Martian Rebellion, War for Martian Independence...

[Qoltar]

MARS

If you were to run a scenario or mini-campaign about colonists from Earth a generation or two after original settlement rebelling for their rights or independence - How would you do it?

What year is believable to set it in?

If I do this, I want to attempt to go with fairly realistic physics and combat weapons and tactics - any suggestions?

I am VERY interested in using miniatures with this idea. My first thought is to use the Mongoose BATTLEFIELD EARTH miniatures with a few generic (non-iconic character ) STAR WARS figs thrown into the mix. (How are the AT-43 figs for this kind of idea?)

Any other suggestions for figs to use?

Thinking of using either SAVAGE WORLDS or GURPS 4/e for the rules set.

What places on Mars are likely choices for cities and settlements?
I loved the monorail shown on BABYLON 5 and the similiar train in the TOTAL RECALL martian setting - any suggestions for likely train routes? I have wall maps of MArs for reference.

Should the preliminary stages of a terraforming project be part of the backstory?

- Ed Charlton

[elShoggotho]

If you're into mecha , you could borrow plot elements from the ZONE OF THE ENDERS video game series. You could omit the series mcguffin, the Metatron Ore, and just go for the theme of military coup and stuff. Martian military vs. Earth military, both less than altruistic and "good guy-ish" in their actions.

Oh yeah, you should start at least in the 22nd century. I can't imagine a Mars colony built up ar enough for an attempted coup earlier than that. Maybe the whole thing is caused by the dwindling resources of Earth, while the Mars colonies depend on solar power out of necessity, using orbital sattelites and microwave beams, while Earth scrapes out the last resources of fossil fuel and fissionable material while frowning upon the criminal negligence of their ancestors who didn't build enough fusion plants and regenerative power plants to support the growing demands...

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by elShoggotho

If you're into mecha , you could borrow plot elements from

Starsiege (PC game).

The solar system is beeing slowly colonized after two major robot uprisings (Earthsiege 1 & 2), with almost all resources from the colonies being used to fortify Earth. The colonies do not like how they are treated and attempt rebellion. The game changes from rebellion to all-out war at a point, but the background in the manual has a lot of information on the setting.

[Pomphis]

Look at Battlefleet Mars.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3662

[JoelSammallahti]

You could use Transhuman Space with very little modification. It's the right era, and very realistic.

[malek77]

If you were to run a scenario or mini-campaign about colonists from Earth a generation or two after original settlement rebelling for their rights or independence - How would you do it?

What year is believable to set it in?

If I do this, I want to attempt to go with fairly realistic physics and combat weapons and tactics - any suggestions?

You'll obviously want a reason for the Secessionist movement - common themes I use are taxes (simplistically, the war for American independance was triggered by increased taxes to pay for British involvement in India), innapropriate/unpopular legal systems out of their natural context (French colonial interests in Algeria), unreasonable exploitation (strip mining Mars to save a dying Earth - which may just kill two planets), or perhaps a classist struggle - someone like Spartacus on Mars leading a revolution of otherwise enslaved/trapped people to a short lived and violent freedom.

I believe the irrelevant legal system is the most likely trigger for a Martian revolt - deliberate Earthly false-scarcity attitudes toward recources and information could be killers in places where the survival envelope is very much smaller.

As an alternate spin - 1930's Spanish civil war style. Mars might be happily independant anyway, happily trading with various friendly Earthly states, but threatened by an alternate power who want to remove their independance, and are providing overwhelming military support to a small faction who would otherwise be irrelevant. The 'Free' people of Earth may step up, supporting the resistance, or their own preferred factions; or may largely stay out of the situation, due to the cost of such long range force projection.

An advantage of this is that it isn't Earth VS Mars, which would really be fought as a nasty space battle, concluding with a punitive orbital barrage...instead, it's a political insurgency that has fragmented a fragile system, does not feature overwhelming space assets that would render ground engagements irrelevant, and could legitimately result in confrontations between Colonial Marines, Fascist Revolutionaries and Free World mercenary forces.


