MARSLORE: Tales from the Red Planet & Other Stories of Sol

[ScottishMongol]

Yeah I specifically requested this update, you really delivered by rooting Arunism in numerous pre-existing cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions in a way that makes it feel unique to the history of Mars and not just something tacked on. Mars' religions also being heavily rooted in their geography is also interesting.

I would have to wonder too if the primeval whole-mind and the primordial and incomprehensible creator deity known as the One are in fact, the same entity in Martian theology?

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I don't think is the case, there doesn't seem to be any evidence for this and the two serve quite different roles in Martian cosmology - the One is a supreme being who created the universe but otherwise seems to be quite distant and doesn't interact with the world much - much like how God appears in many West African cosmologies, as an inactive and uncaring figure who the various loa and so on are called on to intercede with to help mortals - Arun and other lesser deities serve this role in Martian theology, with Arun serving as the One's "regent" as ruler of Mars - and by extension, the Ruuk. One wonders if the Ruuk believe that other planets also have chief gods.

Incidentally, this baked-in belief in a supreme being probably allowed Christian missionaries to get their foot in the door. The idea that Ruuk, upon death, are assimilated into the hive-mind has theological similarities to Dharmic beliefs about the non-existence of the individual soul as well, perhaps Buddhism has also gained Martian converts, along with certain Hindu sects.

The species-wide hivemind, on the other hand, is merely the origin of the Ruuk people. There's no indication that, typical chauvinism aside, the Ruuk would claim they created the universe or that they are above even Arun herself, who seems to be, as you note, the celestial empress in the same way many sky deities on Earth served as the king in heaven who mirrored the king on earth. The species-wide hivemind seems to resemble, as you alluded to, the Kabbalistic concept of Adam Kadmon, the original, pure idea of humankind as we existed before being manifested in physical form. An esoteric and mythological "state of nature", so to speak, which we can strive to return to.

That said, I fully expect that the primordial hivemind was 100% a real thing, which raises all sorts of interesting evolutionary and philosophical questions about the origin of the Martian species.

You also see something interesting in that Martian societal structures and hierarchy are reflected in their religion - it's perfectly easy to imagine Arun as both a circle for a center of deities as well as an Empress over many vassals.

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This is a really good point however!

Avidah is nifty, a love a good predictor of things - I bet people point to some obscure prophecy of hers and are like, "See?? She predicted the humans!" or "She clearly foretold the assassination of the Empress", etc. I bet there's quite a few fake prophecies as well attributed to her.

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Agreed, I love that you can walk into a marketplace on Mars and see a bunch of books claiming literally this, probably with clickbait titles. I'd imagine there's a whole cottage industry of prophecy analysts who self-publish these books and are generally wrong.

(I'd imagine the Prophecies of Avidah are actually completely accurate, for those who have eyes to see.)

 

[IamtooSleepy]

Agreed, I love that you can walk into a marketplace on Mars and see a bunch of books claiming literally this, probably with clickbait titles. I'd imagine there's a whole cottage industry of prophecy analysts who self-publish these books and are generally wrong.

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To be fair, I am sure we already have this on Earth.

Incidentally, this baked-in belief in a supreme being probably allowed Christian missionaries to get their foot in the door. The idea that Ruuk, upon death, are assimilated into the hive-mind has theological similarities to Dharmic beliefs about the non-existence of the individual soul as well, perhaps Buddhism has also gained Martian converts, along with certain Hindu sects.

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A very specific note on this, but as far as I know, most of Buddhism say that the final state of Nirvana is specficilly non-being. Martian belief in reunite with primordial mind after death sound closer to Hindu's conception of Moksha as being reunite with/becoming Para Brahman instead.

But yeah, I also wonder about the whole primordial mind as well, is it like real thing? A metaphor? A creation myth? Or something in between.

 

[Squidfam]

Oooh, religion! Apart from the stuff already covered by others, I just wanna add that the conceptions of deities and spirits as existing inside the hive-mind and the involvement of memorists in religious duties are really interesting takes on religion in a telepathic society!

 

[Penelope]

Life on Venus sounds a tough deal, and I can't say it sounds surprising that they are in the blurry line of the false tree that is tech development ("Are they industrialized?" "………… How do you wanna define that, because I don't wanna go there."), even if for very different reasons then what are discussed in said thread — can't really get wildly 'advanced' on a briader wcale when everyone is just toing a balance to keep together (and thats before the obvious and likely severe tensions between various city-states trying to keep their real estate on what's Certainly Not Inhospitable Land, but sure not ideal).

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Venus is actually not so bad once you get used to it. The Venusians and the rest of the indigenous biosphere is adapted, more or less, to the months-long days and nights, and the hallucinogens have no effect on them. The real trouble is for offworlders.

Speaking of Earth, strange to think that our first contact with Venus was centuries ago in this setting, so much so that they've formed a distinct cultural group on Venus. I wonder how they interact with the black market and organized crime rackets going on in the planet? I also enjoyed the travel advisory about political extremists and fugitives, I have to imagine there's like a colony of this setting's equivalent of Forty-Eighters. Maybe Mi-Ka and her followers went into exile here? It's fun to imagine at least.

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Yeah, pretty much the only people who show up and decide to settle on Venus are criminals, missionaries, the desperate and destitute... and, also, political dissidents...

On another note; it's interesting that OTL place names for Mars are used, i.e. Syrtis Major. Is this a deliberate comment on the author's biases?

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Human writings typically use the astronomical names for Martian regions, and translation conventions mean actual Martian place names are sometimes converted to their earthly "counterpart."

Of course they do this at their own peril. Our astronomical quadrangles don't map well at all to the cultural regions of Mars. Hence you get terms like "Sabaean civilization" - even though that generally refers to the entire Ruuknan, which encompasses half the southern hemisphere.

Speaking of homogeneity, the Empire of Shiian sounds horrifying. Just slowly assimilating everyone, "advocating psychic individualism" being a crime under that Empress being particularly chilling. However, knowing more about Martian religion, it makes sense. It seems like Sin Shiian was attempting to manifest the primeval whole-mind by uniting the contemporary world mentally, in the same way that some fundamentalist Christians attempt to hasten the foretold second coming.

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This is a very interesting take on the Empire of Shiian.

