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[[Image:Mars_Biodomes.jpg|thumb|250px|A view of pre-Violet Dawn biodome complexes in Olympia.]]


'''IMPORTANT NOTE: Many of these factions will be quite difficult to play on the station due to the chaotic nature of the wildlands! FOLLOWERS OF THE SOLARIAN RESTORATION FRONT, IN PARTICULAR, WOULD NOT BE TOLERATED WITHIN THE REPUBLIC OF BIESEL DUE TO ITS EXTREMELY XENOPHOBIC NATURE!'''
Mars (Sol IV) is the fourth planet out from Sol. Often called “The Red Planet,” it has a surface area the size of Earth's entire landmass. It had a stable population of 4.5 billion people, and its current population is estimated to be anywhere from 1.5 to 2 billion. Around 4% of the population is non-human, a significant reduction caused by the Third Tajara Deportation Act and the Violet Dawn catastrophe (Mars’ non-human population previously stood at 12%). There is a significant minority of synthetics on the planet; a hold-over from Mars' early years of harsh criminal justice allowing corporations to cyborgify criminals responsible for major crimes.


In the chaotic aftermath of the Solarian Alliance’s retreat from its Middle and Outer Rings much of the now-leaderless rings were swept up by the Coalition of Colonies and the grotesquely enlarged Republic of Biesel, providing some measure of stability to a region that the previous hegemon of the Orion Spur had simply left to burn due to crippling [[KING OF THE WORLD|internal issues]] that left it unable to hold onto its more distant, and less loyal, territories. But the Coalition and Republic were not able to reach every system abandoned by the Sol Alliance in its retreat giving rise to the anarchic sectors referred to as the human wildlands. The '''human wildlands''' are bisected by the [[Republic of Biesel]] and are divided into the '''northern''' and '''southern wildlands''', with the northern wildlands being significantly larger than the southern wildlands.
Despite its proximity to Earth, during the early years of interstellar colonization Mars was only home to small scientific expeditions and outposts that etched out a meager existence until the 2200's, when terraforming technology was finally able to slowly reintroduce water and atmosphere to the planet. Currently the atmosphere is breathable but incredibly thin, which makes strenuous efforts outside the arcologies very dangerous. Many regions also suffer from airborne phoron contamination, adding further danger to already hazardous activities outside arcologies.


The human wildlands are home to a variety of '''successor states''' often colloquially referred to as post-Solarian '''warlords''' in the galactic press. These successor states can control everywhere from one planet to multiple systems, though many have debatable levels of control over their claimed areas and are not recognized as legitimate governments by the greater Orion Spur. While the vast majority of these successor states control very little territory several have come to relative prominence in the months following the Solarian retreat, and have become relatively well-known in the wider Orion Spur thanks to media coverage of them. The following seven successor states are the most widely-known and prominent factions within the human wildlands, but are by no means the only ones in the wildlands.
Until recently an Alliance fleet remained in orbit of Mars at all times, ensuring that the planet remains disarmed and free of armed disputes. Following the so-called “Violet Dawn” explosion in 2462, Mars now finds itself worse-off than ever before; in the wake of an ecological catastrophe and plagued by unrest and violence.


==The Solarian Restoration Front==
== Demographics ==
[[Image:Solarian Restoration Front.png|thumb|The flag of the Solarian Restoration Front, one of the major successor states in the northern human wildlands. The anchor-in-sun featured on this flag was a common symbol of the 35th Fleet before its collapse.]]
Extremely nationalistic even by the standards of the authoritarian Solarian Alliance, the Solarian Restoration Front is often rightfully viewed as the most militaristic of the Solarian successor states that now jockey for control of the “wildlands” that now make up the former Middle and Outer Rings of the Solarian Alliance. The Front believes that the Alliance’s third tajara ban was both not enough and too soft on aliens in the Alliance, and they view this softness as the main cause for its collapse. This the Front strives to create a highly-militarized, extremely authoritarian, and human only state in the wildlands as a basis for purifying the Sol Alliance itself of degenerating alien influence, no matter the cost.


The ultranationalist xenophobia of the Front can be traced to its origins in a very specific Solarian fleet: the 35th. Even before its invasion of Tau Ceti the 35th Fleet was considered to be one of the most rabidly nationalistic fleets of the Sol Alliance, and its bloody invasion of Tau Ceti and chaotic retreat into the wildlands following Admiral Özdemir’s death further radicalized the Fleet. Rear Admiral Anton Verglas, the new commander of the 35th Fleet’s remnants, had a great amount of time to ponder what, exactly, had gone wrong during the chaotic final months of the Sol Alliance that he had grown up knowing. His ultimate conclusion was a typical one for Solarians, particularly after the collapse: the government had been too soft on alien fifth columnists, particularly tajara, including their human patsies, despite signs they were stirring unrest and the only solution was deportation. But Verglas went further than the typical Solarian: instead of pushing for the removal of solely tajara, he seeks to create a section of the wildlands free of aliens and entirely populated by humans in preparation for what he describes as the “purification” of the decrepit Solarian Alliance. The whisperings of his badly-injured fleet intelligence officer, Florentina von Keyserling, likely had an influence upon this very radical stance.
While Martians may have previously been divided into urban and rural demographics the catastrophic aftermath of Violet Dawn has rent these past divisions asunder. With millions - perhaps billions - dead in the disaster and its immediate aftermath, billions displaced, and millions having fled the planet Martian demographics have permanently - and irreversibly - changed. For the sake of convenience, the two primary Martian ethnic groups prior to Violet Dawn are listed below.


The areas under the control of the Front are ruled with an iron fist. All resources that can be directed towards waging a war of reunification are utilized, and all non-human residents - and their human associates - are swiftly dealt with through whatever means are deemed necessary. The scarred von Keyserling has been a major driving force behind the Front’s so-called “hunts” for nonhumans, seeing them as parasites living off of the success of humanity. With the 35th Fleet badly scarred by the disastrous invasion of Tau Ceti, much of its effective strength is made up of defectors from other fleets that have chosen to align themselves with the Front’s stance on aliens within the territory of the Alliance - with the 33rd Fleet, previously under the command of Admiral Michael Frost, making up much of the Front’s effective strength thanks to defections. The Front also has access to a great amount of Solarian Navy equipment, thanks to many officers simply looking the other way when Front vessels requisition supplies. Thanks to its external support by the Sol Alliance’s Navy, the Front is in a better position than most rivals to establish itself in the wildlands - and perhaps the Alliance itself, someday.
[[Image:Mars_destruction.png|thumb|250px|A map of Mars immediately following the Violet Dawn explosion. Note that this map displays the wrong capital, as a result of incorrect information received during the Solarian communications blackout.]]


In no place is the Front’s control more obvious than its provisional capital of '''Lycoris''', which has been under Front control since the Solarian Collapse. Lycoris is a heavily industrialized world with an agricultural moon where much of its richer population resides known as Lycoris Minor. The planet itself is known for its large orbital facilities which, until the Collapse, primarily constructed ships for Hephaestus Industries. Now these facilities serve the ships of the Front and, rarely, retrofit Front vessels with modern Suzuki-Zhang engines which have somehow ended up in the Wildlands. Life on Lycoris has become one of constant fear under Front control: aliens, foreign humans, and suspected traitors are rounded up by local authorities who have long collaborated with the Front, and rapidly disappear. Citizens of the planet are expected to be slavishly loyal to the Front despite its increasingly rampant looting of the planet’s key industries and must attend rallies in support of the Front or suffer the consequences, which are inevitably disappearing or being conscripted into penal units. Many attempt to escape but few succeed thanks to a pervasive culture of collaboration, and those that do flee the Wildlands are often viewed as complicit in the atrocities of the SRF.
=== The Urban Martians ===


==The League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems==
The vast majority of the Martian population is urban, living in arcologies, sometimes referred to as “hives”. A miracle of engineering for early colonization times, they are designed to support as many residents as possible, while conserving space and construction costs. The lower part of a truncated pyramid-shaped structure is dedicated to apartments with the occasional amenity such as a hospital or grocery store, while the upper one is dedicated to various malls and offices. Finally, the top part, covered by a transparent dome, usually hosts entertainment and hydroponics facilities, as well as a gravity generator. This section of the arcology is heavily maintained by the arcology's habitants, with many of them coming to do volunteer work here due to the section's importance to the arcology as a whole. Many of these arcologies were destroyed or abandoned during the Violet Dawn catastrophe, with some now serving as little more than mass graves for their previous residents, the arcologies now twisted and warped by the heat of phoron fires.
[[Image:League.png|thumb|The flag of the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems, one of the major successor states in the northern human wildlands. The red star surrounded by gold is a symbolic representation of the League's goal of a Solarian successor state free of corporate influence.]]
Many radical political changes followed the retreat of the Solarian Alliance from its Middle and Outer Rings. In most areas this political change was accompanied by a reckoning over what, exactly, had caused the once-great Solarian Alliance to slowly atrophy, decay, and then abandon the majority of its outlying territories. In some areas the answer was that the Alliance had been too soft on the Republic of Biesel, or that it had been tainted by alien influence, or that it had been too ambitious and large. But in the human wildlands close to the former Alliance Neutral Zone, another explanation emerged: that the Alliance had collapsed due to the meddling of corporations and if only the Alliance had stood against the forces of interstellar capitalism, it would have never collapsed. Thus from the ashes of the Alliance’s colonies emerged something truly unforeseen in the Orion Spur: a left-leaning, anti-corporate “successor state” to the Alliance in the region.


