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Fictional Earth - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Sep 27 2017

Fictional Earth (trope)

Look, they have an Antarctica, too!note 

The landmasses look different. The names of the nations don't exist in the real world. It must be a fantasy world. Nope, it's Earth. Just different.

It's very much the same planet. It orbits the same star and it has the same moon. But with different landmasses and nations, the creator of the story gets to take many liberties. The use of a Fictional Earth means that past and present real world history doesn't have to affect the story and absolutely anything can be made up. The story's nations may have real world counterparts. These worlds will usually have real world physics, but not always.

The planet has to be identified as Earth at some point, otherwise you're just dealing with a Constructed World that may or may not look like Earth in some aspects. Alternate History settings that are geographically different enough may overlap with this, if the country or continent boundaries changed, especially after a traumatic event.

Compare Earth All Along, where a planet seems alien at first but turns out to be a version of Earth. Contrast Earth Drift, where a setting starts as Earth but gradually becomes a fantasy world as the series goes on. Like Reality, Unless Noted is when the difference with our Earth is minimal and mostly about events and characters.

Examples

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Anime & Manga 

  • The world of Attack on Titan seems to be an Earth that is upside-down.◊ The island of Paradis, where most of the main characters live, is Madagascar, and Marley seems to be mainland Africa along with most of Europe and the Middle East.
  • Dragon Ball's Earth is very different from ours. The world map◊ shows a huge continent looking like Chinanote  and Funny Animals and occasional monsters live alongside humans. It is divided into 43 sectors governed by a King of the Earth. Also, the Moon seems to have at least a thin atmosphere.
  • The setting in the Naruto franchise takes place on an alternative Earth, and even its satellite is still called "Moon."
  • Ninjala takes place on an alternate Earth where ninja had a much greater impact on world history, and many real-world locations and country are renamed.
  • One-Punch Man is set on a planet called Earth, but it looks totally unrecognizable from the real world. The whole series takes place on a Pangaea-sized supercontinent shaped like Japan's Saitama prefecture, divided into 26 city-states each named after letters of the English alphabet.
  • More than usual in any anime like Rio -Rainbow Gate!-. This is a world with flying buildings, ghosts, sentient robots, real wizards, a family of telekinetics, and a family that control minds and probability. Additionally casino gambling is Serious Business and the general public has always had some idea that the world is a magical place, even if it's mostly rumours.

Comic Books 

  • The DCU seems less a fictional Earth and more a fictional America, with many fictional cities inhabited by various heroes, including but not limited to Metropolis, Gotham City, Central City and Coast City to name a few. Though you do get other fictional places popping up like Themyscira and Atlantis.
  • Marvel Universe does indeed take place on Earth, but also features a number of fictional countries, nations, and landmasses. Among these include: Wakanda, which is a technologically advanced African country that's home to Black Panther with its exact location varying between sources; Latveria, a monarchy nation ruled by Doctor Doom as his personal kingdom; and Atlantis, the mythical undersea world.
  • Tintin features several fictional people and countries such Borduria, Syldavia and Khemed. Since the early books featuring real countries were criticized for their inaccurate and sometimes insulting portrayals, this was likely done as a way to avoid this.

Film — Animation 

  • In the Despicable Me franchise, Korea is not a peninsula unlike in real life.
  • While it's never clarified if Frozen's fantasy kingdom of Arendelle is in Norway, a part of Norway, or is a fictional country (or city-state) that just resembles Norway, the Christmas Special Olaf's Frozen Adventure shows Norway as existing within the world. Frozen Fever also shows that they're set in an alternate version of Europe.

Film — Live Action 

  • The Grand Budapest Hotel is set in the early 1930s and mostly seems to conform to 'our' Earth in geography, technology and culture - there are references to Europe, South America, the Roman Catholic Church, Saxony and the French and German languages are both clearly spoken at various points. However the story is set in a fictional European country (Zubrowka) and notes the existence of other locations that are also either completely fictional (Zero's implied Middle Eastern or North African homeland of Aq Salim al-Jabat) or imply considerably divergent histories at some point (the "Maltese Riviera" and "Dutch Tanganyika").
  • The Logo Joke from Jurassic World Dominion: Prologue depicts the Universal logo globe with a giant dinosaur skeleton-shaped continent replacing North and South America.

