Talk:Earthsearch

Paradise

Paradise is not earth in the past, i have earthsearch 1 and 2 on CD and no reference is made to that. not only that but in earthsearch 2 they find the real earth I am therefore changing it back to the previous version. --MrBiz5 18:06, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Paradise is our Earth in the past. This isn't even controversial. Everything in both series' points to this. For example, the fact that the 'original' Earth is the second planet from their 'Sun', whereas Paradise is the third. Paradise has a year of 365 days, and an axial tilt, but as Angel One says "totally different from our Earth".

And if all the evidence from the series itself weren't enough, the back cover blurb of James Follett's novel Earthsearch 2 explicitly says that the Paradise planet settled by the Challenger crew is in fact our Earth of 4 million years ago. And James Follett himself agrees; in fact, 'agrees' isn't the right word because, as I said, it's not even controversial. It's supposed to be obvious by the time you get to the end of series 1.

--DudeGalea 18:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Ahem, a good source on james follett's works: [1] it says nothing about Paradise being earth, i have not read the full book, but the plot is a novalisation of the radio series. the website also contains the text from the back of both books and it say no such thing. the other points above dont make much sense, earth is the third planet from our sun. its a different planet, for a start its in the Tersus 9 star cluster, the sky is a strong blue and is almost completly covered in water.--MrBiz5 20:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the planet we call Earth is the third planet from our sun. The Paradise planet is the third planet from its sun, because it's the same planet as our Earth! In the series, the planet they call Earth is the second planet from its sun. Their Earth has no axial tilt. Their Earth does not have most of its surface covered in water. Their Earth does not have 365 days in its year.

Paradise is in the Tersus 9 star cluster in their nomenclature. The planet they call 'Earth' is their original home. It isn't the planet that we call Earth. That's the whole point of series 1. All along Follett has been making you think that the series is set in the future of our Earth, then when you get to the end of the series you realise (or you're supposed to realise) that the Earth they've been talking about isn't our Earth, and the Paradise planet that was mentioned right back in the first episode is actually what we call Earth. That's the twist, and the whole point.

That's why you have all that biblical stuff with the apple leading to their loss of innocence. That's why series 2 kicks off with a flood, and they have to load the animals into the shuttle two-by-two.

--DudeGalea 22:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

'Tersus 9' "Paradise is in the Tersus 9 star cluster in their nomenclature." A minor problem being that the Solar System isn't now (and hasn't been in the hindsight-able past) in anything that would be called a star cluster. Which is something you can forgive in a SF story written in the 1970s. AKarley (talk) 02:22, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I do indeed see what you are saying, however the entry in the article looks like you are saying that the earth in "planetfall" is paradise, it appears you are saying they went back in time to their earth. However i do feel that as most of that is more inferred, it should be under another heading as its not a plot element. it could make for a nice sub-heading.

Is this therefore written about more in the book? --MrBiz5 23:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite follow the reasoning you give (re. the article implying that the Earth in Planetfall is Paradise, and the bit about backward in time). However, I do agree that the use of the term 'Earth' is a bit confusing. Then again, it is supposed to be confusing in the play itself, because Follett is trying to make you think they're talking about the Earth we know.

If you look carefully, you'll see that the term 'Earth' isn't wikilinked to our Earth until the article is actually talking about our Earth. It's subtle. Likewise for the 'solar system' link; the first mention of "Earth's solar system" isn't ours.

I see what you mean about this element of the plot being inferred. Yes, it is inferred, but remember that the characters in the play can't explicitly tell us "Ah this Paradise planet is what the listeners will know as Earth". All they can do is observe features of our Earth (and the solar system) to make it obvious to us what they're talking about. If you haven't already worked out what's going on by Episode 9, then Episode 10 lays it on pretty thick. It's pretty much one thing after another saying "Paradise is your Earth! Paradise is your Earth!". Apart from the stuff mentioned above, the number of planets in the solar system, the ringed planet (that we call Saturn), the heavily cratered moon, the Northern lights (though again, they can't actually call them that from their perspective).

In addition, note that throughout the series, there's no mention of any countries or people that we know of. No-one calls their language "English", no-one refers to the Roman empire or anything else that we consider historical. Everything is carefully written vaguely (e.g. "You speak our language"). But there are clues sprinkled throughout the series (e.g. when Sharna mentions early on that Earth is the second planet from the sun).

So although it is technically an inference, I think it's hard to argue that Follett is saying anything other than "Paradise is our Earth". It's not really a matter of interpretation.

If you're interested, Follett did actually make one slip-up in episode 2. It's a bit subtle, but one of the characters says something that exactly matches our history rather than their history. It's either the author's mistake, or supposed to be a huge coincidence between 'Earth' and 'Paradise'!

--DudeGalea 06:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep i noticed that bit from episode 2. I see how paradise is our earth in the past, However a feel the the elements that show this such as the Northern Lights, The ammount of water, the red planet mentioned by angel one being mars and the bibical links should perhaps be metioned in more detail under the plot, maybe as a sub-heading, this would help the article a great deal. I apoligize for my edits. I didn't quite see what you were getting at in article--MrBiz5 23:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I can't take credit for the article! Someone else wrote it (though I've tweaked it along the way, as have others).

Yes, I think maybe those things should be mentioned in a sub-heading. Definitely the fact that Paradise is our Earth should remain in the plot summary, as it's a really important aspect of the plot. But a collection of the clues and biblical references would be quite nice.

Oh, and no need to apologise for edits. That's what wikipedia is all about. Be bold!

--DudeGalea 06:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Ever thought the planet we know as Mercury may have been destroyed/thrown out of orbit by the sun going nova? Also, in Mindwarp, they talk about a blue dome (and that is the planet that Challenger set out from), with lots of water, which sounds pretty much like our Earth. Kyros sounds like Mars. I'm pretty certain that what they call Earth, is the same as our Earth and Paradise is an Earth-type planet somewhere else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.197.109.193 (talk) 22:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

No, that doesn't make sense. Remember that the story is set 4,000,000 years ago (as confirmed on the blurb of the second novel). It's very very clear that Earth in the story is not our Earth, and Paradise is our Earth. The Earth that they came from did not have anywhere near as much water as our Earth, it had no axial tilt, it did not experience aurorae, their solar system had fewer gas giants, and they did not have a gas giant with rings. Paradise, on the other hand, matches our Earth perfectly; it has 365 days in the year, it has the same axial tilt as our Earth, it has aurorae caused by the solar wind like our Earth, the Paradise solar system has the same number of planets as our Earth, and the Paradise solar system includes a ringed gas giant like our Saturn.

You are, of coruse, welcome to believe anything you like about the story, but you need to construct an extremely convoluted tale in order to make their Earth match our Earth. It's much, much easier to go along with what Follett clearly intended. --dudegalea (talk) 17:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge?

Currently we have separate articles for the two programmes (Earthsearch and Earthsearch II) with the original cast. However, the info boxes talk about two series which might suggest we should have one article which covers both series?--Peter cohen (talk) 12:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree - the introduction, info box, cast and engineering sections are essentially the same, with only the story section being different. 米 (talk) 10:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, who's gonna do it?--RicHard-59 (talk) 03:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)