Line #3 Literature/RedMarsTrilogy


1	[[quoteright:269:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/normal_RedMars_sketch01_59.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:269:A new home for mankind...]]
3	->''The day John Boone was assassinated we were up on east Elysium and it was morning and this meteor shower came raining down on us, there must have been thirty streaks or so and they were all black, I don't know what those meteorites were made of but they burned black instead of white...''
4
5	The ''Red Mars'' trilogy is a series of novels by sci-fi author Creator/KimStanleyRobinson. It explores the settlement and subsequent {{terraform}}ing of Mars over the course of nearly two centuries. The series is known for its accurate science, complex characters, realistic portrayals of politics and economics, and for its ultimately optimistic tone, shading towards a utopia rather than a {{dystopia}}.
6
7	''Red Mars'' depicts the settlement of the first Martian colonies. The initial group of colonists, known as the "First Hundred", are tasked with settling and ultimately terraforming the planet. However, they're almost immediately divided over the degree to which they should terraform, as well as how independent the new Martian society should be from Earth. This crystallizes into two major movements: the Reds, who want to limit terraforming and keep Mars as close to its natural state as possible, and the Greens, who want to fully terraform Mars into an Earth-like environment.
8
9	''Green Mars'' depicts the fallout of a failed revolt, which has resulted in an underground separatist movement whose struggle for political freedom from Earth forms the bulk of the plot. Against this political backdrop, Martian society is strained by a massive influx of immigrants and increasing corporate meddling from Earth, and the terraforming process begins to proceed at a runaway pace as Mars begins to [[TitleDrop literally turn green]].
10
11	''Blue Mars'' shows the aftermath of Mars becoming fully independent. After a global disaster on Earth threatens to destabilize the already overpopulated and polluted planet, the new Martian government is thrust into the unexpected role as Earth's savior. Meanwhile, the colonization of the rest of the solar system is explored as well as the continuing effects of the LongevityTreatment on both the main characters and society as a whole.
12
13	A companion collection of short stories, ''The Martians'', features tales set in the same universe and more fully explore ideas only hinted at in the novels, as well as featuring fanciful [[AlternateContinuity what-if]] stories.
14
15	Later works by KSR often feature recurring elements from the Mars Trilogy, [[ThematicSeries but none are direct sequels]]. The novel ''Literature/TwentyThreeTwelve'' picks up on many of the settings and tropes that were only briefly alluded to in the Mars Trilogy, with its two central characters natives of Mercury and Titan. According to WordOfGod, [[BroadStrokes the basics of Martian history are similar]], but the Mars of ''2312'' is far less terraformed than the Mars of the trilogy, and the economics of the solar system are rather different, too. ''Literature/Aurora2015'' is similar again, but lacks the longevity technologies and terraformed Mars of the Mars Trilogy.
16
17	Finally, the novel ''Galileo's Dream'' may also be related to the series, in the sense that it [[CanonWelding ties much of Robinson's work]] together, though its rather more fantastic elements conflict somewhat with the hard sci-fi themes of the trilogy.
18	----
19	!!Tropes featured include:
20	* ActionPrologue: The novel opens with one protagonist inciting a riot and goading a rioter to kill his political and [[MurderTheHypotenuse romantic rival]]. However, it’s "action" mostly by the standard of a two thousand page epic: the chapter [[AuthorFilibuster starts with a speech]] and also contains a [[SceneryPorn long description of the town]].
21	* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Human technology moves from more utilitarian designs to more exotic ones such as dams made from diamond matrix that show the water they are holding back.
22	* AllegoricalCharacter: Several:
23	** Sax in many portions of the story represents science itself. At one point he pretends to be someone he is not and literally gets into bed with the character who represents short-sighted corporate business interests in order to be able to do more (corporate-funded) scientific work; this has disastrous consequences.
24	** Hiroko represents love, spirituality, and harmony with the world. This is reflected both in her in-story role as a kind of religious leader, and in more subtle ways such as her (unmatched and effortless) ability to perfectly balance out her rotation with that of the spaceship to leap straight down the central shaft in the shaft-leaping game, or a moment in which Frank, a spiritually hollow character, tries in vain to recall her face as it "turns away from him" in his mind. Her periods of absence from the other characters become an allegory for an absence of spiritual wholeness, for which some of them search frustratedly.
25	* AlternateContinuity: Two bookend short stories in ''The Martians'' feature an alternative timeline that diverges from the backstory of ''Red Mars''. The divergence occurs in the pre-colonization "social experiment" in Antarctica where psychologist Michel Duval, who is evaluating the program from the inside, decides that the First Hundred would be incapable of surviving, psychologically, in the conditions they would face in the early years on Mars. So the mission is scrubbed and retasked as one of ''exploration'' instead of colonization. Mars is eventually colonized at a later date and the War of 2061 from the end of the first novel never happens.
