History Main / EarthIsTheCenterOftheUniverse

* You'd think that ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' would avoid this easily, being a fantasy RPG, but no. Two of the oldest D&D game settings, Mystara and Oerth (get it?), have each been described as "parallel Earths", and the top-selling ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' was named that because it'd supposedly been visited by medieval Earth folk, giving rise to our own legends of magic, dragons, unicorns and so on. A spin-off of the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' product line was called Gothic Earth, from which one of the domains of the Land of Mists was derived. Several major NPC wizards from the early Greyhawk/Oerth products made a habit of visiting Earth, and when it became necessary to hide the Mace of St. Cuthbert from hostile forces, it was sent off-world and concealed in London's British Museum. The last one ties into legends that St Cuthbert was a mortal from "another reality" - the GeniusBonus being that Cuthburt of Lindisfarne was a real British saint.

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', a supposedly unstoppable race of alien invaders that has conquered dozens of worlds meets its match in Creator/WillSmith, Creator/JeffGoldblum, and a laptop computer. This is repeated in ''Film/IndependenceDayResurgence'', and, in the end, [[spoiler:the Sphere asks humanity to lead the galaxy-wide rebellion against the Harvesters]].
* ''Film/MenInBlack'' casts Earth as an intergalactic neutral zone, making it ''the'' hub for galactic travel, intrigue, and fugitives.
-->'''K:''' Ever seen the movie ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''?\\

** This handily explains just why TheMenInBlack enforce the {{masquerade}} on humanity specifically: can't risk the neutral zone stop being neutral.

* ''VideoGame/RemnantFromTheAshes'': Earth is unique among the multiverse in that it does not have a world Guardian, and is instead protected from interdimensional threats by "something much greater and more fundamental". [[BigBad The Root]] refers to Earth as "the Core" and pays special attention to trying to conquer it.

* Lots in the ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' cartoon. Zix shows up there, with no reason as to why. The most glaring example is when Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad are all aboard the same ship headed for Earth. When they suddenly decide to set up the Legion, they put HQ on Earth - with ''no'' explanation as to the original reason they were headed there. Presumably, Earth really is the center of the universe or at least a really popular place for fortune-seekers.

Some alien or another, whether it's one ship or its entire race, crash-lands, with no possible means of control for where they end up? Earth. (More specifically, either [[BigApplesauce Central Park]] or [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse the Budokan]].)

Aliens invading some random planet for no adequately explained reason? Earth.

** A solitary mad scientist is able to create a bunch of androids whose powers dwarf that of Frieza and even the Super Saiyans of legend, which basically puts them among the most powerful beings in the universe. What planet did this mad scientist come from? Earth.
** Beerus, the God of Destruction, first came to Earth looking for the Super Saiyan God. When he fights Goku in his Super Saiyan God form, he promises to destroy Earth if Goku loses. Beerus defeats Goku but has since decided to spare Earth if for no other reason than because the food on Earth is too delicious to let go to waste.
* ''Anime/UFORoboGrendizer'' -one of the ''Anime/MazingerZ'' sequels- kind of subverted this. The Vegans had conquered many other planets before striking Earth. It is true Duke Fleed landed on Earth -from all places!- when he ran away from the Vegan troops, and the Vegans show a special interest for Earth, but that is because there are not so many habitable worlds ([[FridgeBrilliance which is utterly true!]]). Earth, Fleed and Vega had a similar atmosphere and environment, so Earth was the kind of planet they were searching for.

** In ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', it is revealed that [[spoiler:Earth houses the Entity, the "living light" that kickstarted life in EVERY universe, and that the Guardians claiming to be the universe's oldest living beings and that Earth is backwater was to cover this fact]]. This also helped explain an earlier bit of "Earth is awesome" canon: it's established that Earth is the most biodiverse planet in existence. Most DCU planets have a hundred or so different species, while Earth has millions. This [[FridgeBrilliance makes sense]] once we find out that [[spoiler:Earth is home to the creator of all life, which causes life on this planet to behave differently]].

** Averted in recent {{Crisis Crossover}}s set in the cosmic side in that the alien empires and conquerors are too busy warring over each other to care about Earth. The only time the events happening in space impacted on Earth resulted in an EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion. The threadbare state of the rest of the universe after the result of [[ComicBook/{{Annihilation}} three]] [[ComicBook/WarOfKings consecutive wars]] [[ComicBook/TheThanosImperative along with an invasion from]] {{Eldritch Abomination}}s has little to no bearing on the events happening on Earth.
** In ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', Peter Quill's father, Emperor J'Son of Spartax, argues for the destruction of Earth for this very reason. He points out that in a short span of a single generation, humans have managed to defeat Thanos, the Phoenix Force and even Galactus, all on multiple occasions, each of whom had been responsible for the destruction of countless other worlds. He then suggests that should humans ever leave Earth and begin visiting other worlds, it would lead to untold cosmic disasters.
*** He later tears strips off Gladiator during ''[[ComicBook/XMen The Trial of Jean Grey]]'', because of his boneheaded decision to kidnap Teen Jean, pointing out -- perfectly accurately -- that first, she is quite obviously a frightened teenage girl, ''not'' the Dark Phoenix, second, if she really was the Dark Phoenix, the knowledge that the Shi'ar killed her entire family would set her off and mean that she would kill everyone present, including Gladiator, and third, her friends will come after and they will tear through armies to get her back, because that's what humans (particularly mutants) have historically done. He is right on every count, with the O5, Kitty, X-23 and the Guardians of the Galaxy promptly taking on the entire Imperial Guard to get her back.
** The Builders also wonder why so many great powers and entities have come to call Earth home and, following their invasion and the events of ''ComicBook/{{Infinity}}'', Earth is now something of a player on the intergalactic stage -- or, at least, the Avengers are, being described by one young girls as 'heroes, gods', with an official Avengers presence being established in space.

** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''ComicBook/TheDefenders'', justified by Earth being the place where {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s placed reality warping machines that fuse parallel timelines together to create superheroes so they could defend the universe from omnicidal cosmic beings.

** In ''ComicBook/MarvelZombies'', the zombie Galacti (don't ask) manage to destroy every planet in the ''universe'' without significant incident between one issue and the next. When they get back to Earth, they face resistance and the plot changes direction significantly. Justified in that it was said that the inhabitants had forty years to plan a defense if the zombies ever came back. Another thing to remember is that by this time some of the zombies were losing their hunger as [[spoiler:Spider-Man and Luke Cage are the first to help the humans]].
* Played with in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989''. On one hand, we never see any of the Endless interact with anything that doesn't have its roots in Earth or humanity. On the other hand, Death implies that they are, at the same time, performing the same function to all sentient life in the universe, and CainAndAbel state outright that the story of the first murder predates humanity and that they (as well as Eve, who is implied to be the story of the first mother) weren't/aren't at all human barring through the lens of who they're interacting with. This would make the entire ''comic'' a meta example of AFormYouAreComfortableWith because we as readers would naturally empathise better with (or be at all able to understand) humano-centric stories.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' goes with this, with Earth beginning to be noticed, thanks to the persistent Asgardian interest in it, the perplexing number of Gods, the repulsion of the Chitauri invasion and the advent of the Avengers. And then there's the incipient emergence of mutants, likely imminent unveiling of the {{masquerade}} (some characters note that humanity is becoming steadily more accepting of the existence of the supernatural) and the rapid development of human technology. Furthermore, it transpires that some alien races, like the Kryptonians, who visited frequently, and the Kree, who have a sort of Ambassador in Mar-Vell, have been keeping an eye on humanity for a long time. And then, of course, there is the interest that the Phoenix has in it.

* In ''Film/TheFifthElement'', the SealedEvilInACan pops out every 5000 years to attack Earth. Justified in that an Ancient alien race hid a weapon there capable of destroying said evil, which would also have allowed the evil to wipe out all life in creation.

** In ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'', Thor explains that Midgard is at the center of the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil and the focal point of the 5000-year alignment of the realms is on Earth - specifically, it's in Greenwich, which is why at the peak of the alignment they get AliensInCardiff.

** 12,000 years ago, the Allspark crashed landed in what would eventually become the bottom of the Colorado River in ''Film/Transformers2007''. 19,000 years ago six of the Seven Primes hid the Matrix of Leadership in tomb made of their very own bodies in what would be Petra in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen''. If the Decepticons had gotten either these artifacts the galaxy would be doomed, first on the list being the Humans and Autobots.

** Lampshaded and defied by Lockdown in ''Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction'', where he complains that every planet he goes to the inhabitants think their planet is the center of the universe. The same movie also reveals that the Quintessons attempted to terraform Earth 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs. Of course, it's possible Earth is just one of ''many'' planets where they tried that.

