What do you do when you discover the basic premise for your story is f#cked?

I was going through old idea files from the past couple of decades. I considered writing a sci-fi sort of thing about life on Mars generations after a war on Earth causes all communications to be lost.

Well, after re-reading the outline and draft elements from a decade ago I realized that there's a fatal flaw in using Mars for anything more than a vacation/fuel stop. In addition to the lack of radiation shielding afforded by the ultra-thin atmosphere and lack of a strong magnetic field, Mars has only 1/3 the gravity of Earth.

Anyone who goes there is fucked if they stay more than a year. Unless, of course, people slept in Ferris wheels that spun fast enough to simulate Earth gravity. There's no future for people on Mars.

However, there's plenty of future for robotic miners for both Mars and the asteroid belt. Some day a probe is going to find a vein of uranium the size of Florida, on an asteroid. Earth's energy problems will come to a dramatic halt.

 

Martian radiation isn't that bad, if you avoid certain places at certain times of day, but you would want to live underground with just a few inches of dirt being enough to shield out most of it. Artificial gravity is also a very real theoretical possibility, with scientists discovering that phonons, or quantum of sound, appear to produce the effect. It could very well be that everything naturally produces antigravity which is overwhelmed by its gravity, and it may be possible to manipulate both as a result. The fact its -70f on a hot summer's day means just wearing an oxygen mask is not happening.

 

Somebody enters the scenario holding a gun.

 

This is totally false. Among other things, low gravity environments such as in orbit cause damage to your eyes and fucks with your biochemistry in ways nobody comprehends. After keeping astronauts in orbit for decades now, they just keep finding new physiological problems that are usually minor, if they bring them back down to earth within a year or two. Although it is tempting to think of gravity as some sort of magical force field, it is electromagnetic radiation at the extreme end of the spectrum and is more fundamental than any other force. Experiments indicate that uber tiny quanta acquire mass the minute they are big enough to be influenced by the tiniest gravitational time dilation effects of Relativity. What else gravity does to your body is unknown because we don't have a quantum theory of gravity yet.

 

I thought this was going to be a thought experiment for when the lefties run out of hoaxes to scare us with and realize all the made-up stuff they thought was real.

 

More like fantasy fiction.

 

While I admit I loved Star Wars (saw it in a theater when it first came out) even then I knew they were embellishing technology. It was very well made and forced its plausibility by claiming to have been in the distant past (rather clever). What I wanted was plausibility a few generations forward, and plausible according to what today's actual and theoretical technology can achieve. The Jules Verne approach basically.

I studied my ass off about the atmosphere, weather, access to asteroids and what to do if the "water" they think they have found is actually CO2. But if there's only 1/3 of Earth's gravity, all bets are off. I can't begin to imagine the physiological damage that would occur to humans in only a few years there, but what of any children they might have? I'm not looking to write about the freakish decline of humanity (though I guess it could segue into a version of War of the Worlds).

The only thing that might save me is if sleeping in a centrifuge for 8 hours is enough exposure to Earth gravity to stave off medical issues. If so, then I'm back in the game. After all, 1/3 gravity means mile-long golf shots and being able to carry a lot of shit. But really, generations of people spinning to sleep? What happens if a bearing fails? Do they get tossed into a bulkhead?

OR, does everyone on Mars live in a giant horizontal Ferris wheel that keeps them at Earth gravity 24/7? (Actually, it's 24 hours 40 minutes on Mars). So far I hate every solution I can think of for this issue. Too bad really, I have a huge collection of sequences:

Marilyn:
As I stepped through the locker I could feel my suit contract as the chill hit it. I stepped out of the shade and it relaxed in the sunlight. The sky was not as hazy, more white pink I guess. Marilyn retracted her panels as I approached her clear cover. I still have to beat the dust off the seat. Even though she’s a vintage methane bike, adding an atmospheric processor and the retractable solar array means I don’t buy fuel. She makes more O2 than I need, so I can go further than Grandslappy could dream of. I could get to any province without hitting a dome, unless I got hungry. If I ever do run her out I still have ten kilometers on battery. I think I bought methane three times last year.


