Maisie Luong

**Maisie Luong** (July 1, 2075 – December 19, 2130) was an American soldier, revolutionary, and longshoreman famous for being one of the leaders of the Second Martian Revolution, a populist uprising against the Interplanetary Trade Commission and the United States colonial governments on Mars.

## Guardiola Incident

Luong joined the Planetary Guard during the Guardiola Incident in mid 2099, and quickly rose to the rank of Master Sergeant in the Mars Planetary Guard by the end of the war. She was involved in the Lunar campaign, and fought at the Battle of L2. She also fought in the Battle of Stanford Station, and was assigned to one of the units that would have been deployed to Catalonia, had Operation Gods' Iron not been terminated. She was reassigned to Fort Knight, Ares upon the conclusion of the war where she continued to serve as a drill instructor for the remaining four years of her service. Upon returning home, she discovered she was not to receive a military pension commensurate with a soldier wounded in battle, because the Guardiola Incident was technically not recognized as a war by the government on Earth.

## Entry into politics

### **Rebuilding the MSIF**

After being discharged from the Planetary Guard, Luong returned to her native Carrera in the northern territory of Mamers, returning to work as a Longshoreman. In July 2105 Luong, still petitioning the government for her full combat veteran pension, joined a meeting of the Mars Society for Independence and Freedom after meeting its founder, Logan Buhari and finding an attraction to their Martian Nationalist, anti-Earth, and anti-non-human sentiment. While Luong agreed with these statements, she initially saw the MSIF as amateurish at best, but joined having no taste for the other major parties. Luong quickly discovered she had an untapped talent as a fiery and charismatic speaker. Indeed, her power to stir an audience brought droves of members to the fold, many of whom were fellow veterans of the Guardiola Incident who, like Luong, felt abandoned by the government on Earth. Luong would eventually replace Buhari as the MSIF's leader in 2115.

### **The Great Debates**

As questions of the future of Mars grew with the public's discontent with Earth and the fear surrounding the possibility of a war on Earth spreading to Mars, the MSIF became an increasingly prominent force in the Martian political discourse. For much of the 2120s, the bulk of Mars had largely united behind Lionel Halvidar and the Union Party's calls for fully admitting the colonies as states, however the MSIF held a considerable amount of support in the western Araby colonies, due in no small part to Luong's commanding presence as a speaker. As separatist sentiment began to spread, reaching planet-wide support of 51% in 2126, Luong began calling on Halvidar, whom Luong had admired despite their political differences, to debate her on the issue of independence. Halvidar accepted, and the first of the Great Debates was scheduled for August 3, 2126.

The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Luong's fiery rhetoric initially resonated with the crowds, but Halvidar's skills as a debater far exceeded that of Luong. However, the first debate was generally seen as an equal exchange of ideas, however Halvidar's performance pushed public opinion of independence to a 45-45 split with 10% remaining undecided. The second and third debates saw Luong's rhetoric become increasingly more adversarial, even suggesting that Halvidar was more committed to the Union then to the people of Mars. However, Halvidar's charisma and oratory continued to drive public opinion away from independence. By the final debate in January 1, 2127, any semblance of civility Luong offered Halvidar had evaporated, and her attacks began to look desperate to the majority of the population, however much it rallied MSIF loyalists to her cause.