Reimagining The Martian Chronicles

[Werner]

This is a setting based on the book by Ray Bradbury of the same name. This is present day Earth and the Solar System with one small difference, we are substituting the Mars from the Martian Chronicles. This Mars has an advanced if decaying civilization of humanoid aliens, they are biologically comparable with terrestrial life forms on Earth, although adapted to the Martian gravity 0.38g. Mars is a desert world with a thin atmosphere, most of its water is gone, the current belief is that the water was absorbed by the crust as the planet became less geologically active, the water that remains is found in the planets ice caps and its system of canals which have been maintained by the Martians.

Up until the arrival of the first human expedition in 1984, Mars had a thriving but reclusive and inward looking civilization with an estimated population in the low billions, these Martians are largely peaceful and had no designs on Earth and mostly wanted to be left alone, unfortunately having long since conquered and eradicated all disease on their planet, they had no resistance to the diseased brought by the seven astronauts of the Ares 2 expedition.

These Martians had very powerful psionic capabilities capable of affecting a humans visual cortex and other sensory inputs. The first and second expeditions were killed, the first one landed a lone astronaut on the planet's surface, he landed in an isolated area, the Martians managed to contain the threat of contagion after killing him, with the second expedition, the Martians weren't so fortunate, this one landed four astronauts near a Martian city, three astronauts remained in the mothership, using psionic attacks the four astronauts were made to experience a familiar environment taken from their own memories, they were fed poison food and died, but it was too late for the Martians, the contagion already escaped and could not be contained killing off 99.999% of the Martian population while the remainder managed to develop resistance to human diseases, there are estimated to be a few hundred thousand Martians remaining, most live underground in caves, many have used their psionic powers to cloak their appearance as humans, and they have managed to hide among the humans themselves.

Martians try to avoid areas with high populations, as so many minds tends to overwhelm them.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Could be interesting. Two issues:
1.IRL RAW (I am always a pain about that :nonono, due to the lack of atmospheric pressure, Mars rates an atmospheric code of 1. Plan your handwaving/explanations accordingly. Bradbury himself did a lot of handwaving that IIRC.
2.Do you plan on only staying in the second era or are you opting to progress to third era after Earth dies in nuclear war?

 

[Werner]

Could be interesting. Two issues:
1.IRL RAW (I am always a pain about that :nonono, due to the lack of atmospheric pressure, Mars rates an atmospheric code of 1. Plan your handwaving/explanations accordingly. Bradbury himself did a lot of handwaving that IIRC.
2.Do you plan on only staying in the second era or are you opting to progress to third era after Earth dies in nuclear war?

I figure on staying in the second era, as a nuclear war has nothing directly to do with Mars. Instead of using Bradbury's projected technologies of human origin, I would use existing technology of today, while pushing Elon Musk's Starship technology further along due to increased interest in the Red Planet. One major difference in the timeline is the Apollo program was continued to Apollo 20, and production of the Saturn V continued all the way into the 1980s.

The designs of the Ares I and II spaceships were done by Werner Von Braun who continued his active participation in the NASA program until the day he died. The Shuttle program was funded in parallel to the continued production of the Saturn V rocket, and both vehicles were used to assemble the Ares I and II vehicles in low Earth orbit, this cost an enormous amount of money of course, insignificant when compared to the rest of US government expenditures, but there was enough of interest on Mars to justify the increased expenditure levels.

On the Soviet side, the Russians continued to develop their N1 rockets, they didn't make it to the Moon first just as in are timeline, the launch pad explosions happened, but they rebuilt the launch pad, and worked on the N1 rocket until they finally got it to work, and by the mid 1970s, the first Soviet cosmonauts made their first footprints on the Moon.

What motivated them both was that the canals of Mars turned out to be real, space probes also detected cities on Mars, artificial lighting illuminated them during the Martian night, the Viking lander's lasted a few weeks and returned some pictures, but then were destroyed when the Martians discovered them. The orbital space probes were unmolested however. The Martians although quite advanced had no presence in space. The moons Phobos and Deimos are as we see them in our universe, untouched and unimproved, the Martians seem to be focused entirely on their planet and not into space.

Of course both space superpowers would like to make contact with the Martians, but apparently the Martians had no desire to make contact with them.

Each Ares mission cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and it cost so much that the Soviets and the USA put aside their differences and jointly funded each mission with the Soviet N1s and Energias making their contribution to launching components of the Mars vehicle into orbit. The seven person Mars crew was multinational, it included 2 American astronauts, 3 Soviet cosmonauts, and two ESA astronaut one from the UK and the other from France.

