A Whiter Mars
A Socratic Dialogue Of
Times To Come

by Brian W. Aldis


SHE  We want to present  a history of the development  of Mars, and how we  have
     progressed  spiritually.   It  is  a  glorious   and  surprising  story,  a
     history of human society understanding  and recreating itself.  While I  am
     speaking to you from  Mars, my Earthbound avatar  is  speaking to you  from
     our old  parent planet. Let  us  cast  our  minds  back  before  everything
     changed,  to  the  Age   of Estrangement, when nobody had ever set foot  on
     Earth's neighbouring planet.

HE   So.  Back to  the  twenty-first century  and  a barren  planet.  The  first
     arrivals on Mars found an empty world, free of all the imaginary  creatures
     which have been supposed  to haunt  the  Earth: the ghosts  and ghouls  and
     long-legged  beasties,  the  vampires,  the  leprechauns,  the  elves   and
     fairies  -  all  those  fantasy creatures  which beset  human life, born of
     dark forests, old houses,  and ancient brains.

SHE  You've  forgotten the  gods and  goddesses, the  Greek gods  who gave their
     names to the constellations,  the Baals and Isises  and Roman soldier gods,
     the vengeful  Almighty of  the Old  Testament, Allah  - all imaginary super
     -beings  which supposedly  controlled mankind's  behaviour before  humanity
     could control itself.

HE   You're  right, I  forgot them.  They were  all creaking  floorboards in the
     cellars of  the brain,  inheritances from  eo-human days.  Earth was   over
     -populated with both real and  imaginary persons. Mars was  blessedly  free
     of all  that. On  Mars, you could start  anew. It's true the  men and women
     who  arrived  on Mars   had  a lot  of  conflicting Mars  legends  in their
     heads...

SHE  Oh, you mean that old stuff.  Percival Lowell's Mars of the canals and  the
     dying culture. I still   have a kind of   nostalgia for that grand   sunset
     vision -  wrong in  reality, right  as imagery.  And Edgar Rice Burroughs's
     Barsoom...

HE   And all the horrors which earlier humanity invented to populate Mars - H.G.
     Wells's invaders of Earth, rather than the gentle Hrossa and pfiQtriggi  of
     C.S. Lewis's Malacandra.

SHE  Life,  you  see,  always this  bizarre  preoccupation  with  life,  however
     fantastic. Tokens of the insufficiency of our own lives.

HE   But  the first  men who  went to  Mars came  from a technological age. They
     harboured another idea in their heads.  Certainly they were hoping to  find
     life of some sort, archebacteria being reckoned most likely. They nourished
     the  idea of terraforming the  Red  Planet and  turning it into  a  sort of
     inferior second Earth.

SHE  Having at  last managed to  reach another planet,  they desired to  make it
     like Earth! The idea seems strange to us now.

HE   They had not acquired the  habit of living away from Earth.  'Terraforming'
     was an engineer's dream - a novelty. Their perceptions had to change.  They
     stood there, gaping - aware for the first time of the magnitude of the task
     and of its aggressive nature. Every planet has its own sanctity.

SHE  Even at the most impressive moments in life, a voice seems to speak  within
     us,   the mind   communing with   itself. Percy   Bysshe Shelley   was  the
     first to  recognise this  duality. In  a poem  on Mont  Blanc, he speaks of
     standing  watching a waterfall and says:

	Dizzy Ravine! - and when I gaze on thee
	I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
	To muse on my own separate phantasy,
	My own, my human mind, which passively
	Now renders and receives fast influencings,
	Holding an unremitting interchange
	With the clear universe of things around...

HE   Yes,  the  words strike  to  the  very essence  of  human  perceptions.  As
     phenomenology declares, our inner discourse shapes our outward  perception.
     I'll remind  you  that  the great   Martian expedition  was  not  the first
     scientific excursion which set  out to  discover  a new world.  It too  had
     trouble with its perceptions.

SHE  You're speaking of the way the  West was won in the case of  North America?
     The slaughter of  the Indian nations,   the killing of  buffalo? Wasn't all
     that a primitive kind of terraforming?

