Posting in this community as an example of the twisted thinking that we are up against. The longtermist astrotopia of the billionaires masquerades as utopia, whereas it is nothing but dystopia.

On the other hand, lunarpuk/solarpunk are true alternatives, true utopias.

I’m a big fan of space westerns, and I’ve been working on this solarpunk tabletop RPG. So I’ve been trying to envision what a solarpunk vision of space exploration looks like, and I had this idea that I’m very enamored with.

Within the narrative, Mars, Luna, and Earth orbit have permanent habitations founded by national space agencies and corporations with the same colonialist and nationalist tendencies in the 2030s, 40s, and 50s. And then there’s an orbital debris cascade that halts travel into space for over five years, and the rich are hastily trying to clear it to make their escape route. And while this is happening, the elite are concerned that the forced separation with Earth will cultivate an independence movement that will threaten their plans to escape a dying Earth. And the teeming poor on Earth are watching, wondering if the off-world settlements will welcome the escaping 1% or abandon Earth entirely. And instead, they embrace a new philosophy called “Thuthuka”: the belief that all life in the solar system relies on other life, no matter where it grows. No part of the biosphere is expendable, least of all the biggest, most diverse, and oldest: the Earth.

They don’t accommodate the rich OR establish independence, but instead declare their autonomy in order to pursue a new, interdependent model of Earth-centered anti-colonial expansion into the solar system.

I’m really looking forward to developing and releasing this. I’d like to draw inspiration from the technological style of the Expanse series, but set in the third generation of off-world habitation in a much more Star Trek-adjacent optimism.