VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 15: ORIENTATION
ARTICLE: MARTIAN TIME-KEEPING. PUBLICATION DATE: TBD.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the calendar when the days on the planet you're on are a different length to the days on Earth? Or when the sun needs an extra forty minutes every day to get back to local noon? Can you imagine the chaos as the two calenders slowly drift apart if the names of days were the same? Do you mean Martian Wednesday or Earth Wednesday? The easy answer is to call the Martian day a sol, and say that you have a week of seven sols and then make sure you don't name them the same as days on Earth. In the end, the first Martians ended up ignoring the carefully politically correct names suggested in their briefing packs and reverting to the English-derived forms that were easier to remember: Sunsol, Monsol, Tuesol, Wensol, Thursol, Frisol and Satursol. So that's the days sorted, but what about hours, minutes and the like?
Scientists and authors have come up with lots of schemes about splitting up the sol, including the idea of redefining a second to keep up the idea of twenty four hours of sixty minutes of sixty seconds. That one might have worked for flight engineers living all their lives on Earth, but as part of an education system it wasn't going to work in practice without potentially devastating consequences in, for example, landing spacecraft or anything else that needs a second to be a reliable measure. Others have suggested that there be a time at midnight when the clocks stopped. But when you considered time zones, that either meant one Martian's clock was ticking and another's wasn't, or the clock-stopped time was at night for some people and daytime for others. The people who'd have to live with it decided that was going to get too confusing too. In the end, the decision was made to keep the second the same, and have sixty one seconds in a minute. That went part of the way there, but there then needed to be just over sixty and a half minutes in an hour. After some screaming from makers of mechanical clocks that it was much much easier to add leap seconds or minutes than grind a non-integer number of teeth on a cog, the Martian flexible hour was designed. The requirements were laid out: each day should be the same length, to within a second. No two hours should be more than a minute different. Fifteen hours were to be sixty-one minutes long, eight were to be sixty, one was to be be sixty minutes and twenty seconds. Every four days an extra second would be added. Clocks in different time-zones would have to observe the same number of minutes in their hours, that is to say the mechanism or rule-set that generated leap seconds and leap minutes was required to be separate from the displayed time.
Since that calculation ended up with a day that was just a little too long, every few months one of the extra seconds wouldn't be added. After the clock designers had looked at these technical requirements they decided that maybe they could use a carefully matched pair of rubber wheels rather than cogs after all; they proposed that the idea be abandoned, and that the Martian hour be defined as 60.638827930 minutes of 61 seconds each. That, replied the parents and teachers, was just too horrible to contemplate. The Martian flexible hour was accepted, computers were programmed, and every year there was a hobbyist competition on Earth to build reliable mechanical clocks that would accurately show Mars time. On Mars, people had other concerns, and simply used their wrist units to tell the time.
What does that do to speeds? Well, for science the meter per second isn't changed. Hurrah, our rocket won't get unit-confused! For land speeds, well, we're talking about a two and a half percent difference. People decided they can cope with driving a bit slower than on Earth. After all, if you damage your mars-mobile, you're probably not going to think about the paintwork; your air supply is going to be much higher up your list of priorities.
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CELESTIA, 9.20 AM DAY TWO (23RD JUN)
“Not to mention the radiation shielding,” Evangeline added after reading the draft.
“Oooh, yes,” Alice agreed, “thank you. How are we doing for time?” The reason Evangeline had knocked on their door was to say it was almost time for the first Mars-orientation lesson.
“You've just got time to brush your hair if you want to be a dandy-lion clock,” Simon said. The air was quite dry and the gravity was very low, which all added up to static electricity doing interesting things to hair styles.
“I think I'll avoid the hairbrush then. Shall we go early?”
“Why not?” Simon agreed.
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It wasn't Barry today, but a woman who didn't bother to introduce herself. “Right, let's get started. This is day one, and today's material is a crash course in life on Mars. The material is straight from Mars Corp, so don't blame me if it's not right. The crime rate on Mars is really low, probably because there's no where to run to, everyone knows who you are, and if the courts decide you're a danger to society then they don't bother with prison. Food, water and air are not counted as inalienable rights on Mars. Privacy and personal property are. If you want to start a fight with a Martian, touch their stuff or break their privacy; that's to say: claim size, compost heap, parentage, place of origin. You get clues: if someone's looking tired of life and has long hair then their compost heap is a disaster, if they're looking semi-bald but relaxed, then maybe they'll be eating tomatoes or other fresh vegetables pretty soon.”
