Red Mars

“She had managed to penetrate Glavkosmos’s little politburo, playing the men against each other in the subtlest of ways.”

Maya’s rise through the ranks of the Russian administration foreshadows her complicated relationships with Boone and Chalmers on Mars. She’s aware that others (particularly men) tend to dismiss her as an emotional woman and uses this to her advantage, manipulating the emotions of those around her in such a way that they remain dismissive of her threat. Just as Maya emerges as the leader of the Russian contingent of the 100, she’ll emerge from the novel as the only leader from that contingent who’s still alive. She characterizes it as a “little politburo”; the politburo (or political bureau) is the highest political entity in communist governments, so this reference would have been especially evocative when the book was published, just after the end of the Cold War.

“Naturally it began to happen.”

Sex aboard the Ares is a genetic inevitability. Though the 100 were selected for their intelligence and resourcefulness, they remain fundamentally human. Aboard the ship, many people quickly pair up, and the novel depicts this process as natural. The word “naturally” establishes that their sexual behavior links to nature and connotes animal instinct, and this fundamental aspect of humanity continues once they’re on the surface of the alien planet. Through sex, they can connect to their natural instincts to help them cope with life in an unfamiliar and harsh environment.

“Do you really think that money matters anymore?”

Aboard the Ares, Chalmers makes a bet with Hiroko, to which she responds by questioning the function of money on their mission. To Hiroko, money no longer has any purpose, while Chalmers still clings to his Earth-influenced ways of thinking. At this point in the voyage, Maya is sympathetic to Hiroko’s point of view. By the novel’s end, however, the greed of the transnationals and their influence on Mars demonstrate that the controlling societal forces still prioritize material wealth.

“And that puts us right back into the nightmare of Terran law and Terran history.”

In arguing his case, Arkady reveals the gulf between his utopian ambition for a new society and the kind of world Chalmers expects to create. Chalmers would prefer to build Mars as an extension of the US, including US laws, culture, and social order. Arkady, however, views such a system as a nightmare of the past that they left behind on Earth for good reason. One man’s American dream is another man’s Terran nightmare, highlighting the ideological differences that cause many problems on Mars.

“‘That’s life on Mars.’ This was already a popular refrain, used whenever they encountered a problem, especially an intractable one.”

The early days of life on Mars demonstrate how the 100 are building a shared language along with their habitats. Refrains such as “that’s life on Mars” (131) are the glue that holds together their social fabric, creating markers of shared experience that they can deploy to strengthen social bonds. They’re not just building houses on Mars; they’re building a community.

“They were like Cro-Magnons in a cave, living a life that was certain to be pored over by the archaeologists of subsequent generations.”

As she builds the Underhill settlement, Nadia is keenly aware that someday it will no longer be used as a habitat. In the future, she believes, the site will become a museum piece, so each decision she makes takes on historical significance. She isn’t just building for her present but also consciously building for future generations. This hints at Nadia’s professional pride: For the first time, she’s conscious of an effort that extends beyond the immediate engineering problem.

“Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.”

Nadia is an engineer, not a scientist, but she’s surrounded by scientists, which enables her to gain a more nuanced perspective on science. The scientists pride themselves on their intellect: They see themselves as purely rational beings, extrapolating their field expertise to every other part of their lives. Nadia sees the subjectivity in this, however, witnessing how scientists use their disciplines in petty squabbles, always furthering their own perspectives. Science may seem objective, Nadia decides, but those who wield it like a weapon do so for subjective reasons.

“This reminder of their enormous fame on Earth, their existence as characters in an ongoing TV drama, was always peculiar and unsettling.”

Each of the 100 is incredibly famous on a world that is no longer their own. Part of their agreement involves immortality in human culture, at the expense of spending the rest of their lives on Mars. For Boone, celebrity is nothing new, but for an engineer like Nadia, the idea of being broadcast into so many people’s homes is a revelation, and not necessarily a comfortable one.

“Only people quite clever at concealing their real nature from the committee could have slipped through, people with great control over their personas.”

Duval knows the faults of the psychological testing suite, faults that have become particularly pronounced on Mars. Rather than selecting for the most psychologically healthy individuals, the supposedly robust tests (like many tests) actually sort for those who can best manipulate the tests. Only the best liars get through the sorting system, rather than the honest scientists. This hints at the broader tendency for science to overlook fundamentally human flaws.

“But he did his job. An hour’s work, then four hours of being The First Man On Mars: the usual ratio.”

When the novel switches to Boone’s perspective, it demonstrates that the vaunted celebrity figure is a facade. Boone plays the role of the first man on Mars to further his agenda. He leans on his celebrity to dazzle those around him and distract them from seeing his real intentions. The opening of Part 5 illustrates the clear but subtle differentiation between Boone the celebrity and the real Boone.

“If you left the planet alone, it would save lives. That’s what I want. I’d kill you if I thought it would help.”

