City escalates threats against homesteads
Chasmata, Noctis unmoved
URBS VALLIS, Sept. 4 - The City (Urbs Vallis) Council formally voted 4-3 Thursday to require all homesteads in the Valles Marineris to submit to City approval or risk having their settlement claims, which serve as title for the land, revoked or rejected.
The split vote came a week after the City Council demanded a pause in all developments in the Valles Marineris that have not received its proposal and over objections from dissenting councillors that the move exceeded their legal authority.
The latest measure also was rejected by councillors from the other chasmata as an escalation of the City’s attempts to exert control over all of the Valley and surrounding areas.
Citing the death of two men in a July drill sled explosion in a Noctis homestead, City Council President Claude Paddingbury said tighter regulation was needed for both safety and long-term planning purposes.
“We have to act now. First, it is a matter of life and death,” Paddingbury said at Thursday’s Council meeting, with new Mars DevCo Planetary Manager Elric Balvicar sitting at the far end of the Council dais. “Second, it has resulted in chaotic development, whether individually as homesteaders or collectively in proceeding with ill-considered developments at the local level.”
The move violates both the letter and the spirit of the Mars Charter, said City Councillor Herald Severus, who voted no.
“Our legal authority extends to the city limits, that is, the area that we are currently developing or are planning to develop and no further, which is true for the other chasmata councils and individual homesteads,” Severus said. “Beyond our large stretch of Tithonium Chasma, we can provide knowledge and guidance and support, but we have no right to even attempt to exert control.”
Severus also noted that the move would weaken the City’s push for a Valley-wide council as none of the other chasmata seemed likely to agree to the City mandate.
“It’s counter productive. Let us focus on winning agreement for a shared vision of Mars, not on trying to impose ours,” Severus said.
A City measure too far?
The City measure demands that all new and existing homesteaders obtain its approval for their homesteads and that they provide geological and hydrological site data and that only City-approved housing units be used for living quarters.
Paddingbury said despite opposition from local chasmata councils and residents, the Urbs Vallis Council would seek to enforce the mandate with the support of Mars DevCo.
“All projects must conform to the master plan for the Valles Marineris,” Paddingbury said.
The agenda had said the meeting would feature Balvicar discussing the company’s “master plan for Mars,” but that was not addressed Thursday.
While the City measure did not specify its enforcement measures and penalties, Paddingbury said those would depend on the response
“For instance, the city could revoke approved settlement claims for homesteads and communities that do not comply,” Paddingbury said.
Asked by City Councillor Luca Matteo what DevCo’s position on the City legislation, Balvicar replied, “That is a matter for the Urbs Vallis Council. Our corporate position is that we seek ordered, sustainable growth for Mars.”
Matteo, who also voted against the measure, noted that Survey Mars acts as the independent registrar for community and homestead settlement claims, which essentially serve as legal title the land and underlying resources necessary to maintain the habitation or settlement.
“They don’t answer to us,” Matteo said.
Survey Mars, however, last week rejected a settlement claim filed by famed Mars builder Jeremiah Volcan for his Shalbatana Vallis community now under construction, and has declined further comment on the matter.
Forced to live in balloon habs
Ius Councillor Seamus Mitsutomi, who has been a strong opponent of City attempts to control development outside Tithonium Chasma, wrote in a message that the measure would have no impact outside Urbs Vallis.
“Noctis won’t comply. No one will,” Mitsutomi wrote. “To quote Jeremiah Volcan, ‘We’re here. We’re staying here.”
City (Urbs Vallis) Councillor Tiberia Hernandez, who also voted no, asked City Engineer Shigeru Kashira which structures have been approved for use as stand-alone living quarters, and whether those structures are suitable for permanent living quarters.
The only currently approved housing structures are the balloon habitats that have long been used by survey crews and scientists and as initial housing for homesteaders, Kashira said.
“To your knowledge, how do homesteaders use those units?” Hernandez asked.
“They might live in them temporarily as they bore out a suitable underground space, usually a crater rim or chasma wall,” Kashira said. “Then they move them into the first space, bore out a larger space, seal it and move the balloon outside as an air lock or for farming or to store a vehicle.”
The habitats are also often used as forms for printing stone and sandglass structures in chasma-floor communities such as Melas.
“They proceed dome by dome, or put several ballon habs together to to build larger structures,” Kashira said. “They seal those and move on to the next one.”
Mars is a harsh master
Replying to a question from the audience, Kashira said homesteaders prefer to bore out spaces in rock or underground because it provides superior long-term protection and insulation. In response to another question, Kashira said the approved balloon habitats are only made and supplied by Mars DevCo.
“I’ve been here a long time, and everyone in Tithonium Chasma moved out of the balloon habs as soon as they could,” City Habtube 1 resident Alphonsus Stephanus said. “They’re fine for a temporary science project but no one wants to live in them permanently. We don’t live in them here.”
Stephanus said his brother homesteaded in Noctis and lives among a group of extended families with children and grandchildren.