A jump:
When I was outside of the domes and the undergrounds and just free on the surface, it was just so peaceful. I couldn’t even hear Marilyn’s gears with or without the music going. What I really loved though was the leap we were about to take from the Schiaparelli hills to the Zubrin valley floor. It was a 3km deep pool of dense atmosphere that we’d just jump in to, right before deploying sails. Even with the drag we were going to come in hot, but that’s just how I liked it.


There was always a crowd in the Aztec village huddled by the walls of the cliffs hoping to get a look at the latest fool to try for the speed record on a long brake. Fuck that. I want more than a cable between me and a cliff wall. I just filed the flight plan for the basic sail jump with thrust assist. Marilyn was good enough to keep a log and 6-sigma our way to the longer of the distant glide paths. There was a closet interest in those jumps because they would bring commerce. This time, it was just me. And from my side, there wasn’t much glory to be had. Sure, I had plenty of thrust for a soft landing, but I would be at the tertiary ports, where everything cost exponentially more than this glide might take me.


This jump was going to be different though. I had more inflatable surface and I was packing more pure hydrogen. Hydrogen in the sails didn’t help much with the lift, but the heat transfer was phenomenal. And I had 20 km to get up the speed I was going to need on solar alone. The fuel reserves were strictly for keeping me out of the junkyard of failed attempts and jettisoned fuel tanks. The thrusters were also for maintenance bumps, to keep my altitude stable. Still, I was going to be ditching hardware and had to be sure to stay in the corridor.


They weren’t going to light it up for the likes of little old me, but the reflectors were more than enough. I had extra lithium power on a button for them. I was strobing my call sign as I entered the trap a full 50 kph faster than the minimum. I got a sequence of green lights and a pitch warning as the rigid booms for the inflatable sails began to extend. The ramp itself was 5 km long and lit like a parade since any fuckups might cause a shutdown. The few vehicle lights I saw as I entered the commit zone were now spread out by automatic scheduling. It wasn’t like traffic on the Magellan loop.


At these speeds there were only seconds to react to an accident before the next vehicle arrived. The route to the jump looked like a river delta with all the alternate routing to keep the jump traffic flow going, accidents or not. And the mechanisms for clearing the paths after an accident, fatality or otherwise, were brutally efficient. Somewhere some formula decided the chances for survival were best left to a sure bet. And commerce was a sure bet. So far, my route had no diversions and my scope was green.


Since I still had traction, I let the electric motors gradually ramp up the speed on solar alone. As much as it was possible. As the sails deployed I had to fight pockets of thicker atmosphere with no consistency. As long as the wheels were on the ground, I had that extra element of control. Once off the end of the ramp I have to be over 200 kph if I hope to get over the junkyard on inertia alone. But tonight, I seem to be in luck. I hit a vacuum pocket on the last ¾ of a km so that the rest of the sail deploys with almost no drag. It’s almost neck snapping the sudden lurch in electric motor speed. As the last edge of the ramp vanishes behind me, I can feel the thrusters come to life. It happens just as the inertia is failing us. It’s so smooth. Marilyn has retracted the wheels and deployed the maneuvering set. For the next hour she runs the show.


I kept watch on the radar and the weather screens. A cubic kilometer could shift thin in a matter of seconds, leaving our sails defeated and gravity calling fast. The hydrogen thrusters were reliable as fuck and would set us down like a pillow on the last cubic meter of gas. Using them to skip along density zones was as efficient as it gets. The trick was to keep the sails up in the thin atmosphere while the thrusters were working, and then let the sails catch, as the atmosphere got thicker.


