Spatial saturation and science fiction’s decline are twin versions of one implosion

Evidence

We can no longer imagine any other universe: the grace of transcendence was taken away from us in that respect too. Classical science fiction was that of an expanding universe, besides, it forged its path in the narratives of spatial exploration, counterparts to the more terrestrial forms of exploration and colonization of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is no relationship of cause and effect there: it is not because terrestrial space today is virtually coded, mapped, registered, saturated, has thus in a sense closed up again in universalizing itself - a universal market, not only of merchandise, but of values, signs, models, leaving no room for the imaginary - it is not exactly because of this that the exploratory universe (technical, mental, cosmic) of science fiction has also ceased to function. But the two are narrowly linked, and they are two versions of the same general process of implosion that follows the gigantic process of explosion and expansion characteristic of past centuries. When a system reaches its own limits and becomes saturated, a reversal is produced - something else takes place, in the imaginary as well. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 402

Categorization

• XREF: This links to Jameson’s account of postmodernism’s loss of historicity; the same ‘expansion then implosion’ dynamic maps onto the end of the national-colonial imaginary in Jameson. — connects to: Postmodern science fiction implodes inward to revitalize fragments of simulation — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 406
• DEFINE: Introduces the implosion thesis that grounds later distinctions between the second and third orders of simulation.

Broader Connections

• Postmodern science fiction implodes inward to revitalize fragments of simulation #expands (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 406