Mars (Expansion of Humanity)
The Republic of Mars, commonly known as Mars, is the only state on the Red Planet and the first human Extra-Solar empire, leading the humanity in space exploration and expansion. The Martian dominion reaches even very far star systems populated by a huge amount of extraterrestrial intelligent species. It is estimated that around a 5% of the population of Mars are extraterrestrial diplomats. So far the Martian Expeditionary Fleet did not find any civilization with a higher technology than humans'.
The Republic of Mars is a meritocratic republic and all the powers belong to the High Commissariat that appoints the President of Mars. In Mars there is no currency and all citizens are ranked by their merits.
Etymology
In English, the planet is named for the Roman god of war, an association made because of its red color, which suggests blood. The adjectival form of Latin Mars is Martius, which provides the English words Martian, used as an adjective or for a putative inhabitant of Mars, and Martial, used as an adjective corresponding to Terrestrial for Earth. In Greek, the planet is known as Ἄρης Arēs, with the inflectional stem Ἄρε- Are-. From this come technical terms such as areology, as well as the adjective Arean and the star name Antares.
'Mars' is also the basis of the name of the month of March (from Latin Martius mēnsis 'month of Mars'), as well as of Tuesday (Latin dies Martis 'day of Mars'), where the old Anglo-Saxon god Tíw was identified with Roman god Mars by Interpretatio germanica.
Due to the global influence of European languages in astronomy, a word like Mars or Marte for the planet is common around the world, though it may be used alongside older, native words. A number of other languages have provided words with international usage. For example:
- Arabic مريخ mirrīkh – which connotes fire – is used as the (or a) name for the planet in Persian, Urdu, Malay and Swahili, among others
- Chinese 火星 [Mandarin Huǒxīng] 'fire star' (in Chinese the five classical planets are identified with the five elements) is used in Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese.
- India uses the Sanskrit term Mangal derived from the Hindu goddess Mangala.
- A long-standing nickname for Mars is the "Red Planet". That is also the planet's name in Hebrew, מאדים ma'adim, which is derived from אדום adom, meaning 'red'.
- The archaic Latin form Māvors (/ˈmeɪvɔːrz/) is seen, but only very rarely, in English, though the adjectives Mavortial and Mavortian mean 'martial' in the military rather than planetary sense.
History
COVID-19 outbreak and Mars colonization
At the end of 2019, a virus appeared to change the world. The world's economy was heavily affected by this situation, flights were cancelled, the countries were closing their borders causing travel restrictions. Millions lost their jobs and were forced to stay home. Countries without a public health system or with an underfunded one suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths. But many pharmaceutical companies were producing vaccines to sell to the world governments making the pharma industry even more powerful. But the people of the world started to feel suspicious about the situation and realized that the economic system that allowed that situation to happen was not fair, specially working class people. Riots all over the world started.
Countries like the United States were almost about to collapse and the President, Joe Biden promised that they will take some measures to protect the health of the people without enough purchasing power, not without oposition. At this point, China stepped further reaching the position of world's first economy. And the relations between the United States and the European Union were not very good after the previous President Donald Trump's office, so the European Union break the diplomatic relations with the US. The NATO also disappeared. The United States had a plan to divert the attention of its citizens, space race. They prepared the mission New Home with the objective to send humans to Mars to establish a colony.
Space race
At the end of 2026, the NASA with the collaboration with private companies like SpaceX send the first crew to Mars in order to colonize the red planet. On January 2027, the United Nations invited all the member countries to deliberate about one topic, Mars. After several days of deliberation, they divided Mars into different influence areas: United States, Russia, China, India, Japan and the ESA. Another condition was that the colonization process would be regulated by the United Nations upon votation and no weapons would be allowed to bring to Mars. The Treaty of New York was signed on January 28th. The New Home mission crew arrived to the surface of Mars in May 2027. The new colony needed for materials and supplies and the United States government announced to increase the federal taxes in order to supply the Martian crew. The answer of the citizens was clear: "not from my wallet". And the United States broke into 50 independent states, Puerto Rico and the US former territories became also independent. That happened in 2028.
