There may be Beyond Earth, but there’s no beyond history. With 1999’s Alpha Centauri and last year’s Civilization: Beyond Earth, they complicate (and ground, literally) the happy ending of that story by reminding us that wherever we find ourselves in this vast galaxy, there will still be conflict, scarcity and struggle. What makes Firaxis’ (and Meier’s) output so interesting is that they aren’t content to leave the “escape to the stars” myth alone. Even if that means destroying our home in the process. Even if that means ignoring real, material problems. It is an empty ideology that assures us that if we just stay the course, we’ll be fine. And hey, don’t worry, the way to the stars is to double down on industry, technology, and (in our contemporary moment) the private sector.
The problem with this myth is that it promises us that in leaving Earth, we’ll escape our problems, too. And he is, of course, the science victory in Firaxis’ Sid Meier’s Civilization series: Build the space ship, set off into the stars, and leave the soil behind. He’s Zefram Cochrane, inventor of the warp drive in Star Trek: First Contact. He’s Mobile Suit Gundam’s Zeon Zum Deikun, with his philosophy of “spacenoid” supremacy. He’s Ray Kurzweil, with his dream of interstellar transhumanism.
“We’re not meant to save the world,” says Professor John Brand (Michael Caine) in Interstellar, “We’re meant to leave it.” Brand echoes dozens of other futurists, real and fictional. The universe is massive and it is ours to conquer. The myth normally goes like this: Things on our home planet get bad. I can’t think about Sid Meier’s Starships, Firaxis Games’ latest game of sci-fi strategy and tactics, without thinking of the modern myth of planetary escape.
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