Revolutions - 11.1- The Colonization of Mars

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Sometimes you have to look to heaven for salvation. 

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 11.1, the colonization of Mars. Any history of the Martian Revolution must begin at the beginning. And in the beginning, there was phosphoryum detra deplisium-5, known colloquially as phosphive, or P-5. Absent the discovery of this component of the hair-24 unknown substratum matrices existing inside the periodic table of elements, the colonization of Mars never would have happened, and no colonization of Mars, no Martian revolution. So, let's begin at the beginning. As you almost certainly know from basic primary school history, Earth in the late 21st century was a chaotic mess.

Just when humanity seemed to be on the brink of transitioning to something resembling a healthy relationship with the environment and their energy, production, and consumption, the demands of the server farm sent us backsliding all the way to the bottom. Instead of figuring out a way to avoid the worst excesses of climate catastrophe, we just decided to shrug our shoulders and say, how bad can it really get? So by the middle of the 21st century, we found out. The long-predicted environmental waves started breaking one after the other, sometimes quite literally, as in the case of both the lost low countries and the Caribbean envelopment.

And just as it said that you go bankrupt gradually and then suddenly, well, that's how it went for the earth in its climate. It all happened with shocking swiftness by the midpoint of the 21st century. So the world fell into a shocking state of chaos as climatic disruptions affected every part of the globe. Cold areas warmed, warm areas cooled, wet areas dried up, dry areas flooded. These disruptions to the basic habitability of entire regions sent people into motion, completely reorganizing the demographics of the world. Millions of people were thrown into motion,

and global migrations created a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale. made all the worse by the often violent reactions of the people who happened to have drawn a lucky number and lived in areas that seemed to be a bit more habitable. Nation states, as previously understood, simply could not handle the social effects of the underlying environmental conditions. During the inundation of Iberia, for example, the hail was so thick and so constant that the countries of Spain and Portugal simply ceased to exist. Now, as you probably learned at least once in your life, this mass destabilization of the political, order of nation states, an order that had gotten going round about the Treaty of Westphalia, finally breathed its last labored breath and died in the mid-21st century. In its place, and stop me if you've heard this before, rose the corporate order we all know

and love today. As sovereign nation states failed, international corporate conglomerates stepped into the void. Because of the nature of their organizations, they could more flexibly adapt to prevailing fluid conditions. The diversification of their geographic footprint made them less susceptible to local emergency, as their headquarters could be literally anywhere. The old colonial metropole was transformed from a physical location into just an idea. Humans have governed themselves in many different ways over the eons, tribes and kingdoms and empires and nation states. Well, by the last quarter of the 21st century, the corporate era had begun, just as monarchs' aristocracy, and subjects had been replaced by presidents and parliaments and citizens, now came the age of

directors and boards and shareholders. In some areas, the nation states passed right out of existence and corporate entities took over direct control of a region and its people. In other places, like North America, the United States continued to exist nominally. They even still had elections and presidents and everything. But in point of fact, the United States was now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bicor, one of the major corporate entities that emerged from all this disruption and disrepair. By the end of the 21st century, five major corporate entities ran the world, the aforementioned Bicor, along with Cal Corps, Mazcor, T-Corps, and of course, Omnicor, which was initially the smallest of the five. But obviously, well, I mean, that's what we're about

to get into, isn't it? For more on all this, I highly recommend five giants by Germain Aziz. It really breaks down in detail the process of the formation of these corporations, their takeover of the world, and how it happened in such a short amount of time. Now, this all happens to coincide with the heyday of dome construction, as it sure seemed like the best way to survive a world gone mad, was to create a little miniature world where things were still sane. These corporations began building habitation domes, first for select parts of the executive class, and then later expanded over larger and larger areas until whole cities lived under massive environment. mentally controlled enclosures. Now, did the whole of humanity move under domes? No, of course not, but the global elite sure did. But wait, I know what you're saying. I thought you said we must start at the beginning, and that's FOS 5, and then you immediately started talking about a bunch of things before the beginning. Well, yes, if you're going to start at the beginning, you simply have to start

before the beginning. How else are you going to understand where the beginning came from if you don't understand what happened before the beginning, which, I should say, now brings us to the discovery of Phosphi in 2074. Yasmin Mustafa was working on an R&D contract for Omnicor when she activated a new device she had designed called the Transradial Spectroscope and discovered the substratum matrices underlying the periodic table of elements. Her discovery upended several ironclad assumptions about the nature of the physical universe, which is a pretty big deal, obviously, but most relevant for us here today is that it paved the way for the invention and spread of the flex cell. In 2018, Omnicor engineers Gin Rose and Helene Karlaski accidentally discovered the flex loop