The resulting League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems is something of an oddity. As the union of many disparate (and, perhaps, desperate) systems in the wildlands unified only by their shared hatred of corporations, the League is hardly a truly unified force. Instead it is governed in a manner similar to the Coalition of Colonies, though with a more militant purpose in mind: individual planets and former Solarian fleets loyal to the League make up the anti-corporate council, the nearest thing that the League has to a governing body. This council is further divided into a civilian and military wing, with the military wing - made up of anti-corporate Solarian naval and army officers - generally taking priority over the civilian wing, due to the threats posed to the young League by corporate mercenaries and other successor states alike.
All surviving arcologies on Mars are concentrated around liquid water. Due to the unique mineral content of Martian soil, unfiltered Martian water is incredibly acidic and unsafe to drink. Very few fish can survive in the Martian lakes and seas, and none of them safe to eat or fish. Phoron contamination has worsened the issue following the Violet Dawn explosion, and water has quickly become the most important resource on Mars - to the point where small-scale “wars” are fought between surviving arcologies over it. The largest source of surviving drinking water is the northern ice cap, controlled by what remains of Mars’ Solarian government.
Two centuries later, however, obvious problems with arcology designs have come to light. Stacking thousands of tiny apartments into a relatively small space has led to the structures being nigh impossible to navigate without a GPS or decades of experience, which especially cripples the local law enforcement. The cramped flats often do not possess basic necessities, let alone amenities, such as kitchens or bathrooms, with later attempts to expand upon them only making the complexes into ugly, over-engineered structures that require almost constant maintenance. Because only the outer part can be built upon, the verge, or “surface,” apartments tend to be the most expensive to live in.
The refugee crisis caused by the Violet Dawn catastrophe has only worsened the conditions in many arcologies. Overcrowding, already a typical issue, has skyrocketed out of control to levels only before seen on planets such as Konyang and New Hai Phong. Services are stretched to the very brink in many of Mars’ surviving cities as well, and crime has become an even greater problem, with criminal gangs acting as the de facto authority in many neglected sectors of Martian arcologies . It remains to be seen how much the arcologies of Mars can bend before they break.


The anti-corporate stance of the League has cut it off from much of the outside support other factions in the wildlands enjoy, but it is not without its supporters and sponsors. The United Syndicates of Himeo and the United Planetary Defense Council of Gadpathur have both stated their intent to support the League, and have provided aid. The Himeans seek to establish a powerful anti-corporate state aligned with their interests, with the eventual intent of allowing them into the Coalition to swing the balance of power out of Xanu Prime’s favor, while Gadpathur simply seeks to create a buffer zone between Sol and the Coalition. Regardless of the intents of their sponsors, the League is slowly gathering its power in order to bring about its vision for the northern wildlands. As the main regional rival of the Solarian Restoration Front, a showdown over control of the wildlands seems all but inevitable.
=== Rural Martians ===


Unfortunately the League’s patchwork politics are on full display in its capital, '''New Atlantica'''. Not technically a planet at all, New Atlantic is instead a  moderately large naval base complete with multitude of sensor relays, all of which were pointed towards the Coalition prior to the Collapse, New Atlantica has now become known as a kind of miniature Konyang where Sol and the Coalition have culturally collided, though in a far messier manner than its synthetic-producing counterpart. Fights between League members — and, occasionally, their Coalition advisors — over the future of the League are common, and what civilian residents remain on the station have tried to keep their heads down. Many of the original inhabitants, most of whom were offworlders, have since fled for less chaotic environments. Only limited repairs can be performed in New Atlantica’s facilities, and the League’s attrition rate has steadily climbed as a result.
Rural Martians, as a demographic, have disappeared in the aftermath of Violet Dawn. For all the pride they held in their sense of self-sufficiency and hardiness, they have been unable to overcome the scorching, toxic aftermath of Violet Dawn. Their hydroponics bays now sit poisoned by phoron, their mines have no markets to export to, and their hamlets have been torn apart by desperate raiders seeking to make off with what supplies they need to survive. Many rural dwellers of Mars have resorted to armed banditry to survive, but most have bitten down on their pride and moved into arcologies - often contributing to already extreme issues of overcrowding.
The same traits that made many rural dwells of Mars excellent survivalists - such as their adaptation to the harsh environment of the Martian plains - have made them excellent raiders and bandits in the post-Violet Dawn Martian environment. The reputation of rural Martians as bandits is so widespread that some rural refugees taking shelter in arcologies find themselves brought under suspicion purely by association.


==The Middle Ring Shield Pact==
[[Image:MarsLabelled.png|thumb|250px|Despite the harsh and arid environment, many urban areas have developed. This map represents Mars before the Violet Dawn catastrophe.]]
[[Image:Shield-Pact.png|thumb|The flag of the Middle Ring Shield Pact, one of the major successor states in the northern human wildlands. Each star on this flag represents a signatory member of the original Shield Pact.]]
Unfortunately located between the Solarian Restoration Front and the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems is a loosely-aligned cluster of fairly wealthy Middle Ring planets that have banded together to form what they refer to as the Middle Ring Shield Pact, a defensive alliance designed to protect them from their neighbors. The Pact was formed shortly after the collapse of Solarian authority within the Middle Ring, and it was one of the first powers to emerge in the warlordism following said retreat of Solarian authority. This, combined with a robust (if arguably megacorporate-owned) local bureaucracy, has led to the Pact becoming an island of relative stability in the anarchy of the northern wildlands. But the Pact has hardly become a successful military power in the region, with most defecting Solarian fleets instead casting their luck with the Restoration Front or the League. Aside from their mediocre military situation the decentralized leadership of the pact has led to decision-making becoming increasingly awkward and difficult as the situation around them has worsened.


The decentralized nature of the Pact, combined with the lack of a full battlegroup under its command, has made its situation quite desperate indeed. On one side, the League looks at it as a catspaw of corporate interests that has persisted despite the collapse of Solarian authority in the region due to its megacorporate sponsors and views defeating it as the first step towards the creation of a space free of the meddling interests of the ruinous megacorporations. On the other side the Restoration Front views the Pact as a rich and weak power that will serve its goal of creating a region free of the degenerating influence of aliens that destroyed the Alliance’s glory. With many megacorporations more concerned with exploiting the (more stable) recently-acquired territories of the Republic of Biesel, the situation of the Pact looks more and more dire by the day. Even with the mercenaries of the Free Solarian Fleets on their payroll (for as long as the Credits continue to flow into their vessels) it is doubtful that both the League and the Front can be held off by the Pact.
== Culture ==


But this doubt has not stopped the Pact from fortifying its capital, '''San Colette''', for the inevitable war which draws inexorably closer as the Front and League become more and more aggressive. As one of the rare worlds aside from Tau Ceti and Medina graced with naturally-occurring phoron deposits, San Colette has no shortage of funds and sponsors. Its government has used these funds to create a system flush with defenses and regularly patrolled by mercenaries and corporate assets. Life in San Colette’s surface has proceeded much in the way it did before the Collapse — though with larger populations of refugees — thanks to its wealth, and the ruling Council of San Colette is responsible for much of the ties that bind the Pact together. But this wealth is acquired from a source outside the planet itself: D’Anzin, a small and ice-covered rock that happens to hold the system’s only existing phoron deposit. D’Anzin is mostly populated by offworlders, but has seen a recent population boom as desperate refugees have begun working in its mines to meet ends meet — and to make the Pact able to fund its defense.
Mars was home to the Sol cultural underground prior to the Violet Dawn catastrophe. The tensions with the greater Solarian Alliance combined with the planet’s wildly different features and cultural mindsets have, over centuries, produced cultures and traditions unique to Mars. Of course, with the damage wrought by the recent catastrophe, high culture has fallen to the wayside in favor of the day-to-day struggle of survival that defines much of life on Mars now.
One artistic movement that has endured  is ktipita, translated simply as “plainness”. Fiction, music and film of this genre aims to simply encapsulate “life as it is”, being extremely grounded and dealing with very simple stories and concepts that an average Martian can relate themselves to. The simplistic nature of these tales allows them to often be recited orally from books, instead of requiring advanced technologies such as holographic televisions.


