[Answer must be under 1,000 characters] [Use your own words] "PAX PER BELLUM Colonization On Veneris, 27 Pisces 195 TE [4 July 1976], Robert H. Lawrence, Jr and the crew of Ares-5 became the first human beings to set foot on Mars, at the site that would eventually become the modern city of Primus. Because this sol fell on the Gregorian date "4 July 1976", on the bicentennial of American independence, the anniversary of the First Landing, and the start of Martian civilization, is still referred to as the "Fourth of July", even after the adoption of the Darian Calendar five annums later on 1 Sagitarius 200 TE [15 May 1985]. On 21 Rishabha 196 TE [7 October 1978], twins April and Eric Crenshaw were born in Primus Base to first-wave pioneers Thomas and May Crenshaw. Thirteen sols later, the third Martian child, Mitsuru Hiroi, is born in the first Japanese colony, Erijumu Base, to Mai Hiroi (father unknown), on 7 Gemini 196 TE [21 October 1978]. By Pisces 200 TE [November 1985], five annums after the first humans landed on Mars, the population was already at 5,000 colonists, mostly in the American and Japanese colonies. 95% of this growth was via colonist arriving from Earth, however, signs were already pointing to an anomalously high birth rate on the Red Planet, attributable to a number of factors and in spite of efforts at contraception. Concerns around transporting infants and children across interplanetary space mean that these Martian births have to stay on Mars, which spurs ever-mounting investment in the colonies to ensure that they can sustain a growing population, creating a positive feedback loop of more settlers and more supplies. And soon more babies. On 6 Aquarius 196 TE [6 March 1978], the Mars Treaty Organization (or MTO) was founded following the Houston Conference, which formally carved up Mars into territorial claims among the Conference's attendees (mostly the US and its Cold War-era allies). On 17 Leo 201 TE [19 July 1988], the International Mars Forces Command (IMFC) was established as a means of organizing and coordinating the various military detachments deployed to Mars. A product of late Cold War paranoia around the potential for warfare in the colonies, in essence, the IMFC would allow for the coordination of the American, Japanese, British and French military assets present on Mars at the time. In practice, most of these military personnel were put to work building or maintaining infrastructure, or assisting with various scientific ventures. In theory, the forces being coordinated by the IMFC answered to their respective colonial governments via the MTO, as surrogates for national governments back on Earth. In practice, the IMFC answered to the MTO. With the end of the Cold War, the realities of life on Mars culminated in the reformation of the IMFC into MarsCom on 16 Leo 208 TE [17 September 2001], placing the control of the IMFC's uniformed assets under the direct control of the MTO. A somewhat controversial move at the time on both Earth and Mars, but ultimately reflective of the situation on Mars at the time. Whereas the IMFC was an ostensibly military organization more often tasked with non-military activities, MarsCom was founded as a three-part service overseeing intercolonial military assets (Defense Command), and pan-Martian infrastructure construction, maintenance, medical and emergency services (Civil Command), as well as innovating new in-situ technologies, exploration and the spread of knowledge across the colonies (Science Command), all while maintaining a military-style rank hierarchy. An unusual development, though perhaps apropos for the planet named after the god of war. Speaking of, on 28 Mithuna 197 TE [27 October 1980], Earthling scientist Carl Sagan popularized the Shield of Ares on the fifth episode of his popular TV program, Cosmos. Sagan advocated for the symbol, consisting of a circle with a triangular lambda inside (sometimes said to represent the mighty peak of Olympus Mons), reminiscent of an ancient Spartan warrior's shield, as a new, gender-neutral symbol of Mars, to replace the Red Planet's more ancient symbol, due to the latter's conflation with the masculine sex. The Shield will go on to become a ubiquitous symbol in Martian iconography, featured on many Martian flags throughout history. On 4 Taurus 197 TE [9 July 1980], evidence of past and current Martian life is discovered. The simple, microscopic extremophiles are dubbed "greenmen" (Cohortsuva musgravei) after Ares-5 astronaut Story Musgrave remarks at the time "we found the little green men on Mars". These would be the first of many microbial organisms found beneath the surface of Mars, the final remnants of a bygone Martian biosphere. On 28 Capricornus 199 TE [21 September 1983], a startling discovery uncovered an entire second branch of Martian life, when ESA pioneers Jean-Francois Vandamme and Ricardo Gallerani discover that a series of anomalous rock formations on Mars were not only biological in nature, but still alive. Dubbed "Amphiformes", these bizarre, sessile organisms blur the line between "life" and "non-life", when they begin growing after exposure to moisture and oxygen, and forming unusual shapes resembling rocky corals. It is believed that Amphiformes represent a completely separate line of organic life from the greenmen, suggesting that abiogenesis occurred at least twice on Mars. Additionally, the Amphiformes are believed to have remained in a fossil-like hibernation state for billions of annums as conditions on Mars gradually worsened, while remaining "alive" the entire time. On 1 Sagittarius 200 TE [15 May 1985], Thomas Gangale's Darian Calendar was formally adopted by the Mars Treaty Organization, becoming standard across all Martian colonies by the close of the annum. In place of the 12-month Gregorian "year", the Darian calendar opts for an "annum" divided into 24 months - 12 named after the signs of the Western Zodiac, and 12 after the signs of the Indian Zodiac. The term "year" persists on Mars, to describe the halves of a given annum. "New Years" on Mars is a mid-annum celebration, while "Novannum" (a term of dubious Latin that makes linguists cry) is a celebration of the transition between annums. All