Granted. Mankind is now at risk of extinction after multiple countries deployed rods from god as """friendlier""" and more economical alternatives to nukes after it became cheaper to manufacture and launch tungsten rods into orbit.
The space technology is 100 years ahead of our actual state, humanity have colonies on the Moon, Mars, Venus and many moons of the other planets. Also, we are in a total genocidal war with an alien race and we are loosing.
In 1986 the first space battle took place between the US and China in the moon orbit. In 1997 New York was wiped out by a meteorite diverted by Al-Qaeda.
Granted, an expedition on one of Jupiter's moons brings back an undetectable deadly alien pathogen that wipes out nearly every single human being, except a few thousands that return the stone age living in isolated areas.
yeah I wish we had been fooling with trying to fully make habitats on the moon with drones as well as messing with a space elevator there. So many things that could be worked out for future could have been done in the last decades of the old millenium.