War will come to the Pact. It is not a question of if anymore, but a question of when - and the victor will have the northern wildlands at their fingertips.
== History ==


==The Free Solarian Fleets==
=== Early Colonization ===
[[Image:Epic WerBell Moment.png|thumb|The primary ensign of ships under the command of the Free Solarian Fleets, the largest singular mercenary force in the human wildlands.]]
Unique amongst the major successor states in the wildlands are the former Solarian battle fleets of the Free Solarian Fleets. The reason for this uniqueness relate to the Fleets’ origins and goals: while they, like many successor states, were formerly a Solarian fleet group (in this case, the 8th Middle Ring Defense Group), the Free Solarian Fleets do not rule over any planets or claim any greater goals beyond making money hand over fist as mercenaries in the wildlands. They have an utter disinterest in conquering and holding territory of their own, instead opting to serve as a mercenary fleet for the highest bidder in the wildlands. While some may call them cowards and opportunists, it cannot be denied that the Free Solarian Fleets’ focus on profits rather than planets has made them into one of the most powerful military forces in the wildlands, and a reliable military force (as long as the Credits keep coming).


Much of this attitude can be traced to the leader of the Free Solarian Fleets: Pieter van der Rensburg, a former Solarian Fleet Admiral in command of the Fifth Middle Ring Battlegroup consisting of the 138th, 139th, 140th, 141st, and 142nd fleets. As the phoron crisis worsened and the Sol Alliance became less and less stable van der Rensburg’s four fleets were initially placed upon limited patrols, then withdrawn from patrols, then dry docked until further notice, and then ordered to retreat from their berths in the Middle Ring to the Sol System itself following the disastrous invasion of the Republic of Biesel by the 35th Fleet. This proved to be the last straw for Fleet Admiral van der Rensburg and the ships under his command, leading to the mutiny and defection of all five fleets. As the Middle and Outer Rings descended into anarchy around them, the former battlegroup remained mostly cohesive thanks to the charismatic leadership of van der Rensburg, who quickly realized that the fleets would need a new source of supplies following the retreat of the Sol Alliance.
Despite Mars being a barren planet, a mixture of desperate living conditions on Earth and a bold commitment to exploration and colonization caused it to experience small scale colonization in the 2100's. After the terraforming efforts of 2200 began and with the discovery of massive fossil fuel deposits (therefore confirming Mars once held life), optimistic nations and corporations attempted to set up a foothold on it, causing tens of thousands of colonists to arrive during the first waves. After it became clear that Mars would remain hostile for quite some time, was passed over for more suitable, distant worlds for a long period, leaving the original settlers to etch out a meager life. The byproduct of this is that many issues, national and cultural, that plagued humanity at those times were brought over to the red planet, causing tensions between its inhabitants and new settlers. Despite the one world government of the Alliance, individual nations on Earth would finance and support colonies on Mars, pitting them against one another. Wars and skirmishes between the colonies, although rare, were not unheard of. The ones that survived have long since grown into large, independent arcologies, which are for the most part friendly competitors under the watchful eye of Sol Alliance.


With his fleets mostly intact - and definitely more intact than most other forces in the wildlands - van der Rensburg could have easily set up a military fiefdom in the wildlands and why he did not may remain a mystery forever. Perhaps the sixty-five year old flag officer was tired of constantly grinding his forces down for what felt like nothing, or perhaps he simply wanted to make as much money as possible from a horrific situation. Regardless of his motivation the outcome was that the battlegroup was reformed into the Free Solarian Fleets, and would now fight for the highest bidder and only the highest bidder. With their berth safely secure in the Middle Ring Shield Pact thanks to generous payments, the Fleets - and van der Rensburg - now treat the wildlands as their personal money-making safari, paying little heed to the consequences of their actions - and the ruins they often leave during their contracts.
The fossil fuels found on Mars were quickly put to use. Power plants, large factory complexes were constructed outside the arcologies, and the planet was becoming industrialized, which later on played into the terraforming process of the planet. Most of construction was done by crew-operated behemothian industrial machines, which are still used to this day in limited capacities for work outside the domes. Primarily cyborgs and programmed robots worked in these buildings outside the safety of the arcologies, until later on when the planet's atmosphere stabilized in 2400.


The Free Solarian Fleets control no real territory and call no system their home. However, many FSF vessels can be found in the Middle Ring Shield Pact’s capital of San Colette, which has become the arguable home of its fleets. FSF ships, which can travel as far afield as the Corporate Reconstruction Zone and the Sparring Sea, often return to San Colette to repair, rearm, and resupply after their latest job. Authorities in San Colette have become known to look the other way regarding the more eccentric crewmembers of the Fleets — including free positronic sans aliens — as a kind of reward for the continued contract they have woty the Fleets.
=== History of Terraforming ===


==The Southern Solarian Military District==
The terraforming process started during the late part of the 22nd century, with massive terraformers designed to turn Mars’ natural minerals into gasses and legions of cyborgs put into action. The idea was to replicate the Global Warming process humans have inadvertently done on Earth, but in a more controlled environment with goals of increasing both air pressure and temperature. The process was incredibly slow and expensive, and dogged by a major catastrophe in 2298 that nearly ended the entire process and caused untold amounts of human suffering and economic damage.
[[Image:SSMD.png|thumb|The ensign and flag of the Southern Solarian Military District, one of the major successor states in the southern human wildlands. Curiously, the SSMD utilizes a red ensign commonly associated with the Solarian Army rather than the Solarian Navy's white ensign.]]
While many of the fleets assigned to the area that would become the southern badlands, such as the Tenth Middle Ring Battlefleet, were considered second or even third-rate organizations, one formation stood above the rest in terms of quality. The First Middle Ring Battlefleet - made up of the 103rd, 104th, 105th, 106th, and 107th fleets - under the command of Fleet Admiral Klaudia Szalai was considered to be the best fleet in the sector before it was lost during the chaos of the Solarian collapse due to a lack of phoron for its dated engines. Most observers wrote the First off as having collapsed as an effective force during the collapse, due to a lack of communication from the battlegroup. It came as quite a shock for many external observers when, nearly a full month after the collapse, Admiral Szalai finally reestablished communications with the outside world and declared that the First had formed the Southern Solarian Military District, and was intent on stabilizing the southern wildlands pending their reintegration with the Alliance.


While the District’s main counterpart, the Solarian Provisional Government, promotes itself as a democratic state Admiral Szalai and the District have no such pretentions: the District is a military state through and through and, unlike the SPG, has lukewarm relations with corporations at best. Admiral Szalai is a dogged supporter of the Alliance’s recent anti-corporate efforts, believing that the meddling of NanoTrasen and its sycophants in other corporations was the largest single factor leading to the collapse of the Alliance as she knew it. Thus many formerly corporate assets in the District have found themselves hastily taken over by the First regardless of protests. This has led to it having little backing from the remnants of the civilian government of the Solarian Alliance, while making the District steadfast allies in the Solarian Navy forces stationed on the border between the wildlands and the Alliance proper. This, combined with the First’s already stellar reputation for anti-piracy operations, gives the District a significant chance at being the successor state that manages to stabilize the southern wildlands.
Although controversial for both its cost and dangers, the terraforming project of Mars is considered a success. The air, until recently, was still slightly toxic, but it effectively raised Mars' near zero pressure to slightly tolerable, along with the average temperature. Furthermore, the vast amounts of polarized iron dust now flowing around the planet’s lower orbit created a makeshift electromagnetic shield, reducing harmful radiation by a large degree until it was disrupted by the massive ecological disruption of Violet Dawn. Limited efforts are being made to restore it, but these have mostly been unsuccessful. This difference meant that by 2400 a space suit was no longer needed to traverse its surface. Instead, pressure suits or thick clothing, along with eye, mouth and ear protection are enough to stop the worst effects of a low pressure environment. Single-cellular life  prospered as well, due to an atmosphere now rich with organic particles, but does no longer due to the wide-spread poisoning of the Martian atmosphere from the fires ignited in the Violet Dawn disaster. Due to this, Mars’ famous red colour has been replaced with patches of black, deep, burned orange, and violet in some places.


However some of Admiral Szalai’s comments have been seen as alarming by outside authorities, particularly those in the Republic of Biesel. The Admiral views the stabilization of the southern wildlands as only the first step towards her goal of reclaiming the Alliance’s former position as the human hegemon of the Orion Spur, and the First has been known to engage ships flying the Republic’s flag on sight in addition to launching raids from their territory into the Republic’s poorly-controlled and recently-acquired territories. Whether this talk is simply militaristic bluster or a legitimate desire to begin a second Interstellar War remains to be seen. For now, effective control of the wildlands remains enough of a challenge for any force - even one as effective as the District.
Mars has a relatively long history of colonization, as well as destructive events. This has resulted in many colonies, facilities and arcology covering the wastes of the planet. One such arcology was Divitae, an independent mining colony established during the early gold rush that failed because of aging storms and lack of funds for redevelopment.
During the period of terraforming, Mars received an immense number of [[IPC|cyborgs]] to serve as its workforce. In the late part of the 22nd century, Humanity has achieved the ability to produce heavy cyborgs. Being able to function and work freely in the harsh environment, Martian terraforming firms pressed for more and more cyborg workers, but volunteers for this process were few and far between due to the risks around the procedure. Eventually, to meet demand, cyborgification was implemented as capital punishment for crimes, less and less severe as time passed. In total, between 2204, when the implementation of cyborgs started, and 2260, when it stopped, over 35 million cyborgs have been sent to Mars to serve as a workforce. The terraforming project started to backfire soon after.