HE   I was referring to the expedition of Captain James Cook in H.M.S. Endeavour
     to the  South Seas.  In his  three hundred  and sixty-six  ton wooden  ship
     Cook eventually circumnavigated the  globe. The Endeavour was  commissioned
     to  observe the 1769 transit of   Venus across the face  of the  Sun, among
     other objectives. The  choice of Joseph  Banks, then only  twenty-three, as
     scientific observer was a good one. Banks had a trained connoisseur's eye.

     It was  regarded by  the enlightened  Royal Society  as vital that accurate
     drawings  should accompany  written descriptions  of all  new  discoveries.
     Banks's artists had their  problems. Scientific diagrams of  landscapes and
     plants and animals were made, but artistry also crept in. Drawing  faithful
     records  of  the  native  peoples  of  the  Pacific  was  beggared  by  the
     preconceptions of  the time.  Alexander Buchan  took an  ethnographic view,
     drawing groups of natives free from the conventions of neo-classical style;
     whereas Sydney  Parkinson disposed  of them  according to  the dictates  of
     composition. In Johann Zoffany's famous canvas, The Death of Cook, many  of
     the participants in that  picture assume classical postures,  presumably to
     increase the air of Greek tragedy.

     Thus the unfamiliar was made palatable for the folks back home, was made to
     bend to their preconceptions.

SHE  Mmm. I  see what you're  getting at. Behind  the difficulties of  coming to
     terms with   the unknown   lay a   philosophical problem,   typical of that
     century. Were  the misfortunes  attendant on  mankind  owed  to a departure
     from, a  defiance of, natural  law -  or was  it that  mankind could  raise
     itself above the brute beasts  only by improving on and  distancing himself
     from nature? The city-dweller or the Noble Savage?

HE   Exactly.  The discovery  of the  Society Islands  favoured the former idea,
     that of New Zealand and Australia the latter.

     Australia and  New Zealand,  when their  barren shores  were first sighted,
     fostered  the  concept of  improvement  and progress.  When  Captain Arthur
     Phillip founded  the first  penal colony  in Australia,  at Port Jackson in
     1788, he rejoiced  in an eighteenth-century  version of terraforming.  Down
     went the trees, away went the wild life - including the natives - the  area
     was flattened, and Phillip declared,  "By degrees large spaces are  opened,
     plans  are  formed,  lines  marked,  and  a  prospect  at  least  of future
     regularity  is clearly  discerned, and  is made  the more  striking by  the
     recollection of former confusion.' Ah,  the straight line! - the  marker of
     civilisation, of capitalism!

     The  overwhelming  belief  in  conquering  nature  -in  somehow  distancing
     ourselves from nature, from something of which we are an inescapable   part
     - prevailed for at least two centuries.

SHE  Possibly this dichotomy of perception was reinforced by Cartesian  dualism,
     which made a sharp  distinction between mind and  body - the sort  of thing
     Shelley spoke against. A metaphorical beheading...

HE   I'm unsure about that. It may be as you say.

SHE  What we need  to bear in mind  is that a belief  can take rather firm  hold
     once  it circulates   among the  population.  No  matter if   it's  totally
     erroneous. Even in these days of interplanetary travel, half the population
     of Earth  still believes  that the Sun orbits  the Earth, rather than  vice
     versa. What conclusions do you draw  from that - other than that  ignorance
     has more gravitational  weight than wisdom?

HE   Or that we are more hive-minded than we care to believe?

SHE  Well, let's get back to Mars and those first arrivals here.    5,

HE   Try  to recall  what the  situation was  in those  days. With the growth in
     economic   power   of   the   Pacrim   countries   in   the    twenty-first
     century, the International  Dateline had   been removed  to the  centre  of
     the  Atlantic,  and  American trade  was  locked  into that   of its  Asian
     neighbours. The cost  of all Martian expeditions was met by a   consortium,
     formed by US,  Pacrim and  EU  space agencies. That   was EUPACUS,  a  long
     -forgotten   acronym. However,   the UN,   then under  a powerful  and  far
     -sighted   General Secretary,  George Bligh,  brought  Mars  under its  own
     jurisdiction. Once  you  were  on Mars,  you came  under  Martian  law, not
     under the laws of your own country.

