On that note, I am starting a new series here with the theme of Mars. To any students, future or present, that may stumble upon this, yes some of this will be on exams. I will cover it classes as well, don’t fret. Mars is a fascinating place. Of all the natural objects in the system, it is ranked 3rd in having it’s own human history, behind the Moon and the Earth. It is also the 2nd most populated planet, and object,  in the system, behind only the Earth, at nearly 100 million Sentients occupying it’s lands both above and below ground. Even before the first human foot was set down on it’s soil, Mars has been a large figure in human myth, fascination and folklore.

But nothing could be as powerful as when the first human, Patrick Cummings, placed his left foot on martian soil for the first time in history. At that point in history, only he and Neil Armstrong could share the title of the first human to set foot on a solid extra-terrestrial object. I can only imagine what he must have felt when he exited the landing pod.

That fateful day was long in coming. I find it amazing that the first manned mission to Mars came in 2095. Years after it was proposed such a mission would come. It wasn’t until New Luna was well established that the American Union, comprised of Eastern, Western and Texan America as well as parts of Canada and Central America, would launch the first manned mission.

This was of course after the years worth of automated supplies sent to the red planet. Waiting for Patrick and his crew were in fact the first Sentients to have set foot on mars. Patrick was the first human, not the first sentient. AI’s had been on the red planet for decades processing, analyzing, investigating and building for biological’s yet to come. The underground Olympus Mons cavern system, later to be become the capital city of Mars, was carved out and many buildings and structures already built by the time humans arrived.

Once they did, however, many more would follow. If the 21st century is largely considered to be the time of great change for human society, the 22nd century should be considered the great exodus. It was during this century that nearly 500 million people left their home planet. Many were idealists. Looking to start new countries, civilizations, places to call their own. Many were criminals as countries of Earth setup penal colonies for career offenders, those with no hope of ever leaving prison. Many were poor, looking for a chance to live. The phenomena is not without historical foundations. Whenever new expanses of land are discovered, there is usually an exodus from the old to the new. The United States of America is a prime example of such an exodus.

A large portion of those came to Mars. Many did go to the floating air cities of Venus, New Luna and other lunar colonies, and other places in the system. The majority of 21st century exodus, however, was to the three closet bodies, the moon, Venus and Mars. That is why they are the most populous to this day, outside of Earth.

Mars was actually part of a two stage exodus. Initially it was decided, in the latter half of the 21st century, that underground colonies on Mars and the Moon was the way to go for colonization. It was an easy fix for dealing with deadly solar radiation in environments where there was no magnetosphere. As such, machines and explosives were used to hollow out large sections of subterranean areas on the Moon, Mars and Mercury. It wasn’t until the invention of the Lambourne shield, one of the most powerful inventions of human history, that above ground colonies could easily be made. The Lambourne shield, invented in 2130 by Claude Lambourne, can repel any spectrum in the electromagnetic spectrum with extremely low power requirements. This opened the door to a massive land grab on Mars. Most of the land on the Moon had long ago been claimed by Earth governments but most of the land on Mars had remained unclaimed. No one bothered claiming land that no one really wanted. Now that you could walk around on mars in a standard suit and with a Lambourne field be completely safe from any solar radiation spikes, every inch of land was valuable.

The time between the two stage exodus period, where the underground cities were constantly being expanded, is often called the Martian Unterirdisch, german for underground. The phrase was coined by, shockingly, a German immigrant in 2120 named Frans Bieber. Frans was not only an immigrant but also the Olympus Mon’s chairman for city expansion. It fell to him to dig, dig and dig the city to bigger heights.

It was even more interesting that in 2135, when Lambourne fields were being setup all over Mars and in orbit, that Bieber’s son Felix led the first crew of miners up and out and dug Olympus Mons out of the mountain and into the Martian surface.

Most of the subterranean cities, save for two, dug themselves out and up from beneath the surface. They now extended for hundreds of stories above and below ground.

The politics of Mars during this initial 40 years was fascinating. It was really nothing more than a loose collection of city states each having their own tighter connections to governments on earth. Mar’s was clearly shapping up to be nothing more than a mirror of Earth politics. And on some level rightly so. It was the governments of Earth that were floating the bill for these colonies after all. Granted most of the labor was done by AI’s, who quite frankly were just bored and had nothing better to do in my opinion, even though they can’t techincally get bored.

In part two of this series we’ll investigate all of the cities that sprang up during this initial, pre and initial post Lambourne field Mars. The land rush that came in the following decades deserves it’s own lecture. Many governments and sentients rushed this new found area and setup their own governments. As you can imagine, with that many personalities, they are going to fight. If the 22nd century was the exodus to mars, the 23rd was all about the martian wars.