26	* AnyoneCanDie:
27	** The book [[ActionPrologue begins with the assassination]] of the first man on Mars and the ball keeps rolling after that.
28	** In fact, of the four people named on the back cover of ''Red Mars'', three end up dying by the end of the first book (although [[spoiler:the one who survives actually makes it all the way to the end of the trilogy]]).
29	** It's also rather remarkable that the [[spoiler:hero of the ''entire story'' dies within the first 20 pages of a 2000 page story.]]
30	* ArcWords:
31	** ''Viriditas'', "green strength," popularized by Hiroko. She also popularizes ''areophany'', a sort of religious awakening to Mars.
32	** Nirgal, especially as a child, thinks of the world as "the green and the white".
33	** ''[[ItCantBeHelped Shikata ga nai]]'', meaning "there is no other option" also appears several meaningful times.
34	* BerserkButton: All Nadia loves is creation; she is so mild mannered and peaceful that even among the fractious First Hundred she is one of the few that everyone gets along with without fighting, and she finds war and destruction abhorrent. However, once you start killing the people she cares about, she will [[spoiler:blow up your moon base weapons platform. ''Including the moon it is on'']].
35	* BoldExplorer: John Boone became a world-wide hero after leading the first expedition to Mars and being the first person to actually step foot on the planet. Later, during the colonization phase, he parlays his celebrity "First Man On Mars" status into a successful political career.
36	* BrotherSisterIncest: In ''Green Mars'', we learn that [[spoiler:all the children in the Martian Underground colony are technically half-siblings, as Hiroko is all their mother and all their fathers come from the sperm samples of all the male First Hundred colonists. Coyote calls Hiroko out on creating an "incest camp," but Hiroko, in her capacity as Mother Goddess figure, has no problem with this.]]
37	* ColonizedSolarSystem: In ''Blue Mars'' humanity expands its reach to nearly all of the planets around the Sun and even asteroids.
38	* ColonyDrop:
39	** The first Martian [[spoiler:SpaceElevator is attacked and severed, causing it fall to Mars. It's so long that it literally wraps around the entire planet at the equator ''twice'']]. It's every bit as apocalyptic as it seems.
40	** A throwaway line reveals that a rogue faction in the War of 2061 redirected an asteroid at Earth (named ''Nemesis'', no less) necessitating a mad scramble to blow the thing up before it hits.
41	** In a straight example: [[spoiler:Phobos]] is dropped out of orbit and destroyed.
42	* CommonTongue: Played straight at first with English and later averted, as translation AIs become common-place.
43	* {{Commune}}: The most common type of settlement on Mars, especially after the revolutions.
44	* CoolTrain:
45	** A train on Phobos is used to keep the workers adjusted to Martian gravity. The gravity on Phobos is so low that the train can simply run around Phobos at a high enough speed that the centrifugal force allows the workers to literally stand upside down on the ceiling of the train.
46	** The city of Terminator, capital of Mercury in ''Blue Mars'' and a central location in ''Literature/TwentyThreeTwelve'' is the ''ultimate'' Cool Train--the entire city moves around the planet, always keeping ahead of the devastating dawn.
47	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: There are a couple, but the biggest standout is [[spoiler: Phyllis Boyle. She sets up shop on Clarke asteroid at the top of the first Martian space elevator and freely admits to John that she intends to make herself rich working for the transnats, and no she does not care that said transnats are abusing their people and Martian society in general. After the war, she is seen still working for the corporations and immediately dimes out Sax Russell when she catches him using a secret identity to involve himself with the terraforming project - though it's hinted that she had no idea how brutal the transnat secret police were going to be and objected to Sax's torture.]]
48	* CrapsackWorld: Earth. Too crowded, corrupted by transnational corporations, full of brutal inequality, etcetera. WorldWarIII breaks out at just about the same time as the revolution of 2061.
49	* CrazyPrepared: Sax in ''Green Mars''. Once the revolution finally breaks out, it turns out he had spent the preceding years preparing for a number of large-scale contingencies, including making possible the open-air evacuation of an entire city by having raised the oxygen levels in the atmosphere and making tens of thousands of carbon dioxide filter masks.
50	* DeadlyDustStorm: The terraforming efforts at one point lead to a huge dust storm that lasts for years.
51	* {{Determinator}}: Pretty much any of the First Hundred who survive even the first book could be considered Determinators, given that pretty much everyone is out to get them.