but two months have 28 sols. Each sol is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 36 seconds. The last minutes and seconds of the sol are known as "Runt Hour", a time of the sol considered spooky and superstitious among Martians. The seven sols of the week are Solis, Lunae, Martis, Mercurii, Jovis, Veneris and Saturni. The calendar's start date roughly corresponds with the Earth-years of 1609/1610, when Kepler published his first two laws of planetary motion, as well as Galileo's first observations of the phases of Mars, beginning the "Telescopic Epoch" (TE). In 212 [2007], the first construction phase began on the Halo orbital ring around Mars, beginning with a rotating cable encircling the planet above the equator. All would go according to plan and decades later in 230 [2041], six "ring stations" (Lawrence, Musgrave, Collins, Aldrin, O'Leary and Overmayer) were added atop the cable, remaining at static locations above the Martian equator via superconducting magnets, and connected to the surface via space elevators completed in 241 [2062]. Generally-speaking, from 195 [1975], until 215 [2013], everything seemed to be going smoothly in the Martian colonies, with constant growth and so many success stories. This all began to change with the first sighting of Comet Barrus on 11 Aires 207 TE [10 March 1999]. The Great Impact On Lunae 11 Aires 207 [10 March 1999], a comet is discovered by astronomer Jon Barrus atop Olympus Mons, determined to be on a trajectory for a close approach to Mars, with an estimated 1 in 200,000 chance of impact. "Comet Barrus" is estimated to be 1.5 kilometers in diameter, and composed chiefly of water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and nitrogen. Over the next eight annums, Comet Barrus drew closer and closer to Mars, changing from an anticipated light show that would dazzle the Martian colonies, to an increasingly inevitable impact. On 18 Kanya 209 TE [30 October 2003], astronomers predicted that Comet Barrus had a 1 in 120,000 chance of impacting Mars. On 11 Virgo 210 TE [12 August 2005], this became a 1 in 8,000 chance of impacting Mars. By 5 Gemini 212 TE [21 November 2008], Comet Barrus had a 1 in 2,000 chance of impacting Mars, and by 23 Mina 213 TE [6 June 2010], they said Barrus had a 1 in 1,250 chance of impacting Mars. Finally, on 12 Gemini 214 TE [2 September 2012], observation confirmed that Comet Barrus had a 1 in 10 chance of impacting Mars, with a 1 in 50 chance of hitting the North Pole. The MTO demarcated a 400-kilometer exclusion zone around the expected hypocenter of impact at the Martian North Pole. Here, researchers who had discovered vibrant colonies of indigenous Martian life forms within the polar ice, did their best to evacuate as many samples as they could in the final annum before impact, with some dying from exhaustion. On Jovis 5 Taurus 215 TE [17 May 2014], at 23:18, millions watched Comet Barrus approach and streak across the sky for up to a minute, before landing in the meters-thick sheet of frozen CO2 at the North Pole, with the force of 117 gigatons of TNT, sublimating almost all of it instantly, though with relatively little ejecta. Fears of super-quakes rattling the whole planet and causing massive casualties, or apocalyptic dust clouds snuffing out solar power across the planet, turned out to be unfounded, as while serious damage was recorded in the north, for most Martians, dishes broke, pendulum clocks stopped, and the ground shook for a few moments. More important than the impact itself, the flash-sublimation of 650 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, water-ice, ammonia, nitrogen, hydrogen and methane (either contained in the ice sheet or within the comet itself), briefly deluged a large area of the Martian north with frozen watery slush, while the immense levels of sudden heat from the colossal explosion began a short-lived warming trend all across Mars. This alone would not be enough to transform Mars into a paradise, and with enough time everything would revert to the way things were before the impact. But only if nothing was done. The Red-Blue Debate The subject of "terraforming" was already being talked about as early as the 1990s, however, interest perked up after the possibility of Barrus altering the Martian climate came into focus, and post-impact, it reached a fevered pitch, even as MarsCom was busy assessing damage in the northern colonies. Opponents of terraforming saw it as too ambitious, too expensive or too impractical, while proponents saw it as the only way forward for Martian civilization, and preferred the term "noaforming", as they saw the process of making Mars more habitable as "returning" Mars to its warmer, wetter state in the Noachian Epoch. By contrast, some of the more doctrinaire and philosophical opponents of noaforming believed it wasn't man's place to "pollute" Mars in such a way, that it was a form of terrestrial chauvinism, that Mars' natural beauty was worth preserving for future generations. A recurring topic of discussion on Mars was the matter of water. From the earliest sols on Mars, most of the water used by colonists was extracted from underground ice sources, which often accumulated in the lowest-lying regions of the planet along with other ices, where the planet's ancient hydrosphere pooled as the changing environment caused it to recede and freeze. After the Great Impact of 215, however, pools of hypersaline slush and half-frozen mud appeared in these lowland craters and canyons, as microscopic crystals of frozen water across the planet began melting. This injected considerable ambiguity into a very important component of the Noaforming Question, which was whether or not Mars had enough water to sustain its growing civilization. According to the Blues, there was not enough water readily-available to sustain current populations or the industries keeping them alive on a sol-to-sol basis. Mars had lost too much water over the last few billion years, and for Martians to call the place home, they would need more, or else a global water crisis was inevitable. However, according to the Reds, this was not the case. Mars, in fact, had plenty of water, and more, while nice, wasn't required, and