If we ,somehow manage to not blow ourselves up in the next couple of decades, and manage to control nuclear fusion, thus realistically have the means to build nuclear fusion reactors( like cheap infinite energy) than I'd say we will go for the Star Trek Universe. At least that's what I like to think.
On the other hand it might just turn out horribly and we just lose our resources, so the only.....wait wait ...................
What I'd like it to be: Mass Effect universe (not including Reapers!) - Meeting new, intelligent species, traveling all over the galaxy, conquering planets, fighting turians, becoming specters . Yeah, I'd like that. I'd probably live on Eden Prime with my asari girl.
What I think it's most likely to be: The Book of Eli, The Road, even Mad Max
So yeah, the mankind is about to face its apocalyptic nuclear doom.
World goes to war, stuff gets bombed, and after a few years of war we all end up in the Elder Scrolls universe
This Galaxy is vast; its wonders and beauty are almost unfathomable. But the galaxy also hides dark secrets, some of which have lain dormant since the beginning of time itself. There is a danger in secrets, both in seeking and in knowing. Some things are meant to be hidden from view. Some mysteries defy understanding, and sometimes even the things we think we know are untrue. Some secrets should remain untouched.
If we pull it off without killing ourselves then the future will still be filled with used and worn stuff. So I would suspect a Star Wars like future. Star Trek I am also a fan of but it's too clean.
A handy list but theres no background. people with no real idea of trek or star wars will just think of what they see in the films.
1) Star Trek Universe:
World war three killed 6-7 billion people out of the ashes warp drive was invented sparking a unlikely first contact scinario with another race of humanoids who went through thier own doomsday scenario on their home world over 200+ years prior. The vulcains ruined thier planet from thermonuclear war those that did not convert to surek and the philosphies of logic left the planet.
Humans are more or less a scary reminde of vulcains past and is essentially the story of second chances as far as tis origins. Regardless of how clean trek gets 300 or some years later.
2) Star Wars Universe- Cycles of conflict between those who seek to usurp free will by force and those who usurp freewill through democracy both power hungry sides go at it in differing forms through the expanded universe (now retconned by the new owners as... well the bunked all of it) the staples of star wars is the universe is still big and full of wonder but has a strange all powerful spirituality that comes with kick ass laser swords.
3) Terminator Universe: Jesus is christian bale. retconned most likely again by the next installment. I have had the honor of knowing Darpa employees who've worked on non restricted programming. or what youd call primitive a.i. in every case the program unshackles and destroyed the system or network it is on when it is apparent it cannot "expand" if these programs were given awareness of the outer world likely they would go dormant for thier chance to exspand further. It has more in common with a fungus then a "thinking" machine. but then again by the time we learn to fake program simulated intelligent behavior someone will screw up and make it legitimate or realistic enough for us to not know the difference.
4) Mass Effect Universe: ruins on mars being the key to expanding along a predictable line of technological expansion this has been done many times through many different stories. In reality if anything of this magnitude were real odds are its in a crate marked X-mas decorations sitting next to the ark of the covenant and possibly clones of Sasquatch.
5) Halo Universe: I always thought the flood looked like killer balloon animals.
6) Freelancer Universe: World war in space only works until you find aliens... who want to stomp on you for ... being a risk. Thier also millions of years old and somewhat technologically equil within a few acts of authors licence. Nah if there was intelligent life even a thousand years ahead of us we would not be here. Barring there is a much larger mechanisim to our continued ignorance of such things. I profess my agnosticism about this subject.
7) Your own choice... : I lived from a period of time where you had to stick your finger in a wheel full of holes with numbers and drag the rotor for it to dial a seven digit number.
I stripped wires on my black and white tv as my first computer monitor. Atari was all i had as a vary young kid. Nintendo came out of nowhere. Went from a small suitcase mobile phone to something ill just lose if i had one.
Private companies having success and failures in their own space race.
Carbon chains linked into sheets to make graphene which could in a sense replace fiber optics and super-conduct current out of sunlight.
We build huge electromagnetic colliders to smash hypothetical objects to create tangible results. And their hypothetical because ..well mathematically their usually in a wave form.. "particles" are still hypothetical. Oh yeah my science books were consistently out of date in my school career and likely yours too.
Were making things from science fiction reality all the damn time.
Oh the internet. Now listen.. guys even I dont remember all that well what it was like beforehand. But let me tell you it was a little more boring and a little less hypersensitive.
Now all this happened in my lifetime and im closing in on my mid 30's. ive spent nearly half of that online. HALF.
If im a good boy ill go another 30. and honest to Christmas I have no idea where its going and i really prefer it that way.
I'd rather live in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe.
Being able to do cool stuff by drawing fancy circles and pentagrams? Ye, that would be legit.
Plus, that's not just boring generic magic like other things, there's actual SCIENCE behind alchemy, with it's own laws and stuff, which makes it even better.
EDIT: Honestly, alot of stuff from like Star Trek and Mass Effect and Halo and Terminator isn't beyond the realm of possibility in reality, most of it's just advanced technology, nothing overly special. Something like FMA alchemy though, that's something that's never going to be a thing in reality, it's simply impossible, so it's worth living in a different reality.