** In ''Triplanetary'', humanity hasn't even left the Solar System while at the beginning of ''First Lensman'' the number of extrasolar alien civilizations which the Triplanetary League has encountered can be numbered on one human hand (Nevia, Rigel, Palain, Procyon, Vega) and Humanity's scope is small enough that North American politics and industrial power-plays still have a major influence on what happens in the periphery.
** By the time of ''Galactic Patrol'', the Galactic Council has thousands if not millions of representatives, but Earth is still very much the strategic and political centre of the universe for Galactic Civilization (partly because the Galactic Patrol's Prime Base is located there) and the opening chapters of ''Second Stage Lensmen'' feature an all-out effort by the Boskonians to destroy it.

* Out of the ten Territories in ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'', three of them are Earth. Though recent vague statements by Saint Dane suggest that more than the three Earths (and [[spoiler:Ibara and Veelox]]) might be connected. To elaborate, the three Earths are just Earth in different periods of time. Since [[spoiler:Ibara and Veelox are the same territory in the same way the three Earths are the same territory in different periods of time]], it can be assumed that Earth and [[spoiler:Ibara/Veelox]] count as single territories. Saint Dane just targeted the territories in different periods of time.

** In the Franchise/CthulhuMythos the primary reason that so many [[SealedEvilInACan sealed evils]] are concentrated on Earth or otherwise here is precisely that they are ''not'' concentrated on Earth. There's just so damned many of them that Earth ends up having its fair share of octopoid elder gods as a matter of normal statistical distribution.
** In ''Literature/TheDunwichHorror'', young Whateley's diary states that the alien intelligences are interested in Earth as an element in their long-range plans. Organic life, on the other hand, is considered an obstruction, and their real plans can get started once they erase all life on Earth and take it out of three-dimensional space.

* The ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' Series plays with this. Earth is the homeworld, the richest planet in all of space, with the capital of Solarian League in Old Chicago. However the economics are stratified; the poor, who don't officially exist, live in ghettos as bad as anywhere. The technology hasn't really progressed in centuries, and really the eldest colonies like Beowulf have been the hubs of innovation and economy since the 'final war' well over a millennium ago. Their political position is now also in threat due to hundreds of years of believing they were impossible to ever be threatened.

** The original trilogy averts this trope. Not only Earth's location is no longer known to mankind, few even bother thinking about the concept of the origin planet of mankind.

*** While the sequels revolve around the search for Earth, this trope is still averted since the only reason said Chess Master is there is precisely because it's a good place to hide because no-one knows about it.

** "Literature/InAGoodCause": The alien ambassadors from Diaboli are surprised to learn Earth, homeworld of humanity, [[SubvertedTrope is not a shrine world]]. While it is the center of the most powerful political unit, it only controls about a dozen worlds out of the one thousand that humanity has colonized. Played straight by the end, when [[OneWorldOrder all of humanity unites into one government]].

-->''Old, romantic, historic Earth, the big blue marble itself. Miles had always expected to travel here someday, although not, surely, under these conditions. Earth was still the largest, richest, most varied and populous planet in scattered humanity’s entire worm-hole nexus of explored space. Its dearth of good exit points in solar local space and governmental disunity left it militarily and strategically minor from the greater galactic point of view. But Earth still reigned, if it did not rule, culturally supreme. More war-scarred than Barrayar, as technically advanced as Beta Colony, the end-point of all pilgrimages both religious and secular--in light of which, major embassies from every world that could afford one were collected here.''

