“Mars’ namesake is the ancient Roman god of war, how fitting then that the first children of Mars are our greatest symbol for peace?” - UN Symposium on Arcology Cooperation
The Arcologies of Earth are ravenous, filled with the teeming masses of mankind. In Earth’s drive to survive, these hardened conglomerates have sprung great curtain walls behind which humanity congeals. Competition between the arcologies is fierce. Their best hopes lie with the colonists beyond Earth as they land upon the Martian surface, digging in to create, to build, to earn a future.
It is these very same colonists who have come to seize that future, beginning with the birth of the very first native Martians, an entire generation of humans born for the first time far from Terra Mater. The first children of Mars have had to come to terms with a world unlike that of Earth, they have grown up in a world of spacesuits, pressure differentials, and hostile environments.
In short, they have been born into hardship.
Native Martians are unique in their acclimatisation to the ‘norm’ that is their homeworld. They are more confident on the Martian surface, travelling faster than their peers with an ease born of an innate understanding of Mars' gravity and environment. This is coupled with their greater tolerance of Mars' harsh climes and understanding of the hard realities of life on the red planet. Native Martians tolerate more hardships than most, and certainly far more than the billions on Earth that remained behind. An unusual benefit conferred onto Native Martians includes their reduced oxygen intake, no doubt a result of their slightly lower physical mass compared to their Earth-born counterparts. The gravity on Mars is less than that of Earth’s and it was inevitable that children born accustomed to that lesser force would themselves be different for it.
Native Martians are the very first of their kind, the first of a new generation of humanity, one that never grew up under open skies and verdant green. They are a generation that does not belong to Earth. They were born devoid of UN citizenship, born far from the cradle of humanity, born further from the Sun's light than any before.
Yet their efforts on Mars will shine a beacon for all mankind.