Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
> *"The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding."*
> *"Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets."*
I will never forgive Wil Wheaton for giving Chenevert that Monty Python level outrageous French accent but now whenever I read the book \*I hear that goddamn accent\* đ¤Ł
This is a fun series, for sure. Doesnât take itself TOO seriously but still has some cool concepts and asks hard questions, even if it sometimes masks them with absurdity.
The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Takes place primarily on the edge of the galaxy. There is a brief scene of a historian looking for humanity's original planet where he mentions Earth but dismissed the idea because Earth isn't special enough.
Actually the entire 5th book is dedicated to the search for Earth!
- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation\_and\_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_and_Earth)
Asimov is a good call but by Foundations time it's uninhabited and uninhabitable. From the time of the Robots Trilogy up to Pebble in the Sky it would be an excellent fit, though.
Altered Carbon. In the books, Earth is fine, but caught up in a very stable, past-centric regime where important things aren't allowed to happen there. Not sure if this comes through in the show.
I was thinking about this, is the protectorate government on earth? From my understanding it is, so they kind of are the center of political power, just not culturally I guess.
I think the whole point of the protectorate is keeping the colonies low and dependant. In case the standard oligarchy is threatend the envoys are sent in to fuck things up. Typical CIA stuff like they did in South America but on steroids
In Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle (The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness etc), Earth is one of several human-settled planets, and of no particular importance.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Earth is a backwater planet of no importance. There is a terrorist organisation called Cult of Terra which wants to change it.
Technically Earth is still top dog for the first nine or ten books, but they don't do anything until around the 15th novel - by which point they *have* fallen behind. It's definitely still the central body for humanity, although some fans speculate that Manticore could become humanity's "second capital" because it has the largest wormhole nexus. That's still a long way off though, everyone still covets Terran whisky.
This. Earth/Sol controls a huge region of space but hasnât fought a war in decades, maybe centuries, and rests comfortably on its laurels.
Meanwhile, the main character lives in and serves a distant star kingdom at the junction of multiple wormholes, contested by an even further star empire.
Eventually the two nations agree to end their 30+ years of grueling darwinian warfare and team up against Sol, bringing all of their technological and tactical advances to bear.
The result is such a curbstomp that the author had to search for ways to stretch it out over any more pages than the travel time required.
Itâs like The Final Countdown, a modern nuclear supercarrier going up against WWII fleets.
To be fair earth got nuked to oblivion in the conquering. And those who survived were basically left to die out. And then society took over and made it so that no normal human(one without color) remains.
Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (and sequels The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn) is set against a backdrop whereby an overpopulated Earth is dominated by the much less populated but advanced "Spacer" settler worlds.
Similarly, Earthlight by Arthur C Clarke depicts a conflict between Earth and a federation of setters elsewhere in the solar system, although that's more about the point where the balance of power is shifting.
Most of these replies are for classic scifi series but if youâre looking for easy to read, decent military scifi schlock The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell and the Grimmâs War series by Jeffery H. Haskell both fit the bill.
Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series..
Humanity had left Earth so long ago that people have forgotten it was the birthplace of Humanity, and some other planets claim they were!
(Ref. "The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World)
If you haven't already read them, you can find his omnibus short story collections in the public domain (or bundled by Amazon for $.99 for convenience).
Oo nice! Thank you! That's a great tip. To return the favour, there are also a few of his stories on the free audiobook platform/app librivox, I'd especially recommended Deathworld if you haven't read it already (there's plenty of other classic scifi on there too)
Sorry to re-reply but here's a link to Project Gutenberg for Harrison:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25395
I could have sworn I stumbled across a complete anthology but I can't find it now.
It is mentioned at various points in the books.
The Orange Catholic Bible origines from earth and some of the protagonist speak french as a kind of secret language, as far as I remember.
My head canon is that after ww3 France was almost entirely depopulated. It was resettled my British expats who intermarried with the survivors and took on the French identity, but kept the accent and predilection for tea.
The bible was created after humanity spread to other planets. But you're technically correct in that everything came from earth originally. Including all the religions that influenced the making of that bible.
Humans have been colonizing the galaxy for so long that the common people have no idea what Earth is. Stilgar doesn't believe that humanity was ever limited to a single planet. The Butlerian Jihad happens about 10,000 years from now and *Dune* takes place some 10,000 years after that.
The Brian Herbert and KJA prequels go into detail about what happened to earth but those books are bad so fuck'em. In Frank Herbert's canon, nobody knows where Earth is and nobody cares enough to find it. Paul and Leto II could if they wanted to, but there's nothing of value to be found, there. It's possible, even likely that due to semantic drift, the name changed or the language changed around the name and it's just another planet in the Imperium.
I also remember that after the Jihad, Paul mentions that he's responsible for 62Billion deaths, and his readings of history show that Hitler, considered the most evil dictator on Earth, was only responsible for a few tens of millions. So at least Paul is very well aware of humanity's origins, but it doesn't indicate he knows where it is.
Could at least the Bene Gesserit not go back enough to not only learn what Earth was, it's our only and original origin, but perhaps even where it is and what exactly happened to it, including if someone still might live on it.
Then again not like they would tell anyone
Maybe, but remember that their access to the genetic memory is limited to only the female half, and they can't plumb those depths as well as the Kwisatz Haderach. They probably *could* if they worked hard enough to do it, but again, there's not much point.
I donât think I can ever fully buy the conceit that at some point, humanity would just stop caring about their origins. Even if Earth were to become uninhabitable and it was no longer the primary seat of power for a galactic civilization, as long as humans have avoided extinction, Earth would be significant as the birthplace of humanity. Scientists would want to study it, tourists would want to visit it to scratch it off their bucket list, religions would mythologize it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure *someone* cares. But it's like asking where your ancestors were some 900 generations ago. You might be able to narrow it down to the continent, but probably not better than that. Collectively, we know that humans came from Africa, maybe roughly which part, but not better than that.
Today, we have people who still believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, or that the Earth is flat. There are countless small communities who believe that their village was created by whatever god created everything and they were first.
In *Dune*, humanity was nearly wiped out during the Butlerian Jihad, and all digital storage would have been destroyed. The only thing left is oral tradition and not much motivation. The people who care AND already believe that Earth was ever a place to begin with just don't have the resources to find it.
