The Earth Debate Continues

[LuminousMushroom]

I've seen a lot on this site already wondering whether the rimworld we land on is in fact Earth in a post-apocalyptic state. Some people say it can't possibly be Earth, while others say that it can't possibly be anything else. I've decided to compile some pertinent facts and evidence both for and against the argument. Feel free to debate below.

- Almost all animal life is directly from Earth life. Obvious exceptions include Thrumbos and Boomalopes, though Boomalopes could very easily be genetic experiments to more easily produce chemfuel.
- Ruins are omnipresent across the planet. Many of these ruins are sealed, containing mechanoids and cryopods that are hundreds or even thousands of years old.
- The game starts in the year 5500. It's clear that the Gregorian calendar has changed (Septober, Jugust, etc.) but is still being used, so it is reasonable to assume the game takes place about 2500 years in the future. This could explain the ruins, most notably the ancient highways, but it's not enough time to change the topography so drastically. Unless there was a drastic event, like a meteor impact or an archotech disaster, we should still see landmass like Africa and Europe intact.
- The word Earth exists in the game under the description for humans, where it mentions "non-Earth planets". It seems that humanity is aware that Earth is the homeworld of humanity, so that weakens the argument that humans forgot that Earth isn't a new frontier.
- Rimworlds are supposed to be at the edge of the galaxy. Earth is only 2/3 out, but it is worth noting that the "rimworld" may actually be more central than we realize. Imperial fleets and independent trade companies come by all the time, so it's not exactly out of the way. Clearly this world is central enough to be a pit stop for traders.

[kclace]

I would say it is highly unlikely given what you've said about the configuration of the continents, but also completely irrelevant to the canon.

The Rimworld universe is full of many earth like planets, probably due to terraforming. The different world classifications  have more to do with the level of technological development than anything else, which could change over time.

So yes, Earth could be a rimworld, a glitterworld, or anything in between just like every other world in that universe.

[LuminousMushroom]

Terraforming doesn't quite make sense. I'm not saying its impossible, but terraforming a planet to this state would be a monumental task even for a glitterworld. If it did happen, it would have to be fairly recently, since that level of technology would not be available for some time. In that case, why would the terraformers have left? Why would they spend such a ludicrous amount of resources just to abandon the world altogether?

[LuminousMushroom]

While not exactly "proof", it is worth noting the description behind tribal factions. It mentions the possibility that the tribes originate from a technological civilization thousands of years prior. This seems unlikely at best, given the timeframe given, unless the civilization they are referring to is in fact Earth. Perhaps this is a bit of foreshadowing from our dear friend Tynan?

[Canute]

Don't forget the interstellar travel at Rimworld is still sublight. Alot of time could have passed.
i could imagine that Rimworld is earth 10-100k years in the future.
Mankind spread around the galaxy, abandon earth beside a few left souls who refuse to leave and choose Glitterworld as their new prime planet.
Mechanoids could be the terraformer until the rebel (similar to the xenon from X), a selfreplicating hive to terraform and then decide all non-animals needed to be terraformed (eliminate) too.

[LuminousMushroom]

I doubt that the ships are legitimately sublight. They never directly mention any sort of warp drive or anything like that, but the Johnson-Tanaka drive seems to be more than just a regular engine. Some of the spacer colonists have chronological ages that don't make sense for space travel, some apparently being in space for barely a few decades. The nearest solar system to our own is 80 lightyears away. Sure, there are solar systems out there that may be closer to each other, but not enough to justify the short age difference.

[Bozobub]

The nearest solar system to our own is 80 lightyears away. Sure, there are solar systems out there that may be closer to each other, but not enough to justify the short age difference.

The nearest solar system with one or more planets in the "Goldilocks" zone is just about FOUR light years away, namely Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri trinary system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_b

If you have a drive capable of *constant 1g acceleration* (important caveat), you will reach any destination, including the halfway-point "flipover" for deceleration, in roughly 1+{light years distance} years, objective time (to an external viewer).  Subjectively, it would be about 3.5 years (to an observer aboard the ship) to reach Proxima Centauri b, due to relativistic time dilation.

https://spacetravel.simhub.online/spacetravel.php

It's not trivial, of course, but is a LOT more doable than many people imagine.