Politics, not related to space, remained unchanged. The portion of the mission where astronauts landed on the surface were unsuccessful, 3 astronauts remained in orbit on the mothership and returned to Earth when they lost contact with the ground crew after they could stay no longer. Funerals were held for the fallen astronauts/cosmonauts in their respective countries, funding for the Ares program on both sides was cut when it became clear that the Martians did not want to be visited.

Further unmanned probes were sent to Mars, they noticed that the Martian cities went dark and no movement of vehicles was noticed on the planet's surface. (This was due to the devastation of terrestrial disease brought to Mars by the Ares 2 crew when they landed there was a mass dying of Martians in the following decades.

Then Elon Musk started SpaceX and started developing cheaper access to space, and interest in exploring Mars was renewed.

 

[Werner]

The above timeline is one possible one, it might not he the most realisticmone though, now that I think of it further. Maybe the first mission was a Soviet mission and the second one was an American one, the Martians ended up killing the Soviet cosmonauts, but the Soviets kept it secret, and later on killed the American astronauts and then the germs brought down Martian civilization, this all happened as part of an extended space race between the USA and USSR with the sub sequence pictures of darkened cities afterwards there are some political ramifications for the space programs. After a while the clamoured subsides, a private company starts sending missions to Mars without government funding, but lots of private backing. Mars appears dead, civilization has collapsed there, there is some movement detected by advanced space probes, but not what is was before the Ares 2 mission landed astronauts there.

I think Ray Bradbury overlooked to political ramifications of the mass die-off of Martians due to terrestrial diseases, he just assumed we'd all act like cowboys and the Martians would take the place on Indians in this Space Age Western. I don't think that would be the case, and there would also be fears of Martian diseases, since no humans that visited the surface have ever returned, they don't know that there aren't any Martian diseases that could cause massive die-offs of the human population on Earth, so this may be a problem. Ah well. With low cost access to space however, governments might lose control of who goes into space. So there may be a remote facility on an island instead of in Texas. China threatens to send its astronauts there, and they United States doesn't want to leave the planet entirely to China and Russia, so they send a mission after the Chinese safely land their astronauts on Mars. This seems to be the way to proceed I think.

 

[Werner]

Okay, the Chinese land their expedition on Mars after the Ares 2 mission ends, they find some abandoned cities, and skeletons of dead Martians and some advanced tech, like laser rifles and such, they United States has no choice but to send their own manned expeditions to Mars to recover some of these technologies, lest the Chinese gain a technological there is a new Cold War, so they get over their guilt about what happened with the Ares 2 expedition, and plow ahead with their colonization plans.

There are some Martians left, their bodies have adapted to terrestrial diseases so they are no longer in danger of extinction, their civilization has collapsed though, and there aren't enough of them to maintain it, but they are curious about the arriving humans though. The typical Martian have mind affecting psi powers, and by affecting the visual cortex of humans they can disguise themselves to look as one of them, they do this instinctively, but the more humans looking at them the more taxing it is on their systems. Martians earn a living as farmers, growing crops for humans, they kind of have no choice, they don't want to live as savages, and the humans have brought their own industrial base with them, and they have discovered they could eat human food, and the humans can subsist of some of the native Martian plants and animals.

Martians tend to be taller and thinner than humans, their bodies are adapted to Martian gravity, humans tend to be stronger than they are, their mind powers make up for this disadvantage, some Martians know how the ancient tech works, some help the humans reverse engineer them so they can be mass produced. Martians have rather mixed feelings about humans.

 

[Werner]

The Martians have advanced technology, yet they are planet bound to a point where a more primitive species was able to visit them, and spread a plague of terrestrial diseases that they had no resistance to because long ago they hand conquered all diseases on their home planet. When you look at it this way, this was a disaster in the making, and not entirely the human's fault. So what happened on Mars which led to this situation?

Long ago, before the rise of human civilization on Earth, the Martian civilizations warred and fought with each other and at some point a single civilization conquered the entire planet, and this was before the development of nuclear weapons, or space travel, this was at tech level 4.

The Martians did not have a patent system for developing technologies, instead they had research institute's run by the government. The Martians knew about science, it just did not occur to the Martians that researchers should be rewarded disproportionately for making discoveries and inventions. Martians have longer lifespans than humans, and their governments weren't democratically run, but were imperial in nature.

Mars had an empress, and she selected from among her many offspring who would succeed her as Empress of Mars. Since she governed the entire planet, she didn't want anyone going off planet, because then they could wage war on Mars and threaten her rule. At some point some Martians did make it off planet, they managed to travel to Earth and had some influence in forming those first Earth civilizations.

