ITT: We brainstorm urban myths, local customs and events that occur on Mars

ITT: We brainstorm urban myths, local customs and events that occur on Mars.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Le_Rouge
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/50739480/
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Space superstition
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Abandoned Moonbase Worldbuilding
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

The John Carter stuff is canon.

This guy wrote some great stuff set on Mars too

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Le_Rouge

There's rockets propelled by meditating yogis, giant flying tentacled brains that feed on people's memories, bat-folk vampire slavers and John Carter-esque antics

According to Nasa recently: Dormant volcanoes

Are we taking the first Martian colonists, a colonized Mars, or a successfully-settled Mars? Also, are we talking terraformed or original flavor?

One of the things I found really interesting with his take on Martian fantasy society was the incredibly strangling effect of honor. Like, you had guys with guns that fire irradiated rounds, but they have a gentleman's promise to only use those on one another, rather than on the myriad warriors in thongs carrying primitive spears. Maybe that can remain a thing: honor among fighters with actual tech.

successfully, half terra.

Rift point was an early martian settlement that started doing very well up until the storm of '32. Colonial HQ lost contact with rift as the dust enveloped the planet. After the storm passed, the town was empty, not even any bodies, all the settlers were just gone.

Who doesn't know the story of the Lost astronaut? It is said that a long time ago, one of the Mars explorers from the earliest missions to the planet died in an accident. Ever since then, many have spoken of seeing a mysterious lone figure wandering the wastes. The figure wears an old spacesuit and in many of these accounts, he appears before sandstorms, acting as a warning to anyone who sees him.

Other accounts tell of a radio transmission calling for help. As the receiver of the signal follows the instructions of the person on the other side and reaches the location, the person finds a dried up body in a weathered suit - apparently the person on the other side had been long dead.

>Stores dusters tell round the campfire
I love it.

Here it is. It was a short tread but there were a few newt ideas there:

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/50739480/

It has a core, it's pretty difficult to be a planet-sized object and be stone cold on the inside.

It's just not made of something as effective at keeping a magnetic field as earth's iron, I imagine, so once it gets even a little cold, all of it goes away.

I mean depending on who you ask the squatch is an interdimensional genetically modified alien scouting entity (holy shit do I love people who believe in bigfoot) so yeah, one will probably follow us to the red planet.

...

I met duster in the northern Badlands. He told me that deep within high country the truth of mars could be found. So I travelled far and came upon a high plateau of perma frost, granite and red sand. Amongst the desolation sat a great plinth and tumbled down statue. Carved upon the base of the statue in the old tongue read 'I am Ozymandis, King of kings. Look upon my works you mighty and despair' [spoiler/]

...

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/

There would definitely be festivals for the Day of Departure, and Day of Arrival.

Out on Mars the Winking Lizard
Lies just left beyond the gate
Lady Stella does the pouring
And you never have to wait
For the rum that burns your gizzard
And incinerates your brain
And you'll hear the tales of Mars
Before the city slickers came

They say a number of expeditions were allegedly sent to Mars prior to the "first" landing - all failed in one way or another and all information related to them was hidden by the agencies that sent them. While many call these stories fake, people find pieces of scrap metal out there every once in a while and some have come forward with images of flags and tracks but their authenticity has been put under question.
Could it be? Do history archives contain the wrong names? Do the true first "Martians" lie buried somewhere in the vast red plains?

You hear about the Mariner Valley settlement? The Government are saying it was some sort of magnetospheric failure. Cooked the colonists to a fine crisp. General quarantine and all that. Well that doesn't make a lick of sense to me. That far north? And this close to Aphelion? Gamma levels should well below tolerance limits, especially in the canyons.

My friend Chris? He works in one of the med-centres where they were treating the rescue teams, the ones that came back. He says they were trying to glue the poor bastards back together. Like something ripped em open. I don't think radiation did that.

There's something fucked up going on at Mariner. They were digging right down to the mantle, or something. Part of that deep mining initiative. Maybe they went and found something. I don't know about you but I think someone needs to go out there and make sure that whatever's going on there can't come and find us.

I want Mars explorers to be the modern equivalent of the sailors, passing weird stories while drinking Mars rock booze

...

You may also be interested in the "Spacer Superstition" threads we had some time ago. Most of them come from a time not-yet-come, after Humanity began colonizing the solar system but before spacefaring became entirely safe and commonplace. Some of the ideas from those threads are based on old sailing superstitions, some on modern day astronautical rituals and some on plain old space weirdness:

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Space superstition

It was, originally, but calling it that got too confusing.

