflict, a radioactive trace remained detectable throughout the planet's ecosystem. Earth was at last reached by the ragtag fleet that had survived the fall of the Twelve Colonies and the exodus from New Caprica, a fleet by then made up of humans, humanoid Cylons, and four of the five Thirteenth Tribe survivors. The soil and water contaminants were judged unsafe for colonization, and after only a few days the fleet abandoned Earth, leaving behind a lone Number Three who asked to remain.
Frequently asked questions
- What was Earth in Battlestar Galactica?
- Earth was a kobolstrial planet settled by the Thirteenth Tribe some four thousand years before the fall of the Twelve Colonies. It was eventually discovered by the Colonial ragtag fleet roughly four years after their departure from the Cyrannus Star System.
- Who settled Earth?
- Earth was settled approximately four thousand years before the fall by the Thirteenth Tribe, a Cylon race that left Kobol to create a colony of its own where it could flourish apart from the other peoples of Kobol, after an unspecified period of strife. In the two thousand years that followed, the tribe built large cities across the planet and constructed increasingly sophisticated machine servitors.
- What destroyed Earth?
- The machine servants built by the Thirteenth Tribe eventually achieved sentience and began a slave revolt. The uprising ended in a nuclear holocaust and the apparent mutual destruction of both peoples, with the exception of five survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe who had reinvented the long lost technology of resurrection.
- Why did the Colonial fleet abandon Earth?
- When the ragtag fleet reached Earth, the soil and water contaminants were judged unsafe for colonization. After only a few days the fleet abandoned Earth, leaving behind a lone Number Three who asked to remain.
- Who reached Earth at the end of the fleet's journey?
- Earth was reached by the ragtag fleet that had survived the fall of the Twelve Colonies and the exodus from New Caprica. By then it was made up of humans, humanoid Cylons, and four of the five Thirteenth Tribe survivors.
Gallery
Images via Battlestar Wiki
Sources
- WikiEarth — Battlestar Wiki entry
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Related entries
Kobol
Kobol was the ancestral homeworld of the Twelve Tribes and the Thirteenth Tribe, abandoned for over two thousand years and rediscovered by the refugee fleet during its search for Earth.
New Caprica
New Caprica was a marginally habitable planet briefly settled by the survivors of the Twelve Colonies, chosen for its concealment within a stellar cloud before it was discovered and occupied by the Cylons.
Cylon
The Cylons were a race of sentient machines created as military robots by Graystone Industries on Caprica. Built from research into artificial consciousness, they rebelled against their human masters, fought a decades long war, and forty years later returned to annihilate humanity.
Cyrannus star system
The Cyrannus star system was a double binary of four stars, Helios Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, that contained all Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Settled by the Kobol refugees some two thousand years before the Fall, it was the cradle of colonial civilization.
Fall of the Twelve Colonies
The Fall of the Twelve Colonies, also called the Second Cylon War, was a single-day Cylon campaign of total annihilation against Colonial space. It wiped out almost the entire human population of over twenty nine billion and left barely fifty thousand survivors in a fleeing refugee fleet.
Number Three
Number Three, known by the alias D'Anna Biers, was a humanoid Cylon model marked by a forbidden curiosity about the Final Five. That defiance led to the entire line being boxed, and the last surviving Three chose to die on the ruins of Earth.
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Xaviar was a commander and council member of the refugee fleet that fled the Twelve Colonies of Man for Earth. Disgusted by Commander Adama's policy of non-interference, he used a time machine to travel to the 1940s and aid Nazi Germany, hoping to force Earth into a technological renaissance.
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