they would point to the slush and the mud, as evidence of this fact, as well as advances in drilling technology which would enable access to deeper aquifers and permafrost. Others, of a more conspiratorial bent, believed that "Peak Water" was in fact a scheme to justify further regulatory control over water resources and/or increased power being given to the MTO. The first serious proposal for large-scale noaforming was presented before the MTO General Assembly in Primus, on 3 Leo 217 TE [8 August 2018]. The "Blue Mars Plan" called for, among other things, the use of thousands of nuclear explosives, redirecting comets to impact Mars, unproven methods of genetic engineering as-yet beyond the reach of then-current Martian biotech, massive infrastructure projects requiring dramatic expansion of MarsCom's capabilities, and, most controversially, the mass-eviction of the northern colonies to make way for an ocean in the north. The Blue Mars plan was ultimately rejected by the Assembly, but only narrowly, and was expected to be revisited at a much later date. Growing Pains While the debate over noaforming drew the philosophical and ideological battle lines for the RBW, it was the rapid growth of colonial civilization on Mars that would make war inevitable. In 200 [1985], less than five annums after the first humans set foot on Mars, the Martian population was already at 5,000 colonists, mostly in the American and Japanese colonies. 95% of the growth is via colonists arriving from Earth, however signs were already pointing to an anomalously high birth rate on the Red Planet, attributable to a number of factors, and in spite of efforts at contraception. In 24 Makara 209 TE [5 August 2002], Neo-Tokyo became the first settlement on Mars with a population greater than 100,000. In 23 Libra 211 TE [8 September 2007], Mars reached one million people, and at the time, everyone assumed it would reach two million by the next decade, only for there to be three million Martians by 11 Aquarius 221 TE [17 March 2025]. In 206 [1996], the first of six AEGIS satellites were deployed at Mars-Sol L1 to create a magnetosheath disrupting incoming solar wind. By 214 [2012], the AEGIS array had lowered surface radiation levels by 45%, allowing for lower standards for radiation shielding, and the dramatic expansion of housing, growth in trade thanks to lighter vehicles, and as a result, a rise in both immigration from Earth and birthrates at home. The growing Martian population, and more importantly, the rise of both parents and the youth as a new, formidable voting bloc, reinvigorated interest in noaforming, as the future of Mars became less that of outposts of Earthling civilization, and more a question of what shape or direction an independent Martian civilization would take. Perceptions of Earthlings by Martians of Earthlings have always been...complicated. From the earliest sols, the idea of the "colonies" on Mars being "colonies" in the old-fashioned sense that Spanish America was ruled from Madrid, or Australia from London, was almost entirely a legal fiction. Insofar as the colonies were still reliant upon industry and supplies from Earth early on, the drive in every offworld colony had been to become as self-sufficient as possible, as quickly as possible, and from the start, colonies were de facto self-governing, lacking representation in their Earthly "motherlands", but continuing to operate under Earthling laws where they were still applicable or practical, mostly for the sake of consistency. In the event of an emergency, anything that needed to be brought in from Earth wasn't a realistic option, not unless it was already on the way. Perceptions of Earth among early Martian colonists very quickly became critical. The fact was, your average Martian didn't have time to parse through information coming from Earth for nuance, and as a result, only the most exceptionally bad or unusual news arrived on Mars, or to be precise, reached Martian ears and eyes. Many colonists were themselves dissidents and oddballs dissatisfied in one way or another with life on Earth, and eager to settle on Mars to pursue their own dreams of frontier life. Very often these dreams failed to materialize and these brave pioneers found themselves adapting to lives much less cozy than they imagined, the sunk-cost fallacy led many to rationalize their decisions to move to Mars by inventing thousands of other reasons why they left the Earth. This would all go on to inform what Martian children were taught about the Earth. For them, the Earth was more of an abstraction than a real place, something they were told about. Some persons born on Mars were entranced by the Earth's beauty, and a few Martians would even migrate to the Earth, but these were surprisingly few in number. Because when all you have is a life on Mars, you appreciate the little things, the red dunes and pink skies, the simple routines of colonial life, the strong sense of community. Earth's beauty and comfort was offset in its appeal by the perception of Earthlings as vain, atomized, unfocused, vulgar, chaotic and degenerate. The Earth was a wealth of lessons to be learned. For some, this meant jotting down notes about the planet's many food webs and climatic models, to assist with noaforming plans, while other Martians simply grew more appreciative of the Red Planet they already had and wanted to avoid what they saw as Earth's faults. It's hard to care about Earth when it's just a little blue dot, and Mars is the ground beneath your feet. The water in your cells. The iron in your blood. For persons moving between planets, who had already spent their formative years on one but relocated to another, the extreme separation from the Earth-Mother became a source of intense stress and anxiety, the only resolution to which was to learn to love your new planet, and this would become an intense love, love for the sake of survival itself. Indeed, separation from Earth is hypothesized by some historians to be the reason for the unusually-high birth rates in the early colonies; the lizard-brain believing that the Earth was destroyed, triggering an instinctual drive to perpetuate the species. It should come as no surprise then, that by the