A Future History of the Rebellion

Colonization
In 2027 CE, a visionary entrepreneur successfully launched a multiship venture of 10,000 volunteers with the purpose of building a colony on Mars. The colonists were decimated (nine out of ten died) by severe challenges including incomplete logistics support and poorly manufactured equipment, but managed to establish a self-sustaining community in the natural caves at Arsia Mons.

A consortium of government and commercial entities joined together under the quasi governmental authority of Mars Incorporated (commonly referred to as Mars Inc) to support the struggling colony.

The terraforming experiment began in earnest with the construction of three thorium reactors on Mars, beginning in 2043. Early estimates predicting that the Martian atmosphere could be restored by converting the polar ice caps into water vapor and planting fast growing crops have proven inaccurate. The project has fallen short of initial goals, and the colonies are far from self sustaining.

One big part of the terraforming effort that has collapsed is the plan to redirect suitable asteroids to collide with the planet. In a historic moment for the environmental movement, the World Council balked at Mars Inc’s asteroid redirection proposal, citing unresolved technical, legal, and safety difficulties.

Nevertheless, the thorium reactors have increased partial oxygen pressures to the equivalent of Terran atmosphere at 9000 meters. Brief periods of exposure are possible without a rebreather and with minimal shielding against the high radiation, but long term colonization will require processing of many million metric tons more of ice and rock.

Unable to encourage more volunteer colonists to search for more ice, Mars Inc. began a program of contracting for temporary workers in 2067. Young workers able to tolerate the biomedical stress are offered a free trip to Mars for a one month work period. To avoid liability for medical rehabilitation expenses on return to Terra’s higher gravity, the corporation decided not to rehire temporaries after they had been on Mars for more than one month.

Compensation for these temp work tours is given in two parts, a signing bonus and a much larger payment sent at the end of the work period to a legal representative on Earth. The payment is enough to buy a return trip from Mars to Earth, but in practice most representatives apply the money to resolve family financial situations.

Effectively, the “Catch 22” of Mars Inc’s refusal to rehire the temps for fear of medical liability and of the unfunded return tickets leaves the temporary workers unemployed and stranded on Mars. Two more colonies have been constructed in the lava tubes at Pavonis Mons and at Elysium Mons, largely to house their burgeoning population.

As of 2071, an estimated 33 000 temporary workers are stranded on Mars, over 4 times the number of permanent residents.

Rebellion
The cause of the Rebellion can be traced back to the climate change population displacements and wealth disparities caused by global sea level rise and by automation of almost all entry level work. The trigger, though, was definitely the teen temporary worker program and the fault-ridden beginning of the Mars Inc terraforming effort. The founders of the movement recall as a watershed moment the tattoo dance lead by Blanche on 2071 CE 152 in one of the tunnel junction plazas at the Pavonis Mons colony. Among others, the dance convinced Matt, a charismatic but incompetent radar technician, to join in active efforts to oppose the killing of unemployed temps. Their resistance expanded with rave-organized tattoo dances to share their anger and frustration, bypassing Mars Inc regulations about the size of groups in public places by coordinating seemingly random gatherings of dancers who performed and dispersed.

The largest of these demonstrations occurred on 2071 CE 165 at the Arsia Mons Council Park. It collapsed when a possibly misinterpreted order by the Chairman led to a kill order being sent to police bots. The Arsia Mons Massacre left sixty-seven dancers and passers-by “scorched” dead by bots, and hundreds more incapacitated and injured by the bots’ stunzappers.

Hundreds of unemployed temps fled into the Martian valleys after the massacre, following small groups that had left the colonies earlier to avoid police bot execution squads. The underground provided general advice for the long trek to “the Havens” spoken of a place widely understood to be a rebel- operated “potato farm” constructed by earlier refugees.

Dozens of video casts from inside and outside the Council shocked people throughout the Solar System, and lead to demands for a World Council inquiry into Mars Inc actions.

Under increasing media and popular pressure, World Council support for the Mars colonization progress has faltered. In coordination with the Mars Inc CEO, shareholders in Mars Inc — particularly members of the Valheart family — are sponsoring aggressive clandestine actions to protect their investment by discrediting and decapitating rebel groups.

These efforts have inevitably caused an upward spiral of disaffection and violent response from the jobless population.