Blog Review: The Expanse – A Model and a Mirror for Starbridge

Blog Review: The Expanse – A Model and a Mirror for Starbridge

Few science fiction works in the past two decades have achieved the cultural and technical resonance of The Expanse. Based on the novels by James S.A. Corey and brought to the screen by Syfy and later Amazon Prime, The Expanse is a masterclass in hard science fiction. The series’ rich world-building, realistic portrayal of physics, and social stratification across Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt provide a compelling framework for anyone designing future-facing narratives; including those of us building the universe of Starbridge.

 

Image Credit: The Expanse

Genre and Form: Sci-Fi Political Thriller with Hard Science Roots

At its core, The Expanse is a political thriller disguised as science fiction. Its genre blends interplanetary intrigue, socio-political commentary, and slow-burning mystery (much like Game of Thrones in space). The show uses realistic science such as accurate orbital mechanics, delayed communication between planets, and the real constraints of gravity to ground its drama in plausibility. This makes it a powerful vehicle for world-building, particularly for audiences who appreciate thoughtful, physics-aware storytelling.

From a blog and review genre standpoint, The Expanse excels in serialized storytelling, immersive visual world-building, and thematic density. It invites analysis in both form and content, with countless fan blogs, YouTube essays on its physics, and Reddit threads dedicated to lore deep-dives.

Image Credit: The Expanse

What It Does Well: World-Building and Sociopolitical Layers

The Expanse presents three dominant human cultures: Earthers, Martians, and Belters. Each is portrayed with unique histories, accents, technologies, and power struggles. Earth is overcrowded and politically sluggish. Mars, shaped by generations of terraforming ambition, has become a disciplined, militarized society. The Belters, miners and workers born in microgravity, form a fragile working class struggling for identity and autonomy.

This layered portrayal gives The Expanse a lived-in feeling. The cultural expressions like the Belter creole language or Martian patriotism aren’t just aesthetic choices; they reflect centuries of divergence under different planetary conditions. In this way, Starbridge takes inspiration from The Expanse, exploring similar socio-political divides across Earth (Terrans), Mars (Martians), and Venus (Venusians) but does so without the alien “protomolecule” element. Starbridge is a post-expansionist future where humanity, alone in the void, continues to evolve biologically, culturally, and technologically within the solar system.

Image Credit: The Expanse

What It Lacks: A Realistic Portrayal of Military Structures

One area where The Expanse falters is its depiction of military life and organization. While the show hints at Martian military prowess or Earth’s UN fleet command, it rarely dives into the internal structure of armed forces. We don’t get much about rank hierarchy, logistics, or doctrine. For viewers familiar with how military organizations function, this absence is noticeable.

Characters like Bobbie Draper are excellent individual portrayals, but we don’t see much of her squad dynamics, chain of command interaction, or how large-scale operations are actually coordinated. The writers clearly focus more on drama than technical accuracy when it comes to military conduct.

In contrast, Starbridge aims to remediate this. With input from real-world military doctrine and contemporary strategic theory, Starbridge features a more developed look into interplanetary defense forces which also take culture into account where military realism is built into the setting. Tactical hierarchies, chain of command, and even personnel dilemmas (such as long-term space deployment stress or political indoctrination) play an active role in the story.

Image Credit: Battlestar Galactica (left) and Firefly (right)

Recommendations for Fans of The Expanse

If you’re a fan of The Expanse and are looking for a future-facing science fiction universe that continues the tradition of grounded speculative storytelling, Starbridge may be worth your attention. It mirrors The Expanse in its commitment to physical realism and sociopolitical complexity while expanding on underexplored themes like military structure, bioengineering, and the ethics of terraforming.

Starbridge also draws inspiration from Firefly in its focus on character-driven drama and emotional storytelling, treating sci-fi more as a lived-in backdrop than a spectacle. Additionally, it takes cues from Battlestar Galactica in exploring how humanity organizes, fractures, and endures within a militarized and politically unstable cosmos. The result is a universe that feels both vast and personal — a spacefaring future grounded in human nature.

For a deeper dive into the science behind the show, check out Spacedock's Spin Gravity and Centrifuge Habs in Sci-Fi. It shows just how carefully the creators treated real-world physics, a model that Starbridge also follows in its world design.

In summary, The Expanse sets a high bar for what serialized science fiction can be. Its emphasis on realistic science and cultural evolution makes it an excellent source of inspiration and comparison. Yet its blind spots, particularly in military detail, open the door for other narratives to step in. Starbridge seeks to be one of those narratives, one that pays homage to The Expanse while charting its own path into the fractured, star-lit future of humanity.

References:

1. The Expanse. Created by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, performances by Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, and Shohreh Aghdashloo, Syfy, 2015–2018; Amazon Prime Video, 2019–2022.
2. THE EXPANSE Is the Most Scientifically Accurate TV Show. YouTube, uploaded by Because Science, 9 Aug. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgvI6RbkMnQ.
3. Space Combat in The Expanse. YouTube, uploaded by Spacedock, 14 Jan. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4vzoQm_xw.
4. Spin Gravity and Centrifuge Habs in Sci-fi. YouTube, uploaded by Spacedock, [Date], www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5vTvzlXKIg.
5. r/TheExpanse. Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/. Accessed 14 June 2025.