The species-wide hivemind, on the other hand, is merely the origin of the Ruuk people. There's no indication that, typical chauvinism aside, the Ruuk would claim they created the universe or that they are above even Arun herself, who seems to be, as you note, the celestial empress in the same way many sky deities on Earth served as the king in heaven who mirrored the king on earth. The species-wide hivemind seems to resemble, as you alluded to, the Kabbalistic concept of Adam Kadmon, the original, pure idea of humankind as we existed before being manifested in physical form. An esoteric and mythological "state of nature", so to speak, which we can strive to return to.

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Bang-on accurate, particularly with the state of nature bit. Back when Martian political philosophers were coming up with the foundational texts of political science and ethical philosophy, they would often start by saying things - roughly - like this: "Before we invented individuality..."

Agreed, I love that you can walk into a marketplace on Mars and see a bunch of books claiming literally this, probably with clickbait titles. I'd imagine there's a whole cottage industry of prophecy analysts who self-publish these books and are generally wrong.

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The majority view among Arunist theologians and scholars of Avidian philosophy is that the prophecies of Avidah were largely inspired by their historical concept. Some, maybe even most Arunists take a position similar to preterism; most or all of the events are said to have been fulfilled in the past, usually in the decades and centuries following the destruction of Avidah and her followers by Raan Kiya.

Still - that doesn't stop the cottage industry. It's always been there. While still a minority within the religious tradition, many Arunists think most of the prophecies haven't been fulfilled, and so there are plenty of Martian books, some going back centuries or a full millennium, talking about how whatever current event is going on was directly predicted by Avidah in this verse of this prophecy... And in the two centuries since earthly colonialism began in earnest, you've got tourists and colonizers looking to make a quick buck who've just heard of this whole Arun and Avidah thing for the first time.

Oooh, religion! Apart from the stuff already covered by others, I just wanna add that the conceptions of deities and spirits as existing inside the hive-mind and the involvement of memorists in religious duties are really interesting takes on religion in a telepathic society!

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Yeah, it's actually important to note that in most Martian cultures, the heavens - the sun, the moons, the stars, and so on - were never conflated with divinity or spirituality. We might use adjectives like 'heavenly' or 'celestial' to imply a religious aspect in something; for Martian religions, the term you'd use would be something like 'psychic.'

 

[Penelope]

The Martian Planetary Crisis

All rivers dry, every sea forgotten. The air thins. All the nations grow colder. Our minds grow silent, and our voices pass from the world.
-Excerpt from a High Martian poem by an anonymous author, speculated to have been written in the post-atomic era.

Mars entered a complex and existential planetary crisis during the 16th and 17th centuries of the old Christian calendar. Modern human involvement on Mars, as directed by the Houses of Terra and fourth-wave spacing corporations, seeks to mitigate the effects of this ongoing disaster through terraforming, economic investment, and ecological restoration.

Of our solar system's many cradle worlds, which developed higher-order biospheres natively, Mars experienced a pronounced history of planetary instability. Less massive than both Venus and Terra, Mars suffered an early breakdown of its core's production of internal heat. Large-scale tectonic activity ceased shortly after formation; it remains unclear if continental drift of any kind ever emerged, and the modern Martian landscape may be many billions of years old. Its surface, as a result, is relatively pristine, touched only by volcanism, meteorite strikes, wind erosion, and superficial biotic erosion. Water erosion ceased to be a major factor when the world's northern ocean disappeared, replaced by small seas which began to recede during Martian antiquity.

According to archaeological records, Mars' biodiversity has been on a long-term decline for millions of years. Roughly 50 million years before present, Mars benefited from a dramatically different environment. Iron-rich seas covered more than half the surface, particularly the northern hemisphere. A balmy, earth-like climate regime produced black-leaved rainforests and fertile prairies of redgrass and overtall mosses. The Red Planet's mammals swam through subpolar waters, living off scarlet seaweed, swimming shrews, and vast undersea reefs, preyed upon by psychic molluscs and predatory cnidarians. When the Martian magnetic field began fading, a series of mass extinctions struck the world. Martian water retreated as temperatures declined and air pressure dropped. The unprotected atmosphere, beaten by fierce stellar winds, began to disappear into space. Martian undersea life, forced to either adapt to land, small seas, or die, often went extinct. Landsquids, a popular Martian pet and pack animal, came out of amphibian adaptation. Mammals excelled at this evolutionary path, eventually leading to the development of intelligent life on Mars.

Scientists debate the disappearance of the Martian seas and the stabilization of Martian climate and atmosphere, as its exact causes remain elusive. Some scientists believe the planet's lack of tectonic activity and eccentric orbit caused the planet to undergo rapid cooling, trapping much of its water in underground deposits. Under this view, the disappearance of the oceans occurred gradually, over time, until shifts in the climate brought on by magnetic field collapse led to abrupt hydrosphere changes. Others believe that geologic shifts related to the shutdown of the Martian core led to unexpected dissipation of the oceans; adaptations of the biosphere subsequently led to the restabilization of the climate. A fringe theory suggests an electropsychic cause, in which increasingly complex psychic adaptations might have insulated the atmosphere from stellar winds. However, no proper mechanism for such a phenomenon has been uncovered.

The small, shallow seas which remained following this mass extinction event remained stable for eons, until very early in Martian antiquity. At this time, when Martian people groups began to spread across the world and developed civilization, the seas began to recede due to overuse, pollution, and climate changes. This fact was observed by contemporary writers, including Davra Nuur, Niis of Pamind, and Evradar, who specifically described the recession of waters around the shores of the Sannara Seas in West Sabaea from the time of her great-grandmother's youth through her own old age. By the time of the foundation of the Triumvirate, nearly all large bodies of water aside from the Hellas Sea had dropped to critical levels. Many of the early Martian empresses pushed ecological restoration projects in the hopes of restoring seas, rivers, and lakes to their original levels.

With the collapse of the First Triumvirate and the beginning of the Martian dark ages, long periods of violent global conflict became the norm. Nuclear weapons unleashed even greater devastation. A series of atomic holocausts wrought havoc on the already precarious atmosphere and ecology of Mars. Resulting worldwide chaos, including the wide-scale breakdown of this fine-tuned living system, led to a post-atomic era dominated by slow collapse of the Martian environment.