>There is a valley, broad and deep, between two minor colonies that many younger Dusters assume to be a shortcut when they see it marked on their maps. Older hands will quickly out them off the idea of taking it, however, telling stories of folk who thought the same thing and tried to cross the valley to shave off a few hours in a cramped crawler. They say that the place is littered with vehicles, some damaged from collisions with older wrecks but most intact, pulled off and away from the dusty, rusty track meandering down the center of the valley. They say that airlocks are left wide open in these vehicles, and that their crews can be found asphyxiated inside or scattered around outside after having deliberately removed their helmets.

>The Liuzhou Kongsi halt operations in sector 29 amidst on-going investigation into recent power outages

I'm not buying it. A friend of mine knows a guy, some Namibian freelancer who runs a small business, transports supplies to far-off outposts. Anyway, during one of his trips north he apparently ran into some guy in a broken-down buggy. He had barely any supplies left and he claimed that his station was overrun. Apparently, the androids working in the mine started acting weird, they stopped working and wouldn't respond to any commands. When the technicians went down to try and fix the problem, the androids attacked. The guy the Namibian found made it out before they could get him and he tried to reach the next station down the line but a storm took him off-course.

Anyway, the Namibian dropped him off at his next stop. He said he couldn't take him to the outpost the man was going to because he was in a hurry but the guy it was alright, he would contact the company from there and then recharge his batteries before heading out. Hopefully he made it because last time I heard, there was a fire at that outpost.

The core of Mars is made of iron.

Parents on Mars tell their children that if they misbehave, the "Doomguy" will take them away. The origin of this mythical creature's name is unknown.

>The storm walkers
>said to be ghost of first settlers of mars who died in horrible conditions
>seeing them whilst in the middle of the storm is seen as a dark omen
>people say that those that see them would soon join them in their endless stride or that they herald a major catastrophe.

Stranger in a Strange Land?

I like to think that Mars would have a bit of a frontier feel about it, even centuries after colonisation. Most colonists live in small, self sufficient towns that are focussed around the production of a single vital resource for the overall colonisation effort. There are a few cities but they exist primarily as trading/training/academic hubs, rather than as any sort of cosmopolitan heartland. Transport between towns is readily available but they are sometimes separated by hundreds of Kilometers of untouched waste land that has yet to converted for habitation.

There are groups that have gone off reservation and tried to create their own autonomous settlements, but most have died, leaving eery prefab ghost towns dotted throughout the northern hemisphere. Ghost Town rescource reclamation is a profitable, albeit dangerous job, owing to the possibility of being caught in a dust storm without adequate protection.

That sounds really appealing.

David Bowie lives there.

There are still thirds out there.

Some say there is a cult of technophiles living on mars that horde any and all types of technology they find.

>david bowie appears to suffocating explorers in the wastes
"You're dying man."

Power Engineers at Martian mining stations are given complimentary / compulsory military training just like the Police officers and actual military. They are taught to break down a weapon, firing drills, and basic hand-to-hand.

They are never expected to be sent into combat, and they don't compete in military trials. By all rights, Power Generation is a lazy-sit-on-your butt desk job with the occasional day of swinging a wrench and a multimeter at a busted piece of equipment.

The administrators will say that it's for a "health and safety" purpose, but none of the other civilian positions are obligated to complete the training.

Does anyone know that sci-fi book were humanity gets forced to be genetic experiments through the galaxy? I forgot the name of the book.

When ships are launched from Earth to Mars, there are a number of duplicate systems added by the launch command. Life support, obviously, as well as communications and critical systems, like guidance computers.

However, after regular freightlines were established to Mars, it became common practice for crew to bring redundant copies of so-called "critical" systems out of their personal carryon luggage, such as extra tools for engineers, extra tethers, extra oxygen, extra medical supplies for doctors.

This grew into a tradition where every member packs something useful as a sacrifice outta their personal commodities. These bonus items are left on the ship, or given to the destination station when they arrive on Mars.

This practice has started to spread out of the freighters though, and now include the military has seen troops bringing "backup" guns if they can spare the room or single blank ammunition cartridges if they are lacking in space as a tongue-in-cheek jest / nod to their civilian brothers.