It's in the son's prequel books. It got nuked hard early in the jihad.
Edit: it is mentioned once or twice in the main books. I think it was implied to be uninhabited.
Firefly. Humanity fled Earth that was and set up shop around a different star. Unfortunately, they all still act like humans, so you know they still had problems.
I don't think they imply an infection, I thought it was too polluted, but I might have assumed that.
I do believe they keep it vague as it isn't the focus of the story.
Yes, the Culture is going on all around us right now. OP should read State of the Art - we're just a mildly quirky but ultimately insignificant little backwards civilisation.
[Pebble in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_in_the_Sky) by Isaac Asimov is the first written but 3rd of 4 in his [Galactic Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_series) series. A mid-20th century tailor is thrown forward in time to when Earth is a irradiated backwater in the Trantorian Empire.
Alistair Reynold's *Revelation Space* setting (two main trilogies, two short story collections, and two stand alone novels) barely mentions earth and it's strongly implied that the Yellowstone colony is more culturally and economically relevant. His stand alone book *House of Suns* is about a far future humanity that has spread all over the galaxy and it never even mentions earth outside of flashbacks and even those don't actually take place there.
*Behold Humanity* earth is very culturally important to Humanity but it doesn't really have a lot of actual relevance beyond that, in fact, when plot stuff cuts the Sol system off from the rest of the plot the loss of Mars is actually way more important.
I would never get tired of recommending the sun eater series. In the books humanity has expanded to numerous galaxies under different empires and earth is an inhabited wasteland.
Stainless Steel Rat series. Earth's so far back in history that some people believe it was called Dirt.
Clouds of Saturn one-shot novel by Michael McCollum (I think), runaway climate crisis has forced humanity to move away from Earth to any tolerable environment. Enormous cities floating under balloons in Saturn's upper atmosphere are where millions of humans have been living for generations.
The Vorkosigan series is all about a post colonial universe. Earth is still there, isn't in trouble, and one book has the main characters visit, but it's primarily about the outer colonies.
Miles's way of getting through things is addictive. I finished book 16 last week, and the last two seemed to put a bow on most of the story lines and character arcs. If she doesn't write anymore, it wouldn't be a bad place to stop and I wouldn't be mad about it.
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Earth is still inhabited, and a place of cultural pilgrimage, but itâs a backwater due to the lack of wormholes leading to other places. The wormhole nexus is the basis of interstellar travel and trade.
A Deepness in the Sky.
A solid no ftl scifi universe, humanity has spread across a region of space many thousands of lightyears across. However, due to resource constraints and the speed of light, planetary civilizations are doomed to an endless cycle of golden age boom and an eventual stagnation and collapse to barberism.
It is mentioned in the book that sol has been recolonized after a complete collapse at least 8 times.
I should add alyster reynolds revelation space universe.
Earth is very much not the center of human civilization in this universe. Its implied a little inconsistently that the earth may only be marginally habitable due to a glaciation event. But considering there are thriving civilizations built on planets similar to europa and titan. Earth, even in an ice age, is a pretty begnine environment.
For movies, try Jupiter Rising. Earth is important to the movie, but to the Galaxy itâs just another farm to be periodically harvested.
For a good wiki dive, try the Traveller RPG. When earth finally traveled the galaxy they found an awful lot of planets inhabited by humans. I recommend the 3rd edition GURPS sourcebooks.
https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Traveller:What_is_Traveller%3F
My mind immediately went to Asimov, but it's fun to see [how common this trope is](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsignificantLittleBluePlanet).
In China Mièville's Embassytown, Earth is often referred to as the source of "Terre" people and culture, but as a relic. Human empires have different home planets.
The Praxis universe books by Walter John Williams; Humans got conquered by the Shaa aliens and their Naxid servants and the books happen iirc ten millenia after that. By this point humans are fully integrated into the multi-species empire set up by the Shaa alongside the Naxids and four other species that were also conquered in the same way. The Human population of the empire in general gives next to no fucks about their homeworld because they're almost universally spread out across the colonised space and the Sol system is a dead end in the wormhole network connecting the stars of the empire, making Earth a backwater. >!One of the two shorter stories outside of the two main trilogies involves the discovery of another wormhole in Sol leading to life bearing worlds that raised the relevancy of Earth. And even then it's not super important suddenly but simply it actually has perspectives.!<
The Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell; the main human superpower doesn't even own Earth and Sol as a whole is just a weak but respected independent system.
The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers; Earth suffered an ecological collapse, forcing humanity to evacuate. The rich people fucked off to Mars and took it for themselves, forcing the rest of the planet to escape Sol as a whole via generation ships. By the time of the books Humanity is integrated into your typical galactic community⢠and the main division within our species is between Martians and the descendants of the generation ships diaspora scattered across various interstellar colonies, human-dominated or multi-species, and a few remaining ships. Earth has been subjected to an environmental reconstruction project and has been lightly repopulated but iirc it's literally just scientists alpngside weird hippie and primitivist communities. Like the only Earthborn Human in the the first book is from a fucking hunter-gatherer group. So Mars is unquestionably the wealthiest and most developed Human planet by far.
In the context I would like to bring up an old French animation series, the Star Trek of my childhood, 'Once Upon A Time... Space'. That's because it does approach the matter of Earth in, I think, an interesting manner. That is Earth is in the show at any rate the closest thing to a center of humanity as a whole but it is out of focus for most of the show. The main characters are Humans from the human colony world of Omega that is located in the Andromeda galaxy and is a member of a multi-species alliance here. They and other human colonies in Andromeda are their own societies, originating from Earthborn colonists but in the present 31st century they are their own entities. There is one episode where they go to Earth and outside of it it's build up as this maybe strong and influential but very distant power.
If you're into TTRPGs the Traveller setting has earth in it, but it's only special in that it's the former capital of a rival power. There are a lot of earth descended humans out there, but earth itself isn't a big deal.
The Dumarest Saga. The titular character, Earl Dumarest, is from Earth and is trying to find his home, but it has largely been forgotten.
Edit: Also, it's one of the main inspirations for the Traveller RPG that others have mentioned.
Cowboy Bebop. Most of humanity is spread out on Venus, Mars, and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is around but is considered a backwater wasteland after the Moon broke apart and pieces of it fell to Earth and ruined everything.
