| The following article is written from an In Universe perspective. |
Earth, also known as the Earth and Planet Earth, is a planet in the solar system whose native sapient species were primarily the human race and the Silurians, though they were by no means the only intelligent species to develop there. The twin planet of Mondas, it was the third planet from its sun and therefore also known as Sol III, though mainly to extraterrestrial cultures.
Astronomical data
Location
Earth was located at Galactic Coordinates 58044 684484 (DW: The Pirate Planet) in Sector 8023 Of The Third Quadrent. (DW: Logopolis) It was the third Planet in the solar System. It was later shifted two lightyears from its position by the Time Lords and renamed Ravolox Circa 2,000,000 AD. (DW: The Mysterious Planet, The Ultimate Foe)
Moon(s)
For all of Earth's history there was only one Moon which orbited the planet. (DW: The Moonbase)
Geology
Earth was one of the few sources of Quartz in the galaxy. (DW: The Pirate Planet) and was also rich in Silicon and Carbon. (DW: Four to Doomsday)
Carbon Dioxide was vital to Earth's lower atmosphere. (DW: The Ice Warriors)
As the Third Doctor noted with the invention of the Motor Car came a change in the atmosphere. (DW: Colony in Space)
Geography
Earth's surface changed considerably over the course of it's long history, owing to it's seismic activity. When native life first appeared on the planet for example, what later became the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was a vast rocky wasteland. (DW: City of Death)
Indigenous species
Several sapient and semi-sapient species evolved on Earth, though the most important and influential ones were the humans and Earth Reptiles, known as Silurians. (DW: Love and War)
Flora and fauna
The Fourth Doctor stated that Earth was the only planet in its galaxy where oak trees grew. (DW: The Android Invasion)
The Trees of Cheem, a race of intelligent humanoid trees, originally descended from the tropical rainforests of Earth. (DW: The End of the World)
History
Early History
Before Life
Around 3 Billion BC The Sentience became trapped in the Earth as it formed. (DW: Nightshade)
Creation Of Life
Native life eventually developed due to the explosion of a Jagaroh Spaceship circa 400 Million BC. (DW: City of Death)
Dinosaurs, Silurians And Sea Devils
Various species of Sauria creatures dominated the planet until Circa 65 Million BC when a Freighter from 2526 Time-warped into this period and exploded in the upper atmosphere. The resulting clouds of dirt and smoke obscured the Sun, lowering the temperature and causing mass extinction. (DW: Earthshock)
Reptilian Silurians And Sea Devils Soon flourished And became the dominant species on Earth. (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils)
The Reign of the Silurians And Sea Devils came to a final end when the small planet (later known as Earth's primary satellite the Moon) entered Earth's orbit. Some of the Reptilian scientists believed that the Moon would destroy all life. The Ninth Doctor repeated the claim to Marc Marshall that the Silurians built the shelters when they thought the planet would "suck away" Earth's atmosphere as it rushed by. (DW: The Scales of Injustice)
Human age
Rise of the humans
Human civilisation evolved quickly, assisted (either accidentally or directly) by the Dæmons, (DW: The Dæmons) the various temporal fragments of Scaroth, (DW: City of Death) and the predatory nature imparted to humans by the Fendahl, (DW: Image of the Fendahl) The Osirans apparently had an influence on Earth around 5000 BC, inspiring many aspects of Ancient Egypt and imprisoning one of their number, Sutekh, in Egypt. (DW: Pyramids of Mars) The Third Doctor said that the Dæmons helped Homo sapiens "kick out" Neanderthal man. He mentioned the Greek civilisation, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and various myths, gods and devils including Khnum and the Horned Beast as being inspired by the Dæmons. (DW: The Dæmons)
For "a half a million years", humanity systematically killed one another in conflicts. (DW: The War Games) Human beings' predatory and aggressive nature was evident in the many conflicts which humans fought amongst themselves throughout much of their early history, such as during the siege of Troy, the Dark Ages and the American War of Independence. (DW: The Mark of the Rani) Other conflicts, including World War I, the English Civil War, the American Civil War, the Mexican Civil War, the Crimean War, the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Thirty Years' War and the Peninsular War were also exploited by the War Lords, who kidnapped human soldiers from these various conflicts in Earth history for use in their war games. (DW: The War Games)
20th and 21st centuries
The threat of a nuclear war was somewhat alleviated when the great powers entrusted their nuclear launch codes to the United Kingdom for safe-keeping (DW: Robot), and again when the planet came under the rule of the World Zone Authority in the early 21st century. (DW: The Enemy of the World)
Scaroth was killed in 1979. (DW: City of Death)
The space race was of great significance: while Earth had been visited by aliens many times throughout its history, the launching of space probes made such visits more frequent, as Homo sapiens began drawing attention to themselves. (DW: Spearhead from Space) An attack by the Great Intelligence would finally force the Earth's governments to agree on a unified response to aliens: the United Nations body known as UNIT. (DW: The Web of Fear, The Invasion) Despite this increase in invasions, a number of aliens that arrived were benevolent.
