We ’re in the middle of a huge boom in post - apocalyptic storytelling , including some ofthe most applaud novelsand some of the biggest media property . Will the apocalypse ever kibosh ? What could replace it ? Here ’s one idea : Instead of the apocalypse , maybe we can depart writing about colonise other worlds , which is much the same experience .
Almighty say that they require to write about life after an apocalypse , partly to see what happen to the great unwashed when all of the trappings of culture , and all our amazing creature comforts , are stripped by . A post - revelatory world contains the remnants of our post - industrial grandeur , and all of the cultural reference still apply , but in a peck of ways it ’s like a world that’sgone backward in fourth dimension , into a less civilized age .
At a certain point , though , all post - apocalyptic stories partake in a few characteristic in coarse , whether the end come from a pest or zombies or a natural tragedy . There ’s a certain severity , and a sad resignation that we were doomed to come aside one way or the other .

The good word is , a story of colonise another world can let in pretty much all of the material that you ’ll find in a post - apocalyptical story : 1 ) People who start in “ our ” near futurity , or their descendants , are finding themselves in a barren , inhospitable world . 2 ) Maybe there ’s some advanced technology that make out from Earth , but spare parts are go to be hard to come by , and when things smash they ’re gone for skilful . 3 ) The advanced , lucky living on Earth is just a memory , and instead , the colonist are going to have to rough out it . 4 ) Terraforming a new major planet , the intemperate style , is credibly going to have a good deal in uncouth with reclaiming Earth after a major disaster . 5 ) Everything that can go wrong , will go wrong , and all of the intimate assumption people made on Earth will get tossed out and trample on .
Already , we ’ve seen lots of stories aboutpeople allow Earth after some form of apocalypse or environmental collapse — most recently , Interstellar showed intergalactic geographic expedition as a response to a blight and dearth on Earth .
But chances are , even if Earth itself remains relatively felicitous and spirit - sustaining , people will still thread up trying to colonize other satellite . And even if we manage to reach an “ Earthlike ” planet with liquid H2O and a slightly breathable atmosphere , living on a unexampled planet is probably going to be fantastically hard for the first few generation of colonist . Quite possibly hard than life on Earth after a pest or globular holocaust — no matter what kind of applied science you assume these colonists have convey with them .

Scientists are already say that science fabrication ( and fabrication generally)hasn’t keep up with the massive pace of discovery of exoplanets recently .
indisputable , the main added challenge of an exoplanet colonization level is coming up with a plausible alien earthly concern that ’s not just a ringer of Earth . But that ’s probably not that much harder , in some ways , than imagining Earth after a nanotech Revelation or a drastic variety to our ecosystem . And with so much miscellany of worlds out there , create aplausible foreign human beings , or evena believable alien ecosystem , might not be that hard .
So for my money , the story of colonizing and terraforming a unexampled satellite , like Kim Stanley Robinson ’s Mars books or a few others , could be a unexampled way to search a band of the same idea that authors say they ’re get at in post - apocalyptic stories . Only , without quite the same feeling that humans are entirely destine to self - destruct .

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