Mars in 2115, before the First Martian War
Wait? This is not Mars!
Yes, it is not OTL Mars. This is part of a worldbuilding project called ‘A more perfect neighborhood’ which basically involves a cooler solar system, with a couple familiar and unfamiliar planets. History up until the cold war is (somehow) unchanged, aside from the fact that planets and likely a couple mythologies are a bit different. Anyway, the solar system is composed of many planets including Vulcan (essentially COROT-7b), Mercury (same as OTL), Minerva (OTL Venus but a little closer to the sun), Mars (the thing I will dump a ton of info on), Earth (with a much more epic moon), Venus (an ice planet), Juno (a gas dwarf with big lagrangian companions), Jupiter (got a two new big moons), Saturn (got its moons chonked up), Prometheus and Epimetheus (two binary planets with a familiar looking moon), Uranus (ur anus), Neptune (got a much cooler moon system) and many more beyond. So, Mars:
-
Roughly 127 million kilometers from the sun lies a strange world, similar to Earth in composition yet different in many ways. This is the planet of Mars, a strange little analog of Earth, well known for its blood red oceans and strong martial based culture. The planet has two medium sized moons, Phobos and Deimos. Mars was colonized by the Eurasian Defense League, the strongest alliance on Earth during the mid 20th century, led by the European Union and India.
Areography
The planet Mars is 11,788.4 kilometers in diameter, which gives it a comparable scale to Earth. It is also about 3/4th the mass of the Earth, being about 471.6×10^22 kilograms. Mars has a similar day length as well, at 25.64 hours. The world is tilted only 7.2% on its axis, giving it a lot less seasonal variation than Earth, but still some changes in temperature over the year. A Martian year lasts a bit shorter as well, with it being 287.25 days in length.
Mars has an average temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, although it can fluctuate ten degrees up and down throughout the year. The atmosphere is about 78% of Earth, and is mainly made up of Nitrogen (at 94%) and some Oxygen (at 4.7%) as well as other gases like Argon, Carbon Dioxide and other gases.
Mars is generally rocky in composition with a dense iron core in the middle. The planet is home to large mineral deposits of a similar quantity to Earth. Aside from the highlands, much of the planet is covered in a brown sandy desert made of eroded rock millions of years ago. The planet is geologically active, with volcanoes and earthquakes occurring occasionally.
Mars's most striking natural feature has been its red oceans. These were probably discolored about 1.2 billion years ago by iron oxide and other chemicals dissolved in water. The water from the oceans is not considered very safe to drink, although water from rivers, rain and small ponds are generally clean. There is also a water cycle similar to that of Earth, minus the plant part.
Not many lifeforms live on the red planet, although there are some very primitive organisms in the form of large bacterial forms. The biggest of these can grow up to a centimeter in length, and they generally live in massive clusters in the sea, home to up to millions of organisms. There are also some archaea and proto viruses scattered across the planet, although many of these have gone extinct within a few decades of humans arriving on the planet.
Mars is grouped into 5 or 7 continents, depending on who you ask. In the South, there is a 'supercontinent' known as Aresia, although it can be divided on lines similar to those of Afro-Eurasia, into the continents of Nerino in the south, Kyzaghan in the northwest and Larania to the northeast. Other continents from west to east include Montu, Skanda, Utopia and Victoria.
Martian History (up to 2115)
People had been observing Mars for thousands of years, due to it being one of the brightest objects in the night sky, sometimes even being visible in the evening. It generally had a connotation with war and destruction, being associated with the Roman god of Mars, the Indian god of Mangala and the Sumerian god of Nergal. The Chinese referred to it as the 'fire star'.
The Martian moons were probably known for a long time, but they were only formally catalogued in 1575 by Danish Astronomer Tycho Brahe, and confirmed to exist by later telescopic viewings of Mars by Galileo Galilei and Giovanni Cassini. The astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli made several observations of Mars in the 19th century, cataloging many mountains and river formations.
The first probe that managed to flyby Mars was the Mariner 4 probe, sent by the United States in 1964, followed by the Soviet Union's Mars-2 in 1971, which was the first to Orbit the planet. The Soviet Mars-3 (1971) was the first lander on the planet, while the American Sojourner probe was the first rover in 1985. The Americans developed the rockets Spirit and Opportunity, which managed to reach mars, land and launch back to Earth with samples in 2002. The stage was then set for the first humans on the red planet.
In the year 2006, the United States and the European Union launched the Ares-1 spacecraft toward Mars, intended to take the first 5 people to the red planet. The trip was supposed to take 90 days, and its crew were some of the best trained astronauts in the entire world. Around 65 days into the voyage, an oxygen leak occurred near the nose of the spacecraft, and air was sucked out from it, suffocating the spacecraft’s crew within a week. This tragedy, coupled with the destruction of the USS Plymouth (a large spacecraft carrying US officials to the moon) just days before ended interest in space travel for several decades. Very few probes would be sent to Mars, until the 2040's.
