The Dust War

### Result

* United Nations holdings on Mars regained, size of colonies greatly limited by continued duster resistance
* Corporate holdings on Mars retained
* Duster territories officially recognized by the UN

## Belligerents

* UNMCA Coalition
* Martian Trade Council

* Candor Confederation
* Chryse Confederation
* Ius Self-Determination Front
* Non-Interference League of Mars
* Red Skies Coalition
* Sharp Sands Coalition
* Tithonium Resistance League

* Non-Aligned Community of Mars

## Commanders and Leaders

* **Laurens Venebrug**
* Francisco Jose Gómez
* Narcissa Kollmann

* **Hayakawa Kitahachi**
* Fukunaga Kunimichi
* Damir Shurupov
* Liam Morris

The **Dust War**, also known as the **United Nations Invasion of Mars**, was the first interplanetary conflict that took place in human history. Fought from July of 2067 to November of 2074, the Dust War began when the United Nations Martian Campaign Alliance (UNMCA) announced their intentions to launch a major military and colonial operation on Mars with the official goal of retaking territories lost following the blackout and establishing permanent Earth-operated Martian colonies for all contributing members, including the United States, the Eurasian Union, the People's Republic of China, the North Sea Accordance, the European Association, the Latin Community, and the Commonality of Indonesia. It takes its name from the harsh terrain and environmental conditions found on Mars, which proved one of the most restricting complications to UN operations on the ground, alongside the duster forces themselves (dusters being the "natives" of Mars who fought against UN colonialism, originally having colonized the planet themselves from the 1970s to the 2010s). The war eventually entered a years' long stalemate before the signing of the New Helena Accords in 2074, which forced both parties to recognize the existing territorial possessions of the other. Both sides claimed victory, however losses on either side of the conflict were heavy and as such historians generally view the war as ending in a white peace. Casualties on the part of the dusters are hard to estimate given the lack of information provided by the various duster factions and the hardship with which bodies are identified or recovered on Mars in general, though most historians agree that somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000 duster soldiers were killed over the course of the war, with upwards of 15,000 civilian casualties. The UN meanwhile, suffered heavier military losses, with a total of 31,947 casualties by the end of the war alongside only 827 civilian casualties. The vast majority of UN casualties were taken in the first month of the war during the infamous UN landing operations which saw more than half of the initial invasion force destroyed before even reaching ground. Further UN deaths also mostly came from attempted landings, with half of all casualties from 2068 to 2074 stemming from duster anti-air fire. Only around 5,000 UN soldiers were killed during ground operations.

In the aftermath of the war, duster participation in wider human geopolitics became a major concern both of the international political community and also of the global populace as a whole. Throughout the conflict, protests were staged both on national centers such as New York and Berlin, but also on UN sites such as those in New Amsterdam and Geneva, all demanding an end to the war and a recognition of duster legitimacy. Terror attacks such as those launched on New Aden by duster and pro-duster elements on Earth, however, lessened the public's opinion of them as the war raged on. It was only with the peace deal of 2074 and the subsequent proliferation of duster media to Earth that their popularity increased once more and public support was regained.

### Early Colonization of Mars

Colonization of Mars first began in 1973 when the United States and NASA first announced the Ares Program: a manned spaceflight mission aimed towards landing men and women on Mars by 1985 at the latest. With the end of the Apollo Program and the successful launch of Skylab both in 1972, Ares was meant to be NASA's next big step out into the solar system, especially as the Soviet Union ramped up their own manned spaceflight programs and landed on the Moon for the third time.

NASA began with the development of the X-23 and TX-23 launch platforms in the 1970s, of which the TX-23 was used extensively in the construction of Skylab's successor, Independence Station. Independence was eventually used in the early 1980s to assemble a fleet of TX-23s (which were a reusable craft composed simply of the X-23 strapped onto a Titan II booster stage), of which TX-23C *Constitution* would eventually be used to launch the first men to Mars in 1985. A crew of three - David Marshall, Elliot Perkins, and Michael Johnson - reached Mars after a nine-month journey on August 26th of 1986. Landing and placing the American flag several miles north of Saravan Crater, the crew's primary finding would be conclusive evidence of Mars once having surface water. This evidence would become the primary talking point of NASA in their campaign to secure funding for a permanent Martian settlement following TX-23's return to Earth in May of 1987, and with the Soviet's expansion of Zvezda reaching the point of lunar domination, President Jackson approved the 3% Spaceflight Plan in 1988, allocating 3% of the national budget to NASA. Dozens of unmanned TX-23 launches to Mars ferried the necessary building components to the red planet all landing around the same point in the Mariner Valley, unpacking their goods and leaving them preserved on the planet's surface until the return of humans to Mars in 1991. This new crew of three consisting of Jacob Ross, Louis Bailey, and Quinn Wilson are accredited with constructing the first permanent base on Mars in human history - New Roanoke - which they did over the course of a month on Mars' surface before boarding their spacecraft and returning to Earth.

Cyclical habitation of New Roanoke continued until 1999, when NASA announced the Aldrin Program. Named for famous astronaut Buzz Aldrin, this program sought to revolutionize transit to Mars by developing Aldrin's proposed Mars Cycler - a craft which would travel in close proximity to both Earth and Mars over a 2.2 year orbital period. NASA began the assembly of the first cycler spacecraft in 2000, an endeavor that would ultimately cost over twenty billion dollars but would succeed in 2003 with the final piece assembled in orbit. Powered temporarily by two rocket boosters built into the cycler's aft, the craft would begin its first cycle on September 15th, 2003, operated remotely by personnel of Independence Station with broadcasting support from the crew of the Lunar Gateway (built in 1982 by corporate partners). The cycler would reach Mars in February of 2004 and conduct a flyby before returning to Earth in December of 2005. With the cycler's practicality now assured, the first permanent inhabitants of Mars would be sent aboard Cycler Aldrin and arrive in April of 2006, reaching the surface of Mars aboard MLX-24 landing platforms and unloading the necessary materials to expand New Roanoke fivefold. As Cycler Aldrin began its long journey back to Earth, it left behind a colonial population of eighteen, all of whom prepared for their new lives away from Earth.