Live Action TV 

  • The Six Million Dollar Man is at first seemingly set in our world, mostly set in the US, and with stories set in Germany, parts of Africa, the UK, the USSR and other countries. But the episode 'Outrage in Balinderry' is not only set in a fictitious British-colonised island state suspiciously similar to Northern Ireland, but located somewhere closer to the Faroe Islands, but a map in said ep shows a completely different geographical structure including different continents!

Literature 

  • French-Canadian children's fantasy series Amos Daragon lives and breathes this trope, with the world being very different from Earth geographically and populated by all manners of mythological creatures from all around the world while also featuring real-life civilizations and peoples like Sumerians, Dogons and Vikings and gods like Odin and Seth.
  • Harry Turtledove's Atlantis series is like our Earth, except the east coast of North America broke off millions of years ago and became its own continent, unsettled and devoid of land mammals until its discovery in the 1400s. Despite this, history continues as normal until Atlantis is discovered, with at least one Native American group living in the same geographic location despite the radically different geography.
  • The Broken Earth Trilogy takes place on a planet identified as Earth, but has no identifiable Earthly landmasses or cultures. It also doesn't have a moon. It gets noted that the magic- and Organic Technology-using Precursors who dominated the planet tens of thousands of years ago succeeded an even older society that built things out of dead, inert material and had no knowledge of magic, so it might be our Earth after all. It also used to have a moon, and figuring out what happened to it is a pivotal plot point.
  • The Deltora Quest Shared Universe takes place on the "World of Deltora" with hundreds of fictional islands including Deltora, Maris, and Dorne all located in seven seas. While humans are a predominant species there also many more fantastical creatures from gnomes, dragons, Fish People and Capricons to name a few.
  • The Familiar of Zero: From official maps of the continent, Halkeginia resembles a distorted and simplified version of real-life Europe, and this is reinforced by how virtually all of the countries on the continent are Fantasy Counterpart Cultures of historical Medieval European countries.
  • Downplayed in Kushiel's Legacy: there are fictional countries, but the map is almost identical to Earth's except for a few alterations thanks to more actively involved divine forces in its history. Real countries are known by different names, though. It also overlaps with Alternate History, from the fall of The Roman Empire onwards. Significantly, the equivalent of the English Channel has the islands of the Three Sisters, where the Fallen Angel Raziel is bound beneath the ocean.
  • A Memoir by Lady Trent is set in a fictional world, but the countries correspond to real-world ones (Scirland is Britain, Bulskevo is Russia, Akhia is Arabia and Egypt, etc.).
  • The map at the front of Terry Pratchett's Nation shows that while this is clearly a version of Earth, and very similar to our Earth in the 19th century in many ways, it is not our Earth in terms of either political geography (The Re-United States) or physical geography (the two landmasses of Nearer Australia and Further Australia).
  • According to Takeshi Shudō's novels Pocket Monsters: The Animation, Pokémon the Series takes place on a futuristic Earth where Pokemon are aliens who replaced most of the wildlife. Also Hollywood was in Kanto. This made sense back when Kanto (named after Kanto, Japan) was the only known region, less so after the Earth Drift that started with Generation II. How canon the books are compared to the anime is debatable anyway, since they're a mix of behind-the-scenes details, commentary and Alternate Continuity, and later seasons of the anime have contradicted them outright.
  • In the world of The Rithmatist, North America consists of sixty islands instead of a continent, all of which are part of the United Isles of America. We don't hear much about the rest of the world, though the sequel will focus on Central and South America.
  • The world of A Song of Ice and Fire is based on Earth with some key differences. For example, Westeros basically corresponds to Europe both culturally and in size, but is similar to a re-arranged map of Britain. Essos is Asia and Sothoryos is Africa. There is also a fourth continent called Ulthos, which, judging by what little description we know, may be the equivalent of Southeast Asia/Oceania. Some fans speculate that another continent corresponding to the Americas is yet to be discovered.
  • The children's series Spirit Animals has continents called Eura (Europe), Zhong (Asia), Nilo (Africa), and Amara (Americas). The world is called Erdas, but is clearly Earth — if the continents weren't enough, the cultures and wildlife also match.
  • Arda, from the Tolkien Legendarium, is meant to be Earth in a fictional ancient time period. However, its geography is clearly fictional, with none of the continents matching Earth's.
  • The world of The Wheel of Time is strongly implied to be a distant and different future Earth, as the setting has an Eternal Recurrence of seven Ages that fade into history and come anew. Thanks to the Breaking of the World, an ancient supernatural cataclysm that rearranged the continents, the maps look completely different; but there are quite a few references to Earth history and myth, as well as a few ancient artifacts that originate in present-day Earth.