SHE  It was a  sensible provision. A lesson  had been learnt from  the days when
     Antarctica  had   been   a   continent  set    aside  for   science.   Just
     occasionally we manage to learn from history!  We wanted the Red Planet  to
     be a White Mars  - a planet set aside for science.

HE   That's an ancient battlecry!

SHE  Old battlecries still retain their power. In the mid-twenty-first  century,
     there  was a  movement on  Earth called  APIUM -  the Association  for  the
     Protection and  Integrity of  an Unspoilt  Mars. It  was regarded  as a rag
     -taggle of eccentrics and Greens  at first. APIUM wanted to   preserve Mars
     as it had  been for  millions  of years, as   a kind of   memorial to early
     man's  early  dreams.  Their  claim  was that  every  environment  has  its
     sanctity,  and sufficient  environments  had been  ruined on Earth  without
     starting out at once to monkey with another planet -  an entire planet.

     However, the  people who  landed on  Mars in  that first  expedition had to
     justify  costs.  They were  going  to prepare  to  terraform it.  It  was a
     foregone conclusion  for them.  They were  bound by  the pressures of their
     rather primitive societies.

HE   Ah, yes,  terraforining. That word  and concept coined  by a SF  writer, by
     name Jack Williamson. How alluring  and advanced it was when  first coined.
     It was another of those ideas  which took root  easily in the  fertile soil
     of the  human mind.

SHE  Yes. There was  nothing sinister about it.  The astronauts simply took  the
     idea for  granted. It  was a   part of  their mythology  - meaning   an old
     way of thought. They imagined they'd  improve the planet and  make it  like
     Earth.  They had glowing computer designs  to seduce them, showing  all  of
     Mars looking  like the Cotswolds on a sunny day.

HE   But  they also  carried in  their minds  opposed preconceptions.  Mars as a
     rubbish dump  of rock,  'suitable for  development', like  something from a
     diagram of  'Nuclear  Winter'  -  that  old guilt-myth   -  or Mars  as   a
     heavenly  body,  formidable, aloof,  enduring. Similar  to the  two opposed
     ideas that Captain  Cook had held three centuries earlier. And-

SHE  They left  their ships and  stood there, like  stout Cortez, silent  upon a
     peak  in Darien  in Keats's  poem,  with  the whole  vista of  the   planet
     confronting them, and-

HE   And?

SHE  And they knew  - it was that  discourse of Shelley's between  the outer and
     inner world - they knew that  terraforming was just a dream, a  terrestrial
     city-dweller's  computer  phobia.  It  was  undesirable.  To  use  an   old
     term, it  was blasphemous, against nature. You know  how city-dwellers fear
     nature. In  a kind  of vision, they saw  that this environment must  not be
     destroyed. That  it carried  a message,  an austere  message: Rethink!  You
     have achieved much - achieve  more! Rethink!

HE   Rethink  -  and  re-feel  - because  it  was  experience  which  brought  a
     revolution in their understanding. They knew as they stood there they  were
     at  a  turning point  in history.   Yet, you  see, some   people claim this
     vital   decision not  to terraform  sprang from  a powerful  speech by   UN
     Secretary George Bligh, who argued against it. His words were often quoted:

     'Terraforming is a clever idea which may or may not work. But cleverness is
     a lesser thing than  reverence. We must have  reverence for Mars as  it has
     always existed.  We cannot  destroy the  millions of  years of its solitude
     merely for cleverness. Stay your hand!'

SHE  You believe those words of Bligh's were in the astronauts' minds when  they
     landed?

HE   I partly believe so. I wish to believe so because staying the hand is often
     a better, if a less popular, way to proceed than conquest. Anyhow, they did
     stay  their   hands.  It   proved   the  beginning  of   a  tide   in   the
     affairs of  men. Fortunately,  you couldn't  exploit Mars:  there were   no
     natural  resources to exploit - no  oil or fossil fuels, because there  had
     never been forests.  Limited underground reservoirs of water. Just -   just
     that amazing  empty world,  so  long  the target  of  mankind's  dreams and
     speculations, a desert  rolling ever onward through space.

