Earth (RDM)

Earth, home of the Thirteenth Tribe, from orbit

Earth is the believed destination of the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, as attested in the Sacred Scrolls. Prior to its discovery, its existence is considered purely mythical and legendary within Colonial and Cylon societies. Earth is also the name of a planet Colonial survivors eventually settle after a long and arduous journey across space following the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

Earth: Home of the Thirteenth Tribe

Beginnings

Earth, as it appeared before its destruction

Main articles: History of the Twelve Colonies and Thirteenth Tribe (RDM)

The legend of Earth begins at least four thousand years ago on Kobol, where Scriptures tell of the exodus of a Thirteenth Tribe of humanity during a period of great turmoil across the planet. It is said that "they traveled far and made their home upon a planet called Earth . . . which circled a distant and unknown star." While not many previously believed in Earth, there are artifacts rumored to point out the general direction to the planet. These rumors are later confirmed after the destruction of the Colonies (TRS: Miniseries, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I").

Settlement and Development

For nearly two thousand years, the Thirteenth Tribe flourished on the planet, creating a civilization comparable to the Twelve Colonies before their fall, including development of their own robotics and artificial intelligence. Unbeknownst to Colonials or most Cylons, the Thirteenth Tribe was a flesh and blood race of artificial beings much like the humanoid Cylons, which were created on Kobol thousands of years ago. They originally relied on organic memory transfer technology to download into new bodies after their deaths. However, sometime after leaving Kobol, they gained the ability to reproduce sexually, and the technology fell out of use ^{(TRS: "No Exit")}.

The fact that the Tribe was artificial in nature is never fully revealed to the civilians of the fleet. To them, they were a society of humans that were destroyed by their robotic creations much like their society was four years prior.

Apocalypse

Main article: Final Five

Approximately two thousand years BCH, the Tribe's robotic creations rebelled against their creators, in an act of mutually assured destruction. The attack caught the population off guard, with many at work or enjoying leisurely activities. Evidence of people going about their lives is still visible on the remains millennia later. However, prior to the apocalypse, five individuals started seeing visions of strange people warning them of the upcoming cataclysm. The five worked hard to recreate the lost organic memory transfer technology, and built a ship in orbit to carry their experiments. After their deaths, the five were resurrected on this ship, and opted to follow the Tribe's original course back to Kobol, leaving Earth behind ^{(TRS: "Revelations", "Sometimes a Great Notion" and "No Exit")}.

Earth's Fate

Earth's ruins, two millennia after the Fall of the Thirteenth Tribe

At the conclusion of the war, no survivors remained on either side, and Earth was left burning and irradiated. Despite lingering radioactive contamination, plant life gradually returned, and whatever ruins remained succumbed to nature and time. A large city on the planet visited by both Colonials and rebel Cylons was largely submerged in water and partly buried in sand.

Unable to support human life, the planet is abandoned days after its discovery, and is likely never visited again (TRS: "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I," "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II," "Revelations," "Sometimes a Great Notion").

Musical Significance of the Discovery

The discovery of the irradiated first Earth represents one of the most emotionally devastating moments in the series, both narratively and musically. Composer Bear McCreary created some of his darkest compositions to underscore the despair experienced by the fleet upon finding their promised land in ruins.

The track "Among the Ruins" from the Season 4 soundtrack captures the bleakness of this discovery. McCreary described it as "the bleakest and darkest composition I have ever written," designed to reflect the despair in the fleet when they found Earth as "a charred cinder." The piece features an innovative orchestral technique where violins are seated far left and far right instead of together, creating dissonant, antiphonal lines that produce an acoustic "delay" effect. The orchestration deliberately leaves the mid-range empty, with violas, celli and basses holding clusters in their bottom registers while violins play at the top of theirs, contributing to the spooky, desolate atmosphere.

The middle section features a stunning erhu solo by Martin St. Pierre, which underscored Kara finding her own body on Earth—one of the series' most haunting revelations. McCreary noted that while this track "can be tough to get through," he promised it would be "incredibly rewarding" for listeners who gave it their attention.

The companion piece "Funeral Pyre" continues the dark emotional territory, featuring Kandyse McClure's haunting vocals as her character's ghostly presence. This track underscored Laura's book burning and Kara setting her own body ablaze, representing the symbolic destruction of hope and identity.

A New Earth: The Promised Land

The Colonial's new home, as it appears from the moon's orbit

By an infinitesimal chance, a habitable planet is found by pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, after she is able to extrapolate FTL jump coordinates from a song she used to play as a child. Captain Thrace inputs these FTL coordinates into Galactica's FTL computer in a desperate attempt to escape from the Cylon Colony. Galactica, damaged from battle, limps into orbit of the planet.

As depicted in "Crossroads, Part II," this planet is located relatively close to the Ionian Nebula.

Diverse Wildlife

Earth's diverse wildlife

After Colonial recon of the planet, Earth is discovered to have a diverse range of wildlife, more than the Twelve Colonies put together. It also features a race of primitive hunter-gatherer humanoids, having evolved here separately from those on Kobol. Upon further study, these humanoids are discovered to be compatible with Colonial DNA, which opens up the possibility of Colonials and Cylons interbreeding with them.

Colonial/Cylon Settlement and Future Evolution

Survivors heading for shelter

With Galactica in pieces, and the Colonial Fleet not fairing any better, it is decided that the planet will be settled, with the remaining humanoid Cylons and surviving members of the Final Five soon joining them. Plans begin for new cities to be built, but those plans are soon abandoned in favor of starting fresh in an attempt to break the historical cycle of violence. Colonial units scout the planet, and eventually determine the best possible chance for survival is to split the survivors into groups, and spread them across different sites around the globe. These locations are documented, and presented to each of the groups for future use. After the survivors set up their camps, the fleet and any remaining advanced technology are scuttled. The settlers christen this new planet "Earth," in honor of the promised land they have been chasing for four years.

The surviving Colonial and Cylon settlers and their descendants begin interbreeding with the indigenous humanoids, creating a new race, with the first human-Cylon hybrid becoming "Mitochondrial Eve," the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all living humans. Her fossilized remains are uncovered nearly one hundred fifty thousand years later, around the time that another advanced human society is on the brink of major breakthroughs in robotics: much like the Twelve Colonies, the first Earth, and Kobol before them ^{(TRS: "Daybreak, Part II")}.

Musical Theme of the New Earth

The discovery of the new, habitable Earth marked a dramatic shift in the series' musical landscape. The track "Earth" from the Season 4 soundtrack introduces what McCreary described as the "Earth Theme," which actually originated as the "Caprica Flashback Theme" in the opening of "Daybreak." This theme represents hope, renewal, and the promise of a fresh start—a stark contrast to the despair of the irradiated first Earth.

McCreary crafted this theme to be "pastoral and symphonic," introducing a new musical chapter that accompanies humanity's final journey to their true promised land. The Earth Theme weaves throughout the final episodes, symbolizing the transition from the dark journey through space to the hope of settlement and peace.

Notes

• Gaeta comments in "Revelations" that the constellations seen from orbit of the Earth they had just found match those seen in the Tomb of Athena. This was later proven incorrect, as those constellations are actually visible from a different Earth over one hundred centuries later ^{(TRS: "Daybreak, Part II")}. It would have been extremely improbable that the constellations visible from the Earth found in "Revelations" would have looked the same as those of New Earth. That being said, while on the first Earth, all of the constellations of Zodiac could all be seen at once-this is not possible on the current Earth.

• From what is known of the nature of navigation in FTL jumps, the odds of the coordinates used by Kara Thrace to jump Galactica from the Colony to the new Earth and actually achieving the end they did are no less than infinitesimal. One of the elements in FTL navigation is the point of origin. A point of origin is a necessary factor in many navigational forms in order to plot direction and distance to a required destination, and FTL navigation is no different. Essentially, what this means is that the coordinates entered by Kara Thrace into the FTL computer aboard Galactica would only jump the ship to its new Earth destination from the precise astral location of Galactica when it initiated the jump from the Colony. Given the coordinates' origins in the Music and the revelation that a divine entity is in some way shaping the events which have taken place in the series, as seen by Pythia, it could be suggested that the attack on the Colony and the resulting success and retreat were in some way destined. While this may seem logical, it is purely conjectural. The way these events have took place cannot be explained by rational means.

Official Statements

• Edward James Olmos jokingly describes how he thinks the Fleet could find Earth:

I personally — this is not [from] any of the writers, but my thing — I wanted to come into [the present day], find Earth, cruise on top of it, see it for what it is, and as we're coming down to it, we're blown up, we're nuked. And then [someone says to] the President of the United States, which is [George W.] Bush, "They've been taken care of. Thank God you saved the world again." And you turn, and you see who told him that, and it's one of the Cylons. [Laughs]