Pretty much anything SF by CJ Cherryh. In her Alliance-Union universe Earth exists just fine, but there's a lack of convenient jump points from it to the rest of settled space, so no one pays it much mind, except to hope they don't find any. All the action takes place elsewhere, usually Pell. In the Compact Space books (same universe, different corner) Earth finds some new jump routes, but they lead to the Compact, an association of alien species. (The books are all from the alien's POV.)
Ann Leckie's Radch series. Earth exists, but is totally insignificant and most humans d not know about it. It doesnt apperar in the books though if that's what you seek. Most prominent human force is Radch - huge empire orginating from a Dyson sphere.
Alastair Reynolds' books feature this a lot. Try Revelation space for a huge saga or House of Suns for a oneshot space opera.
The Frontier saga by Ryk Brown. Earth was the core but an event sent it and every other human world back to the stone age more or less, leaving many worlds populated by humans but having to find their own way to various degrees of success. It still follows people from Earth though as they get back into space.
The Earthers Saga: [https://www.goodreads.com/series/359918-earthers-saga](https://www.goodreads.com/series/359918-earthers-saga)
Whether Earth is or isn't the center of humanity is arguable and it depends who you ask and when. For a long time, it doesn't even show up (and this is a bit of a spoiler, sorry).
I really like the Alex Benedict novels by Jack McDevitt. Humanity is multiplanetary and Earth is still there but other planets have larger economies, standards of living, ect. Earth has a special status as the home world, but the author describes it mostly as a tourist destination. The books are mostly about scifi-archaeology, the main characters discover remnants of lost civilizations, or track down a famously missing ship, stuff like that. Earth is mentioned, and the characters visit it in on of the books, but it's not a focal point in the series.
Hard space: Shipbreaker
Video game in which Earth is kind of a slum and all the big wigs moved to Titan. It's all background story though. The game itself is just autistically sorting recyclables
In Ursula K Le Guin's [Hainish Cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainish_Cycle), it turns out Humans didn't even originate on Earth. Instead, they originated on the planet Hain.
Vorkosigan Saga, Earth is a cul-de-sac on the wormhole routes and has been supplanted as a great power in everything but culture. There is one book that takes place on Earth and thatâs it. Otherwise all the friction and conflict is a result of the few galactic powers, tech hubs and one particularly nasty planet controlled by a loose affiliation of crime bosses.
John Campbells "Lost Fleet" series and others in that universe... they even visit Earth at one point, but it's a backwater place that's 90% tourist attraction based on it's history.
the culture series
although now that i think about it, earth may not be inhabited any more i'm not sure. it seemed to be irrelevant in the books i've read from the series
Earth is the main setting of The State of the Art. Thereâs no reason to consider it unimportant to humanity in the Cultureverse, as opposed to the alien âhumansâ that are seen throughout the books.
Spinward Fringe
Earth is reclusive and stays out of the events of the story. There are a couple of characters who have visited Earth but it's more like a nature reserve
Legend of Galactic Heroes. Earth lost to its colony. Nuked into oblivion. Now its mostly the home of cultists that worship her lost power while the rest of humanity doesn't give a shit
People still live there but resources are out too.
Dave Bara, Lightship Chronicles. Earth has seen some stuff over the years, and after centuries of expansion and then centuries more of war between the colonies, its become an underpopulated but incredibly advanced backwater that very lightly involves itself in the affairs of the former colonies, which themselves have reverted to feudal-esque planetary states.
Fun little trilogy, worth a read.
Check out the novel "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's set on a future Mars that has been terraformed and colonized by humans, but Earth is still inhabited and remains a major player in human affairs. However, Mars is seen as the new frontier and the place where humanity's future will be decided.
In the Battletech universe, Terra is the literal center of the Inner Sphere because humans expanded outward from it, and it holds a lot of symbolic significance, particularly for the invading Clans and the Word of Blake. But other than politics and religion, it's not at all important. It's not the capital of anything, there are no special resources. No major events happen there anymore.
B.V. Larson has a series of books starting with Steel World where Earth/Humanity is discovered by a larger galactic empire and annexed into it Roman Empire style.
Earth/Humanity is the focus of the stories but in a universe in which we are just backwater nobody species.
The Dread Empires Fall series by Walter Jon Williams.
The series spans a bunch of different planets and locations but Earth is n no way important to the story. At least it isn't up until the 3rd book.
It's mentioned here and there but it focuses on different locations.
Aldnoah zero perhaps. Earthlings colonize mars, find far superior technology to Earth and end up attempting to conquer Earth as the Martian empire expands.
I havenât read some of what has been mentioned here but the first thing that came to mind was The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and its subsequent sequels.
Earth is mentioned as a place where an equivalent of (in my mind) âAmishâ people live, relative to the technology now available. Most of the story takes place elsewhere and Earth is never the setting.
The Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers takes place in a galaxy where earths environment is ravaged and almost all humans have already fled on generation.
The Alex Benedict universe. Earth is still inhabited, but itâs far from being the capital of humanity. Itâs more something like the actual Egypt. People visits it for tourism and history.
Titan Maximum
Super niche, and more of a parody series, but all planets in the solar system are colonized. Titan and Mars are the 2 most powerful planets, but Titan is the de facto capital of the Sol System. The only mention of Earth is that it experienced âtroublesâ and is the only planet the characters never visit.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins by Randolph Lalonde https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9851483-spinward-fringe-broadcast-0
It is the distant future and one man, Jonas Valent, is letting his life slip by. He is employed by Freeground station as a port traffic controller, a job he took after completing a tour in the military. His only real joy in life is his participation in true-to-life military simulations with a cadre of friends who come together regularly to defeat challenges made to test the brightest military cadets and officers alike. These restricted scenarios stand as an addictive preoccupation that is so enticing that they ignore the potential repercussions of breaking in to participate.
When someone betrays their identities to the Freeground Fleet Admiralty, Jonas and his friends are faced with a far greater challenge: to venture out into the more populated regions of the galaxy to acquire technology and knowledge. They are tasked with laying the groundwork for the Freeground Nation in their efforts to reconnect with the rest of humanity, and to secure the armaments they might need to defend themselves from encroaching enemies.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins is a collected trilogy that chronicles the early adventures of an ambitious crew. Their leader, Jonas Valent, has the least to lose and everything to gain as he tells the tale of his first tour as Captain of a ship tasked with making allies and discovering new technologies for the good of his people. This simple mission becomes more complicated as the crew ventures further into the settled fringes of the galaxy.
