History Main / EarthIsTheCenterOftheUniverse

Futuristic, star-spanning alliance with hundreds of member races? The capital is Earth.

* It became such a problem in the LeagueOfIntergalacticCosmicChampions that various authors started complaining about it.

* Inverted in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''; rather than ''coming'' from Earth, the entire cast is busily trying to get there.

** 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.

** A disproportionate amount of Star Wars' plot, including [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] stories, also happens to take place on Tatooine despite Luke's remark that "If there is a bright center to the universe you are the planet that is farthest from". [[spoiler:This may be because Tatooine is actually the original homeworld of humans in the galaxy where Star Wars takes plac.]]

** A disproportionate amount of Star Wars' plot, including [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] stories, also happens to take place on Tatooine despite Luke's remark that "If there is a bright center to the universe you are the planet that is farthest from".

* 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 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. Hopefully someone who gets it will come along and explain. 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.

** ''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 dark [[JustifiedTrope justification]] for this: Earth is actually [[spoiler: Unicron's dormant body.]]

* The StarDrive setting has Earth (or the Sol System) at more or less the geographic center of Known Space. Humans branched out in all directions from there.

* In ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', Earth used to be the capital of the Old Empire for many millennia before the Time of [[HumongousMecha Titans]]. Even after [[AIIsACrapshoot Omnius's]] coup, Earth is considered to be the core Synchronized World. The [[LaResistance League of Nobles]], however, is based on the outskirts of the former Empire, and their capital is Salusa Secundus. After the rebels [[NukeEm nuke]] Earth, Corrin becomes the center of the Synchronized Worlds. Then the machines are defeated, and the Imperium is formed, making Salusa Secundus the center of the universe. House Tantor nukes Salusa Secundus, and the Corrinos make Kaitain the new center, followed by Arrakis when Paul takes over.

* Played with in ''Comicbook/TheSandman''. 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 don't look 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.

** In ''Comicbook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', Peter Quill's father 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 Comicbook/{{Thanos}}, the Phoenix Force and even Comicbook/{{Galactus}}, 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.

* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'', out of all the places mentioned in passing, the Earth ends up being [[spoiler:the flashpoint for the Alicorn-Draconequus War.]]

** 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]].

* In 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.

* This seemed to be the first place ''Manga/SailorMoon'''s Galaxia had trouble with. To be fair, the TV show [[AdaptationDistillation never goes too deeply]] into the original manga's premise of there being magical girls elsewhere in the galaxy aside from the [[HumanAliens ridiculously human]] [[SixthRanger alien Senshi]], but then [[ThrowawayCountry the other planets Galaxia has conquered]] are probably just to show us she's an [[RuleOfEscalatingThreat even bigger badass]].

* There isn't any Earth in ''Franchise/StarWars'', but there is the Human homeworld and galactic capital Coruscant, pretty much the Earth-analog. It is officially the center of the Universe, with its galactic coordinates 0.0.0. Probably inspired by the RealLife NASA coordinate system using Earth as the center point. A year on Coruscant is 368 days, each day is divided into 24 hours, and these time measurements are used as the standard throughout the galaxy. Averted in that Coruscant is not depicted, or even named, in the original trilogy. All of the action takes place on other planets or in space. It is not until the prequels that Coruscant becomes a significant part of the storyline, and even then much of the action happens elsewhere. Ironically, when expressing his boredom with life on Tatooine, Luke remarks "If there is a bright center to the universe you are the planet that is farthest from". Yet the storyline in both the original trilogy and the prequels keeps bringing the characters back to the planet. Also somewhat averted in that early on in the Republic's history, there was competition between Coruscant and Alsakan (another prominent planet at the time) as to which would be the dominant world in the Galactic Republic, with Coruscant eventually prevailing.

* Don't know if Real Life fits here as it is part of the entertainment industry, but the Creator/{{Universal}} [[IconicLogo logo]] -- [[LogoJoke with a few exceptions]]-- centers on the planet Earth.

** Earth literally seems to be a central position in "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho030SeasonsOfFear Seasons of Fear]]", where Earth's central position would enable the [[spoiler:Nimon]] to invade millions of world.
** In "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho105TheCondemned The Condemned]]" it's mentioned that because Earth is a high-risk planet the Shinus Government gives out high insurance for working on Earth.