The governments of Earth, as well as the Doctor, UNIT, and (by the 21st century) Katie Tollinger and her Leftover group, tried to keep these invasions a secret. UNIT was officially a counter-terrorist group and had several incidents explained as terrorism and accidents, though this caused political scandals throughout the 1970s. (DW: Who Killed Kennedy?) The Seventh Doctor would remark that these cover-ups were helped by the fact humans didn't want to notice, and were performing self-deception on themselves. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)
From 2019 to at least 2059, Earth went through a period of chaos: climate change, ozonedegradation, the "oil apocalypse", the Great Cataclysm, a Korven invasion (DW: The Waters of Mars) Humanity faced extinction, but not only survived; they achieved major advances in space travel (DW: The Waters of Mars) and developed weather control technology. (DW: The Moonbase) In 2058, Earth's first colony on Mars was established by Adelaide Brooke; (DW: The Waters of Mars) humanity would go on to create an early form of transmat (DW: The Seeds of Death) and lightspeed travel. (DW: The Waters of Mars)
by 2084, there were again two vast power blocs in conflict and the threat of nuclear war. (DW: Warriors of the Deep)
Humanity travels to the stars
In the 22nd century, Earth suffered the rise of large corporations which would occasionally wage active war against each other, energy crises and the collapse of the tourist trade. In 2156, Earth Central declared bankruptcy and the corporations (under the Earth Alliance of Corporations) took control of the planet. Despite this, Earth's colonisation of the galaxy continued to advance. The Adjudicators were established to enforce Earth law on the colonies. (DW: Lucifer Rising)
22nd century Dalek invasion
The 22nd century Dalek invasion proved devastating to Earth. First, the Daleks wiped out fifteen colonies; (DW: Lucifer Rising) next, they released a plague across the Earth. Over a six-month period, Africa, Asia and South America were almost wiped out; humanity was barely able to resist when the Daleks arrived. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) New York City and many other cities were destroyed. (DW: The Chase) For ten years, the remaining inhabitants of Earth were terrorised by the Dalek forces, who enslaved many and turned others into Robomen, while the Daleks attempted to turn Earth into a mobile dreadnought. Only a handful of resistance groups existed.
The invasion killed about two-thirds of Earth's population. (DW: An Earthly Child) Thirty years after the invasion, the Earth Council existed as a fledgling government, but anti-alien organisations like Earth United began to attract many youths to their cause. (DW: An Earthly Child)
Earth empires
In time the planet formed a unified government and an Earth Empire emerged. This dominated most of Mutter's Spiral for over 500 years. This empire at times came into military conflict with other space powers, particularly the Draconians, (DW: Frontier in Space) and Cybermen (DW: Earthshock) It often employed oppressive and disenfranchising policies on the indigenous inhabitants of its colonies. (DW: The Power of Kroll, The Mutants) Alongside Draconia, Earth would fight and win the Second Dalek War. Before the war, Earth and the Empire was overseen by a president, (DW: Frontier in Space)
Unrest among the subjugated alien races, instabilities in the Empire's political and economic structure, and ecological damage to Earth eventually led to the dissolution of the Empire, (DW: The Mutants) which in time gave way to the Galactic Federation, headquartered on Io. (DW: Legacy)
Gaian Earth
By the 33rd century Earth had come under the rule of the Gaian empire, a fascist group ruled by a man known as "The Governor". (DW: Those Who Lead) In 3262 The Governor mysteriously vanished but was soon replaced by Veronica Latimer. (DW: Evil of the Gaians, Destiny of the Gaians)
In 3297 the Gaian empire was brought down and Veronica Latimer was arrested, but not long afterwards The Governor returned and rebuilt the empire. (DW: Evil of the Gaians, Destiny of the Gaians)
In 3302 the Gaian Empire was brought down once and for all after a massive rebellion broke out and The Governor was killed by Hogan Cox. (DW: Destiny of the Gaians)
34th century Cyberman invasion
As part of their plan to steal the Doctor's TARDIS and use it to save Mondas, (DW: The Third Planet) the Cybermen invaded Earth in 3305, but nobody noticed until they'd succeded in conquering the planet. (DW: Remembrance of the Gaians)
Later events
By 4000, Earth and its dominions were ruled by a Guardian of the Solar System, with the Space Security Service handling military intelligence. Following the death of the incumbent Guardian, Mavic Chen, (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan)
Earth formed an advanced national alliances before a new Ice Age and World War VI struck it in the 51st century. However, it still triggered the Great Breakout of space colonisation and created the Time Agency. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Invisible Enemy)
