Mars Project

The world is sacred. You cannot improve it.
If you tamper with it, you will ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you will lose it.
-Lao Tsu, 'Tao Te Ching'

Overview

     An early plan on escaping the coming troubles of Earth, this became much more possible with the assistance of Dimensional Shamblers. They could shuttle personnel and equipment quickly, from Earth to and from Mars. The shamblers made a deal: shamblers owned the Tharsis bulge (a continent sized raised area on one side of Mars), no humans could venture there without permission. Humans would help shamblers on a number of construction projects. In exchange, humans would have transportation (but not anything with hypertech, as it seems to bother shamblers) and the rest of Mars.
     Shamblers quickly got humans to help repair the City-beings, requiring a mixture of botany, xenobiology, and civil engineering. However, it was soon discovered that it was quite dangerous (sometimes deadly) for humans to sleep near the Cities, and the shamblers found it disrupted the injured Cities for humans to sleep nearby. It was also discovered, by DG representatives, that the Dreamland of Mars is horrifically deadly. Only one Dreamer attempted to enter the Dreamlands and survived.

     Entering the Dreamland of Mars occurs through a small cave, a crack in stone, with wind rushing into it. After traveling for some time in darkness, the cave opens. It is somewhat similar to the Cavern of Flame... but there is no Flame, no Nasht, and no Kaman-Thah, just a cold dark cavern with thin air, and another crack air blows into. Beyond that, a cold, lifeless surface, much like Mars, with a sky that seems blacker than night. As the Dreamer coughed and gagged in the tenuous atmosphere, he saw a quick impression of shapes, or geometries, spinning and tumbling toward him, before he successfully snapping out of the Dream.

     Political troubles in 2037 set back the Mars project, but by 2042 ground and orbital stations on Mars were up, providing strategic and logistical support for space forces attempting to cut off Screamers from the belt or other long range campaigns. Increasingly, a constant fleet presence was being made around Mars, not as much to protect Mars as to provide quick deployment of force when necessary.
     Mars provided a 'front line' from the highly infested asteroid belt, a supply center and military center for the Ares Wing of the USO Space Forces.

     By the end of things, Mars had enough manpower and materials to become self sufficient. Libraries of genetic material had been compiled from terrestrial biospheres, information had been gathered for cultural and historic continuity, and technology had been procured to allow the greatest flexibility and hardiness, under the circumstances, to Martian industry. The shamblers had been helped greatly, though by 2057 had become scarce as their 'healing' process began.

Mars was one of the last hopes for human civilization.