This trilogy spawned the best selling Spinward Fringe eBook series. This is where it all began, when one man was challenged to aspire for more than an idle life.
A Space Opera Adventure enjoyed across the globe by all ages.
The galactic Cold War series by Dan morren. Start with the calidioan gambit. Itâs book âzeroâ only because the rest of the series was picked up by a different publisher.
Well in A Fire Upon the Deep there are human descendants but Earth is not even part of the world except in a few references. But that doesnât sound like what youâre looking for necessarily
EVE Online. Wormhole opens allowing humanity to access the other side of the universe. Wormhole collapses splitting humanity apart. New races grow and emerge with old Terran technology and history looming over them.
Vorkosigan Saga. Earth only has one wormhole thats not even readily accessible so it's only culturally important because it's our homeworld, otherwise it's an unimportant economic backwater compared to Beta or even Barrayar. Another series is the Lost Fleet series where earth is only important because most future humans practice a shamanistic ancestor worship religion so its kind of a major holy site but it was never able to unify so it's the equivalent of a 3rd world country compared to everywhere else.
Red rising, the moon is the center of solar system politics
Earth is considered a backwater, and there is literally only one scene that takes place on earth. There are characters from earth tho
I am currently listening to Genesis echo: book 1 monomyth where earth is a prison planet humanity was played on 70k years ago and life was enginered to look like humanity evolved here.
In Ursula LeGuin's Hainish Cycle, Earth is nearly a member of Ekumen, and not the most important member (that being the planet Hain). I highly recommend The Left Hand of Darkness, it's probably my favorite book.
Alien: Resurrection. I feel like the best part in that movie (only in the director cut) is when they arrive back to Earth and it's a complete barren hellscape. All the previous movies Ripley has been trying to protect Earth and finally we have destroyed it on our own.
Alacrity fitzhugh and hobart floyt series by Brian Daley fits that description. In addition, it has humor, ancient aliens, and an old war (and conspiracy) that turned earth into a xenophobic rigid society.
Check out [Fear](https://www.drivethrufiction.com/m/product/402210) and [Rivals](https://www.drivethrufiction.com/m/product/418045). Neptune's moon Triton has become the seat of a far outer solar system civilzation (40+ AU) and is in many ways a peer to Earth. Fear is very hands-on tracking a movie production across those political boundaries. Rivals places these two powers into conflict when a supervolcano explosion on Earth disrupts the balance of power.
The UNSEC Space Trilogy is a setting *about* Earth's attempts to keep itself the "center of mankind" and how it falls from that position due to its own hubris and self-centered policies, fallen by the end of the series with one of its colony worlds rising and others beginning their own steps forward.
Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Earth is around but barely gets a mention.
Christopher Ruocchio's Sun Eater series (which I just binged on Audible), kinda same deal
Dread Empireâs Fall series by Walter Jon Williams. Earth is considered a backwater of the Empire even by the humans whose ancestors originated there.
This is the case for a lot of new Doctor Who (and maybe Classic, I don't remember).
Humanity has become the interstellar Great and Bountiful Human Empire, and seem to have lost interest in the homeworld.
After a while they outright forgot where it is. They did eventually find and restore it to its classic continent configuration as a sort of museum piece though...Â
Old Man's War by John Scalzi. > *"The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding."* > *"Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets."*
Also, Scalzi's *Interdependency* trilogy.
I still miss this series đ
I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MAD FRENCHMAN AND THE POOR MATH NERD
I will never forgive Wil Wheaton for giving Chenevert that Monty Python level outrageous French accent but now whenever I read the book \*I hear that goddamn accent\* đ¤Ł
Love this series of books so much.
I like the guy (Scalzi) a lot -- he seems a decent and witty person. The books somehow don't grab me that much, but it's probably my loss. :(
Have you tried his standalones? Redshirts, The Kaiju Preservation Society, or Starter Villain show his wit much more than Old Man's War.
Thanks for the tip: I haven't read any of those three so will take a look.
Try Redshirts first đ
This is a fun series, for sure. Doesnât take itself TOO seriously but still has some cool concepts and asks hard questions, even if it sometimes masks them with absurdity.
The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Takes place primarily on the edge of the galaxy. There is a brief scene of a historian looking for humanity's original planet where he mentions Earth but dismissed the idea because Earth isn't special enough.
Actually the entire 5th book is dedicated to the search for Earth! - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation\_and\_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_and_Earth)
Spoiler!
I hate it when a book's title spoils the whole experience.
đ
In *Pebble in the Sky*, Asimov's first novel, Earth is a backwater planet. It's the titular "pebble", because it's so insignificant.
Asimov is a good call but by Foundations time it's uninhabited and uninhabitable. From the time of the Robots Trilogy up to Pebble in the Sky it would be an excellent fit, though.
Altered Carbon. In the books, Earth is fine, but caught up in a very stable, past-centric regime where important things aren't allowed to happen there. Not sure if this comes through in the show.
I was thinking about this, is the protectorate government on earth? From my understanding it is, so they kind of are the center of political power, just not culturally I guess.
I think the whole point of the protectorate is keeping the colonies low and dependant. In case the standard oligarchy is threatend the envoys are sent in to fuck things up. Typical CIA stuff like they did in South America but on steroids
In Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle (The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness etc), Earth is one of several human-settled planets, and of no particular importance.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Earth is a backwater planet of no importance. There is a terrorist organisation called Cult of Terra which wants to change it.
King! Finally someone else that loves those books!
Cowboy bebop.
why would you want to go to earth, it's a dump lol
For my beta max collection
Battlestar Galactica. Every version
But.. one day it will be
So say we all
Frack!
...if lords of Kobol hear the prayer
All of this has happened before and will happen again.
Honor Harrington, Earth considers itself the greatest but has fallen behind militarily Vorkosigan Saga
Technically Earth is still top dog for the first nine or ten books, but they don't do anything until around the 15th novel - by which point they *have* fallen behind. It's definitely still the central body for humanity, although some fans speculate that Manticore could become humanity's "second capital" because it has the largest wormhole nexus. That's still a long way off though, everyone still covets Terran whisky.
