“By 2150, the population of Pan-Asia Cooperation citizens on Mars had exceeded 500,000. Of these 500,000, almost 80% were native ‘Martians’.” Lilith focused on Jiang Chen as she continued, “And in the land claiming game on Mars, all countries have overlooked a problem, that is, the sense of identity of the Mars citizens to the ‘sovereign state’.”
“A lot of young Martians have never been to Earth. They only heard about things on Earth from their grandparents and only learned about Earth through film and television.”
“Is there no internet?” Jiang Chen wondered.
“The discovery of Klein particles happened a long time after, and the application for ultra-long-distance communication was after the war.” As Lilith explained the context, she looked to Lin Lin, who had proudly raised her chest.
It was Lin Lin’s work that allowed communication through the Klein Particle Resonance Effect.
After a moment’s pause, Lilith continued in her undulating tone.
“Before that, the means of communication between the colony and the Earth relied mainly on electromagnetic waves, with an average delay of up to five minutes and a maximum delay of even close to half an hour. It is equivalent to shouting into the phone here, and waiting for a long time before it can be heard on Mars. If there was any solar wind, the loss of communication was extremely common. So in order to ensure the effective transmission of information, the communication between Earth and Mars required the same message to be delivered three times.”
“The information lag directly led to the absence of information. Over time, the cultural differences caused by the lack of information exchange had become greater and greater, and this has laid the groundwork for future conflicts.”
“The 2150 Houston Convention was viewed as a wise decision by citizens of all nations, but was regarded as a shameful betrayal by most Martians. Riots of considerable scale broke out across the colonies, especially those colonies that were about to be put on the abolition list. Although countries introduced plans, it was clear that the highly autonomous colonies did not agree with them.”
“Almost a month after the signing of the Houston Convention, a total of 59 Pan-Asia, NATO, and Soviet colonies jointly signed the twenty second-century version of the Declaration of Independence, announced the establishment of the Mars Federation, and organized a coup. With the support of some officers, the insurgents successfully controlled all three space elevators on Mars and forced all the uncertain colonies to join the federation.”
“Don’t they long for Earth?” Jiang Chen was intrigued.
“Only people who haven’t been to the Mars colonies will have such confusion,” Lilith said with the same expressionless face, “According to the information in my database, the development of the Mars colonies was not too far behind the cities on Earth. And with the construction of the artificial biosphere, the landscape on Mars was not much worse compared to Earth. As for industrial capacity, I have no specific data to give you, but refer to the ‘Development of the Pan-Asia Cooperation Steel Industry in 2145’ published by the Pan-Asia Academy of Social Sciences. Based on the report, the steel output of the Pan-Asia Mars colonies accounted for 27% of the entire Pan-Asia steel output, and was in a serious surplus.”
“…after declaring independence, can the Mars colonies be self-sufficient?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Of course not, there was no way to be self-sufficient. On Mars, the helium-3 reserves were extremely low. Once the nuclear fusion battery imported from the Moon was interrupted, all Mars colonies were finished.” After a pause, Lilith continued, “So, after Mars colonies declared independence, it immediately declared war on Earth and sent a fleet to ‘liberate’ the Moon.”
“Fleet?” Jiang Chen was dumbfounded. “Where did the fleet come from?”
“Don’t forget the three space elevators that the insurgents controlled at the start of the coup, as well as the starships in the space port,” Lilith explained. “Because there was no need for warfare, no one prepared for a Mars Independence. Back then, the battleships were modified transport ships. The modification was simple and crude as they installed as many electromagnetic pulse cannons as possible on them.”
“You just asked why you didn’t hear any news about Mars,” Lilith looked at Lin Lin. “Because from that time on, the news from Mars were censored. As for the reason for the censorship, perhaps it was because of the unwillingness to admit the failure of the development strategy in the past decade on Mars, or perhaps it was also due to other political considerations. In any case, the Pan-Asia Cooperation did implement strict censorship on Mars after 2150. It would be understandable since twenty years before you were born, no news on Mars were broadcasted.”
Lin Lin opened her mouth in astonishment.
And Jiang Chen continued to frown, still confused with the situation.
“But what does this have to do with the Gaia civilization?”
“This involves the highest-level secrets of the Pan-Asia Cooperation. Even I don’t know,” Lilith shrugged. “But using the limited intelligence I have for analysis, it is not difficult for us to draw conclusions that is close to the truth.”
Holding up one finger, Lilith went on to say, “First, the Pan-Asia Cooperation, the NATO, and the Soviet Union’s censor must be based on the premise that the three-nation coalition was victorious against the Mars Federation rebels, in epic fashion.”
Jiang Chen nodded and agreed with her statement.
Not only in epic fashion, the Mars fleet perhaps did not even make it to the Moon before it was completely destroyed. Otherwise, it would be useless to censor the information when war was so close to Earth.
“Second,” Lilith raised her second finger. “Since the Earth forces suppressed the rebels in a short period of time, why would the news of the colony be censored for 20 years, and even remain censored after another world war?”
“It can’t be that they fought for 20 years?” Jiang Chen smiled.
“Without the Moon’s supply of nuclear fusion fuel, it was difficult for Mars Federation to last for even a year.” Lilith shook her head. “There is only one possibility that the news was to be censored forever, and that is a major accident happened on Mars that could not be made public.”
“For example?” Jiang Chen frowned as he seemed to have caught onto something.
“For example, everyone on Mars died,” Lilith said blankly.
Lin Lin, who was sitting next to them, gasped.“Ruling out the possibility that these people died in the hands of the Earth forces, since the goal of each nation was to suppress the coup, recover the occupied colonies, and not to kill civilians.” Lilith continued her logic, “We assume the independence war lasted for half a year.”
“During this half year, the Mars Federation insurgents discovered the relics of the Gaia civilization and saw hope in turning the tide of the battle again through the memory of the Gaia civilization. Immediately after they got the key, they began to excavate the ruins. Then finally, along the way, they turned on a nightmare switch, and ultimately killed everyone.”
“Devil Worms?” Jiang Chen was digesting the information as his eyebrows furrowed.
“Accurately speaking, it should be species native to Mars. Based on this conjecture, countries began to study Mars species and the Gaia civilization as early as 2152. The latter did not see any progress, and it was likely because the relics were destroyed. As for the former, the progress was quite impressive. From what I know, the X1 bacteria previously used to remove radiation but ended up coming a deadly virus, had part of the DNA strand from the radiation-resistant bacteria found on Mars.”
Jiang Chen attempted to puzzle everything together.
Suddenly, a thought came to his mind.
[Did the Brahma bring all those live alien species to Gliese 581g?
At least, some of the bugs.