52	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Ann Clayborne decides to freeze herself to death at the end of ''Red Mars'', thinking that her son is dead and blaming herself for Frank's death. Her husband Simon stops her.]]
53	* EarthThatWas: Earth is rapidly approaching overpopulation and it's promoting mass emigration to try and stop it. It stops working at all once Mars becomes independent (and wasn't really working before that, as Earth's population is growing faster than they can ship them into space). However, it does get (slightly) better by the time we see it close-up in ''Blue Mars''.
54	* EcoTerrorist: Some colonists who identify as Reds engage in active, sometimes violent sabotage of terraforming efforts.
55	* EnergyEconomy: Calories of heat, nitrogen compounds, and hydrogen peroxide form the basis of the Martian economy.
56	* ExtremeSpeculativeStratification: The initial availability of the gerontological treatments to the privileged had some thinking this would happen to humanity.
57	* FailedFutureForecast: A small failure -- in the time the book was written, Switzerland wasn't a member of the UN yet, but in the time the novel is set in (the 2020s and onward) Switzerland already became a member state (on the 10 September 2002, to be exact).
58	* FantasyWorldMap: Or rather, Sci-Fi World Map, one at the beginning of each book that shows Mars with various cities and other locations.
59	* FictionalPoliticalParty: The various emergent factions on Mars, with the main divide of pro-terraforming Greens versus the pro-preservation Reds.
60	* TheFogOfAges: In ''Blue Mars'' it becomes clear that this is a possible side-effect of the longevity treatment, as the extremely long-lived main characters begin to forget things they did when they were in their ''100s''. Eventually [[spoiler:a cure for this is found that not only reverses the effect but also reinforces all the previous memories the person has, including memories from their childhood they normally didn't remember anyway]].
61	* {{Foil}}:
62	** The example that helps characterize the entire series is the relationship between John Boone and Frank Chalmers. Early on, a segment told from Frank's perspective shows that he and John have completely opposite ways of doing things: John is charismatic and easygoing, and gets what he wants by getting people to go along with him, while Frank is intensely driven, but equally intensely temperamental and fierce. Few of his colleagues really like him, and he tends to achieve his aims through a combination of tireless, ceaseless effort, a complex web of lies, and withering vitriol (the better to subdue political and professional rivals). Even after [[spoiler: they both die, John at the beginning of ''Red Mars'' and Frank at the end]], they are continually referred to by other characters, as their social philosophies basically embody the major social conflict in Martian life. Frank believed that most people were stupid, weak, and afraid to make hard choices, obliging people like him to take control (through dishonorable means, if necessary) and use the status quo for the greater good, even if it meant working with the transnationals to help keep their depredations under control. John believed that Mars was a chance for people to take what was best from all Terran cultures and create something new and worthwhile, and that the domination of the transnationals should be opposed because it stifled peoples' attempts to make new lives and societies for themselves.
63	** Much attention is also paid to the contentious relationship between Sax, a terraforming proponent and biologist, and Ann, a geologist who wants to keep Mars just as it is. They represent opposite sides of a philosophical debate about whether Humanity or Nature should be seen as the ultimate source of beauty and goodness in the universe, and this is reflected by their attitudes toward other people (Anne is quite misanthropic, while Sax starts out overly-optimistic and naive about the destructive drives, irrationality, and political complexity of mankind).
64	* ForScience: In a therapy session, Michel asks Sax why science is so important to him; Sax replies "to learn." When Michel asks what the point would be if he learned ''everything'' about what he was studying, Sax's reply is "...to learn more."
65	* FuturePrimitive: In ''Blue Mars'', some Martians have resorted to nomadic agriculture and even hunter-gathering while still visiting settlements to shop.
66	* FutureSlang: A few, such as the expression "Ka", derived from the name of Mars in a number of languages.
67	* GlobalWarming: Since this is on Mars, it's actually a desired outcome for the terraformers (but not for the Reds and Ann Clayborne); however, there's the challenge of adding the right amount of greenhouses gases and still having a breathable atmosphere.
68	* TheGreatFlood: Destruction of water reservoirs in 2061 led to one of these in Valles Marineris.
69	* GrayAndGrayMorality: There are no truly "bad" organizations/movements in the series. For most of the first and second novels, the "transnats" (later called "metanats") are portrayed as bad purely because the characters in the story perceived them to be this way, but later on a character ''from'' one of the transnats, Art, shows that things are much more varied and complex than previously assumed. Conversely, there are no true "good" guys; one of the main characters has another main character assassinated at the beginning of ''Red Mars'', and is shown to be a rather Machiavellian person, but later is shown to be a deep and complex person, considered a hero by some. People previously portrayed as decent human beings in one narrator's PointOfView suddenly become villainous [[SwitchingPOV in another character's POV]].