The seat of power of the Military District is '''[[Visegrad]]''', a former Solarian world seized by Szalai and the First during the initial chaos of the Solarian Collapse. Despite some protests at the Military District’s shutdown of Zeng ahi’s operations on Visegrad — which employed many residents of the planet — the stability brought by the ruling military government is welcomed by many on the planet due to the chaos of the Southern Wildlands. Due to Szalai’d strong links to the Solarian admiralty the SSMD— and Visegradi by extent— receive a great amount of aid from the Alliance, though much of this aid is more concerned with stabilizing the Southern Wildlandsthan it is woty ensuring the civilian population lives comfortably. The leader of the Southern Fleet Administration, F.R. Beauchamp, was executed on Visegrad.
The extent of the crimes Martians caused, as well other problems the synthetics caused, resulted in an overall negative view of AIs and cyborgification among the populace. Sometime after, Mars Senate constructed a large monumental graveyard for victims of forced cyborgification sometimes referred to CyTomb. Cyborgification, along with the use banned in several larger arcologies such as Crest Olympia, Greater London, Elysium and Red Gaia.


==The Solarian Provisional Government==
=== The Catastrophe of 2298 ===
[[Image:SPG.png|thumb|The ensign and flag of the Solarian Provisional Government, one of the major successor states in the southern human wildlands. Much like the Provisional Government itself, this flag is an odd combination of the government and the navy.]]
In the southern human wildlands lies the Solarian Provisional Government, the remnants of the Solarian Alliance’s massive bureaucratic apparatus that once lorded over the vast majority of the Middle Ring. While it is a mere rump state compared to the titanic bureaucracy that once managed planets from Mictlan to New Hai Phong and most of its skilled bureaucrats have fled to the what remains of the Alliance, the SPG has managed to hold onto a small amount of ground near the Solarian border with the wildlands thanks to the presence of the Sixth Middle Ring Battlegroup and unofficial support from the Alliance itself. The SPG aligns itself closely with the Alliance and, while there has not yet been an official statement of support, the Alliance has responded by offering “humanitarian” aid to the region under the SPG’s control. In response the provisional government has stated its clear intentions to rejoin the Alliance when the region around it is stabilized.


The provisional government is an unusual form of dual authority in the human wildlands. On paper the Solarian Provisional Government is a functional, if unrecognized, democratic republic along the lines of the Solarian Alliance itself that intends to hold regular elections and transfer power as any successful republic does. The current Provisional Governor is Anderson MacPherson, previously the region’s elected Governor before its collapse into warlordism and anarchy. The Provisional Governor’s cabinet and staff are primarily formed from bureaucrats left over from the old administration, leaving the SPG with a more stable system of governance than most other regions in the human wildlands. Prov. Governor MacPherson has managed to keep the SPG’s territories together through his local popularity and charm, though he now faces an unexpected threat: the navy.
The first of two major catastrophes in Martian history was the abrupt failure of its terraforming infrastructure in the winter of 2298. The entire infrastructure was linked to a single network, which suffered a serious melt-down as a result of human error. The network either shut down areas of terraforming or spit out wild algorithms that put the entire project into a tailspin. The network was restored after several days, but the result was catastrophic swings in the climate. For the next 10 years Mars experienced climactic storms that severely damaged or even destroyed arcologies and utterly wiped out smaller settlements. The atmosphere was flooded with excessive C02 that smothered people in the open without internals. Billions of credits of property damage was recorded, and millions were killed as a direct result of the disaster. It was estimated to have put back terraforming efforts by a century.


The Solarian Sixth Middle Ring Battlegroup is responsible for much of the SPG’s stability and all of its defense. Under the command of Fleet Admiral Myo Yunso, a Konyanger naval officer that has - unlike her homeworld - remained loyal to the Sol Alliance. Admiral Yunso commands the five fleets of the Sixth Middle Ring Battlegroup, one of the largest - if not the largest - remaining cohesive naval units in the southern human wildlands, and stands as Prov. Governor MacPherson’s greatest ally and worst rival in the SPG. While the timely arrival of the Admiral and her fleet helped ensure the region that the SPG now controls (though it claims the entire southern wildlands) remains stable, Yunso and MacPherson have differing opinions on how the provisional government should be run. While MacPherson champions continuing democracy, Yunso wishes for an emergency military government until the situation is stabilized.
Despite the damages, an investigation by SolGov saw only three technicians arrested, with all three later acquitted despite anger and protest from the Martian population.
In modern times, the ruins of arcologies lost to the catastrophe remain popular spots for scavengers, explorers, and tourists. The polar canyon regions of Mars started to serve as scrapyard for obsolete and abandoned machinery. Starting in the early 2370s, megacorporations began to dispose of their obsolete lineups by storing them in gargantuan “lots” for later retrieval when the manpower needed to sustain them returned. This would never be the case, and for years to come other megacorporations would do the same in haphazardly tossing their waste electronics into the canyon regions as time went along. In 2405, legal action was taken to prevent the excessive usage of this disposal, and it quickly halted. What was left were what would be referred to as the [[Synthetic_Origins#.22Metal_Dunes.22|Metal Dunes of Mars]], endless electronic scrapheaps as far as the eye could see.


As the two most powerful figures in the provisional government clash over direction and influence, it remains to be seen whether the Solarian Provisional Government has any hope of stabilization and reunification. With its rivals growing more powerful by the day, and the divide between MacPherson and Yunso growing wider and wider, the situation of the legitimate successor to Solarian control in the southern wildlands remains quite precarious indeed. However, with the recent victory over Beauchamp and more aid flowing in from the Alliance, it seems MacPherson may be pulling ahead. Yunso, however, remains dominant in more chaotic area closer to the border with the SFA — particularly in those limited regions the SPG managed to gain control over following Beauchamp’s death.
=== The Martian World War ===


The Provisional Government has a uniquely stable capital system, '''Sankt Frederick''', due to its location on the border with the Alliance itself. With the Alliance itself merely one warp gate away much of Sankt Frederick’s government has remained operational and functional, which has significantly strengthened MacPherson’s position in the Wildlands. The close position has additionally assisted in ensuring Yunso’s battlegroup has remained cohesive, and many supplies which eventually make their way to the Military District pass through Sankt Frederick. The planet has become a hub for refugees fleeing from the anarchy of the Southern Fleet Administration’s territories and MacPherson’s government has opened their arms to them, as long as they are human. Many of these refugees eventually find employment in the large orbital facilities Sankt Frederick is known for, or find their way into the Alliance proper.
Considering Mars' strong ties with Earth governments and its dependence on Sol Fleets, Mars never had unified interests or tools to openly fight against the Sol Government during the [[Timeline of Humanity| First Interstellar War]]r. Despite this, many Martians felt sympathetic to the Coalition of Colonies, as they felt they shared the resentment towards a growing, authoritarian oppression within the Alliance.


==The Southern Fleet Administration==
In the early stages of the war in 2278, the Alliance quickly pressed the small Martian self-defense force into service, merging the tiny Martian fleet into the Alliance navy. Anti-Solarian factions on Mars calling themselves the Red Coalition began rallying popular and political support based on many “injustices,”committed by the Alliance against the Martian people, an alliance which had also shown casual disregard for Mars. Financially backed by the Coalition of Colonies (CoC), on 18th of January, 2279, many Martian cities seceded from Sol Alliance and launched a coordinated, surprise attack on the rest of Mars.
[[Image:Admiral's_Regime.png|thumb|The ensign of the Southern Fleet Administration, one of the major successor states in the southern human wildlands. The gas giant featured in the upper left of this ensign is the fleet's berth.]]
Even before the total collapse of Solarian authority in much of the Middle and Outer Rings, the Tenth Middle Ring Battlegroup under the command of Fleet Admiral F.R. Beauchamp was considered to be the absolute bottom of the Solarian Navy’s figurative barrel. With much of its enlisted being made up of prisoners conscripted or enlisted into the Navy for a reduced prison sentence and the vast majority of its officers being washouts deliberately reassigned to the Tenth due to their failings, discipline was lax even before the phoron crisis. Many Solarian naval officers doubted the Tenth could even muster itself to fight off even a minor incursion by pirates. But the Solarian collapse has been a time of many surprises, including the Tenth’s shocking rallying under Admiral Beauchamp to form the so-called Southern Fleet Administration shortly after the general Solarian withdraw from the region now known as the southern wildlands.


