Of Martians and Terrans

Picture a scenario where first-generation Martian colonizers have successfully established a colony that brought with it the perfect conditions for second-generation Martians to grow and live in. To the second-generation Martian offsprings (let’s call them SGMOs for now), what would be the one thing they aspire to in life as they grow up on the Red Planet?

In my mind, Earth would be some sort of Heaven to the SGMOs because it would be the place they think about the most growing up. That's due to the fact it's where their parents, and their ancestors before that, came from. The idea of infinite blue skies, breathing free air, drinking crystal clear water everywhere, the land of abundance and everything that you possibly desired available upon a touch of a button.

It's an insane concept to grasp.

Imagine living in a lower gravity environment your whole life, within a closed dome breathing recycled closed system air, drinking water that you need to think about conserving, harvesting plants and bring alongside people living according to a strict regimen and routine.

You’ll be ecologically and environmentally minded from when you’re very little!

Now imagine, as a SGMO, you have to visit Earth on some important business. What would seeing Earth be like for a Martian that has never been there before?

Well, first, the gravity is stronger so your body is a bit weaker. Then there is the chaotic feeling of Earth that you’re not used to since you have no reference point to measure it by other than Mars. Let’s say you're walking in a city like Mumbai or London or Manhattan, where every language you can imagine is being spoken, and the scent of industrialized metropolises, people and air soaks up your nostrils. Not to mention the green world around you, the larger bodies of water, breathing the free air, it'll just be so overwhelming on a Martian. And the brightness of the sky must be so beautiful in the eyes of a Martian, it must be blindening with emotions.

This is where the irony of living on Mars with the dreams of terraforming it lies in the eyes of this tourist Martian visiting and experiencing Earth for the first time. The Martian’s forefathers left this very planet to settle and colonize Mars and terraform it be like Earth, even though they left Earth because they didn’t want to live there to begin with.

Here’s where one can draw two contrasts, the lives of the first generation settlers and the lives of the post-colonial generation offspring.

To the settler going to Mars for the first time, imagine what was going through their minds as they thought about all the things they did before landing on Mars and the things they will be doing afterwards.

Freshly liquidating all their assets to get the $200k ticket to board SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System, leaving everything they knew and loved and hated and experienced behind, I wonder if their minds were racing with thinking if this was the right decision to make. After all, the reality of their situation is that what they’re doing is somewhat close to going to a hell, if it’s a beautiful, empty, red Planet where it’s toxic to human life. But the wonderful thing about their journey is that they will conquer this place, and make parts of it breathable, through generations and generations of efforts, just to be able to live in it again like normal humans. So, the struggle of the settler is in seeing the paradise that can come from transforming the Red to Green.

In the eyes of the future generation Martian offspring who is breathing the Earth’s atmosphere and smelling it’s mixed scents of green and grey, they are witnessing the paradise their forefathers had envisioned, but it would slowly turn into a hell for them as the stronger gravity weakens them. A Paradise found and lost after.

A struggle would be seen happening in a future where Mars is colonized, especially in the case of future offsprings. The good height difference that can be plausibly happen due to being born and raised in a lower gravity than Earth can result in a more racially-fueled conflict between both humans of Mars and Earth.

A Martian’s body composition can grow to be much different than a Terran, and without the proper diplomacy between both planets, it can result in a more mistrustful relationship between both humans. They’ll end up becoming different species of humans altogether, where each one is religiously loyal to their own form of gravity force.

A Martian advantage of living on the Red Planet is a drilled-in belief of being sustainable and resourceful and being green and rebuilding and improving things, which can only be achieved with the smartest people. But still, one can see Martians look at their Terran brethren with envy, an envy at having everything they can want, while they’re slowly destroying it with their greed. From that point of view, a conflict between Martians and Terrans is inevitable.