70	* HardOnSoftScience: Most of the First Hundred are openly contemptuous of psychology and the personality tests they had to take in order to secure their positions. This makes it pretty hard for the group's actual psychologist, who starts having a mental breakdown during the trip.
71	* HelpfulHallucination: [[spoiler:Hiroko leads Sax through a blizzard back to his rover, long after she went missing (and presumed dead).]] It's left ambiguous whether she was really there.
72	* TheHiddenHour: A rare non-magical example, as on Mars, the day is 40 minutes longer than on Earth, and they deal with it by freezing the clock each night at midnight. The 40 minutes becomes a sort of free time, a time that is considered not to really count, and many clandestine things are done there.
73	* HonestCorporateExecutive: William Fort, who is also the only metanational leader seen personally. He's kind of a BunnyEarsLawyer but seems to be the OnlySaneMan in the corporate elite, in that he actually cares about the long term impact of his corporation's actions, eschews the more brutal tactics of the other metanats, and takes pains to try and establish a long term plan that doesn't involve simply strip-mining Mars. [[spoiler: Later, he winds up committing his corporation's assets to the second Martian revolution, and is generally the only sympathetic character other than Art with a corporate background]].
74	* HowWeGotHere: ''Red Mars'' starts with Frank engineering unrest at a city festival and the assassination of John Boone. The next chapter is the voyage to Mars and its settlement by the First Hundred.
75	* IcarusAllusion: In ''Blue Mars''. [[spoiler:Jackie's daughter Zo dies this way--not through her own carelessness, but trying to save a more reckless flier. Although throughout her chapter she is shown as being rather self-centered and haughty.]]
76	* InherentInTheSystem: The unstable and corrupt national and international systems on Earth. Many of the First Hundred, particularly Arkady, see Mars as an opportunity to create an entirely new society without the problems of the old systems.
77	* InscrutableOriental: Perhaps unduly influenced by [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld the paranoia about Japan's economic successes that was prevalent at the time of writing]], the Japanese are described as the closest things to aliens mankind is ever likely to encounter (albeit by a character who's not meant to be entirely sympathetic), a sentiment embodied in the personage of the enigmatic (and probably insane) "Queen" Hiroko.
78	* ItCantBeHelped: Hiroko introduces this phrase to the first hundred, and they start using ''shikata ga nai'' regularly. One section of the book is named such.
79	* ItsAllAboutMe: Nirgal and Maya think this about Jackie Boone, feeling that she's only interested in securing and enjoying power for herself. [[UnreliableNarrator How true this actually is depends on how much you trust their opinion]]. This definitely does apply to her daughter Zo, however, who seems completely incapable of understanding or respecting any point-of-view that is not her own.
80	* JustSoStory: Some of the interstitial segments are these, pitting Myth/PaulBunyan against a new Martian figure called "Big Man", eventually including John Boone, and sometimes the "little red people" that omegendorph abusers see at the edges of vision.
81	* KillItWithFire: How do you get rid of anti-terraforming "Red" terrorists? Why, pump their domed "tents" full of pure oxygen and set them on fire!
82	* LanguageEqualsThought: The multinational colonists on Mars usually speak Arabic or Russian; Arabic because it has the best words for describing the landscape, and Russian for its ability to describe grim conditions in weather and politics.
83	* LatexSpaceSuit: The "mesh suits" worn by the colonists in ''Red Mars'', though it's an extrapolation of real-world research into the effort rather than {{Fanservice}}. They provide pressurization, but the person has to wear cold-weather gear ''over'' it because it has no other protections.
84	* LegoGenetics: Later in the series, people splice animal genes into their DNA in the process of getting longevity treatments.
85	** It isn't clear that these are serious bits of personal re-engineering that could be inherited, however. The cat-derived "purr" may be largely surgical.
86	** The crocodile blood derived [=CO2=] tolerance mechanism plays this straighter, however.
87	* {{Lightworlder}}: Native-born Martians end up tall and thin due to the low gravity, but when one of them (Nirgal) goes to Earth, he can't take the higher air pressure and gravity, and gets so sick he has to leave.
88	* LongevityTreatment: Gene therapy, known as gerontological treatments, are the reason some characters live through the whole two centuries of the series.
89	* LoveTriangle: The John/Frank/Maya threesome is a recurring theme despite John dying at the start of ''Red Mars''. There's also Vlad/Ursula/Marina, although most of the focus there are rumors that Vlad is TheBeard for Ursula and Marina.
90	* MasochismTango: All of Maya's romantic relationships.