“Ed lived in a balloon just as long as it took to print up stone walls around it, and then they started drilling into the slope,” Stephanus said. “The family printed sandglass greenhouses and when they were done with the balloon gave it to the next family. They don’t last all that long.”
Noctis Labyrinthus, whose 6,000 residents live mostly in scattered settlements comprising linked homesteads, would not recognize City authority over its development, Noctis Councillors Blythe Gunther and Catarina Morelli wrote.
“We’re the Labyrinth and not the Valley,” Gunther wrote. “It’s not like we’re all going to move into balloon habs while the City decides whether or not our habitations are acceptable. We already know our homes are safe. We know that because we’re still alive. No one survives in a substandard hab. Mars is a harsh master.”
The geologic and hydrologic data the City mandate would require is supplied by the Mars DevCo’s orbital properties, including the Mars Carousel and satellites, Gunther noted.
“They wants us to live outdoors in balloons we buy from DevCo, pay DevCo for data they already have, and wait for whoever it is is going to vet thousands of homesteads,” Morelli wrote. “We’ll take a pass on that.”
“Missing” Martians tell why they left the City
Adventure, love and love of adventure
MELAS CHASMA, Sept. 3 - Amid the majestic solitude of Melas Chasma, Ric Valdivia sometimes misses his former life in the City (Urbs Vallis).
“In the habtube, you walk out your front door into fresh air and smell the greenery and chat with people,” the cargo train specialist said at a water drilling project site nearly a thousand kilometers from Urbs Vallis. “Out here, it’s cold dirt and dust.”
A crew member on a cargo train from Candor, Valdivia sat in the main room of the drilling crew’s habitat after unloading supplies and equipment for the project.
“You get used to be around hundreds of people in the City,” Valdivia said. “There’s more than 50,000 people there in a small space, and just about three dozen here, counting us (the cargo train and drilling crews).”
While Valdivia says it can get lonely on the long, slow cargo train treks through the chasmata, he doesn’t regret leaving his post in the City for what he calls caravan life.
Valdivia is among the hundreds of “missing Martians,” workers who left their City jobs to work in other chasmata, Melas, Candor, Ius and Geryon or to homestead.
“I finished my contract in November 99, just a couple months after the new group of workers arrived from Earth, kept at it for another annos, but I was ready for a change,” said Valdivia, who arrived on Mars as a contract worker in April 97.
His chance came when a cargo train headed to Coprates from Ares Port found itself short of a cargo specialist in January (101).
“The engineer offered me the job. I went home and got my ‘go bag,’ which is all I brought to Mars, and got on board. We went to Noctis, Oudemans, Ius, Coprates,” Valdivia said. “I would have told my boss, but she wasn’t there, so I just left my apartment in habtube 2 and went on the road.”
An estimated 500 City workers have left their posts and habitations, according to environmental and utility staff. They were called the ‘missing Martians” in July by City Councillor Councillor Karina Hermetta, who declined to provide a precise number.
The departures come as the City faces increasing competition for labor from the growing communities in the Valley.
Some workers have left for smaller cities such as Ius and Geryon Montes, Coprates and Melas, while others have taken a chance on homesteading in Noctis Labyrinthus and even Orson Welles.
Valdivia said his job on a supply train trekking across the Valley is what he dreamed of when he emigrated from Earth.
“I came to Mars to live and work on Mars, and while the City is great, it’s beautiful. It gets confining,” Valdivia said. “It’s like living on an orbital. You can see Mars, see the Valley, but it’s hard to get out there. I love being out here.”
Adventure calls
Being out here, is what drew Emilia Chan from the City to this remote drilling site, 70 km east of Melas and 475 km east of Ius and Geryon.
A drilling specialist at the Melas water mining site, Chan counts herself among the missing Martians.
“Yeah, I just picked up and left,” Chan said. “I was working at the Shuttle Port cargo yard when I met a cute Martian from Noctis. He asked if I wanted to go and I went.”
Chan, who spends much of her days in a hard suit outside, cupped her hands around a hot coffee and called that the best move of her life after coming to Mars from Luna.
“Turns out, we both like outdoor work. We spent some time on a Noctis project, and then Geryon before we came out to Melas and here,” said Chan, whose husband is site construction supervisor.
The move wasn’t entirely spontaneous, Chan said.
“I wanted to learn new things, do different things. They can make it very, very difficult to leave, even after you’re ex-contract,” Chan said. “In the end, it was just easier to go when I had the chance. And this project, it’s new and different.“
New beginnings
Another missing Martian, Leda Hadar was also looking for something different when she left her City job unannounced.
Hadar, the manager of the Bottom of the Sea cantina in Melas proper, worked in a City canteen in habtube 1.
“That didn’t make it easy to get out,” said Hadar, whose job was just two terraces below her own habitation. “But, I did it.”
