History Repeating?
I hoped we were better than this, Captain Picard.
Thanks for reading another Friday story from Science-Fiction-Create. There’s also new content on my YouTube Channel. Please have a look at my latest video, The Mandalorian Gift Box Build! ~JRC
Approx. 660 words; three minutes read time
The real value of a good sci-fi show is not the futurist stuff. Instead, it's how the story illuminates human nature. What we can be under new and ever-challenging circumstances is what science fiction, at its best, is all about.
A great example of this is The Expanse. I recently started watching the fifth season, and I love it more than the previous four. This gritty, sci-fi space opera is in stark contrast to another favorite series of mine: Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). While the two shows are quite different, they both tackle the same drama that plagues humanity. And each offers a window into our future.
If we make it long enough to see it.
In a previous story, I shared why I am a huge fan of TNG. In this 1987-1994 CBS series, humanity has risen above many challenges that hindered generations before. Scarcity is a thing of the past, and humans explore self-realization rather than wealth accumulation. Alien cultures are the foil in TNG, instead of ourselves. Yes, it's a somewhat utopian (and unrealistic) view of tomorrow's humans. But it succeeds because the show portrays what we can be if we try and what obstacles might prevent us if we let them.
Compare this with The Expanse - a gritty true-to-now representation of us, set in the distant future. Somewhere around 2350, humans have colonized the solar system. Three dominant powers govern this vast realm: the United Nations of Earth and Luna (the moon), the Congressional Republic of Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance (the asteroid belt and moons of Jupiter and Saturn). While the landscape is new - stretching not across oceans but space - the struggles are the same. Powers vie for control while people eke out an existence amid the strife.
Unlike TNG, where humanity acts as one, The Expanse depicts humans as selfish and deceitful. Yes, people are the same-old a**holes in The Expanse. It's as if we didn't learn a thing in 250+ years. But that's the series' strength - it's a warning. A well-scripted and wildly entertaining warning, but one none-the-less.
All this sci-fi futurist theorizing has me thinking - will we grow up? Will we ever transcend the animal in us to become something more human, more god-like? Or are we doomed to repeat, over and over, the mistakes that plague our species?
Personally, I fear society will implode long before either version of the future - Star Trek or The Expanse - unfolds. We're too greedy. Too myopic. Too ready to side up and wall off the other.
But I hold out hope. My nature is optimistic, deep down. So I wait eagerly for humans to colonize the moon. And Mars. Perhaps within my lifetime, we will.
But I have serious doubts too. For it to all be possible, we must cooperate. And that seems ever less likely.
These musings aren't merely the wishes of a space-crazed middle-aged man (well, in part, they are). No, it's far more than that. It's about our continuation as a species. We need to move beyond Earth.
Survival is an odds game. And right now, all our bets are all on one.
Still think Earth is a safe bet? After 2020? Seriously?!
We've gotten a taste of what could go wrong. And this was just a taste. The longer we stay put here, the more likely all hell will break loose.
A colossal asteroid. A worldwide plague. Perhaps something worse than either. Whatever it is, it's coming.
We need options. We need more than one home. We need space.
But if we can't learn to act as one? Well, no Star Trek utopia. Not even The Expanse dystopia. Only certain demise.
Yes, history repeating. Until there is no more us to make it.
Until next time. Science. Fiction. Create [a future].
JRC