The woman paused for breath. She always did this bit of the orientation, and wasn't sure what Barry had meant about today changing the way she did it as he handed her the passenger list. She never bothered reading it, it only started to make sense to her after she'd met the people. “Mars Corp provide nutritious food, and also air, water and accommodation to anyone who needs them in exchange for just a couple of hours of community labour a day. They also provide access to composting areas and farm areas. Composting is a very important part of life on Mars, as without compost you can't expect to grow anything. Growing your own food means that you don't need to participate as much in the community labour, and you can instead use your time to earn an income at one of the many Mars Corp factories or research units. I said the crime rate was low, but the unemployment rate is zero. There are plenty of vacant jobs on Mars, even with the massive influx of people every cycle, Mars Corp provides well paid jobs for everyone. With your needs provided for by Mars Corp, you can use almost a hundred percent of your earnings to buy luxuries, buy a family dome, or improve your claim for the day when crops grow unprotected.”
“Or you can buy a field dome as well as a family dome and get out of doing community labour entirely.” Evangeline said.
“Well, yes, I have heard of some people doing that,” the woman said, nonplussed.
“And there are plenty of other ways to earn your cash than working in the factories.”
“Thank you, miss. Now, if I may continue with my material? Will everyone please keep all comments to the end as I find interruptions disturbing.” She continued reading the prepared material, and as she moved on to discussing the care and maintenance of compost heaps, how often they needed checking, and so on, Alice noticed Evangeline looking more and more troubled. Eventually she raised her hand.
“All questions at the end please.” the woman continued, “when an undesirable combination of bacteria have become prevalent then sterilising the heap...”
Evangeline couldn't stop herself interrupting, “This is all total jit splurt. Whoever wrote this needs their heads examined. Sterilizing a compost heap?”
“When an undesirable combination of bacteria have become prevalent then sterilising the heap with a bleach solution may become necessary as a last resort.” the woman repeated.
“Bleach! That'll ruin it forever! I've never heard anything so stupid in my life,” Evangeline said. “What does it say next? Carrying a breather is a needless precaution?”
Red-faced, the woman put down her notes, and said in a deadly voice “since you know so much, miss, you can take over, if you like.”
“No offence meant, maam,” Evangeline said, embarrassed, “but whoever wrote that hasn't had a heap, not a real one, anyway.”
“I'm sure compost heaps need different treatment on Earth and Mars,” the woman said, trying to regain control.
“With respect, maam,” Chris said, “As the son of a keen gardener and a farmer, I'd say they don't ever need that treatment on Earth, either.”
“I know it sounds unusual...” the woman tried again.
“I've heard of it happening, but never knew it was actually recommended by the corp,” Evangeline said “It's a totally jit thing to do. The compost will never amount to anything if you go chlorinating the stuff, and it'll ruin the soil too.”
The phrase 'jit thing to do' sunk into the woman's mind, along with her certainty about the proper handling of a compost heap, and dropping the word earlier, as though there was no other sort of heap worth the name. It added up to a single answer. No Earthling would say that, and Barry's saying that she'd never give the presentation the same way began to make sense. She changed tack. “I understand there is an expression on Mars: 'Listen to the teens, they do know far more than you do.' Is there truth in that?”
“Some,” Evangeline replied, grinning at hearing the changed tone of voice, “Certainly compared to a jit. But compared to their elder siblings, they just think it. The real ones to listen to are the elder second and third gen. But even they can learn some new tricks.”
“Could you tell us how a heap should be cared for?”
“Sure. First off... the Mars Corp bacteria... they're good, but one size doesn't fit all. I think I read once they worked out that mix based on some idealised mix of leafy waste, tough stems and stink stuff. If that's what they chose, then fine, but you're not going to have that, ever I hope. Putting stink stuff in your heap is like... so unhygenic. Flush it away like civilised people, just make sure you get a receipt. So, don't worry if your ratios fluctuate a bit.
