Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from Sol and the first other planet to be colonized by Humans.

Overview

Mars is currently a barren desert world, however the current terraforming progress aims to turn it into a world much like our own. It has two asteroid moons, Phobos and Deimos, which have since been semi-converted into stations.

Colonisation

Colonisation and terraforming are currently underway, with residents living in domed cities. These cities have a diameter of 18km and can hold up to 15 million people.

File:Scr01476.jpg

As of 2985, Mars' clouds are a lot more opaque than before.

Over the last centuries, Mars' atmosphere has started turning blue, and the atmospheric pressure has gone up from 0.00628 atm to 0.00631 atm, indicating that the terraforming process is going very quickly. Colonisation started in 2040, with reusable technology making cargo hauling much easier, and with a colony on the Moon allowing smaller rockets with bigger payloads. The colonisation started with a couple small outposts buried in martian soil to provide cover from the radiation and semi-autonomous maintenance robots to reduce exposure to the radiation.

These colonies were heavily dependant on annual deliveries from Earth to keep resources plentiful, and crew morale was very low due to the limited space, sunlight, being overworked, and a lack of nice food. In 2042, these outposts were extended and began mining operations allowing for them to expand themselves, while growing food also became easier. By the 2060, colonists' morale had risen greatly and became much more productive. In 2100, villages were upgraded with glass windows designed to filter radiation, and more importantly making larger colonies possible. In 2110, massive cargo ships had been created just to haul hundreds of tons of light-filtering metal, plants, water and aquatic species to Mars allowing these outposts to become full colonies. By 2280, these outposts had expanded into gargantuan domes with self-contained ecosystems. By the year 2571, the United Federation of Mars undergone a merger with the Solarian Confederation to make co-operation between other established colonies around the Sol system easier. Now in the year 2995, Mars has a total of 5,000 colonies and a population of 18 billion colonists.

Society and Culture

Overtime, the people of Mars have physically changed thanks to the lower gravity, growing to heights of 6ft 7 to 7ft 5. As well as use of genetic engineering, they mainly refer to themselves as Martians, to distinguish from their Earthly brethren. Some however prefer to keep a more baseline appearance.

Although still being terraformed, Martian culture has changed dynamically over the last centuries. They have a friendly rivalry with Earth, though a few nationalist groups, such as the Sons of Ares, have risen who consider themselves superior to Earthborn people and actively wish to sever Mars' connection with Earth.

Due to the immense work that early colonists went through, Martian society has a heavy focus on working hard to achieve.

Major colonies

Olympus

The largest, and densest populated city on the planet.

Formation and prehistory

Like with the other planets, Mars formed in a disc of protoplanetary dust that surrounded Sol during its infancy.

At one point the planet was a world very similar to Earth, having oceans of liquid water and a temperate climate. Within these young seas, primitive bacteria and other simple organisms thrived. Unfortunately, the gradual loss of ifs magnetic field followed by Solar storms caused Mars to loose its seas, killing off most of the emerging life.

Terraforming efforts are working to restore the planet to a habitable state again.

Past life

Fossils of very simple organisms have been found in soil, proving that a primitive yet thriving biosphere once thrived in the primordial seas that existed there. Scientists are hoping thar some organisms still remain frozen within the I've caps though nothing has yet been found.