Tabletop Games 

  • 7th Sea: Théah is a facsimile of Earth in the 17th century from the abundance of fantasy counterparts to real-world countries to even its Significant Anagram name.
  • Warhammer: The world map is clearly based on Earth's◊, though it has a few extra islands and geographical features Earth does not, such as North America being either frozen tundra or burning desert, Africa being split in two by a mountain range, and Antarctica being a (relatively) warm wasteland populated by beastmen. In early editions, Warhammer 40,000 was set in the far future of Warhammer Fantasy, but they now exist in separate realities linked by the Warp, and 40K's Earth is now our far future.

Video Games 

  • Ace Combat is a prime example of this trope. Barring a few installments, the series is set on an alternate Earth, the proper out-of-universe name for which is Strangereal, where the continents and countries are, to say the least, different. History is similar, but often times, events anywhere from Strangereal's 1995 to 2015 have obvious parallels to real history, and many nations have clearly visible similarities to the cultures and geography . More specifically...
    • Belka is blatantly World War I- and then World War II-style Germany.
    • Characters from Estovakia or Yuktobania are easily mistaken for Russians/Eastern European nationalities.
    • It has an Antarctica barely different from the real one, as well as landmasses resembling Greenland and New Zealand. It even has its own Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
    • Most of the aircraft featured in the series are real, licensed from their real-world manufacturers by the game developers, no less; they even include some that in real life never progressed past the experimental stage, or were simply technology demonstrators that were never meant to enter production in the first place.
    • Also, nuclear weapons are significantly rarer in this universe, given wide scale military conflicts are much more common, without that pesky M.A.D. getting in the way.
  • Civilization always takes place on Earth and uses its cultures, and most of the games have an option to replicate a real world map, but it's also possible to use a randomly-generated map that looks nothing like the real Earth.
  • Dragon Master: Seems to be in effect given that the map shown during intermissions between fights lacks any similarity to any areas around the Pacific Ocean and especially not the world map.
  • By default, the in-game map of Europa Universalis IV looks just like the real-world one, and, on the one hand, this is natural, given the game's history-based nature, but on the other — it ruins the sense of discovery because the player, unlike the actual explorers of the Age of Discovery, knows what lies in terra incognita. To address the issue, the Conquest of Paradise DLC introduced the optional Random New World generator, specifically designed to replace the Americas as they are in our world with a procedurally generated analog (though Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and much of Oceania always remain the same). The changes concern the size, shape, location, terrain, climate, and inhabiting peoples of the American lands, making the New World feel entirely different yet still realistic. However, it is possible to go even further, as one of the options the player can adjust when setting up a new campaign is the so-called "Fantasy Random New World", which controls to what extent the generator is allowed to supplement the game with fantastical elements, such as a bizarre, enormous "wall" of land stretching from the far north to the far south of the map; mighty, unified, and technologically advanced Native American empires; and outright legendary entities, such as the Lost Templar fleet, Lemuria, and the remnants of Atlantis.
  • The world of Final Fantasy IV is named Earthnote . The landmasses are definitely not ours◊. The surface where most people live is named "Overworld" and the inside where Dwarves live is the "Underworld." Fu-So-Ya also says that the Lunarians originally came from a planet that orbited between Mars and Jupiter before it was destroyed.
  • Illusion of Gaia: Despite historical landmarks from the real world existing, and certain historical figures like Columbus being mentioned, the landmasses of the world are radically different, and many of the locales are completely fictional. Subverted that it's actually a corrupted version of our Earth, and after you defeat the comet, the Earth regains its natural appearance, making this trope actually Earth All Along.
  • Mega Man Battle Network: In the WWW lab in the first game, a screen of the world map indicates that the Battle Network series takes place basically on Earth◊ (in keeping with its connections to the Classic series). Battle Network 2 showed a world map in one scene◊ that looked nothing like Earth however, and introduced fictional countries. Battle Network 4 burned that bridge with a vengeance, introducing an all-new globe◊ whose landmasses only vaguely resemble our Earth's at best.
    • Interestingly though, Spanish and English are mentioned as languages in Battle Network 3, which is well after the series established the games were set in an alternate Earth, even though Spain and England presumably do not exist in this world.
  • The world of Pokémon is an interesting case. It was identified as Earth in the first generation, mentioning real world events and locations in Pokedex entries and naming Kanto after the actual Kanto region of Japan. However it is geographically completely different and real world mentions were dropped from Generation II onwards. However, every region in the main series is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of a real place. The implication seems to be that the Pokémon world is a Fictional Earth that doesn't really mention the Earth part anymore.
