As to what form the hoped-for future society would take, Wells had very definite plans. The book promoted his long-standing campaign for a rationally ordered World State that would ensure the fruits of technological innovation were fairly distributed. He was no democrat, however, and saw this being driven by the activities of an elite group, the “scientific samurai”, who appear as the aviators who transform the world in The Shape of Things to Come. He appreciated that simply giving everyone material plenty might not be enough to satisfy their emotional needs. At first he seems to have thought along quasi-religious lines, imagining humanity achieving an almost spiritual unity. But in his screenplay for the Alexander Korda film Things to Come, based loosely on the book, he adds a concluding episode in which the prospect of spreading a transformed human race out into the cosmos by space travel offers a materialistic equivalent of religion, something that will give our lives an ultimate purpose. Even here, though, there is a threat that conservative thinkers will not approve of this disturbance to their predictable lives. In the final scenes a mob tries to destroy the giant gun that is about to fire the young cosmonauts into space (here Wells pays homage to Jules Verne). The leader of the “samurai” gestures to the heavens and offers us a choice: “All the universe or nothing … Which shall it be?” and the scene fades out to the caption “WHITHER MANKIND?”