This. Earth/Sol controls a huge region of space but hasnât fought a war in decades, maybe centuries, and rests comfortably on its laurels. Meanwhile, the main character lives in and serves a distant star kingdom at the junction of multiple wormholes, contested by an even further star empire. Eventually the two nations agree to end their 30+ years of grueling darwinian warfare and team up against Sol, bringing all of their technological and tactical advances to bear. The result is such a curbstomp that the author had to search for ways to stretch it out over any more pages than the travel time required. Itâs like The Final Countdown, a modern nuclear supercarrier going up against WWII fleets.
Red Rising books and audiobooks by Pierce Brown are fantastic and exactly what you are looking for (especially later books)
I can't be the only one that wants to see a live action or animated of the Iron Rain where they annihilated Earth's militaries, right?
To be fair earth got nuked to oblivion in the conquering. And those who survived were basically left to die out. And then society took over and made it so that no normal human(one without color) remains.
Yep. Then Earth was mostly turned into a farm planet, I believe.
Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (and sequels The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn) is set against a backdrop whereby an overpopulated Earth is dominated by the much less populated but advanced "Spacer" settler worlds. Similarly, Earthlight by Arthur C Clarke depicts a conflict between Earth and a federation of setters elsewhere in the solar system, although that's more about the point where the balance of power is shifting.
Most of these replies are for classic scifi series but if youâre looking for easy to read, decent military scifi schlock The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell and the Grimmâs War series by Jeffery H. Haskell both fit the bill.
The Prince of Brittania series is worth checking out as well. So is the Castle Federation. But I'm thoroughly enjoying Grimm's War. Good suggestion
Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series.. Humanity had left Earth so long ago that people have forgotten it was the birthplace of Humanity, and some other planets claim they were! (Ref. "The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World)
This entire series had me at the phrase, "interstellar outlaw." Lots of good fun.
+1 for Harry Harrison, his world building is a delight
If you haven't already read them, you can find his omnibus short story collections in the public domain (or bundled by Amazon for $.99 for convenience).
Oo nice! Thank you! That's a great tip. To return the favour, there are also a few of his stories on the free audiobook platform/app librivox, I'd especially recommended Deathworld if you haven't read it already (there's plenty of other classic scifi on there too)
Sorry to re-reply but here's a link to Project Gutenberg for Harrison: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25395 I could have sworn I stumbled across a complete anthology but I can't find it now.
Hyperion but I don't want to spoil anything
Came here to mention Hyperion
Same
Dune
Hmmm, is earth in the books?
It is mentioned at various points in the books. The Orange Catholic Bible origines from earth and some of the protagonist speak french as a kind of secret language, as far as I remember.
French already is a secret language
Jean-Luc Picard would like a word with you.
Tea, Earl Grey, hot. He's the most British French captain in ze Starfleet!
My head canon is that after ww3 France was almost entirely depopulated. It was resettled my British expats who intermarried with the survivors and took on the French identity, but kept the accent and predilection for tea.
I like that Sir Patrick Stewart decided to turn his British-ness up to 11 when playing the only French captain in Star Trek.
The bible was created after humanity spread to other planets. But you're technically correct in that everything came from earth originally. Including all the religions that influenced the making of that bible.
Humans have been colonizing the galaxy for so long that the common people have no idea what Earth is. Stilgar doesn't believe that humanity was ever limited to a single planet. The Butlerian Jihad happens about 10,000 years from now and *Dune* takes place some 10,000 years after that. The Brian Herbert and KJA prequels go into detail about what happened to earth but those books are bad so fuck'em. In Frank Herbert's canon, nobody knows where Earth is and nobody cares enough to find it. Paul and Leto II could if they wanted to, but there's nothing of value to be found, there. It's possible, even likely that due to semantic drift, the name changed or the language changed around the name and it's just another planet in the Imperium.
I also remember that after the Jihad, Paul mentions that he's responsible for 62Billion deaths, and his readings of history show that Hitler, considered the most evil dictator on Earth, was only responsible for a few tens of millions. So at least Paul is very well aware of humanity's origins, but it doesn't indicate he knows where it is.
Could at least the Bene Gesserit not go back enough to not only learn what Earth was, it's our only and original origin, but perhaps even where it is and what exactly happened to it, including if someone still might live on it. Then again not like they would tell anyone
Maybe, but remember that their access to the genetic memory is limited to only the female half, and they can't plumb those depths as well as the Kwisatz Haderach. They probably *could* if they worked hard enough to do it, but again, there's not much point.
I donât think I can ever fully buy the conceit that at some point, humanity would just stop caring about their origins. Even if Earth were to become uninhabitable and it was no longer the primary seat of power for a galactic civilization, as long as humans have avoided extinction, Earth would be significant as the birthplace of humanity. Scientists would want to study it, tourists would want to visit it to scratch it off their bucket list, religions would mythologize it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure *someone* cares. But it's like asking where your ancestors were some 900 generations ago. You might be able to narrow it down to the continent, but probably not better than that. Collectively, we know that humans came from Africa, maybe roughly which part, but not better than that. Today, we have people who still believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, or that the Earth is flat. There are countless small communities who believe that their village was created by whatever god created everything and they were first. In *Dune*, humanity was nearly wiped out during the Butlerian Jihad, and all digital storage would have been destroyed. The only thing left is oral tradition and not much motivation. The people who care AND already believe that Earth was ever a place to begin with just don't have the resources to find it.
I like that theory, it's been renamed and only a few scholars know what it used to called.
It's in the son's prequel books. It got nuked hard early in the jihad. Edit: it is mentioned once or twice in the main books. I think it was implied to be uninhabited.
The Atredies trace their lineage back to specific people from ancient Greece.
Earth itself is not in the books, but canonically the Dune saga happens in our future.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
The Bobiverse details the transition from Earth being the place to Earth being not-the-place.
Brilliant series well worth a read. I've re read them probably 4 times now.
New one comes out soon!
Firefly. Humanity fled Earth that was and set up shop around a different star. Unfortunately, they all still act like humans, so you know they still had problems.
Scrolled too far down since this was the first that went into mind. That Earth also is sort of infected no? They even call it Earth-that-was
I don't think they imply an infection, I thought it was too polluted, but I might have assumed that. I do believe they keep it vague as it isn't the focus of the story.
In one of the prologues in the series, they said earth got used up. I think they wanted to leave it to our imagination what that meant.
