Ngalabak, Helon HabilaSumrall, Leah Noelle2023-02-16https://hdl.handle.net/1920/13071This thesis has been embargoed for 10 years and will not be available until April 2032 at the earliest.This thesis project, Astraea Underground, contains spaceships; reader beware. It is a family-oriented sci-fi novel that tells the story of three characters who are forced by fifteen years of political turmoil to consider whether it is permissible to keep things from those they love and when the costs of betrayal and obligations of loyalty are too high to bear. The novel grapples with how personal trauma compounds into geopolitical instability while exploring the individual and societal impacts of untreated PTSD and addiction. These traumas burden the story’s relationships and drive much of its plot. Though the lens of tomorrow, the story examines issues relevant today, including corporate influence on and power in politics, xenophobia, nationalism, the treatment of immigrants and political dissidents, and the power of media in shaping popular opinion, and features a multi-generational and diverse cast of characters who depict complex, unconventional familial relationships. In these pages, even sworn enemies must work together to survive in the inhospitable environments of life beyond Earth.enScience fiction novelPTSDPoliticalFirst-person POVMulti-narratorCharacter-drivenThesis