* This seemed to be the first place ''SailorMoon'''s Galaxia had trouble with. To be fair, the TV show [[AdaptationDistillation never goes too deeply]] into the original manga's premise of there being magical girls elsewhere in the galaxy aside from the [[HumanAliens ridiculously human]] [[SixthRanger alien Senshi]], but then [[ThrowawayCountry the other planets Galaxia has conquered]] are probably just to show us she's an [[RuleOfEscalatingThreat even bigger badass]].

* ''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 enviroment, so Earth was the kind of planet they were searching for.

* In TheDCU, Earth is not only the target of most of the weirdness and disasters, it's also ''literally'' the center of TheMultiverse. So much so that the parallel universes in the multiverse are consistently referred to as "Earths", i.e. Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-S, etc., even by characters who aren't from Earth, and the battle to decide the fate of the multiverse is referred to as the ''CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' and decided almost entirely by beings from their universe's version of Earth.
** Expanding on that "center of the multiverse" comment: it's what holds the multiverse together. Destroy New Earth (home of the main DC continuity) and it starts a chain reaction that will inevitably destroy all of existence. Imperiex tried to take advantage of this in ''[[CrisisCrossover Our Worlds at War]]'' in order to induce a new Big Bang. Needless to say, he failed.

** In fact, Earth 51 being destroyed was what kicked off FinalCrisis.
** Averted somewhat in the ''GreenLantern'' titles, where most of the non-Earthling Lanterns consider Earth to be a primitive backwater planet. The planet Oa also happens to be the physical center of the universe.

** In ''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.]]
* In ''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:Spiderman and Luke Cage are the first to help the humans]].
* Justified in the MarvelUniverse; the reason so many aliens come to Earth is because 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.
** Averted in recent {{Crisis Crossover}}s set in the cosmic side of the Marvel universe 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]] [[WarOfKings consecutive wars]] [[TheThanosImperative along with an invasion from]] EldritchAbomination s has little to no bearing on the events happening on Earth.
** In ''GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', Peter Quill's father 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}}, 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.

* ''[[TransformersFilmSeries Transformers]]'': Earth is always where the MacGuffin are 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.]]

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', a supposedly unstoppable race of alien invaders that has conquered dozens of worlds meets its match in WillSmith, Jeff Goldblum and a laptop computer.

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

* There isn't any Earth in ''StarWars'', but there is the Human homeworld and galactic capital Coruscant, pretty much the Earth-analog. It is officially the center of the Universe, with its galactic coordinates 0.0.0. Probably inspired by the RealLife NASA coordinate system using Earth as the center point. A year on Coruscant is 368 days, each day is divided into 24 hours, and these time measurements are used as the standard throughout the galaxy.
** Averted in that Coruscant is not depicted, or even named, in the original trilogy. All of the action takes place on other planets or in space. It is not until the prequels that Coruscant becomes a significant part of the storyline, and even then much of the action happens elsewhere. Ironically, when expressing his boredom with life on Tatooine, Luke remarks "If there is a bright center to the universe you are the planet that is farthest from". Yet the storyline in both the original trilogy and the prequels keeps bringing the characters back to the planet.
** Also somewhat averted in that early on in the Republic's history, there was competition between Coruscant and Alsakan (another prominent planet at the time) as to which would be the dominant world in the Galactic Republic, with Coruscant eventually prevailing.

* 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 Creator/HPLovecraft's CthulhuMythos the primary reason that so many [[SealedEvilInACan sealed evils]] are concentrated on Earth or otherwise here is precisely because 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.

* Subverted in Creator/DianeDuane's ''[[YoungWizards High Wizardry]]'': When Dairine Callahan magically transports herself to the galactic equivalent of [[BigApplesauce Grand Central Station]], she asks a passing "alien" what planet she's on. "Earth," it replies. "Oh. Well, what do other people call it?" "Oh, a whole lot of silly things. There's a directory over there."
** And then lampshaded and played straight simultaneously in ''Wizards at War'' when Kit tells Carmela that the reason Earth has so many UFO sightings is because humans are convinced they're the center of the universe, but it's not like alien species have so much time to waste kidnapping humans, and Carmela replies that the alien abductions are actually just because Earth is the only planet to have chocolate. There's a logical reason, but the aliens just ''happen'' to love chocolate so much they go thousands of lightyears for it?