SHE  The  old-fashioned  word  'space',  had  by  then  been  relegated  to  the
     etymological museum, by the way. That highway of teeming particles was  now
     known as 'matrix'.

HE   Okay. Thousands on thousands of young folk desired to visit Mars, just  as,
     two  centuries  earlier,  they  had  walked,  rolled  or  ridden  westwards
     across the  face  of   North  America.   The  UN  had  to  formulate  rules
     for  visitors. Two categories of  people were permitted  to go,  travelling
     uncomfortably in  EUPACUS ships: the YEAs and the DOPs. (Laughs]

SHE  It  was  a  sensible  arrangement.  Or  at  least  it  worked,  given   the
     difficulties of the  journey.  The YEAs  were Young  Educated  Adults. They
     had  to pass an examination  to qualify. The DOPs were  Distinguished Older
     Persons.  They were selected by  their communities. The  cost of an   Earth
     -Mars round trip  was high. DOPs were paid  for by their communities.   The
     YEAs paid in  work, doing a year's community service before their journey.

HE   So the giant fish farms off Galapagos and Scapa Flow, and the bird  ranches
     of the Canadian  north,  and the  vineyards of  the  Gobi were developed...
     all by voluntary labour.

SHE  And the afforestation of most of the Outback in Australia.

HE   And of the great flow of people who went to Mars, that wonderful new  Ayers
     Rock  in  the sky,  to  meditate,  to  explore,  to honeymoon,  to  realize
     themselves -all found themselves up against the  reality of the cosmos. All
     stood  there in awe, breathing in the laws of the universe.

SHE  And one of them said, marvelling, 'And that I have come here to  experience
     all this means I am the most extraordinary thing in the entire galaxy.'

HE   Then came the crash!

SHE  Oh yes, just when minds were changing everywhere! And the crash marked  the
     end of a certain exploitive chain of thought. Pundits in 2085 called it the
     end of the Twentieth Century Nightmare.  The consortium EUPACUS  collapsed.
     It   was a  case of  internal  corruption.  Billions of   dollars had  been
     embezzled  and, when  the figures  were examined,  the whole  company  fell
     apart.

     EUPACUS  had  a  monopoly  on  interplanetary  travel,  and  on  all travel
     arrangements. All that traffic stopped. Five thousand visitors were on Mars
     at the  time, together  with two  thousand administrators,  technicians and
     scientists -  Mars of  course makes  an excellent  observatory for studying
     Jupiter and its moons.

     Seven thousand people - all stranded here!

HE   But Mars is a big desert island. By this time, it was a complex  community,
     lacking Wild West  atmosphere, with serious  business to do.  There were no
     guns on Mars; no mind-destroying drugs; there was no currency, only limited
     credit.

SHE  Another important thing. No animals. For there was no grazing or fodder  to
     be had,  no animals  lived on  Mars, except  for a  few cats. Vegetarianism
     became  a positive  thing rather than  a  negative. The  habit was emulated
     by terrestrials. In fact,  renewed concern  for animals  by  demonstrations
     and lobbying, induced  many governments to  bring in Animal  Rights laws. A
     revulsion to  rearing  animals  for slaughter   and human   consumption was
     widespread. The  human conscience was getting up off the couch!

HE   You  must be  mistaken about  the animals.  I remember seeing documentaries
     showing your Martian domes full of bright birds. And there were fish, too.

SHE  Oh,  birds and  fish,  yes, but  no  animals. The  birds  were  genetically
     manipulated macaws and  parrots. Instead of  squawking, they sang  sweetly.
     They were allowed  to fly  free in  limited areas  of the  main domes,  the
     'tourist' domes. They were  prized. No one attempted  to kill and eat  them
     during the period when Mars was isolated.

