MARS

Mars (also known as Sol IV, Barsoom and Malacandra) is the fourth planet in the Solar system, orbiting at an average distance of roughly 1.5 Standard AU from the system's primary, Sol. It is home to the second-oldest indigenous civilization in the system (after Yuggoth, the largest moon of Sol X, Persephone), and the oldest still-surviving sapient species.

Mars is a smaller, geologically older planet than its more famous neighbor, Earth, and no longer exhibits active plate tectonics or vulcanism. Though once Class M, in modern history it has declined to Class L, though partial reterraforming in the 21st century has restored a marginal Standard environment. Even so, most of Mars is desert, and the low atmospheric pressure is uncomfortable to unacclimatized humans and near-humans. Acclimatization, however, is a relatively straightforward process for those in reasonable health.

Recent history

Over the course of Martian history, at least four separate sapient species have arisen and founded civilizations, all of which overlapped to a certain extent. Before First Contact with Salusia opened Earth to the galaxy in SY 1999, the physical decline of Martian conditions had reached the point where it had driven the native lifeforms nearly to extinction, forcing them into underground shelters or hibernation facilities.

Human explorers, believing that the native Martians had died out in the early 20th century (see below), expected to find the planet deserted when they arrived in the early 21st and began colonizing and terraforming operations. The return of habitable conditions to the surface of Mars, however, alerted the Martians who were hiding and awakened those in hibernation, all of whom then emerged to the surface to see what was going on. At roughly the same time, the planet was invaded by an extrasolar species whose origins remain unknown, and who intended to use Mars as a staging point for an attack on Earth. In the ensuing confusion, a short war erupted between the United Nations of Earth and the vestiges of Martian civilization, with the humans mistaking the fungoid invaders for still another species of native Martians and the Martians initially believing that the fungoids were Earth's enforcers.

In earlier times, the end result of this would probably have been the complete extinction of the native Martians, despite their technological (and in some cases physical - see below) superiority to the Earthpeople. Fortunately, however, in the 21st century cooler heads prevailed. With the aid of the Wedge Defense Force and Earth's Ambassador-at-Large to the Galactic Community, Jeremy Feeple, the UN and the native Martians sorted out who was which, joined forces against the fungoid invaders, and - as they refused any sort of diplomatic overture - annihilated them.

Following the war, the native Martians recognized that they were too few in number, their resources too scattered, to save their dying world by themselves. Led by Dejah Thoris, queen of the Red Martian city-state of Helium, and expatriate Earthman John Carter, Warlord of Mars, the surviving natives banded together and formed a coalition government with the human colonists. This government immediately asserted Martian independence from Earth and set an agenda to restore Mars to a more comfortably habitable state.

The Martian state has been the Solar system's most stable polity ever since, enduring largely unchanged through several worldwide upheavals on neighboring Earth and staying completely out of the current Earth Alliance awkwardness. Though not isolationist, Mars has a reputation for staying out of others' business and expecting others to reciprocate.

Peoples

There are five principal sapient populations making up the citizenship of Mars today. Four of them are indigeous to the planet, while the fifth is primarily human, some native-born, some immigrants.

Sarmak

The Sarmak are the oldest people of Mars, having achieved sentience long before any of the others. Much of their ancient culture and history has been lost, as they came very near to extinction several times over the long course of Martian history. Even their present name is actually the Red Martian name for them.

Sarmak are non-humanoid creatures; indeed, by humanoid standards they're essentially just giant heads. They have large, roughly spheroidal bodies containing little more than very large brains, two large eyes, a mouth, and a single external tympanic membrane, and equipped with sixteen prehensile tentacles that serve them as hands and legs. The mouth is used for breathing and speech, not eating; Sarmak do not have digestive systems, but instead eat by directly absorbing nutrients from their surroundings. They reproduce asexually, by budding off new offspring, and their "birth" rate is very low. It is unknown whether Sarmak have a natural limit to their lifespan, or only die from disease or injury.

Though physically not very capable, Sarmak are highly intelligent and logical-minded. Over the æons, their emotions, like their physical prowess, have attenuated, leaving them cooler and more rational than the other peoples of Mars (though they are not entirely devoid of emotion; indeed, once a Sarmak becomes another being's friend, that bond is lifelong). They command Mars's most advanced technologies. The military technology of Mars, especially, is almost entirely of Sarmak origin. Aided by their legendary fighting-machines, Sarmak make fearsome soldiers, implacable and, thanks to their species' rather limited emotional repertoire, without fear.

