History Series / TheArk2023

** A conversation between Cat and Eva in episode 3 mentions "UV storms" which burn anyone caught in them. Other conversations reveal that birds and many other larger animals have gone extinct.

* TheElitesJumpShip: Subverted. With Earth falling apart, those launched into space appear to quite sensibly be people with the skills necessary to survive on a new world, though one could argue Cat is an edge case, being more of a celebrity influencer than an actual therapist. [[spoiler:Played straight with William Trust and his wife Helena, who were hidden on ''Ark 1'' in stasis despite the public front that they stayed behind so that Trust could perfect FTL for the later arks. William was actually sincere about that, but Helena arranged it so they would arrive on the colony first and be able to take control of it]].

* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke: When it turns out that [[spoiler: Garnet's]] genetic modifications let the crew make an antidote to the poison in the comet water.

* EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture: The ''Ark 1'' sets have minimalist decor and much of the equipment in them resembles recent Apple products, from desktop computers to tablets to smart watches that double as on-board communicators. The minimal decoration and lack of paper products, physical books, and so on may be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the ship needing to limit mass as much as possible. Personal effect allowances didn't extend beyond what might fight in someone's pockets, which is why Angus had to smuggle his farming supplies onboard.

* EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture: The ''Ark 1'' sets have minimalist decor and much of the equipment in them resembles recent Apple products, from desktop computers to tablets to smart watches that double as on-board communicators. The lack of paper products, physical books, and so on may be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the ship needing to limit mass as much as possible. Personal effect allowances didn't extend beyond what might fight in someone's pockets, which is why Angus had to smuggle his farming supplies onboard.

* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: Malcolm Perry, the imposter who stole Jasper Dades's identity to get onto ''Ark 1'', is found dead with his throat slashed in custody at the end of the pilot, leaving us with any number of suspects who might have wanted to take the law into their own hands given that his actions led to others' deaths (especially people like Eva who were close to the late crewmembers), and the audience also knows that he tried to hold something over Garnet shortly before dying. [[spoiler:The murderer is actually Trent, someone who seemingly had no motive to kill him and only did so because he's a fanatic.]]

* BigBad: "Hoping for Forever" introduces Evelyn Maddox, William Trust's rival who took over his company. [[spoiler:She seized ''Ark 15'' and attacked the other arks to claim Proxima-B for herself.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The first season ends with Brice being cured of his Klampkins and Lane redeeming himself, who is firmly on Garnet's side for the first time in the series. However, Proxima-B [[EarthShatteringKaboom explodes]], doing fatal damage to ''Ark 1'' and possibly killing Angus. However, Evelyn decides to (for now) aid them [[IOweYouMyLife due to them curing her Klampkins and later saving her and]] ''[[IOweYouMyLife Ark 15]]''.]]

* EarthShatteringKaboom: In the season 1 finale, [[spoiler:the attempt to spin up Proxima-B hits an unexpected snag when the "water" on the dark side of the planet turns out to be an ocean of liquid methane, methane that is now being ignited by the heat of the sun. In no time at all, a chain reaction causes the planet to explode]].

* FailedASpotCheck: [[spoiler:The ''Ark 1'' crew don't notice that the ocean on the dark side of Proxima B is made of methane instead of water until it's too late to stop the rotation process that will cause the methane to overheat and the planet to explode. The ''Ark 15'' crew didn't notice either, despite having been parked at Proxima B significantly longer. Alicia does notice that the "water" isn't freezing as it should at those temperatures, but fails to draw the connection until it's too late]].

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Numerous examples at very small and very large scales. For an example of the first; molecules of a toxin similar to LSD (each molecule of which contains 50 atoms) is described as if they were atomic in size. For an example of the second; when Proxima b's atmosphere is ignited by boiling the methane that condensed out on the night side, the energy released is enough to explode the planet. Burning an atmosphere like that would only release about 1 millionth the energy needed to take a planet apart.