* ''Series/BabylonFive'' plays with a variation of this. Earth is NOT the center of the universe, but, at least for the duration of the show, a space station built by Earth and crewed by Earth humans is. In fact, the DistantFinale has the station be decommissioned and blown up after it stops being the center of the universe, which has been moved to Minbar.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' practically defines the trope. Every time there's a rift, a cosmic vortex, a long-dead race returning to conquer, an evil galactic bureaucracy whose schemes require a planet-sized sacrifice, ''anything'', it happens to Earth. The 2005 revival is a particular offender: At last count, seven different alien menaces have suffered some kind of catastrophe and, needing a planet on which to convalesce or just crash-land, chose Earth for no adequately explained reason — or they just "fell through time and space" and landed there by coincidence. (Including the Daleks. ''Three times''.) [[spoiler:At least in series 5, this is likely due to the fact that falling through time and space actually meant falling through the cracks in time and space caused by the explosion of the TARDIS on Earth in the penultimate episode.]] During the first series of the revival, no episode was set outside the Solar System.
** It should be noted that the Doctor himself is a gargantuan WeirdnessMagnet and that his fondness of Earth may be what draws a lot of stuff here. And several aliens display a variant on the InsignificantLittleBluePlanet attitude, in that Earth is invaded/chosen to be blown up/whatever because no one else would miss it. The Doctor says he finds humans fascinating because their adaptability lets them survive right up to the end of time. Other races either see humans as major adversaries or find present-day Earth to be a convenient backwater planet that is populated by a less advanced and easy to manipulate species.
** This actually makes a roundabout sort of sense. The Doctor's race, the Time Lords, are {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s with serious socialization problems. Bizarre events do not happen on Gallifrey because the Time Lords are powerful enough to prevent them and the planet has defenses that are virtually impenetrable to anyone trying to get in without Time Lord assistance. Until the Time War, they were pretty much unassailable. So even though they're quietly running the universe from their planet, only a select few know of it as anything more than a legend. Hence someplace else has to be the centre of the action...
** Lampshaded first in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames "The War Games"]]. As the Doctor is called to task for flouting the PrimeDirective, the Time Lords banish him to 20th century Earth, which he admits "seems more vulnerable than others".

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]], they're in the year 4126, and Earth is at the centre of a massive multi-galactic empire, one of at least four Great and Bountiful Human Empires.

* Just about every single season of ''Franchise/PowerRangers''. Early seasons at least, give lip service to Earth being an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet but it doesn't really work. Justified at times, as often the threats are earth-based. However, Aliens have a bad habit of dropping in on the planet to find some intergalactic treasure, conquer some planet during their normal conquests, and each time somehow it's Earth with their legions of power rangers that manage to stop them in their tracks.

** The Goa'uld found Earth's native population, abducted, and enslaved them. Furthermore, much of ''Series/StargateSG1'' deals with Earth trying to defend itself from the Goa'uld coming back.

** In ''Series/StargateUniverse'' the point of origin for dialing into ''Destiny'' is not the local stargate's but Earth's. It is actually kind of justified in that Earth is the homeworld of the Ancients, who built Atlantis and ''Destiny''. Humanity is descended from the Ancients, so that is the reason why we are on the same planet.

** While all the 'protagonist' ships are have a primarily human crew, other Starfleet ships have been shown and mentioned that are crewed exclusively by aliens, such as several mentions of Vulcan-crewed ones. In one series of novels, the USS Titan, commanded by Riker, is said to have approximately 15% human crew.

** Federation star charts are apparently based on this trope as well. Earth is located in Sector 001. Of course, this is a ''Federation'' identification, with Starfleet headquarters and most primary Federation facilities on Earth.

** With Canonicity of the Prime universe up in the air for now, many sources have come around to explain such apparent inconsistencies. ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has Sector 001 referred to as the "Vulcan Sector", and it contains not only Vulcan and Earth, but Andoria as well. Still played straight in that the dividing line between Alpha and Beta quadrants runs EXACTLY through Earth's solar system. One mission also involves escorting a Vulcan, not Federation, medical transport, which shares design similarities to the Vulcan ships seen in the Enterprise era. This would suggest that private or noncombat starships have been independently built by individual member worlds of the Federation from the beginning, which helps to explain a lot.
** There is at least a brief subversion to this with the Dominion War where Deep Space Nine and the wormhole take over the "center of the universe" position. While the Dominion would love to take Earth, the wormhole and the region around it is far more important real estate. Even Sisko would rather see Deep Space Nine and the wormhole taken back before Earth.

** This bit of logic is especially weak, since humans are shown as having ''far'' more colony worlds than any other Federation race (possibly more than all of them combined). Even if Earth were obliterated, there would still be vast numbers of humans spread out across Federation space and beyond, and Starfleet with its starships and starbases would still exist. Indeed, it is stated repeatedly over the series that interstellar colonization is part of a grand survival strategy for the human race. Thus the trope is played very straight in that ''Earth'' itself is somehow special, not just humanity.