early 220s [2030s], many Martians grew tired of even the legal fiction of colonial control from Earth, and by the late 220s [2040s], political upheaval and instability on Earth coincided with a massive groundswell of support for independence in the colonies themselves, who by that point had very little in the way of institutional connections to Earth anyway. And one of the most essential players in the Martian independence movement, would go on to become one of the planet's greatest villains. Born in Tokyo, Japan on 19 Libra 201 TE [12 November 1988], Fumikage Gondo and his family moved to Mars when he was only one annum old. Growing up in the settlement of Neo-Kansai, despite not being born on Mars, Gondo would become one of the most important of the "Young Martians", the first generation of native-born Martian political leaders. An ambitious power-player more accustomed to working behind the scenes, he was nevertheless one of the fresh faces in the MTO who advocated for the legal independence of the Martian colonies, making a name for himself as the then-youngest MTO Minister for Emergency Management, when he handled the post-Barrus disaster relief. Over the years, he built up an extensive personal political machine that saw his allies, most of them Young Martians, occupying every single MTO ministry, and himself filling the General Secretary seat three times, with his allies alternating as GenSec between his terms. This was a machine with almost complete control over the MTO, lasting over 21 annums. Under his watch, the MTO greenlit the Blue Mars Plan, now dubbed "Project Genesis", on 8 Mesha 229 TE [20 August 2040], complete with all of its controversial provisions, including an adversarial relationship with Mars' lowland colonies which were written off as doomed to flood. Or at least, that's what Gondo's critics said. In reality, Gondo was a bit more callous than that. His policy, and that of the MTO, was to transfer the populations of the lowland colonies to higher ground, with no apparent plan for the continuity of the sovereignty of the colonies which were to be completely submerged over the next century. While popular history pins all blame on Gondo, the reality is that other states on Mars could have carved out territory for these colonies to reinstitute themselves in, but none wished to. And the governments of the colonies soon to be flooded had no willingness to go along with such a thing even if it were offered, unwilling to surrender the hard work of their grandfathers without a fight. Proposals to regulate flooding in some areas, such as a dam at the mouth of Valles Marineris, barriers along the entrance of the Isidis impact basin, or a system of pumps in Argyre or the Avalon Basin, were dismissed as too expensive or technically-infeasible. For Gondo, these protests were short-sighted provincialism, blind to the reality of Martian population growth, the strain on resources on Mars, and the inevitable collapse of the fragile modern conditions that every Martian took for granted. To that end, the most expedient and cost-effective way of producing a habitable atmosphere and hydrosphere was the only possible assurance of a future for human life on the Red Planet. If the masses couldn't understand this and fell back on their emotions, on their fetishization of what their fathers or grandfathers built, over the future of their children and grandchildren, then it wasn't the masses' choice to make. For Gondo, the death outside was the enemy, and if these so-called "Reds" chose to side with the enemy, he felt no compunction to entertain their demands. Gondo wasn't especially vocal about these views of his at the time. His actions (and those of his surrogates) spoke louder. The Antebellum By 13 Virgo 230 TE [28 March 2043], Mars' population had reached 12 million, again defying expert opinion back on Earth. That was also the annum that the Halo orbital ring was nearing completion, with Phase III construction underway on the elevators which would link the Martian surface to the six stations on the ring, named after the six Ares-5 crewmembers - Lawrence, O'Leary, Musgrave, Aldrin, Collins and Overmayer. The 230s, however, was also the decade of acceleration in tensions between Reds and Blues. In particular, the water debates of decades prior had gotten far less civil. Many Blues fully believed that water and air resources were becoming unviable for the long-term survival of a growing Martian civilization, with some fearing a collapse by the 290s [2150s], and they felt vindicated in their alarmism by upticks in air and water costs. The Reds saw the data differently and believed that the rise in these costs had to do with water-hoarding, that the powers-that-be were holding back water resources to justify their pro-noaforming agenda. What could have been calm, rational debates about economics instead turned to shouting matches and soon fell to fisticuffs, as alarmism and conspiracy theories ruled the day. On 14 Leo 234 TE [11 August 2050], a 21-kiloton nuclear device codenamed "Shinra", was detonated underground in the Cimmerian wastes, sending literal and proverbial shockwaves across Mars and beyond. Intended purely for peaceful motives, many regard it as too much power being entrusted in the MTO, spurring homegrown anti-MTO militia movements all across Mars, many of them unified ideologically by a mix of distrust in the MTO and opposition to Project Genesis. And although Mars was not party to any treaty pertaining to nuclear technology or arms, the reaction to the Shinra Test back on Earth was extremely negative, culminating in UN sanctions against Mars, prohibiting transfers of nuclear technology from Earth to Mars, including for civilian nuclear energy. Many commentators remark that these sanctions are too little and too late to put much of a dent in Mars' in-situ nuclear industry, and, if anything, creates a brief spot of agreement between both Reds and Blues against the Earth. The importance of nuclear energy to basic survival on Mars leads many Martians (regardless of their ideology or the actual impact of these sanctions) to take exception to the Earthlings' cadness. This was partially General Secretary Gondo's intention at the