* TidallyLockedPlanet: Proxima-B is, as described by Trust, an "eyeball planet" that doesn't spin on its own axis. [[spoiler:He developed devices to spin such a planet up to a normal rotation, which Maddox tries to get him to finish for her.]]

** A conversation between Cat and Eva in episode 3 mentions "UV storms" which burn anyone caught in them.

* AlmightyJanitor: Alicia is a waste management engineer. She is abruptly promoted to be chief of life support after the command staff are killed and the man everyone thought was Jasper, the previous chief of life support, is revealed as an impersonator who bribed his way onto the ship. It turns out that Alicia has multiple masters degrees and is the only one left who knows how to fix the life support controls. Why was she willing to work in waste management with those qualifications? Apparently Earth is so bad that [[TitleDrop "everyone wanted to be on this ship"]].

** Speaking of which, "Jasper's" blackmail video is shown in episode 3, in which Garnet gets into a fight with a drunk biker at a bar and ends things by slashing his throat with a broken bottle. Episode 4 reveals that [[spoiler:it's actually Garnet's twin sister]].

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler: After meeting her on ''Ark 3'', Strickland learns from Kelly, who had heard it from his husband Robert (who was also onboard) that their daughter died when accidentally shot during a food riot on Earth. It later turns out that Kelly is TheMole for ''Ark 15'' and never met Robert, having made up the story to trick him into spacing ''Ark 3'''s supply of firearms to undermine ''Ark 1'']].

* TheBigGuy: Strickland, who is the colonists' head of security. During the water shortage, a brawl starts in the mess haul. It devolves into six colonists versus Strickland and Garnet. It is not a fair fight.

* LockedRoomMystery: After the fake Jasper is exposed during the oxygen crisis in the first episode, he is chained to the wall of a locked toilet compartment until the new council can decide if he is to be imprisoned or spaced. When he is to be given the opportunity to testify in his defense, he is found dead behind the still-locked door with his throat slashed and no blade that could have made the cut. Eventually revealed to have been killed by [[spoiler: Trent, who can crack the locks but who didn't think to make it look like a suicide]].

* Homage: Angus' bioshelter farms look a lot like the domes in ''Film/SilentRunning''. Per the production team, the visual reference was intentional.

* AlmightyJanitor: Alicia is a waste management engineer. She is abruptly promoted to be chief of life support after the command staff are killed and the man everyone thought was Jasper, the previous chief of life support, turns out to be an impersonator who bribed his way onto the ship. It turns out that she has multiple masters degrees and is the only one left who knows how to fix the life support controls. Why was she willing to work in waste management with those qualifications? Apparently Earth is so bad that [[TitleDrop "everyone wanted to be on this ship"]].

* AlmightyJanitor: Alicia is a waste management engineer. She is abruptly promoted to be chief of life support after the command staff are killed and [[spoiler: the supposed previous chief of life support turns out to be an impersonator who bribed his way onto the ship]]. It turns out that she has multiple masters degrees and is the only one left who knows how to fix the life support controls. Why was she willing to work in waste management with those qualifications? Apparently Earth is so bad that [[TitleDrop "everyone wanted to be on this ship"]].

* HiddenSupplies: Angus was assigned as quartermaster for the colony's horticulture group. He used his position to smuggle grow lights and several tons of high-grade top soil aboard because he did not trust the probe data for growing conditions on Proxima b. These turned out to be unexpectedly useful.
* HumanPopsicle: The crew of ''Ark 1'' were put in stasis and supposed to remain in it for the entire six-subjective-year trip to the new world. The collision alarm automatically awakens Garnet, who rushes to awaken everyone else and get them to safety before the cryo bay comes apart.

* IfIWantedYouDead: When Strickland questions Eva about the fake Jasper's murder, Eva locks him in the cell and slowly vents the oxygen to demonstrate that if she were the murderer, she could have killed him and made it look like a heart attack, rather than the clumsy murder that actually happened. Strickland concedes the point.

* WrongLineOfWork: Cat Brandice, the ship's ''de facto'' counselor, is actually just a glorified influencer, and not a particularly nice one at that, but Garnet assigns her to deal with the crew's mental health problems after she manages to talk Eva out of her depression so that she can return to work.

