This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

From 1984 to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, from Fahrenheit 451 to Westworld, science fiction has always congratulated itself on being the literature of ideas, a tool for examining society and human nature. And in its toolbox one of its most powerful tools is allegory. With science fiction allegory we can turn a situation upside down, reverse it, take it to its logical extreme and bring to light aspects of it the audience couldn’t, or often, wouldn’t allow themselves to consider through a more realistic lens.

A far too brief history of sci-fi allegories

Look at The War Of The Worlds. One of things that separates that book from its numerous adaptations and copycats is H.G. Wells’ and the narrator’s steadfast refusal to cast any moral judgement against the Martians. Countless times it’s pointed out that what they do to the human race is no worse than what the British Empire was doing to Aboriginal people. When they drain human blood for sustenance, the narrator asks us to pause our outrage and consider how our own feeding habits look to the rabbit. The Martians aren’t satanic monsters, they’re the British Empire seen from the other side, they’re doing what Britain was already doing, but they’re better at it.

To find the golden age of science fiction allegory, look at the censorship heavy, advert dependant American TV of the ’60s. In The Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, the terrifying witch hunt of a suburb expecting an alien invasion is a burning satire on the Red Terror, and translates just as easily to our fear of terrorists today. By removing the specifics and replacing them with the fantastic, the story not only manages to slip under the radar of those who’d consider it dangerously political, it allows the story to be universal, relevant to every era when the same demons pop up again.