time, however, it turned out more people were upset about the detonation itself, and what it meant for the firepower at the command of the Mars Treaty Organization. By 11 Kanya 240 TE [12 February 2062], the increasingly-angry Red Planet's population had grown to 30 million, with a median age of 7.5 annums [15 Earth-years]. This was an exciting time to be alive. Martian popular culture had truly come into its own, with Martian books, shows and interactive media by Martian creatives and Martian companies, all finally outnumbering Terrestrial imports, and increasingly reflecting the vigorous, nervous energy of the Martian youth. Millions living their lives in enclosed, self-contained habitats and safe predictable routines, were thirsty for adventure, for a "good fight", for a chance to save the world, and with ideologues and exciting narratives for and against Project Genesis, many found themselves drawn to either side of the simmering conflict. Legally, national governments on Mars were not able to build standing armies, and military assets were to be relegated to DefCom, and therefore the MTO. However, loopholes existed for militias and constabularies, as well as for private ownership of arms. Red-leaning governments enabled the growth of armed protest movements, which eventually matured into well-armed, well-trained (albeit, mostly in VR simulations) paramilitary units complete with uniforms, weapons and even vehicles. On 21 Khumba 242 TE [25 October 2064], former rock star and convicted drug dealer turned militia leader Liam Merrick, saw his Avalon Red Commandos (ARC) complete their assimilation and merger of the other Red militia groups in the Avalon Basin, while in Valles Marineris, Utena Jackson of the Code Red Coalition (CRC) militia movement, announced her candidacy in the 244 [2068] Tharsis Commonwealth presidential election, running on a Red political platform. Social media firebrand Sultan Al-Khatib (the great-grandson of an ex-UAE war criminal) built up the Army for the Salvation of the Argyre Basin (ESCA) around his Napoleonic online persona and charismatic vision of unity between Christian and Islamic radicals drawn from Argyria's mixed Hispanic and Arab population, beginning in early 242. The eccentric Megallanian business tycoon and populist leader Ernesto "La Caja" Nores announced the creation of the Army of The North (AoTN), bringing together the broadest and most varied coalition of ideologies and characters imaginable, unified in their hatred of Project Genesis and the MTO. And, while beginning originally with radical students from Neo-Tokyo, the Red Planet Revolutionary Ronin (RPR2) grew to encompass not only rebels in the low-lying Elysium Planitia, but other malcontents across Kasei, under the leadership of outspoken Red ideologue Minako Hiyama. The growth of these militias did not go unseen, however, and with a spate of low-level incidents and confrontations, DefCom began expansion for the first time since its founding. A new need for counter-terrorism and, potentially, conventional warfare capabilities, led to the mass-promotion of junior officers up to more senior roles. A new need for more weapons, more body armor, more and more of everything, led to the growth of these industries on Mars. While early on, Red extremists were emboldened by DefCom's relative weakness to occupy and blockade Genesis facilities unarmed in the 230s, the expansion of DefCom's capabilities, and the increasing number of appearances of the previously-obscure organization in public, inflamed concerns about unwarranted MTO power creep, and encouraged more activists to begin taking up arms and preparing to fight the MTO and MarsCom with full force if need be. This became a feedback loop, with Reds growing more bold and more hardline in their pronouncements and condemnations of the established order as DefCom grew to become the face of MTO policymaking, and Blues getting anxious and enlisting in MarsCom at record rates, either out of concern for the growing instability of the Redist movements, or the career opportunities opening up from MarsCom's expansion, which made the Reds more and more upset, and so on and so on. At the same time, opposition to Gondo's corrupt and authoritarian ways was growing within MarsCom itself. Decades earlier, on 8 Vrishika 213 TE [23 August 2011], Martian colonist Etsuya Uchima of Neo-Tokyo published a treatise on his vision for a Martian "civic democracy". A former CivCom engineer, Uchima was displeased with the myopic visions of MTO bureaucrats, and advocated in his ebook, "Civic Democracy", for a system by which decisions regarding the use of MarsCom for pan-Martian projects were decided via elected rather than appointed representatives in democratic framework, reserved to MarsCom personnel, who he believed would have more of a stake and comprehension of the relevant issues. Widely mocked on both Earth and Mars for citing Robert Heinlein's 186 [1959] novel Starship Troopers (and even quoting passages thereof), and featuring manga-style illustrations of his arguments, Uchima's ebook nevertheless developed a cult following across Mars, and within elements of MarsCom, for decades to come. 5 Sagittarius 235 TE [18 March 2051] is the date commonly accepted as the first meeting of The Junta, a secret society of young and idealistic MarsCom commissioned officers who subscribed to Uchima's ideology of civic democracy, and opposed to the Gondoist status quo. The Junta was, in truth, a long march through the institutions of MarsCom, and Gondo's awareness of this clique was not enough for it to go away, them being so numerous that there was no way of removing them from power without destabilizing MarsCom itself. And, policy disagreements notwithstanding, support for Project Genesis was still very strong within the Junta. Indeed, the primary disagreement with Gondo's policies was that they were being made by undisciplined politicians and bureaucrats, in an undemocratic fashion, not by the experts connected to the actual processes of noaforming, who would be most informed to make the correct decisions and having a true stake in the project. Still, they didn't like the Reds any more than Gondo did. Though not a founding member of The