Markup View

Author: Xtifr

Nov 18th 2016 at 7:02:06 PM

I have some pretty serious reservations about the trope itself! Looking at PlanetTerra, I see lots and lots of examples which contradict the primary claim here. I can probably dig through my shelves and find tons more. Terra was a popular term for Earth in golden age (mid-twentieth century) SF. Creator/JohnWCampbell, who was the most influential SF editor of the era, really liked the term, and he absolutely hated any SF which suggested that humans were inferior to any possible aliens! Legends of the field, like Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, routinely modified their stories to remove any suggestions that humanity was less than the best in the universe, just so they could sell to Campbell.

I'll bet that if you give me 24 hours, I can find you more "aversions" than you currently have examples. Because this really isn't a thing. Terra is just a name used for Earth to make it sound more science-fictional. Whether Earth is bad or good. (I bet I could find tons of examples of "called Earth when they're the bad guys" as well.)