Global temperatures, which had for centuries risen due to decreasing atmospheric aerosols and industrial pollution, collapsed to levels not observed in the temperature record since the last mass extinction. A century of war injected new light-reflecting particles into the air, filling the sky with nuclear smog, ash and soot from firestorms, and windswept dust. An extreme, all-consuming duststorm began, ultimately lasting over twenty years. Martian children – the Heavenless Generation – grew to adulthood having never seen a single star, nor even the Sun. Countless species of flora and fauna died out, an unprecedented loss of biodiversity only matched by Terra's post-industrial age. Billions died throughout the world. Sea levels dropped. Air pressure began to fall again. Martian destabilization accelerated, leading to significant amounts of atmospheric oxygen.

This abrupt planetary catastrophe continued, waxing and waning over the course of two centuries, until Mars' own Second Space Age, the Aksanind Tuul'ha – the Return to the Heavens. This global project, which emerged from collectivist reforms by the administration of the Taan Empress, transformed the Triumvirate into an expanding, modernizing state. Under this new order, space exploration ceased to be driven by the desire to glorify one's own clan through personal or scientific achievement, as it had been during the First Triumvirate. Mars' supply of strategic resources, such as precious metals, fossil fuels, and rare elements, had steadily dwindled since the foundation of the Triumvirate. Taan-era spacers hoped to rectify the Martian collapse through mass acquisition of extraplanetary resources.

Within a generation of this pivot to collectivist policies and mass space exploitation, the central government of the Red Planet ruled over a new industrial era built on interplanetary adventurism. Martian spacers worked as contract laborers, mining asteroids in the Belt and near Mars orbit. The development of long-distance travel allowed for close examination of other worlds, such as Terra, Venus, and the Jovian moons. New industrialism likewise allowed for an artificial, largely temporary restabilization of the climate. Martians developed atmospheric exchange technology, still used today, to provide a consistently breathable environment in urban areas. Large public works projects and government investment in genetic research led to early ecological restoration efforts.

Today, protection, stabilization, and restoration of the Martian environment and planetary system is the joint responsibility of the Martian Triumvirate and Terran officials, including those from major spacing companies and the Terran Houses. Breakthrough technologies built by Terran companies have played a prominent role, particularly in automation of air exchange and genetic revitalization projects. Some have questioned the participation of Terran interests in Martian terraforming efforts. A recently-revealed plan to use comet fragments to begin reintroducing Martian seas and oceans sparked concerns from planetary scientists. Likewise, the use and introduction of Terran lifeforms to the Martian ecosystem remains controversial.

 

[bookwyrm]

Man, you know a setting is richly tied together when the thought that most clearly came to me was immediately imagining the flipside to the whole overarching Terran imperialism and colonization of this history, that the Martians that came down in the first War of the Worlds very much had and would have otherwise continued to have a bundle of excuses and apologia, imagining themselves very much as just straight up Vulcans. Uplifting the poor benighted pink monkeys... via forcible integration into the feeder systems powering Martian industrialization, this wider endeavor bigger than any of them of restoring the golden age of yore for the good of the whole solar system.

And now, the Terran rabbit is pretty systematically eradicating the last of the ancient Martian bloodmoss prairies, as corporate officers of the Mandate refuse to release funds from the ecological budget for extermination campaigns, since rabbits were such a key part of this year's biodiversity quota, and Angora rabbit-wool is going to be the Next Big Thing for Traditional Martian Handicrafts.

 

[ScottishMongol]

This is really good stuff, I love how you ground all the psychic transgender catgirl stuff in hard science and actual planetology, it gives the setting a unique feel and helps to establish a sense of verisimilitude.

 

[Penelope]

Martian lifespan

"Earthlings tell me it's a blessing to live this long. I view it as Shiian's punishment."
-Denavik Raas, veteran of the First War of the Worlds, on the occasion of her 210th birthday.

Martians generally enjoy longer lives than humans. While a healthy ruuk born in modern times has an average life expectancy of 160 earthly years, considerable variation persists in actually experienced life span.

Like humans, ruuks are viviparous. A Martian parent gives birth to their young after about 250 days of pregnancy, delivering litters of 3-6 children. These newborns are highly underdeveloped, needing constant care for the first few weeks of their lives, including particular diets, temperatures, and limited exposure to light to ensure proper growth. A litter's caretakers traditionally place them in a specialized den or warren. In ancient times, sand burrows, underground caves, old mining pits, and tunnels were used; since industrialization, 'baby dens' have been mass-produced as small, climate-controlled rooms in domestic basements, about the size of a walk-in closet.

After an initial period of postnatal incubation, young Martians grow rapidly, reaching the developmental stage of human middle-childhood within one or two years. A ruuk's social life begins at the age of two, when they begin attending schools. Classical Martian societies taught their children basic skills as a clan, with classes instructed by learned or trained elders. However, since the reign of the Taan Empress, mixed-clan education provided by the state has usually been mandatory. Only rural farmers, water-miners, and aristocratic dynasties - 'legacy clans' - are granted exclusions. Following the completion of their primary schooling around age 10, they attend professional academies similar to university studies, with room and board provided. Higher education, like most institutions on Mars, operate seasonally: the harsh Martian winter makes travel impossible.

By age 12, ruuks enter adolescence. On a special occasion such as a feast, festival, holiday, or birth-anniversary [1], they adopt their chosen names and begin participating in gender. They begin pursuing romantic relationships around the same time. Often, clan elders and parents will arrange particular partnerships they deem politically or financially beneficial to the clan as a whole. At age 16, they graduate academy; shortly thereafter, many ruuks enter their first marriages, which rarely produce offspring and often end once their marital contract ceases. The purpose of one's first marriage is primarily to provide collated income, political favors, and prestige to their clan. Tertiary education is provided by their initial career path.

A Martian generation is said to last around 15-20 years. Once such a period has passed, notable differences tend to be observed from one generation to another, providing a dividing point. Inter-generational fraternization is very uncommon. Martian society, highly stratified, tends to reward seniority. Strict rules govern interactions between one and one's elder, who is also often one's social superior. Someone using their social rank to extract personal favors from their inferiors is a criminal act, with punishments ranging from fines, social demotion, imprisonment, or even death. Likewise, honor codes demand respect for, subservience to, but also emotional detachment from one's elders.