HE   So the Martians  remained cut off, luckily  under wise leaders. During  the
     period of isolation, water - the fossil water from underground   reservoirs
     -  was strictly rationed. It  was needed  for agriculture and  went through
     electrolysis to  provide  necessary  oxygen.  The  isolated community   had
     reason to  cohere. Without coherence there was no chance of survival.

SHE  The multi-billion  collapse of   EUPACUS brought  financial crisis  to  the
     business centres of Earth, to LA, Seoul, Beijing, London, Paris, Frankfurt.
     The disillusion with  laissez-faire  capitalism was  complete.  So much  so
     that  'Stay your  hand!' became  a  popular  phrase. Stay  your  hand  from
     grasping  another  ice-cream,  another beer,  another  car, another  house!
     You  stayed your hand out  of pride.

     It  was  five years  before  a limited  flight  schedule with  Mars  was re
     -established.  By  then  the  idea  of  community  service  had  sunk   in,
     reinforcing the concept of the world's population as a unit, and as part of
     Earth's necessary biota. Discovering that the Mars community had achieved a
     frugal Utopia,  that all  there were  lean but  fit, was  a cause for great
     rejoicing - most  nationalities had one  or more representative  members on
     White Mars.

HE   The  Martian example  hastened the  swing away  from exploitive  capitalism
     towards the  managerialism that  had  already  begun. Laissez-faire  passed
     away  in its sleep, as communism had done before it. The epoch of  peaceful
     Earth  opened, with leadership  concentrating on integrating its  component
     parts, and a  general tendency to behave more like park-keepers than robber
     barons.

SHE  Ah, but with the increase in YEA and DOP pilgrims to the heroic White Mars,
     the planet ran out of water. The underground reservoirs, such as they were,
     had been drained dry. It looked like the end of a civilisation on Mars.

HE   I'm  not sure  it was  as bad  as that,  because already manned probes were
     forging further  out into  the system   and the  realm of  the gas  giants,
     mighty Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus  and  Neptune.  Unexplained activity   had
     been sighted between Neptune and  its  large satellite, Triton. So   a base
     was established  on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede-

SHE  I have visited Ganymede City. It's a pretty swinging place. People live for
     the day. I  fear Mars gets   bypassed now, because  views of Jupiter   from
     Ganymede and the other moons are so inexhaustibly wonder-making.

HE   From Ganymede, it  was just a hop  to the neighbouring moon,  Oceania - the
     rechristened Europa - where views of Jupiter are even more stunning.

     There's a floating base  on Oceania, built on  top of a kilometre-deep  ice
     Hoe. Under the ice crust, remarkably,  is a fresh water ocean -  pure fresh
     water, without life, or without life until we seeded some there.

     That water gets despatched in bladdees  to Mars. Mars now has a  large lake
     slowly turning into a sea of fresh water. Its main problem is solved.

SHE  And so  of course Mars  is being terraformed,  at last. The  human race has
     moved on and no longer needs a monument to old dreams and illusions.

HE   Mars's  period of  frugal Utopia  did not  last. But  the blackness  of the
     twentieth century, with all  its  wars, genocides, killings,  injustice and
     greed had faded away. Somehow,   we found the strength,  in  Bligh's words,
     to  stay our  hand. The human  race  is happier  - less  tormented  - as it
     launches out towards the stars.

SHE  To meet  with all those  other species we  don't yet know  of... Maybe with
     God?

HE   Unlikely. God was  one of those creaking  floorboards in the brain  we left
     behind when we got to Mars.

SHE  I cannot accept that. What would  become of the human race if there  was no
     god?

HE   What became of it during the twentieth century when supposedly there was  a
     god? You believers might  say, 'He saved us  from destroying ourselves with
     our nuclear weapons.  That was   his will.'  Equally, if  we  had destroyed
     ourselves, that would have been God's  will too, according to you.  There's
     no God - yet  I hate him.  I hate  the way religious belief  has  caused us
     to  waste our energies looking  away  from  our  own  intractable problems.
     He  stood  in   our  way of  enlightenment, like Jung's  Shadow, barring us
     from accepting that  we are made  of the ashes  fallen from  the  flanks of
     extinct   suns.  That we  are   universe-stuff. The  universe  is where  we
     belong.

