Has anyone seen or produced a separate map of Third Earth to what is commonly displayed on the web ( and the TC boardgame).
my problem with the present map is that it doesnt indicate a spherical world and doesnt include a lot of features like the White Pyramid, Tower of Omens, Darkside etc.
I dont think anyone has produced a map however that has been one of our ideas for quite some time. I think in the future we may end up producing one and who knows if we produce one we could even make it available for purchase. I for one would purchase a nice map in a heart beat
i suppose some cartographic software and some thorough knowledge of the series would be all thats needed to build something decent. I find it interesting that a property like LOTR has a well established, defined and celebrated geography while another fantasy like TC or MOTU has little apparent fan interest in the specific geography of the fantasy world itself. Maybe if i get timeā¦
I think ALOT of the geographical locations of Third Earth were pretty much covered on the show. Besides Third Earth is EARTH so we should know where everything is 
ok i suppose we would have to look at the history of Third-Earth since the fall of human civilisation, the rise of MummRa etc and wonder if magic (or time and plate tectonics) would make Third Earth land masses unrecognizable to us.
Or else Mumm-raās pyramid is based in Egypt/Ethiopia and most of the action takes place in Africa (where the Catās Lair, Berbil Village, Treetop forest etc would be) possibly making the river of dispair the Nile, and place Darkside in Europe/Asia (beyond the Alps/ Himalayas??)
I actually started a REAL map for a college project a while back that never went anywhere, based off REAL history and time distance from one place to another.
I need to dig up my rough draft as thats all Id probably have left.
That is not accurate; maps of both Eternia and Third Earth can be found online.
How about a linky?
yes, i know maps are available online. Iām just saying that there doesnāt seem as much fan interest in defining the geography of the aforementioned worlds to expand their respective mythos. For example, Their are a number of maps of the motu world, Eternia though there are none with all the locations of the series listed on them (at least the classic series).
Likewise there is a single map of Third Earth available online though the map itself could barely be called a world map as it is missing many locations presented in the show and isnt even spherical. I just find it odd that a property such as motu or tc has much fan interest invested in the characters, the vehicles and the playsets/hqās etc, but the world they exist in doesnt appear to be fully defined.
Middle Earth naturally was assisted by the conscious efforts of Tolkien to make his story the more gripping for the reader. I think that a greatly defined Third Earth would assist the TC community in such things as Roleplaying, fanfic, boardgames etc as well as strike a broader appeal to potential fans looking for a fantasy/scifi mixed genre with a bit of depth. Was there such a thing as a series bible that gave a definition to Third Earth? I guess having the time others or myself might help in clearing the insufficiency.
Imho, I think a spherical map would work against the cartoon, as in the series, if Lion-o was stuck on Hook Mountain for example, he would call the Thundercats and they would show up rather quickly. Now if you created a map that showed Hook Mountain was actually like 10,000+ miles away from Cats Lair, well, logic would work against your imagination.
Obviously Hook Mountain would have to be a great deal of a distance away from the Tree Top Forest for example, since it doesnāt go from amazon like conditions to freezing your ass off conditions that quickly.
Unlessā¦ we started getting into things like how the atmosphere of 3rd Earth had changed drastically from 1st and 2nd Earth, and then perhaps things would make more sense.
Normally I wouldnāt get involved in dicussions like this, since my typical philosphy is that in imaginary worlds, anything can happen and applying r/l scientific concepts is counter-intuitive. However in this instance the fact part of my degree was in cosmology I feel a driving desire to discuss this topic.
Ok, so what facts do we know about 3rd Earth. Well, it has the name Earth, however that dosnāt mean it is actaully Earth. It could potential just be the third planet to ever be named Earth, so that dosnāt actually make it Earth, just another planet named Earth.
What climates have we seen. Well, through the entirity of the show, we saw snow capped mountains (hook mountain), desert (black pyramid), open plains (quite alot actually), snowy landscapes (Ice Queen), swamps (plun-darr), jungle (the amazons) and quite a few others. So to summarise, weāve seen as many environments as there are in the real world, which does actaully suggest the planet is sphereical, the fact they have gravity means the planet should be spherical.
