I think the picture was painted early on that it's a hopeless situation. It's not good for a lot of people, but there are solutions and answers, so don't give up.

The picture was being painted that things were not as bad as they appeared to be

A happy ending. Huh. I thought that was why we were here. Now. Five hundred years into Earth’s future. So we could start over, and live happily-ever-after. It wasn’t turning out that way, was it?

We must not think that we've already achieved something great. We are in a good situation, no more and no less.

But Mike is a straight shooter, and this is probably as good of a situation as it could be. This is one of the rational, reasonable ways you would think it would have to come to an end.

Here I came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,
and the moon swam back,
its rays all silvered,
and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning.