The
First Colonist on Mars: Courtesy of the Mars Historical Society
The year
is 2045 and over fifty thousand people live on Mars, with
more arriving all the time. In this anniversary of the planet's
first landing, the Mars Historical Society has chosen to return
to the travails of its most famous colonist.
Twenty-five
years after Jack Errores wrote his dispatches from the surface,
the first colonist on Mars disappeared into history. This authoritative
version from the Mars Historical Society tells the story of his
achievement and ultimate betrayal. Although some would scoff that
a planet so newly settled would already be claiming a history,
this transcription is meant to set to rest the many conspiracy
theories that Mars was never settled so early-that Jack Errores
who devoted his life to the cause was a fiction perpetrated by
three national space agencies-and his poignant attempt to record
his life on the surface for posterity is either invented or enhanced.
Although initially
compiling this history of the First Human Colonist on Mars was
meant to explore the potential of independent survival on the
surface, the story immediately began to drift toward Jack Errores'
tragic tale. Sent alone to his death over a generation ago, his
struggles have come to symbolize survival in the deadly environment
that is the Martian surface and the desperation implicit in the
attempts to settle the planet.
Now that the
news media is overcome by claims about Martian colonization, and
some hopeful few are striving to be amongst those chosen for the
one-way trip, Mars is again in everyone's thoughts. Although it
remains to be seen if the news is merely unsubstantiated hype,
it is worth remembering that before their ink was dry Errores
was fighting to survive on a desiccated planet that possesses
one percent of Earth's atmosphere and whose regolith is largely
silica and poisonous perchlorates.
|