Quite well pointed out however is that in most episodes, the characters were never far from each other. Realistically, they were always way too close to one another, only in a few episodes did they ever actually have a proper time frame in play (the only episode that comes to mind at the moment, is the Technopeade episode with Turmagar and possibly queen of eight legs).
However this inconsistency can be slightly minimalised, in that mass is not proportional to size, so there is nothing to say that 3rd Earth is a class E planet (more than aware iām quoting Star Trek here, but unfortunatly their fictitious classification of planets is actually been taught these days as it works) like Earth. It could actually be a class A or B planet (making it less than 2000km in diameter or a circumference of 3905 miles, sounds alot but isnāt). Also, if we imagine that there is only one continent (a panjaea setup), then the Thundercats, berbils, mutants etc would be quite close to one another (but not exactly spitting distance) and in a vehicle like the mutant flyers or the Thunder-tank, covering distance wouldnāt be very hard. If the thundertank can do speeds of a modern day car, then at 60mph it would be able to drive around the equator of the planet in less than 65 hours.
Also just to be cheap, if we say that 3rd Earth is very dense, then thatās why it maintains a functional gravity field. Or to be really picky, we could just say that the sun in the solar system is much bigger than out sun, which would also increase the gravitational pull of the planet.
Not too sure what this post has acheived, but I feel better for actaully making a contribution.
Diegoā¦please post more like this, that was a very interesting point indeed. Perhaps with the discussions here you can come up with other thoughts as to what,where why and how of 3rd Earth
I guess the settlement of the question about the nature of the Third Earth is to ask what do we know of the planet and its history. Some points i came across;
In the first episode Third Earth is shown to orbit the sun (a sun described by Panthro as āpunyā) Its appearance is very like the Earth we know.
I read somewhere that Third Earth was originally First Earth until Mummra was reawakened and misled human civilisation into a nuclear war that created a dark age (2nd Earth). Mummra went to sleep until life returned to the Earth (Third Earth) Somewhere Mummra hinted that First Earth was a thousand years previous to that present date. Im not sure if this explanation is known or accepted by the majority of tc fans. Iād be interested in clarification.
a lot of the creatures appear to be Earthlike in origin, wasps, crabs, cats, etc (yep i know so does Thundera and Plundar). Also alot of the characters are distinctly from earth (ie hachiman, King Arthur etc.)
As Mummra was a product of magic i would suppose that the inhabitants and life on Third Earth were similarly influenced by magic perhaps allowing for the rapid evolution of many of the existing forms of life into more humanoid forms. Perhaps the fall of human civilisation caused by Mumm-ra ( presuming that is what happened) was preceded by mankindās discovery of advanced technology and off world colonisation (allowing on the one hand survivors like the Bezerkers, Dr. Dometome and the Warrior Maidens, and off-world visitors like Safari Joe and Mandora the Evil chaser. The Robear-berbills could then be an archaic survivor of human engineering from the First Earth although thats just my rough guess not knowing their background. )
As Mummra a magically reanimated Mummy maintained control of Third Earth until the Thundercats appeared, i think it would be fair to say that Third Earth (whether a separate planet or our own) could have a magically altered climate. This could account for the proximity of glaciers to forests though this may also be caused by elevation and or glaciation during this period in the planets history. The whole question of the glacier forest distance vs. time problem got me thinking that either the Thundercats vehicles are really quick (the earth itself, having a circumference of 40k km would indeed require a 10k km trip from equator to pole) or else Hook Mountain is just some snowy mountain on a continent closer to the equator.
Third Earth is described as possessing plains which in a real Earth equivalent might be referring to the continents of North America or Africa.) Mummraās Pyramid and its interior seem more remenisent of Egyptian Funerary culture then that of South America, suggesting if Third Earth is actually Earth then Mummraās Pyramid is situated in Africa and the location of Catās Lair near plains would likely place it near there as well. If that is the case then Hook Mountain might then be one of Africaās elevated peaks (If i had to choose iād say Mount Kenya) during a more glaciated period. But thats just my idea. Any thoughts?
