History Main / TransplantedHumans

* The ComicBook/PostCrisis Franchise/DCUniverse used this trope to justify the HumanAlien [[PlanetOfHats Planets of Hats]] most of the ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}} came from: after the ''ComicBook/{{Invasion}}'' CrisisCrossover, [[strike:Mon-El]] Valor seeded several worlds with humans who had gained powers from alien experimentation.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' [[spoiler:this is where Sebaceans, and probably Interions, come from.]]

* The ''Something Wicked Saga'' by Music/IcedEarth is told from the point of view of the Setians, a race of [[TheReptilians Reptilian Humanoids]] who were indigenous to Earth and [[HumansAreBastards nearly got wiped out by invading humans]].

* ''Anime/LastExile'': Though kind of a subversion, since humans transplanted ''themselves'' and two of the three nations became FantasyCounterpartCulture [[LostColony Lost Colonies]] at the mercy of the more advanced, CrystalSpiresAndTogas DeadlyDecadentCourt faction.

* In the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', the alien Daribi invaded the earth four times (in 1898, 1938, 1953, and 2005). Each time they were beaten back. During the 1953 invasion, mankind finally captured several of the invaders, only to find out that they were the descendants of Neanderthals who had been transplanted to another planet 75,000 years earlier. They were rescued from extinction on Earth by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens and taken to a world that wasn't actively killing them off.

* Combined with PeopleZoo in Season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''; thousands of years ago, Pink Diamond's reign of terror included the abduction of numerous human specimens for her personal amusement [[spoiler:or so we're led to believe. In actuality, Pink wanted to ''save'' humanity, but Blue Diamond interpreted this as wanting to ensure that the species would survive in any form. The latter was the one who oversaw the Zoo's construction and populating, with Pink never having an opportunity after her rebellion to go and save them.]] Their descendants have never even been outside their enclosure, let alone been to Earth.

This is an increasingly common (and admittedly [[TropesAreTools pretty good]]) way to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] HumanAliens, by making alien humans.

This trope is often combined with AncientAstronauts and/or AdvancedAncientHumans. Compare and contrast TranshumanAliens, where the descendants of the Transplanted Earthlings aren't human anymore, and {{Ultraterrestrials}}, where they never were. Compare LostColony, where the humans moved themselves.

* In ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion 3'' you can discover planets already populated by splinter colonies of any species in the game, and also a few from the previous games that are not playable in this one. These are explained as the remnants of the empires established in the previous games, having been so small and technologically backwards they were missed when the Antarans conquered everyone and confined each species to a single planet.
* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion: Conquer the Stars'', the Terrans are humans, taken from Earth long ago by the [[AbusivePrecursors Antarans]] to fight the Orions, but ended up abandoning them on a dying world in the Alpha Ceti system. Through hardship, perseverance, and draconian policies, the Terrans survived and clawed their way back to the stars, determined to dominate all other races, including their Earth cousins.

* A HumanZoo variant appears in Season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''; thousands of years ago, Pink Diamond's reign of terror included the abduction of numerous human specimens for her personal amusement [[spoiler:or so we're led to believe. In actuality, Pink wanted to ''save'' humanity, but Blue Diamond interpreted this as wanting to ensure that the species would survive in any form. The latter was the one who oversaw the Zoo's construction and populating, with Pink never having an opportunity after her rebellion to go and save them.]] Their descendants have never even been outside their enclosure, let alone been to Earth.

This trope is often combined with AncientAstronauts and/or AdvancedAncientHumans. Contrast {{Ultraterrestrials}}, where the Transplanted Earthlings aren't human. Compare LostColony, where the humans moved themselves.

* Done in a more restricted fashion in the TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms. Humans are native to Abeir-Toril (that is why they count as a Creator Race, and elves don't)... but they are also native to other worlds, and certain cultures are descended from such non-Toril humans (the Mulan, for example, are the descendants of slaves taken from another world that by WordOfGod was Earth).
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' they're left over from humanity's efforts at colonizing the galaxy in the distant past. It doesn't hurt that the Imperial bureaucracy is vast and bloated enough to ''misplace entire sectors'' for centuries at a stretch...

* ''Anime/LastExile'' : Though kind of a subversion, since humans transplanted ''themselves'' and two of the three nations became FantasyCounterpartCulture [[LostColony Lost Colonies]] at the mercy of the more advanced, CrystalSpiresAndTogas DeadlyDecadentCourt faction.

* ''Anime/RinneNoLagrange'''s aliens are all humans who [[spoiler: left Earth after a great disaster 20,000 years ago]]. Madoka expresses a bit of disappointment at finding that out, noting it's like they are just coming home.

* According to an offhand comment by Geromi in ''Crux'', this is why nearly all the worlds in Creator/CrossGen's SharedUniverse have [[HumanAliens humans of some kind]]. Even the high fantasy, low fantasy, feudal Asian-ish, and Victorian worlds, as well as the more science-fiction worlds. Ironically, "true" humans on Earth are all but extinct. [[spoiler: Because they artificially Transcended this universe and became the Negation.]]

