‘Star City’s Finale Twist Quietly Rewrites ‘For All Mankind’s Alternate History

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Star City finale.

One of the things that makes For All Mankind such an incredible sci-fi series is how it rewrites history to tell a deeply optimistic and idealistic story. Now, its spin-off, Star City, has just added another layer to this alternate version of events, albeit a more tragic one. In its first season finale, Valya Mironov (Adam Nagaitis) becomes the first person to land on another planet when the Venera 7 bathysphere reaches the surface of Venus. This huge accomplishment, however, has a tragic underlayer, completely rewriting humanity’s history of space exploration according to the events of For All Mankind, but in a way that will be kept secret for as long as the USSR survives.

Valya’s Landing on Venus Recontextualizes the Events of ‘For All Mankind’ Season 3

For All Mankind Season 3 is among the best of recent sci-fi TV, following the race between NASA, Roscosmos, and Helios Aerospace to reach Mars first in 1994. When NASA’s Sojourner lands first, astronaut Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and cosmonaut Grigory Kuznetsov (Lev Gorn) share the honor of becoming the first people on another planet. The twist comes later on, when it’s revealed that a North Korean ujunaut, Lee Jung-Gil (C.S. Lee), was actually the first to land on Mars months earlier while on a secret mission.

Now, Star City recontextualizes the whole Mars affair, making it the second time humans have landed on another planet. When Valya lands on Venus, it’s at the end of 1970, nearly 24 years before For All Mankind‘s race to Mars. While no landing was initially considered for the Venera 7 crew (it was only supposed to do a fly-by and drop a payload on the surface), landing the bathysphere on Venus became the only way to save the mission and fellow cosmonauts Sasha Polivanov (Solly McLeod) and Lakshmi Chadha (Priya Kansara).

This isn’t necessarily a noble deed on Valya’s part, but the best outcome for him given the circumstances — he can never return to the USSR after being exposed as a U.S. asset in Star City. It’s also a one-way mission, as he knows the pressure of Venus’s atmosphere will quickly crush the bathysphere. He only has the time to acknowledge his incredible accomplishment and mourn what he did to his wife, Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis). What makes Valya’s fate most tragic, however, isn’t that he dies, but that no one will ever know.

Valya’s Venus Landing in ‘Star City’ Has a Layer of Tragedy

Image via Apple TV

From the start, the Venera 7 mission would very likely not receive official acknowledgment by the Soviet government. As soon as Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert) returns from the Moon, orders are to focus all efforts on beating the U.S. once again by building the Moon base, Zvezda. Because of this, everything related to Venera 7 has to be done in secret, from building the craft to training the crew, lest it be shut down by the government, with everyone involved arrested as traitors.

Valya being a U.S. mole in Star City only makes things worse, giving the government another compelling reason never to make Venera 7 public, even after Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) discovers the mission’s existence. Regardless of how monumental an achievement landing on Venus may be, nobody will ever know about it because of Valya’s status as a traitor to the USSR.

Besides Valya’s cries of happiness on Venus, the only catharsis to ever be had about it belongs to the Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) and Sergei Nikulov (Josef Davies). The Chief Designer’s line about no one being able to take that accomplishment away from them is arguably among the most emotional in the entire For All Mankind universe. Besides the cosmonauts, they are the only ones concerned with space exploration, which is the core premise of the franchise. They will always know what was achieved, even in secret.

The Venera Mission Will Remain a Secret for as Long as the USSR Survives in ‘For All Mankind’

Saying that no one will ever know about Venera 7 may sound a little overdramatic, but so is Deputy Chairman Tarasov’s (David Dencik) reaction during the meeting when he learns of the spacecraft’s return. For the upper echelons, any outcome involving a U.S. asset is a defeat, regardless of whether the mission was planned by Star City or not. Considering how the USSR has beaten the U.S. to the Moon with the first man and the first woman to land there, preserving this upper hand is the most important thing, politically speaking.

So far, this secret has been successfully preserved through the events of For All Mankind Season 5, set in the 2010s. The USSR still exists in the present, and nothing is known about Venera 7 or Valya Mironov. Regardless of how relations between Russia and the U.S. have improved and how much cooperation there is between them, this secret could jeopardize the USSR’s position as the “leader” of the Space Race, so, as long as it survives, the truth about Venera 7 will remain hidden.

The only chance the Venus landing has of ever becoming public knowledge is if the USSR eventually falls. This event has been theorized by fans as something that could happen in the final season of For All Mankind, along with the possibility of first contact. So, humanity finally learning about Venera 7 — and the first man to reach another planet — is another reason why Season 6 can’t come soon enough.