Despite its bureaucratic name and Admiral Beauchamp’s claims of being the only legitimate Solarian authority to be found in the southern wildlands the area once controlled by the Southern Fleet Administration was and remains a poorly-administered and uncoordinated zone, with the SFA having essentially existed as a despotic kleptocracy under the control of Beauchamp and a small clique of loyal officers. Contrary to the nearby Solarian Provisional Government the SFA was only interested in enriching itself, and Admiral Beauchamp was solely interested in living as hard and fast as possible until his clique - and regime - collapsed. The territories once under the “protection” of the Tenth remain in state of chaos with the fleet’s remnants having collapsed into roving bands of pirates and marauders, with most passing ships forced to pay for “protection” provided by the fleet. The begrudging alliance between the Tenth and the Republic of Biesel has since collapsed and the Corporate Reconstruction Zone had found itself infested by the well-equipped ex-Navy pirates who once swore allegiance to Beauchamp, with some planets in the southern section of the Zone being arguably completely controlled by the Republic’s former allies.
The loyalist arcologies became known as the Sol Coalition, or more popularly, the Blues.


The skrell are seen as the primary enemy of the remains of the kingdom of bandits that was the SFA. Skrell unlucky enough to find themselves in the hands of the pirates that once made up the Tenth do not survive for long, and are often subjected to profane cruelties at the hands of the rogue fleet the Jargon Federation once declared destroyed. Ships loyal to the Southern Solarian Military District fare no better, with both the SSMD and ex-SFA bandits refusing to offer the other any mercy. While the Federation and Alliance may have hoped cutting the head from the snake would make the southern wildlands more peaceful, it seems the territory once controlled by Beauchamp has only sunken further into a quagmire following their efforts.
With the mighty fleets of the Alliance out fighting in the frontier, the Blue Coalition saw very little aid from the Alliance, material or otherwise. Red Rangers, special forces under the Red Coalition, seized lightly defended orbital Alliance military stations, including nuclear-equipped missile platforms. The Red Coalition threatened to use these weapons on any planet or fleet that attempted to intervene, effectively isolating Mars and throwing it into a Cold War with Earth.


As the SFA has devolved to being little more than pirates following the death of Beauchamp there is no “capital,” planet of the contemporary SFA. Some of the more prominent leaders of the SFA have retained some amount of authority following Beauchamp’s death and now serve as warlords in their own right. These warlords are all that pass for authority in the area formerly controlled by the SFA.
As military conventions prohibited direct bombing of population centers, the Red conquest consisted of prolonged sieges while unrest, terrorist attacks, and counter-offensives began to sap their ability to wage war. In the face of growing losses, the leadership of the Red Coalition gained the dubious honor of being the second nation in human history to use nuclear weapons in warfare. In 2284, the Red Coalition arcology of Terra Nova, facing capitulation in the face of advancing Blue forces, successfully appealed to an orbital missile platform to launch a nuclear missile on a nearby Blue arcology of New Dresden in an attempt to turn the tide of war.
 
This action immediately fractured the entire Red Coalition, with most of its members distancing themselves from the action and its perpetrators. Within days the majority of arcologies in the Red Coalition abandoned the alliance, and within weeks the remainder had surrendered.
 
The Treaty of Olympus was signed on 5th of April, 2284 featuring unconditional surrender of remaining Red Coalition states. The Alliance, negotiating on behalf of the loyalist Blues, used the treaty to place harsh restrictions on Mars. The entire planet was disarmed and all factions on it surface were banned from fielding a standing army, navy, or engaging in armed conflicts with one another. In addition, the planet was put under "indefinite" martial law, with an Alliance Admiral permanently stationed in orbit of the planet to enforce indirect martial law, overriding any local laws or ordinances.
 
=== The Violet Dawn Explosion ===
 
On the seventh of November, 2462, an unprecedented disaster came to Mars in the form of the Violet Dawn explosion. Initially an attempt by the Sol Alliance to produce synthetic phoron in response to an ongoing phoron shortage crisis, the Violet Dawn program would be remembered for much more.  Safety standards were neglected in Violet Dawn facilities, located on Mars’ south pole and as a result, the synthetic phoron grew out of control before igniting. The resulting conflagration completely destroyed the southern pole of Mars, demolished a multitude of arcologies in the southern hemisphere of Mars, and spread toxic - and highly flammable - phoron particles throughout the Martian atmosphere creating massive firestorms the size of entire cities combined. The official death toll of the Violet Dawn catastrophe is unknown - and will likely never truly be known - but is estimated to be in the billions. Billions more were displaced from their arcologies, creating the largest refugee crisis in recent history and straining the already-overburdened government of Mars to its breaking point. The Mars of the post-Violet Dawn Orion Spur now bears little resemblance to what came before, and how the crisis evolves remains to be seen.
 
Prime Minister Frost, before his death, issued orders and directives to be released when Operation “Violet Dawn” began and despite his death prior to the event, much of the upper brass of the Navy was still loyal to his cause. They ordered his instructions be carried out, threatening those who disobeyed with desertion and treason. Even so, some captains disregarded these orders to let the burning planet’s billions of desperate sapients, some friends and family to the crew, burn in phoron fire. These brave men and women plunged into the Red Planet’s atmosphere and filled their cargo holds with as many people as they could cram in, dumping weapons and munitions out to make room. A few rogue ships even dove into the phoron-dense areas of the planet that could’ve still potentially held survivors. Tragically, most who attempted this found their engines rendered inoperable in the exotic atmosphere and crashed before clearing the danger zone.
 
After the Violent Dawn had effectively run its course, Frost’s staff ordered those who had defied orders quietly imprisoned and stripped of rank. After the junta took over and ousted the Frost loyalists, many of these “rogue” captains and crew managed to regain their positions. But, many more of them became disillusioned about Sol and fled the Alliance for nations such as Biesel or the Coalition.
 
A brutal information campaign was waged against the Navy defying Frost to maintain his loyalists' control over the Alliance. Outside of eyewitnesses testimony, any hard evidence was destroyed. Though Biesel may have known some captains betrayed Frost, choosing not to report these facts when revealing the whistleblower would vilify their main rival. The administration after Frost have uncomfortably ignored the consequences of Frost’s actions, instead opting to focus on stabilizing the territory the Alliance retains. As a result, those outside the Sol System at the time of Violet Dawn may never be fully convinced of the truth.
 
== Economy and Government ==
 
=== Economy ===
Mars' economy was previously developed and mixed, with its largest industries being orbital construction, mining, refining, energy and a small but rapidly growing hydroponics industry. Mars also enjoyed being a center of trade, prior to the catastrophe on its southern pole. In the post-Violet Dawn environment of Mars, the economic state is most readily described as “imploded.
 
With over half of the planet rendered uninhabitable by the aftermath of Violet Dawn and many of its richest cities - such as Olympia - turned into smoldering ruins heavily contaminated by phoron, much of the Martian economy now lies in literal ruins. Even cities not immediately destroyed by the Violet Dawn explosion have been damaged by it, with trace elements of phoron in the air often sparking flash fires around electronics, previously relied upon water sources contaminated by the same phoron that now causes numerous flash fires around Mars’ remaining arcologies, and the contaminated air chokes the engines of shuttles that once enjoyed easy flights through the low gravity of the planet. The wealthiest - and largest - of the remaining arcologies is now Kunlun, the center of the planet’s reigning military government.
 
While Mars may have, before Violet Dawn, been known for its energy and orbital construction sectors, the most valuable resource on the planet is now something most residents of the Orion Spur take for granted: water. With the secession of Konyang, one of the Solarian Alliance’s primary providers of fresh water, and the destruction of its southern ice cap along with contamination of open-air water sources by airborne phoron, the water situation on Mars has become quite dire. Outside of the military government-controlled northern ice cap and its surrounding arcologies, clean water is typically very hard to come across - in some areas, water is so difficult to find that groups fight for control of it.
 
=== Government ===
 
[[Image:ASSN-PGM_V2.png|thumb|The flag of the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations' Provisional Government of Mars, the sole remnant of Mars' pre-Violet Dawn administration.]]
 
The Martian “government,” has been, like its economy, devastated in the aftermath of the Violet Dawn catastrophe. The antiquated, bloated, and corrupt Martian government - with its highly-decentralized nature - was unable to handle the unparalleled crisis posed by the Violet Dawn disaster and quickly collapsed under its own weight, leaving much of the planet without a government beyond surviving local arcologies in the days immediately after the disaster. As the aftermath of Violet Dawn - columns of terrified refugees, imploding economies, and contaminated water - became apparent more and more of these local governments, already stretched thin by widespread civil unrest before the Violet Dawn explosion, began to collapse - thrusting more and more of Mars into a state of anarchy.
 
