Not much of a revelation, just an observation, but how much of sci-fi pushes the ideal that Humanity's path forward is unification?
Star Trek is a major one, and many would state it was a progressive show, and it earnestly was.
It also stated that in its ideal future, there's a Federation of like-minded extraterrestrials, and as a member species, Humanity lives in a united, post-scarcity society under a single government.
To that end, how many alien species in these stories are so inhuman, in that they have no differences, a world-wide government, a single language?
It's laughable how direct the propaganda was, and continues to be.
And yet the village, the town, the nation have not disappeared. Because local government will always be more sensitive to the needs of the local people than any distant and disconnected authority. And it doesn't really matter if that authority is on the other side of a planet or the other side of a galaxy because neither of them are here.