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(SeaPRwire) –   In its fifth season, *For All Mankind* has leaped forward to 2012, continuing from its alternate-history starting point in 1969. While still set in the past, creators Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi recognize their sci-fi drama has evolved beyond a simple alternate history series.

“Season 5 is the recent past technically, yet it also has a futuristic quality,” Matt Wolpert explains to Inverse. “An interesting shift has occurred; our altered timeline has diverged so significantly from real events that we can no longer incorporate as much actual news into the show’s world.”

Earlier seasons offered a sci-fi perspective on roads not taken in the ’80s and ’90s. However, with a human presence on Mars spanning over two decades in this timeline, Season 5 enters new territory, even as every season has been distinct. Throughout, Wolpert, Nedivi, and co-creator Ronald D. Moore have focused on ensuring the show’s heart is more than just exploring vague “what if” scenarios. The current state of affairs in Season 5 is simultaneously more realistic and more visionary than previous years, with a major uprising taking shape on Mars at its core.

Minor spoilers ahead for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 1, “First Light.”

The premiere, “First Light,” begins with Lily Dale (Ruby Cruz) tagging “Free Mars” as graffiti. This act crystallizes the season’s central conflict: Martians, having lived there since the early 2000s, seek independence from Earth’s governance. To ground this plotline, Wolpert and Nedivi told Inverse they drew inspiration from historical events.

Space Wars With Mars

“We primarily examined the American colonies and their evolution from English foundations,” Wolpert states. “They cultivated their own identity, with vast distance separating them. The voyage time from England to America is comparable to the Earth-Mars journey in our series. That’s the experience of our characters, particularly the younger generation raised on Mars.”

The Martian revolution in For All Mankind thus parallels the American Revolution, a sci-fi trope seen before in works like Babylon 5 with its “Free Mars” plot, and themes in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress concerning a lunar rebellion.

“Life on Mars ain’t a walk in the park,” actress Ruby Cruz remarks. Her character Lily is the daughter of Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell), who helped hijack a valuable asteroid in Season 4, elevating Mars’s status in the solar system. For Lily and Alex Baldwin (Sean Kauffman), Mars is their only true home. This aspect presented a unique challenge for the actors: viewing Mars not as an alien landscape but as a homeland. “It was fascinating to envision Mars as a beautiful home planet,” Cruz describes. “The way we value Earth—its beauty, spirit, and nature—is how Lily perceives Mars.”

An Endgame With the Next Generation

As with the entire series, these ambitious concepts rely on character-driven storytelling. Season 5 represents the show’s most daring shift yet, with few original cast members remaining. With Season 6 set to conclude the series, the final arc will undoubtedly focus on the new generation coming into their own.

“It was a necessary gamble we made from the start,” Nedivi notes. “We understood that for the premise to succeed, the ending cast would be almost completely different.”

Although some Season 1 characters return—Joel Kinnaman as former Apollo astronaut Ed Baldwin, Wrenn Schmidt as Margo Madison, and Krys Marshall’s Danielle Poole appearing later—most key figures now are either characters who were young in Season 2 or are the literal youth of Season 5.

“No, no pressure at all!” Sean Kauffman quips about playing Alex Baldwin, son of Kelly and grandson of Ed. “It’s challenging to contemplate because I relate it to my own experience. At 18, how much did you know about your grandparents’ achievements? Alex isn’t fully aware of his legacy, and this season is crucial because I firmly believe sparking change always falls to the younger generation.”

Detailing the exact nature of this generational transition in Season 5 would spoil major plot points. However, Kauffman shared that Kinnaman helped bolster his confidence to help lead the series forward.

“This season features a significant changing of the guard,” Kauffman discloses. “Joel was fantastic. I recall a scene where I mentioned my anxiety during a close-up, and he simply said, ‘You got this.’ After we filmed it, he looked at me—in his elderly makeup, resembling a patriarch—nodded, gave a thumbs-up, and left. I had his endorsement. That’s when I thought: Let’s go.”

For All Mankind Season 5 streams new episodes on Fridays on Apple TV.