Those Martians that visited Earth did not live long, Mars sent a fleet of ships to go after those rebels and a war broke out, as there were just a few Martians on Earth, the war did not last long and the few survivors that remained ended up dying of Earth diseases, and that was it, the last time the Martians ever allowed travel in space, ever since that time, Mars has been an inward looking civilization in slow decline and was pushed over the edge by that second visit by humans.

 

[Jason M Durkish]

The Martians all died after the second contact with the human astronauts and the human colonies are on there own after the nuclear war on earth

 

[Timerover51]

In H. Beam Piper's Paratime series, Mars actually successfully colonizes Earth.

 

[Werner]

I don't think anything adapted to Mars would be comfortable on Earth due to gravity issues, I don't think humans would want to colonize a super-Wealthy with 2.5 times as much gravity either. A Martian would be right at home on Mercury as it has the right gravity.

 

[daryen]

The Martians all died after the second contact with the human astronauts and the human colonies are on there own after the nuclear war on earth

Remember, the OP is admittedly making changes. So, the "real" story is merely a guideline, not a straight jacket. Wiping out the Martians works for the purposes of the story, but for an open-ended on-going setting, you'll want to keep some around.

Besides, the real ending was the death of all Martians AND all humans. While the book tries to end on a hopeful note, there are just too few humans left after the nuclear war. They're all going to die out. The only "people" left will be that android family, and they'll wear out eventually, too.

 

[Werner]

The Martian Chronicles is basically a Western set in space with the Martian playing the part of the American Indians, if we follow that guideline then 90% of the Martians are killed by human diseases, a major difference is that it ends in a nuclear war on Earth, and for some reason most of the human colonists board spaceships and head back to Earth to fight those Communists, as if their paltry numbers would make a difference in the outcome of a nuclear war, and it didn't of course. I can just see the author wagging a finger at those humans for wiping out the Martians so they deserve to be wiped out too!

Realistically most of the Martian colonists would stick it out on Mars, the only time they could go back to Earth is when planetary alignments permit it, that occurs every two years, and the trip when undertaken would take from 7 to 9 months when given realistic 21st century technology for the time period, plus there is not likely to be enough spaceships to take everyone, they did not arrive all at once so they probably can't leave all at once either, and a nuclear third world war is not likely to last long enough for ten thousand to one hundred thousand Martian colonists to wait for proper planetary alignments and then get on their ships for the 9 month journey for them to get back to Earth, put on a uniform, pick up that rifle and fight in World War III, this is not likely to happen!

Most likely the colonists would stay on Mars and worry about surviving on Mars, as they cannot get back in time to fight for their country, every man, woman, and child, and be obliterated by nuclear weapons or die more slowly from radiation poisoning, disease, or starvation in its aftermath. I think most rational people would elect to stay on Mars and wait it out. Yes I know the author was trying to make a point and he assumed everybody would be uber-Patriots, get on spaceships with their families and die in a nuclear war, but I don't think that is realistic!

The Martians were also pathetically weak and vulnerable, but they were trying to make like American indians and fit in that mold to draw Western parallels. Apparently the Martians were caught unprepared, okay they are a very old society and have become insular and vulnerable, so Earth diseases caught them unprepared.

 

[Werner]

Personally I'd make the Martians a branch of humanity similar to the Zhodani except taller in thinner, average height of adult males is 7 feet tall, females are around 6 feet 6 inches. I think in imperial units, you can convert them to centimeters if you like.
I would make the Martians less mysterious and more numerous, Earth humans have to deal with them all the time.
Age categories are the same as humans only an 18 year old Martian is considered an adult, but in 18 Martian years, aside from that they look like tall elves, are graceful in their movements under Martian gravity, and can see in the infrared and pick up heat signatures with their eyes, and can interfered with Earth humans producing half-martians.

 

[whartung]

So, that's a curious question. How much of our build, height, etc. is due to the gravity well. Obviously, the entire design is based on the gravity well (among other things), but given our genetics, would we, indeed, grow taller or less stout on Mars?

 

[Werner]

So, that's a curious question. How much of our build, height, etc. is due to the gravity well. Obviously, the entire design is based on the gravity well (among other things), but given our genetics, would we, indeed, grow taller or less stout on Mars?

