Poli Sci Professor Breaks Down For All Mankind (Season 5, Episode 6) | No Sudden Moves

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]The decision is made by the insurgents to not transport any more iridium back to Earth. So here you have a smaller power cutting off exports of a strategically essential fuel back to the the larger world economy. It's hard not to see analogies to what's going on in our world at this time. We might say that the Martians have closed the Strait of Mars. I'm Professor [music] Steven Dyson and I'm a political scientist who has just watched episode 6 of season 5 of For All Mankind. The episode is called No Sudden Moves. I'm here to give my instant reactions and analysis to this episode focusing largely on the political themes and historical analogies that have been alluded to in the episode as well as giving some sort of appreciation of the narrative and the the work of drama. I'm flying solo this week. My usual co-host Professor Dudas is away and so I'd really appreciate this week if you could help me out in the comments with your own thoughts, critique what I'm going to say here and give me your own interpretations. That would be a big help this week. So this episode centers around the Martian insurgency which has now progressed in response to the violent suppression of last week's riot.

[00:01:09]It's now progressed to taking over the Moxie, the control center of Happy Valley and there's then a question of how far do the insurgents want to push things? You have a a set of kind of extremist sort of points of view. They want to push things to an absolute maximum in terms of taking over control and using violence. And then you have a more moderate faction that's represented largely by Miles Dale and then led by the Martian peacekeepers Celia that seeks to kind of mediate between the the various factions, the remote arm of Earth control and the more radicalized insurgency there on Mars. It's very interesting that Miles's wife says to him, "You have to go and get involved in this because what she calls the anarchists will trust you." When of course we know that Miles has a somewhat compromised history as a revolutionary.

[00:01:56]I think I maybe don't mean compromised.

[00:01:58]I mean that he has played in the past and is again playing in this situation the role of something of a centrist. And I think this just shows something of the show's ideology where the centrists are largely the heroes. I'm often reminded of this show by something like The West Wing in which a small group of centrists were kind of seen able to technocratically solve all sorts of political problems and sort of bring people together and move the country forward. And I think the show shares a lot of DNA politically with The West Wing. And so Miles and Celia insert themselves into this situation on the Moxie and act as kind of the centrists who are going to try and mediate a solution. Of course the reason why a solution has to be mediated goes to the events of last week and the very violent response of at least a large section of the Martian peacekeepers to the protests on Mars. And that really indicated another long-running theme or at least running throughout this season political theme of the show which is Happy Valley is in this sort of liminal political space. It's a settlement on Mars that has people who still owe some sort of allegiance or at least have some sort of identity. They have at least come from different countries on Earth and so they have still that kind of background. But they also are increasingly, and this is very much a story of the season, seeing themselves as Martian citizens and wanting the rights, wanting to negotiate the rights that would go along with citizenry of a different entity entity than the one that they came from. But of course they operate under the Mars Charter which is referred to in this episode as bestowing some rights and of course crucially limiting other rights.

[00:03:32]And because they're in this liminal space, they're kind of watched over by a sheriff and a governor. It's not clear how these people are are selected. It certainly doesn't seem that they were elected. And the rights that they sort of guarantee for the the citizens of Happy Valley are contingent and can be taken away. And that's shown when the the Martian peacekeepers fairly readily resort to violence and as is explained in this episode, there's an argument with one one peacekeeper against the other where it's said that the the peacekeepers were actually starting to turn on each other when some of them wouldn't go to the violent extremes of others. There were splits even within the peacekeepers. And so we're just reminded this is a fairly contingent political and legal space in which whatever rights the people have are sort of up for debate, not really guaranteed.

