[Army Air Corps]

In a previous Avatar article I discussed why it seems so foolish that a society which has space travel would need to go all the way to another solar system, even the nearest one, to mine resources just for civilization on Earth. There should be colonies on worlds in our Sol system, especially on various planetoids, which have their own societies and access to lots of untapped resources.

That would have removed the opportunity to portray western civilisation and capitalism as an all pervasive evil.

[paulycy]

That would have removed the opportunity to portray western civilisation and capitalism as an all pervasive evil.

Exactly. You can't tell a socialist story without deviating drastically from how real life is lived.