while working on batteries for smart toothpicks. The less said about smart toothpicks, the better. They had been experimenting with the components uncovered in the substratum matrices by Mustafa's transradial spectroscope, moving methodically from one matrices to the next until they came across phosphoryum detra deplisium five. They set up an energy modulation experiment, but as the story is so often and famously recounted, they forgot to turn it off when they left the lab for the night. When they came back the next morning, they discovered, well, the answer to one of humanity's greatest problems, energy with no emissions. The process, which was dubbed the flex loop, is what would allow human civilization to continue without being consumed by their own byproducts,

emissions and waste. Now, of course, I'm not a scientist, so I can't explain to you exactly how any of this works, but if you're interested in reading more about the science behind the transradial spectroscope, the substratomatrices, FOS 5, and the flex loop, by far the best book on the subject is Dr. James Cleaver's suspending disbelief, how to stop worrying about it, even if you want to keep worrying about it. The Omnicor Board of Directors quickly realized what Rose and Karlaski had given them, the keys to planet Earth, and pretty soon the entire solar system. Once they figured out how to embed the flex loop process into durable flex cells, they were off to the races. Of paramount importance was getting as much FOS 5 as they could, because FOS 5 was the key

to everything. So they went out hunting with their scanners and discovered large deposits mostly near dormant volcanoes. Through a series of convoluted transactions, Omnicor secured land and mining rights to what would become key phosphive extraction sites, especially the run of mountains along what used to be the Argentinian-Chilean border. The other corporations couldn't quite figure out what Omnicor was up to or why. I mean, why are they investing so heavily in what appears to be pointless and expensive operations in the middle of nowhere? But when the flex cell was formally introduced in 2008, everything became very clear, very quickly. Everyone suddenly wanted to get in on the flex cell business, but whoops, you need FOS 5 and Omnacore at every good extraction site on total lockdown.

Their entire business and security operations now revolved around protecting this vital resource at all cost. As flex cell energy technology spread, humanity got a second lease on life. At first, it ended an age of energy production and consumption that had choked the life out of the planet, and soon enough it would be powering the environmental scrubbers that would be, make the 22nd century as stable as the 21st century had been unstable. It would also power the ships that would take us to the stars, and it would, of course, make Omnicor the largest and most powerful corporation of them all. Once Flexcells became the standard unit of energy production, Phosphi extraction only accelerated. And Omnacore did the math and realized that the deposits on Earth,

while certainly ample, were not going to last more than a few decades. If they didn't find another source than these boom times would lead to the greatest bust in history. There were two options in front of them, either figure out a way to create a synthetic supply of phosphive in their labs, or go looking for new deposits. And while they set one group of scientists to work trying to make phosphive in the lab, they set another group to work looking for new deposits. And if they could not find them on Earth, well, sometimes we must turn to heaven for salvation. So they set up scanners and probes and telescopes to methodically scan other planets, moons, and asteroids in the solar system. First they went to Mercury, then Saturn, both of which showed some promising leads.

But when they turned their attention to good old Mars, they found what they were looking for. And of course it was the red planet, that planet that has so often fired our imaginations and form the basis of so many great works of science fiction. Omnacore scientists started probing Mars and they struck gold while they struck FOS 5. Both long range, short range, and surface investigations all told the same story. Mars was loaded to the gills with FOS 5. The major mountains of the planet were practically made of the stuff. There was enough to last centuries, even at the most insane upper limit projections of consumption and usage. And while they were still dealing with a finite resource that would run out eventually, the decision makers in Omnacore headquarters figured,

hey, 500 years worth a Foss 5, seems like we just go for it. Surely in the next 500 years we'll figure out something to make up for it, or more precisely the generations that come after us will. That's us, by the way. So ha-ha, jokes on us. Now, space travel and exploration had fallen out of fashion since its heyday in the late 20th and early 21st century, back when the world seemed full of endless possibility

instead of existential environmental emergency. Everyone had seen what a disastrous waste Mid-21st century tech oligarch space projects had been, which infamously culminated with the epic fail. That was when 250 people were conned into joining a moon colony expedition. The rocket they boarded, called the epic, was supposed to launch them into a romantic new life in space. Instead, the epic exploded on the launch pad,

killing everyone instantly. Hence, the epic fail. Later investigations attributed the explosion to a complete disregard for safety protocols and basic principles of engineering and physics. Apparently, at the last minute, a chemical compound had been added to the thrusters to make the rocket flames look black, which was supposed to make the epochs launch look cooler, but instead it killed everyone and basically brought the first space age to a close. But in the mid-2090s, Omnacore launched the second space age.

