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"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
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| Mother World | ||
| One's home planet, or the origin world of one's species. |
Very early use of this phrase.
Leaving the wrecked Earth, explorers discover an ancient civilization on the Moon. One enormous artifact depicts an ancient Earth.
| A series of horizontal wavy lines was taken by the Earthians to represent water, and an arch, surmounting perpendicular wavy streaks, looked like a rain picture drawn by a prehistoric artist of the mother planet. And there was the likeness of the mother world itself — two circles in which the outlines of Earth's continents had been carved. The hemispheres were not readily distinguishable, however. The eastern continents were not quite in keeping with those known to the Earthians, the western hemisphere showed that North America was joined to Asia by a narrow neck of land, and between the Americas and Europe, nearer the latter continent and embraced in the circle showing the western half of the globe, lay a vast body of land which the Earthians had never seen, but which they knew to be Atlantis. The outlines of nearly all the continents were slightly different from those with which they were familiar. It was clear that great geologic changes had taken place since the maps were drawn. |
| Technovelgy from The Moon of Doom,
by Earl L. Bell. Published by Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1928 Additional resources -
|
Also seen in Asteroids of Death (1931) by Neil R. Jones:
Compare to home-world from A Honeymoon In Space (1901) by George Griffith.
I was weak and exhausted when like a huge, rotating ball, the mother world loomed before me. I slackened the speed of the ship to a minimum as I raced into the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
As I recall, the first time I encountered this phrase was in Arthur C. Clarke's wonderful 1955 novel Earthlight:
(The Mother World from 'The Asteroid of Death' by Neil R. Jones)
History, it has been said, never repeats itself but historical situations recur. Inevitably the new worlds began to loosen their ties with Earth. Their populations were still very small compared with those of the mother world but they contained the most brilliant and active minds the race possessed. Free at last from the crushing burden of tradition they planned to build civilizations which would avoid the mistakes of the past. The aim was a noble one — it might yet succeed.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Moon of Doom
More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to The Moon of Doom
Tech news articles related to works by Earl L. Bell
| Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment |
| Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth? |
| Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke |
| SensorWake Scent-Based Alarm Clock |
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'You are who we say you are, Dr. Dakin,' Turner said.'
'It's area, and its consequent light-gathering capacity, was many times greater than any rigid mirror...'
'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