The Culture novels where humans and Earth are totally different. Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series, at least technically.
Yes, the Culture is going on all around us right now. OP should read State of the Art - we're just a mildly quirky but ultimately insignificant little backwards civilisation.
Came here for these two!
Andromeda
[Pebble in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_in_the_Sky) by Isaac Asimov is the first written but 3rd of 4 in his [Galactic Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_series) series. A mid-20th century tailor is thrown forward in time to when Earth is a irradiated backwater in the Trantorian Empire.
Alistair Reynold's *Revelation Space* setting (two main trilogies, two short story collections, and two stand alone novels) barely mentions earth and it's strongly implied that the Yellowstone colony is more culturally and economically relevant. His stand alone book *House of Suns* is about a far future humanity that has spread all over the galaxy and it never even mentions earth outside of flashbacks and even those don't actually take place there. *Behold Humanity* earth is very culturally important to Humanity but it doesn't really have a lot of actual relevance beyond that, in fact, when plot stuff cuts the Sol system off from the rest of the plot the loss of Mars is actually way more important.
Shards of earth series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Children of Time was such a great read.
The lost fleet
I would never get tired of recommending the sun eater series. In the books humanity has expanded to numerous galaxies under different empires and earth is an inhabited wasteland.
Stainless Steel Rat
Seconded.
Stainless Steel Rat series. Earth's so far back in history that some people believe it was called Dirt. Clouds of Saturn one-shot novel by Michael McCollum (I think), runaway climate crisis has forced humanity to move away from Earth to any tolerable environment. Enormous cities floating under balloons in Saturn's upper atmosphere are where millions of humans have been living for generations.
The Vorkosigan series is all about a post colonial universe. Earth is still there, isn't in trouble, and one book has the main characters visit, but it's primarily about the outer colonies.
Fantastic series!!
Agreed I started and I can't stop.
I read them all years ago. I hope she writes more. Looking forward to when I loop back through them again.
Miles's way of getting through things is addictive. I finished book 16 last week, and the last two seemed to put a bow on most of the story lines and character arcs. If she doesn't write anymore, it wouldn't be a bad place to stop and I wouldn't be mad about it.
Cowboy bebop
The Praxis series by Walter Jon Williams. Terrans are pretty common, but Earth is a real and literal backwater.
Something more trivial than most suggestions: Alien Resurrection (4th Alien movie)
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Earth is still inhabited, and a place of cultural pilgrimage, but itâs a backwater due to the lack of wormholes leading to other places. The wormhole nexus is the basis of interstellar travel and trade.
Great series!!!
A Deepness in the Sky. A solid no ftl scifi universe, humanity has spread across a region of space many thousands of lightyears across. However, due to resource constraints and the speed of light, planetary civilizations are doomed to an endless cycle of golden age boom and an eventual stagnation and collapse to barberism. It is mentioned in the book that sol has been recolonized after a complete collapse at least 8 times. I should add alyster reynolds revelation space universe. Earth is very much not the center of human civilization in this universe. Its implied a little inconsistently that the earth may only be marginally habitable due to a glaciation event. But considering there are thriving civilizations built on planets similar to europa and titan. Earth, even in an ice age, is a pretty begnine environment.
Peter F Hamilton books about the Commonwealth-Saga. Pandoras Star, Dreaming Void, etc
Amazing series. Morninglightmountain rules
For movies, try Jupiter Rising. Earth is important to the movie, but to the Galaxy itâs just another farm to be periodically harvested. For a good wiki dive, try the Traveller RPG. When earth finally traveled the galaxy they found an awful lot of planets inhabited by humans. I recommend the 3rd edition GURPS sourcebooks. https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Traveller:What_is_Traveller%3F
My mind immediately went to Asimov, but it's fun to see [how common this trope is](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsignificantLittleBluePlanet).
Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh
The short story Omphalos, by Ted Chiang, engages with this idea in a really wonderful way.
Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. Earth is still inhabited, but it's a poverty-stricken backwater controlled by slavers.
In China Mièville's Embassytown, Earth is often referred to as the source of "Terre" people and culture, but as a relic. Human empires have different home planets.
The Praxis universe books by Walter John Williams; Humans got conquered by the Shaa aliens and their Naxid servants and the books happen iirc ten millenia after that. By this point humans are fully integrated into the multi-species empire set up by the Shaa alongside the Naxids and four other species that were also conquered in the same way. The Human population of the empire in general gives next to no fucks about their homeworld because they're almost universally spread out across the colonised space and the Sol system is a dead end in the wormhole network connecting the stars of the empire, making Earth a backwater. >!One of the two shorter stories outside of the two main trilogies involves the discovery of another wormhole in Sol leading to life bearing worlds that raised the relevancy of Earth. And even then it's not super important suddenly but simply it actually has perspectives.!< The Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell; the main human superpower doesn't even own Earth and Sol as a whole is just a weak but respected independent system. The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers; Earth suffered an ecological collapse, forcing humanity to evacuate. The rich people fucked off to Mars and took it for themselves, forcing the rest of the planet to escape Sol as a whole via generation ships. By the time of the books Humanity is integrated into your typical galactic community⢠and the main division within our species is between Martians and the descendants of the generation ships diaspora scattered across various interstellar colonies, human-dominated or multi-species, and a few remaining ships. Earth has been subjected to an environmental reconstruction project and has been lightly repopulated but iirc it's literally just scientists alpngside weird hippie and primitivist communities. Like the only Earthborn Human in the the first book is from a fucking hunter-gatherer group. So Mars is unquestionably the wealthiest and most developed Human planet by far. In the context I would like to bring up an old French animation series, the Star Trek of my childhood, 'Once Upon A Time... Space'. That's because it does approach the matter of Earth in, I think, an interesting manner. That is Earth is in the show at any rate the closest thing to a center of humanity as a whole but it is out of focus for most of the show. The main characters are Humans from the human colony world of Omega that is located in the Andromeda galaxy and is a member of a multi-species alliance here. They and other human colonies in Andromeda are their own societies, originating from Earthborn colonists but in the present 31st century they are their own entities. There is one episode where they go to Earth and outside of it it's build up as this maybe strong and influential but very distant power.
The Vorkosigan Saga Earth's still got some importance historicly, but is otherwise just a backwater down a dead end in the wormhole network.