“At first, you're probably going to have to feed your heap on inappropriate stuff; toenails, hair, house-dust, any natural fibres you can get. It's better than nothing, but it's not good. Mars corp have given you that colonisation manual, for instance. Unless they've made a change, that's on real paper, woodpulp. That's just wonderfully compostable stuff just there. Maybe you've brought some fruit and vegetables with you. That's great, hopefully there's some way of drying your apple cores on board, because you surely don't want to throw them away. If you do make a friend or two who's prepared to lend you some plant matter, so much the better. The sooner you can put real dead plants into your heap the better. The other thing you'll probably have is waste food, plate scrapings. That's not wonderful for your heap either; it'll work, but it's too wet. On Earth you had beetles and the like to mix up your heap and keep it aerated. Too much wet stuff and you get bacteria that like slime, and slime doesn't make a good heap. You need to dry out that water, and mix in lots of air. If your heap gets too slimy, then it'll kill of the good bacteria, and if you see it going that way you do need to take drastic action — take your heap for a walk outside. Let the water evaporate off, and then mix in some improved regolith. Not just stuff you've dug up from outside, because then you're putting poison in your heap. Anyway, if you've got too much slime, then dry out three quarters and mix it up better than you've been doing. If you've got more waste food and you've already got some slime, then dry out the waste first. None of this is ideal though.”
“So what's ideal?” the woman asked.
“For most people here, almost certainly trade. Trade your slops and stuff for plant-matter, your skills and crafts for cabbage stalks and clippings and stuff like that. Find people who want some help at harvest time or a haircut or a dress made and work for some fruit or veg for your plate and offcuts and clippings for your heap. If you can, trade with a second or third gen person for year-on-year proven topsoil. That will include the right bacteria in it to properly start a stable heap. And make sure you keep it aerated, not too wet, just moist enough. And never, ever take more than about half your heap out. You'll be tempted, but just don't do it. Slow and steady, and your heap will grow nicely. And remember, I've been talking about your heap as though its one thing, but really, you want to have two or three heaps, for recently added stuff, maturing stuff and compost that's almost ready to use.”
“You say most people? There's another way?”
“Well, Chris here married a Martian with a healthy heap and an improved claim.”
“Have you got any unmarried sisters?” asked a man about Simon's age.
“Yes, one. I've also got cousins, and friends. Whether I'm going to introduce you to them is another question entirely. Simon and Alice, do you want to make people here burn with jealousy?”
“It might not work,” Alice said, “but we're going to try growing some plants with hydroponics on processed regolith. Hopefully, that'll give us some real plant matter to seed our heap, right from the start, and I won't need to poison it with my hair-dye.”
“Is hair dye really toxic?” Cecilia asked. Her own hair was a mixture of shades that genetics only gave to tropical birds, butterflies or flowers.
“It says don't drink it on the bottle, I really don't know beyond that,” Alice replied.
“For what its worth,” Evangeline said, “adding hair and toenail clippings to compost is one of those 'it doesn't seem to hurt and it adds bulk' things. I'm pretty sure that a kilo of plant stems would do much better.”
“Who's going to let us have that?” Cecilia asked.
“If you find someone who's selling their crops to spacemen, there's a pretty high chance their heap is doing well enough for them to give you stems as wages. And it just happens you're around some spacemen for the next few weeks, so ask them for contacts.”
“And... they might let us work for proven topsoil too?” someone asked.
“Probably. Not much, but every little helps.”
Eventually they went back to the material.
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12.15 PM, ALICE AND SIMON'S ROOM.
“Our society's a crazy mixed up thing, isn't it?” Evangeline asked Alice after the session had ended.
“What do you mean?” Alice asked.
“I mean, my big brother got to have so much waste plant matter he couldn't fit it all in the area he has for his heap — that's why he started feeding it to rabbits — but there are people shaving their heads for a few hundred grammes of hair.”
“How many people are there doing as well as your brother, though?” Simon asked.
“I really don't know. He's a long way from unique.”
“When I was first experimenting,” Simon said, “my first crop was pretty poor, the plants all straggly and miserable looking. But the next year they grew really well. Is that just because I didn't have the compost mature enough the first time, or was it that I needed more compost in the sand?”
“Probably a mixture of both. You certainly don't need as much later on as you do the first time round.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“So that ratio of compost to regolith from Mars Corp, was that a reasonable?”