Even passengers on the colony ships have taken this to heart, and they'll often bring a "gift" item to the ship before departing for the Martian colonies. Usually food, or small trinkets, they'll offer it to the ship, or to the crew as a token of their passage.

Captains of most vessels are obligated to carry an extra book onboard the vessel - traditionally a backup Captain's log or ship's ledger, but more recently works of fiction or historical importance.

Martians really dont get on with Venusians.

Due to the impracticality of orienting towards Earth, a Martian Mecca is declared, in neutral territory, and a plaque implanted into the ground. It is against treaty to build near the site. Observing Muslims who wish to face towards Mecca are directed to orient towards the Martian Mecca.

>implying the muslims wouldn't construct a 3D compass that always points towards Mecca

Before attempting any large scale excavation or surface mining, it is convention to send out three radio broadcasts covering the area that the digging / blasting will occur.

One broadcast is sent to local crew, stations, vehicles, and workers, informing them of the impeding blast, and to complete safety checks / clear the area. Various people answer this broadcast, confirming their acknowledgement and relative safety.

One broadcast is sent on all-bands and the long-range communications to ensure that no foreigner or rival outpost has wandered into the blast zone, or to confirm that no other party considers the seismic activity as a weapons test. This broadcast is historically documented in case something happens to the outpost, then people will know what / where they were digging before mounting rescues. This broadcast is acknowledged by anyone who receives the signal.

The third broadcast is transmitted in the ultra low frequency radio so that the wave travels through the core of the planet. This broadcast is a short and professional thank you, a grace for receiving the minerals. This broadcast is not answered.

How do you bow (prone) vertically upwards? Or straight downwards?

Martian Polar Ice becomes a trendy thing for wealthier colonists to acquire, as a status symbol. Most water in the closed system of colony hydro-cyclers are Earth Imported, so having actual Martian ice quarried and brought back to the habitat is seen as decadent and luxurious.

Because there are few polar outposts, and driving a rover train to the poles is dangerous and isolating, few people get this ice legitimately. Instead, lots of industrious scammers fabricate mini-outposts in the canyons near major colonies to freeze water, and put martian soil around the cubes to earn a quick profit selling this "polar ice"

Anti-gravity chambers, some kind of cord like in bungee jumping or some other space tech

Martians cant understand Venusians' top of the line rapping skills

Prior to the arrival of large sandstorms, colonists will build large decorative kites, and anchor them outside. As the storm hits, the colonists watch the satellite feeds, watching the dustbowl from above, trying to spot their kites.

Some gambling has developed around this, betting on which kites would be the first to be seen, or which might sink again under the dust, or if any kites might become untethered and drift away.

Different colonies treat them like sports teams, and brag to other colonies if their kites weathered the storms for longer.

All Tomorrow's.

Some atheistfag with a hardon for christendom and all that it entails once did a brainstorm on how christianity(more specifically, orthodox christianity) would work on Mars on a forum.
The only thing that would change is that the liturgical calendar would be messed up.
Otherwise, you do your ad orientam, and your religious objects and rituals work in space as well.
Jurisdiction would be weird, though.
There is still a debate in catholicism under whom the Moon falls.

Landing site of the first muslim astronaut/settler. Or they just quietly drop the orienting towards mecca thing

>implying islam will still be around by the time people start colonizing space

You approach the muslim settlement of Ard'Ara
The uniformity of Mars still bleeds into these outskirts

As you pass the hills, gliding in a larger Rover, you start seeing a gigantic cube
After entering the gates, and doing the hospitalities, you get informed you need to wait a parts of a cycle to get accepted. As hospitality demands: you left most of your belongings inside your great scouting engine.
The waiting is tiresome, even with uneasy company and phased blocks of reading.
As you move into the building, it looks like its non eucilidan in nature, and you feel a nasuia.
As approuching the center, a area with transparant walls: A floating disc, you realize that gravity is mere distorted, and its facing in a odd direction. As your eyes adjust to the distorted light, you peek at the inner casing:
What you suppose is the sky is mars, is painted in odd geometrical shapes of red color, while the ground is painted with obsidian and vermilion. You feel a second layer of nausea, from realizing you are standing to the side

The center is near, the entrance at hand. You get stopped, and unusually get asked to do something as heretical as participating in washing you feet, and leaving your reinforced spring greaves at the massive water halls.
But as you have done that, and enter the center, you feel a disorientation you have not felt since a child, liberated from the tyranny of shoe shaped objects. You join the prayer, as you feel the discs slight vibration, and a slight discomfort.
But the bells tool, and you get to leave, as a compatriot.
Towards the pacing of time: you walk barefoot until you mount the Rover again, sensing you will miss this easy friendship, where men with bare feets can admire what they had lost since childhood

This is just the Commonwealth but with added /pol/ buzzwords. What a boring civ.