SHE  You  must allow  me strongly  to disagree.  God has  been our  inspiration,
     lifting  us  from  the  material.  Have  you  never  listened  to  all  the
     beautiful  sacred music  composed  in  his name,   or seen  all  the  great
     paintings  faith has inspired?

HE   The paintings were painted by men. God didn't have half the musical  genius
     of  Johann  Sebastian  Bach,  I  can  tell  you.  You  must  give  up  this
     illusion,  comforting although   it is.   Giving it   up is   part of   the
     process  of becoming adult.

SHE  I don't understand you.

HE   You mean you don't understand evolution.

SHE  Don't be silly. Science and religion are not in conflict.

HE   No - it's experience and religion which are in conflict.

SHE  And what will we do without God?

HE   We must learn - as we are slowly learning - to judge ourselves, and our own
     actions.

SHE  You won't shake my faith. I'm sorry you don't have it.

HE   Faith? Being unmoved  by facts? Come, you  must not pride yourself  on'such
     blindness. Think how the   concept of God separated   us from the rest   of
     nature, set us  above the animals,  gave  us the  example of puissance  and
     abasement. Made us self-preoccupied idiots.

SHE  That's blasphemous  rubbish. You sound  almost inhuman when  you speak like
     that.

HE   We are almost becoming another species, we space-goers. Physical and mental
     change  is   rapid  now.  We  have   developed  from  the  gifts   of  that
     tormented twentieth  century, from  the discovery  of the  DNA code and the
     subsequent advance of  genetic engineering. The  bladdees shuttling to  and
     fro across matrix  between Oceania and Mars  are living entities  developed
     by bio-engineering  skills from the modest bladder-wort.

SHE  You remember the excitement when  Ganymede was made habitable by new  plant
     -insect stock.  The plantsects  were despatched  in unmanned  probes.  They
     soft-landed on Ganymede, dispersed,  reproduced rapidly, and prepared   the
     satellite for us  when we   arrived there.  By that  time,  the  plantsects
     had  culminated,  consuming themselves,  leaving their  bodies for compost.
     Such advances  would have  been  impossible  in  the  early  days  of  Mars
     landings,  with their  mechanistic approach.

HE   And did  God walk on  Ganymede? No, he  stood in our  way! Was he  not Carl
     Jung's  monstrous  Shadow, cutting  ourselves   off from  a  realisation of
     ourselves as being intrinsically  a part of the  whole cosmos - ashes  from
     extinct suns?

SHE  Try to love God, whether or  not you think he exists. Hatred is  harmful to
     you.  God was  necessary -  essential, perhaps  - for  some ages  past, and
     the Saviour  represented a  condition for   us to  aspire to  in the   long
     period  of darkness.

HE   [Laughs) You're saying we have saved ourselves?

SHE  I'm saying only that the concept of a loving Saviour helped us, once upon a
     time. But certainly we've done  away  with hatred on the  outer satellites,
     along with most forms  of  illness; genetic  revision and improved   immune
     systems have altogether clarified our minds.

HE   It  was the  understanding that  we are  an intrinsic  part of nature which
     transformed  our   perceptions  when   we  arrived   on  Mars.   Much   has
     followed. The  bleak Martian  globe cleared  our minds.  A prompting of our
     symbiotic  relationship with  plant life  speeded the  development of  warm
     -blooded plants. It has radically changed  our being  and appearance.  That
     epiphyte   growing  on  your  head,   much resembling  an  orchid,  is  now
     women's   crowning  glory! It   permits  you to   carry  with you  a  micro
     -atmosphere, a temperature-gauge and other perceptions, wherever you go.

SHE  As  do the  ferns sprouting  round your  venerable cranium.  You are  right
     there. We're  now true  terrestrials, half-human,  half-plant, creatures of
     nature, well-equipped to venture throughout a waiting universe.

HE   Well, it's been pleasant to talk with you. You must go on your way. I  have
     to retire;  I'm  growing  too old   to travel.  We  shall  not meet  again.
     Farewell, dear spirit!
