One vision of what can happen when humanity faces a catastrophic global crisis
As the title and photo above suggests, this post is inspired by a recent viewing of a pre-Covid TV series titled The Last Ship. Of all the world-crisis stories presenting potential dystopian global conditions, this series vision seems realistically possible. Although humanity managed to cope with and survive Covid 19, fears of a surging super-lethal virus remain. More worrisome is a concern that effective vaccines will not be developed in time to avoid significant numbers of fatalities.
Reviews of The Last Ship series are mostly favorable (IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes) and deemed “bingeworthy”. Strong points include depictions of naval combat and tactical military maneuvers, movie-scale action sequences, a committed large cast, and a high-stakes narrative.
As an observer attuned to socioecological topics, I found much in this series to like and appreciate—with one significant exception. There are no acknowledgments or references regarding the multiple global crises affecting all aspects of life on our planet, including the developing social-political and ecological conditions that contributed to the pandemic.
But more about this later—after introducing the storyline and variety of players. The next post (Part 2) will concentrate mostly on socio-ecological connections, that is, the relationship we humans have with the rest of the natural world.
The Plot
The Last Ship, a five-season American television drama based on William Brinkley’s novel, was presented by the cable Turner TV Network (TNT) from 2014 to 2018. The featured ship is the USS Nathan James, a fast, multi-mission, guided-missile U.S. Navy destroyer crewed by around 25-30 officers, 240+ sailors, and an air detachment consisting of one or two helicopters and 25-30 personnel. Also on board are two scientists participating in the vessel’s special Arctic mission.While the ship is at sea, an extraordinarily lethal virus sweeps across the globe. By the time the crew discovers the devastating degree of harm, more than four billion (over half) of humanity have reportedly died. The ship’s crew, with the expertise of two virologists, present one of a few existing possibilities for saving humanity, a vaccine developed based on their arctic-expedition findings.
Led by Captain Tom Chandler (actor Eric Dane), and virologist Dr. Rachel Scott (actor Rhona Mitra), the crew embarks on an increasingly desperate search for a vaccine. What begins primarily as a scientific mission gradually becomes something much larger: a struggle to preserve knowledge, maintain social order, protect survivors, confront competing groups, and eventually imagine how civilization itself might be rebuilt. The series combines wide-ranging strategies and measures, including military action, scientific discovery, political conflict, personal relationships, and moral choices, altogether presenting a potpourri of conditions, situations, and outcomes.
Viewers’ Responses
Critics have been divided about the series. Some have criticized its formulaic plots, conventional good-versus-evil storytelling, and heavy emphasis on military action. Others have praised its suspense, large-scale production, and ability to keep viewers engaged. Generally, the second season has received considerably stronger critical reviews than the first. From that point onward (episodes 3-5), the plot continues exploring the development and end of politically inspired scenarios created by would-be dictators seeking global power.
For me, The Last Ship can be appreciated for something beyond its entertainment value, with the narrative presenting a vivid envisioning experiment. For instance, consider the consequences should our complex technological civilization’s social and ecological foundations collapse suddenly, and half of the global population is lost?
Given this dire scenario, the ship and its crew can be viewed as a miniature civilization, a relatively small community possessing scientific knowledge, technology, food, energy, organizational structure, and disciplined leadership. While the surrounding human world continues collapsing, its heroic crew must repeatedly confront a series of tensions, notably between individual survival and collective responsibility; between military power and scientific knowledge; and between restoring the old order and creating something new.
Similarities of The Last Ship with Star Trek and Odyssey
In viewing The Last Ship, I’ve been impressed when discovering similar storyline themes found in the popular long-running popular Star Trek films and series. The Starship USS Enterprise, a gigantic spaceship operated by a capable, loyal crew and led by steadfast Captain James Kirk, dwarfs the USS Nathan James (see a 2:32m video). The Star Trek space-oriented mission has been succinctly stated as “Where no man has gone before”. (Yes, the mission would be more socially inclusive to replace “man” with “human”).
Another more relevant parallel narrative is presented in the Odyssey, a 7th-8th century BC epic poem by Greek poet Homer, who also created the Iliad, another epic poem. Recently, the historic Odyssey has been reimagined as The Odyssey, a modern-day action fantasy film by filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Although the film has received mixed reviews, it effectively introduces this fundamental ancient human story to a wide global audience.
The similarities and differences found within these three adventure stories are fascinating to contemplate. In The Last Ship humanity’s technological civilization has been violently interrupted by the pandemic and must struggle simply to survive. In Star Trek humanity has overcome many of its historical limitations, venturing outward into an abundant universe to explore and experience other worlds and civilizations. However, in Odyssey, a single human (Odysseus) must find his way through a dangerous world to eventually discover the true meaning of “home”.
Together these three works create a fascinating three-part question: 1) Whence did we come? 2) Where are we now? and 3) Where might we go?
The most profound analogy isn’t that the three stories involve ships, but more so the idea and goal of “homecoming”. And this brings us back to Odyssey. Odysseus spends years trying to return home, but the deeper meaning is that the home he returns to is not the same world he left. Likewise, if humanity passes through a genuine planetary crisis, we may discover that there is no going back to the twentieth-century version of “normal.” So, the future may require an altered conception of home.
