When astronaut Mark Watney, a member of a Mars DIRECT mission, is stranded on Mars after presumed dead, he uses resourcefulness and ingenuity to stay alive. When Earth detects his activity, they mount a huge rescue effort.

A civilization that has a repeated industrial rise and subsequent fall after overextending themselves in terms of resources or population. Foreshadowing for this motif usually includes many advanced or large artifacts that show evidence of being tens or hundreds of thousands of years old.

When connected to population, this can be (but is not always) a sign of Malthusianism, which became increasingly popular amongst eugenicists and alarmists. Malthusianism has now been thoroughly debunked and its presence in works written in the 21st century is a sign (though not a guarantee) that the work will contain racist or xenophobic themes, especially toward developing nations, or alien races meant to represent developing nations.