[00:04:17]And that's a big part of the demands that are made by the insurgency in this episode. They want to negotiate an end to automation, so a practical economic demand. But they also want to negotiate a permanent elected representation on the M7 Council and believing that this would allow them to codify and guarantee their rights and safeguard themselves going forward. It would at least put them on a more permanent and perhaps equitable legal and political footing. I do think there were some fairly delicious scenes in the hostage situation that was going on in the Moxie that highlighted the strange role that Polyvanov, the governor, and Morozova, the KGB security operative, are playing in this situation. Polyvanov of course is from a Soviet Union which in this timeline is economically much more prosperous. Well, it still exists. That's one change. It's economically much more prosperous than the late Soviet Union in our timeline and it hasn't collapsed. But it also hasn't become democratic and liberal in a way that some political science theorists theories would predict. You know, as as a country becomes more wealthy, the argument tends to be that it becomes more liberal and more democratic and more free. It has more of a sustained middle class that start demanding their own rights. And it's therefore likely to become democratic and unlikely to backslide into authoritarianism. And that hasn't happened in the Soviet Union. And so Polyvanov I've always found a really fascinating figure cuz he's sent off to this obviously pre-revolutionary and perhaps now actually revolutionary situation as the governor of Mars. He has that right of course because the Soviet Union and the United States have started to work together to mine the iridium. And so I presume they kind of rotate who who selects the governor of Mars. And he goes into this situation and he brings into it a lot of Soviet authoritarian characteristics. He says at one point to the insurgents in last night's episode that they would be I think hung for treason if they'd done this within the Soviet Union.

[00:06:11]But he's also, you know, a guy who wears a suit and who was shown in recent episodes sort of on a democratic walkabout trying to meet his people asking them where they're from.

[00:06:22]And he's clearly not just a KGB thug or a pure authoritarian. And I I did wonder and do wonder what Polyvanov Polyvanov's arc is going to be and whether one thing that's going to happen is he's going to be changed by his experiences on Mars and maybe have a liberalizing experience himself and take that back into the Soviet Union. I have to say though I'm a little more bearish on that outcome after this episode in which he does seem to not not be falling into sympathy with the insurgents, falling back on sort of Soviet authoritarian habits of mind. And I I really wonder whether his arc is not going to end more tragically after having seen what we did see in this week's episode. Morozova I thought was just fascinating in this episode. She watches Polyvanov, this politician in a suit, who from her standpoint should know better than trying to placate or negotiate with terrorists. She clearly thought whatever man of the people instincts that he'd shown in his role so far were just shows of weakness. He probably brought upon this situation himself. And as as he's trying to make connections with the insurgents and negotiate with them a little bit, she has these delicious little smiles that play across her lips where she's clearly thinking, "You fool.

[00:07:31]This just isn't going to work and I have a KGB playbook here that we'd really be much better off if we employed that and stopped trying to play Mr. Nice Guy." We then get to the way that this news is received on Earth. And here we have one of For All Mankind's patented callbacks or references to events that happened in our world that are changed or given a twist when they happen in the For All Mankind timeline. President Bragg is informed by what I think we can assume is his chief of staff that there's been a terrorist attack on Mars. And this is I think fairly evidently a callback to the famous footage of President George W.

[00:08:08]Bush being informed of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If you remember, he was reading in an in an elementary school. He was reading to children and Andy Card, his chief of staff, comes across and whispers in his ear that, you know, "Sir, America is under attack."

[00:08:21]And George W. Bush, and he was criticized for this at at the time, stared off and, you know, looked contemplative. I think in Bush's defense he said, "What was I supposed to do?

[00:08:30]Kind of jump up and down in a room of children screaming terrorist attack?"

[00:08:34]You know, what what would that have achieved? But clearly that footage of Bragg being told there's a terrorist there's been a terrorist attack, what he believes or refers to as a terrorist attack on Mars, was a callback to that 9/11 moment. And then he does very sort of George W. Bush type things in response. He says, "We will not negotiate with terrorists." I think it's clear from the orders that Avery Stevens receives at the end of the episode which says sort of go back to barracks that that what we've long thought is going to happen is in fact going to happen that her Marine unit is going to be dispatched dispatched to Mars to solve this situation or to to try and storm the storm Happy Valley and bring it back under Earth control.

[00:09:15]This was This is something the show does a lot, take an event in our timeline that happened in a at approximately the same time in the For All Mankind timeline and give it a different twist.

[00:09:25]And usually give it a better twist. I mean, I remain of the view that this is a show that is largely utopian. If we if we define utopia as the constant search for a for a better tomorrow and the belief that changes can indeed be made.

[00:09:37]And they may not produce a perfect world, but they can produce a markedly better world. Human action can produce this. I think that's what's going on in this show just on a on a macro level.

[00:09:46]And so 9/11 in our timeline is obviously a horrific attack of of mass murder that leads to hugely violent and terrible outcomes.

[00:09:57]In this timeline that it it there is a massacre, people are killed, but it's not on the scale that 9/11 was in our timeline. And it's largely a a sort of economic and rights dispute. It's not perhaps suffused with the millenarian or apocalyptic ideological clashes that 9/11 was in our timeline. It's a a a milder form of terrorism, I guess, if it's even terrorism at all. There is, of course, the the very famous old cliche of one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter in the the Martians are referred to by Bragg as terrorists. I think they see themselves as fighting for their own future and their own rights and see themselves as entitled to the to those rights and that future. There's also, I think, a much less deliberate or much more inadvertent analogy that's been made to our timeline in the way that the the Mazies and Earth responds to the new situation because what we have is, once the the Moxi is seized, the decision is made by the insurgents to not transport any more iridium back to Earth. So, here you have a smaller power responding to what they see as a as an act of unprovoked violence by cutting off exports of a strategically essential fuel back to the the sort of larger world economy. It's hard not to see analogies to what's going on in our world at this time. We might say that the Martians have closed the Strait of Mars. And again, I think this is an inadvertent analogy, but there are some echoes in the way that President Bragg responds to the the Mazies closing the Strait of Mars. He imposes a counter blockade. He said in he says, "In that case, we will not send you any food, send you any shipment, send you any aid.

[00:11:40]You'll have to survive on your own without your home planet." So, you have blockade and counter blockade, and it's hard not to see what must be an inadvertent because this show was written, you know, a long time before the events of today, but it's hard not to see echoes in what's going on in our world. Of course, the problem in the For All Mankind situation is not dissimilar to the problem in our world, which is blockades and counter blockades are indirect weapons of war, and they take a long time to be successful. It's not like the Earth economy is going to immediately crash from a lack of shipments of iridium. At least I assume that's the case. There there will be reserves, and there'll be a capacity to kind of go on with a scarcer supply for at least a period of time, although eventually it will reach a tipping point. And likewise, I I imagine it's not the case that Mars instantly on day one finds itself unable to fend for itself without shipments from Earth. After all, one of the key geostrategic dynamics that's going to have to play out here, and this includes the sending of what I what I imagine is going to be the sending of Avery Stevens and her Marines is there's a there's a large distance between Earth and Mars.

[00:12:47]Apparently, in the For All Mankind timeline, it's it's 30 days difference.

[00:12:51]So, anyway, Mars was only getting was not getting it wasn't in a globalized economy where it's getting just-in-time shipments from Earth. They must surely have some sort of strategic reserve. The blockade and the counter blockade are likely to take a while before either side feels sufficient pain that they're going to have to come to some sort of settlement. And then I thought the other really interesting development was in Dev's story. Dev, who of course occupies this strange space on the show where he's is on the one hand this absolute genius tech utopian dreamer who seems to be very sort of altruistic, very other-oriented, very democratic in his in his sensibilities, but but always sort of just beneath the surface or the the darker side of Dev is a more authoritarian or elitist point of view or stance.

[00:13:38]And Dev kind of goes off to try and solve the situation on his own and tries to get to Medbay to check on Alex Baldwin.

[00:13:48]And he runs into a gang of the insurgents who do not regard him as the great benevolent tech genius Dev who's trying to build, you know, heaven on not heaven on Earth, heaven on Mars for the common people, but regard him as, candidly, one of the villains. He He is, after all, someone who seems to be totally complicit in the automation push, which is at the heart of the the complaints of the Mazies. And they beat him up. And then we're we're seen in the in the I think the very last shot of the episode with Dev going back into his his Helios sort of bunker, his Helios workspace, and saying, "Lock the doors."

