Everything Mars Thread

[Trollheart]

Because why not? If we can have India and China and New Zealand - even Ireland, ffs! - why not our nearest neighbour?

Whether it's the planet, the chocolate bar or the Bruno variety, or indeed the Roman god of war, post your Mars bits here.

[QuantumSync]

[Saulaac]

Because why not? If we can have India and China and New Zealand - even Ireland, ffs! - why not our nearest neighbour?

Whether it's the planet, the chocolate bar or the Bruno variety, or indeed the Roman god of war, post your Mars bits here.

Ooh, nice. I'd be hard pressed to find a better version of Holst's Mars than that one.

[Guybrush]

Mars is my favorite member of Letallica.

That's my Mars bit 🍷

[Psy-Fi]

David Bowie - Life On Mars?

[Trollheart]

Here's an extract from my Frontiers of Imagination: The History of Science Fiction and Fantasy:



Life on Mars?

It's hardly surprising that, back in the late 1800s, when emerging science-fiction writers wanted a different planet than Earth for their work they looked to Mars. Not only has it a cool name, it's also known as the red planet - due to its surface being, well, red dust - and is, in the main, quite similar to Earth, at least for narrative purposes. It's around the same size, is nearest and really, men from Mars rolls off the tongue so much better than men from Venus. Saturn looks great, of course, with all its rings, but since this was, at that time, pretty much out of the range of the telescopes available - nothing much would be known about the largest planet in our solar system until we developed the technology to send probes there - any SF writer worth his or her salt would shy from setting a story there, since this is Science-Fiction, after all, not Fantasy, and there needed to be some at least partway believable science involved.

Even the dumbest of readers would understand that, say, Mercury was too close to the sun and therefore too hot to be able to sustain any kind of life, while Pluto (at the time the furthest planet discovered, before it was heartlessly demoted in the twentieth century) was of course way too cold. Venus we didn't know a lot about, but Mars! Lowell had already observed what he took to be canals on the red planet (which turned out of course to be nothing of the sort) and so the germ of the idea was planted in the fertile minds of SF writers: if there were, or had been, canals on Mars then surely there was, now or at some time, water? And if there was water there could be life.

So Mars became the popular destination for the science-fiction writer's imagination to travel to, and the harbinger of all that was scary and threatening from space. Although his story post-dates Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon by thirty-odd years, and although there are a handful of stories set on or about Mars, it's Herbert George Wells's famous The War of the Worlds which we remember and which is regarded as the first true alien invasion story, and the first to be set on Mars. Technically, of course, it's not. Set on Mars, that is. The aliens come from Mars, and apart from seeing through a powerful telescope the cylinders which carry the Martians to Earth, we don't see the red planet, and have only Wells's - through his narrator - thoughts and theories as to what it is like there.

But with the arrival of the Martians, the idea that Mars is or could be a staging post for invasion is set up, and others would later set their books and stories there. Notably the creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, set an entire series of novels there, as intrepid Civil war captain John Carter is inexplicably - and with the most stupid transition I have ever read in my life, and I've watched Family Guy! - transported to Mars, which he learns is called Barsoom by the inhabitants. He finds a whole civilisation there, and inevitably a war going on for control of the planet. Burroughs also set some of his stories on Venus, but more of that later. One of the very earliest SF books I read was his A Princess of Mars, and from the first I was hooked, reading all the others I could. I saw the movie John Carter of Mars recently, and have to admit I was not that impressed, nor do I remember much from the novels that was in the movie. That could of course be my poor memory, the fact that I was probably 12 or 13 when I read them, or the makers of the movie changing the story to fit their narrative. Nevertheless, I was disappointed.