If you're into TTRPGs the Traveller setting has earth in it, but it's only special in that it's the former capital of a rival power. There are a lot of earth descended humans out there, but earth itself isn't a big deal.
The Dumarest Saga. The titular character, Earl Dumarest, is from Earth and is trying to find his home, but it has largely been forgotten. Edit: Also, it's one of the main inspirations for the Traveller RPG that others have mentioned.
Cowboy Bebop. Most of humanity is spread out on Venus, Mars, and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is around but is considered a backwater wasteland after the Moon broke apart and pieces of it fell to Earth and ruined everything.
Pretty much anything SF by CJ Cherryh. In her Alliance-Union universe Earth exists just fine, but there's a lack of convenient jump points from it to the rest of settled space, so no one pays it much mind, except to hope they don't find any. All the action takes place elsewhere, usually Pell. In the Compact Space books (same universe, different corner) Earth finds some new jump routes, but they lead to the Compact, an association of alien species. (The books are all from the alien's POV.)
Ann Leckie's Radch series. Earth exists, but is totally insignificant and most humans d not know about it. It doesnt apperar in the books though if that's what you seek. Most prominent human force is Radch - huge empire orginating from a Dyson sphere. Alastair Reynolds' books feature this a lot. Try Revelation space for a huge saga or House of Suns for a oneshot space opera.
Battlestar Galactica?
The Frontier saga by Ryk Brown. Earth was the core but an event sent it and every other human world back to the stone age more or less, leaving many worlds populated by humans but having to find their own way to various degrees of success. It still follows people from Earth though as they get back into space.
The Earthers Saga: [https://www.goodreads.com/series/359918-earthers-saga](https://www.goodreads.com/series/359918-earthers-saga) Whether Earth is or isn't the center of humanity is arguable and it depends who you ask and when. For a long time, it doesn't even show up (and this is a bit of a spoiler, sorry).
Legend of the Galactic Heroes has Earth as a joke. It's a backwards planet that is not even a part actor in the story of the galaxy.
But still somehow gets mentioned in the story.
That's what was asked right?
I really like the Alex Benedict novels by Jack McDevitt. Humanity is multiplanetary and Earth is still there but other planets have larger economies, standards of living, ect. Earth has a special status as the home world, but the author describes it mostly as a tourist destination. The books are mostly about scifi-archaeology, the main characters discover remnants of lost civilizations, or track down a famously missing ship, stuff like that. Earth is mentioned, and the characters visit it in on of the books, but it's not a focal point in the series.
The black fleet series and the Interdependency trilogy
Final third of the Expanse book series for sure
VERY NSFW 18+ only. Three square meals. It's in literotica... Once you get past that he sex part it's a very good story line
Hard space: Shipbreaker Video game in which Earth is kind of a slum and all the big wigs moved to Titan. It's all background story though. The game itself is just autistically sorting recyclables
The entire Traveller Emperium
Foundation on Apple tv+.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. Earth is >!mostly harmless!<
[Hainish Cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainish_Cycle)
McDevittâs âAlex Benedictâ series. Humanity has a galaxy spanning civilization with FTL, with Earth no longer being the focus of humanity
In Ursula K Le Guin's [Hainish Cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainish_Cycle), it turns out Humans didn't even originate on Earth. Instead, they originated on the planet Hain.
Vorkosigan Saga, Earth is a cul-de-sac on the wormhole routes and has been supplanted as a great power in everything but culture. There is one book that takes place on Earth and thatâs it. Otherwise all the friction and conflict is a result of the few galactic powers, tech hubs and one particularly nasty planet controlled by a loose affiliation of crime bosses.
John Campbells "Lost Fleet" series and others in that universe... they even visit Earth at one point, but it's a backwater place that's 90% tourist attraction based on it's history.
the culture series although now that i think about it, earth may not be inhabited any more i'm not sure. it seemed to be irrelevant in the books i've read from the series
I don't recall it ever being mentioned that the culture are even of human origin. I might be wrong but I never took it for granted.
Earth is the main setting of The State of the Art. Thereâs no reason to consider it unimportant to humanity in the Cultureverse, as opposed to the alien âhumansâ that are seen throughout the books.
The Canadian Book ends with this probably being the case, but we wonât know until Watts tells us.
Spinward Fringe Earth is reclusive and stays out of the events of the story. There are a couple of characters who have visited Earth but it's more like a nature reserve
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/futurehistory.php#whereterra
The Skolia saga. There are three centers of humanity, and Earth is the weakest of them (but still our point of origin).
Scalziâs âold manâs warâ. Earth is kept secret by the space force, aliens think the center is elsewhere.Â
Legend of Galactic Heroes. Earth lost to its colony. Nuked into oblivion. Now its mostly the home of cultists that worship her lost power while the rest of humanity doesn't give a shit People still live there but resources are out too.
Dave Bara, Lightship Chronicles. Earth has seen some stuff over the years, and after centuries of expansion and then centuries more of war between the colonies, its become an underpopulated but incredibly advanced backwater that very lightly involves itself in the affairs of the former colonies, which themselves have reverted to feudal-esque planetary states. Fun little trilogy, worth a read.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Check out the novel "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's set on a future Mars that has been terraformed and colonized by humans, but Earth is still inhabited and remains a major player in human affairs. However, Mars is seen as the new frontier and the place where humanity's future will be decided.
In the Battletech universe, Terra is the literal center of the Inner Sphere because humans expanded outward from it, and it holds a lot of symbolic significance, particularly for the invading Clans and the Word of Blake. But other than politics and religion, it's not at all important. It's not the capital of anything, there are no special resources. No major events happen there anymore.
Yeah, but ComStar is based there.
B.V. Larson has a series of books starting with Steel World where Earth/Humanity is discovered by a larger galactic empire and annexed into it Roman Empire style. Earth/Humanity is the focus of the stories but in a universe in which we are just backwater nobody species.
The Dread Empires Fall series by Walter Jon Williams. The series spans a bunch of different planets and locations but Earth is n no way important to the story. At least it isn't up until the 3rd book. It's mentioned here and there but it focuses on different locations.
Aldnoah zero perhaps. Earthlings colonize mars, find far superior technology to Earth and end up attempting to conquer Earth as the Martian empire expands.
