One hundred Martian years ago today, your ancestor, Josiah Maxwell, was the first person to set foot on Mars. He built the habitat for himself and the three colonists that came down four days later in an old volcano, inside one of its cooled old lava tubes, and paved the way for all of the other colonists that followed.
Less than a decade later he bought the original space port on Earth, the Mars colony, and the transit vehicle from the Colonization Society that sent him there, and started bringing in colonists far faster that the Colonization Society would have in hopes of making Mars an Independent society. He did this by selling over a metric tonne of Zelerium, and stable transuranic element that is extremely rare on earth but much more common on Mars to them. Fifty-three years after he stepped foot on Mars, it was declared free by the UN, and sense then hasn't formed a government, instead having a system of security companies provide police and law services.
The volcano where he built the first settlement became the city of Hope, and was covered by two forcefield-enhanced domes to protect it from micrometeorites. The inner dome covers the mouth of the 1.8 km wide volcano and the city within it. The outer dome is set away from the volcano by another half a kilometer and holds the agriculture and shipping areas for the city. An artificial river flows around the inner dome, a few dozen meters away from it, and from its feeds to the East and West, it flows North and South, spilling into the volcano as two giant waterfalls that then flow into a large central lake. From there the water is pumped up to the top to begin again. This has continued sense it was started over seventy years ago.
Today the city is having a festival, however. As a decedent of Josiah Maxwell you were invited to watch the celebration and he recreates the historic first step in a a replica of his lander, just outside of his Tube Home, the ship being where he first landed and the hope being the original living area he set up 100 years ago. It is early in the morning, but the festival's administrator calls you to ask you to meet him at the noodle stand near Maxwell's home so that you can talk. They can't seem to find him, and his home's AI refuses to tell them Maxwell's location, if it even knows. They believe he's still in the city, as he hasn't been spotted leaving and all of his vehicles are still docked, but the administrator is suspicious. As the third richest person on Mars and the nineteeeth richest in the solar system, the Administrator wants to make sure he hasn't been kidnapped or assassinated. Because he is one of the oldest people on Mars, though, the administrator wants to send his family to look for him in case it is a simple misunderstanding or there is a medical reason for the delay.
Less than a decade later he bought the original space port on Earth, the Mars colony, and the transit vehicle from the Colonization Society that sent him there, and started bringing in colonists far faster that the Colonization Society would have in hopes of making Mars an Independent society. He did this by selling over a metric tonne of Zelerium, and stable transuranic element that is extremely rare on earth but much more common on Mars to them. Fifty-three years after he stepped foot on Mars, it was declared free by the UN, and sense then hasn't formed a government, instead having a system of security companies provide police and law services.
The volcano where he built the first settlement became the city of Hope, and was covered by two forcefield-enhanced domes to protect it from micrometeorites. The inner dome covers the mouth of the 1.8 km wide volcano and the city within it. The outer dome is set away from the volcano by another half a kilometer and holds the agriculture and shipping areas for the city. An artificial river flows around the inner dome, a few dozen meters away from it, and from its feeds to the East and West, it flows North and South, spilling into the volcano as two giant waterfalls that then flow into a large central lake. From there the water is pumped up to the top to begin again. This has continued sense it was started over seventy years ago.
Today the city is having a festival, however. As a decedent of Josiah Maxwell you were invited to watch the celebration and he recreates the historic first step in a a replica of his lander, just outside of his Tube Home, the ship being where he first landed and the hope being the original living area he set up 100 years ago. It is early in the morning, but the festival's administrator calls you to ask you to meet him at the noodle stand near Maxwell's home so that you can talk. They can't seem to find him, and his home's AI refuses to tell them Maxwell's location, if it even knows. They believe he's still in the city, as he hasn't been spotted leaving and all of his vehicles are still docked, but the administrator is suspicious. As the third richest person on Mars and the nineteeeth richest in the solar system, the Administrator wants to make sure he hasn't been kidnapped or assassinated. Because he is one of the oldest people on Mars, though, the administrator wants to send his family to look for him in case it is a simple misunderstanding or there is a medical reason for the delay.