* HumanPopsicle: The crew of ''Ark 1'' were put in stasis for the duration of the trip to the new world.

* AlmightyJanitor: Alicia is a waste management engineer. She is abruptly promoted to be chief of life support after the command staff are killed and [[spoiler: the supposed previous chief of life support turns out to be an impersonator who bribed his way onto the ship]]. It turns out that she has multiple masters degrees. Why was she willing to work in waste management with those qualifications? Apparently Earth is so bad that [[TitleDrop "everyone wanted to be on this ship"]].

* CryonicsFailure: The one person whose pod fails to revive them happens to be the one member of the primary command staff bunking with the civilians. This is especially notable because Garnet's pod had debris drop on it and she was revived on the spot. On a larger scale, all of the cryotubes wind up being lost in the accident, so the crew can't put themselves back under to conserve resources once the crisis has passed.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: There are up to nineteen other Arks out there, trying to colonize other planets; although Ark 15 seems antagonistic, Ark 3 is lost, and its SoleSurvivor (admittedly, an UnreliableExpositor) claims Ark 2 blew up at takeoff.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Cat is left a complete and utter wreck after the mutiny ends with Helena Trust dead and William Trust being taken hostage, as it occurs to her that she betrayed so many people for a plan that had so little chance of ending well for anyone. This is only compounded by her guilt over having had an affair with William behind her best friend Helena's back and learning right before the latter dies that Helena knows Cat is in love with William [[ObliviousGuiltSlinging but believes she's too good a friend to have ever acted on it]]]].

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Episode 4 has the crew start experiencing vivid hallucinations. Some are obviously hallucinations but others are more convincing, like Lane having visions of Brice egging him on to betray Garnet until the real Brice gets his attention.

* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: Malcolm Perry, the imposter who stole Jasper Dades's identity to get onto ''Ark 1'', is found dead with his throat slashed in custody at the end of the pilot, leaving us with any number of suspects who might have wanted to take the law into their own hands given that his actions led to others' deaths (especially people like Eva who were close to the late crewmembers), and the audience also knows that he tried to hold something over Garnet shortly before dying. [[spoiler:The murderer is actually Trent, someone who seemingly had no motive to kill him and only did so because he's a fanatic.]]

* CloningBlues: [[spoiler:Sharon Garnet is a clone, created in a government-sponsored but technically illegal program to produce people with increased chances of surviving hostile conditions. In her case, tardigrade DNA was added to her genetic code to give her increased tolerance to solar radiation, among other fringe benefits; her twin clone Denise received a different treatment of a unknown nature. The person killing a man in a bar fight in the video that Jasper tries to blackmail Sharon with is actually Denise, who unlike Sharon suffered from moments of [[TheBerserker berserker fury]] and eventually committed suicide out of despair and remorse]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The first season ends with Brice being cured of his Klampkins and Lane redeeming himself, who is firmly on Garnet's side for the first time in the series. However, Proxima-B [[EarthShatteringKaboom explodes]], doing fatal damage to Ark 1 and possibly killing Angus. However, Evelyn decides to (for now) aid them [[IOweYouMyLife due to them curing her Klampkins and later saving her and Ark 15]].]]

* RedHerring: When Alicia and Angus determine that the weapon used against the ark was an element unknown to Earth science, they wonder who else could possibly be out here and it seems plausible the attack was the work of aliens. [[spoiler:The weapon was designed by Evelyn Maddox, a rival of William Trust, who also developed faster-than-light travel after ''Ark 1'' left Earth. Aliens still have yet to make an appearance or be confirmed to exist]].

* RedHerring: When Alicia and Angus determine that the weapon used against the ark was an element unknown to Earth science, they wonder who else could possibly be out here and it seems plausible the attack was the work of aliens. [[spoiler:The weapon was designed by Evelyn Maddox, a rival of William Trust. Aliens still have yet to make an appearance or be confirmed to exist]].