Shortly after, World War III began and the space race suddenly stopped, leaving the Martian colonists alone in the dusty red planet. During the 2030s the colonists started to die and the colonization project was a failure as no survivors were left. The humanity lost the interest in Mars until the end of the war. In 2045, China and Russia began to colonize their respective Martian sectors. The Cold War II resulting after the war, gave more interest in competing against the rival nations in the colonization and terraformation of Mars. But the situation was also very tense in the red planet, there was even some border conflicts in Mars. Japan even occupied the USA Martian sector because that country ceased to exist and they were expelled for the United Nations so they were not tied by the Treaty of New York anymore. The South Asian Union made a huge effort by developing India's sector becoming the leader of the space race.
New powers
At the end of the 21st Century, new actors appeared in the international scene: the Confederation of Terra, the Kingdoms of Terra and the Terran Republic. And they began to bring weapons to the Martian surface to battle against their respective enemy factions. The tensions also included bringing the most brilliant scientists and engineers to Mars, leaving the Earth (Terra from now) in a situation of technological stagnancy or with a very slow progress, while Mars terraforming process accelerated exponentially.
In the 2110s, the Terran Republic helped East Africa to become another of the factions in Mars. While the Confederation of Terra spent a huge amount of capital in the development of Mars, becoming known as the main sponsor for Martian terraformation.
All factions knew in order to have more influence in Mars, they would need a higher population in the red planet, so they started to send soldiers and their families. The 22nd and 23rd centuries were known as the Terran exodus.
Terraformed Mars and independence
In 2298, the terraformation of Mars was completed. After all this time and due to the influence of the radiation in the genes of the Martians, they became to have a different appearance compared to the Terrans. Scientifically they were known as Homo sapiens martianus with different physical characteristics than the Homo sapiens terranus.
The Martians were tired that the Terran conflicts were reaching their planet and as they also had a terraformed planet, they did not see anymore the necessity to be politically tied to the Terran factions. So a strong independence movement was growing in all Martian sectors, in order to achieve a politically unified and independent Mars.
In 1 January 2300, Mars declared independence. Japan was the first country to recognize the Martian independence and step by step the other countries did not had a choice but to recognize it. The sponsor of Martian terraforming, the Confederation of Terra, was totally against the independence of the red planet and they declared war on the young Republic of Mars.
Confederate-Martian War
When Sophie Zheng, the first President of Mars, knew that the Confederation of Terra declared war on Mars, she said that they were "the bully of the seven seas pretending to be bully of our Solar System". The war lasted two years (2300-2302) but it was devastating for the Confederation. The defeat was due to the huge technological gap between Mars and the Terran nations. The Martian Navy with its plasma cannon equipped space warships destroyed the Confederate Space Navy.
The Purge and the beginning of the Expansion
Shortly after the independence, the Martian government decided to erradicate religion from the planet, even they already had a much lower number of religious people compared to the Terran Republic. This persecution of the religious Martians was known as The Purge and it supposed the end of the diplomatic relations between the young republic and the Terran nations of Persia and the Islamic Federation of States.
In 2320, the Martians developed the first Alcubierre drive spaceship, this event marked the beginning of the Expansion of Humanity to other solar systems and the beginning of the contemporary history. In 2331, Mars invited the representatives of each Terran faction to sign the Treaty of Solis Lacus, which gave the Terran factions the domain over the Solar System not further than the asteroid belt (with the exception of Mars and its moons) and Mars dominion would go further than the asteroid belt.
Mars was and it is still the only human nation allowed and capable to travel to other solar systems. Martians represent the humanity outside our solar system and they control an empire formed by many different planets and moons in varied solar systems populated by the most strange intelligent species any Terran could ever imagine.
By the year 2421, Mars did not find any civilization able to travel between solar systems... yet...
The planet
Physical characteristics
Mars is approximately half the diameter of Terra, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Terra's dry land. Mars is less dense than Terra, having about 15% of Terra's volume and 11% of Terra's mass, resulting in about 38% of Terra's surface gravity.
Internal structure
Like Terra, Mars has differentiated into a dense metallic core overlaid by less dense materials. Scientists initially determined that the core is at least partially liquid. Current models of its interior imply a core with a radius of about 1,794 ± 65 kilometres, consisting primarily of iron and nickel with about 16–17% sulfur. This iron sulfide core is thought to be twice as rich in lighter elements as Terra's. The core is surrounded by a silicate mantle that formed many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet, but it appears to be dormant. Besides silicon and oxygen, the most abundant elements in the Martian crust are iron, magnesium, aluminium, calcium, and potassium. The average thickness of the planet's crust is about 50 kilometres, with a maximum thickness of 125 kilometres. Terra's crust averages 40 kilometres.
