10 Things You Didn't Know About The Expanse

10. The Government

Like everything else, The Expanse treats its politics with a fair degree of realism. The U.N's near complete control of Earth is based in a believable history of political change.

The U.N was the original administrator for the Mars colonisation program, 200 years before the events of the show. Owning the research in terraforming technology that was developed on Mars allowed them to help stem the tide of climate change on Earth, saving its ecosystems from widespread collapse.

Though Earth remained an overcrowded, over-polluted powder keg, the U.N's role in saving it gave it unparalleled influence over its member states.

When relations with Mars broke down in the mid 23rd century with the formation of the Martian Congressional Republic, the U.N negotiated peace and even access to the technology of the Epstein drive, allowing it to expand even further across the solar system than before.

These advantages, which haven't overridden the nuances of power blocs, divisions and conflicts that still exist within the U.N, are the things that make it a believable one-world government more readily understandable than those found in other franchises.