ENG 369: Science Fiction Studies
Mars remains a distant inhabited planet barely touched by humans. Humans, especially Americans, are known to conquer what is not already theirs. The seeking for total control of any dominion has been predicted to be our demise from their novels. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, Moving Mars by Greg Bear, and Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick all allude to human colonization of Mars being the fall of Earth civilizations. History shows that at any point in society’s fall or environmental decay, the civilization migrated to a better climate. Whether that means inhabiting an open land or colonizing the indigenous community. Bear, Dick, and Robinson show us the alarming realities of our societal collapse from environmental exploitation while commenting on our society’s disastrous history of colonization.
Ursula K. Heise is one of the authors who writes about the predicted colonization of Mars and the expected corruption of our land on Earth. In “Martian Ecologies and the Future of Nature”, she writes about the division between our utopic dream of exploration and the dystopian future we are set to see by our means of actions for such exploration. Heise finds a connection between the novel colonization and the corruption of the environment around Mars as, “Both trilogies foreground that humans, in traveling to and colonizing Mars, confront a world that can boast of no “nature” in the terrestrial sense—no biosphere and ecosystems consisting of other forms of life” (Heise p. 8). The environmental corruption of the Earth led humans to Mars, where the environment was harsher and untamed. Leaving for an age of technological advancements, similar to the English colonies traveling to America. The irony Heise brings up is that a civilization capable of technical change to advance society to boose environmental factors could have been used on their home planet as opposed to colonizing Mars.
The novel by Philip K. Dick, Martian Time-Slip, is a mirror to Heise’s notions of colonizing a preexisting civilization and building upon them. The narrative follows a young man Jack Bohlen who is a mechanic of the Mars colony. Dick included references to the colonization of the indigenous communities by referring to the Martians as Bleekman who are most noticeably stranded in the desert or hired as cheap labor. “…tiny field in the wastelands of the F.D.R. Mountains which Steiner had constructed, using Bleekmen as laborers, Halvah sold well, especially in New Isreal” (Dick p.34). A common similarity that is seen across all novels that include the colonization of Mars by Humans is naming locations after ones on Earth, only showing the assimilation to the new land. Once again drawing to the post colonialism on Earth naming the Northeastern region New England. Dick mirrors this in his writing by commenting on the casual racism on the Bleekmen and post-colonialism also foreshadowing the societal collapse that is expected to happen as it once did here on Earth.
The novel Moving Mars, by Greg Bear, shows a highly advanced Mars civilization at war with Earth. As the latest generations of Mars society hold less allegiance to Earth, they view themselves as superior and begin to make motions to gain independence rather than to be assimilated to their former planet. Earth grows worrisome over the power the Marianas has and fears their civilization. “All of Earth’s progress and therapy and sophistication would come apart like wet sizzle in fear of our power and unpredictability” (Bear p. 409). This novel dystopic side of the colonization of Mars as the two planets are at war with one other’s technological advances. This war has not been victorious in the end without some sort of catastrophe to occur. Earth is left in ruins while Mars had to relocate to a new solar system to be fully isolated. Thus mirroring Heise’s idea of environmental degradation of Earth to secure their planet.
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robison shows a collapse in a developing society torn down by humans’ greed of the exploitation of land. Representatives of America, Russia, and the Arab world settle on Mars and strategize in who can consolidate the land and their own power. Robinson shows and summarizes Earth’s history of acquiring land and going to war with other countries through Mars. With our need to exploit untouched land for our benefit, the rivalries between the settlers on Mars was doomed from the beginning. “I want to be out on it traveling over it always, to study it and live on it and learn it. But when I do that, I change it – I destroy what it is, what I love in it” (Robinson p.162). Ann’s greed and desire for a pure and untainted Mars is the ideal dream of all explorers, while others take advantage of this to exploit the land and colonize the planet.
A common occurrence, across all the novels from this semester, is the similarities of societal struggles on Mars and Earth. The planet hundreds of miles away shares the same racial prejudice, governmental collapse, environmental corruption, and exploitation of indigenous communities as Earth. The authors attempt to write about a place other than Earth, hoping it’s a utopia, only to be a replica. Red Mars showed examples of the greed of untouched land corrupting the mind to ear. Moving Mars was about planetary and societal arrogance and superiority to wipe the other out leading to war, while Martian Time-Slip was about the coloization of the Maritan race. Societal issues are not a location problem, but a system problem. If we do not look back at the past we are only doomed to repeat it, on another planet.
Works Cited
Bear, G. (2007). Moving Mars. Tom Doherty Associates. Dick, P. K. (2012). Martian Time-Slip. Mariner Books.
Heise, U. K. (2011). Martian ecologies and the future of nature. Twentieth-Century Literature, 57(3–4), 447–471. https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462x-2011-4003
Robinson, K. S. (2021). Red Mars. Del Rey Books.
Maya Young 