“I think so. For new regolith.”
“Wow,” Alice said, “you mean they got something right.”
“They're not total jits, Alice,” Evangeline pointed out, “just about some things.”
“Changing the subject entirely, what do you think about Cecilia?” Alice asked.
“First impressions? She's asking all the right questions, all except the ones about her crim of a boyfriend.”
“She's pretty good at judging people,” Chris added, “but she's obviously got a blind-spot there.”
“I'm not surprised about the judging people,” Simon said, “more about the blind spot.”
“Why, because of her background hanging out with criminals?” Evangeline asked.
Simon shook his head, “unconfirmed guess, and it's not a topic for gossip or idle speculation, sorry.”
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12.30PM, SHIP'S DINING ROOM
The morning's lecturer pointed an accusing finger at Barry; “You knew.”
“Have an interesting lecture, Sam?” Barry replied.
“You knew there was a Martian on board.” she repeated.
“Of course I knew, so does the captain. You could have known too, if you bothered to read the passenger list. Her father went out on the Celestia, told her all about the joys and dangers of swimming in space, too.”
“Oh, did he now? Hmph. And that's why she's with us not the Jupiter, say?”
“She trusts water better than stitching.”
“Sensible girl.”
“So, did she ruin your presentation?”
“Until I realised she wasn't just a snotty little know it all.”
“What broke that idea? Someone told you?”
“I missed a hint or two, but then she said bleaching a failed heap was 'a jit thing to do', and alarm bells rang. Never heard a passenger say that before.”
“We've never had a Martian passenger.”
“I'm looking forward to this evening.”
“What's up then?”
“I'm off duty.”
“So, you're going to hug your engines?”
“Nope. I'm going to lounge around here and pluck a chord or two.”
Samantha had two passions in life: tweaking the ships engines and Martian folk music. “Does she play?” Barry asked.
“No, even better; she sings.”
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NEWS ARTICLE, INTERNATIONAL NEWS EVENING EDITION, 23RD JUNE 2270
_Space disaster averted: hundreds might have starved from botched maintenance._
The seven hundred and fifty people on board the Space Transport Jupiter have a lot to be thankful for. The passenger and cargo vessel was due to depart for Mars on Monday, but fortunately for everyone on board some loading issues delayed its departure. Since delay means more acceleration is needed to get to Mars, and the Jupiter was already near the maximum weight it could take there, some cargo had to be removed and caused more delay, which was no doubt annoying for Mars Corp. But not as devastating as what would have happened had a sharp-eyed passenger on board another vessel, the Celestia, not spotted yesterday what no one else had: during recent maintenance to the engines a mistake had been made in reassembling them, and three of them were not correctly attached to their alignment mechanisms. It is not fully certain if the mechanism would have failed or if the mounting would have broken, but in either case, full control of those rockets would not have been possible to the flight computer.
Samantha Winters (ship's engineer on the Celestia) stated that while it is not officially her duty to do so, she always checks work done on the ships engines. She's seen tired workers making mistakes but these have always been quickly corrected by their colleagues or supervisors without intervention by her. She stated that she has never seen such a potentially disastrous mistake. Her opinion is that (depending when the Jupiter's engineer identified the cause of the strange thrust pattern), the Jupiter might have been able to return to Earth, or it might have totally failed to reach the right flight path to Mars, making it take considerably longer to rendezvous with the planet than was planned, on the order of months, or even years. Since passengers and crew were only carrying food for a transit time of two months, the extra flight time could have caused a major space disaster.
On older ships like the Celestia, the crew have the ability to jettison cargo to make up for lost thrust relatively simply, but this hasn't ever been necessary. The Jupiter's more mass-efficient design means that jettisoning significant amounts of cargo is almost impossible without exposing the crew and passengers to a significant risk from radiation storms. Thus, had the alarm not been raised, the captain of the Jupiter would have had to weigh the risks of starvation or radiation sickness.
Mars Corp, when questioned, stated 'We are committed to the highest safety standards in all our work, especially flight operations. The Jupiter would have only departed for Mars after a full systems check, so we do not wish to speculate on hypothetical questions. We do, however, wish express our gratitude to the individual concerned in raising the alert.' When asked about how the error occurred, they stated 'It is not our policy to comment on investigations currently underway.'
