After a close brush with death before Amazon swooped in to save it, The Expanse is officially back for a fourth season in December. Which means that if you’re not already obsessed with the space opera that blends interplanetary politicking and battles with alien monsters, you’ve got a few months to catch up. But it’s not just science fiction fans who can find a lot to love in this show—so can anyone concerned with the habitability of humanity’s homeworld.
(Today we learned that ‘The Expanse’ Renewed for Season 5 at Amazon.)
A couple of months ago I read about Amazon saving the show . Discovering that the three completed seasons are available on Amazon Prime, we started watching with Season 2, as we had seen season 1. IMHO it is the best scifi show produced in this decade. If nothing else, for a TV show the effects are superb. Perhaps season 1 isn't as predictive about the long term complex strength of the show ... or maybe it is and I didn't fully understand.
It is complicated. The article linked above might be the best place to start if you have never seen the show as it gives a good overview. I must note that if you're idea of good science fiction is doing battle with alien monsters, the article uses the term "Alien-esque horror elements" which is a more accurate description of a science-gone-wrong element, the kind of science-gone-wrong thing we know will be inevitable from fiddling with genetics.
Today in real life we have three American billionaires fiddling with space exploration: Elon Musk and his Spacex, Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin. The Expanse offers a view of just how difficult achieving their dreams are and what all could go wrong over a long period of human interplanetary living.
I can only speculate, but I wonder if Amazon saved the series because, as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos explained in May, he is in the space business because of a dream per this article in The New York Times Jeff Bezos Unveils Blue Origin’s Vision for Space, and a Moon Lander:
In a carefully choreographed event akin to an announcement of a new iPhone, Jeffrey P. Bezos unveiled a moon lander.
Mr. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns Blue Origin, a rocket company. In a convention center ballroom here, Mr. Bezos described on Thursday a dreamy, ambitious vision of the future: a trillion people in space, living not on moons or planets, but bucolic space colonies in a style originally envisioned by a Princeton physicist, Gerard K. O’Neill.
“This would be an incredible civilization,” Mr. Bezos said.
The space colonies would be built by future generations. Mr. Bezos said what he and others today can do is start building the infrastructure. In the short-term, that includes a lunar lander, Blue Moon, a sleek vehicle that became visible as a curtain in front was yanked away.
Mr. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns Blue Origin, a rocket company. In a convention center ballroom here, Mr. Bezos described on Thursday a dreamy, ambitious vision of the future: a trillion people in space, living not on moons or planets, but bucolic space colonies in a style originally envisioned by a Princeton physicist, Gerard K. O’Neill.
“This would be an incredible civilization,” Mr. Bezos said.
The space colonies would be built by future generations. Mr. Bezos said what he and others today can do is start building the infrastructure. In the short-term, that includes a lunar lander, Blue Moon, a sleek vehicle that became visible as a curtain in front was yanked away.
What underlies The Expanse is the concept that human motivation and behavior will not change 200 years from now regardless of a desire to create "bucolic" space colonies as envisioned in Gerard O'Niell's 1974 article The Colonization of Space mentioned by Bezos. In the end, we humans will still be struggling over limited resources and struggling with our commitment to competitive enterprise sustained by the profit motive.
Or can a dedicated few bring about a revolutionary change within humankind?
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