Ruuks enter a kind of para-adulthood around the ages of 15 through 20, in which they have limited rights but can be described as independent actors, with agency over their direct environment, finances, personal relationships, and domestic situation. This period is often defined by apprenticeships to persons or clans of higher rank, organizations, guilds, or working professionals. Young Martians are temporarily prohibited from participating in government, owning land or other property, advancing within their career to a supervisory level, and leaving their career, as apprenticeships are often dictated by contracts. At age 30, they gain full adulthood rights. Regencies for monarchs end around this time, though often sovereigns will shoulder the bulk of administration and government by age 25.

After their final coming of age at 30, ruuks become full participants in their society. With a ruuk's centennial, they become venerable, both physically and legally. Ruuks face tremendous pressure to retire following age 100. This is often the age of abdication for sovereigns, including the Empress of the Triumvirate. At retirement, they lose the social, political, and financial benefits of being part of the active workforce. Their incomes, once provided by the government or their career, become fixed and rationed. Clans are expected to shoulder the burden of caring for their seniors. In ancient times, much as a runt of the litter might be culled for the benefit of a family, elders often committed ritual suicide. This was especially true in times of extreme hardship. While very rare in modern times, social attitudes still reflect this history, as many seniors feel helpless, directionless, and dishonorable.

After reaching elderhood, a ruuk's potential lifespan is highly variable. Circumstance and luck play a large role. Modern societies often provide sufficient care for most elders to live into their 160s, though death becomes significantly more common after 120. The oldest ruuk alive today is Ajah Naraatha, a 196 year old Deshanori Sabaean who served as an administrative assistant in governments of Empresses Shianva V and Shianva VI. The oldest ruuk whose age was confirmed by medical experts was Denavik Raas, a 212 year old Earthbound Martian who fought in the First War of the Worlds.

Extreme longevity claims are common in Martian society, particularly as part of religious or spiritual movements. In 2402, a priestess of Messianic Shiianism famously claimed to have lived for over 600 years.

[1] Birthdays, generally, are not celebrated on Mars. Ruuks often celebrate the occasion of their coming of age, instead. Among Martian children, there is considerable competition for picking the 'coolest name-day.'

 

[Penelope]

High Martian

"And in those days, still yet to come, all ruuk shall speak together through one tongue, and these glorious words, provided by our goddess, the luminous lord who yet lives and sees all, shall provide all things perfectly and immutably.

No ruuk can speak this tongue who dishonors our goddess.

Now, should you come upon any ruuk who refuses to speak this tongue, you must look away from her, and you will not hear her, nor acknowledge her, for the goddess has forsaken her. And should you come upon any ruuk who speaks this tongue but uses it to spread lies and deceit, slander or uncertainty, then she is an enemy, and her tongue shall be cut from her mouth, and burned, for the goddess has forsaken her.

Now, should you come upon any well-meaning ruuk who has not learned the tongue, then you must minister her, and bring the holy speech of the goddess to her lips and to her mind.

Remember that nothing impure can learn this tongue; one may only become corrupted after the lord's blessing has graced them."
-Excerpt from Revelations of the Old Goddess to the Disciples of the Golden Dream, Vol. 2.

High Martian, known natively as Ruukeka, is the most widely spoken language on Mars. Terran linguists classify it as a constructed language, though this view is controversial, particularly among Martians.

An international auxiliary and liturgical language, High Martian allegedly derives from a series of dreams and spiritual visions described by Mvaand Kitur Niis in his three-volume work, Revelations of the Old Goddess to the Disciples of the Golden Dream, a legendarium and grimoire containing various mystical teachings and experiences. Niis, a Utopian merchant and physician, lived among the nomadic tribes of the northern sand seas during the 13th century of the old Christian calendar. He collected, edited, and published this tome as the leader of a group of spiritualists, amid an atmosphere of religious awakening.

In the second volume of his work, he documents a language apparently revealed to him by spirits serving this unnamed goddess, with the aim of reuniting the people of Mars under a single banner. The goddess is never identified, with some suggesting Arun, a traditional Utopian goddess, others Raan Nare - the so-called "Old Mind", or even the Empress Sin Shiian. The group of followers which Niis assembled throughout his life did not persist after his death; however, his language, which linguists today know as Old High Martian, quickly became the lingua franca of the northern desert. It arrived in Deshanor through nomadic tradesmen in the late 14th century, during the reign of Empress Ravma the Ill-Conceived.

Utopian traditional religious movements and folklore grew in vogue among the Deshanori aristocracy around the year 1500. Many among the Anharith people of Deshanor adopted the cultural ideas of Utopians, including Old High Martian, which they called the Trader's Tongue or sometimes the Magician's Code. The language, as used by the Deshanori Anharith, grew sufficiently distinct to be noted as its own, peculiar dialect by the time of the atomic holocausts.

In the aftermath of these great tragedies, Niis' mystical vernacular emerged as a language of convenience among survivors. Shifts in the planet's climate, widescale famines, and similarly apocalyptic disasters drove large migrations, often bringing together disparate groups with no other common dialect. The low literacy rates of the pre-atomic ages helped the language grow in popularity as public education became more commonplace.

A downside of the language was its complexity. The old tradestongue possessed a highly irregular and variable structure until the reign of the Taan Empress, when its grammar, phonology, and vocabulary were standardized by imperial mandate for use as a post-atomic auxiliary. These changes note the demarcation between Old High Martian and the form of the language used today.

High Martian's unique position as both a language of religious literature and one overseen by government-sponsored regulatory bodies imbues it with an uncommon level of uniformity. While countless dialects have sprung up across the Red Planet in the centuries since, nearly all are mutually intelligible and documented by the government.

In the Fifth Disunity which followed the untimely death of the Taan Empress, the aristocratic clans of Deshanor adopted High Martian as their language of business. It had become the de facto lingua franca of Mars by 1880.

 

[bookwyrm]

That is so cool! It's like the secret philosophical codes and cants of Kabbalistic mystics or Sufi sages or Renaissance alchemists, but then spreading throughout Mars like Arabic through North Africa and Eurasia.

 

[EBR]

What if Esperanto were also a religious language? This is a super cool concept and I can't believe I've never seen anything like it before.