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8.40PM, SHIP'S DINING ROOM
“Do you know this one?” Samantha asked, playing the introduction to 'a jit thing to do'.
“Oooh, you rebel,” Evangeline said, with a grin.
“What's it about?” Sam asked.
“Staying alive.”
“No, I mean, really.” pushed Sam. “It's all a metaphor or something, isn't it?”
“It's all about staying off Mars Corp's register, and so staying alive.” Evangeline expanded, deadly serious.
“What do you mean?” Cecilia asked, shocked.
“Mars Corp have a register of who's related to who, where you live, and so on. Registering is optional, has no legal importance, and according to the song it's a real jit thing to do, because someone doesn't like people with big claims.”
“I'll be safe then,” Cecilia said.
“Yeah, maybe. But maybe not. Do you really want everyone to know where you live?”
“Everyone? There's no access restrictions?” Simon asked.
“Not effective ones,” Evangeline said. “There's a password that gets sent to all staff working at the Mars Corp offices, in case they're asked to be on the front desk. All staff includes teenagers doing cleaning jobs after school. You can imagine how secure that stays.”
“But the song doesn't mention claim size,” Sam said, puzzled.
“No. It talks about firsters and seconders,” Evangeline said, “who have big claims.”
“I thought firster just meant first generation?” Sam said.
Evangeline shook her head “Sorry, that's called confusing the outsider. A firster is, well, was by now, I expect, from the first wave.”
“Why do you call me a rebel?”
“Singing a song which lead to Mars Corp denying its last claim to be the de-facto government of Mars?”
“It what?”
“A government has records of its people, and records of who owns land, or at least has that right, doesn't it? That song led to Mars Corp giving way to popular pressure to leave all registration of births to the Mars Council. Failure to tell the Council of a birth has consequences. Failure to tell the Corp? None whatsoever. Same goes with land. A claim is only yours when you've registered it, which has given some scumbags involved in private sales a bit of a surprise, I can tell you.”
“Please do,” Sam said.
“A guy was desperate for a loan, went to the wrong guys for it, who said, 'OK, we'll give you a whole wad of money with your claim as collateral, here sign on the dotted line.'”
“With the contract being a sales contract?” Cecilia prompted. “That's an old con.”
“Exactly,” Evangeline agreed, “then a few months later, they tried to get him kicked off his improved claim, just like they'd been able to do on Earth. The council read the contract, listened to him, listened to them and said, 'What do you mean you bought it? That contract's totally invalid, claims are protected property with a fixed price. You can't buy a claim that cheaply, end of story. If he wants to pay you back the money you gave him for no reason, that's up to him, but since you were trying to cheat him out of his children's birthright, we'd advise him against it. Now, can we see your license for issuing that loan...' at which point things really went down hill for them.”
“That's a lovely story,” Sam said, “I wish it was true.”
“Want me to look up the official court report?” Evangeline challenged.
“Courts don't work that way!” Cecilia protested.
“Once you've got it, a claim is pretty much yours for life,” Alice said.
“But it's really hard to get one, I know,” Sam said.
“Land, join the queue, get to the front of the queue, say you'd like to register for your claim.”
“But you need to stay there, right?” Sam asked.
“You've never spent the night on Mars?” Evangeline asked.
“Of course I do!” Sam said.
“Find someone who recognises you from a previous visit, with a good rep, take them with you to the council. You can probably get your claim backdated. They'll probably call you a jit, but it's allowed as far as I know.”
“I can do that?”
“As long as you've got a good witness.”
“Would Scaredy Jim be a good witness, assuming I manage to track him down?”
“You know Scaredy Jim?”
“I expect he'll remember me bugging him to record his songs. He wrote a song about me, anyway.”
“No way! You're 'Sensible Sam the engine fan?'” Evangeline asked.
“You know that one too, eh?” Samantha blushed.
“I'll sing it one evening in your honour. To my mind, you have made a significant contribution to the good of the planet.”
“Is that a good thing?” Samantha asked.
“It is if you want some extra hectares of claim,” Evangeline replied.
“I thought your claim size was fixed?” Cecilia asked.
“No. You can buy more with gold, or the council can grant you more for say solving crimes or otherwise contributing to the good of the planet.”