* Parodied in a ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' scenario from ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' magazine a long time ago. The aliens had learnt all they knew of us [[AliensStealCable from watching]] ''Series/DoctorWho'', and had come to the conclusion that the goal of all civilizations was to invade Earth. Preferably in the form of pepper-pot shaped robots who yell "EX-TER-MIN-ATE".

* You'd think that ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' would avoid this easily, being a fantasy RPG, but no. Two of the oldest D&D game-settings, Mystara and Oerth (get it?), have each been described as "parallel Earths", and the top-selling ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' was named that because it'd supposedly been visited by medieval Earth folk, giving rise to our own legends of magic, dragons, unicorns and so on. A spin-off of the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' product line was called Gothic Earth, from which one of the domains of the Land of Mists was derived. Several major NPC wizards from the early Greyhawk/Oerth products made a habit of visiting Earth, and when it became necessary to hide the Mace of St. Cuthbert from hostile forces, it was sent off-world and concealed in London's British Museum. The last one ties into legends that St Cuthbert was a mortal from "another reality" - the GeniusBonus being that Cuthburt of Lindisfarne was a real British saint.

* Interestingly used in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' TCG, it is explained that there's a multiverse consisting in several planes (read: universes), in each plane there is a maximum of one planet able to sustain life, that planet serves as "earth" for this trope's purposes. This ''was'' played straight for the first part of Magic's history, in which it was established that multiple planes existed, but almost all blocks were set on the same one, called Dominaria. Mirrodin was the first block not set there since Homelands, seven years earlier, and several pre-Homelands blocks were set on Dominaria as well. Some non-Dominaria worlds were seen in the meantime, but they were rarely the center of the action or the homeworlds of the main characters.

* Downplayed quite bit in ''{{TabletopGame/Starfinder}}'', where the Earth-equivalent (Golarion) can't be the center of anything because ''it disappeared entirely'' and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia nobody remembers what happened]]. The closest it gets to this trope is that a lot of races came from Golarion before it disappeared and an adventure module that revolves around trying to figure out what happened to it.
** The idea was that the disappearance of Golarion set the entire society upside-down, and a thrist of adventure and exploration. So Golarion is still the center of the universe. It's just that nobody can find it, anymore!

** However, the reason for the drive for colonization was because the Earth was once badly overpopulated and polluted, and they needed to in order to prevent the Earth form become EarthThatWas.

** Played straight in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. Shepard's heroics have put their species at the top of the Reapers' hit list, so they focus on humans as soon as they arrive (after making short work of the batarians, who were basically in their way). Earth isn't the only "home-world" to fall, but it's where the game begins and ends - the Reapers even [[spoiler: move the Citadel there after capturing it]]. Focusing on Earth ends up biting the Reapers, though; [[spoiler: it means most of their other major offensives are underpowered and ultimately thrown back once the races start working together, freeing forces for the counterattack.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}:'' Earth at first seems to be an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet for the Tasen to hide on, until they realize that it's [[spoiler:the birthplace of all life they know]].

* Earth doesn't exist in the ''VideoGame/WarCraft'' series, but there, Azeroth is the center of the universe. Only one other planet has ever been visited in the games, and it's a ShatteredWorld, torn apart as a side effect of one of the [[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed many conflicts Azeroth has withstood]] ''just within the past generation''. But we know that many other worlds exist, and every named one is a ThrowawayCountry. Argus and probably Xoroth were conquered by the Burning Legion, K'aresh was conquered by a different kind of demon, we're told that the Titans have created or remodeled countless worlds as a matter of course and the Burning Legion in turn has destroyed countless, the Old Gods are imprisoned on Azeroth and have some kind of influence on Draenor as well... but the intelligent life on Azeroth has survived attacks by ''all'' of the above and more. It turns out there is a reason Azeroth is so important: [[spoiler:it is the host of the last Titan world-soul, one that is destined to be the most powerful Titan in existence. The Void Gods want to corrupt it, which is why the sent the Old Gods to Azeroth in the first place. Sargeras covets the world-soul for himself since he fell in LoveAtFirstSight with it after it opened its eye towards him in a vision.]]