Ray Bradbury used the planet for his own sagas The Martian Chronicles, while Kim Stanley Robinson took a more strictly scientific approach in his trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, which follows the terraforming of the planet for human colonisation. Mars features in many movies, including of course fifties B-movies where it may just be mentioned as, or theorised as the origin of the alien attack that is plaguing mankind, but also in recent fare such as Red Planet, Total Recall, Mission to Mars and John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. It's the opening, dramatic and somewhat threatening theme that heralds Gustav Holst's seminal suite The Planets, and "Mars, the Bringer of War" has gone on to be used in everything from War movies to ads for suppositories. Possibly. Suffice to say, it's extremely unlikely, no matter your age or interest in classical music, that you've failed to hear that piece of music, even if you don't know what it's called.

Spoof films used Mars too. Mars Attacks! is a perhaps-not-that-funny take on pulp style movies of the fifties, Lobster Man from Mars is just, well, silly, while Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is touted, rightly, as "one of the worst films ever made." As a colony of Earth fighting for its independence,  Mars is used as the base for the feared and dreaded Psi Corps in the series Babylon 5. It's referenced in music hits from Bowie to Threshold and Paul McCartney to Sun Ra. By the 1940s Mars was the go-to place to set your alien invasion story, and among others, Robert A. Heinlein used it repeatedly, notably in The Green Hills of Earth (1947), Red Planet (1949) and  Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), while Arthur C. Clarke set his 1951 novel The Sands of Mars there, as did Isaac Asimov a year later with The Martian Way (1952). Much of Philip K. Dick's output centres on Mars, especially Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) which was of course made into the classic cult SF movie Blade Runner.

In fact, just about any SF author you can name has dipped his or her toe into the Martian landscape, or referenced it. Everyone from Larry Niven to Frederik Pohl and from Harry Turtledove to Michael Moorock and Lin Carter have paid homage to the red planet. Interest, which has never really flagged, was heightened in 2016 when underground ice was discovered on Mars, its volume capable of filling Lake Superior, and restarting the debate as to whether life could have existed on the planet. As preparations near completion  for the Mission to Mars this coming year, it's clear that, no matter what is discovered there, no matter what revelations Mars may have or not have to show us, the human fascination with our nearest planetary neighbour is unlikely to ever cease, nor is it expected that the imaginations of writers will ever tire of turning to its bleak, forbidding yet somehow irresistible presence for inspiration.

[Psy-Fi]

Mars Attacks...

[Psy-Fi]

A dirty old man's fantasy: The truth behind Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull and a Mars bar

[Trollheart]

That's it, bring the tone down everywhere you go.   

[Lexi Darling]

My family rented Mars Attacks on VHS when I was around 8 years old and it scared the absolute shit out of me lol.

[Psy-Fi]

I asked the AI chatbot to Write a poem about life on mars...


In the crimson embrace of the Martian sands,
Where whispers of silence brush rocky lands,
A horizon of rust in the twilight sky,
Bears witness to dreams that dare to fly. 

Dusty canyons where shadows play,
Tell tales of a past in a distant day;
Once flowed rivers beneath a sapphire dome,
Now echo the heartbeats of those far from home. 

Frosty caps of white on the mountains stand tall,
Like guardians watching, they've seen it all—
The passage of time, the dance of the sun,
An ancient story that's yet to be spun. 

In valleys where storms rage and whirl,
Lies a spark of hope in a timeless twirl;
For beneath the red soil, in darkness and glow,
The whispers of life may yet choose to grow. 

Imagine the sunsets, a blaze of bright hues,
Where the sky holds its breath, the world quietly views,
A promise of wonders that spark in the night,
The shadows of Mars bathed in soft, silver light. 

A frontier uncharted that beckons the brave,
With dreams of exploration upon the red wave;
For life is a journey, both near and afar,
And we seek our tomorrow beneath the same star. 

So here's to the day when we'll breathe and we'll roam,
To the Martian landscapes we claim as our home;
With each tiny step, a resilient refrain,
That life, in its forms, will flourish again.


AI Chat

[Psy-Fi]

Already posted this in the 'Movies & TV' section but it also fits in here...

[Trollheart]

Hmm. Those spaceships look suspiciously like hubcaps...