[Dargaron]

- Rimworlds are supposed to be at the edge of the galaxy. Earth is only 2/3 out, but it is worth noting that the "rimworld" may actually be more central than we realize. Imperial fleets and independent trade companies come by all the time, so it's not exactly out of the way. Clearly this world is central enough to be a pit stop for traders.

Rimworlds are not on the edge of the galaxy. The setting primer has this to say, "Today, mankind is smeared across a region of the galaxy about 1,200 light years wide. Our best models indicate that there is a general trend towards greater population density towards the center of the this region, where the stars were colonized earlier. At the edge of known space lie the rimworlds, drifting alone with few inhabited neighbors, mostly unvisited."

Humans occupy a very small part of the greater Milky Way Galaxy.

[LuminousMushroom]

The nearest solar system to our own is 80 lightyears away. Sure, there are solar systems out there that may be closer to each other, but not enough to justify the short age difference.

The nearest solar system with one or more planets in the "Goldilocks" zone is just about FOUR light years away, namely Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri trinary system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_b

So it is. I guess I mixed up the theoretical NASA ETA with the time in lightyears. My bad. In that case, I suppose it's reasonable for sublight travel to be widespread. Maybe not on a galactic scale, but still.

[RicRider]

While not exactly "proof", it is worth noting the description behind tribal factions. It mentions the possibility that the tribes originate from a technological civilization thousands of years prior. This seems unlikely at best, given the timeframe given, unless the civilization they are referring to is in fact Earth. Perhaps this is a bit of foreshadowing from our dear friend Tynan?

FYI: the names of the tribal factions are Gallician (original Gaulish inhabitants of Iberia during Roman times and Dark Ages) and the names of the new Empire are Byzantine. So you might be right!

[Ukas]

What about 60 day orbital period? Mercury orbits the sun in 87 Earth days, so, in our star system shouldn't the planet be nearer the sun than that.

[eugeneb]

What about 60 day orbital period? Mercury orbits the sun in 87 Earth days, so, in our star system shouldn't the planet be nearer the sun than that.

Yup, that and also the super long solar eclipses (unless we want to involve some far-fetched scifi with super structures, etc.)

I've always thought about Rimworld as some planet on the rim of colonized space being pretty far in the process of colonization by a glitterworld civilization - see road networks, ancient danger bunkers, entire layers of things like plasteel that we can dig out of the ground, satellites, toxic fallout, etc.. And then some unknown disaster happened. Maybe it was internal war, maybe mech war, nobody knows. Personally I always like to imagine a brutal mech war, with megaspiders being the last-ditch effort to win it. The civilization completely collapsed and we now live in the aftermath of it.

- The word Earth exists in the game under the description for humans, where it mentions "non-Earth planets". It seems that humanity is aware that Earth is the homeworld of humanity, so that weakens the argument that humans forgot that Earth isn't a new frontier.

Yeah, that and there is also an interaction between pawns when they talk about stuff - one of these interactions (from memory) is "Pawn1 talked to Pawn2 and shared their believes about old Earth". So pawns seem to think they are not on the original Earth, whether it is accurate or not.

[avancouw]

Megasloths aren't from earth. They're some kind of genetic experiment or mutation, or maybe they aren't sloths at all. But in the lore, they went extinct from earth at some point?

On a different note. It's not a stretch that early colony ships brought wildlife to colonize as well, so it's not a problem for a lot of the fauna to be earth fauna. Also just how few types of animals are on this planet really could be a point of evidence for "not earth". But, also, "it's a game."

[eugeneb]

It's been a while since I read RW official lore but I vaguely remember they explicitly mention that we terraform planets for ourselves which includes seeding them with earth-like life. Presumable planets with alien life are either extremely rare and not featured in the game or not yet found by humans at all.

[LuminousMushroom]

Megasloths aren't from earth. They're some kind of genetic experiment or mutation, or maybe they aren't sloths at all. But in the lore, they went extinct from earth at some point?

Ah! But you see, in an earlier version of the game, they were called Megatheriums, not Megasloths. Megatheriums are very real creatures that went extinct a few million years ago. They are considered the ancestor to the modern sloth. Chances are, they were cloned by humans in some sort of resurrection project, though that does raise the question of "Where are the mammoths?"