The colonization of Mars

The Colonization of Mars was the effort undertook by the Interplanetary Federation to appropriate Mars, and make it a habitable and function part of the Federation. This part of history happened between the rules of Florence Thirdleg and Julianne Thirdleg, a moment of history which spanned over two hundred years and saw the rule of nine kings and queens.

## Context

The United States of America founded its first permanent settlement outside of Earth: The city of Argerive in 2200. This effectively asserted american sovereignty over Earth's moon and established the fifty-first state of America. Around that same time, other Terran world powers were already starting to establish colonies on asteroids and dwarf planets.

With the unification of the Rock People into unified state, they became an economical, military and political powerhouse, the strongest in the solar system. The dream of terraforming Mars, which had been until now a dream, was now a possible reality under this new state, and something that the Federation needed very much since they had outlawed piracy in their country and was now finding it increasingly harder to feed their own.

## Stage One: Preperations

The founding monarch of the Mars colonization is regarded as being Florence Thirdleg. Florence knew that the first steps to the Terraforming of Mars would be done with Thermonuclear weapons. Florence therefore spent the later part of her reign building and stockpiling nuclear weapons for this cause, starting in 2216. For that purpose, taxes were heavily increased and public spending was reduced as much as possible. The people were greatly angered by this rise of taxes and were worried as they did not know where the money was sent.

It was later revealed by foreign spies that the Queen was stockpiling a mass amount of thermonuclear weapons and that production only expanded more. The United States described the arsenal as "Enough to turn Earth into Venus". Following this discovery, there was a lot of public concern, as much inside the Federation's border as outside. It was universally presumed, as much by the citizens of the Federation, as for the people of Earth, that Florence was preparing for a large scale war. The people of Earth believed that the Federation felt threatened by the wave of interplanetary colonialism undertook by Terran governments. Because of that, interplanetary colonialism almost halted completely during her rule, The United States and China announced a temporary truce and alliance. They both began to increase their armies and pledged to protect Earth from the Federation if need be. Despite all the tension, Florence refused to announce her intentions to the public, by fear that the Terran governments would steal Mars from her. The truth was that the Federation was probably the only state that could financially undertake the terraforming of Mars.

When Florence died and Anthony Thirdleg came to power, his first decision as king was to publicly announce his mother's intention and continue her project to relieve tention and to prevent an interplanetary war. This greatly calmed the public and made the RLSA back off. Anthony greatly reduced taxes and did the daring move of reducing the military budget to almost zero. This not only proclaimed the Federation as a pacifist state, but also allowed the state to gather the amount of funds needed to undertake the colonization of Mars. This only passed because the citizens of the Federation were fed up of Florence's alleged warmongering attitude.

Anthony completed the nuclear stockpiles and began a large scale mining development for acquiring terraforming gases. He tried to complete the project as soon as possible. He did not fear that the Terran powers would claim Mars before him, as his mother feared: the impression left by her made Earth fear the Federation's nuclear arsenal, and he knew that no Terran world power could afford to colonize Mars anyways. What Anthony feared was that, while the nuclear stockpile was not created with the intent of waring with the rest of the solar system, one of his successors might use it as such regardless. He feared his daughter Frederick for that reason. While she did die during childbirth at the age of 19, it is widely accepted that Frederick was poisoned by the Americans. Some say that Anthony had something to do with it too.

When Anthony died, the final stages of the preparations was undertook by his heir and grandson, Frederick Thirdleg, who started by stockpiling ammonia and nitrogen and raising funds for the rest of the project.

## Stage Two: Terraforming

Frederick started the terraforming process in 2235 by bombing Mars with the thermonuclear weapons stockpiled by his grandfather and great-grandmother. This effectively melted the icecaps and released more carbon dioxide into the martian atmosphere. Several gasses were then released into the Martian atmosphere to change its composition and facilitate the heating of the planet. Under Frederick, the Federation then spent a decade digging a massive hole towards the planet core where they used some more nuclear bombs to heat the core back up to allow the planet to have a magnetosphere. He also tried to import a massive amount of dense metals and pour them into the core to increase the gravity, but the project was abandoned and proved fruitless.