 

[ScottishMongol]

I agree, it's a super cool idea.

It reminds me of St. Hildegard von Bingen, one of the most influential female writers of the Middle Ages, a mystic, naturalist, and composer.

She also created a conlang, the Lingua Ignota, although she says that she "brought it forth" after receiving it in a series of visions.

 

[Penelope]

Taan I Navith

Taan Shavasedeth Navith Seof, also known as the Taan Empress, was the 59th Empress of the Ruuknan according to the fourth succession. She reigned as Taan I Navith from 1784 to 1849, ruling with the assistance of a regency council until a military coup in the winter of 1785.

A series of international crises in the first decade of her reign led Taan and her government to institute several reforms to the legal code, political system, and culture of the unified realms, transforming the Triumvirate of Deshanor into a powerful re-industrializing state. Martian historiographers consider her the last of the Second Triumvirate's three principal founders.

Early Life

Born in 1759 to Clan Taan of the Anharinan, she was the runt of a festival litter born to Surisedeth Shava, a princess of the clan's estates in the forests of Gavuur. As a low-ranking child she was primarily raised by her mother's spousal circle.

The majority of Navith's aunts perished in the Great Disunity, the fifth warlord-era since the fall of Shiian. In 1765, Surisdeth Parra, Shava's litter-sister and the clan's presumptive heir, died of illness while on campaign. Suri, the reigning clan lord, nominated Shava as her heir apparent against the advice of her councilors. When Suri died, Shava waged blood feud against her detractors, and became undisputed clan lord in 1770. The next year, Navith became an adolescent, selecting her chosen name and receiving her intimate given name, Seof.

Lord Shava sent all her low-ranking princelings, including Navith, out of Gavuur to receive their education, a common method of warding of succession crises. Navith herself travelled to the capital of Deshanor with two of her litter-sisters, where they trained in finance, science, and the liberal arts. Noble clans traditionally educate their children according to social rank. Heirs and highborn litters train in matters of state and war, while lowborn children find themselves learning stewardship, law, and ethics - ideal subjects for future government functionaries.

Navith completed her studies in 1775. Her litter-sisters both married into middle-ranking clans; one became a clan lord's financial advisor, while the other managed the estates of her adopted clan. Navith attempted to join the imperial bureaucracy, but failed to qualify as a result of poor marks on her entrance examinations. She instead chose to lease herself into the service of Clan Muth.

Clan Muth

In 1776, Muth Suuna, a military subcommander of her clan, adopted Navith as one of several apprentices. In that role, she served as a quartermaster, making requisitions for Muth Suuna's banners during their campaigns in the Disunity.

Later that year, Lord Muth Tava threw her support behind a rebel coalition led by Queen Nari Taros, who died at the Battle of the Neviand within the season; sensing opportunity, Lord Muth declared herself Queen of the Anharinan, and made a bold move to conquer Deshanor. When Navith's apprenticeship ended, she settled down into Clan Muth as a peripheral clan member, living on clan lands and working on service contracts. For the clan's campaign to take Deshanor, the clan called her up as Muth Suuna's official quartermaster. They both moved into the service of Muth Sina, Suuna's clan-cousin and highborn daughter of Lord Muth.

Their campaign climaxed at the Battle of Saripava in autumn 1779. Imperial forces encircled Muth Sina's army in the marshlands of Isidis, trapping both when a series of uncharacteristically strong squalls battered the region, flooding the marshes and preventing any attempt at escape. Supplies began to run out quickly. A brutal two-week bout of fighting ensued, which saw guerilla warfare, accounts of war crimes, extralegal executions, and massacres of surrendering soldiers.Many common soldiers of the armies routed or outright mutinied against their officers. In one such case, Muth Sina took a gutshot from her own deserting soldiers, who fled into the bogs. The wound soon grew infected. Suuna later died in a volley of artillery fire. Navith held out with the remaining loyal soldiers for four days in the thunder and rain, nursing Muth Sina back to health with limited supplies. The two fell in love. When Lord Muth's armies rescued them, Sina eloped with Navith, taking her as a wife and causing a minor scandal.

Clan Muth's armies marched into Deshanor in the early weeks of 1780. Lord Muth took Empress Vamara II captive, held a dubious trial, and convicted her on various alleged offenses. She was soon executed, burned alive just seven streets from the Palace of Deshanor.The high lords of the Ruuknan were soon called for an election. Lord Muth declined to make herself a candidate, fearing the stain of dishonor. Instead, she worked behind the scenes to ensure her daughter, Muth Sina, would secure the Obsidian Throne.

Reign of Muth I Sina

By the summer of 1780, the lords of the Ruuknan celebrated the coronation of Muth I Sina, the youngest Empress of the known world in over a century. At the age of 25, she was technically still in her young adulthood, having less legal rights and privileges than a full citizen. As a result, her mother took it upon herself to assemble a regency council for the young queen, in which she, naturally, assumed the title of Lord Regent.

As a second-ranking wife, Navith I found herself shut out of international politics. The Lord Regent neither approved of her marriage to her daughter nor liked Navith personally. Nonetheless, their bond bore religious approval and was legally binding, and so she instead forestalled any attempt by the young woman of Clan Taan to hold any power of her own. She instead focused her efforts on local politics. In early 1781, she convinced her mother to rejoin the Ruuknan and recognize her wife as Empress, bringing her clan back into the fold of the Triumvirate and avoiding a potential flashpoint of rebellion. For this, the Lord Regent reluctantly awarded her a powerless sinecure position, an advisor to the Royal Council on matters of distribution of food and general goods. She toured the Anharinan and grew closely involved with reformists, who called attention to the instability of the Ruuknan's supply lines. Her attempts to bring proposed reforms to the Council or the Empress were prevented by the Lord Regent.

In 1782, Empress Muth bore forth her first litter. Only one of her children survived the season; her spousal circle attended to the infant princeling's needs. The young Empress' health, which had been in a poor state since the Battle of Saripava, declined precipitously following childbirth. The Royal Council soon took on nearly all matters of state as the Empress secluded herself. The Lord Regent, embittered with her daughter-in-law, stripped away her sinecure title. Until her dying day, Lord Muth Tava blamed Navith's medical care for her daughter's sickly condition. On the anniversary of her arrival at Saripava, the Lord Regent assigned Navith to a new position: imperial high magistrate of the Anharinan.

