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Description
The first steps on Mars were made in 1982, and ever since then development of the Red Planet has never stopped. The shallow, dead seas of the planet, which had been dry for countless millennia, were revived with water shipped in from Earth or from icy bodies in the Asteroid Belt. The atmosphere was transformed by shipping in carbon dioxide from Earth's factories and power plants, warming the planet. Orbital radiation shields were sent into the atmosphere, to protect Mars from the solar wind that destroyed its previous environment. By the dawn of the 2050s, it was possible to walk along Mars' surface without a pressurized suit, and by the 2080s it was possible to do so without constantly using oxygen masks.

It was not long before Mars became a dumping ground for political dissidents. The Axis, which had hidden on the Moon for decades, were evicted at gunpoint and sent to Mars in 2016. Hardline military personnel were sent to man the bases, so that they don't cause trouble closer to home. Separatist movements and political bases were also sent to the bases, so they could have their desired societies while leaving everyone else alone. Russian dissidents formed a new Russian Empire under NATO auspices, while the Soviets helped American black nationalists form the People's Republic of New Africa. The fallen states of South Vietnam, the Republic of China and North Korea found new life on the Red Planet. The State of Palestine was reformed on Mars, only to be joined by their Israeli rivals after the Iran-Israel War. Mars also became the site for dubious experimentation, especially by industrial giant Persephone Aerospace.

Disaster struck in 2038, when the Soviet Union experienced a failed coup. The USSR emerged a transformed state, one willing to negotiate permanent dentente with the West and end the Cold War. The hardliners that dominated the USSR's Martian bases saw this as a betrayal, and quickly proclaimed a provisional government to challenge Moscow. Not every Soviet base joined the hardliners, and soon a civil war erupted. The Soviet Provisional Government secured the most populated Soviet bases, and quickly gained the allegiance of Mars' other communist states. The Soviet bases near the Mariner Canyons, which had been secured with UN support, remained loyal to Moscow.

The Soviet war on Mars would set a terrible precedent. When the European Union was fully federalized in 2042, French nationalists declared independence from the EU and formed three rival governments. In response to increasing Soviet-American cooperation and due to the influence of the GLADIUS movement, several American bases declared independence from a federal government they regarded as a traitor to American principles. In 2076, a year chosen specifically for its symbolism, these bases formed the Sovereign States of America. Like the Soviets before them, the Americans tried to suppress this rebellion, but lost most of the Tharsis Plateau thanks to GLADIUS involvement and the Sovereign States gaining the aid of Mars' anticommunist powers, including Spain and the Axis Powers.

Martian politics remains unstable, even if there is no threat of a major war. The Cold War continues on Mars, between the descendants of the Western and Eastern Blocs. The Coalition for a Free Mars is led by the Sovereign States, a military junta that has consciously modeled its society off an idealized version of America during the 1950s. The Sovereign States' biodomes are carbon copies of Fifties suburban neighborhoods, only with the technology of the 22nd century. The Sovereign States maintains one of the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, sold to it by various parties.

Some of the Sovereign States' allies have also taken the "time capsule" model of social organization, though politically they are all effectively military juntas. The Russian Empire's society is very much like that of the Russian Empire of 1890, complete with a new nobility, while the Confederate States is an idealized version of the historical Confederacy, complete with institutional racism that its pro-segregation founders sought to maintain on Mars. The Republic of Vietnam and Republic of China, on the other hand, have modeled themselves off Japan, and their biodomes resemble the urban sprawl of Tokyo. GLADIUS maintains two major bases on Mars, staffed mostly by Sovereign States volunteers.

The Martian Workers' Pact is similarly dominated by the Soviet Provisional Government. To the Provisional Government, it is the Soviet Union, while the people in Moscow are traitors to the Motherland. The Provisional Government maintains the old Soviet Union's heavy-handed autocracy, though its leadership is split between the KGB, Communist Party, and the military. Seeking to emulate Stalin, the Provisional Government has pursued a course of extreme industrialization, though they are wise enough to engage in trade with China and Persephone Aerospace to fill the gaps in their productive capabilities. The Soviets have a large, mostly automated military, which they claim is necessary to keep the "Moscow traitors" away.