Other characteristics
The terraformation process gave the planet rich soils for agriculture as well as water in liquid state. Mars has oceans, lakes and rivers and even polar caps, like Terra. Mars topography is influenced by the many craters that they are still visible in the planet surface, many of them became lakes.
The planet currently has a breathable atmosphere for Terran species, but it was not always like that, Martians which are descendants of the first generations who became part of the Homo sapiens martianus are better adapted to oxygen deprivation, solar radiation and a lower gravity.
Mars has different climates, like Terra, but most of the population lives near coastal equatorial areas.
Orbit and rotation
Mars' average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Terran) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Terran day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Terran years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours.
The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Terra. As a result, Mars has seasons like Terra, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day epoch, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb.
Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Terran years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Terra today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Terran years compared to Terra's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has a much longer cycle of eccentricity, with a period of 2.2 million Terran years, and this overshadows the 96,000-year cycle in the eccentricity graphs. For the last 35,000 years, the orbit of Mars has been getting slightly more eccentric because of the gravitational effects of the other planets. The closest distance between Terra and Mars will continue to mildly decrease for the next 25,000 years.
Moons
Mars has two relatively small (compared to Terra's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 kilometres in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 kilometres in diameter), which orbit close to the planet. Asteroid capture is a long-favored theory, but their origin remains uncertain. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall; they are named after the characters Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread), who, in Greek mythology, accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman counterpart of Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης).
From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbit – where the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotation – rises as expected in the east but slowly. Despite the 30-hour orbit of Deimos, 2.7 days elapse between its rise and set for an equatorial observer, as it slowly falls behind the rotation of Mars.
Because the orbit of Phobos is below synchronous altitude, the tidal forces from the planet Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet.
The origin of the two moons is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting the capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point towards a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits, near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed.
A third possibility is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Terra's moon. Although the VNIR spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class.
Mars may have moons smaller than 50 to 100 metres in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos.
Martian colonies
Demographics
Mars has an estimated population of around 750 million people, the overwhelming majority are Martian humans but there are also some Terran humans living there as diplomats as well as other intelligent species from far solar systems.
Top 10 cities
- Solis Lacus
- Olympia
- Vales Marineris
- Moscua Nova
- Pechinum Novum
- Lutetia Nova
- Nairobia Nova
- Marsopolis
- Terrapolis
- Tokium Novum
Languages
The most commonly spoken languages in Terra are also the most commonly spoken in Mars. In order to unify all Martians under one language, Martian Creole forms part of the Martian identity and it is the sole official language. All Martians are able to speak, read and write in Martian Creole but not all of them have it as a native language.
Religion
Religion is forbidden and frowned upon in Mars, but it is permitted to be practised by foreigners only if they do it in the privacy of their homes.
Health and education
All citizens are covered by the universal health system without exception, which is excellent. Even thou, life expectancy of the Martians is comparable to the human life expectancy of the 21st century.
Education is provided for all citizens without exception and the students are educated according with their skills and capacities. The education system of Mars is very adaptable.
Government and politics
Mars is a meritocratic republic with a growing intersolar empire that expands from Mars and its two moons and the outer solar system and reaches other solar systems. All the political powers (executive, legislative and judicial) are held by the High Commissariat which is presided by the President of Mars.
Only the Martian citizens with the highest merits score can become members of the High Commissariat and the Martian citizens with the higher score becomes the President. Mars has no democracy or elections. Any person from any background can become the President. To climb the social ladder, the citizens need to accumulate merits and they can do it by performing with excellence at their jobs, achieving scientific and technological advances, serving the Armed Forces or in a Expeditionary Fleet, etc. Citizens can lose merits by committing crimes, corruption or sabotaging the government, according to Martians this system avoids to have corrupt politicians and also prevents crime.
The government is present in all aspects of life in Mars, since housing, to education, health... everything. But Martians do not see this as an invasion of their life. The government does not have any say in interpersonal relations and family issues. A Martian lives with their parents until the age of 18, without any exception. The government covers the basic needs of all citizens.
