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[Hamish Grayson]

The Empyrean Age novel:

"EVE is the name of an ancient wormhole in the New Eden System" she explained, "It collapsed thousands of years ago, but not before our ancestors had already gone through. They were trapped here... cut off from their origins, a place we think they called 'Terra'. Whether that was one system or a cluster, nobody can say."

This is common enough knowledge for reasonably ordinary people (the character speaking is Gable, a Caldari medic) to know.

Detailed knowledge of Earth itself, I'd be a bit more sceptical about, as several groups were NOT from Earth (directly).

The ancestors of all the Athran ethnic groups (Amarr, Udorian, Khanid, Takmahl), came from Soekhiviti.
The ancestors of the Gallente ethnic group came from Tau Ceti, not France on Earth.
The ancestors of the Caldari were from an unspecified mega-corporation (quite possibly interstellar in nature).
The Yan Jung were from a Chinese-derived ethnic group of unspecified origin (Earth itself or intermediate).

This would tend to make for vague descriptions and half-remembered things very mixed together. Tau Ceti is a different colour of star from Sol, for example.

TonyG had never heard of the Caldari Tube child program until Svetlana brought it up to him at a fanfest.  What are the chance he bothered reading the relevant PF before he wrote that?

[Seriphyn]

* Seriphyn dies

[Crucifire]

We hardly have any idea what our own planet was like fifteen thousand years ago and we haven't even gone anywhere. Now fast forward that amount of time from our modern day, except we're in a completely different star cluster having just crawled out of another very long dark age. I have a hard time suspending my disbelief that anyone is going to have any sort of knowledge of Earth beyond truly ancient myths.

[Aria Jenneth]

TonyG had never heard of the Caldari Tube child program until Svetlana brought it up to him at a fanfest.  What are the chance he bothered reading the relevant PF before he wrote that?

Seconded, with a maximum of bitterness.

As someone who loves world-building and extrapolating based on what others have built, I have little time for writers who can't get their damn settings straight. Terry Pratchett, alongside any other author who disclaims consistency and, here's the key, is funny, gets a pass.

[Ken]

We hardly have any idea what our own planet was like fifteen thousand years ago and we haven't even gone anywhere.

Granted, but we do have archaeological evidence of human beings having existed for a very long time on this planet and potentially enough pieces of evidence to trace an evolutionary history of our species going back much farther than that.  That evidence tells us that we most likely didn't come to Earth from somewhere else and probably were not fashioned out of nothing at the whim of a passing deity.  In New Eden, there would be no equivalent archaeological record.

To some, the absence thereof and the presence of other advanced human societies at approximately the same level of technological development spread throughout the cluster would certainly lead many to conclude that humans in New Eden came from somewhere other than the planets they consider to be their homeworlds.  That place having yet to be conclusively found (although you can imagine a great parade of explorers who have throughout history claimed to have found it), what is so absurd in thinking that place may have been a single planet on the other side of the EVE gate?

I have a hard time suspending my disbelief when anyone claims to have any sort of hard, detailed knowledge of what human life was like 15,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean I won't appreciate the evidence of what life might have been like then and reason out a probable scenario.  In the case of New Eden, one such probable scenario is what they might call the "Earth theory" or the "Terran mythology": that everyone alive in the cluster is descended from people who came from somewhere else (probably from the same place or at least through the same route) a long time ago.  That notion does not necessarily suggest someone who believes it to be true has or could have details about what happened in that incredibly distant past.

A compelling counter theory that would likely be quite popular in Amarrian circles is that a passing deity did just happen to create all the peoples of New Eden out of whole cloth and plop them on their respective planets at the same time.  All the left over relic technology from way way back would then be gifts left by said deity to be discovered when his creations were ready for them.  I can imagine this idea, based on the same evidence as the "Earth theory" but resulting in a different conclusion, having a significant following and competing intellectually with the several other theories, the Earth one among them.

[DrizzCat]

Has any one Considered the Fact that the Jove may be an Idgenious Race and through their Playing God with their own genetic Structure have come to Resemble the Now Abundant Homo Sapien/Superiour Race that currently owns most of the cluster?

[Casiella]

DrizzCat, I think you might do some additional reading, as (barring a total retcon) I don't think that theory fits with what we know. And I certainly wouldn't claim it as a "fact".

[Rok-Yuni]

Hmmm... well, in TEA, there are references that the amarrian succession trials date back to 'when we were still chasing each other with sticks' ....

so either the amarr regressed a lot further than most before shooting back upwards and reaching space first... or it is entirely possible that the true nature of both the eve gate, and the origin of humanity has been lost to myth and legend.

the technological dark age humanity supposedly fell into after the gate collapsed lasted quite some time.

just my 2 bits...

[Rodj Blake]

People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.

[Akrasjel Lanate]

People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.

I approve that answer. 

[Kaito Haakkainen]

People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.

This. There are references all over the place from mentions of the Terran calendar, to origin theories, to the various pieces of PF that reference Terra. There's enough for the empires to piece together quite a bit but I'm of the opinion that people who focus too much on this kind of thing are either ridiculed or disappeared. Some things are better off left unknown or at least kept to a select few.

There are more references since TEA but it was already well established in the fiction that those in the know acknowledge Terra while the rest of the cluster prefer, possibly through pride and against all evidence, to treat it as a myth.

[Casiella]

Earth:New Eden::Olduvai Gorge:Earth

[Hamish Grayson]

Hmmm... well, in TEA, there are references that the amarrian succession trials date back to 'when we were still chasing each other with sticks' ....

so either the amarr regressed a lot further than most before shooting back upwards and reaching space first... or it is entirely possible that the true nature of both the eve gate, and the origin of humanity has been lost to myth and legend.

the technological dark age humanity supposedly fell into after the gate collapsed lasted quite some time.

just my 2 bits...

1)  TEA is not a credible source for anything IMO
2) All races collapsed back to the stone age.

[Ken]

2) All races collapsed back to the stone age.

The Jove apparently stuck it out in a somewhat better state.  It is possible that they retained detailed knowledge of human civilization from before the jump to New Eden and collapse of EVE.  This knowledge may have been lost or distorted severely during their various turmoils, of course.

In any case, the Earth connection predates TEA and TonyG's handling of the storyline and the retconning that has taken place since. 

[Kaito Haakkainen]

"Our Lord visited his flock and saw that all was not good.
Blasphemy and heresy ruled the land.
The Lord punished the sinners and drowned them in their own blood.
But the people of Amarr lived righteously and in fear of God.
Thus they were saved and became God's chosen."

Some races fared better than others it seems. It's possible the Conformists rejected technology rather than lost it, or did at some later point. This would better explain their long history of established civilization yet relatively low level of advancement. The Amarr have been cautious of technology, perhaps due to some lesson learned (or taught) in their past, and so their progress is generally slow, deliberate, and well planned.

That said there hasn't been much pressure to advance until the other races, with their shorter history of civilization but more energetic and less careful approach, caught them up.