Despite its brief cancellation last year, The Expanse is entering into its fourth season in the strongest position it's ever been in, thanks to the visibility and support that its new home Amazon provides. That means that instead of worrying whether we'll even get another season (Amazon has already renewed The Expanse for Season 5), fans can start dreaming about what else the future of The Expanse universe might hold.

The Expanse is based on an ongoing series of novels by James S.A. Corey, the pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. As of now, eight books have been published, with the ninth and final book to be released in 2020. When speaking to reporters on a press trip to Toronto, where the series is filmed, executive producer Andrew Kosove, who co-founded Alcon Entertainment, the company that produces The Expanse, said that they'd ideally have the show to run for nine seasons as well. Nothing is guaranteed beyond the already ordered fifth season, but it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility for The Expanse to fulfill this goal — and if it does, the series could potentially even become Amazon's longest-running show (depending on how many more seasons of Bosch we get, of course).

Even beyond the hopes of adapting all nine Expanse novels, Kosove said he's already mulling over potential ways to continue playing in this world. "The truth of the matter is that the world that Ty and Daniel have created is so rich, there are lots of different ways that Alcon will explore this," Kosove said.

Photo: Amazon

"I think if this show's fan base continues to accelerate the way we've seen over the last year for the next couple of years, I think that the idea of doing something in the feature universe is something we'll consider very seriously, and maybe looking at movies in the world of Expanse. I also think there's spin-offs of The Expanse — 'cause the universe is so vast where you could explore different character arcs, and so on and so forth," Kosove said.

9 Things to Know about The Expanse Season 4, Straight from the Cast

There is also the exciting potential for The Expanse, which was originally being developed by Franck as a multiplayer online role-playing game, to return to its roots. The show's visual reality designer, Chris Danelon, who creates the complex sets in virtual reality to aid in pre-production and occasionally rehearsal, said that he hopes one day to not only make a VR Expanse experience available to the public, but also a more traditional video game that would allow players to interact with the world and beloved characters.

"Why limit it to the VR world? Why not make a game that you can play on any console or integrated together online?" Danelon said, noting that there is an economic barrier to virtual reality. "I'm thinking if the future of The Expanse can get to a game state where people can interact with it, it will have to be first something you can sit down and play on your Xbox console."

For fans of The Expanse, the possibility of being able to walk the decks of the Rocinante in a game or see an epic battle with the protomolecule playing out on a big screen is thrilling — although it's still a long way from becoming reality. But like Holden (Steven Strait), who always tries to see the world as it could be and not as it is, we, too, shall hold onto the hope of these dreams one day being actualized. And in the meantime, at least we know we'll have two more seasons of The Expanse on Amazon to keep us entertained.

The Expanse Season 4 will be available to stream Friday, Dec. 13 on Amazon.