* ''Webcomic/DragonBallMultiverse'': It's so subtle that it can be missed, but it's there. When the Vargas arrive to Universe 18, ''the very first thing'' they do is checking Earth. The reason? It seems to be a magnet for the most powerful warriors across many different universes. Six different universes (3, 9, 12, 14, 16 and 18) had at least one of its members coming from Earth.
* In ''Webcomic/JupiterMen'', he planet known today as Earth was once known as "Prime", a planet overflowing with cosmic energies. The denizens of Prime, the Primari, left for other dimensions in search of new and powerful ways to utilize their connection to Prime's energies. But in time, this separation severed their ability to connect to Prime, resulting in these ex-Primari trying their best to return to Prime by force, starting a Great War that threatened to destroy Prime. During this time, a powerful Primari known as Mother Nature created the Star Seed to control Prime's cosmic energies, free her captured Primari brethren, and beat back the foreign invaders.

* In ''Literature/DominionAndDuchy'' it looks like Earth is extremely minor, but then its discovered that Earth was the source of the extremely nasty Imperium of Humanity that was engaged in a universe-wide war.

* The reason for so many aliens coming to Earth in ''Franchise/{{Ben 10}}'' is the franchise's MacGuffin: the Omnitrix, a powerful TransformationTrinket that ended up on our planet after a space battle passed through our solar system. In the original continuity, the device being on Earth was the result of its creators trying to hide it on our backwater planet and properly place it under the protection of an ex-SpaceCop, but being forced aimlessly jettison the thing to the planet surface after being discovered and hope for best. The television film "Secret of the Omnitrix" also gave another, more morbid reason for some aliens to visit Earth: [[ToServeMan humans are quite tasty]].

** Dr. Zoidberg allegedly doesn't know anything about humans because he "specializes" in ''alien'' biology. "Alien" meaning anything from the bazillions of other populated planets that aren't Earth. This is especially bizarre considering Zoidberg is himself an alien from the planet Decapod, so humans should be aliens to him.

** ''Futurama'' often plays with this. While Earth itself and humanity in general are treated as special and significant, Earth's ''government'' is generally depicted as the future version of [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly fascist Italy]]: a miniscule nigh-dictatorial power that declares war on entities that can't fight back and runs with its tail between its legs when confronted by anything stronger than the local SpaceJews.
* Lots in the ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' cartoon. Zix shows up there, with no reason as to why. The most glaring example is when Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad are all aboard the same ship headed for Earth. When they suddenly decide to set up the Legion, they put HQ on Earth - with ''no'' explanation as to the original reason they were headed there. Presumably, Earth really is the centre of the universe or at least a really popular place for fortune-seekers.
** In the original version and some others, the Legion's financier, R.J. Brande, had his corporate headquarters on Earth and believed by most to be a native.
** While most worlds have a single Legion member due to their powers being native abilities and Legion having a rule against power duplication, a disproportionate are from Earth since humans seem to have more power inducing accidents.

* Earth is the centre of the ''visible'' universe. This is not a reflection of its cosmic status, however. It's just the point the observation is being done ''from''. Beyond the visible universe is just too far to see, limited by the speed of light. Confusingly, despite the universe being ~13 billion(?) years old the observable universe has a radius closer to ~45 billion light-years and the radius of the actual universe is even bigger. Something to do with how the expansion of space-time isn't limited by the speed of light. It's a consequence of Hubble's Law, that the further two bodies in the expanding universe are from each other the faster they are moving away from each other (or, more precisely, the faster the amount space in between them is expanding). The horizon of the observable universe is the distance at which that point in space is moving away from us faster than the speed of light so that no light originating beyond that point can ever reach us.
* The official system of galactic coordinates used by NASA uses the Sun as its centre point.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model literal interpretation]] of this trope was the accepted scientific view of the universe up until the 16th century, when people started thinking [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism the Sun was the centre of the universe]], and that was discredited over time when people started realizing that the stars were also suns in their own right and no star had a privileged position, about the 20th century or so, and after ''that'' we had better telescopes that let us see that many of the structures we called nebulae were actually other galaxies, so even our own Milky Way isn't such a privileged place in particular. Note that this is not as egocentric as it sounds and is often made out to be. In the old geocentric cosmology, gravity pointed to the center of the universe and there only. Earth was the "off-scourings of creation," at the ''bottom'' of the universe, sort of like a cellar or dungeon.