  • Inspired by Ace Combat, Project Wingman takes place in a world that is mostly like Earth, but over four centuries after a global tectonic disaster known as the "Calamity" which reshaped continents and created new islands and seas.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog games takes place on Earth, but how different or similar it is to ours depends on the game:
    • From the start, Sonic the Hedgehog states that its fictional setting, South Island, is located in the Pacific Ocean; however, it's also mentioned that the island is constantly moving and changing due to its connection to the Chaos Emeralds, making it unchartable.
    • Sonic CD mixes things up by establishing that the magical planetoid, "Little Planet", flying above a lake on Earth with Eggman being able to tie Little Planet to Earth with a chain, both of which isn't something that is true with the Earth of our reality.
    • In Sonic & Knuckles, we can see the Earth from outer space, but aren't given a good look aside from it vaguely resembling our planet.
    • In the Japanese script for Sonic Adventure, a regular NPC mentions Little Planet and acts as if its visit to the Earth is common knowledge, implying that Sonic's Earth is different from the real Earth.
    • In Sonic Adventure 2, we get a slightly better view of Earth from space. The actual texture is taken directly from The Blue Marble, which makes it one-to-one with the real world. This game also features the United Federation, which seems to be a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the United States.
    • In Shadow the Hedgehog, the map of the Earth is briefly shown, with the planet's continents partially resembling those in real life. Although the United Federation is still present, Japan is also mentioned.
    • In Sonic Riders, a different map of Earth can be seen, with the continents completely identical to the real life ones, down to the names.
    • In Sonic Unleashed, the Earth has completely different continents from the last two examples, which are occupied by Fantasy Counterpart Culture countries — including a new counterpart to the United States, Empire City, while the United Federation goes unmentioned. This geography would be reused in Sonic Colors, and is commonly seen in spin-off material.
    • Sonic Forces, however, uses a completely different world map, with Green Hill notably being part of a landmass instead of on South Island. Humans other than Eggman are mysteriously absent despite a global war going on. In-game dialogue goes out of its way to refer to it as a generic "world" or "planet".
    • Sonic Frontiers uses satellite imagery for shots of Earth in outer space, but instead of it being one-to-one with real life, the continents look like they've been ripped apart and crudely put back together, resulting in a pretty bizarre map◊. This depiction of the planet is also used in Shadow Generations, replacing The Blue Marble when depicting scenes from Sonic Adventure 2.
    • The Jet Black Hedgehog: Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic × Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings — two tie-in materials for Shadow Generations — both refer to the planet directly as Earth, with Dark Beginnings showing Maria being excited about being able to watch the Aurora Borealis, a real-life meteorological phenomena, from above the planet.
  • Super Mario Bros.: In Super Mario Odyssey, Mario travels a planet that resembles Earth, but with different landmasses and kingdoms inspired by real countries. The Mushroom Kingdom (the main setting of most Super Mario Bros. games) is found on a landmass that resembles a 1-Up Mushroom. The continents resemble the Earth's at some point in history, with three looking vaguely like Pangaea, Laurasia, and Gondwanaland. There's also no land at either pole, with the landmass the Snow Kingdom is on ending close to the north pole, and the south pole being completely covered in ocean with the nearest land being thousands of miles away.
  • The world of Suzerain takes place on an otherwise normal representation of Earth with a single moon, but all of the landmasses, countries and organizations are fictional. Currently the game is primarily focused on the Merkopan continent (a rough approximation of western Europe) that surrounds the Antacean Sea from the northwest and the countries within, but references are made to the continent of Xina to the southwest (notably the Republic of Qinal is the only Xinan nation in ATO) and Rika to the southeast, as well as Contana to the east across the Central Ocean and the Antarctica analogue of Wulqanise, where the Confederacy of Yarktralis is located.
  • Valkyria Chronicles: The map of the continent of Europa maintains the general shape of real-life Europe, with almost all the borders redrawn. There are two isles to the northwest, one big and one small, just like the British isles; a peninsula extends from the south of Europa, much like Italy; the seas around the continent are marked as North Sea to the north, Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the West; Gallia is located in the Low Countries, fitting its basis of design; while the East Europan Imperial Alliance appears to encompass both German and Soviet territory, fitting its hybrid design.
  • The Ys series is set in a fantasy mirror of our own world and even shares the exact same geography, with it's notable differences being two moons instead of one, different names for locations like "Eresia" for Eurasia and "Afroca" for Africa, and their version of the Roman Empire seemingly lasting up to the middle ages. Also, the setting for the first two games is roughly based on a mythical city of the same name.