They threw themselves into a project of building spaceships, orbital engineering platforms, and laying the groundwork for a permanent settlement on Mars. To ensure that they would have no competition, Omnicor negotiated a series of contractual agreements with the other major corporations that gave Omnacore a monopoly on resource extraction on surfaces, quote, beyond the orbit of the Earth's moon. A comically vast claim that one wonders how the other corporations could have gone along with it at all. But Omnicor offered a mix of carrots and sticks.

They offered the other corporate powers lucrative portions at both the flex cell supply chain, as well as contracts for the vast space construction projects they were now undertaking. As for the stick, well, they already had a monopoly on Phosphive extraction on Earth, and if you didn't want that spigot turned off, best to sign right here. But as Aziz rights in Five Giants, the minutes of the meetings of the board of directors of both Cal Corps and Bicor show that part of their calculation was that encouraging Omnicor to waste its time with space adventures

was probably a great way to get them cut back down to size. Sure, commit everything you have to a boondoggle. We'll be here to sweep up everything when you inevitably fail. So the other corporation said, sure, go ahead, colonize Mars, extract Vos 5, bring it back, we won't mess around with you. By the time Omnacor proved that they could do it, it was too late for anybody else to get into the game. In September 2108, Omnacore launched its first ship, the Archangel, with 12 crew members. It took them nine months to reach.

Mars. As I'm sure you all know from reading your history books or at least wanting to hang in there on trivia nights, the first person to step foot on Mars was first officer Henrietta Akai on May the 9th, 2109. And as I'm sure you know, she said, we are here, we are the future, we make the future. Very stirring words, I'm sure, were focus group to death. The Archangel and her crew stayed in orbit around Mars for six weeks dropping probes and drone bots before returning home triumphantly. The proof that humans could reach Mars and land on Mars and stay on Mars, now established, Omnicor threw its weight into creating a full colonization, extraction, and transportation network to bring phosphive from Mars back to Earth.

The other corporations shuffled their feet nervously. Omnacour sent Archangel on three more exploratory trips over the next five years, but the next major voyage to Mars came in 2113, when the colony ship Genesis took off with a group of 101 rigorously selected men and women to form the first permanent settlement on Mars. They landed in August 2114 and planted themselves where else, but at the base of the largest mountain in the solar system, and thus far the largest known deposit of Phos 5, Olympus Mons.

There, the first colonists founded a city, they creatively dubbed Olympus, which would forever be the first oldest and largest city on Mars. The first colonists were a group of engineers, doctors, biologists, and chemists, and there's a great book about them by Maisel Cruz called The Hundred and Ones. The mission of the 101s was simply to establish a permanently habitable environment that could be scaled up as more colonists arrived. An Omnicor planned to send a lot more colonists as soon as possible. Now, unfortunately, I don't have the time or expertise to explain the engineering behind all this,

but Omnicor tapped a subcontractor called KSR Designs to basically invent a whole new field of interplanetary engineering. They developed both new theoretical models and new practical applications that became the foundation for how to sustain life on Mars. Using equipment and techniques from KSR, the early colonists dug in the ground. They hollowed out livable passages and chambers. They built greenhouses and biomass units and were able to synthesize water. It was all pretty Spartan in the early days, and the first Martian domes were still decades away. But the first wave of colonists succeeded in their primary mission of creating a living. livable habitat to bring over the second wave of colonists. As soon as the beachhead was established,

that second wave came, in force and en masse. Omnacor sent new colonists as fast as Olympus could expand to take them. The population of the colony grew rapidly, and all kinds of bonuses and inducements were offered to anyone who volunteered for service on Mars. Lots of people still love the romance of space travel and colonization. Other people signed up simply to get the bonus points to move up in the employment system. Others did it to get out of a sticky situation on Earth. If the task of the first wave of colonists was to create a livable habitat, the task of the second wave was to dig and dig deep. They dug into and under Olympus Mons to reach the phosphi veins

and open up the first extraction operations. They succeeded in sending the first shipment back to Earth in 2124, which was perfectly timed as the veins on Earth were about to start running perilously low. Now, the logistics of all this brings us to a very important part of the story. The space shippers. Obviously, the spaceshippers are a vital component of the story of the Martian Revolution. In order to facilitate the delivery of all these people and equipment, and we're talking a lot of people and a lot of equipment, some of it preposterously gargantuan. Omnacore built a fleet of vessels of various sizes and speeds. These ships started traveling a

continuous circuit going from here to there and there to here. At first, these were pretty long-haul voyages. The first trip took nine months, and that was the best they could do for a while. But things improved throughout the 22nd century, thanks to advances in propulsion mechanics and the physical possibilities opened up by the flex cell. By the time of the Martian Revolution, the travel time between Earth and Mars was averaging about eight weeks, with some smaller crafts able to make the run in about six weeks. It was, in fact, very close to the time it took to cross the Atlantic in the early days of the European settlement of the Americas. Imagine that. What a coincidence. But the point is that in short order fleets of ships were moving back and forth between Earth and Mars. Cargo ships,