With a collapsed civil government and widespread damage due to the Violet Dawn explosion, much of Mars exists in a governmentless anarchy where the strongest group (generally the group with the most guns) rules over a petty statelet. The one region of the planet with a semblance of traditional authority is the '''Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations’ Provisional Government of Mars (ASSN-PGM)''', a military-led transitional authority that controls the largest remaining non-contaminated drinking water source on Mars: the northern ice cap. The ASSN-PGM is led by the recently-promoted Governor-General Tereza Varzieva from her headquarters in the newly-unified Kunlun and represents the only government officially recognized by the greater Solarian Alliance. The military government also controls some of the only functional shuttleports on Mars, with southern ports often having air too contaminated by phoron for typical air and spacecraft to fly. The ASSN-PGM has absolute control over Unified Kunlun, the northern ice cap, Mysteron, Marvinia, Chicago, and Draka - making it the largest single government on the Martian surface by far. While the ASSN-PGM has been referred to as “yet another," example of Solarian repression by some Coalition of Colonies member states, its region is - in part due to one advantage it has over other warlords: orbital naval support - the most stable on Mars and, if the Governor-General plays her cards right, may be the red planet’s best chance for a return to normalcy. Of course, they may also simply be a new form of Solarian control over the red planet.
 
The anarchic “states” that can be found across the rest of Mars are even more diverse than the eclectic governments that preceded them. Many are simply bandit states run by local strongmen - often former gang leaders - that enforce their rule by force of arms and nothing more. Others are the vestigial remains of what were once local governments on Mars, such as the city councils of arcologies that have managed to hang onto their immediate domains. A few, such as those arcologies in the hazard zone unlucky enough to not have been immediately destroyed, have no authority at all. The most common form of “government” on Mars is a syncretic mix of the gangs that once dominated Martian arcologies and the corrupt government officials that turned a blind eye to their activities. Now, with no external government to hold themselves accountable to, Martian gangs and their allies in the remains of Mars’ arcologies are experiencing a new golden age of hedonism and power while the planet burns around them. As the situation on Mars worsens day by day, its warlords seem all too willing to throw gas upon the fire - to let the whole planet burn, consequences be damned.
 
== Major Martian Remnants==
 
'''Crest Olympia''' was, until the establishment of the ASSN-PGM government zone, the seat of government on Mars following the immediate aftermath of the Violet Dawn explosion. However the arcology’s status as the most important city on Mars was not to last for long as the capital was shortly transferred to the newly-unified Kunlun. Now, stripped of Sol Alliance patrols and facing a mounting refugee crisis, Crest Olympia struggles to remain a functional arcology in the Martian anarchy. One bright spot in the darkness is the arcology’s good relations with the remaining government forces on Mars, which often send cargo shuttles laden with direly needed humanitarian supplies to its still functional ports.
 
'''Red Gaia''' was, prior to the Violet Dawn catastrophe, an arcology that proudly rejected the Sol Alliance in its official rhetoric. Its government, having witnessed the seeming abandonment of Martians by Sol following the catastrophe, threw open its doors for any and all refugees that could prove their loyalty to Mars above their loyalty to the Alliance. This stance, coupled with the arcology’s almost fanatical dedication to broadcasting it, has been disastrous for it. With an extremely overtaxed government, huge overcrowding, and absolutely no outside assistance arriving from other arcologies, Red Gaia, despite its dedication to Martian nationalism, is expected to collapse under its own weight within months if not weeks.
 
'''Unified Kunlun''', previously known as Kunlun and Free Kunlun, is the technical capital of Mars and the planetside headquarters of the ASSN-PGM. Both arcologies were torn apart by civil unrest as a result of the Third Tajara Ban and placed under martial law in the days leading up to the Violet Dawn explosion. In a twisted way, this allowed the arcologies to weather the effects of the catastrophe better than perhaps any other arcology on Mars. Unified Kunlun, thanks to its location in the far north of Mars, has no overcrowding or refugee issues and is one of the few locations where shuttles travel freely between space and the Martian surface. If not for the large numbers of Solarian troops in the arcologies, or the fact that most tajara have disappeared to repatriation centers, life would seem almost normal here.


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  • A view of pre-Violet Dawn biodome complexes in Olympia.

    Mars (Sol IV) is the fourth planet out from Sol. Often called “The Red Planet,” it has a surface area the size of Earth's entire landmass. It had a stable population of 4.5 billion people, and its current population is estimated to be anywhere from 1.5 to 2 billion. Around 4% of the population is non-human, a significant reduction caused by the Third Tajara Deportation Act and the Violet Dawn catastrophe (Mars’ non-human population previously stood at 12%). There is a significant minority of synthetics on the planet; a hold-over from Mars' early years of harsh criminal justice allowing corporations to cyborgify criminals responsible for major crimes.

    Despite its proximity to Earth, during the early years of interstellar colonization Mars was only home to small scientific expeditions and outposts that etched out a meager existence until the 2200's, when terraforming technology was finally able to slowly reintroduce water and atmosphere to the planet. Currently the atmosphere is breathable but incredibly thin, which makes strenuous efforts outside the arcologies very dangerous. Many regions also suffer from airborne phoron contamination, adding further danger to already hazardous activities outside arcologies.

    Until recently an Alliance fleet remained in orbit of Mars at all times, ensuring that the planet remains disarmed and free of armed disputes. Following the so-called “Violet Dawn” explosion in 2462, Mars now finds itself worse-off than ever before; in the wake of an ecological catastrophe and plagued by unrest and violence.

    Demographics

    While Martians may have previously been divided into urban and rural demographics the catastrophic aftermath of Violet Dawn has rent these past divisions asunder. With millions - perhaps billions - dead in the disaster and its immediate aftermath, billions displaced, and millions having fled the planet Martian demographics have permanently - and irreversibly - changed. For the sake of convenience, the two primary Martian ethnic groups prior to Violet Dawn are listed below.

    A map of Mars immediately following the Violet Dawn explosion. Note that this map displays the wrong capital, as a result of incorrect information received during the Solarian communications blackout.

    The Urban Martians

    The vast majority of the Martian population is urban, living in arcologies, sometimes referred to as “hives”. A miracle of engineering for early colonization times, they are designed to support as many residents as possible, while conserving space and construction costs. The lower part of a truncated pyramid-shaped structure is dedicated to apartments with the occasional amenity such as a hospital or grocery store, while the upper one is dedicated to various malls and offices. Finally, the top part, covered by a transparent dome, usually hosts entertainment and hydroponics facilities, as well as a gravity generator. This section of the arcology is heavily maintained by the arcology's habitants, with many of them coming to do volunteer work here due to the section's importance to the arcology as a whole. Many of these arcologies were destroyed or abandoned during the Violet Dawn catastrophe, with some now serving as little more than mass graves for their previous residents, the arcologies now twisted and warped by the heat of phoron fires.

    All surviving arcologies on Mars are concentrated around liquid water. Due to the unique mineral content of Martian soil, unfiltered Martian water is incredibly acidic and unsafe to drink. Very few fish can survive in the Martian lakes and seas, and none of them safe to eat or fish. Phoron contamination has worsened the issue following the Violet Dawn explosion, and water has quickly become the most important resource on Mars - to the point where small-scale “wars” are fought between surviving arcologies over it. The largest source of surviving drinking water is the northern ice cap, controlled by what remains of Mars’ Solarian government. Two centuries later, however, obvious problems with arcology designs have come to light. Stacking thousands of tiny apartments into a relatively small space has led to the structures being nigh impossible to navigate without a GPS or decades of experience, which especially cripples the local law enforcement. The cramped flats often do not possess basic necessities, let alone amenities, such as kitchens or bathrooms, with later attempts to expand upon them only making the complexes into ugly, over-engineered structures that require almost constant maintenance. Because only the outer part can be built upon, the verge, or “surface,” apartments tend to be the most expensive to live in. The refugee crisis caused by the Violet Dawn catastrophe has only worsened the conditions in many arcologies. Overcrowding, already a typical issue, has skyrocketed out of control to levels only before seen on planets such as Konyang and New Hai Phong. Services are stretched to the very brink in many of Mars’ surviving cities as well, and crime has become an even greater problem, with criminal gangs acting as the de facto authority in many neglected sectors of Martian arcologies . It remains to be seen how much the arcologies of Mars can bend before they break.

    Rural Martians

    Rural Martians, as a demographic, have disappeared in the aftermath of Violet Dawn. For all the pride they held in their sense of self-sufficiency and hardiness, they have been unable to overcome the scorching, toxic aftermath of Violet Dawn. Their hydroponics bays now sit poisoned by phoron, their mines have no markets to export to, and their hamlets have been torn apart by desperate raiders seeking to make off with what supplies they need to survive. Many rural dwellers of Mars have resorted to armed banditry to survive, but most have bitten down on their pride and moved into arcologies - often contributing to already extreme issues of overcrowding. The same traits that made many rural dwells of Mars excellent survivalists - such as their adaptation to the harsh environment of the Martian plains - have made them excellent raiders and bandits in the post-Violet Dawn Martian environment. The reputation of rural Martians as bandits is so widespread that some rural refugees taking shelter in arcologies find themselves brought under suspicion purely by association.

    Despite the harsh and arid environment, many urban areas have developed. This map represents Mars before the Violet Dawn catastrophe.