Junta, a young and talented DefCom colonel by the name of Aaron James Lang rises to the top of The Junta's leadership by 241 [2062]. Between growing Red radicalization and Blue bellicosity, there was still a "Third Way" emerging that ostensibly rejected both notions of the Noaforming Crisis, and simply wished to be excluded from the seemingly-inevitable conflict looming on the horizon. These were the Greens, the neutrals, the non-aligned, the pacifists, the moderates, the slowformers, pantropists and worldhousers. There were self-described (or accused) Greens all over Mars, but the foremost exponent of the Green cause was the Green Five Non-Aligned Bloc, established on 12 Aries 238 TE [1 July 2057] as a group of five "landlocked" countries on Mars who wanted nothing to do with the Red-Blue tensions, and would collaborate over the course of the coming conflict to ensure none of their number were dragged into it. Similarly, dialogue between leaders on the Halo, Phobos and Deimos led to the creation of the Phalanx Eight (Deimos, Phobos, Lawrence Station, O'Leary Station, Musgrave Station, Collins Station, Aldrin Station and Overmyer Station), to encourage the neutrality and safety of Mars' orbital colonies in the event of conflict escalation. Compared to the Green Five, the Phalanx Eight was a much more informal association, more so a signal intended to encourage Gondo and his Red counterparts to start calming the Hell down and reach a negotiated compromise. In reality, Deimos and Phobos were much closer together via their own Brother Moons Compact, whilst the Halo stations were of course naturally linked together by the ring which bound them as one. However, the resolve for peace would soon be tested. Bloody Jovis The story of the Galileo University Massacre of 245 (better known as "Bloody Jovis"), begins almost a whole annum earlier in 244, with the Caliente Incident. On 1 Gemini 244 TE [24 January 2069], Minister for Emergency Management Stephanie Belloc was appointed General Secretary of the MTO. A protege of Fumikage Gondo, she had long been groomed for her new position by Gondo from her early sols as one of his staffers, and many believed she would represent a continuation of Gondo's political machine, as Gondo himself was set to retire from politics within the next annum. On 28 Mithuna 244 TE [22 March 2069], per Belloc's controversial Northern Relocation Program, residents of the settlement of Caliente in the Chilean Republic of Magellan were selected as the pilot group to be moved to new homes in Westmoreland, New Saigon. When MTO agents arrived to officiate this population transfer, elements of the Magellan People's Brigade (a unit of the Army of The North) attacked and killed these agents. The massacre was celebrated by Reds across Mars, while Magellanian representatives at the MTO protested the NRP by walking out of the Assembly shortly after the attack. The NRP was scrapped, but the Magellanian representatives did not return, and more would soon join them in leaving. Among those killed in the Caliente Incident, was Kotaro Hamada, son of Lieutenant Colonel Isoroku Hamada, of DefCom. On 12 Virgo 244 TE [26 July 2069], while leaving a rally in Shangri-La, Shambhala, Tharsis Commonwealth presidential candidate Utena Jackson is attacked by an unknown man with a .22 caliber pistol. She is shot five times, including once in her right eye. The media claims this was an attack by a "rival" within the CRC, while Jackson supporters assume an MTO operative was behind it. The truth is never uncovered, and many historians believe this was a lone wolf attack. Despite losing her eye, Jackson continues her campaign for president of the Tharsis Commonwealth. Later that month, despite the attack galvanizing her supporters, Jackson is unable to secure victory in the election, sparking protests, armed demonstrations and riots across Tharsis in general, Valles Marineris in particular, as well as all over Mars, as fellow Red movements show solidarity with Jackson. However, her attempted assassination and subsequent loss ultimately have the unfortunate impact of discrediting electoral activism within the Red movement, while validating more militant causes. Apart from an uptick in demonstrations and the the occasional incident which managed to occupy a whole 24 hours of the news cycle before dying back down, the second year of 244 and the first year of 245 would prove to be the eye of the proverbial storm, before Mars reached the true point of no-return. On 5 Pisces 245 TE [27 June 2070], Galileo University, in the Euromartian capital of Axiom, is occupied by the Antisea protest movement and radical Red students led by controversial political science professor Jean-Paul Lemay, a strong advocate against noaforming who was threatened with losing tenure over his vocal political beliefs and advocacy of violence and sabotage after Jackson's attempted assassination. Students occupy the campus for several weeks, refusing to let faculty members leave until they agree to restore Lemay's tenure. After this demand is met, the faculty members are released, however, Lemay and Antisea refuse to end the occupation of Galileo University until Project Genesis is canceled. On Jovis, 12 Mina 245 TE [2 August 2070], at 16:09, after over a month, Antisea's occupation of Galileo University is finally put down with violent force by elements of DefCom's 3rd Infantry Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Isoroku Hamada, alongside officers of the Axiom Special Constabulary. Lemay is killed in the ensuing attack, footage of which goes viral across Mars as he is shot in the chest several times, along with images of his students being shot while surrendering to the Constabulary, a pregnant student being kicked to death by DefCom soldiers, and a number of protestors being detained with black bags thrown over their head. These students are found sols later, beaten to death so badly, they are only identified by their dental records. In total, nearly 150 students were killed on Bloody Jovis. Elements of the Euromartian Defense Forces (EmDF) militia arrived later in the evening, attempting to stop the killings. Hamada's forces were able to retreat and avoid encirclement by