For the role, she moved from her home at the Palace, leaving behind her wife and family, to become a senior bureaucrat at the imperial hall in the Anharith city of Tsasiva. She supervised law enforcement, compelled observance of public morality codes, collected taxes and conducted audits, provided for the maintenance of local infrastructure, and governed distribution of goods. Her training at the academy proved useful. Outside of the Lord Regent's grasp, and with the authority to implement directives, she allied with local reformists to issue a series of mandates aimed at post-war reconstruction and bolstering supply lines.

Quietly, she built a reputation as a capable administrator from a relatively unimportant clan. Several of the Anharinan's clans began seeking assistance from the Anharinan's imperial magistrate as the central government in Deshanor began to unravel. However, she suffered in private. Navith had first used substances during her wartime experiences. During her time in Tsasiva, she drank heavily and began to abuse Sabaean redspice, habits that would come to define her life.

During the early weeks of 1784, she received news that her wife lay gravely ill in the imperial palace. After an initial delay, she rushed to Deshanor, where she found Empress Muth I Sina dead.

Imperial Conclave of 1784

The electors of the clans found themselves called to Deshanor for the fourth time in ten years. With Lord Regent Muth Tava still firmly in control of the Triumvirate's regency council amid the imperial absence, simple resolutions to the succession crisis seemed apparent.

The most obvious, first proposed by the lord of Clan Annand, suggested to secure the succession by anointing Muth Sina's daughter for the Obsidian Throne, to be properly crowned at her coming of age. However, the youngest person ever elected to the imperial seat had been - at that time - 17, still after their naming. The prospect of appointing a young, largely anonymous royal child scared away most electors, who saw it as an obvious and dishonorable power-grab by the Lord Regent; Muth Tava even had to specifically announce her purported disapproval of the idea, so as to avoid public backlash. The primary candidates thus became Muth Vuul, cousin to Muth Tava and celebrated commander of the Disunity, and Sann Rema, Muth Sina's first wife.

Members of the Regency Council, including the Lord Regent, quickly came at odds against one another in the conclave. The councilors were all loyalists and friends of Muth Tava herself, and had considerable interest in seeing the clan remain in control of the Obsidian Throne. An old blood feud between Muth Vuul and Muth Tava's ends of the clan lineage stirred trouble between them and prevented an easy resolution to the crisis. The Lord Regent privately supported Sann Rema's bid for power; she was young, and at 20, would have up to ten years of regency before assuming full power. And as one of the infant princelings' peripheral parents, she could plausibly secure an eventual succession that would have seen Clan Muth return to the throne.

While the Regent worked to see his daughter-in-law on the throne, her councillors pushed strongly for Muth Vuul. Among the wider electorate, and the military commanders who held considerable sway over the process, a fear emerged of Clan Muth establishing an enduring control over Deshanor and the imperial government as a whole. Most had fought against the clan at some point or another during the long years of Disunity. Many had been appalled to see them on the throne in the first place, given the manner of their rise to power, and fretted that legalizing their coup could mean many more years of civil war as various clans vied for imperial authority as a means of resolving their blood feuds.

Clan Muth had nearly no hereditary association with the throne aside from distant relation. Clan Taan, though of middle-rank, traced their lineage through to the Anharith clans of old, before the Triumvirate. Clan Taan's ancestors, before the atomic wars, had been advisors to the Ravmist dynasty. Taan Suri's mother had been born of a imperial woman's seed, though the taint of bastardy lingered in their line. Taan Navith had the unique position of having been wedded to an Empress, been born of imperial blood, and descending from ancient Anharith houses, all while being an impressive administrator. She was not a lowborn commoner, but neither of an especially prestigious clan or highborn litter.

Though some balked at the concept of elevating a festival litter's runt to the Obsidian Seat, the anti-Muthist coalition had scarce other options. No other candidate could receive the assent of the royal council. A warlord powerful enough to claim the seat by legally-sanctioned force would likewise be mighty enough to restart the Disunity. A highborn woman of noble rank and line would pose too great a political threat.

After twenty days of balloting, Taan Navith secured the requisite votes. In that moment she became Empress Taan I Navith. She had not campaigned, nor attended the conclave, and learned of her imperial elevation in a drunken stupor, preparing to return to Tsasiva. The high lords of the Ruuknan crowned her in spring.

 

[bookwyrm]

This is great, it's like if Queen Ranavalona, Tsar Michael Romanov, and Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu were all one person- Ranavalona's rise through her royal marriage, Michael Romanov's compromise acclaim as Tsar, and the complicated clan politics behind Ieyasu's rise after Nobunaga and Hideyoshi.

 

[ScottishMongol]

I love how the Martians consistently choose total girlfailures to be their rulers.

 

[Penelope]

The Ruuknan

Sin Shiian is still alive
I saw her drinking margaritas in May City
Alone at a spacer's cafe
I said, Empress, where's the rest of you?
Are you coming back soon?
She said, I'm just trying to get to Terra.
-From a satirical ballad by Martian playwright Shavi Nuri, translated by Amanda Wiley.

The Ruuknan is a cultural region of Mars primarily located within the designations of Cimmeria, Noachia, and Sabaea. It is by far the most populated area of the Red Planet, home to over 750 million Martians.

Its landscape is that of the Red Planet's ancient southerly continent, whose bordering oceans disappeared long before the appearance of intelligent life. Comm biomes include cold deserts, snowy savannas, mosslands, and temperate forests, such as the Forest of Gavuur near Deshanor. These relatively habitable conditions are only possible due centuries of restoration efforts, though atomic wastelands and war-torn ruins are still present throughout the Ruuknan.

Major realms of the Ruuknan include Anharinan, Daara, Kasuura, Nuur, Pamind, Sirith, and Riviam, among others. The Martian capital of Deshanor, as well as the colonies of May City and November City are located in the region. May City's spaceport is the most-widely used on the planet, connecting the Ruuknan to the interplanetary economy. It is the most populous human colony on the Mars.

Evidence of humanoid habitation in the Ruuknan stretches back hundreds of thousands of years. Agricultural civilization is thought to have arrived in the region by way of Chryse. The oldest memory fragment maintained by the memorists of Miir is estimated at roughly 9,000 years old, likely beheld by an archaic queen.