* In ''{{Dune}}'', Earth used to be the capital of the Old Empire for many millennia before the Time of [[HumongousMecha Titans]]. Even after [[AIIsACrapshoot Omnius's]] coup, Earth is considered to be the core Synchronized World. The [[LaResistance League of Nobles]], however, is based on the outskirts of the former Empire, and their capital is Salusa Secundus. After the rebels [[NukeEm nuke]] Earth, Corrin becomes the center of the Synchronized Worlds. Then the machines are defeated, and the Imperium is formed, making Salusa Secundus the center of the universe. House Tantor nukes Salusa Secundus, and the Corrinos make Kaitain the new center, followed by Arrakis when Paul takes over.

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

* [[PlayWithATrope Played with]] in the VorkosiganSaga. As Miles puts it:

* Largely averted in the SpinwardFringe series. Earth appears to be by far the most technologically advanced and militarily powerful world, with none of the constantly warring governments and corporations even thinking about daring to attack it. However, it's almost completely isolated itself from the rest of the galaxy and none of the events of the series take place anywhere near it.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': Why on Earth would the capital of the Federation be... er, Earth? ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', depending on your point of view, either [[JustifiedTrope justifies]] this or [[HandWave waves it away]] by saying that other species were out there first, but [[HumansAreDiplomats humans were the diplomats]] of the galaxy and formed the heart of the Federation -- that without [[HumansAreSpecial humans]], it would have taken much longer or might never have happened at all. It is also noteworthy that, while the Federation is based on Earth, several presidents have been non-human.

** {{Lampshaded}} in ''Film/{{Star Trek VI|The Undiscovered Country}}'' when a Klingon refers to TheFederation as a "'homo sapiens only' club". Quark the Ferengi expresses many similar sentiments in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' too.

** This actually makes a roundabout sort of sense. The Doctor's race, the Time Lords, are SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that had serious socialization problems. Bizarre events did not happen on Gallifrey because the Time Lords were powerful enough to prevent them and the planet had defenses that were 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 were quietly running the universe from their planet, only a select few knew of it as anything more than a legend. Hence someplace else had to be the center of the action...

** Earth literally seems to be a central position in [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho030SeasonsOfFear Seasons of Fear]], where Earth's central position would enable the [[spoiler:Nimon]] to invade millions of world.
** In [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho103TheCondemned The Condemned]] it's mentioned that because Earth is a high-risk planet the Shinus Government gives out high insurance for working on Earth.

* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' is also guilty of this, usually having international-scaled disasters that could've killed millions of peoples (remember the Horoscope Incident? It's lethalness was the polar opposite of ''[[FlashForward2009 FlashForward]]'').
* Just about every single season of ''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.
* ''{{Red Dwarf}}'' also fits this trope to an almost absurd degree. The Earth is long since lost but every character is a human or robot and there are no alien species.

* Series/{{Ultraman}} and all his successors keep coming to Earth. To be fair, the Ultramen are basically Japanese {{Green Lantern}}s. It can be assumed there are thousands of other Ultramen patroling the rest of the universe.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] pretty hard in ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': Only Crichton cared about Earth. All the other aliens just wanted to go home, too. Of course, the Scarrans did try to invade Earth once through a wormhole, but after Crichton collapsed the wormhole, they settled for trying to conquer the rest of the galaxy. Also, Scorpius threatened to invade Earth, but said that the journey there would take decades, and he was only doing this to try and get John to cooperate with him.
** If anything, their ship, ''Moya,'' was the central WeirdnessMagnet of the universe.

* ''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 decomissioned and blown up after it stops being the center of the universe, which has been moved to Minbar.

** Also, humanity is known to be the coolest race in teh galaxy.
* Played semi-straight and justified in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Earth/Terra is the psychic beacon known as the Astronomicon, necessary for faster-than-light travel by providing a "landmark" in [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]]. If the Astronomicon didn't exist, then all ships wishing to travel through the Warp would be eaten by daemons (or worse), rather than there being just a slight chance of such horrors occurring. Terra is also the capital world of the Imperium of Mankind, the single biggest political and military force in the galaxy. Terra is also notably the site of the final and most crucial stage of the HorusHeresy, and ever since has been the most heavily fortified world in the entire Imperium - between the combined forces on Terra, Mars, and Titan, as well as the GodEmperor's personal psychic might, it's virtually impossible to take over Terra, ever.

