Mars Republic

The **Mars Republic** (Yiddish: רפובליק מאַרס, Creole: Ареси Эθнос, HU: Mars Köztársaság) is the richest & most fervently nationalistic member state of the Soviet Union. Our dreaded military was once arguably the poshest terrorist network in the history of mankind: the Mars Republican Army funded & trained by (mostly Hungarian) ExCom operatives led by Julian Lensky, backed by ultra-liberal venture capitalists led by Rachel Naghavi from Greater Iran, to incite the 2005 space mining strike which started our war of independence.

## History

Astronauts used to be this neutral cold-minded bunch, okay, but times have changed with exponentially increasing demands for human resources in space: the industry gave up on Earther notions of normality way before the republic's foundation, since normie idiots just couldn't run their stations very well anymore. The only people who could run those stations well were the weirdos, namely the space commies & the mormons.

### War of independence

The best selling point for Mars independence was for Earth to also win by getting rid of narcissistic space barons who kept choking progress with all their bullshit policies to rip everyone off. The commies started commandeering stations to force those barons to the table, but the barons decided to kill them all by hiring mafia thugs to sabotage their utility systems.

Thousands of good hard-working astronauts have died, so the rage of the colonists kept growing: even the mormons started backing the commies, hoping that they could also re-start their lovely Deseret project on an independent Mars.

But then some Earth-based lunatics called the Reavers, helped unwillingly by Jade Lensky herself, decided to bomb the whole Vatican & the war was almost lost: it was a nuclear strike on the ceremonial inauguration of a new pope that killed tens of thousands.

### Deportations & trade warfare

All this in the name of Mars of course, but even this massive PR disaster was ultimately not enough to thwart the cause of our independence. Earth governments started deporting millions of MRA supporters, offering them free one-way trips to our lovely planet.

These people are now the working class of our thriving new nation! After kicking some extremists out & paying generous compensations to many families hit by the bombing, the level-headed Jewish economists of MRA have ultimately found their ways to force the hands of a majority of Soviet leaders.

In 2008 we were finally recognized as a member state: this was achieved through long years of extensive trade warfare, ultimately won by Mars-friendly nations in a very humiliating way.

### Social hierarchy

The mormons who did not distance themselves from Deseret ideology were ultimately fed to the Reavers, the followers of the Vatican bombers now ruling the new slums where all the unskilled deportees from Earth were huddled in. The Reavers were then fed to the Fideltas & those were then fed to the Mars Intelligence Directorate of ExCom: this is kind of how our nation was born!

## Society

The national flag is a visual representation of an old football chant:

* Who rule the yellow sky? Mars!
* Who rule the black sky too? Mars!
* Who rule the blue sky too? Mars!!!
* Who will rule the green lands too?

### Football culture

Mars! Mars! The republic of Mars!!! Our football is basically American football, but ridiculously exaggerated to make use of our lower gravity for the purpose of mass entertainment. In the black middle of the tricolor, the flag features a reddish brown full circle with a bright red hammer & sickle inside.

Yeah, well, there is also that little green stripe underneath reminding Earthers of the Martian promise. Scary, huh? Yeah, just keep in mind that we won't destroy you in any case: we need you to buy all the space products we make & you need us to buy all the food products you make. Nobody's gonna destroy anything here, okay?

To the circle's top right are two triangles with the greek letters Phi & Delta in black, representing the moons Phobos & Deimos to form a little arrow in between, making the black space around look like a "male" sign as the historic symbol of the red planet. I guess it just suits a military democracy founded by a bunch of predominantly muslim space miners after all!

### Jewish culture

The president, however, is totally a Jewish woman: a former Hungarian black swan officer named Morgana Steinmetz who pulled many strings for us during the war. Hungary is by far our number 1 partner in terms of Martian trade per capita, still our favourite country back on Earth. Mars National Embassy is in fact bigger in Budapest than the one they have in Leningrad, DC. Hungarian is recognized as an official language together with English, Yiddish, Russian & New Persian.

Many high-ranking Mars officers even speak magyarul surprisingly well: they developed an extremely weird dialect barely intelligible even to 3rd generation natives of Socialist Hungary. They use it as a crypto-tongue when they wanna talk among themselves. Hungary is a piece of Mars back on Earth from our perspective.

### Gender issues

We have roughly a hundred million citizens living all over the solar system, one of them being your humble narrator Daniel Martin Lensky - together with my wife Jade Lensky & her boss Manuel Bronsky, the discharged USR-SMC captain now working for Mars. The citizenship's gender ratio is quickly improving, but still more than 70% male. The opening of a Ranathan Cargo cult in early 2017 helped us a lot in this regard!