>Implying they are not so dead-set on facing Earth-Mecca that they will not construct a tilt-a-whirl chamber designed to orient itself at Earth at any time.

On the subject of religion on Mars, I doubt very much that any Martians would retain similar beliefs to modern Terrans.

The initial phases of colonisation call for highly specialised populations. Primarily scientists, engineers, horticulturalists and other mission-specific people. This leaves very little room for ministers of any sort of faith. These early settlers would bring their own faith with them, yes, but over generations, those beliefs would be remodeled to the requirements of their new environments.

One of the primary functions of religion within a nascent society is to create dogmatic adherence to certain principles, often aimed at safeguarding the society and its populace. I could well imagine lent or ramadan being co-opted as survival strategy during food shortages. Or sermons to be used to force isolated members of Martian society to interact with their fellow colonists, rather than going nuts.

This sort of separation and need to adapt could breed wholly new philosophies and religious practices in the Martian populace, perhaps to the point that Martian religion has no bearing on Terran religion.

Mars's lighter atmosphere has resuscitated the long-neglected industry of hot-air balloons and dirigibles. On some nights it can be hard to tell a high-flying zeppelin from one of the oblong moons zipping by in the sky

Dunno if it's been mentioned yet, but although an average Martian day is nominally only about 40 minutes longer than a Terran one, in reality Mars "wobbles" a fair bit more than Earth, such that a Martian day (called a sol, technically) can be up to 50 minutes shorter or 40 minutes longer than the average (on Earth the "wobble" is only about 14 minutes shorter or 16 minutes longer).

This is giving me ideas for my own setting, mars may have its own stuff but the real colony is on a terraformed venus, earth was taken over by a dictators hip and when it was toppled corporations took over it and mars, the various nations unhappy they didnt get earth back from the new order, founded a new colony on mars, likely full of traditional national values on its continents, inclung readapted religious values

I don't like the idea of there actually being life on Mars, though. I love the idea of tall tales about wandering Martians, or rumors of Martian cities somewhere in one of those canyons, but it's much better if it's just stories, and Mars really was as dead was we think it is nowadays.

For those of you who somehow did not stumble on this yet:
Read Ray Bradbury's Story about Mars.
There is - of course - Martian Chronicles. But he wrote a whole bunch of great stories taking place on Mars, often having strangely melancholic, magical or "casual" overtones. Look up Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed, Million Dollar Picnic, Blue Bottle, The Martian Ghosts etc...

Ray Bradbury is really an underappreciated author.

Balloons are less buoyant in a thinner atmosphere...

The current working theory is that Mars was, at one point in the early solar system, a habitable world, before an object impacted it and did enough damage to destabilise the magnetosphere and disperse the atmosphere. So there probably are fossils on mars.

>The martian moon society is determined to make the martian skyline "prettier than earth's" by dragging Phobos and Deimos closer to the red planet
>They've been told this is a bad idea by every respectable astronomical agency in the system, yet they still persist in this behavior.

That'd be a fun twist for Venus, but obviously in Venus you'd need to make them out of something that won't get vaporized or dissolved, and I'm not sure how doable that is.

I second this notion. His ideas were idealized as like a retro future -> Where rockets were cigar shaped with fire coming out the bottom and sweet tail fins, mixed in with a kind of 1950's Americana. In the Martian chronicles, actually, there's a really gripping scene that describes a bustling soda shop / malt shop, and then explains how all around it (on Mars) the town has become like a ghost town over time. Like the American dream got to Mars, and then faded away like dust in the wind. Hits you right in the feels.

I think that mood could work with the dusty, dying "Trans-Martian Highway" idea mentioned earlier in the thread:
It could be like Mars' version of Route 66. It was important, even vital to the colonization effort once upon a time, and had a slew of settlements and homesteads built up along its length, but once the big cities had been established and high-speed rail lines built between them, the Trans-Martian Highway was largely abandoned by anyone looking to stay competitive and profitable.