From time to time, Hadar would fill in at the industrial terminal and the shuttle port, where she met people from all over the Valley and listened to their stories.
“I mean, it was nice in my habtube canteen, I knew the people, since I was feeding them breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I started feeling a bit, well, limited, and claustrophobic,” Hadar said as she moved among customers at the aquarium bar at the Bottom of the Sea Cantina as fish swam behind her in a large aquaculture tank.
After her City contract ended, Hadar sought a transfer to the shuttle port, but said her manager was reluctant to let her go.
“Well, some of the people I met at the shuttle port came back from Geryon and messaged me. We got together, and when they went back, I went with them, and didn’t tell my boss,” Hadar said.
From Geryon, Hadar made her way to Melas where she helped launch the cantina, which sits next to an aquaculture tank where fish swim behind the bar.
Hadar said she felt guilty about leaving without notice, but didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Still, it was difficult to leave the friends she had made among the residents at the habtube 1 canteen.
“We still message from time to time, but I like it here,” Hadar said. “I get to try different things, different menus and meet a lot of different people. It’s smaller than the City, I know, but it feels bigger.”
- With Alade Jama, Melas Correspondent
Noctis holds City manager wanted in AWOL worker case
Caught at the truck stop
LABYRINTHIA, Sept. 3 - A City industrial staff manager wanted in an AWOL worker case is being held by authorities here at the Noctis Grange Hall, Noctis Councillor Catarina Morelli said Thursday.
Herman Zeiger, a staff manager at the industrial plant and factories between the City and Ares Port, was referred to Tithonia Superior Court by the City Labor Council three weeks ago on allegations that he helped more than 20 workers breach their transportation contracts and move out of Urbs Vallis.
City officials discovered that Zeiger had left after he failed to report for work and his apartment was found empty following the court referral.
Zeiger arrived at the Grange Hall about 150 km southwest of Ares Port Wednesday with a small group of tractors bringing supplies and equipment to Noctis, Morelli said, adding that City officials were already en route to pick him up.
Zeiger’s Court referral comes as the Labor Council is investigating reports of more than 60 missing contract workers, down from 80 at the beginning of July.
- Eun Isil, Noctis Correspondent
CONTRACT CHAOS - Hard knocks
Rough and tumble brings mops and buckets
URBS VALLIS, Sept. 4 - Three men, including a shuttle pilot, have been assigned to 80 hours, or 10 sols, of environmental duty after an altercation left two of them injured at the shuttle port, the Labor Council announced Friday.
Two of the men, Mars Carousel orbital contract workers traveling to an assignment at the new Ares Port shuttle terminal under construction, were injured after they accosted the pilot over what they called an unnecessarily rough flight from the orbital to the planet, according to the Labor Council.
The discussion turned into a brief altercation when one of the contract workers shoved the pilot, who was assigned the extra duty for injuring the two workers in the resulting clash.
“The orbital workers were out of order,” a Labor Council member said, “but the response was, well, unnecessarily rough. We like to keep all our workers working and we certainly want to discourage physical violence. Some time with mops and buckets should help.”
The names were not released, but all three would serve the extra duty at the shuttle port, the Labor Council said.
The pilot is appealing the decision.
- Mirihi Merced, City Correspondent
Calendar
Mars master plan on the agenda, again
The Urbs Vallis Council reschedules new Mars DevCo planetary manager Elric Balvicar to discuss a master plan for Mars. Held over from Sept. 3. Council Meeting Hall. 18:00 Sept. 10
Outdoor survival
The City Labor Council hosts a lecture and demonstration on outdoor survival. Learn what makes a surfsuit safe and how to use it. Keep your friends and family safe and learn how to check their surfsuits too. Industrial Tube Terminal meeting room D. 10:00 Saturday Sept. 12
Gone Fishing
Visit the new koi pond in Hab 3, and learn all about aquaculture. All ages. Hab 3 Terrace 1, south side. 14:00 Saturday Sept. 12
By Jove, and Saturn
The Tithonia Museum is hosting an exhibition of an exquisitely detailed orrery with spheres that mimic the view from orbit of each of the planets. The distances and size aren’t to scale, since Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets wouldn’t fit, but the detail is amazing. Through early September. East Terrace 12
“My Sins Laid Bare” A spaceship captains whose mistake cost lives, faces his failings and seeks redemption. Not for those flying soon. Threedee drama Stage 3. Hab 1. Terrace 8 Sept. 10-Sept. 16, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
Coprates Swing Session Kick up your heels at Schiapparelli Hall. Friday Sept. 11 18:00
Geryon Pub Crawl. Brew master Rick Zheng leads a discussion on the brewers art, Geryon Agora, open table area. Coop brewers bring samples. Saturday 17:00
City Social Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Acoustic duo Harris and Fitz mixes strings with sweet harmonica and vocals. Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Every Friday 17:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
The Chaos Courier helps you over the rough spots.
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The header photo is the iconic mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars from 2,500 km above the surface taken by the Viking Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech