Accidental Aesop: The interesting thing about this show is that it starts out claiming how brilliant it is that the Space Agency has done away with military-style discipline, and then goes on to show us just how little control Niko has over her crew which very quickly leads to a mutiny. The take-away seems to be that human beings need firm rules and boundaries even in a liberal society lest it fall apart the moment things get rough.
Angst? What Angst?: Barely an episode goes by without a named character dying a horrible death, yet nobody ever seems to care much about it. Most are essentially forgotten about mere hours after their demise. This is especially weird because the initial crew is implied to be a tight-knit group that has been working together for quite some time under Yerxa's command.
Spiritual Adaptation: Season 1 and Season 2 seem to take plot inspiration from Greg Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars. For example, a rogue self-replicating AI which destroys civilizations capable of interstellar travel, an alien artifact on Earth, and robotic mind-controlling spiders.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Because Season 1 could be consider Bile Fascination (see above), Season 2 is a surprising improvement; having, relative to Season 1, both better writing and harder sci-fi elements. For example:
A major complaint of viewers during Season 1 was that the Salvare crew act both unprofessionally and non-expertly throughout season 1, despite the crew purportedly being the best the Earth could offer. Moreover, it's unclear why the previous Salvare commander Ian Yerxa is also on the mission when Niko was chosen to replace him, as the crew which previously served under him may have conflicting loyalties and be more inclined to listen to Ian over Niko. (The crew mutinies in the first episode of Season 1) The crew selection is revealed to be a result of William waking up the wrong crew members as an old AI interface still embedded in his coding, Gabriel, was causing William to make mistakes. The crew that was awaken in Season 1 were backups for the first picks.
The drama involving August's improbable pregnancy—conception after her and the child's father were sterilized by gamma radiation is dropped. August and Oliver are killed in the first episode of Season 2.
The science of Season 2 is more grounded/harder than Season 1. For example,
the workings of Soma sleep are explained— people who are to enter Soma have a neural implant which facilitates this
William's abilities to neutralize an Achaean implant in Season 1 is because he modified the implant's code.
Even the more fantastical elements of Season 2 (e.g. the Decuma's ability to perfectly heal Niko and Richard after medically torturing them or convert other bipedal organisms into other Decuma involve advanced alien technology and can be explained away by Clarke's Third Law.
The viewer-disliked soap opera elements which dominated Season 1 are minimized in Season 2.
The Salvare crew periodically reference the death of other crew members, something absent in Season 1.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Ian Yerxa's death by electrocution at Niko's hands is treated as a sort of Moral Event Horizon by the crew and by the narrative, and by Niko herself. This is somewhat confusing for several reasons. Yerxa comes off as a ticking, egotistical time-bomb resentful of Niko's position of command. He already staged a violent mutiny against her, which resulted in the exact scenario Niko was attempting to prevent by refusing his plan in the first place. She gives him a second chance, although she really had no good reason to, and, most forebodingly, he tells her he wouldn't have been so lenient if their positions were reversed. This leads to possibly the most important factor: Niko was clearly acting in self-defense when she ends up killing him, as he'd just approached her from behind with a knife in his hand and was very blatantly about to stab her. Arguably, she didn't even mean to kill him; she didn't seem to deliberately aim for the broken equipment which electrocutes him, it just happened to be behind him when she kicked him. Yet the crew all treat her as if she's just looking for some excuse to kill them all, even after she saves their lives multiple times. Even William, who is explicitly loyal to Niko, can't comprehend why she killed the man who was about to shank her to death. It does serve as a perfect demonstration as to how unsuitable all crewmembers are to their jobs, something that comes up time and again throughout the series, but it seems doubtful that this was the writers' intent.