Around 4,000 years ago, the ancient city-state of Asrath began a campaign of conquest and enthrallment which united much of western Sabaea. The term Ruuknan translates as "the United Lands." In its original sense, the name referred to those realms which became ruled by the Empire of Asrath. Beginning in the centuries before the time of Sin Shiian, and throughout the entirety of her reign, its definition broadened to accommodate the sizes and shapes of the empires which ruled it.

Since the foundation of the Triumvirate over a millennium ago, the Ruuknan's cultural and political capital has been the city of Deshanor, at the heart of the Anharinan. The Empresses who reign from Deshanor claim the title of Sovereign of the Known World - a title first used by Sin Shiian at the height of her power.

 

[ScottishMongol]

The oldest memory fragment maintained by the memorists of Miir is estimated at roughly 9,000 years old, likely beheld by an archaic queen.

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Once again, this is a fascinating way of talking about historical evidence and is another way you actually integrate the psychic abilities of the Martians into their history and culture.

 

[Sabot Cat]

The ballad at the beginning gives a fascinating new dimension to this world that we haven't seen yet: pop culture! You also really nailed it with that, imagining this messianic figure wasting away at a bar and just being like "no actually I don't want to come back", it's great.

 

[bookwyrm]

Kinda the same vibes as Jesus born to Joseph and Mary as undocumented immigrants in an old Bethlehem Steel company town and now just Rust Belt motel stop.

 

[Squidfam]

I don't really have much to add except that these latest updates are great and even made me go back and reread some previous stuff in anticipation of more. The latest poem also puts me in the mind of the seeming vibe of latent pessimism that seemingly looms large in Martian culture and to what extent it mirrors Martian attitudes to their relationship with both Modernity and their relationship with Earth, which seems somewhat interwtined at their current juncture.

And just because I've literally just read about it it reminds me a bit of Melanesian Cargo beliefs in that they're both cultural ways to deal with being trapped in an unequal situation. Just like the believer in Cargo recognizes the material disparity between themselves and the prosperity of western countries and responds by discarding the old ways in favour of trying to embrace what they see as modernity, the Martians look upon the dominance of Earth, its economic and ecological prosperity and wonder what the point of being Martian even is if all its gets you is being stuck on a dying planet while being economically exploited. Why indeed would the Messiah come to Mars when there soon will be no Martians left to greet her?

 

[EBR]

The evolution of the name Ruuknan reminds me of how the name Yamato went from the name of a minor kingdom to a poetic name for all Japan. Are we going to learn more about different cultural regions of Mars? I enjoy how you've avoided any planet of the hats tropes with your world.

 

[Penelope]

Last Days of the Regency

In the days and weeks following her coronation in Mars' southern spring of 1784, Taan I Navith ruled with the assistance of a regency council. Muth Tava, mother of the first Muth Empress and her lord regent, remained in her position for only 26 days until a scandal forced her resignation. Found to be stealing from the royal treasury, the Taan Empress offered her the choice of trial by combat or resignation in exchange for secrecy. She left for the Muth estates in Cimmeria, never to return to Deshanor, and the records would remain sealed for nearly a century.

Taan's allies within the royal court hoped to petition for an end to her regency, but the Diet refused. Instead, the remaining Muthist members of the council, reformists and liberals in the Diet, and a handful of military commanders among the royal court moved to elevate Naar Nerin as Lord Regent. A warrior and hero of one of Disunity's many campaigns, Naar was a calculated choice; as a popular figure and competent lawmaker, she had the necessary political chops to maintain the status quo which had, for a few brief years, kept the Wars of Disunity at bay.

Naar Nerin served in her new position for 118 days, in which time she accumulated a significant amount of money, mistresses, and misfortunes. She gained several enemies. A competent politician, she nonetheless had a way of finding herself in the beds of other politicians' wives, and worse yet finding her fingers in their coinpurses. She fought in two honor duels, one to the death. She killed a Muthist noblewoman in combat. As Lord Regent she dismissed many of her Muthist allies as a result of personal grudges and instead ingratiated herself to the stratocrats who had joined themselves behind the Taanist movement at the council of 1784.

Going into 1785, she had assembled a new council over the course of her regency, and become a capable advisor to the new empress. A plausible assessment might have been that she could serve out her regency until the Taan Empress finally came of age. Then, someone shot her.

Found smoking, undressed, in the company of Temis Tanandra's wives, she said something -- accounts conflict. According to Temis herself, the Lord Regent laughed at her, challenged her honor, and joked that she "wouldn't have the stomach for a duel." According to one of the women present, who attested that the Lord Regent was under the influence of redspice, Temis challenged her to a duel of wits and honor, to which the Lord Regent replied "you've got none." Another claimed she simply laughed. Whatever the reason, Temis snapped, pulled a pistol from her belt, and shot the Regent twice in the chest, killing her instantly.

Temis and her wives fled the city by night. The imperial guard found the Lord Regent naked, bloody, sat against a wall. A cigar still hung from her mouth.

The Warrior Rides to Deshanor

Temis Tanadra, in spite of anything else, was a woman with powerful allies. A highborn officer of low rank and even less accomplishments, she went immediately to the estates of her mother in the far north of the Anharinan, near the great volcano of Syrtis. Under the volcanic ash and late-summer snows, the Lord of Clan Temis pledged to protect her against any and all legal entanglements.

Lord Temis was the most ferocious soldier of the Fourth Disunity. She slew twenty men on the field of fog and blood, in the Battle of the Neviand, where carbon dioxide turned to snow and her fur froze to her skin. During the siege, she had eaten rats, frozen hair cut from her comrades' heads, and even sand off of landsquids. She called her banners immediately. By handwritten letter she dared the Taan Empress to come to her estate, and promised to slay the Empress herself rather than let her daughter be taken captive.

The Taan Empress never arrived. A brief legal crisis ensued. Then, rather than restart the wars, the Taan Empress refused to get involved. She ordered the Regent buried, the guard ceased their investigations and all attempts at capturing Temis Tanandra. The council began conferring with the Diet on a electing a new regent.

Lord Temis might have left it at that, preferring to tell the tale of the time she got the better of a young Empress, and saved her young daughter from justice. She had far greater ambitions.

