How did Terradyne predict Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson? (Anti-terraforming)

[Strategos' Risk]

Saw this on page 27:

https://i.imgur.com/wpiWfIX.png
https://i.imgur.com/X5Nyrm3.png

Terradyne was published in 1991. Red Mars came out a year later. The Mars Trilogy centers on the struggle between pro- and anti-terraforming factions. It's since become a very common reoccurring trope in near future sci-fi. (For another RPG example, Orbital 2100 from Zozer Games has your typical Reds eco-fighters.) Did KSR not come up with the idea? What's it doing in a GURPS setting?

[Anthony]

It's a fairly obvious concept that multiple people could have come up with independently.

[Strategos' Risk]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's a fairly obvious concept that multiple people could have come up with independently.

Kind of. On one hand, there is an environmentalist ethos to leave landscapes the way they are. On the other, if there's no actual lifeforms living there, no ecosystem to protect, why bother? It's just rocks.

I wonder if any other sci-fi works before Red Mars also had the concept, whether about Mars or not.

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Strategos' Risk

Kind of. On one hand, there is an environmentalist ethos to leave landscapes the way they are. On the other, if there's no actual lifeforms living there, no ecosystem to protect, why bother? It's just rocks.

I wonder if any other sci-fi works before Red Mars also had the concept, whether about Mars or not.

Menace Under Marswood by Lanier from 1983 has sort of anti terraforming. China who was squeezed out of Mars terraforming and settlement launched hostile plant seeds so that large parts of Mars are covered in plant life that is thorned, poisonous, allergenic, etc. to make the project more costly for the countries settling Mars.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Strategos' Risk

Kind of. On one hand, there is an environmentalist ethos to leave landscapes the way they are. On the other, if there's no actual lifeforms living there, no ecosystem to protect, why bother? It's just rocks.

Red Dust Rebellion (which came out after the Mars Trilogy but the designer says he never read it) came up with a similar thing, where environmental degradation on Earth led to people turning the idea that people shouldn't change the environment to suit themselves into a full blown religion. I imagine someone might feel like we should delay the terraforming to complete research on Mars to verify there's no life on Mars. Or perhaps people want to give all possible methods of terraforming all due consideration. Or maybe they want to consider the possible consequences of terraforming. Or maybe they're worried that the technology to terraform mars could be a pretext to create kinetic impact weapons.

People aren't Vulcans; looking at it purely logically is a mistake.

[Strategos' Risk]

Originally Posted by TGLS

People aren't Vulcans; looking at it purely logically is a mistake.

That's fair, it's just being willing to kill or die over it seems a bit drastic if there's no living organisms at stake. Though the rationales you've given do suggest solid reason for fearing for human lives risked by terraforming.

[Dammann]

Originally Posted by Strategos' Risk

On the other, if there's no actual lifeforms living there, no ecosystem to protect, why bother? It's just rocks.

Anne Claiborne giving you the stink-eye over that one!

[Agemegos]

In Tonio Loewald’s ForeScene (an SFRPG setting for ForeSight), preventing and sabotaging terraformation projects is one of the activities listed for the terrorist organisation “GreenWar”. That was published in 1987.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's a fairly obvious concept that multiple people could have come up with independently.

And a one year gap doesn't necessarily suggest that the latter work wasn't already in process before the former appeared...