    Culture

    Mars was home to the Sol cultural underground prior to the Violet Dawn catastrophe. The tensions with the greater Solarian Alliance combined with the planet’s wildly different features and cultural mindsets have, over centuries, produced cultures and traditions unique to Mars. Of course, with the damage wrought by the recent catastrophe, high culture has fallen to the wayside in favor of the day-to-day struggle of survival that defines much of life on Mars now. One artistic movement that has endured is ktipita, translated simply as “plainness”. Fiction, music and film of this genre aims to simply encapsulate “life as it is”, being extremely grounded and dealing with very simple stories and concepts that an average Martian can relate themselves to. The simplistic nature of these tales allows them to often be recited orally from books, instead of requiring advanced technologies such as holographic televisions.

    History

    Early Colonization

    Despite Mars being a barren planet, a mixture of desperate living conditions on Earth and a bold commitment to exploration and colonization caused it to experience small scale colonization in the 2100's. After the terraforming efforts of 2200 began and with the discovery of massive fossil fuel deposits (therefore confirming Mars once held life), optimistic nations and corporations attempted to set up a foothold on it, causing tens of thousands of colonists to arrive during the first waves. After it became clear that Mars would remain hostile for quite some time, was passed over for more suitable, distant worlds for a long period, leaving the original settlers to etch out a meager life. The byproduct of this is that many issues, national and cultural, that plagued humanity at those times were brought over to the red planet, causing tensions between its inhabitants and new settlers. Despite the one world government of the Alliance, individual nations on Earth would finance and support colonies on Mars, pitting them against one another. Wars and skirmishes between the colonies, although rare, were not unheard of. The ones that survived have long since grown into large, independent arcologies, which are for the most part friendly competitors under the watchful eye of Sol Alliance.

    The fossil fuels found on Mars were quickly put to use. Power plants, large factory complexes were constructed outside the arcologies, and the planet was becoming industrialized, which later on played into the terraforming process of the planet. Most of construction was done by crew-operated behemothian industrial machines, which are still used to this day in limited capacities for work outside the domes. Primarily cyborgs and programmed robots worked in these buildings outside the safety of the arcologies, until later on when the planet's atmosphere stabilized in 2400.

    History of Terraforming

    The terraforming process started during the late part of the 22nd century, with massive terraformers designed to turn Mars’ natural minerals into gasses and legions of cyborgs put into action. The idea was to replicate the Global Warming process humans have inadvertently done on Earth, but in a more controlled environment with goals of increasing both air pressure and temperature. The process was incredibly slow and expensive, and dogged by a major catastrophe in 2298 that nearly ended the entire process and caused untold amounts of human suffering and economic damage.

    Although controversial for both its cost and dangers, the terraforming project of Mars is considered a success. The air, until recently, was still slightly toxic, but it effectively raised Mars' near zero pressure to slightly tolerable, along with the average temperature. Furthermore, the vast amounts of polarized iron dust now flowing around the planet’s lower orbit created a makeshift electromagnetic shield, reducing harmful radiation by a large degree until it was disrupted by the massive ecological disruption of Violet Dawn. Limited efforts are being made to restore it, but these have mostly been unsuccessful. This difference meant that by 2400 a space suit was no longer needed to traverse its surface. Instead, pressure suits or thick clothing, along with eye, mouth and ear protection are enough to stop the worst effects of a low pressure environment. Single-cellular life prospered as well, due to an atmosphere now rich with organic particles, but does no longer due to the wide-spread poisoning of the Martian atmosphere from the fires ignited in the Violet Dawn disaster. Due to this, Mars’ famous red colour has been replaced with patches of black, deep, burned orange, and violet in some places.

    Mars has a relatively long history of colonization, as well as destructive events. This has resulted in many colonies, facilities and arcology covering the wastes of the planet. One such arcology was Divitae, an independent mining colony established during the early gold rush that failed because of aging storms and lack of funds for redevelopment. During the period of terraforming, Mars received an immense number of cyborgs to serve as its workforce. In the late part of the 22nd century, Humanity has achieved the ability to produce heavy cyborgs. Being able to function and work freely in the harsh environment, Martian terraforming firms pressed for more and more cyborg workers, but volunteers for this process were few and far between due to the risks around the procedure. Eventually, to meet demand, cyborgification was implemented as capital punishment for crimes, less and less severe as time passed. In total, between 2204, when the implementation of cyborgs started, and 2260, when it stopped, over 35 million cyborgs have been sent to Mars to serve as a workforce. The terraforming project started to backfire soon after.

    The extent of the crimes Martians caused, as well other problems the synthetics caused, resulted in an overall negative view of AIs and cyborgification among the populace. Sometime after, Mars Senate constructed a large monumental graveyard for victims of forced cyborgification sometimes referred to CyTomb. Cyborgification, along with the use banned in several larger arcologies such as Crest Olympia, Greater London, Elysium and Red Gaia.

    The Catastrophe of 2298

    The first of two major catastrophes in Martian history was the abrupt failure of its terraforming infrastructure in the winter of 2298. The entire infrastructure was linked to a single network, which suffered a serious melt-down as a result of human error. The network either shut down areas of terraforming or spit out wild algorithms that put the entire project into a tailspin. The network was restored after several days, but the result was catastrophic swings in the climate. For the next 10 years Mars experienced climactic storms that severely damaged or even destroyed arcologies and utterly wiped out smaller settlements. The atmosphere was flooded with excessive C02 that smothered people in the open without internals. Billions of credits of property damage was recorded, and millions were killed as a direct result of the disaster. It was estimated to have put back terraforming efforts by a century.

    Despite the damages, an investigation by SolGov saw only three technicians arrested, with all three later acquitted despite anger and protest from the Martian population. In modern times, the ruins of arcologies lost to the catastrophe remain popular spots for scavengers, explorers, and tourists. The polar canyon regions of Mars started to serve as scrapyard for obsolete and abandoned machinery. Starting in the early 2370s, megacorporations began to dispose of their obsolete lineups by storing them in gargantuan “lots” for later retrieval when the manpower needed to sustain them returned. This would never be the case, and for years to come other megacorporations would do the same in haphazardly tossing their waste electronics into the canyon regions as time went along. In 2405, legal action was taken to prevent the excessive usage of this disposal, and it quickly halted. What was left were what would be referred to as the Metal Dunes of Mars, endless electronic scrapheaps as far as the eye could see.

    The Martian World War

    Considering Mars' strong ties with Earth governments and its dependence on Sol Fleets, Mars never had unified interests or tools to openly fight against the Sol Government during the First Interstellar Warr. Despite this, many Martians felt sympathetic to the Coalition of Colonies, as they felt they shared the resentment towards a growing, authoritarian oppression within the Alliance.

    In the early stages of the war in 2278, the Alliance quickly pressed the small Martian self-defense force into service, merging the tiny Martian fleet into the Alliance navy. Anti-Solarian factions on Mars calling themselves the Red Coalition began rallying popular and political support based on many “injustices,”committed by the Alliance against the Martian people, an alliance which had also shown casual disregard for Mars. Financially backed by the Coalition of Colonies (CoC), on 18th of January, 2279, many Martian cities seceded from Sol Alliance and launched a coordinated, surprise attack on the rest of Mars.

    The loyalist arcologies became known as the Sol Coalition, or more popularly, the Blues.

    With the mighty fleets of the Alliance out fighting in the frontier, the Blue Coalition saw very little aid from the Alliance, material or otherwise. Red Rangers, special forces under the Red Coalition, seized lightly defended orbital Alliance military stations, including nuclear-equipped missile platforms. The Red Coalition threatened to use these weapons on any planet or fleet that attempted to intervene, effectively isolating Mars and throwing it into a Cold War with Earth.

    As military conventions prohibited direct bombing of population centers, the Red conquest consisted of prolonged sieges while unrest, terrorist attacks, and counter-offensives began to sap their ability to wage war. In the face of growing losses, the leadership of the Red Coalition gained the dubious honor of being the second nation in human history to use nuclear weapons in warfare. In 2284, the Red Coalition arcology of Terra Nova, facing capitulation in the face of advancing Blue forces, successfully appealed to an orbital missile platform to launch a nuclear missile on a nearby Blue arcology of New Dresden in an attempt to turn the tide of war.

    This action immediately fractured the entire Red Coalition, with most of its members distancing themselves from the action and its perpetrators. Within days the majority of arcologies in the Red Coalition abandoned the alliance, and within weeks the remainder had surrendered.

    The Treaty of Olympus was signed on 5th of April, 2284 featuring unconditional surrender of remaining Red Coalition states. The Alliance, negotiating on behalf of the loyalist Blues, used the treaty to place harsh restrictions on Mars. The entire planet was disarmed and all factions on it surface were banned from fielding a standing army, navy, or engaging in armed conflicts with one another. In addition, the planet was put under "indefinite" martial law, with an Alliance Admiral permanently stationed in orbit of the planet to enforce indirect martial law, overriding any local laws or ordinances.