Let's assume our badguys are Fascist (one party state/limited free market/corporate state) and their MO is to establish political dominance of Mars by capturing intact infrastructure, isolating it socially and dosing it with heavy propaganda to control the population and develop the forces for continued conquest.

They'd need to focus on Landing ports and survival engineering facilities, which would allow them to rapidly starve out their opposition.

Their opposition may be ideologically divided, having previously thought of Mars as a planet of seperate city states, and not united in opposition.

The Resistance can't afford to obliterate such important facilities, so must recapture them intact, requiring intensive intelligence gathering, SpecOps raids and a short timetable before local survival supplies run out.



For miniatures - consider Infinity miniatures, particularly the ORC troopers and Nomads - and it has a simply stunning rule system itself. However - 'In The Well' from the ThS books would be ideal source material, and already has starting points for a Martian revolution. A ThS Martian War would be hi-tech, hi-speed, and very intense.

:)

[Mercator]

If you were to run a scenario or mini-campaign about colonists from Earth a generation or two after original settlement rebelling for their rights or independence - How would you do it?

Qoltar,

I strongly recommend you read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. It's a hard SF novel about exactly that idea. I also suggest getting Transhuman Space: In the Well, which will give you much of the information you need in a much shorter format.

What year is believable to set it in?

I'd use the date of the first settlement (somewhere in the mid-to-late 21st century) + 60-80 years. In any case, long enough for the Martian economy and industry to be developed enough to stop being dependent on shipments form Earth. Actually, the moment when Mars starts to be self-sufficient and the Earth governments and corporations begin to demand return on their huge investments would be a good moment to have a rebellion.

If I do this, I want to attempt to go with fairly realistic physics and combat weapons and tactics - any suggestions?

I submit you to the sources I mentioned above.

Thinking of using either SAVAGE WORLDS or GURPS 4/e for the rules set.

Never played SW, but I think it's more oriented toward cinematic pulp adventuring and less toward the hard SF feeling you want. I'd stick with GURPS 4E, which also would make easier to integrate the rules for the Martian environment from In the Well.

What places on Mars are likely choices for cities and settlements?

Spaceports are going to be in the equator. If you want to have a space elevator (an absolutely crucial strategic location for your rebels to take), it will very likely be on top of Pavonis Mons.

If you want terraformers to create seas in Mars, they would very likey be in the Hellas and/or Argyre basins, and maybe also the Valles Marineris. You might want to have major port cities scattered there. Specifically, Marineris is very long so, if it gets flooded I expect some of the main Martian trade hubs to be along its shore.

Depending on the distribution of resources you choose, your colonists might need to travel to the south pole to extract water and oxygen, or they might be able to get it anywhere by melting the regolith. In the former case, there will be large, heavily guarded mining complexes that will have to be taken more or less intact.

And don't forget the near martian space. Phobos and/or Deimos will surely have large military bases and settlements. And there will assuredly be dozens of communication and surveillance satellites, and maybe weapon platforms to neutralize or take over. Plus orbital mirrors if there is a large-scale terraforming effort going on.

I loved the monorail shown on BABYLON 5 and the similiar train in the TOTAL RECALL martian setting - any suggestions for likely train routes? I have wall maps of MArs for reference.

You really, really are going to like In the Well, with its trans-martian equatorial railway. Really. Get it now.

Should the preliminary stages of a terraforming project be part of the backstory?

I don't see any need, but it has a lot of dramatic possibilities, especially if environmental warfare gets used in the rebellion by either side by, I don't know, focusing the orbital mirrors to fry targets on the ground, or cause devastating sandstorms near enemy settlements. They do it it the Mars trilogy and it's a lot of fun ;-).

Good luck,

M.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

You could use Transhuman Space with very little modification. It's the right era, and very realistic.