* Subverted in ''BattleTech'' -- Earth is indeed pretty much the spatial center of the known universe because it's the planet mankind started out from and there are [[AbsentAliens no other known intelligent species]] in the setting, but most of the important political and military action has moved elsewhere centuries ago and the governments of the Successor States have their seats on their own capital worlds.

* You'd think that ''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 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 {{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.

* More or less literally true in ''{{Rifts}}''. The Coming of the Rifts turned Earth into a [[strike: multi-dimensional]] [[{{Multiverse}} Megaversal]] focal point. Just about any place in the [[InsistentTerminology Megaverse]] can be reached from Earth, making it a very attractive target for just about every world conqueror/dimensional traveler. The reason it hasn't been taken over by alien forces yet is not due so much to scrappy humans as the fact that it's a [[CrapsackWorld very very very dangerous and unpredictable place]], and there are so many different groups vying for dominance that none have managed to come out on top yet.
* Interestingly used in ''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 home worlds of the main characters.

* Rather justified in ''{{Halo}}''. The Forerunners intended for humans to inherit their technology and accordingly programmed all their facilities to recognize all humans (and only humans) to have full system access. It's also the reason the portal to the primary hub of the Halo network is located in East Africa, right in the region inhabited by early hominids during the time it was build.
* Earth doesn't exist in the ''{{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.

* The D'ni from the ''{{Myst}}'' games could have linking-book access to virtually ''any'' sort of world their writers could dream up, with no regard for distances and little even for the laws of physics. Guess which planet they decided to settle down on (well, in) and found their capital city.

* In ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' Earth's problem is that its solar system is right ''next'' [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100327.html to the capital world of the local space empire]], leaving us smack in the middle of a vast nation we're not even aware of.

* Played somewhat straight early on in the backstory of ''TechInfantry'', due to its origins as a fan-made expansion pack for the ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' games. Since reality is shaped and created by the collective conscious and unconscious beliefs of humankind, Earth is in a very real sense the central, most important place in the universe. Later in the game story, however, Earth is repeatedly devastated and eventually effectively [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroyed]] and becomes an uninhabited backwater system, even for humans.

* In ''OrionsArm'' Earth is the physical center of the Terragen Bubble but otherwise little more than a historical landmark.

* Even though interstellar travel is commonplace and it's known that there are colonies and settlements throughout the galaxy, the Earth is still treated as the whole world in ''{{Futurama}}''. When it's conquered and/or destroyed, the characters treat it as if the whole universe has ended, such as in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", when Leela's shown an image of Earth exploding, she laments that she and Zapp are "the last humans left in the Universe," despite knowing, for instance, that Amy Wong's parents and others live on Mars.

** 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.

* ''LiloAndStitch'' demonstrates this perfectly. An intergalactic criminal is put on trial and given his sentence. When one of his experiments (626, AKA the eponymous Stitch) escapes containment, the galactic conference watches in awe as his torn-up ship descends on a certain planet in a certain solar system.
* ''{{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 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 the newest 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.

** Also partially subverted in ''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.

* 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 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. Hopefully someone who gets it will come along and explain.
** 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.

* Are the planetary systems beyond our own ''called'' planetary systems or stellar systems? Nope, they're most often called ''solar'' systems, after Sol. Similar to how moons are named after ''the'' Moon.
** This is actually a consequence of neither the Sun nor the Moon having been named. Even the terms Sol and Luna just mean the Sun and the Moon in Latin. Calling other bodies solar systems is just as valid as calling them sun systems or calling their closest stellar neighbor a sun.
* 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.
** 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.
* Then there's the really bad joke that "if the universe is infinite in all directions, then I am the center of the universe".
** Once upon a time, a king asked a wise man to tell him where the center of the world was. The wise man pointed to a spot on the floor and said, "It's right here. If you don't believe me, go ahead and measure it."
* Don't know if Real Life fits here as it is part of the entertainment industry, but the {{Universal}} [[IconicLogo logo]] -- [[LogoJoke with a few exceptions]]-- centers on the planet Earth.

* 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]]...

----