This seems to be the reality facing humanity at this critical juncture in human history. The fundamental question is this: What and where is our home, the one the evolutionary process has created for us on Spaceship Earth? This seems to be the crux of our human predicament. Ever since the beginning of the Holocene epoch 11,700 years ago, we modern homo sapiens have increasingly become more separated from the evolutionary base in which we were nurtured for the 290,000-year existence prior to the Holocene.
In essence, The Last Ship series focuses on what happens if a single enormous crisis suddenly dismantles the institutional scaffolding of civilization. In this story—a compelling narrative presenting a series of protagonists, enemies, objectives and victories—it is a viral pandemic driving a struggle for survival that requires scientific discoveries, military protection, restoration of government, and rebuilding modern civilization. But, as we sense, the real-world predicament confronting humanity is much more complicated.
A pandemic could be only one wave in a much larger succession of disturbances, including nuclear warfare. In that instance, rather than serving as example of the future we should expect, The Last Ship could become a provocative piece of future mythology, a modern Odyssey that gets us partway through the journey and leaves us to imagine what kind of Ithaca we ought to build when we finally arrive home (a theme to be explored in Part 2).
At its deepest level, Odyssey is not simply about Odysseus getting back to Ithaca, but instead a story about dislocation, survival, temptation, loss, identity, leadership, and enduring a challenging return on the way to a changed home. The Last Ship modern series takes many of those same archetypal elements and puts them aboard a contemporary vessel: the USS Nathan James.
To highlight similarities and differences between the Odyssey and The Last Ship (TLS), consider the following:
· Personnel: The original Odyssey set out with 12 ships and around 600 men (crew, warriors), but only Odysseus returned home. TLS is crewed by Captain Chandler and a sizeable group of officers, crew, and two scientists.
· The Seas: The Odyssey’s sea is an unpredictable world. The oceans of TLS serve as refuge from a collapsing civilization.
· Monsters and Villains: Odyssey confronts non-human monsters, while TLS deals with villains seeking power and domination in controlling humankind.
· Destinations: Odyssey’s goal in to return to Ithaca, and TLS’s goal is to attain a recoverable civilization, including a return to the crew’s U.S. homes.
· Crews: Both stories focus on protecting and preserving their crews.
· Main Concerns: Odyssey’s crew is concerned about who they will be upon completing the journey and reaching home (but only Odysseus reached home). The concern of TLS participants focuses on the kind of civilization needed for the future.
The enduring power of Odyssey comes partly from its ability to be repeatedly reinterpreted for new circumstances. Modern scholars and artists continue to find in it questions about identity, trauma, war, homecoming, and the dimensional meanings of “return”.
Wrap Up / Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, I prefer viewing or reading future-oriented stories that appear within the realm of possibilities. Of course, there may well be a Mad Max type of future, but there could also be more hopeful visions. For one example, a sustainable human population living mostly in villages and small towns surrounded by healthy ecosystems, including regenerated forests, wetlands, water sources, and enriched soil formed by agroecological farming.
In Part 2 the focus will be on envisioning an alternative plot for The Last Ship. In addition to the pandemic crisis, attention turns to the underlying causes that produced the viral outbreak. If you’ve been keeping abreast of newsworthy events presented by dependable media sources, you’re probably aware of—and perhaps experiencing—the deleterious effects of our specie’s reckless behaviors, which continue contributing to the socio-ecological disintegration of our world.
According to reputable socio-ecological proponents, such as Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Jane Goodall, William E. Rees, and Sir David Attenborough, all crises are the culminating result of humanity’s unplanned and unchecked population growth, which contributes to the overconsumption and excessive toxic waste products that have produced decades of increased carbon missions. Major crises include climate change and extremes in erratic weather patterns; endangerment and extinction of flora, fauna, and fungi species; sociopolitical polarization and turmoil; ocean heating and changing circulation patterns; catastrophic-driven mass migration; and the list continues increasing—in size, scope, scale, and speed.
So, what if The Last Ship narrative is stretched beyond the pandemic-and-societal-restoration challenge to focus also on the causes? We’ll explore this possibility in the next post, Part 2. Meanwhile, please try to envision yourself as an officer or crew member on the USS Nathan James. What socio-ecological issues would you be anticipating and addressing?
Till then . . .
Clif (with Bettye Ware, reader/editor/partner)
By the same author:
Earth Overshoot Day 2026—July 30th
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clifton Ware, D.M., emeritus professor (voice), professional singer and author of four published books and two unpublished works, retired in 2007 from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities School of Music, where he taught for 37 years. In retirement – as a self-described socio-ecological philosopher focused on sustainability issues – he continues seeking an evidence-based, big-picture understanding of socio-ecological systems, including the symbiotic interconnections and role of humans as an integral part of Nature. In 2013 he founded Citizens for Sustainability in St. Anthony Village, MN, produced Sustainability News + Views (2014-2019), a weekly newsletter featuring a variety of articles and a commentary, co-composed 13 Eco Songs with his wife, Bettye, organized Sustainability Forums, and performed eco-oriented programs and presentations for several organizations.
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