“What sort of things does that cover?”
“Oh, practical advances in science for example, or charitable acts, saving lives, solving crimes, like I've said, rescuing lost kids, inventing stuff that makes life easier. They give out a about a thousand hectares a year. If anyone discovers gold, they'll probably get a load, since industry needs it.”
“Surely Mars Corp imports it?” Sam said.
“Yes, for their factories,” Evangeline said, “Their monopoly, their rules, for someone this end to get it imported is very very difficult. They make various claims about why, but really, they don't want you to. Individuals can carry it with them, no problem, but otherwise there's basically none on the planet outside Marscorp's hands.”
“But you can swap gold for land?” Cecilia asked.
“Ten grammes per hectare,” Alice supplied, “I guess that stops if someone discovers a gold mine.”
“Which makes a typical claim worth quite a lot,” Simon summarised, “but the council won't let anyone buy it at any other price.”
“What happens to the gold that the council buys for land?” Alice asked. She'd wondered that for a while.
“There's a sort of auction,” Evangeline said.
“So land is sold for gold, and gold is sold for... compost?” Alice asked.
Evangeline laughed. “That would be crazy, wouldn't it? No. It's normally sold for goods and services to the council, say one gramme for a hundred hours of expert work on some project. Or for earthling money, at about three or four times the price on Earth.”
“And can there be private sales of gold?” Cecilia asked.
“That gets a bit complicated,” Evangeline said “Gold sales can be agreed privately, but they have to be concluded at the council. You need paperwork for any gold you own.”
“Any gold you've got in your cargo, you'll need to declare on entry.” Barry said, coming over. “But I don't really understand why.”
“It's all about protecting people,” Evangeline said, “We know that there are unscrupulous people among us, and that there are desperate people. The reason that gold needs to be declared when you arrive and sales are recorded is to protect people's claims. Someone pointed out that its all very well to insist that someone hands over a pile of gold if they're buying land off a wanna, but without the paperwork what's to stop them agreeing beforehand that they'll get most of it back later on?”
“Buying land of a 'oner'?” Cecilia asked, confused “Is a 'oner' like a firster?”
“No,” Evangeline said “Wanna as in 'Wanna go home'. Their dream has fallen apart, they're desperate to leave, but they can't get the cash together for the fare home.”
Sam nodded. “We've carried a few of them when they did get the money. Every one had roughly the same sad story, how their spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend had died, and they'd really only come to be with them, and they couldn't cope without them. But of course they did cope for years. I can't help thinking that they'd been blaming being on Mars, but they'd be just as miserable back on Earth.”
“Yes.” agreed Evangeline, “It's not always true. Some people just need to see more nature. I can see their point, having been on Earth, but I do still yearn for the wilderness back home.”
“You won't be sad to see plants growing there though, one day?” Alice asked.
“No. I'm not in love with dust and rocks so much as wide open spaces and the thought that for all I know there's a chance I'm the first human to ever set foot there, and that as long as there's been a storm, the person who comes after me can have the same thought.”
“Oh, a bit like seeing a landscape covered in untouched snow?” Simon asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
“What you said about seeing more nature... aren't there any parks or anything like that?” Chris asked.
“Not yet,” Evangeline said, “For seeing growing stuff, the closest you'd get is people's allotments in the big domes. Of course you can't go strolling over someone's vegetable plot. When some sort of ground cover can grow outside, I'm sure it'll happen. If that'll be grass or something else, I've no idea.”
“And no one's thought of the psychological advantages of having even a smallish garden dome available?” Chris asked.
“You mean some landscaping, with grasses and flowers?” Evangeline asked.
“Exactly.”
“Well I have. So when we're really rich, maybe we can donate one to the planet.”
“You don't think that, say, a thousand people might contribute a bit?” Alice asked.
“They might.” Evangeline shrugged, “It's worth a try, I suppose. You never know. It worked for the swimming pool.”
“So there is a swimming pool?” Simon asked, “I'd begun to wonder if there were any sports places at all.”
“Yes, there's a pool,” she confirmed, “and between the latest big dome being finished and the next influx, there's a temporary sports arena for athletics and field sports.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Samantha said, and plucked a chord, “But can we start?”
“Of course! Registerin'?”