## Economy

Despite being rich as hell, we are actually the most cramped planet in the solar system as our population rose from a hundred thousand to a hundred million in a mere decade: everything is under construction or re-construction, everything is totally Balkan here. Mars National Bank owns gigantic mineral assets on which the valuation of the Mars Dollar is based, but we are still facing constant hardship because of an ongoing trade war with the Swiss Confederacy & their allies.

### Education fund

The bank's largest investment fund is the Mars Education Fund, the owners of the massively opulent National Theatre of Mars together with Mars University & the National Bazaar & a number of other prestigious national institutions on the foothills of Olympus Mons.

### Orbital ring

Olympus National Station is our main space port, connected to a pair of Uroboros trains full of reaction mass running in both directions with orbital speed, roughly 80 clicks above the surface. Elevators are hanging down with blimps & wind traps for structural support, held in place by magnetic suspensors along the tracks.

Earth has the same system, but no geo-stationary space port. Mars has 4 of those too! Millions of high-paying industrial jobs come here every year because of environmental regulations on Earth, we have a lot of tonnage to deal with. Our great nation welcomes all rust belt people with open arms - although not everyone wants to go to jail for throwing food away & stuff like that, so it's gonna be tricky!!!

### Tourism

Elderly Earthers often retire to well-funded gated communities on Mars by transferring their pensions to our national bank. They come because of our gentle gravity & our pink sky being less gloomy than the black sky on Luna. It doesn't matter that Luna is closer because you can't go back once you get used to our low-g environment. Earth will crush & kill you in a matter of minutes!

Earth kids are universally entitled for free national summer camps on republican outposts all over the solar system, travelling on the Kindertransport vessels of Mars National Navy. These vessels were built originally to evacuate kids from the war, but then the fleet was leased & expanded by the Mars Education Fund to bring all kids to chartered boarding schools on Earth for their bodies & minds to grow.

Before retiring ourselves, we are all required to maintain our gravity tolerance by doing shifts on 1G space stations or on Earth itself + of course also by doing sports. Ships are also cruising around 1G to serve this purpose. There are lots of sports unions known as gravity clubs for our citizens to cultivate their gravity health!!

### Sex industry

ExCom considers the smooth operation of our local sex industry a national security issue, because of our country's somewhat inevitable gender imbalance. Almost all forms of prostitution are (almost) completely legalized, with the Daughters of Mars pumping massive amounts of dollars into the country's GDP.

## Popular culture

The culture of Mars is a fascinating mixture of enlightened liberal humanism with some really dark lovecraftian aspects to confuse the hell out of everyone: this is Space Sparta run by commies after all, filled with all the marvels of super sturdy Soviet engineering.

### Plants

We have lots of plants literally everywhere, but they also look super weird as they are all bio-engineered. We live & work in places that look like the interiors of a nuclear fallout shelter, filled with all the cozy items of punk aesthetics & commie nostalgia.

### Industrialism

Since we don't have to care much about pollution as there is literally no life outside to get polluted, our landscapes are just full of brutal colossal smoke-belching industrial machines. Personally I just love these landscapes like crazy, with every look at them filling my heart with unfathomable amounts of national pride. They control the fuckin weather, man!!!

### Visual culture

Our buildings have the faces & names of glorious martyrs painted on their outer walls: Martian brothers & sisters killed by accidents during construction or initial operation, or often by the sabotage actions of mafia thugs hired by narcissistic space barons like Elon Musk.

Since death is literally everywhere as soon as you step out of a built-up settlement, we are kind of fascinated by it. Hence the "lovecraftian" aspects of our culture, you just figured us out! We really are the closest thing to Hell for an Earther's imagination indeed, precisely the kind of society right-wingers love to hate. Millions of tourists arrive each year for the Red Mordor experience & we just love to give them as much as we can!!

### Gastronomy

Superfluous production of organic waste can, like we said, quickly end you up in jail. Yeah, it's a tricky Balkan!!! If you leave anything on your plate or in your glass instead of giving it to someone, you will be instructed to go back & pack it all up! If you throw food into a trash can, fellow Martians will immediately strap you down & the cops will take you to jail after beating you to a weeping pulp.

If you somehow throw it away without anyone noticing, the police take the fingerprints from the trash & come knocking on your door at 5 AM. If you spill it down the sink, it will immediately trigger an alarm & you are trapped in the toilet until the cops arrive. If you disable the alarm or remove your fingerprints from a package, that's automatically five years on Mars Gulag.

They will find you, Earther, just rest assured of that! Even if you get back home, ExCom will find you & extradite your ass to Mars. They don't want idiots to ruin all that's left of your shitty reputation in our eyes! If your food gets rotten, you must bring it to the nearest recycling center & pay a fine for them to take it. If you can't eat your fancy Instagram collage in time, honey, just don't do it on Mars!!! Problem solved.