The human presence on Mars has radicalized Ann, who doesn’t support terraforming the planet. She confesses to Boone, half-sarcastically, that she’d be willing to kill him if she believed that it would benefit her cause. The novel’s nonlinear structure reveals the dramatic irony of her statement: Chalmers will kill Boone for his own cause.

“Without the elevator we could become a backwater.”

Phyllis sides firmly with the transnationals and repeats their business-orientated justifications to Boone without hesitation. She has replaced her Christian religion with capitalism, viewing profit is the only justification for any action. Consequently, the transnational hope to extract valuable minerals from Mars is all that separates Mars from becoming a “backwater” (or backward place of little importance). Mars, to the capitalists, has nothing else to offer beyond profit.

“Ursula sent their results back coded, with a single word added at the end. Congratulations.”

Boone attacks one of Hiroko’s followers and, after taking a DNA sample, learns that the young man is actually his son. In addition to the shock of learning that he’s a father, Boone must reckon with the prospect that Hiroko has stolen genetic material from many other members of the 100. Boone is playing the role of the detective rather than the father, so he treats this revelation as a clue rather than a betrayal of his trust or a revelation about his family.

“A million Arkadys clustered around John, looking graver than any Arkady he could ever remember seeing.”

Arkady makes a conscious effort to invent a Martian aesthetic. He meets with Boone in a room of his own design, where carefully angled mirrors create millions of reflections. The effect is to make Arkady appear omnipresent. The supposed leader of a revolutionary movement, Arkady exists at the ideological nexus of several Martian mirrors. Asking whether his revolution is real is like asking whether the reflected Arkadys are real.

“And now they were all hollow.”

Part 6 is the first section of the narrative that takes place after Boone’s assassination of Boone. In the time since he helped assassinate the first man on Mars, Chalmers has struggled to deal with guilt. He feels hollow, since his efforts to bring peace to Mars fall apart. He has done so much for so little, and he now feels empty.

“But the Japanese were aliens.”

As more people emigrate to Mars and form their small communities, Chalmers is struck by how strange they seem. He spent so long with the 100, in a relatively homogenous community that was motivated by pioneering science, that he has forgotten how to relate to other people. The irony is that Chalmers has traveled far from Earth, only to discover that some of his fellow earthlings seem like the real aliens.

“Famine would solve that.”

The situation on Earth is becoming increasingly bleak. What news does reach Mars warns of overpopulation and repression. For those on Mars, however, famine seems a more immediate solution than emigration. The vast space between Earth and Mars allows those on Mars to regard the suffering and starving masses on Earth dispassionately, with little empathy.

“Some people were used to being treated like ball bearings. A lot of people, in fact. But on Mars it was supposed to be different!”

Chalmers has watched his beloved treaty agreement fall apart. This threatens the entire social order on Mars because the people compete against the transnationals for rights and freedoms. Chalmers believes that he settled the matter, that he triumphed over the radicals and built something different on Mars. He believed that what he was building was new and progressive, only to discover that no one else considered his compromise different enough.

“Revolution.”

The final word from Chalmers’s perspective is an admission of defeat. He dedicated his extended life to combating the prospect of the Martian Revolution, always believing that compromise was possible. As society collapses around him, however, the word “revolution” (549) is, on its own, a damning indictment of his efforts.

“I’ll fix things where I can, but I won’t fight.”

Nadia doesn’t view herself as a political actor. She doesn’t taking a side in the Revolution despite her relationship with Arkady. However, the transnationals ignore her desire to simply help as many people as she can. Though she doesn’t see herself as a political actor and only wants to fix things, not everyone agrees with her.

“Their night flights had taken on a strangely ritual aspect, as if they were in the process of inventing a new and exhausting pilgrimage.”

Nadia, along with other members of the 100, fly over the strangely desolate surface of Mars. In the years since their arrival, the planet has been—for better or worse—imbued with a degree of life. They’re returning to their desolation, flying back over a world they once knew. This flight over the dead surface seems ritualistic, as though they’re willing life back into the world and willing the violence to end.

“Sax noted this change with his owlish satisfaction, oblivious to the death and destruction that came with it.”

As grief overcomes Ann, her old opponent watches with “owlish satisfaction” as the world changes. This syntax implies a preoccupation with study and analysis, and Sax is perhaps the purest example of a scientist in the novel: He’s interested solely in data and experiments regardless of the human consequences. To Sax, the Revolution has no real human component. It’s simply a flood of data to be studied, just like any other experiment.

“She found that in a way she was cheering the flood on. It would serve them all right.”

After years of campaigning for humans to leave Mars alone, Ann takes ironic pleasure in the destruction of the flood. She fears that she has lost her son as a result of human meddling, and the flood is a fittingly destructive form of natural revenge by the planet itself. Ann prioritizes Mars and its environment, the world that has never harmed her, over the people, whom she views as agents of destruction.