passenger vessel, small, fast clippers, big huge freighters, some with crews in the hundreds. Crews and officers of these ships began settling on Luna, which was still at the time simply called the moon, as if it was the only moon in the solar system. But Luna became the major space port of the Earth-Mars shipping lanes, and the shippers who settled there became a vibrant, independent culture unto themselves. But while everything and everyone was being shipped out to Mars, the only thing being shipped back that mattered was Phosphive, and that mattered a lot. It was truly the only thing that mattered. The crews of the Foss 5 container ships were rigorously vetted and highly trained.

They were also flanked at all times by the only armed ships in space, the security fleet that served as a constant escort on the minuscule chance that somebody somewhere might try to mess with the phosphive deliveries. Now, Omnacore's monopoly covered everything beyond Luna's orbit, but other corporations could and did start building up a presence on the moon itself. Omnacore responded by establishing a patrol line of vessels just beyond Luna's orbit, armed with conventional munitions and drone bombs. Any other ship that so much has approached the line without authorization would be blown out of the sky.

Or so Omnacor said. In 2154, Mazcor attempted to challenge Omnicor's exclusive monopoly to surfaces beyond the moon's orbit. They built a fleet of ships ostensibly to go back and forth to Luna. But after establishing a routine pattern of going back and forth, forth between the Earth and Luna, one major convoy suddenly veered off its normal course in September 2154 and then attempted to cross the line established by Omnicor. On these ships were hundreds of would-be colonists, civilians basically, and Mascore dared Omnacore to shoot them down.

But as it turned out, Omnacore was absolutely not bluffing. Their security fleet intercepted the Mascore convoy, leading to the first space battle in human history, the Battle of the Line on September the 19th, 2154. Well, it wasn't much of a battle. The ships Mazkore sent out were underpowered and underarmed, and Omnacor put on full display that they were perhaps even stronger than their rivals realized. The Mazkore fleet was obliterated in less than 20 minutes. After that, it would not be until the Martian Revolution that anyone challenged Omnacor's monopoly over Mars and Phosphive extraction. Meanwhile, Olympus just kept growing.

The fact that Martian Phosphi was successfully reaching Earth did not mean that enough Martian Phosphi was reaching Earth. So Omnicor just kept sending more and more people to scale up production, and the Olympus colony kept expanding to accommodate them. New tunnel and chamber networks were blasted out and the population of Olympus grew from the original 101s to tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and then millions. The networks and tunnels and chambers grew deeper and wider to accommodate all these people,

and they became so intertwined that they started to be referred to as the Warrens. And as we'll talk about next week when we get into the employment and contract classes, where you lived in Olympus was very much a product of your employment and contract status. The highest ratings lived near the surface, with lower ratings living deep down in the warrants. Now, in the early days, practically everyone who lived on Mars was originally born on Earth, and their mentalities and outlooks reflected that. They were there to live in a far away place, living a life that was fundamentally oriented around sending things back to the place that they had come. But thanks to the inexorable laws of nature, the population of Creole Martians,

humans born on Mars, appeared almost immediately and then grew and grew as the years and decades passed. The first Creole Martians were born of the relationships among the 101s, such that by the 2120s, the first formal school was established, the Martian Academy, to handle the young Martian-born children. As more people came, more children were born. By the mid-22nd century, Mars boasted an ever-growing population of people who were born, raised, and lived their entire lives on Mars. These Creole Martians were not transplants. Their lives and families and friends were all rooted on Mars. Mars was their home. Earth was just a thing they learned about in school and had almost no meaningful relationship with. Almost none of them ever left the tunnels of the colonies they grew up in,

nor seen the surface of Mars, let alone Earth. And it was among this population of Creole Martians that the Martian Way would really take root, and from them would be drawn the principal leaders and followers of the Martian Revolution. Now, since we got up to the Battle of the Line in 2154, I have successfully brought the story of the colonization of Mars up to the 2150s, and then peaked a little bit beyond that. Olympus has now been established and is growing rapidly. Phosphi is being extracted and shipped back to Earth in ever more regular and sizable shipments.

But it was still not enough. It was never really going to be enough. And so next week, we will discuss the expansion of the Martian colony to the Martian colonies and cover the establishment and growth of both Thrassus and Elysium. But the reason I wanted to get us through the 2150s is because in 2150s, the Omnacore Board of Directors elected a new director to lead them into the future, a man who would preside over that additional growth of the Martian colonies and also preside over, well, everything else for the next 87 years. So next week, we will begin with Vernon Bird.