* There is an entire subset of astronomers that actually use this as a valid explanation for everything they can. Be it the lack of quasars in a large radius around us, or the fact that the galaxy is contracting inward, they jump to the conclusion it must be we're in a special spot. Of course, [[SubvertedTrope then other astronomers come up with more logical explanations]], often the "point of observation" effect mentioned above. One theory even posited that we were the center of the universe, until another proposed that ''everything'' was. This may have an interesting message.
* Quick, name every planet in the universe known to have sentient life. Done already? The operative words of course being, once again, "known to be" -- and then specifically known as such ''by'' all of one single species among the diverse inhabitants of said planet, at that. Of course, [[MostWritersAreHuman most humans being human]]...

* In ''Film/TheFifthElement'', the SealedEvilInACan pops out every 5000 years to attack Earth. Justified in that an Ancient alien race hid a weapon there capable of destroying said evil, which would also have allowed the evil to wipe out all life in creation. That, of course, raises the question as to why Earth was chosen in the first place.

* In ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' Earth is the physical center of the Terragen Bubble (what with interstellar exploration being limited by lightspeed) but otherwise little more than a historical landmark.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'', under any and all possible circumstances, will land on Earth looking for [[MacGuffin whatever drives the plot at that point]]. If they aren't on Earth, they're back home on Cybertron. Sure, they go to other places too, but anywhere else is just a pit stop, Earth is the only other planet they stay on.
** Subverted and ''then'' played straight in [[ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries the comics from IDW]]. Earth is just another planet where the Autobots are trying to protect the native populace from the Decepticons without being caught...but the discovery of a super-energy source brings notable Transformers from both sides, including the leaders of both factions, to Earth, the standard protocols being skipped over entirely.
*** However, the super energy source is only present because Earth was one of many planets the Decepticon Shockwave seeded a few thousand years ago. Earth wasn't supposed to be unique in having this energy source, it's just that Shockwave only got to make his follow-up trip to stabilize it to Earth before getting rudely interrupted by the Dynobots.
*** And then a later comic suggested that, no, Earth really ''is'' important, since a {{Macguffin}} landed here, and Shockwave knew that all along. To say nothing of the fact that 'bots from both factions decide to travel to Earth for no readily established reason.
*** And that superfuel- Ore-13- ended up attracting both human and alien villains to kickstart the ''[[ComicBook/Revolution2016 Revolution]]'' event and the ComicBook/HasbroComicUniverse.
** Also partially subverted in ''Anime/TransformersCybertron''. While the first Cyber Planet Key and the Omega Lock were on Earth, the majority of the series was spent planet-hopping trying to get the rest of the Cyber Planet Keys together and save Cybertron.
** This was toyed around with in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', as the Maximals and Predacons don't know what planet they crash landed on. Yeah, Megatron was aiming for Earth, but there are two moons. Dinobot defects thanks to this. [[spoiler:Actually, they got the right place. But not the right time. Oops!]]
*** [[spoiler:Actually the plot was to travel to some point in the past and off Optimus Prime while in stasis lock. It would have gone off without a hitch had it not been for Optimus Primal and the fact that the Vok were messing around in Earth's primordial past.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' continues this tradition, with Earth having stores of Dark Energon, sleeping warriors, and, at one point, visitation from Ancient Cybertronians. However, there is a rather [[{{Deconstruction}} dark]] [[JustifiedTrope justification]] for this: Earth is actually [[spoiler: [[GodOfEvil Unicron]]'s dormant body.]] It is also where the lost Iacon artifacts were ''all'' hidden. Megatron eventually puts the conquest of Earth on equal priority with restoring Cybertron, believing that this is proof that the destinies of the two worlds have always been intertwined. To control one without controlling the other is to control nothing at all.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' series both averts this trope and plays it straight:

** "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!"

* ''Film/{{Transformers}}'': Earth is always where the MacGuffin is hidden. 12,000 years ago, the Allspark crashed landed in what would eventually become the bottom of the Colorado River. 19,000 years ago six of the Seven Primes hid the Matrix of Leadership in tomb made of their very own bodies in what would be Petra. If the Decepticons got either these artifacts the galaxy would be doomed, first on the list being the Humans and Autobots. The third film also reveals that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a mission for the US to explore the remains of the ''Ark'', an Autobot ship that carried Sentinel Prime, [[spoiler: as well as the Pillars needed to create a Space Bridge large enough to bring Cybertron near Earth's orbit]].

* Justified in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse; the reason so many aliens come to Earth is that a space warp in our solar system is a major Hyperspace nexus. And yes, the Marvel Universe IS filled with alien conquerors and space empires.