* ''[[Literature/HumanxCommonwealth Midworld]]'' is home to a race of humans that descended from a failed colony but have been living in the [[SingleBiomePlanet world-wide jungle]] long enough that they've evolved to be shorter than average humans, [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair have green hair]] for improved camouflage, and have long prehensile toes for gripping branches. They've also evolved a psychic plant-empathy ability they call emfolling and have a symbiotic link with a six-legged bear-like species called furcots. [[spoiler: In fact, the entire planet is [[GeniusLoci sentient]] and chose to adopt the humans into it by giving them furcots, which are actually self-aware, mobile plants. Each human has a single furcot bonded to it, and when either one dies, the other quickly follows]].

*** The episode [[spoiler: "Terra Nova"]] reveals that the race with whom Archer and his crew are making first contact are [[spoiler: the descendants of an early Earth expedition that lost contact with the home planet.]]

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' [[spoiler: this is where Sebaceans, and probably Interions, come from.]]

* An interdimensional version in ''Literature/{{Destroyermen}}'', where a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Negative Sea Wedgie]] transports a pair of American destroyers from a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII battlefield to a parallel world, where humans never evolved. Instead, they get stuck in the middle of an ancient war between a race of LizardFolk called the Grik and CatFolk called Lemurians. It isn't long before they find out that they're not the only humans to find themselves in this world ([[spoiler:there are the Imperial Japanese, who are helping the Grik before splitting off on their own at Zanzibar, the Empire of New Britain Isles at Hawaii, the Holy Dominion in Central and South America, the League of Tripoli in the Mediterranean, the Republic of Real People in Southern Africa, the New United States near the Mexican Gulf, and a bunch of human tribes all over the place]]).

* A WhatCouldHaveBeen example: in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse, a novel called ''Alien Exodus'' was planned, which established the Star Wars humans as transplanted through space and time from Earth. It was never finished and never made canonical, though the theory that humans were "seeded" through the galaxy by AbusivePrecursors cropped up in several places, including ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic.''

* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Hainish'' novels use the reversed version; humans and their (e.g.) fuzzy and androgynous neighbors are so many subspecies of the parent race.

* ''Film/FutureWar'' featured a race of alien cyborgs who had visited Earth at some point in the past and kidnapped both humans ''and'' dinosaurs--the humans they used as slave labor and the dinosaurs they used as "trackers".

* The ''Norby'' books by Janet and Creator/IsaacAsimov have "The Others".

* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' trilogy, humans on Earth are transplants descended from the stranded crew of an interstellar warship which has disguised itself as the Moon. Humans were originally native to another planet, Mycos (as is all the other life on Earth - explaining why it is biologically related to humanity).
** Note the Humans from the ship were descended from humans on Birhat, which survived the last cycle of destruction which claimed Mycos at the end of the Third Imperium. It's not fully known if the First and Second Imperiums were human.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' universe all the primates on Earth, including humans, are descended from a race called the Pak that were stranded on Earth a few million years ago. The reason humans are related to other life on Earth is that the Pak terraformed earth and wiped out most of the native ecosystem doing so. Furthermore, nearly all carbon-based life in the galaxy is descended from food yeast seeded on developing worlds 2 billion years ago by the first few alien races.

* ''The Algebraist'', by [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]], has '[=aHumans=]' (the humans who were taken to join galactic civilisation in about 4000 BC) and '[=rHumans=]' (tho ones who made it out themselves seven thousand years later). It turns out that this was a common tactic of several galactic civilizations; by ensuring that the transplanted population was more advanced (and usually more numerous) than the originating population, the original population would have swiftly integrate and conform into the community when it made first contact. The Culmina use it as a form of controlling lesser races. Slightly averted, though; these two groups make up only a small fraction of sentient beings even among the 'Quick' species (of which humanity is a member).

* In Creator/WilliamHKeithJr's ''Semper Mars'', an expedition at Cydonia, Mars, discovers ruins half a million years old. An American archaeologist then discovers skeletons that appear to indicate that whoever had built the ruins also abducted ''Homo erectus'' from Earth and genetically modified them, possibly using them as labor to build the Face. An unexplained disaster then caused the deaths of both the Builders and the transplanted hominids. The American archaeologist immediately wants to notify Earth about what he discovered, but the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower UN]] "observers" want to keep the discovery under tight wraps, fearing riots all over Europe thanks to a number of alien-worshiping cults springing up after the discovery of the ruins. When the archaeologist refuses to obey, the UN forces at Cydonia stage a takeover of the archaeological team and the [[SemperFi US Marines]] there, while their superiors back on Earth hastily declare war on the US and its allies, citing noncompliance with UN demands as reasons.

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' RPG and its offshoots the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] brought humans and other species to thousands of planets and also created the Vargr by [[UpliftedAnimal uplifting]] wolves. The end result being that Terrans went out to the final frontier and discovered they were already there, in fact one of those transplanted races, the Vilani, had established an interstellar empire thousands of years earlier.