And GURPS Mars is also an invaluable resource for any kind of campaign set there...

But back to Transhuman Space. You'd need the main book and "In the Well" (which describes Mars within the setting) for this campaign. The current situation (as of the year 2100) is this:

About three million colonists live on Mars, which has been partially terraformed. If you got the appropriate lung biomodifications, you can survive at the lower altitudes - if not, you need a breathing mask. The Chinese got to Mars first, and they still have the largest colony as well as a space elevator on Olympus Mons. The United States also have a significant colony, but they've never been gotten over the fact that they've arrived second, and as of late their colonial efforts have focused on the moon Titan in the Saturn system anyway.

The Chinese colony (dubbed "Rust China") is firmly under the control of the motherland. The American colony is a territory of the USA and elects its own governor. There are some pro-independence movements there and if the colony wanted to pursue independence many Americans probably wouldn't object too strongly - but the Chinese would see this with deep suspicion, since they are afraid such sentiments would affect their hold on their colonists. Apart from these colonies, there's a large bunch of Europeans, South Africans, Saudis and other people scattered over the planet, but so far they haven't formed any large political factions (though I have my suspicions about Those Sneaky Europeans...).


I suggest running a campaign about Martian Independence in the year 2120 or so. Let's assume the following:

The Olympus Project - the beanstalk elevator centered on Mount Kenya, Africa and built by a variety of primarily European and African concerns, is completed more or less on schedule (I don't have the books with me, so I don't know when that was supposed to happen - 2108?). This makes travel to the rest of the solar system a lot cheaper, and triggers a new wave of emigrants from Earth - and most will go to Mars.

Suddenly, new "microstates" and settlements will appear all over the Martian landscape - Europeans, Indians, South Africans and other groups. They won't cooperate with the Chinese much, since they tend to have views on things like democracy, freedom, and so on. This doesn't mean that they will necessarily grow close to the Americans, either - since those tend to limit rights for some type of non-human sapients.

All this talk of freedom and independence unsettles the Chinese authorities on Mars, who begin hassling the independence - especially since there are more than a few activist groups among them (plus the Transpacific Socialist Alliance is using this as a cover for their own anti-Chinese activities). Police and even military raids against such settlements become common.

Then the American colony holds its long-expected referendum on their independence. It passes, and the Martian Republic becomes a newly independent state - although the USA still gets to keep many of their military bases on the planet. Needless to say, the Chinese are Not Amused. On the other hand, the Independents are now discussing whether to join up with the Martian Republic, create their own nation, or stay out of the struggle entirely.

Meanwhile, the situation on Earth deteriorates - the long-awaited rematch between China and the Transpacific Socialist Alliance begins, and the other Great Powers watch these developments. Attacks on Chinese installations on Mars by terrorists/freedom fighters intensify as well. Finally, the authorities of the Chinese colony decide that they can no longer tolerate the independence in this climate, and start occupying them. The Martian Republic must now decide whether to support the Independents or not - after all, they could be next, causing the whole planet to be conquered by the Chinese...


How does that sound?

[Irish Wolf]

You could also steal a few plot elements from Heinlein's Red Planet - the colonists all work for a major international/interplanetary corporation, and usually move en masse from their mining camp in the northern latitudes to a location closer to the equator during the Martian winter. However, the corp has decided that the costs of the move aren't justified by merely increasing the survivability for their employees, and has decided this year not to move the camp. The colonists/workers, understandably, are not happy with this, and a rebellion, aimed at claiming independence, grows...

I'd say a plausible era for this to happen would be sometime in the mid-2100s, assuming some multinational decides to start exploiting Mars as soon as the ion drive becomes a practical method for moving large craft (constant accelerations as low as 1% of g would give trip times on the order of a month or so, when Mars is in opposition!).

[RevBob]

I would also suggest reading Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - granted, there are some sizable plot points that won't apply at all, but I'm recommending it more for the organizational concepts than for the execution.