The other communist states are similarly hardline societies, and their communist parties are effectively satellites of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Martian Branch. The Byelorussian Soviet broke off from the Soviet Union during the chaos of the war, and while the Provisional Government originally wanted to bring them into the fold, they proved to be too necessary an ally and too committed to the idea of independence to be directly absorbed. There is distrust between the two sides, as the Byelorussians suspect that the Provisional Government may fall to the same corruption as Moscow.

The European Peoples' Republic was formed from various far left Western European organizations, and while it started out as vehemently anti-Soviet, the Provisional Government's seeming dedication to the communist ideal and the natural progression of careerism within any institution turned them into Provisional Government puppets, much like the Warsaw Pact on Earth. The DPRK has maintained the Kim Dynasty, and the Arduous Exodus to Mars is seen as nothing less than a miracle organized by the great Kim Ju-ae. The People's Republic of New Africa is a mirror of the Confederate States, only that the roles of blacks and whites are reversed. Lastly, Afghanistan, established on Mars after the pro-Soviet Afghans were defeated on Earth, is a rabidly atheist state that occasionally sends agitators to Afghanistan on Earth.

The Axis Powers are even more isolated and stagnant than the other Martian blocs. Too powerful to be outright destroyed, the UN settled for cutting a deal with the Axis: they'd move their operations to Mars, and have exclusive rights to settle around the Hellas Sea. The Axis agreed, and promptly established bases in the area and even cooperated with Mars' terraforming. However, after the Second American Civil War, the Axis have largely cut themselves off from the rest of the Solar System, content to develop on their own. The societies of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan are easily recognizable to anyone who lived during their time on Earth, though power is less centralized in one supreme leader due to strings of weak leaders over the decades. The Axis' unique technology is still of interest, a few innovations from the Axis states make it to the rest of the Solar System through the Spanish.

Elysium, formerly the site of French Mars, has become a desolate zone filled with minefields and separated by combat tunnels after its secession from the EU. The Kingdom of France and the Empire of France are nearly identical, being despotisms under the leadership of the local strongman's descendants. The only practical difference between the two is that the Kingdom of France claims to be led by a distant Bourbon descendant, while the Empire of France claims to be led by a Bonaparte, and that the Kingdom is Catholic while the Empire is atheist. These two French governments are rivaled by the French Republic, which actually is a functioning democracy, if prone to government shutdowns and threats of revolution.

The "National Homelands" were established by a UN initiative in 2020, along with its sister project on the Moon. It was through this initiative that South Vietnam, North Korea, the Confederate States, New Africa and the Republic of China were founded, but there are other states that have stayed out of the great powers' orbit founded through the initiative. The State of Palestine was the first state founded through the National Homelands project, though only moderate Palestinians vetted by the PLO were allowed to settle. This has resulted in Palestine becoming a stable democracy, if one that has strong antisemitic undertones in its society. The next was the Kingdom of Scotland, after Scotland's failed independence referendum, which has inadvertently become a time capsule for the 2040s-era United Kingdom. The same could be said of Quebec, founded at around the same time, although Quebec is strictly Francophone and did not admit Quebecois who did not have sufficient proficiency in French. Kurdistan followed, a state that modeled itself politically and socially off the United States to considerable success. It is now seen as an "Islamic" version of the United States, despite its secular government and society. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the State of Israel are the newest additions, and because of their origins as refugee states and the trauma of the Iran-Israel War, they are very reactionary ethno-religious states that refuse entry to anyone who is not a refugee from the war.

Modern Mars is a relatively peaceful place, and the environment is steadily becoming more Earthlike. Plant life is still difficult to establish, as there are nutrients in the Martian soil, but most Martian biodomes are verdant, self-sufficient communities. Tunnels, often with rail networks, connect Martian settlements with one another, and a burgeoning highway network is being created on the Tharsis Plateau. With humanity expanding to the Outer Solar System and taking greater advantage of the mineral resources of the Asteroid Belt, Mars has become a busy trading hub. Mars is getting richer and now has a population of over 600 million people. With plans underway for breaking ground on Mars' first space elevator, development can only speed up.