I prefer Sword and Planet Mars more than old-school scifi Mars, but carry on.
Loving the thread.

in actuality the fiqhi of this was sorted out in the 15 century by hanafi scholars they found that you should pray toward the direction earth rises in the sky, likewise on the moon you pray toward earth in general. what would be interesting is how Muslims would respond toward any rebellion against earth as they would perhaps be much more loyal.

Thanks for the response. Good to know.

As I recall, the Martian Chronicles had like a colony effort bringing people to Mars, but then a massive War on Earth brought most people back home. Or at least, more stopped coming. Then the colonies dried up.

Actually, it's been a while since I read him, but I really should give them another re-read. Good stuff.

Imagine that. Working your butt off in a Martian quarry / robot lab / scientific lab, and you look at the Earthrise. It's beautiful. The little blue dot of home. Obviously too small to see any detail, it looks like a particularly bright star, but throughout the day or night, you can track it through the sky. Until one night it flares a bit, and catches your attention unbidden. Your gut drops. You rush inside and pull up Earth satellite feeds. And then you see the pillars of fire, the atomic clouds bursting forth, dotting the landscape, and you know that as Earth burns, there is nothing you can do for it here. Your home planet, on fire, 225 million km away.

I know what to do in that case.
>stay there on mars and get comfy while everyone else rushes off for their families
>end up dodging a sickeningly fat chick who now is the only other inhabitant of mars I know of
>learn to be happy alone
>mfw

Jesus I hate this austic retard that can't be bothered to pant things besides stickman.

In all his sciency panels there is always a stickman with girls hair, girls are not into science you unfunny freak.

I doubt anyone's going to go back. If you're lucky everyone you know back there is dead; if not they're going to wish they were when the fallout hits and the chaos starts. It's also almost certainly a one way trip.

>Martian mining, research and settlement is in full swing with ships packed with tech and people arriving bi-yearly
>Earth is kill
That would be great for a horror setting really. Martian penal legions revolt, ships get lost in space on their way to mars, things start to move in the wastes, etc.

>dues vult, kinda gay
Its literally the same as saying inshallah

Cry more retard.

That would be great. Actually, it reminds me of another space horror thread that could be of inspirational use:

>"Abandoned Moonbase Worldbuilding"

>OP requests ideas for encounters and backstory of a lunar outpost abandoned since nuclear war broke out on earth, now rediscovered by the rebuilt terrestrial civilization. Good ideas, nightmare fuel and Moon Morlocks result.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Abandoned Moonbase Worldbuilding

it aint mine bruv, plus i am a former proddy so i dont love papist much

also sorry i dint mean to turn the thread to shit with my image it just the only relent one i had.

but as for op
what about things like desert trickster sprits, who will leave you alone if you feed them like the jinn in Jewish mythology. these martian jinn mess up electronics and steal babies create mirages and steal the genesheep.

if you spend to long in isolation, the god mars will speak to you. demanding that the blood must flow. hence hy so many isolated posted ending killing each other in a fury of violence

I can see that. Martian colonists don't really know what, exactly, is out there in all that dust and rock, but it likes to confuse and confound folk that travel across the red wastes. Maybe there are "shrines" or "offerings" left by the roadsides to try and appease these spirits.

Just a sign with the word "Croatoan" scratched into it

>how Muslims would respond toward any rebellion against earth as they would perhaps be much more loyal.

Probably the same way as whenever Saudi Arabia gets itself into trouble.

And by your logic christians and jews should also be super loyal to earth since Jerusalem is back there.
>tfw some cult pops up saying that Jesus flew to Mars after the resurrection because Mars is the real holy planet

It's a popular Martian tourist destination to travel to the "face" on Mars. Upon climbing the rim of the crater ridge that defines the mouth, to make as much noise as possible, using your rover's PA speaker. The sound echoes out the mouth and you get to be the "voice" of Mars for a while.

>this is you on [identity politics]

Not that user but Muslims won't really be any more loyal to Earth than any other hypothetical martian. There's no central Muslim authority and as long mecca is controlled by Muslims, then they're fine.

But as for Chriatians, wouldn't the Vatixan fit better than Jurusalem? Would a martian rebellion be tempered if the Pope declares them as sinners?

Since Earth got glassed and the Nuclear Demilitarisation Convention was passed, people always suspected the Hegemony never followed through and instead stockpiled it in Sector 43.

MARS BELONGS TO THE RED FACTION, MARS AETURNUM, EDF SCUM LEAVE

I'm running a game set on Mars, what kind of factions should i include? I already have tribals who are descended from first wave lost colonists.