[00:14:24]And I do wonder what it is that Dev has planned, whether this whether being beaten up, actually meeting the the views of the people head-on, you know, boot on head, I guess, would be another way to put it, is not going to tip him over into a a darker approach to dealing with people. Maybe an ever more full embrace of automation as a replacement for human labor, who he now sees as maybe the people who just kicked the the heck out of him.

[00:14:53]And I I wonder where Dev's going with this, where where Dev's arc is going to lead. I hope it's not going to lead to a fully dark timeline or a fully dark storyline for for Dev, because I do think that Dev has has importantly represented tech entrepreneurs in our world, and I think it's important that we understand that they are people who are pulled in different directions. They're simultaneously utopians and techno-optimists, but many of them are also driven by fairly recognizable profit motives, and their actions in our world are likely to be highly risky for the ordinary person or at least require some sort of mitigation for in terms of their impact on the ordinary person. And I do hope that that the show finds its way to giving Dev a positive influence in their world rather than a negative influence, because I think we need some examples of that to draw some inspiration from. Okay, so those are my basic thoughts on the episode. I did want to spend just a couple minutes at the end of the video responding to some comments on last week's video. We got a lot of comments last week, and they were really really high quality. We really do appreciate them. We respond to all the comments in the comment section, and sometimes I like to respond to them on the video as well. Steven YW9SN said last week that the show has no imagination now. Not enough space exploration. They need to get to Titan next episode or I'm out. Steven, I'm afraid they didn't get to Titan, although we did see the Sojourner crew.

[00:16:17]I hope you will continue to to watch the show, though. I want to see them stand on the beach of one of Titan's seas or find life on it, preferably more than just microscopic life. It would be nice to see some exotic methane-based life forms living there. I hope they get back to the sci-fi. This, I think, is a really interesting comment in the one of the things that's happened in the evolution of the show over many seasons is the sheer thrill ride of perilous space exploration has become less central to what the show's do doing, and it has become more and more like a political drama in terms of its ideas and something of a soap opera in terms of the dramatic representation of the characters' lives. And in in one sense, that's dramatically difficult, and I do know there are a fair number of people who yearn for a return to the hard sci-fi elements of the show's earlier.

[00:17:07]In another sense, and I do admire the show for this, it's consistent with the show's portrayal of its world in which quote-unquote normal space exploration simply is less hazardous and more routine. That's the story the show is telling, and I do think it is important that that they explore the political implications of what multiple societies spread out beyond the Earth would start to look like as they are doing with with Mars.

[00:17:31]But I I certainly hear you, Steven, that lots of people feel that way, that that they would like to see more perilous sci-fi. I think we are going to get that from the Titan arc in the end of this season. Godecki Michelle's_72 writes, I think this is about Governor Plevenov. For him, Mars was just a stepping stone, basically a job he needed to check mark for his career to advance, and that is how he treated it as business as usual.

[00:17:56]I do think that's an interesting perspective on the governor, and more broadly, this question of the Soviet Union within the show's ideological structure is a very important one, and I do hope they're going to continue it because this anomaly from in political science terms of a a society that's so rich not liberalizing in any way, I think is a super cute focus of the show, and I I'd like to see them do more with it. I think when they started doing this with the Soviet Union, I was a little unsure about it. I did think it would be I thought it would be more in line with what the show was trying to say if the Soviet Union had simply followed a a linear, more small-L liberal in terms of like liberal democratic rather than liberal liberal in terms of partisan political American ideology. A more small-L liberal trajectory would have been a more natural path for the Soviet Union to follow given what the show was about. I I now increasingly think that it's a it's a super fascinating aspect of the show that the Soviet Union hasn't done that, and I'd like to hear more about it, and I'd like for Plevenov to be a vector or a vehicle by which we do learn more about the Soviet Union because this idea of increasing technological capacity and increasing local wealth in the Soviet Union and gross wealth in terms of human prosperity not leading to a shift away from authoritarianism is an important message and a message that strikes increasingly urgently in our own situation here on Earth.