Description
The first steps on Mars were made in 1982, and ever since then development of the Red Planet has never stopped. The shallow, dead seas of the planet, which had been dry for countless millennia, were revived with water shipped in from Earth or from icy bodies in the Asteroid Belt. The atmosphere was transformed by shipping in carbon dioxide from Earth's factories and power plants, warming the planet. Orbital radiation shields were sent into the atmosphere, to protect Mars from the solar wind that destroyed its previous environment. By the dawn of the 2050s, it was possible to walk along Mars' surface without a pressurized suit, and by the 2080s it was possible to do so without constantly using oxygen masks.

It was not long before Mars became a dumping ground for political dissidents. The Axis, which had hidden on the Moon for decades, were evicted at gunpoint and sent to Mars in 2016. Hardline military personnel were sent to man the bases, so that they don't cause trouble closer to home. Separatist movements and political bases were also sent to the bases, so they could have their desired societies while leaving everyone else alone. Russian dissidents formed a new Russian Empire under NATO auspices, while the Soviets helped American black nationalists form the People's Republic of New Africa. The fallen states of South Vietnam, the Republic of China and North Korea found new life on the Red Planet. The State of Palestine was reformed on Mars, only to be joined by their Israeli rivals after the Iran-Israel War. Mars also became the site for dubious experimentation, especially by industrial giant Persephone Aerospace.

Disaster struck in 2038, when the Soviet Union experienced a failed coup. The USSR emerged a transformed state, one willing to negotiate permanent dentente with the West and end the Cold War. The hardliners that dominated the USSR's Martian bases saw this as a betrayal, and quickly proclaimed a provisional government to challenge Moscow. Not every Soviet base joined the hardliners, and soon a civil war erupted. The Soviet Provisional Government secured the most populated Soviet bases, and quickly gained the allegiance of Mars' other communist states. The Soviet bases near the Mariner Canyons, which had been secured with UN support, remained loyal to Moscow.

The Soviet war on Mars would set a terrible precedent. When the European Union was fully federalized in 2042, French nationalists declared independence from the EU and formed three rival governments. In response to increasing Soviet-American cooperation and due to the influence of the GLADIUS movement, several American bases declared independence from a federal government they regarded as a traitor to American principles. In 2076, a year chosen specifically for its symbolism, these bases formed the Sovereign States of America. Like the Soviets before them, the Americans tried to suppress this rebellion, but lost most of the Tharsis Plateau thanks to GLADIUS involvement and the Sovereign States gaining the aid of Mars' anticommunist powers, including Spain and the Axis Powers.

Martian politics remains unstable, even if there is no threat of a major war. The Cold War continues on Mars, between the descendants of the Western and Eastern Blocs. The Coalition for a Free Mars is led by the Sovereign States, a military junta that has consciously modeled its society off an idealized version of America during the 1950s. The Sovereign States' biodomes are carbon copies of Fifties suburban neighborhoods, only with the technology of the 22nd century. The Sovereign States maintains one of the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, sold to it by various parties.

Some of the Sovereign States' allies have also taken the "time capsule" model of social organization, though politically they are all effectively military juntas. The Russian Empire's society is very much like that of the Russian Empire of 1890, complete with a new nobility, while the Confederate States is an idealized version of the historical Confederacy, complete with institutional racism that its pro-segregation founders sought to maintain on Mars. The Republic of Vietnam and Republic of China, on the other hand, have modeled themselves off Japan, and their biodomes resemble the urban sprawl of Tokyo. GLADIUS maintains two major bases on Mars, staffed mostly by Sovereign States volunteers.

The Martian Workers' Pact is similarly dominated by the Soviet Provisional Government. To the Provisional Government, it is the Soviet Union, while the people in Moscow are traitors to the Motherland. The Provisional Government maintains the old Soviet Union's heavy-handed autocracy, though its leadership is split between the KGB, Communist Party, and the military. Seeking to emulate Stalin, the Provisional Government has pursued a course of extreme industrialization, though they are wise enough to engage in trade with China and Persephone Aerospace to fill the gaps in their productive capabilities. The Soviets have a large, mostly automated military, which they claim is necessary to keep the "Moscow traitors" away.

