New Mars Forums

Socrates:

1) The World Health Organization has zip to do with Mars.

2) The only mention of Bush that I see is a call for him to adopt the policy favored by the authors. Concidering that we Americans have a two-term limit for our President, and that even if tomorrow we started going all-out to get to Mars it would have longer than 4 years and a few months, there's no chance Bush will still be in office when the first landing happens, let alone the arrival of the first settlers.

Settlement of the Brethren

Monday, Aphelion, Leo 24

Work began today sealing the last caved-in portion of the tubes with a glass covering. A site for the Sanctuary has been chosen, as have the sites of the farms. We have heard radio broadcasts by the earlier settlers. It seems in their madness they have gone after a false prophet, fitly named Cobra, that is, a serpent. And they drink to excess, not with one glass, but many.

He has spoken of us (he claims to have heard from the Most High; whether he was informed by the U.N., by spies, or by his demons, I know not), and, in the fashion of ranting false prophets, disclaimed the "task of retribution" against us, and then said he would not "suffer their heathenism", thus threatening us. The Council of Elders ordained that the robots, which have grenade launchers for use against the soldiers of the Adversary, be put on patrol around the base of our Mount Pavonis, and also that the Fabricator be used to make more such robots for a perpetual guard, and also to make a Great Battery atop the mountain, to break out with missles against any evil ones who draw near.

Scotty;

Your “No plan” strategy for colonizing Mars will not work.  The difficulty of getting to Mars and surviving there requires extensive planning and huge capital investments.

You're essentially committing the fallacy of equivocation. It obviously requires *technical* planning, but, your fantasies notwithstanding, you can't (and shouldn't) engineer culture. The LAST sort of planning anyone needs is a wannabe Lycurgus imposing weird social structures on him.

Printed books.

Cobra;

Of course, an army implies someone to fight against, which means you need at least two interplanetary empires/federations/whatever. (US vs. China?) And then they might get out of hand and actually go to war.

Oh, I don't know... I think "don't drink possibly tainted water" is a pretty good life lesson, personally.

An early "historical clone" sets to work...

I just looked it up myself. Interesting.

Drink: the Double Impact.

First Impact: 1 shot Thuj

Second Impact: 2 parts Noctis, 1 part Soju, 3 parts lemon juice. Drink immediately after First Impact.

[http://landofsoju.netfirms.com/soju.htm]Another view of soju.

Aquavit: This vodka-like hard liquor was the first distinctively Martian drink. Less than a year after the first crew of settlers arrived, they ran out of the bourbon and vodka they had brought along, forcing them to improvise fermenting kitchen scraps and agricultural byproducts. They called the rather vile result of their first efforts pruno (see below). The heroic pioneers, undaunted, built a still and began producing a vodka-like distillate at around 80% alcohol. Cut with water to about 30%, it was named aquavit, the word used for hard liquor in Europe in the period following the introduction of distillation, from aqua vita, water of life. Various favored variations.

Noctis: Coffee beans are just the seeds inside the berries. The berries themselves are known as coffee cherries and also contain caffeine. In traditional Terran forms of coffee-growing, the cherries are discarded. On Mars, beginning with a religious settlement near Noctis Labyrinthus (the Neogathrist Pilgrims, who strongly emphasised frugality), uses were sought for the cherries by growers (some early examples still in use include Kophie Kola), but the most popular proved to be the wine-like Noctis. Named after its region of origin, it was originally required to be produced there to bear the name, like bourbon and champaign. Recently this convention has been abandoned, since the main advocates of it, the Neogathrists, died out following the High Prophet's endorsement of lifelong celibacy.

Pruno: Originally used as the first step in producing aquavit (see above), the arrival of Trey Webb, an experienced homebrewer, in M.Y. 8 lead to great advances in fermenting technique, eventually leading to a drinkable pruno. Still primarily produced from kitchen scraps and agricultural byproducts, which are sold to prunists rather than wasted, it was named pruno by the earliest settlers after the alcoholic beverage illicitly produced by American prisoners using primitive techniques akin to those initially used on Mars.

Thuj: High-proof distillate, as in uncut proto-aquavit, is steeped in wormwood (as in the Terran drink absinthe, but absinthe contains anise and other herbs not included in thuj), as well as Blue Lotus, guarana, valerian, peppermint, and others, and then distilled once again. This foul-tasting psychoactive liqueur is especially popular among students, artists, writers, and social dropouts, who form a subculture which began referring to itself by the old Terran word "bohemian" about ten years ago (causing a short-lived controversy with Czechan settlers). Banned after it first came into use, and was only allowed again after a wave of students went blind from a bad batch of black market thuj, and still retains an outlaw image. Named for thujone, a chemical found in wormwood.

Apparently healthy, normal individuals get off on advocating the destruction of whole cities by asphyxiation.

Why in the world would they celebrate probes? It's like Zubrin's idea to put the Martian epoch several decades ago so that all the probe dates will be in positive numbers. Who cares? 100 years from now they'll barely register as historical curiosities.

(On the other hand, holidays based on failed probes where you smash into stuff and fall over might be fun.)

Holidays are more likely to be on the solstices and equinoxes and on perihelion and aphelion.

Your scenario looks like a fairly typical Mars-settlement scenario, which, frankly, you can read at all kinds of places.

What gets interesting is when you consider the effect space elevators would have on all this.