Yeah, I'm going to scrap World War III and have it not happen on Earth, maybe it's a poetic way to end the book, but for a Traveller setting I want to keep it going. The ticket to Mars costs about $100,000 per person, interplanetary travel is expensive, a family of four would need to sell their house and probably take out another mortgage to afford the move to Mars. Among the various industries are rare Earth mining. The planet is slowly losing its atmosphere, the planet is mostly desert and is crisscrossed with canals carrying water from the poles to various parts of the planets, various companies are studying the canals pumping mechanisms so they can learn how to repair and maintain them and keep the planet habitable.

The Martian cities were hit by the worst of the plague brought from Earth, the Martians had no immunity to Earth diseases, the ones that are left are nomads living out in the desert, they try to stay away from Earth humans for obvious reasons. So basically Earth humans are moving into the Martian cities, one of the things that have been discovered there are room temperature superconductors, the Martian variety are superior in their current carrying capacity than the ones developed on Earth, and apparently the Martians had them for many thousands of years. The Martian populations were carefully controlled until the arrival of Earth humans where it drastically plummeted.

The Martians do not use radio technology, so no radio signals were detected from Mars, most communications were by superconducting wires, Martians had no technology comparable to cellphones, all their communications devices were wired, and of course there was Psionics, many Martians communicate mentally, and they can even insert words and images into Earth human's minds, they can cloak themselves with illusions by manipulating the visual cortex of the brain

 

[Condottiere]

What I heard was that gravity does dictate the height of mountains does increase from lack of gravity, as the increased ground pressure is resisted more by the tectonic plates.

How that works biologically, could be for organisms that don't stop growing, such as trees, they could grow a lot taller than on Earth.

With humans, we know nutrition, or lack thereof, plays a great deal in this, considering the recorded experiences of Hollanders and East Asians; could a Hollander descendant born on Mars grower taller? I suspect you're looking at natural selection.

 

[Werner]

What I heard was that gravity does dictate the height of mountains does increase from lack of gravity, as the increased ground pressure is resisted more by the tectonic plates.

How that works biologically, could be for organisms that don't stop growing, such as trees, they could grow a lot taller than on Earth.

With humans, we know nutrition, or lack thereof, plays a great deal in this, considering the recorded experiences of Hollanders and East Asians; could a Hollander descendant born on Mars grower taller? I suspect you're looking at natural selection.

These martians are not as tall as they could be, they are basically of human stock, they could be as tall as 15 feet, but I wanted to keep them within reason and not stir up controversy. The Ancients, same Ancients as in the OTU had something to do with Mars being this way, and these altered humans being here. Most of the animals here are derived from Terran stock, these include giant eagles, birds large enough to carry humans. Some very tall pine trees grow in the watered and irrigated areas by the canals and lakes, they stand about 200 feet to 250 feet tall, some hardy cactuses dot the landscape in the more arid regions. Grasslands are the second largest terrain feature after deserts on the planet, there is a shrunken Boreal Sea in the northern hemisphere, filling about a third of its ancient basin. Canals crisscross the planet and make it less arid than what it would otherwise be. Stalking in the grasslands are enormous sabertoothed cats standing about 6 feet high at the shoulder, they hunt the 10-foot high elk that graze in the tall grasses of Mars.

 

[coliver988]

one thing I've read is that the reason dinosaurs were so large was the oxygen content was much higher. So for me, reduced oxygen off-sets the reduced gravity in determining height.

Unfortunately, apparently that was shot down....so never mind!

www.scienceworld.ca/stories/how-did-dinosaurs-get-so-big

and countering that counter: https://phys.org/news/2019-08-dinosaurs-linked-oxygen.html

 

[Condottiere]

The settlers could regulate oxygen percentage through breathing apparatus and life support.

Gravity only if they had developed artificial gravitational tiles.

 

[Werner]

The settlers could regulate oxygen percentage through breathing apparatus and life support.

Gravity only if they had developed artificial gravitational tiles.

Except for Mars itself, I'd like to keep it real, in other words realistic technologies we could have in the 21st century, not Space 1999. Artificial gravity is for those shows that wanted to save money in not presenting zero-g but we have an unlimited special effects budget in our imagination. So if Mars had a breathable atmosphere, and Elon Musk were still around, what would we be doing right now? What would be the realistic thing?

 

[Werner]

one thing I've read is that the reason dinosaurs were so large was the oxygen content was much higher. So for me, reduced oxygen off-sets the reduced gravity in determining height.

Unfortunately, apparently that was shot down....so never mind!

www.scienceworld.ca/stories/how-did-dinosaurs-get-so-big

and countering that counter: https://phys.org/news/2019-08-dinosaurs-linked-oxygen.html

Who said there was reduced oxygen?