The other communist states are similarly hardline societies, and their communist parties are effectively satellites of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Martian Branch. The Byelorussian Soviet broke off from the Soviet Union during the chaos of the war, and while the Provisional Government originally wanted to bring them into the fold, they proved to be too necessary an ally and too committed to the idea of independence to be directly absorbed. There is distrust between the two sides, as the Byelorussians suspect that the Provisional Government may fall to the same corruption as Moscow.

The European Peoples' Republic was formed from various far left Western European organizations, and while it started out as vehemently anti-Soviet, the Provisional Government's seeming dedication to the communist ideal and the natural progression of careerism within any institution turned them into Provisional Government puppets, much like the Warsaw Pact on Earth. The DPRK has maintained the Kim Dynasty, and the Arduous Exodus to Mars is seen as nothing less than a miracle organized by the great Kim Ju-ae. The People's Republic of New Africa is a mirror of the Confederate States, only that the roles of blacks and whites are reversed. Lastly, Afghanistan, established on Mars after the pro-Soviet Afghans were defeated on Earth, is a rabidly atheist state that occasionally sends agitators to Afghanistan on Earth.

The Axis Powers are even more isolated and stagnant than the other Martian blocs. Too powerful to be outright destroyed, the UN settled for cutting a deal with the Axis: they'd move their operations to Mars, and have exclusive rights to settle around the Hellas Sea. The Axis agreed, and promptly established bases in the area and even cooperated with Mars' terraforming. However, after the Second American Civil War, the Axis have largely cut themselves off from the rest of the Solar System, content to develop on their own. The societies of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan are easily recognizable to anyone who lived during their time on Earth, though power is less centralized in one supreme leader due to strings of weak leaders over the decades. The Axis' unique technology is still of interest, a few innovations from the Axis states make it to the rest of the Solar System through the Spanish.

Elysium, formerly the site of French Mars, has become a desolate zone filled with minefields and separated by combat tunnels after its secession from the EU. The Kingdom of France and the Empire of France are nearly identical, being despotisms under the leadership of the local strongman's descendants. The only practical difference between the two is that the Kingdom of France claims to be led by a distant Bourbon descendant, while the Empire of France claims to be led by a Bonaparte, and that the Kingdom is Catholic while the Empire is atheist. These two French governments are rivaled by the French Republic, which actually is a functioning democracy, if prone to government shutdowns and threats of revolution.

The "National Homelands" were established by a UN initiative in 2020, along with its sister project on the Moon. It was through this initiative that South Vietnam, North Korea, the Confederate States, New Africa and the Republic of China were founded, but there are other states that have stayed out of the great powers' orbit founded through the initiative. The State of Palestine was the first state founded through the National Homelands project, though only moderate Palestinians vetted by the PLO were allowed to settle. This has resulted in Palestine becoming a stable democracy, if one that has strong antisemitic undertones in its society. The next was the Kingdom of Scotland, after Scotland's failed independence referendum, which has inadvertently become a time capsule for the 2040s-era United Kingdom. The same could be said of Quebec, founded at around the same time, although Quebec is strictly Francophone and did not admit Quebecois who did not have sufficient proficiency in French. Kurdistan followed, a state that modeled itself politically and socially off the United States to considerable success. It is now seen as an "Islamic" version of the United States, despite its secular government and society. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the State of Israel are the newest additions, and because of their origins as refugee states and the trauma of the Iran-Israel War, they are very reactionary ethno-religious states that refuse entry to anyone who is not a refugee from the war.

Modern Mars is a relatively peaceful place, and the environment is steadily becoming more Earthlike. Plant life is still difficult to establish, as there are nutrients in the Martian soil, but most Martian biodomes are verdant, self-sufficient communities. Tunnels, often with rail networks, connect Martian settlements with one another, and a burgeoning highway network is being created on the Tharsis Plateau. With humanity expanding to the Outer Solar System and taking greater advantage of the mineral resources of the Asteroid Belt, Mars has become a busy trading hub. Mars is getting richer and now has a population of over 600 million people. With plans underway for breaking ground on Mars' first space elevator, development can only speed up.