In SY 1895, the Sarmak population had been reduced by Mars's straitened circumstances to a few thousand and declined annually, partly due to ongoing skirmishes with the Red Martians and Tharks. Forced as close as such an emotionally muted species can get to desperation, the Sarmak leadership decided that only by invading and conquering nearby Earth could they ensure their species's survival. Seeking an alliance with Earth's native populations was considered, but the idea was discarded as it was not believed that the Earthpeople of the time would share their world with such blatantly inhuman creatures.

The first phase of the invasion was launched in 1904, with a sort of "test invasion" launched against one selected nation-state of Earth. Had it gone according to plan, the island of Great Britain would then have been used as a beachhead for the full-planet invasion, and at first progress was encouraging. The Sarmak invasion force's technological superiority was such that even with a relative handful of personnel - no more than 50 - they almost entirely conquered England within days. Unfortunately, the Sarmak leaders had not considered the possibility that Earth's biosphere would contain micro-organisms inimical to Martian life, and within a month of landing, the entire invasion force had perished from bacterial infection. Rather than try again, the Sarmak chose instead to retire into underground hibernation.

Upon emerging from hibernation to find the planet invaded by Earthpeople and at war with extrasolar aggressors to boot, the Sarmak were nearly wiped out before WDF exobiologists worked out a way to immunize them against the diseases brought to Mars by the colonists from Earth. They then entered the war on the side of the Martian Coalition, and with their fighting-machines and their deadly Heat-Ray in the fight, the fungoid invaders were quickly routed.

Red Martians

The most humanoid of the native Martian species, Red Martians - also known as Barsoomites after their language's name for the planet - are visually indistinguishable from humans apart from their unusually ruddy skin tone. Biologically there are differences - the Red Martians reproduce by laying eggs, for instance - but they are near-human enough that they can interbreed with humans with only minimal biomedical intervention.

In the Age of Decline, the Red Martians were the species who managed to hold onto the most extensive vestiges of civilization. The Sarmak had better technology, but the Red Martians retained their artistic and cultural traditions much more effectively. From their city-states in the polar regions, they husbanded the planet's failing resources of water and arable land as best they could. They were the first Martians to make contact with the unwitting invaders from Earth in the early 2100s. They were helped in this by the fact that they had a human among them already: John Carter, one of pre-Contact Earth's exceedingly rare cryptogenic immortals, had come to Mars in the mid-19th century under mysterious circumstances and fought his way to a position of prominence in Red Martian society.

On modern Mars, the Red Martians tend to be the combined Martian civilization's administrators, diplomats, and political prime movers. They are, so to speak, the public face of Mars.

Tharks

The Tharks, also (a bit confusingly; see below) known as "Green Martians", are a larger, more powerful species than the Sarmak or the Red Martians, and are semihumanoid. The average Thark stands about 15 feet tall and has six limbs: two arms and two legs in the usual places, and two further limbs midway between the two, which are customarily used as arms, but can also be used as legs. They have green skin, tusks, and white eyes with red pupils.

The Tharks spent the Age of Decline as a nomadic, militaristic species, eking out a harsh existence moving around Mars's dead sea basins and waging brutal wars among themselves and with the Red Martian city-states. During the 1900s, the influence of John Carter and Dejah Thoris slowly gentled the Tharks' condition, eventually priming them to join the Martian Coalition. Until the Sarmak joined the battle with their fighting-machines, the soldiers of the Thark warbands made up the vast bulk of the Coalition's fighting force against the fungoid invaders.

Modern Tharks are still a rougher and tougher people than their more sophisticated red cousins, preferring an honest fight to a parley any day of the week. However, they are not merely brainless brawlers. Thark soldiers are clever tacticians and experts at survival under harsh conditions, making them prized as commandos all over civilized space (though their size makes them a bit unwieldy in most Standard environments).

Both Red Martians and Tharks can live for at least a thousand years, possibly longer.

Malacandri

The least numerous and most retiring of the native Martian peoples, the Malacandri (also sometimes known, despite being entirely unrelated to the Tharks, as Green Martians) evolved in the southern hemisphere, independent of the ancient species that eventually diverged into the Red Martians and Tharks, and of the Sarmak.

