Is your sci-fi sufficiently progressive?

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“She worked on the New Terra Ships,” Icarus said, walking down the ramp. Thick goggles hung around zir neck, sweat dripping from zir hair, fresh from the workshop. A wry, distant sort of smile had spread across zir face. “She spent her whole life working on those ships, designing their hulls, fixing their lugnuts, running their simulators. She dreamed of humans finally and forever breaking free of the Earth and living up in space. Dreamed of helping us escape our doomed little world. She believed in New Terra.” Icarus walked over and stared at the picture with Europa. “Her life work was those ships.”


“They worked,” Europa said. “The New Terra Ships all launched.”


“Yes. The New Terra evacuations went off without a hitch. And do you know what happened to my great grandmother?” Icarus asked. “Who spent her whole life building them? She couldn’t afford a ticket on one.” The look of bitterness that rose up on Icarus’s face took Europa back. “They made you buy a ticket for salvation, and she couldn’t afford one. She stood out on her front porch and watched the last New Terra Evacuation Ships leave her behind on our doomed little world because the people who built those ships weren’t worth it to actually be on them.”