I’ve been reading more of those “space operas” of American origin, because I had an impression that something important can be divined from it, and I was right; essentially, people write those stories as some kind of wish fulfilment or projection, trying to live out in fantasy what they can’t get in life. Sure, lots of that stuff looks as it was written by some AI, because my head would start hurting trying to process the illogical jumps between narratives and missing parts of the plot. However, the AI would work within the given parameters, and combine existing material, so my initial assumption applies.

The plot is always about a human male and an alien female. This, of course, translates as American male and non-American female. The man is always a competent, no-nonsense person, disillusioned by the world where the “higher-ups” work with immoral corporations to commit genocide and similar war crimes for profit, while ordinary people are sold the story about duty and country/species in order to keep them obedient and expendable. So, he has military background, active or former, and is currently either trying to have a peaceful solitary life in some outback, or is a smuggler, mercenary or a private security contractor; things you would expect from former military. Sometimes he’s an engineer within the military framework, or a combat medic.

At some point he encounters an alien woman in trouble. She is either a designated enemy, or an ally, but mostly treated with suspicion or derision by humans. The trouble varies; sometime she’s a member of allied forces who survived a nasty combat mission with damage to her enhanced armour, which needs delicate skill to repair because it’s either a precious heritage item or it’s bonded to her mind with complex biotechnology. Sometimes she’s a gravely injured soldier left to die by others on the battlefield. Sometimes she’s a refugee escaping some Avatar-like scenario where some corporation strip mined and poisoned her world and most natives died. Sometimes she’s a warrior princess of a hostile warrior-culture that has him fight in an arena as a gladiator, and she’s the last challenge, as the undefeated champion.

At first, he just goes about his business as usual, but soon something changes; he thinks about following procedure and leaving the paralysed alien woman half buried in rubble to die, because that’s the procedure. However, then something clicks and he says “no, not again”, thinking about all the cases where he followed orders against his conscience and had to either kill innocents or watch them die while doing nothing, and he sees this as an opportunity to finally do the right thing, and then proceeds to carry the wounded woman across the battlefield to safety, under enemy fire, periodically stopping to treat her injuries or give her pain medications, all the while talking to her to keep her conscious. As they talk, the woman turns out to be smart, mentally strong, dedicated and honourable; basically, a worthy person he develops actual feelings for, and she’s sincerely grateful to him for saving her life and taking care of her. Through their banter, they develop real feelings for each other.

Or it’s an arrogant alien warrior princess who fights him in a duel, which he somehow manages to win and ends up married to her due to some tradition. She initially hates the whole situation and feels humiliated, but as time goes on she understands that he’s actually a honourable and highly competent individual, and as they are forced to work together solving some deadly problem, they develop real feelings for each other.

The next phase is either an alien healing capsule that heals the wounded woman by transferring something from the man to her, which ends with them being mentally bonded/imprinted, Avatar way. Or it’s some ritual, or something. In any case, those two people who were already properly bonded get connected telepathically into a larger whole. One would expect this to be an uncommon plot twist, but it’s not – human man and alien woman being mentally connected seems to be a major trope in those stories.

However, while I was browsing through those stories on YouTube, I was offered both stories based on real life, as well as copy-paste material from Reddit where people report actual stuff, and that stuff is universally terrible, in a sense that it showcases the depth of human capacity for depravity, sin and betrayal. People treating family members with contempt and neglect, wives mocking husbands publicly, causing divorce. Wives whoring around while their husbands are in the military in mortal danger. Interestingly, it’s mostly women acting like spoiled brats on an ego trip, acting in profoundly disrespectful and dishonourable ways, and causing destruction of the family. Also, women complaining that men stopped dating them, stopped talking to them, stopped giving them attention, ignoring them while they are in danger, and stories where some piece of human trash rapes a woman in public transportation while nobody lifts a finger to help her.

And then it becomes obvious why men write escapist stories about an American man and a non-American woman, both from different cultures, but both honourable, smart, attentive, respectful and grateful, and eventually developing a profound spiritual connection with their minds and emotions intertwined completely in a larger whole.

Basically, people in the West are treating others like a commodity or a utility, they lack discipline, respect, honour and loyalty, and they fail to establish a true and permanent spiritual connection, women are spoiled brats who act like absolute garbage, and men feel betrayed, unseen, disrespected and alone.

This is more than just a series of fantasy tropes, it’s an indicator of a profound spiritual crisis of the whole Western society, and especially America. In one case, I’ve seen a woman ask why men are not dating women, instead staying at home playing video games. A man answered: it’s because video games got better, and women got worse.

This is not going to end well, because I don’t see how such profoundly destructive trends can be reversed, since everybody keeps defending the causes as if they are the cornerstone of everything that’s good about this civilisation. Not only is this going to end up getting the civilisation destroyed and getting everybody killed, it’s going to produce lots of souls with profoundly inverted system of values that will be a problem to remedy in the afterlife. In this sense, those silly space romances I’ve been reading are not only a good indicator of the profound societal issues, but also a good attempt of self-medication by people who were hurt by this liberal dystopia.