Imagining the Impossible: Possible Worlds and Interstellar Colonization in Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora

Abstract

This article investigates Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora through the analytical lens of Possible World Theory. Aurora has been thoroughly analyzed with respect to Eco-critical, climate-fiction, and post-humanist approaches; however, there is little to no research on the novel's modal construction. This study aims to fill that gap and employs Possible World Theory to discuss how the author builds and constrains different possible worlds where humanity can survive outside our planet. Using a qualitative textual analysis and the theories suggested by Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Lubomir Dolezel, and Marie-Laure Ryan, this study focuses on the concepts of accessibility relations, trans-world identity, and artificial intelligence (AI) in Aurora. As a result, this paper shows that the generation ship is a temporary actual world that is unfit because of both biological and ecological issues.