For All Mankind Season 5 Forms An Unexpected Alliance That Changes Everything

Spoilers ahead for "For All Mankind" Season 5, Episode 8, "Brave New World."

The alternate timeline in Apple TV's "For All Mankind" is the gift that keeps on giving. The basic premise of the show is that the Soviet Union put a person on the Moon before the U.S. did in the 1960s. From there, the space race never really ended; rather, it escalated to establishing military and scientific bases on the Moon, colonizing Mars, and much more. The show has a lot of fun with this idea, with Season 5 even killing off the streaming era before it can really begin. Similarly, climate change never became an issue in the series' universe, while the internet remained a government network rather than a worldwide communication revolution. Still, there's a plot development in Season 5, Episode 8 ("Brave New World"), that changes everything for the show's alternate timeline.

You see, the Soviet Union is still a thing circa 2012 in the "For All Mankind" universe, though it looks very different from the Soviet Union in our world. In fact, the U.S. and the Soviet Union are both part of the Mars-6 Alliance and favor cooperation where it concerns the red planet, technically making them allies. Back on Earth, however, Cold War-era paranoia and lingering tensions continue well into the 21st century.

Now, "Brave New World" has introduced a wrench in the "For All Mankind" version of the Cold War, and it's all thanks to the show's biggest villain: former KGB head Irina Morozova (Svetlana Efremova). In this case, Irina cooks up a plot with the Russian governor of the Martian settlement Happy Valley to strike a deal. Namely, she wants the Soviet Union to form an alliance with the Martian revolutionaries against the rest of planet Earth.

The people of Happy Valley are in a pickle thanks to the Martian revolution they started earlier in Season 5. Mars is holding the Goldilocks asteroid hostage and is blockading any and all shipments of its precious metal iridium to Earth. In response, the latter has sabotaged the food supplies on Happy Valley and is essentially starving its settlers to death, hoping they surrender.

Speaking of which, Iridium has quietly become a key part of "For All Mankind" Season 5. The newsreels at the start of the season revealed that Earth's global economy has become hugely dependent on shipments of the metal, as countries without access to it are in crisis. As Irina explains at one point, the blockage has sent both the U.S. and Russia into an economic free fall, with Russia now on the verge of a coup as a result.

The plan is for Happy Valley to hold on just long enough for this coup to happen, as the new Prime Minister of the Soviet Union will be more amenable to granting Mars its independence from Earth — in exchange for some iridium, naturally. This all comes to light in a seemingly minor exchange involving Irinia, Costa Ronin's Lenya (the governor of Mars), and Miles (Toby Kebbell), the leader of the Martian revolution.

And yet, this potential alliance between Russia and Mars could lead to Mars becoming completely independent and the U.S. losing control of not just iridium but other assets from the red planet as well. This all might be happening millions of miles away from Earth, but the "For All Mankind" version of the Cold War is about to change forever ... though not before the war for Martian independence heats up.

As mentioned, the Cold War played out differently in the "For All Mankind" timeline. The Vietnam War ended much earlier than it did in our reality, while there was no Soviet-Afghan War, as the space race took priority over all else. That last bit is crucial, too, because the ripple effects can be clearly seen in Season 5.

Because there hasn't been an armed dispute between multiple countries on Earth for decades, the Martian war for independence has become the big conflict of the 21st century instead. Indeed, the revolution has essentially taken the place of the Iraq War, as evidenced by the way Season 5 reworks an infamous George W. Bush 9/11 meme.

So far, this war has mainly been a waiting game, with Earth trying to starve the Martian rebels out and the latter causing an economic crisis on Earth via the iridium embargo. That ends in "Brave New World," which sees the U.S. and M-6 sending armed troops to the Goldilocks asteroid orbiting Mars in order to restart the iridium shipments.

To prevent this, Miles suggests the revolutionaries blow up Goldilocks' landing pad, as that would prevent cargo ships from either docking on or taking off from the asteroid. Unfortunately, the armed troops from Earth arrive earlier than expected and get trapped in the ensuing explosion, with one of their soldiers dying in the aftermath.

Will Earth consider this a proper act of war? It could potentially declare Mars an independent enemy nation and use that as an excuse to attack. (Not that national leaders need much reason to commit war crimes, as we've seen in the real world.) Whatever the case, this incident will certainly escalate the situation.

"For All Mankind" is streaming on Apple TV.