Earth, in its later history, was abandoned numerous times by its human inhabitants, first in 6087 when solar flares bombarded the planet, leaving Earth uninhabited for 10,000 years. (DW: The Ark in Space) The population of Earth was evacuated in vast starships, while a small number of people were left behind aboard Nerva Beacon to begin the repopulation of the planet once conditions on the surface were suitable for life. Humans elsewhere carried on with another period of colonial expansion under GalSec. Nerva Beacon's evacuees returned to Earth after ten thousand years had passed. They recolonised the planet. (DW: The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Now Those Days Are Gone)
Some time after, Earth was visited by the Usurians, who relocated the dying human population first to Mars and then Pluto. Generations later, humans had thrown off the yoke of Usurian exploitation and returned to Earth. (DW: The Sun Makers)
By the year 200,000, Earth was at its height, covered with megacities and a population of 96 billion. It was the centre of the galactic domain of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire that stretched across a million planets and species. The Empire had been secretly manipulated and its progress hindered by an Alien known as the Jagrafess and his consort, the Editor who took control over the planet until they were caught and overthrown. (DW: The Long Game)
In the year 2,000,000 AD the Time Lords used a magnatron to move Earth two lightyears away from its original possition, causing a fireball to almost destroy the planet. This was done in order to hide Time Lord secrets which had been stolen from the Matrix by a group of sleepers, and in order to cover their tracks they renamed the planet to Ravolox. (DW: The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp)
Earth's destruction
In the 57th segment of Time, the last humans left Earth because of the increasing danger that it would fall into the Sun, fleeing to planets such as Refusis II and Frontios. (DW: The Ark, Frontios) Earth still existed billions of years later, by which time the Sun had exhausted its hydrogen supply and turned into a red giant. It was restored to a "classic" Earth by the National Trust. As the Sun grew, the National Trust financed technology to keep its expansion held back so it would not engulf the Earth. However, funding for the preservation project eventually ran out and the National trust withdrew its protection. Earth was finally destroyed by the expanding Sun (DW: The End of the World)
Alternate timelines
Earth experienced various alternate timelines.
On one occasion, guerrilla fighters from an alternate timeline of 22nd century Earth attempted to prevent their own future and instead caused it. Shura bombed Auderly House where Sir Reginald Styles was holding the second World Peace Conference, vital to preventing World War III. As a result, many world leaders were killed and a series of wars devastated the planet, killing seven-eighths of the population. By the 22nd century, the Earth was under the rule of the Daleks. After travelling to this future, the Third Doctor and Jo Grant pieced together what had actually happened to cause the future which had previously been blamed upon Styles. After being informed of the truth, Shura sacrificed himself to blow up a Dalek attack force once Auderly House was emptied, changing the future. (DW: Day of the Daleks)
On another occasion, the release of Sutekh in 1911 meant that by 1980 the Earth would become a desolate planet circling a dead sun. The Fourth Doctor showed this to Sarah Jane Smith, and by causing Sutekh to age to death before he could escape, this timeline was averted. (DW: Pyramids of Mars)
In an alternate timeline, the Earth was a polluted world covered in a chemical slime. From this world sprang the haemovores with the Ancient One being the last by the year 500,000. After Fenric brought the Ancient One to 1943 Earth, he attempted to get the Ancient One to fill the oceans with poison which would create this future. The Seventh Doctor convinced the Ancient One of the truth and it sacrificed itself to defeat Fenric and change its future. (DW: The Curse of Fenric)
To be added. (DW: The Path Not Taken)
To be added. (DW: The Forbidden Fruit)
In another alternate timeline, the English Empire adopted the ideals and beliefs of the Daleks after they attempted to invade Earth in 1907. The empire conquered the entire planet, however the correct timeline was restored when the Dalek fleet from 1907 arrived in the alternate 2007 but soon destroyed themselves after the last Dalek destroyed the Supreme Dalek and ordered the other Daleks to activate their self-destruct mode. (DW: Jubilee)
An alternate timeline where the Twelfth Doctor stayed on as Lord President of Gallifrey was created by the Rogue. In this timeline control of Earth was handed over to the Silurians by Angela Jenson, but the Silurians were wiped out by the Shalka. More devastating events occurred until finally a stray laser blast from space struck the planet, killing millions of people. This timeline was erased from existence when an alternate version of Lizzie Clarke traveled to Gallifrey at the point when the Doctor was announcing his intention to stay on as Lord President and threw herself out of the Doctor's office window, making it appear that he had pushed her and forcing him to leave. (DW: Mad World)
Behind the Scenes
To be added.