How Would A Settlement Be Built on Mars?
My novel – my very first published one! – is “The Bride From
Dairapaska.” It is set on my vision of a terraformed Mars and incorporates a
lot of what I’ve learned about soil building, resource management,
colonization, infrastructure needs, and how to work without access to fossil
fuels.
There is a story, I promise. But before I could write the
first word, I had to build a green Mars, and that meant thinking about how it could
be terraformed.
There was one problem: After a lot of reading and thinking,
I concluded that it can’t work. It would be easier to turn the Gobi Desert into
a green and pleasant land, well-watered, fertile, and rich in agricultural
products of all kinds, than it would to grow a blade of grass on Mars.
For one thing, terraforming the Gobi Desert does not require
140-million-mile-long supply lines on average for your equipment. Earth has
fossil fuels. There is soil. There are plenty of people to do the work. There
are no problems with a breathable atmosphere. It has the gravity that the human
body and every other critter evolved with. Earth has a magnetosphere which both
holds in the atmosphere and repels the deadly, radiation-laden solar wind. Mars
does not. There are difficulties in traveling through space, starting with
outer space damaging the human body starting from the very first day.
So how do you build a green Mars? First, obtain a lot of
Handwavium. This important element was discovered by the first science-fiction
writers to explain faster-than-light travel, bug-eyed monsters, time travel, or
any other concept that science couldn’t explain.
Next, work out the terraforming process. The number one
issue in terraforming the planet is building soil so the colonists can feed
themselves. I decided that Mars could be seeded with genetically-modified
molds, algae, lichens, mosses, and fungi. Give them 100 million years to work,
and you’ll have soil. For my purpose, I made them fast-growing to cut down the
time!
Then I broke out the Handwavium to give Mars a magnetosphere
— by creating machines to make the core of the planet spin — and give it a
heat-trapping atmosphere.
The next problem was fossil fuels. It’s hard to imagine life
without coal or oil, yet people managed. However, a high-tech civilization
depends on coal and oil. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot be built without
fossil fuels. Solar panels are made from plastics derived from oil. The metal
needed for steel can be dug out by men with picks and shovels. It cannot be
smelted without charcoal (made from trees), peat (compressed plant material
that hasn’t turned into coal), coal, or oil. You can’t run a blast furnace on
electricity even if you can generate the electricity with your nuclear power
plant.
So, the colonists will make do with what they brought with
them, and get real good at fixing broken equipment and clever at coming up with
substitutes.
Once that was settled, it was time to figure out how the
colonists would organize to settle the planet. I developed a feudal, agrarian
culture built on the labor of peasants. I use men as draft animals, something
many cultures have done. What is a coolie but a draft animal? You’re going to
have people, you need people, they have to eat and so that muscle gets put to
work.
But not all of Mars will be settled. After a couple hundred
years, there’ll be enough people to cover less than half the surface, which
leaves lots of space for people to form horse-riding tribes similar to Native
Americans or Mongols. They’ll develop their own belief systems, customs, and
family traditions.
Next, I considered the distribution of wealth. In many
traditional empires, the closer you are to the capital, the more technology you
have available. The richer you are, the more technology you can use. A Roman
emperor could have ices in the summer; his lowliest subjects did not. Life in
the capital of Barsoom on the equator will feel very different from life with
the horse-riding barbarians in the northern and southern latitudes.
Relations with Earth also play a role in the stories. Immense
amounts of wealth had to be poured into terraforming Mars. The investors expect
a substantial return on their investment. All empires expect their colonies to
generate wealth that is returned to the empire’s elite. This is called a
“wealth pump.” The colonies of an empire are mined for their assets, and that
wealth pours back into the center of the empire, leaving the colony
increasingly stripped bare.
The Spaniards did this to South America. The British did
this to India. The Chinese are doing this right now in Africa.
Do the residents of those colonies appreciate this? They do
not, unless they personally benefit.
How would these elements play out with real people trapped
in a world not of their own design? You can see this play out in the cover art,
which demonstrates these contradictions so well. Who is the bride? That woman
carrying a baby with two other kids? What is “Dairapaska”? Why is she green?
Why are there two moons? Why are they in the middle of nowhere? What are they
running from?
“The Bride From Dairapaska” gives you the answers, and introduces
you to a Mars you’ve never seen before. I’m looking forward to exploring it in future
books, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey.
For Writers
Writing is a business. If you aren’t getting paid, it’s a
hobby. The IRS says so and they’re right. As a functioning business, it should
provide you, the writer, with not just a current income (even if it’s only
walking-around money), but a future income as well.
For Everyone
If you want to see something sad, ask a room full of
freelance writers about their tax strategies. It’s like asking a pack of baby
kittens about space travel.
In a rural village on a terraformed Mars, a lonely young
wife takes her children and dog and flees into the vast open steppes. Debbie
only wanted to escape her abusive husband, but her encounter with the Steppes
Riders, and especially Yannick of Kenyatta, unwittingly ignites changes that
attract the attention of Mars’ ruling families. Left to her own resources,
Debbie must adapt to her new life and figure out how to defend her adopted
people.
“The Steppes of Mars” series imagines a transformed world
where a disaster on Earth decades ago cut off all contact with its wealth and
resources. Experience a Mars where its genetically modified inhabitants have
developed their own cultures, beliefs, and religions. A semi-feudal world where
ruling families control vast demesnes under a central government at Barsoom. A
world of limited resources where train travel is possible but cars and planes
are not. A world of free-cities — open and domed — villages, vast fields and
steppes, and people banding together to survive and thrive in this harsh new
world.
About Odessa Moon
Odessa Moon has, at various times, painted, sewed, served in
the Navy, worked as a sales clerk and cashier, taken care of her family, and
gardened with enthusiasm. She reads extensively, especially about medieval
history, the class struggle, colonization, and resource depletion. She read
piles of science-fiction and fantasy in her youth and often wondered what the
authors hand-waved away about how difficult it really would be to terraform
another planet at the end of a 140-million-mile supply line. Her “The Steppes
of Mars” series combines all those interests.
When Ms. Moon is not writing, she is working on improving
the soil in her own garden and planting trees in Hershey, Pa., where the air
really does smell of chocolate.
Do you think we'll ever build a settlement on Mars? Would you go? Do you think mankind would take all the social problems of Earth with them to Mars? Have you ever been to Hershey, PA and smelled the chocolate in the air?