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MAGAZINE-ARTICLE. WHO ACTUALLY RUNS MARS?
It's clear that Mars Corp are the people you need to talk to about getting to Mars, and they are also the major employer on the planet.
But does that actually make them the de-facto government of the planet as they often claim?
If we considered an isolated island state on Earth, if there was a transport company that served the community and which was also the island's main manufacturer and employer, then there'd be no question. The company concerned might be a friend or a foe, a force for good or a bully, but we wouldn't consider it the government. Being the government of a country is more than that.
So, lets look at ten functions of a government.
1. Passing laws and maintaining law and order: the Mars Council do that.
2. Having effective control of borders and external trade: Mars Corp do that, since they've got the monopoly on travel.
3. Deciding on immigration policy: well, the U.N. made initial policies on quotas, and the Mars Council has persuaded them to allow some exceptions, so I'm allowing half a point here to the Council.
4. Controlling domestic trade and financial policies: the Mars Council has protected certain classes of possessions, and their legal transfer is only possible with Council oversight. They also issue licences to certain financial activities, for example giving loans.
5. Infrastructure development and policy: Mars Corp.
6. Taxation: hmm, are there taxes on Mars? I haven't heard one way or another. Pass.
7. Currency control: interesting one that, Mars Corp run what might pass as a bank, and I haven't found who controls the rate of exchange yet. I'll give the point to Mars Corp.
8. Records of births and deaths: the Council's population numbers are reported by Mars Corp. and the council has decided that paper records are the best way to simultaneously prove lineage, protect privacy and avoid data corruption by hacking or glitches.
9. Grants of unowned land: the Council.
10. Records of land ownership: the Council decided that people could hide ownership under registered pseudonyms, and that it wouldn't record who owned what pseudonym. Mars Corp moaned a little but the Council's decision has prevailed.
Is Mars Corp the government? I don't think so, with only three of the above functions, and allowing the Council to prevail on one of them. Is the Mars council? It looks like it's got a stronger claim, with five and a half out of the ten functions, but those three functions that Mars Corp have are big ones, and clearly Mars Corp could hold the planet to ransom, in all sorts of ways. All in all, though, I think that Mars would descend into a disaster if the council failed to function far faster than it would without regular input from Mars Corp's management. However, perhaps it is better to say that neither Mars Corp nor the Council in isolation are the government of Mars, but that between them they administer the functions of government.
It would be nice to say they cooperate to do that, but I'm not very sure. After all, Mars Corp is, by U.N. resolution, a monopoly operating for the good of its shareholders and (according to the resolution) thereby humankind in general. In contrast, the Council is made up of Martians who are working for the good of the people of Mars. One can imagine there are tensions, especially since the shareholders of Mars Corp are sovereign states on distant Earth, some of whom don't have the reputation of working fully for the good of their own people.
It is quite normal for a journalist visiting a foreign land to be accredited by the government there, and before leaving for Mars for I got accreditation from Mars Corp. I thought I should mention that I'm also seeking accreditation from the Council too.
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NEWS ARTICLE, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 25TH JUNE 2270
Near disaster on Space Transport Jupiter not reported to ISTA
Representatives of the International Space Travel Authority say the authority were not contacted by Mars Corp regarding the near disaster on the Space Transport Jupiter, which had just requested clearance for departure when the warning about its uncontrollable engines was given. Three of the main engines on the Jupiter, now on-route to Mars, had been left with the thrust vector controls connected wrongly after routine maintenance checks.
Had the error been discovered prior to the departure request, there would be no requirement to inform the ISTA, but the fact that clearance had been requested meant that technically the Jupiter was in transit, and any safety-related issue with a passenger ship in transit needs to be declared within 24 hours. Mars Corp state in their defence that they were not aware that the ship's captain had requested departure clearance, and that, the captain having requested clearance, ought to have informed the ISTA himself. Furthermore, they stated that by requesting clearance without ensuring that routine safety inspections had been completed, the captain had violated Mars Corp policy.
In reply, the captain's legal representatives stated on his behalf that he had been under intense pressure to leave quickly and that Mars Corp dispatchers had assured him that all safety inspections had been carried out, but that despite this, he had not yet requested departure clearance. They were not able to reply on the issue of reporting to ISTA.
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