August 8th
This morning, a friend from Mars’ Exploratory and Mineral Rights Office alerted me that MarsVantage has done the unimaginable. They found an alien city.
My carefully laid plans to thwart MarsVantage and its independent-minded employees like Chuck O’Donnell, the CEO, lay in shreds at my feet. When I was part of the Mars Economic Improvement Commission, we proposed policies and implemented rules with one specific aim—to box in MarsVantage so they’d face bankruptcy, allowing more predictable and government-friendly leadership to purchase and operate it.
The Land Purchase Application’s supporting documentation is horrifying for those who know how to interpret it.
MarsVantage purchased Full Rights, not merely Exploratory Rights, for nearly twenty square miles of inconveniently located six hours’ driving distance from Mars City. That move had to deplete MarsVantage’s on-hand cash, and O’Donnell wouldn’t place MarsVantage in a perilous financial position without expecting a huge payoff.
Needless to say, anything benefiting MarsVantage to such a degree is working against the government’s interests.
I forwarded the supporting documentation to several agencies for a complete evaluation and investigation. The best minds in the country work for or in conjunction with the government. We’ll learn everything worth knowing soon enough.
Already, I gleaned several disturbing facts. The vast city shown in a holo recording must be alien-built—no human has the resources to build such a structure. I read that, and it looks ridiculous. Yet, people—especially politicians—fail when ignoring reality. So, I must play the cards as dealt.
Much of the land O’Donnell purchased is a Martian plain that contains nothing but drifted sand, so the city must reside underground. It’s protected, probably by a simple dome, to allow the MarsVantage exploration team of Blake and Brentford to assess its value. O’Donnell wouldn’t gamble so much unless he absolutely knew something more valuable than the cash he already paid awaited within.
The city must be abandoned—any aliens either died off or departed for greener pastures. If they were still around, we surely would’ve encountered them before now. Besides, they wouldn’t share their city with the Marsees because O’Donnell and MarsVantage have nothing to offer. Altruistic aliens only exist in the realm of science fiction.
The city’s contents are the crux of the problem. The best-case scenario is that the advanced technologies allow the Marsees to slither free of the government’s control by becoming self-sufficient, which would lead quickly to independence.
Without expert government advice and guidance, the people working for MarsVantage will face disaster, accompanied by many deaths. Hundreds? Thousands? My constituents and the other Earthbound citizens’ outcry will dwarf the cacophony from thirteen years ago when two dozen Marsees died in a regrettable airlock accident.
If the only consequences were complaints and critical opinion pieces in the media, I wouldn’t mind. However, I won’t lose re-election as many representatives and senators did after the airlock accident because we failed to prevent an easily foreseeable catastrophe.
Other darker scenarios, which are an outgrowth of the Marsee urge for self-sufficiency and independence, concern me more. Advanced technologies involve advanced weapons, perhaps not outright but easily repurposed. Demolition explosives are a great example. When expertly employed, they can make room for buildings, tunnels, and roads, which are positive outcomes for advancement. Yet, people with evil intent can utilize them as bombs to level an inhabited city block.
For the past thirteen years, the government, through laws and agency regulations, hasn’t disguised its desire to tighten control over MarsVantage. O’Donnell has stood firm, bravely forging ahead. Until this discovery, he was fighting a losing battle—these days, Goliath always wins.
New alien technology turns the status quo on its head, moving MarsVantage into the position of Goliath. Independence won’t satisfy them for long. Human nature will drive them to free the Earthbound citizens from the government they characterize as intrusive and overbearing.
The Marsees will allow people to make poor choices, from the food they eat to competing for housing, without considering the consequences and costs. Premature deaths. Homelessness. Skyrocketing healthcare costs. It’s entirely conceivable that society will collapse as the people make uninformed decisions instead of the government, in its expert wisdom, guiding them along the correct path.
The Marsees will sweep aside the people’s elected representatives and the bureaucracy’s experts. No matter how evolved the Marsees purport to be, they’re human, and these acts will be vengeance for a decade of what they consider unfairness.
As a senator, I can’t allow that. I have a sworn duty to protect the citizens, even if it’s from themselves. The government must gain control of the alien technology in a way that the citizens will accept and the courts won’t overrule.
This undertaking will require all of my skills and savvy. Simply bartering favors won’t work—I haven’t the influence yet since I’m finishing the late Senator Byron’s term. Most importantly, being so beholden to my colleagues isn’t the road to success.
No, I must find a different way…
I’ll have to convince my colleagues that their interests are served by bringing the alien technology under government control. Afterward, guiding our media partners to frame the situation properly when the news of the alien city becomes public will be child’s play.
All this will take some thought and planning. If I do it properly, my reelection is guaranteed. Perhaps a shot at the presidency is in my future.
I enjoyed writing this post as it gave me the opportunity to step into Maura's shoes once again and view the world from her perspective. It contains assumptions that I, as the author of the MarsVantage series, know to be wholly or partially inaccurate. Readers of The Music of Mars and The Siege of Mars can spot her faulty assumptions, understand how they guided her actions, and see the consequences of her faulty decision-making.
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I’m an author living in northern Virginia with a wife and a cat. In the late ’80s, I worked on the International Space Station project. I recently retired from managing a group of software engineers to focus on writing science fiction and speculative fiction. Learn more.