Of the stratocrats, Lord Temis was the greatest, undoubted and uncontested. At the conclave of 1784 she, like many others, voted for Taan I Navith not out of a peculiar loyalty to the shrewd runt of a festival litter but out of a political calculation. Clan Muth represented a certain kind of ruuk, a clan of enriched warriors who had quit conquering, joined the ranks of the democratic nobility, and settled for controlling the Diet. Many a premier had been a Muth. Now the stratocrats of old worried. They who saw the slow downward trajectory of their way of life, from the defeat of Suthra Sheneo all through Disunities and Empresses and atomic wars, saw their end on the horizon.

Lord Temis marched on Deshanor. She brought her whole retinue in tow, leaving only a few trusted soldiers to defend her estates. She sent messengers to other realms, and psychic touches to true allies. When she arrived outside the Obsidian City, she had an army at her back, and for a few brief days, some wondered whether she meant to depose Taan and seize the Seat herself.

Deshanor Besieged

She laid siege to the city. On the fourth day after her arrival, she entered the city with cadre of loyal guards. A standoff ensued with the imperial guard, just outside the palace, on its very steps. No blood would be spilled. After a few short hours, the Taan Empress herself gave the order to let them in, against the advice of her own royal council.

The young empress led them into her personal residence. There Taan I Navith met with a number of different and equally powerful people, all warriors, stratocrats who reigned over noble and military clans and, in theory, held true to legally binding oaths to the City of Deshanor, its reigning clan, the imperial government, and the very person of the Empress herself. The exact details of this long meeting of the stratocrats with the empress all conflict with one another, and they likely discussed so much that the memories decayed with time, turning into an incongruous psychic soup.

The meeting, which began as a discussion of legal protections for Lord Temis' young daughter, quickly evolved into a shouting match, fought over the pitiful state of the Triumvirate, the Ruuknan, and the world at large. The imperial guard broke up fights. Lord Temis emerged from the imperial residence drunk, but happy.

The pivotal moment, all accounts agree on. The Taan Empress, drunk, in the midst of an argument, turned to Lord Temis, far drunker, and said -- "If I could just be rid of the rats.." She waved her hand. All ruuk are psychic. Lord Temis immediately knew she meant the council, the squabbling factions of the court, and maybe even the Diet itself. Taan I Navith had never held any designs on the throne. It had made her an attractive choice for the stratocrats, who feared anyone who truly wanted to rule the Ruuknan. The young empress likely did not mean the comment as a request. Nonetheless, Lord Temis took it as one, or at least as an opportunity.

"You mean the council?" She blurted out, unthinking.

"By Arun, yes. All of them. All the fools and their constant talking," the Empress shouted back. By every account and memory, the Empress, in her youth, hated the politicking, speech making, and social aspects that her office demanded. The necessity of this role had only grown in the years since the Ravmist Empresses of old. Navith disapproved of every part of it. She, an academic and an introvert, had been educated and trained to be a functionary of government, not its face. The military lords left the meeting over the next few hours, trickling in and out of the residence, establishing a certain perimeter of control in the center of Deshanor.

The stratocrats, to be sure, deserve to have their shrewdness recognized. The Taan Empress made her statements after a day of conversation, during which she was plied with liquor and other delicacies - by some accounts even spices - and brought to a point of exhaustion. She spoke out of turn, hardly clear of mind, mostly out of impassioned dissatisfaction with the realities of the office. The powerful warriors who entered her residence that day did so with a mission: to convince a young empress, not yet in her element, to come over to their side.

Personal Rule

When the Sun rose the next morning, the stratocrats had already infiltrated every hall of government. They held the Taan Empress in her personal residence, and, by the first pass of Phobos, brought their armies into the city. Lord Temis herself appeared before the Diet by nightfall, announced a temporary, extraordinary government in order to head off the international crisis brought about by the Lord Regent's actions, and had her army surround the Diet until it agreed to its own dissolution. They continued to hold out as nightfall approached.

What Lord Temis needed was imperial cooperation. The Empress held one remaining power base, one which was directly loyal to her person not merely in theory. The Imperial Guard, who received all their compensation, livelihood, even room and board from the Empress and her government, held their loyalty to her on the basis of ancient oaths rather than royal treaties. Regardless of any other of the Taan Empress's many traits, she was indeed a shrewd runt, and recognized quickly what was happening. Hungover, still dressed in her nightgowns, and reeking of redspice, she called forth the commander of her imperial guard.

When night fell, the imperial guard arrested Lord Temis and brought her before the Empress. The Taan Empress held the future of the world in her claws. On her words, the world might descend into another round of war. On hearing rumors of the happenings in Deshanor, some tripod pilots had already brought their machines out, and begun reconditioning themselves to fight again.

Instead, the Taan Empress called the stratocrats to the palace, dismissed her royal council, and, when they arrived, announced their appointment to a series of lucrative offices. She ordered Lord Temis to her dungeon, denouncing her as a traitor to the state. The stratocrats might have rebelled there, if they held any true loyalty to Clan Temis - but in truth, they feared her charisma, her power, and her cunning as much as they did Clan Muth's political control of the Diet. With the stratocrats by her side, she strode into the Diet, declared it dismissed, and announced she had no longer had need of their service.

The regency ended. The council concluded, and her court vanished. All the armies of the world stood by her side and, in a rare moment of Martian luck, stood down and swore loyalty.

So began the personal rule of Taan I Navith.

 

[Squidfam]

A competent politician, she nonetheless had a way of finding herself in the beds of other politicians' wives, and worse yet finding her fingers in their coinpurses

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The Martian legacy of Girlbosses going as strong as ever

 

[Sabot Cat]

I think you nailed the character drama beats in this installment and the previous, I enjoyed being able to see into the lives of the historical figures for this setting. Naar Nerin was too cool to live, while Lord Temis is a stone cold badass, and they're both very memorable. Another amazing update!

 

[bookwyrm]

Mars continues to have only the very best political crises, this is like the Komei Emperor and the last Shoguns having a complicated and somewhat sad back and forth in the prelude to the Boshin War and Meji Restoration mostly pushed ahead by their "loyal supporters", combined with like also some real Tudor factional shit around the regencies and councils for little Edward and Mary and Elizabeth.