Webcomics 

Western Animation 

  • PAW Patrol: Zigzagged. Real-world locations name-dropped include Alabama ("Pups and the Kitty-tastrope"), Antarctica ("Pups Save an Antarctic Martian"), Canada ("The Movie") and South America ("Pups Save the Penguins"); however there exists a country named Barkingburg, which has been shown to have its dark evening while it's still daytime in Adventure Bay, as is the case, respectively, with the UK to North America, and in the Mighty Pups special, an overhead shot of the globe clearly depicts fictional landmasses. This could possibly be an instance of Early Installment, uh, Reality given the wackier direction the show has gone, another possibility is that Mighty Pups and its follow-up subseries, and perhaps other stories with fantastic elements, are set in an Alternate Universe, however it's been zigzagged again due to the first movie's sequel, having two overshots of their planet, and an overshot showing planets like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, so technically they still live on Earth, the landmass is just inconsistent throughout the franchise.
  • Sonic Boom's setting appears to have been conceived as one as far back as the preceeding games: the characters refer to their world as either "earth" or "our planet", but the rare glimpses of the globe show that it barely resembles what we know as the Earth, and yet the existence of Mars is alluded to, and the words "English" and "French" make sense to the characters.
  • Steven Universe takes place on an alternate Earth with a number of subtle differences — in the US, for example, money has diamonds on it instead of Presidents' faces, and the center of the film industry is in Kansas. The equivalent of New York City is called Empire City and the equivalent of Canada is called the Great North. More importantly, the world map is quite different: part of Africa is attached to South America, and large amounts of real life landmass is instead covered by the ocean, including the majority of northern Asia (there's basically a huge water-filled crater where Russia should be). The latter is implied to be a result of the Gem Homeworld's Hostile Terraforming. The former seems much older.
  • While almost nothing about this is indicated in its mother film (although is probably a result of Tangled being established to share its universe with Frozen, which has indicated this), Tangled: The Series takes place on an alternate Earth. A Distant Reaction Shot in the Grand Finale also shows that the series is set on a landmass that highly resembles Europe and that Corona is located where Germany would be.