There is an uneasy peace between the militant nation of Mars and the United Nations (Earth), while both these “inner” powers are pitted against the scattered Belters of the asteroids and moons, whose terrorist-like factions fight for the people they ostensibly represent. The social background of The Expanse, which initially plays out in the solar system, sees humanity more divided than at perhaps any other time in history.
THE EXPANSE SEASON 4 SERIES
Evolving technology in Corey’s imagined future means that humans have settled Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of the outer solar system, but none of this means humans themselves have evolved-and this is a central theme in the series itself. Corey (the combined pseudonym of Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank) and now a television series of the same title, fits very much into this trend. The Expanse, first a book series by James S. Epic science fiction today more often imagines that technology will continue to develop and horizons will recede, but people will more or less remain the same. Most science fiction, for better or worse, has given up on Rodenberry’s optimism.
Of course, later iterations of Star Trek undermined this idealization in lots of interesting ways, and it looks like Star Trek: Picard will be another step in this process. In Star Trek, humanity had transcended poverty and racial or nationalistic divides to become a utopian civilization of explorers. Gene Rodenberry gave us perhaps the best treatment of this myth (which, to be fair, was for him a genuine hope) in the first two series of the Star Trek franchise: a future where human society had developed socially hand-in-hand with technological and scientific progress. There are certain myths that recur in science fiction, and one of these is the myth of the progress or social evolution of humanity.
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