At the end of the glide I didn’t expect to be going 50 kph. I could slow down from that in less than a km. In the meantime, I was scouting for chow. Since I wasn’t heading for the end of the line, the choices were better. The thing about the larger colonies is that they have to have everything represented. They have to have farmers, accountants, food joints, dancing girls and the law. I avoid the latter as much as I can. I find any encounter I have with cops, costs me money. Marilyn’s methane reserves should give me the run of the town for the rest of the night. Then she can charge all day. The ads were coming in steadily now. I looked forward to the food. When you’re out this far, you get all the good stuff.


As I came in on the last 15 km, the landing lights came on below and my strobe started blasting my call sign. I didn’t break any records, but I did well for the vehicle class. Cycles are not rare, but a classic like Marilyn was still snapping necks. Grandslappy wasn’t a purist when it came to vehicles. That’s why Marilyn has hybrid fuel technology and directional thrusters for enhanced jumps. I added a sail system I doubt he would have attempted. I admit, flying scares the fuck out of me. Which is why I still bip my thrust all along the way instead of relying on sails and back thrust. If I timed it right, I would have replaced all of the hydrogen in the sails with argon starting from the center and working outward. I was a hundred meters over the landing strip and settling down with thruster assistance while deflating the sails and pulling in the rigging. The atmosphere was too thin for lift anyway. This part of the valley was higher and the landing strip was on a plateau. At two meters the wheels began to spin up to landing speed and we set down so smoothly it was like driving over a bridge. Got a few flashes of recognition. Marilyn drove to the reserved parking area for Aztec dome 22A.


After the jump I was ready to stretch my legs. Marilyn opened the cargo hatch and I grabbed my bag. I went directly to the administration office knowing full well they were not going to be staffed this late. It didn’t matter, I just had to make the effort. I wasn’t going to leave the dome until the late afternoon anyway. As I made my way to the hotel, I got to watch the guy come in behind me. He was a real daredevil, no thrust, massive sails and coming in really fast after dropping out of the upper ballistic curve. It was interesting to watch how fast he got his braking thrust up when he realized the chutes were dragging on the ground behind him. Nobody wants to have to rely on the arrester system. But his glide was flawless. That much sail surface must grab every gram of atmosphere in the neighborhood.

 

"When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction." (Steven Wright)

My body yes, but all of my unfinished or unpublished writings containing their implausible characters and fatal plot flaws are to be deleted from my laptop.

 

Seems like centrifugal force would mimic gravity if a circular rotating tube inside a circular outside tube were employed. But I know fuck all about this stuff. Out side tube ship controllers could wear weights.

 

Not an expert either, but I also wouldn't conclude the premise of a good scifi story is fucked because humans supposedly can't live on Mars for longer than a year.

 

The original premise was that the inhabitants were the offspring of people who were marooned there a generation or two before when a global conflict ended space travel to or from earth. So it's far more than a year. I considered centrifuges, but they aren't gravity, so I can't bank on them just yet. Oddly enough, I think earth plants will do well on Mars and may end up looking like the produce from the Woody Allen movie Sleeper.


By the way, that IS a pot plant. It's just 1 massive hairy bud in a pot!

 

You know.......

What if this whole thing happened 20,000 years ago?

Humanity on earth is set back to the copper age at best, but maybe even the stone age if the war destroyed enough of nature's habitats. Those marooned on Mars would surely mutate, if they survived for 20,000 years. But they'd have a technological edge over earth humans in the initial period simply because they are the result of advanced earth technology, that was destroyed utterly (with the exception of an Egyptian light bulb, Baghdad battery and an Antikythera computer).

But, being humans, let's say the people on Mars eventually fall into warring factions over resources (asteroid mining would gradually become untenable without earth support) and power. So they move underground and continue to mutate from the adverse effects of reduced gravity and other factors.

However, they have enough of what they need to continue, for around 20,000 years.
Then, at the close of the 19th century on earth, they make themselves known.

and H.G Wells wrote the rest!


Even the part where they're killed by earth bacteria would fit perfectly.

Weeks later autopsies reveal eerie anatomical similarities. In the age of DNA the truth becomes known!