There are some very good posts in here indeed. The subject is very interesting imho. Chris (He-Fan), has a good theory in this thread: http://www.thundercatslair.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2390
I would have to say that I support the theory that Third Earth is in fact our Earth due to the King Arthur episode. King Arthur obviously living in the 1st Earth days.
Also, there are many references to Earths past (some in the thread I linked), through out the series.
As far as the crab men, bulkans, Tuska, etcā¦ It would seem to indicate to me that evolution has taken place, and species have evolved in very different ways in order to sustain life on the new conditions of the planet during the 3rd Earth days.
I have to admit I have always been very intrigued by the Berbils. Who made them? How did they come to be? Do they make more of themselves? They are easily one of my favorite āgoodā 3rd Earthers.
Diego brings up a good point about 3rd earth being one big continent. It is very possible, just like on our planet that the continents used to be all together until they split up, that during either 2nd or 3rd earth, the continents, what ever was left of them, once again became one.
Right now my memory is lacking, but did any of the episodes after the Thundercats started traveling between new Thundera and 3rd Earth ever show the planet from space? It would be interesting to see if they drew continents on the planet, or just made it one big continent. Maybe I will go digging through my old Cartoon Network copies I made as I donāt have those episodes on DVD yet.
Wellā¦ Earthās continents wont form another singular, super continent for the next 250 million years, so supposing that Third Earth contains but mostly one continent, one might assume other forces at work.
The existing map of Third Earth possesses Forests of Enchanted Unicorns together with Forests of Gorgons and Manticores suggesting to me that on Third Earth (The Third Age of Earth) magic has played an important part in its ecological development. Of course these creatures might merely be animals who have through coincidence evolved to a high degree of similitude to those beasts of legend but i feel, given Mumm-raās nature and existence that these creatures (and many things on Third Earth besides, for example, a rapid continental drift and merging) are the product of some magical function.
Another point I thought up that supported the idea that third Earth is smaller than our Earth (whether it be our planet just smaller or another planet), is that when the Great Oceanic plug gets pulled (and I know there was never a time given till the oceons ran dry), but given the general sort of concern (indication they havnāt got much time) it would suggest that there is considerably less water on the planet than there is on ours.
Fact is, at the bottom of our oceons there are fissures that leak water into the molten crust, this loss is then balanced out by water brought up by volcanic streams. Simply put, for that fissure to be of any concern, the planet would have to be way smaller than ours and have a much lower percentage of water coverage than Earth.
As for human characters showing us that it is Earth. I really am going to have to contest this. Mummra seems to magically transport himself (indeed this could be time travel), but I saw it more as him teleporting himself to Albion, the āmagicalā worlds of King Arthur (his sort of slice of heaven). As for Haciman, dosnāt it get said in the second season that haciman comes from another planet? I seem to remember it happening in the episode where Lion-O and one of the others get trapped in a Jade Dragon figurine.
Anyway, just a little more input. Perhaps when iāve got the time and motivation iāll sit down and think about the science behind this all. Though the more stuff that getās discussed here (particularly facts from the show), will give me a better idea of how to go about this.
Chris hereā¦
Just as a note here - in our Animation Art Section here at TCL, we have large amounts of production and early concept material for the ThunderCats animated series, sourced and assembled by our own Animation Art guru, Mark a.k.a. Grizzlor! One of the most exciting pieces Mark has hosted is early pilot material for the series:
http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/animationart/production/pilot/index.html
Why this early pilot material is significant to the discussion in this thread is because it actually directly states that the ThunderCatsā spacecraft crash lands on Earth, and also states that the ship crash lands in the African jungle!!
Later on it actually talks about the ThunderCats settling on āThird Earthā - so, this is the closest thing we have to an official statement from the folks who worked on the cartoon that Third Earth was (at least originally) intended to be a future version of āourā Earth!
Take careā¦
Wow thats pretty much how i imagined it. Does this mean Hook Mountain is Mount Kenya or in Antartica? Interesting that the final map hasnt changed much from this early stage listed to the attached link.
Fair enough, iāll leave it at that then.