It was then when the first landing occurred, just at the start of the second space race in the year 2045. The European Union launched the Caesar-4 mission, with ten crew members hailing from ten separate nations. The first step on Mars was made by Mission Commander Edorado Bonagura, who uttered the words: 'Venimus, vidimus, vicimus'. 'We came, we saw, we conquered', alluding to the quote from Julius Caesar.
Bonagura's crew landed in Northwestern Larania, and founded the city of Caesara, named after Julius and Augustus Caesar. This was followed immediately by the Aryabhatta-1 mission, which was an Indian mission that set foot in Southeast Skanda.
Later expeditions followed, mainly held by independent European Nations and India. Other nations, such as Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt and Argentina soon began making preparations for colonizing the planet. The Americans planned to launch a mission, but they were stopped during the treaty of Valour Station, when Venus and Mars were partitioned between the main alliances of Earth.
The first Martian offworld commonwealth was established in 2054, that being the Indian Republic of Skanda, followed by the European Union's creation of the massive superstate known as the Aresian Federation, spanning all three continents of Aresia. Other nations in the EDL landed on Utopia (them being Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal and Indonesia) and Montu (them being Egypt, Sudan, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, East Africa, Argentina and Uruguay), while the continent of Victoria was united by a pan Anglosphere colony (including South Africa and Ireland, although separatist movements were common there).
Phobos was made a commodinum of India and Britain while Deimos was added as an outer territory of Aresia. The lagrangian points with the moons, the Martian orbit and even the Martian lagrange points with the sun began to be colonized as well.
Immediately, tensions rose on Mars, with basically the entire planet trying to contain the power of the gargantuan Aresian superstrate. This led to some tensions spilling over onto Earth, which began to gently tug the strings to collapse the EDL.
Aside from the tense politics, Mars was booming. Birth rates among women reached extremely high levels, and thousands and soon millions migrated to the red planet. In 2050, Mars had a population of a thousand, in 2060, it was fifty thousand, in 2070, seven hundred thousand, and in 2080, two million. This was primarily caused by the opening up of economic reasons for colonization, due to an abundance of jobs, several free trade laws, eased restrictions on copyright and generous social programs. By the year 2075, a new language had been developed, known as Mangali, intended to be a mix between Latin and Sanskrit, with some English, Arabic and Russian thrown in as well. This language would begin to be taught in schools by 2084, and is set to become a lingua franca within a few decades.
During WW4, Mars generally stayed neutral, only supplying some ships and a little manpower in the fight against the Chinese in Earth's orbit. There were plans for the Martians to launch an offensive toward Venus, but this was stopped due to the Venusians declaring independence and establishing ties with the EDL, not to mention the infeasibility of the plan.
The Martian corporation Delta Industries built a mining and research outpost in the Jovian moon of Io, which soon grew to become a substantial colony. Other corporations or occasionally governments also did some colonizing, such as the Victorian colony of Eden in Minerva, and the Aresian colony of Valhalla on Mercury. Martian settlements and mining towns began to spring up in the Kemtoid belt (the OTL asteroid belt got a nice coating of names from the Egyptian pantheon) as well. Io was handed over to several Martian corporations during the Treaty of Orion Station, and the moon became settled by Martians in the coming decades.
However, the tensions on Mars that existed due to the dominance of Aresia still existed. The Aresians, probably egged on by the recently formed European Federation on Earth began to develop a sphere of influence around Mars, countered by Skanda, backed by India and its new allies on Earth. The stage is now set for the first war on the planet of war.
Colonial commonwealths and nations on Mars:
Aresia - European Union (Turkey, the Maghreb, Israel, the Caucasus and West Russia are included. Britain, despite never leaving the EU, does not have a portion of this country.)
Skanda - Indian, also having some Maldivian and Sri Lankan settled regions.
Victoria - British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, Caribbean and South African.
Parasamwera - Indonesian and Malaysian. It’s capital is Singaporian.
Montu - Egyptian and Sudanese
Thakuthuradesh - Bengali, home to a very large population from West Bengal as well.
Nineveh - Syrian, Iraqi and Lebanese.
Juan Diaz - Argentine and Uruguayan
Jabbarzadeh - Iranian
Ramakien - Thai
Wagadu - French West African
Chitundu - Azanian (people hailing from the East African Federation)
Narayan - Nepalese
Northern Free Zone - Basically a corporate controlled territory.
Thanks for checking this out and making it to the end!
Here is a WordPress if you are interested in this:
https://amoreperfectneighborhood.wordpress.com/
And the discord: discord.gg/ubSdfF2