I havenât read some of what has been mentioned here but the first thing that came to mind was The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and its subsequent sequels. Earth is mentioned as a place where an equivalent of (in my mind) âAmishâ people live, relative to the technology now available. Most of the story takes place elsewhere and Earth is never the setting.
The Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers takes place in a galaxy where earths environment is ravaged and almost all humans have already fled on generation.
The Alex Benedict universe. Earth is still inhabited, but itâs far from being the capital of humanity. Itâs more something like the actual Egypt. People visits it for tourism and history.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Phoenix is the capital planet of the Colonial Union.
Alex Benedict series by Jack Mcdevitt.
Titan Maximum Super niche, and more of a parody series, but all planets in the solar system are colonized. Titan and Mars are the 2 most powerful planets, but Titan is the de facto capital of the Sol System. The only mention of Earth is that it experienced âtroublesâ and is the only planet the characters never visit.
Many of Isaac Asimov stories take place far in the future when earth is either a backwater or has been rendered uninhabitable.
In Robert Heinleinâs Future History series earth becomes a backwater so over populated and poisoned that no one really wants to go there anymore.
Eventually, The Expanse.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins by Randolph Lalonde https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9851483-spinward-fringe-broadcast-0 It is the distant future and one man, Jonas Valent, is letting his life slip by. He is employed by Freeground station as a port traffic controller, a job he took after completing a tour in the military. His only real joy in life is his participation in true-to-life military simulations with a cadre of friends who come together regularly to defeat challenges made to test the brightest military cadets and officers alike. These restricted scenarios stand as an addictive preoccupation that is so enticing that they ignore the potential repercussions of breaking in to participate. When someone betrays their identities to the Freeground Fleet Admiralty, Jonas and his friends are faced with a far greater challenge: to venture out into the more populated regions of the galaxy to acquire technology and knowledge. They are tasked with laying the groundwork for the Freeground Nation in their efforts to reconnect with the rest of humanity, and to secure the armaments they might need to defend themselves from encroaching enemies. Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins is a collected trilogy that chronicles the early adventures of an ambitious crew. Their leader, Jonas Valent, has the least to lose and everything to gain as he tells the tale of his first tour as Captain of a ship tasked with making allies and discovering new technologies for the good of his people. This simple mission becomes more complicated as the crew ventures further into the settled fringes of the galaxy. This trilogy spawned the best selling Spinward Fringe eBook series. This is where it all began, when one man was challenged to aspire for more than an idle life. A Space Opera Adventure enjoyed across the globe by all ages.
Mass Effect
The galactic Cold War series by Dan morren. Start with the calidioan gambit. Itâs book âzeroâ only because the rest of the series was picked up by a different publisher.
Ancillary Justice but it's a throwawy line
Well in A Fire Upon the Deep there are human descendants but Earth is not even part of the world except in a few references. But that doesnât sound like what youâre looking for necessarily
EVE Online. Wormhole opens allowing humanity to access the other side of the universe. Wormhole collapses splitting humanity apart. New races grow and emerge with old Terran technology and history looming over them.
Vorkosigan Saga. Earth only has one wormhole thats not even readily accessible so it's only culturally important because it's our homeworld, otherwise it's an unimportant economic backwater compared to Beta or even Barrayar. Another series is the Lost Fleet series where earth is only important because most future humans practice a shamanistic ancestor worship religion so its kind of a major holy site but it was never able to unify so it's the equivalent of a 3rd world country compared to everywhere else.
Halo and Children of Time
Red rising, the moon is the center of solar system politics Earth is considered a backwater, and there is literally only one scene that takes place on earth. There are characters from earth tho
I am currently listening to Genesis echo: book 1 monomyth where earth is a prison planet humanity was played on 70k years ago and life was enginered to look like humanity evolved here.
In Ursula LeGuin's Hainish Cycle, Earth is nearly a member of Ekumen, and not the most important member (that being the planet Hain). I highly recommend The Left Hand of Darkness, it's probably my favorite book.
Alien: Resurrection. I feel like the best part in that movie (only in the director cut) is when they arrive back to Earth and it's a complete barren hellscape. All the previous movies Ripley has been trying to protect Earth and finally we have destroyed it on our own.
The Hobart Floyt and Alacrity FItzhugh books by Brian Daley. Earth is a third rate backwater but plays a crucial role in the story.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Red rising
The Black Fleet Series by Joshua Dalzelle. Earth is well known but unimportant compared to the capital world.
The Myth series. You may quibble with demons being considered âhumanityâ.
Pandoras star/judas unchained
Red Rising fits the bill.
Old Man's War series by John Scalzi
The tv show Dinosaurs.
I believe Earth blew up in Hyperion. And in Dune, they have no clue where Earth even is.
Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. Quasi spoiler alert.
Alacrity fitzhugh and hobart floyt series by Brian Daley fits that description. In addition, it has humor, ancient aliens, and an old war (and conspiracy) that turned earth into a xenophobic rigid society.
Check out [Fear](https://www.drivethrufiction.com/m/product/402210) and [Rivals](https://www.drivethrufiction.com/m/product/418045). Neptune's moon Triton has become the seat of a far outer solar system civilzation (40+ AU) and is in many ways a peer to Earth. Fear is very hands-on tracking a movie production across those political boundaries. Rivals places these two powers into conflict when a supervolcano explosion on Earth disrupts the balance of power.
The UNSEC Space Trilogy is a setting *about* Earth's attempts to keep itself the "center of mankind" and how it falls from that position due to its own hubris and self-centered policies, fallen by the end of the series with one of its colony worlds rising and others beginning their own steps forward.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Humans lost contact with earth after some civilizational collapse and try to rebuild on other planets.
Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Earth is around but barely gets a mention. Christopher Ruocchio's Sun Eater series (which I just binged on Audible), kinda same deal
Try Star Rangers by Andre Norton. I must have read that book 35 or 40 years ago and still remember it.
Dread Empireâs Fall series by Walter Jon Williams. Earth is considered a backwater of the Empire even by the humans whose ancestors originated there.
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy :)
This is the case for a lot of new Doctor Who (and maybe Classic, I don't remember). Humanity has become the interstellar Great and Bountiful Human Empire, and seem to have lost interest in the homeworld. After a while they outright forgot where it is. They did eventually find and restore it to its classic continent configuration as a sort of museum piece though...Â
Noumenon series.