Fast forward 150 years into the future, and the vision of Earth that humans are faced with is in equal parts intriguing and terrifying - or so decrees new sci-fi series Intergalactic.
With police swapping cars for spacecraft as they patrol the skies and prisoners being transported away from Earth to far-flung colonies, the prospect is undeniably bleak.
And yet it's an intrinsic part of the allure of Sky One's latest space-based show.
Black Mirror actress Imogen Daines, who plays convicted cyber-hacker Verona says: "You've got the Common World - which is the Earth-based government, which is masquerading as a democracy but is, in fact, a dictatorship - and I think anyone living in America would just chime with that immediately.