Malacandri are semihumanoid creatures whose natural state is a thin, angular biped with an elongated skull, green skin, and red eyes. However, they are highly capable shapeshifters, and as such may look like almost any creature of roughly the same size. During the initial human contacts, they tended to imitate the appearance of Red Martians, and indeed initially presented themselves as a separate tribe of same who lived in the isolated south. Only in the final battle against the fungoid invaders did they reveal their true power.

In addition to their shapeshifting abilities, Malacandri are tremendously powerful beings. They have strength, speed, and durability on par with that of Kryptonians under a yellow sun, and are highly capable telepaths as well. In addition, they can shift their molecular structure out of phase with normal matter, become invisible, and project destructive beams of energy from their eyes. These are not, in short, people to mess around with, and their might explains in large part why Mars hasn't been subject to Earth Alliance "regularization". Their only real vulnerability is to fire; it has been hypothesized that an ancient conflict with the Malacandri provided the original impetus for the development of the Sarmaks' legendary Heat-Ray.

Though they are full members of the coalition government - indeed, the official name of the planet comes from their language's word for it - the Malacandri tend to keep to themselves even now. A few members of the species take part in public life, most famously D'ann J'onzz, Malacandran ambassador to the Babylon Foundation, but most never leave Mars.

Government

The Malacandra Free Republic is the planetary government of Mars. Unlike many polities with "free republic" in their names, the MFR really is both; it is not beholden to any other government in the galaxy, and its people enjoy a wide range of personal freedoms guaranteed them by Article X of the Malacandran constitution.

At its heart, the Republic remains a federation of city-states, though the modern cities of Mars all cleave to the same code of jurisprudence, share a common currency, and have responsibilities to each other that are clearly defined under the planetary constitution. The internal affairs of the cities themselves reflect a curious sort of retro-pseudo-feudal system with titled nobility and constitutional monarchies. The whole system is much too baroque and counterintuitive for most modern political scientists trained anywhere other than Mars to understand, but it works for the Martians.

Notable persons

Dejah Thoris
Queen of Helium and speaker of the Malacandra Free Republic's parliament, the Red Martian Dejah Thoris is one of the legendary beauties of our time. People who have never been anywhere near the Solar system have been known to collect Martian coins merely because they have her likeness on the obverse.

John Carter
The immortal Earth expat who was instrumental in bringing peace to the peoples of Mars and leading the war effort against the fungoid invaders, John Carter holds the ancient (and not at all ceremonial) title Warlord of Mars, which in modern terms makes him commander-in-chief of the Malacandran Defense Force. A man of great integrity and personal charm, he is also the husband of Dejah Thoris. It's because of his stature in modern Martian society that John (or J'onn in Malacandri) is the most popular given name on the planet - for female as well as male children.

Tars Tarkas
Lord of the Tharks and second-in-command of the Malacandran army, Tars Tarkas is a warrior of legendary prowess and courage, and was also one of the first Tharks to embrace the then-all-but-unthinkable ideas of peace and friendship with the other races of Mars. Today he is also Prime Minister of the Republic, and instrumental in shaping Martian domestic policy.

D'ann J'onzz
A Malacandri statesman and probably the most famous member of his species off Mars, D'ann J'onzz's official position is Foreign Minister of the Republic, which makes him the prime mover in directing Malacandran foreign policy. He is currently serving as the Republic's ambassador to the Babylon Foundation, believing that managing such an important connection at an official remove would be counterproductive.

Hitchhiking prospects

Mars is relatively easy to hitchhike to, even with the rest of the Solar system (except the Sol VI Territory) under Earth Alliance lockdown. The planet does a brisk trade in industrial exports and agricultural imports, and Martian freighter crews are known to be generally willing to pick up and drop off hitchhikers. Be warned, though, that they will probably expect you to work off your passage.

Mars welcomes tourists, and several of its cities, most prominently Helium (historical capital of the Red Martian highlands) and Port Bradbury (the site of the first Earth settlement), have a lively and engaging nightlife. Hitchhikers are advised, however, that most cops on Mars are Tharks, so it's best to read up on the local laws in advance and make sure you don't run afoul of them.

Sadly, the much-touted ancient Martian traditions of nudity have gone by the wayside thanks to the influence of the killjoy colonists from Earth. Well, that and the fact that the present-day conditions on the planet are such that running around naked would be mighty uncomfortable.