Foreign relations
| Country | Relationship |
|---|---|
| File:Confederation-Terra-flag.webp Confederation of Terra | Hostile |
 Costa Rica |
Neutral |
| File:East African Federation flag.png East Africa | Ally |
 Islamic Federation |
Hostile |
| File:Imperial Japanese Flag.png Japan | Ally |
| File:Kingdoms of Terra flag.png Kingdoms of Terra | Ally |
| File:Persia flag.png Persia | Hostile |
| File:Flag of Singapore.png Singapore | Neutral |
| File:South Asian Union flag.png South Asia | Hostile |
 Switzerland |
Neutral |
| File:Terran-Republic-flag.png Terran Republic | Ally |
Government finance
There are no taxes in Mars and there is no currency either, the government is sustained by the work of all citizens, each one is a gear that keeps moving the Martian meritocratic system. According to Martians, taxes make no sense when there is no private property in the whole planet. For example: a housing unit assigned to a citizen is a public property intended for a private use, and this citizen can obtain a better housing unit by acquiring more merits or a worse housing unit if they lose merits.
Military
The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Martian Armed Forces, the military leader of each branch is the member with the top rank in the merit system and between them, the one with a higher ranking becomes the Marshall of the Martian Armed Forces, which is also a political leader, being equivalent to a Minister of Defence. The Martian Armed Forces have four branches: the Domestic Command, the Navy, the Colonial Forces and the Expeditionary Force.
There is no military service in Mars, only the citizens who have the right skills and capacities become military staff. The Martian Navy, including their tough Martian marines, is the most powerful known space navy, it has no rival amongst other human space navies. Martian military spaceships are faster, stronger and can outnumber very easily any enemy space navy.
Law enforcement and crime
Law enforcement in Mars is a duty of the Domestic Command, which is itself a branch of the Martian Armed Forces. Crime in Mars is almost erradicated. Capital punishment is existing for crimes like drug trafficking or murder but is not practised frequently due to the low crime rate in the country.
Economy
As Mars does not use any currency, they just trade with other nations. Their main trade partners are the Terran Republic, Japan, East Africa and the Kingdoms of Terra. They receive agricultural products and some manufactured products as well as luxury goods in exchange of the valuable Martian high-tech products and rare stuff from other solar systems.
Income, poverty and wealth
The government gives to all citizens a decent life, even to those who do not want to work, the so called meritless. The meritless is a social class which is happy enough to live without any luxury, just what they need to keep living. They only have a very basic housing unit, with access to clean water, heating, air conditioning, healthcare, food and clothing, no entertainment and no permission to use public transport or holidays (if they don't work, they don't need that). Meritless people do not have the right to grow children, if they have children, the government will take care of them. The Martian Statistics Bureau estimates that less than 0.1% of the population is meritless, so they are hard to find.
As a person is obtaining merits by his/her hard work and effort, life becomes more comfortable with an easier access to a better housing unit and more luxury products, all of them provided by the government. Martians are very hard workers and they do everything they can to have more merits and not lose them.
If a citizen is willing to retire, they would not lose merits, unless they do something to lose them, like crime. Retirement is totally voluntary. Most Martians never retire.
Any person from any background, sex, culture, appearance has the possibility to climb the social ladder, even the meritless, if they will they can lose their status as meritless.
Science and technology
Martians outsmart all Terrans in all sciences and engineering, but there is one exception, Terran Republic doctors, who have a very high level of knowledge and they are comparable to Martian doctors. They collaborate often.
Infrastructure
All the energy in Mars comes from renewable sources and the planet produces enough electricity for their needs, they can even store the electricity they don't use, for emergency cases.
The public transport is Mars is highly efficient, clean with the environment and fast. They have an extensive and intrincate network of trains as well as aerial transport and space shuttle services to go to Terra and other place inside or outside the solar system. For example, high-speed trains Mars are available for citizens on holidays and workers who require mobility to perform their jobs.
Culture
Apart from their irreligiousness and their meritocratic system, Martian culture is not very different from Terran cultures. They are a mix of different cultures but they are hard workers who always seek to improve in everything they do but not for themselves but for the common good of the citizens of Mars.