    The Violet Dawn Explosion

    On the seventh of November, 2462, an unprecedented disaster came to Mars in the form of the Violet Dawn explosion. Initially an attempt by the Sol Alliance to produce synthetic phoron in response to an ongoing phoron shortage crisis, the Violet Dawn program would be remembered for much more. Safety standards were neglected in Violet Dawn facilities, located on Mars’ south pole and as a result, the synthetic phoron grew out of control before igniting. The resulting conflagration completely destroyed the southern pole of Mars, demolished a multitude of arcologies in the southern hemisphere of Mars, and spread toxic - and highly flammable - phoron particles throughout the Martian atmosphere creating massive firestorms the size of entire cities combined. The official death toll of the Violet Dawn catastrophe is unknown - and will likely never truly be known - but is estimated to be in the billions. Billions more were displaced from their arcologies, creating the largest refugee crisis in recent history and straining the already-overburdened government of Mars to its breaking point. The Mars of the post-Violet Dawn Orion Spur now bears little resemblance to what came before, and how the crisis evolves remains to be seen.

    Prime Minister Frost, before his death, issued orders and directives to be released when Operation “Violet Dawn” began and despite his death prior to the event, much of the upper brass of the Navy was still loyal to his cause. They ordered his instructions be carried out, threatening those who disobeyed with desertion and treason. Even so, some captains disregarded these orders to let the burning planet’s billions of desperate sapients, some friends and family to the crew, burn in phoron fire. These brave men and women plunged into the Red Planet’s atmosphere and filled their cargo holds with as many people as they could cram in, dumping weapons and munitions out to make room. A few rogue ships even dove into the phoron-dense areas of the planet that could’ve still potentially held survivors. Tragically, most who attempted this found their engines rendered inoperable in the exotic atmosphere and crashed before clearing the danger zone.

    After the Violent Dawn had effectively run its course, Frost’s staff ordered those who had defied orders quietly imprisoned and stripped of rank. After the junta took over and ousted the Frost loyalists, many of these “rogue” captains and crew managed to regain their positions. But, many more of them became disillusioned about Sol and fled the Alliance for nations such as Biesel or the Coalition.

    A brutal information campaign was waged against the Navy defying Frost to maintain his loyalists' control over the Alliance. Outside of eyewitnesses testimony, any hard evidence was destroyed. Though Biesel may have known some captains betrayed Frost, choosing not to report these facts when revealing the whistleblower would vilify their main rival. The administration after Frost have uncomfortably ignored the consequences of Frost’s actions, instead opting to focus on stabilizing the territory the Alliance retains. As a result, those outside the Sol System at the time of Violet Dawn may never be fully convinced of the truth.

    Economy and Government

    Economy

    Mars' economy was previously developed and mixed, with its largest industries being orbital construction, mining, refining, energy and a small but rapidly growing hydroponics industry. Mars also enjoyed being a center of trade, prior to the catastrophe on its southern pole. In the post-Violet Dawn environment of Mars, the economic state is most readily described as “imploded.”

    With over half of the planet rendered uninhabitable by the aftermath of Violet Dawn and many of its richest cities - such as Olympia - turned into smoldering ruins heavily contaminated by phoron, much of the Martian economy now lies in literal ruins. Even cities not immediately destroyed by the Violet Dawn explosion have been damaged by it, with trace elements of phoron in the air often sparking flash fires around electronics, previously relied upon water sources contaminated by the same phoron that now causes numerous flash fires around Mars’ remaining arcologies, and the contaminated air chokes the engines of shuttles that once enjoyed easy flights through the low gravity of the planet. The wealthiest - and largest - of the remaining arcologies is now Kunlun, the center of the planet’s reigning military government.

    While Mars may have, before Violet Dawn, been known for its energy and orbital construction sectors, the most valuable resource on the planet is now something most residents of the Orion Spur take for granted: water. With the secession of Konyang, one of the Solarian Alliance’s primary providers of fresh water, and the destruction of its southern ice cap along with contamination of open-air water sources by airborne phoron, the water situation on Mars has become quite dire. Outside of the military government-controlled northern ice cap and its surrounding arcologies, clean water is typically very hard to come across - in some areas, water is so difficult to find that groups fight for control of it.

    Government

    The flag of the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations' Provisional Government of Mars, the sole remnant of Mars' pre-Violet Dawn administration.

    The Martian “government,” has been, like its economy, devastated in the aftermath of the Violet Dawn catastrophe. The antiquated, bloated, and corrupt Martian government - with its highly-decentralized nature - was unable to handle the unparalleled crisis posed by the Violet Dawn disaster and quickly collapsed under its own weight, leaving much of the planet without a government beyond surviving local arcologies in the days immediately after the disaster. As the aftermath of Violet Dawn - columns of terrified refugees, imploding economies, and contaminated water - became apparent more and more of these local governments, already stretched thin by widespread civil unrest before the Violet Dawn explosion, began to collapse - thrusting more and more of Mars into a state of anarchy.

    With a collapsed civil government and widespread damage due to the Violet Dawn explosion, much of Mars exists in a governmentless anarchy where the strongest group (generally the group with the most guns) rules over a petty statelet. The one region of the planet with a semblance of traditional authority is the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations’ Provisional Government of Mars (ASSN-PGM), a military-led transitional authority that controls the largest remaining non-contaminated drinking water source on Mars: the northern ice cap. The ASSN-PGM is led by the recently-promoted Governor-General Tereza Varzieva from her headquarters in the newly-unified Kunlun and represents the only government officially recognized by the greater Solarian Alliance. The military government also controls some of the only functional shuttleports on Mars, with southern ports often having air too contaminated by phoron for typical air and spacecraft to fly. The ASSN-PGM has absolute control over Unified Kunlun, the northern ice cap, Mysteron, Marvinia, Chicago, and Draka - making it the largest single government on the Martian surface by far. While the ASSN-PGM has been referred to as “yet another," example of Solarian repression by some Coalition of Colonies member states, its region is - in part due to one advantage it has over other warlords: orbital naval support - the most stable on Mars and, if the Governor-General plays her cards right, may be the red planet’s best chance for a return to normalcy. Of course, they may also simply be a new form of Solarian control over the red planet.

    The anarchic “states” that can be found across the rest of Mars are even more diverse than the eclectic governments that preceded them. Many are simply bandit states run by local strongmen - often former gang leaders - that enforce their rule by force of arms and nothing more. Others are the vestigial remains of what were once local governments on Mars, such as the city councils of arcologies that have managed to hang onto their immediate domains. A few, such as those arcologies in the hazard zone unlucky enough to not have been immediately destroyed, have no authority at all. The most common form of “government” on Mars is a syncretic mix of the gangs that once dominated Martian arcologies and the corrupt government officials that turned a blind eye to their activities. Now, with no external government to hold themselves accountable to, Martian gangs and their allies in the remains of Mars’ arcologies are experiencing a new golden age of hedonism and power while the planet burns around them. As the situation on Mars worsens day by day, its warlords seem all too willing to throw gas upon the fire - to let the whole planet burn, consequences be damned.

    Major Martian Remnants

    Crest Olympia was, until the establishment of the ASSN-PGM government zone, the seat of government on Mars following the immediate aftermath of the Violet Dawn explosion. However the arcology’s status as the most important city on Mars was not to last for long as the capital was shortly transferred to the newly-unified Kunlun. Now, stripped of Sol Alliance patrols and facing a mounting refugee crisis, Crest Olympia struggles to remain a functional arcology in the Martian anarchy. One bright spot in the darkness is the arcology’s good relations with the remaining government forces on Mars, which often send cargo shuttles laden with direly needed humanitarian supplies to its still functional ports.

    Red Gaia was, prior to the Violet Dawn catastrophe, an arcology that proudly rejected the Sol Alliance in its official rhetoric. Its government, having witnessed the seeming abandonment of Martians by Sol following the catastrophe, threw open its doors for any and all refugees that could prove their loyalty to Mars above their loyalty to the Alliance. This stance, coupled with the arcology’s almost fanatical dedication to broadcasting it, has been disastrous for it. With an extremely overtaxed government, huge overcrowding, and absolutely no outside assistance arriving from other arcologies, Red Gaia, despite its dedication to Martian nationalism, is expected to collapse under its own weight within months if not weeks.

    Unified Kunlun, previously known as Kunlun and Free Kunlun, is the technical capital of Mars and the planetside headquarters of the ASSN-PGM. Both arcologies were torn apart by civil unrest as a result of the Third Tajara Ban and placed under martial law in the days leading up to the Violet Dawn explosion. In a twisted way, this allowed the arcologies to weather the effects of the catastrophe better than perhaps any other arcology on Mars. Unified Kunlun, thanks to its location in the far north of Mars, has no overcrowding or refugee issues and is one of the few locations where shuttles travel freely between space and the Martian surface. If not for the large numbers of Solarian troops in the arcologies, or the fact that most tajara have disappeared to repatriation centers, life would seem almost normal here.

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