After Frederick's death, his heir, Adrian Thirdleg, took over the project. With nothing much to do but analyze and regulate the heating of the planet for decades. Adrian greatly reduced taxes and increased military spending to protect the project. He also continued mining and importing terraforming gases from the moons. He nevertheless amassed funds for further expenses. Near the end of his life, he collaborated with Terran governments to gather terran soil and vegetation, as well as planktons to initiate the next stage of the terraforming. Under his rule, the Federation began turning the martian sand into earth using terran soil and genetically modified bacteria. The waters of Mars was also filled with plankton to turn the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into oxygen. When he died, the Federation began planting genetically modified trees on Mars.

His daughter, Victoria Thirdleg took over the project in 2347 and began a widespread planting of trees and other plants. by the end of her rule, Mars became a lush green world.

Her daughter, Jessica Thirdleg, continued planting plants and started building infrastructure like dams, bridges, roads and canals to prepare for the colonization of the planet. She also added fish to the rivers, lakes and seas. She started a small scale colonization project in 2367 by expanding the station around the core pit into a small city, adding hangers, warehouses, factories, living spaces shops and transportation. For the first time, there was a permanent settlement on Mars. This gave birth to the city of Arote. At the time, Arote was an enclosed city similar to those found on the gas planets. Her dying wish was to have Terran land animals imported onto Mars. Her son, Grenn, fulfilled that wish using northern Terran animals like deer, bears, wolves and hares.

## Stage Three: Colonization

When the terraforming was nearly done, and the planet was relatively suitable for his human habitation, Grenn began the third phase of Colonization: the settling of the planet. The Federation added to Arote, a river port on the Uzboi River, which allowed the navigation of the river. Midway through his rule, Grenn started a the smallest of the three large scale wave of settlement in 2400. He encouraged the settlers to sail the Uzboi river upstream up until they reached the Chryse sea.

The settlers founded the cities of La Peyne and Grenna. While the atmosphere wasn't entirely terraformed, the settlers could breath the air for a few over an hour at the time. The houses of these new cities were airtight and the early martians travelled in airtight trucks as well. The colonists of the the first wave worked as much as they could to develop the planet despite the atmosphere not being so terraformed. The settlers of the first wave had to pass a strict physical and psychological test and had to have a minimum level of education to ensure that they could survive on Mars.

The Second wave of colonization was undertook by Justin Thirdleg in 2436, when the atmosphere on Mars became completely breathable. Justin goal was the construction of Mars. He drastically lowered the expectations required from the colonists; there was no bias on education and the physical tests were less severe. They Government encouraged lower income citizens to participate in the program. Justin changed the physical criteria to make the program for inclusive for women, for Justin encouraged gender equality and wanted the martians to populate for themselves. The second wave expanded the Federation reach on Mars, sailing the northern ocean to settle the other regions of Mars. Lunae and Aiglevert were founded in that time

When Justin died in 2444 and Julianne took over the project, she spent and enormous amount of money into building a railway all the way to the Hellas false sea to colonize the regions north of it. In that time, the Federation built even more roads, canals and railroads as well as power plants. Near the end of this project, Mars had a vast transportation network and enormous city despite a relatively small amount of people living on the planet, and because of that, people called Mars a "ghost planet".

Julianne started the last, largest and definitive large scale wave of Martian colonization in 2446. The settlers had little to no physical and mental criteria and the queen encouraged the involvement of young families. Once more, the settlers mostly came from low income families who sought a better life on another planet. Within six years, Mars became a functional society and by 2454, Mars officially became it's own republic within the interplanetary federation. Much like southern Uranus was at the time, the Martians elected their own leaders, which of course, was still loyal to the king and queens of Gennings,