[00:19:27]I'm very interested in Star City for that reason. I do think it it will be it would be good to see that show explore the social and political structures of the Soviet Union in something more than a kind of cartoon cartoonish authoritarian way. I I thought Margo's storyline in the Soviet Union in in season four was a little disappointing in that it just showed the Soviet Union as this bleak and drab authoritarian state.

[00:19:51]And actually seeing a invigorated Soviet Union with a more pluralistic set of ideas for how to organize itself would be interesting. I hope there's something of that in Star City. It's not just kind of a KGB spy fest and sort of torture fest. And and in the in the last couple of seasons of For All Mankind, I hope that Polivnov is not a character that meets a meets a negative end necessarily and we do see his storyline develop and him sent back to Earth. As I said earlier in the video though, I'm increasingly skeptical that that he's going to meet anything other than a sticky end. And then finally we had a comment from Rezahead9489.

[00:20:25]This is the comment, I dislike irrationality. They I believe he's talking about the Mar- Martian insurgents. They don't have specific information only that Mars will have more automation.

[00:20:36]First of all, it's the only viable long-term strategy. If humans were to carry out Dev's plan, it would take decades. Secondly, there would most probably still be opportunities to work and who thought that starting a riot in a really limited space would be a good idea. I think the last point we can all agree with. Starting a riot under all circumstances is probably not a good idea and in that limited space certainly not a good idea and it hasn't had happy consequences so far. It is true that the there was a very quick jump from finding out that the plan was to automate a lot of what was going on in Mars into an immediate sort of insurgency. And I think that's because Happy Valley had really been a tinderbox for a long time before that plan came out and it's very much a straw camel's back scenario rather than a zero to 100 in terms of aggression scenario once that that information dropped. It was very much the last the last straw for for the putative insurgents.

[00:21:31]It's the only viable long-term strategy.

[00:21:32]I believe that's that's probably true that robotics would have to play a very significant role in human attempts to colonize Mars or anywhere else in space.

[00:21:44]I think here we can cut the show a little bit of slack and say that the the threat of automation is is very a very particular ideological threat to what the show is trying to say about humanism and the centrality of humans to the future and the importance that we're not replaced by technology, that technology serves us and not the other way around. But I agree with you in practical terms that robotics would almost certainly be playing a larger role in this world in practical terms than we're actually seeing on screen. If humans were to carry out Dev's plan, it would take decades. Agreed. There would still probably up be opportunities to work. This I think is a is a super interesting point and it strikes as strikes at the heart of some dilemmas that are happening in our own world.

[00:22:25]There was in the New York Times yesterday a long essay from a Silicon Valley reporter who said that every who says that everyone she talks to in Silicon Valley workers and tech titans and so forth all agree that the median person is screwed by AI in the in the short and medium term. I think that the article was titled something like Silicon Valley is is bracing for a permanent underclass.

[00:22:48]And this is a a fear that you hear expressed a lot. I obviously I teach college students and they're all graduating being unsure about what the job market is. And you can say humans [snorts] have always responded our economies have all respond always responded to technological change by finding different opportunities to work.

[00:23:05]And that has largely been true historically, but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily true in the short term.

[00:23:10]Doesn't mean that many people who hit the economy at critical points without quite the skills to cope with the new transition find themselves as well off as they would be if the transition hadn't happened at all. And it's genuinely a a scary project. So I I sort of understand what the what the Marsis are saying even if I do think that the show wanted to tell a story of a Martian revolution and this automation kindling was was a convenient plot device to get the revolution going. I agree with you that robotics in practical terms would probably be more in more embroiled in human space endeavors if they were to look like they're looking in the For All Mankind timeline.

[00:23:50]Okay, so thank you for sticking with me.

[00:23:53]If you do have comments, I'd really love to hear them. They'd be especially important to me this week as I said because I'm I'm sort of on my own in trying to analyze this episode. But on that bombshell,