the EmDF, but for all intents and purposes, Axiom was now under EmDF control. On Veneris, 10 Mina 245 TE [31 July 2070], Lieutenant Colonel Hamada is reprimanded by MarsCom Supreme Commander Tobias Falco, who slaps Hamada after he attempts to justify his actions in Axiom. As a consequence, Falco, the longest-serving supreme commander in MarsCom history and easily its most respected and qualified officer, is demoted to General by GenSec Belloc, and is replaced as Supreme Commander by Elias Garza, a frequent guest to Gondo's shindigs. After the horror at Galileo University and mounting pressure by MarsCom security forces, paramilitary organizations across Mars come together to create the United Forces, consisting of the Euromartian Defense Forces, the Avalon Red Commandos, the Army of The North, the Army for the Salvation of the Argyre Basin, the Red Planet Revolutionary Ronin and the Code Red Coalition. Levi Brahm, the creator of the EmDF, is chosen as Commander-in-Chief of the United Forces, and begins vociferously calling for Reds across Mars to prepare for war and revolution, outright advocating for the killing of as many Blues as possible as justice for the horrors of Bloody Jovis. Almost immediately, Red activity - both in the form of peaceful demonstrations and violent riots and terrorist attacks, picks up across Mars, MarsCom personnel begin announcing their defections, and the "Red Armies" of UniFor begin actively mobilizing, even as they swell with new recruits to over a million fighters all across Mars. The Fall of Primus On Mercurii, 4 Mesha 245 TE [20 September 2070], at 13:24, during a vote on controversial "anti-terrorism" legislation in response to Brahm's declaration of war, which would enable MarsCom troops to arrest civilians without charge, Tobias Falco and a cadre of ex-DefCom officers and special forces (purged from MarsCom shortly after Falco's dismissal) launched a surprise attack on the MTO General Assembly. Nobody is killed. Except for Isoroku Hamada, who is shot execution-style in the back of the head, on camera, by Falco himself, after being sentenced to death for 150 counts of murder at Galileo University. Addressing the public with GenSec Belloc and former GenSec Gondo as hostages in the background, Commander Falco reveals his defection to the United Forces as their new Commander-in-Chief, declares the city of Primus completely under the control of the Primus Occupation Force, and demands that MarsCom lay down its arms and halt all operations pertaining to Project Genesis until further notice. All across Mars, the Reds of the United Forces move on MarsCom and MTO assets, and the first true battles of the Red-Blue War begin with Red suborbital drop troops laying siege to MarsCom facilities across the planet, deployed via PTP rockets, and known MarsCom personnel in Red territory are rounded up in their homes. Supreme Commander Elias Garza is assassinated, along with several other members of the MarsCom senior staff, sowing confusion across the MarsCom chain of command. On the list of persons meant to be captured by Falco's men during the Fall of Primus, is Nicholas Weaver, Belloc's Deputy GenSec, who is evacuated on the last train out of Primus by men loyal to General Aaron Lang, who Weaver meets in a private car while enroute to a secured spaceport just outside Primus, for transport to Neo-Tokyo. After arriving at the spaceport, shortly after Falco's address, Weaver issues a public address of his own, saying that he is now Acting General Secretary, and General Lang is thereby appointed the new Supreme Commander of MarsCom. Weaver rejects Falco's demands, and Lang is ordered to retake Primus and put down the Red uprisings across Mars by any means necessary The Red-Blue War has now officially begun. The Bullet Famine The first six months of the war were fierce, with the United Forces attempting to warm and overwhelm MarsCom and neutralize all Project Genesis assets as quickly as possible. Suborbital landing craft crossed halfway across the planet to deploy at distant points behind Blue lines, while improvised ballistic missiles attempted to destroy various depots, bases and manufacturing centers. The bloodiest battles of this period include the likes of the First and Second Battle of the Dragon's Lair, where Red forces attempted to capture MarsCom's primary fast-breeder complex and nuclear explosive storage facility, the "Dragon's Lair", only to be repulsed by the elite troops of CivCom's Nuclear Corps both times. At the Battle of Whiskey Peak, meanwhile, Sultan Al-Khateb attempted to lead ESCA on a Hannibal-esque offensive through the Claritas Mountains into New California, only to be halted by dug-in DefCom troops for weeks, before the Blues staged a risky counter-offensive by charging down the gravely slopes in improvised metal sleds while firing rockets and machine guns at the Reds, and ultimately forcing ESCA to retreat. Meanwhile, a combination of AoTN and EmDF forces in Eurabia, invaded the heavily-Blue region of Cydonia, with the goal of linking up with the successful CRC uprisings in Valles Marineris, and further still linking up with Falco's salient in Primus, only for UniFor's "Chryse United Front", to become bogged down in the rugged Margaritifer Terra further south, where the rough terrain inhibited the movement of their robo-tank blitzkrieg. And the Avalon Red Commandos occupied the Blue-aligned countries of Rama and Vahram [former Thai and Iranian colonies, respectively], while joining the EmDF and AoTN on offensives into western Kasei, hoping to assist the rebellion in the lowlands of Elysium Planitia, and potentially lay siege to Neo-Tokyo along the slopes of Elysium itself. However, MarsCom recovered from the initial shock of UniFor's opening moves and held out against UniFor's offensives until they ran out of momentum by mid-Rishabha 245 [mid-November 2070], when Commander Lang began MarsCom's counter-offensive, transferring thousands of non-combat personnel from CivCom and SciCom to bolster DefCom's small numbers, and devoting to them as much firepower as he could muster to try and wipe out the Red forces. However, attempts to retake Primus, Lang's number one goal, failed spectacularly, and against all odds, despite how many men and guns Lang would throw at Primus, he would have no choice but to simply blockade the city for most of the war. By Cancer of 245 [February of 2071], only six months into the conflict, both sides encountered a most unusual development. They were almost out of ammo. Despite both sides amassing large arsenals during the Antebellum arms race, early in the RBW, both sides were so profligate with their use of firearms and ammunition, they were forced to open their reserves. Simply put, the Reds were confident in their ability to defeat MarsCom very quickly, and hadn't counted on them holding out as long as they did, or on Lang wresting control of the organization so quickly and launching his counter-attacks. Likewise, Lang, known for his appetite for risks and gambles, attempted to crush the Reds in a series of pitched battles which succeeded in repelling Reds from the most critical MarsCom infrastructure, but he was unable to complete his counter-attacks before the onset of the Bullet Famine, around the same time as his enemies also began running low on ammo. The problems leading to the Bullet Famine were manifold, and would come to shape not only how the war was executed, but the conflict's ultimate resolution. In general, there were shortages of tools needed to produce bullets and firearms. Shortages of these tools were easily remedied, as all of the materials to create the tools themselves and the ammunition, were readily available on Mars...except for one. Specifically, the key ingredient in smokeless powder, nitrocellulose. The key ingredients in nitrocellulose are sulfuric and nitric acid. Nitric acid is made from one hydrogen, one nitrogen and three oxygen atoms. Nitrogen is uncommon on Mars, and was up to this point prioritized for breathing gasses and fertilizer. On a planet with air taxes, one can see where a sudden surge in demand for nitrogen-based compounds would cause political, economic and technical problems. Many observers on Earth assumed this would end the conflict, but to their shock and horror, the Martians continued to fight anyway. Now with blunt and edged weapons. Both MarsCom and UniFor issued massive numbers of swords, clubs, axes, spears, glaives, shields, bows and crossbows to the largesse of their foot soldiers. Rifles were rationed out to high-priority fighters, though it's a myth that only elites were given firearms at all. Even after firearms later returned to the battlefields of the RBW, melee weapons stuck around. Martian Warfare Combat on Mars varied from place to place, with the strongest factor coming down to the atmosphere. Or rather the lack thereof. In the lowest-lying regions of Mars, such as along the bottom of Valles Marineris, one merely needed insulated clothing and an oxygen mask, however, across most of Mars, one still needed a pressurized suit, helmet and oxygen supply. By the early 240s [2060s], the average suit was thin enough for clothing and armor to be worn over top, while the average combat helmet retained a full-face transparent open-view screen for ease of communicating without radios via facial expressions, but with a tiltable face-shield, usually with a small slit or set of eyeholes, for protection from enemy bullets, shrapnel, blunt force or, y'know, falling over and smashing one's helmet open. The war pushed both sides to invest very extensively into cybernetics. Decades before the war, Mars was a popular destination for Nyctalopes (cyborg separatists from Earth who tried to establish communities on harsh worlds where they could "be themselves" in their cybernetic forms), and the use of full-body prosthetics enabled colonists to survive outside with only the need of an oxygen mask. This would prove a major advantage in the conflict, as decompression proved to be the cause of ~80% of fatalities in the war, and so rates of full-somatization skyrocketed during the war as eager volunteers agreed to have their brains permanently placed into prosthetic bodies. The most iconic weapon of the Bullet Famine was the Type-45 "Man-Opener" Infantry Naginata, the most widely-issued melee weapon of the war, with nearly fifteen million produced by the end of the war. Designed for mass-production, the Type-45 was in fact simply a modular, single-edged steel blade, averaging 85 centimeters in length with a slight curve and a socket designed to be affixed to various lengths of pole of essentially any material, typically metal or plastic, but also occasionally bamboo. Purpose-made and standardized Type-45 poles did exist however, and were widely issued - designed in a similarly modular fashion, wherein they could be bisected in the middle and screwed back together so that troops could switch between longer poles for fighting outside, or shorter poles for fighting indoors, while with with improvised handles, it was fairly common for Man-Openers to be used as improvised short swords. Other common MarsCom weapons included the Type-45 Combat Club, a solid-steel, studded club designed to bypass the relatively soft Kevlar armor and ceramic plates still widely-issued at the time, and break enemy helmets. Due to the prevalent use of Type-45 Naginata blades as improvised swords, purpose-made swords eventually made their way to the battlefield, in the form of the Type-46 "Kasei-Gunto" Combat Sword, a nihonto-styled sword that would be primarily issued to MarsCom NCOs. Besides being useful for slashing, stabbing, chopping and hacking through enemy suits, the kasei-gunto was also handy for relaying orders, as the extremely thin atmosphere of the time meant that sound was unreliable on the battlefield, radios were not always reliable and armored visors obscuring the helmet screen limited the ability of soldiers to read lips, ergo swords were often used to direct troop movements in the thick of battle. UniFor adopted a more varied range of melee weapons. The EmDF mass-produced lots and lots of axes, hammers and maces. The ARC, meanwhile, preferred multi-purpose implements, such as the Mark II Combat Shovel (a portable, foldable weapon able to double as an ax, saw or a pick) or the Mark I "Combi-Clubs" (used for clubbing, stabbing and chopping the enemy, as well as doubling as a crowbar du