91	* {{Matriarchy}}: The settlement of Dorsa Brevia is based on the supposedly matriarchal civilization of Minoan Crete.
92	* MeaningfulName: Most obviously with Ann '''Clayborne''', the chief proponent of leaving Mars in its rocky unterraformed state. Also with '''Saxifrage''' Russell - "Saxifrage" is a plant whose name means "Rock Breaker", which is ironic considering his pro-terraforming views. Specifically lampshaded when Ann points out the meaning and significance of their names to Sax. His last name is also likely an homage to Bertrand Russel, a mathematician/philosopher who espoused a purely logical and rational approach to life.
93	** Sax's given name is meaningful on a more esoteric level lampshaded in a joke his assistants tell. He's named after a flower, the way [[AnimalMotif lab rats]] are.
94	** Ann's family, Simon and Peter, also have rock-themed names in a way; the two names taken together are a reference to Simon Peter, the "rock" of the early Christian church (and Peter literally means "rock").
95	** Art's name is an allusion to King Arthur of the Round Table, reflecting his desire to mediate disputes and have all opposing sides of every argument sit down and drink and talk together. He begins the first day of the Dorsa Brevia conference rearranging all the meeting chairs into a circle. As an added bonus, he is described as "bear-like", reflecting the meaning of the word Arthur.
96	** Arkady's name is an allusion to Arcadia, a mythical utopia/paradise, reflecting his desire to build a utopian society.
97	** Coyote's real name, Desmond, means "of the world", which aptly describes his personality and social style; he goes everywhere, knows everyone, and comes closest to "living off the land" that anyone can on Mars. The nickname Coyote is, probably in-universe, a reference to a Native American trickster spirit.
98	* MegaCorp: The "Transnat" (Trans-national, meaning they're not limited to just one country) and "Metanat" (Meta-national, meaning that they are so powerful that they ''control'' countries and may as well be de-facto countries themselves) corporations.
99	* MercurialBase: In ''Blue Mars'', the settlement on Mercury itself follows this pattern (and is also another CoolTrain).
100	* TheMigration: Precipitated by population pressures created by the longevity treatment and resource shortages on Earth, causing an exodus to Mars and eventually the rest of the Solar System.
101	* MundaneDogmatic: None of the technological advances in the series require any great leaps, and for the most part, are just extrapolations of things that we already have today.
102	* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:Hiroko Ai]] goes missing in ''Green Mars'', and the disappearance remains a mystery for the rest of the series. Due to her status in the Martian Underground, this eventually becomes a ShroudedInMyth situation, with various tall-tales about her springing up in the Martian culture. [[spoiler:Despite continual rumors of sightings, she's never seen again in the novels, except for one vague and possibly hallucinated encounter by a main character.]]
103	** In a 2019 interview, when asked what actually happened to her, Robinson implied [[spoiler:she's alive, and actually makes an appearance in the last couple pages of ''Blue Mars'']].
104	* NoSocialSkills: Sax.
105	* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: After the longevity treatment. The societies of Earth and Mars are thrown into upheaval when people no longer die of old age.
106	* OurGiantsAreBigger: The folk tales of "Big Man" and his occasional interaction with Myth/PaulBunyan.
107	* OneNationUnderCopyright: Human society increasingly falls under the sway of 'meta-national' corporations over the course of the series. At first, the big names in the corporate world are merely 'transnationals' (spanning multiple nations) - they begin to be referred to as metanats when they not only supersede proper nation-states in influence and power, but in fact control (or outright own) most nations in the world. Much of the story derives from the various characters' attempts to resist or escape the metanats' influence.
108	* PerpetualStorm: A massive dust storm kicks up in ''Red Mars'' as a result of the nascent terraforming efforts. It lasts for ''years'', and there are wild celebrations when it finally ends.
109	* PopulationControl: The invention and widespread use of a "longevity treatment" that vastly increases lifespan spurs discussions of this. Discussed in ''Green Mars'' via the infamous "three quarters of a child" plan, but never actually implemented.
110	** Eventually, most nations on Earth are forced to adopt a two-child-per-couple law [[spoiler:until the oldest people finally start dying off at around age 200-250]].
111	* PurpleProse: One of the stories in ''The Martians,'' entitled "Purple Mars."
112	* RebelLeader: Arkady Bogdanov becomes one near the end of Red Mars. [[spoiler:Even after his death, Bogdanovists remain a political force for the rest of the series]].
113	* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Averted hard, with technologies pioneered by characters changing the trajectory of human civilization throughout the series.
114	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeBureaucratized: [[spoiler:Played straight in the first revolution, which is part of why it fails. The survivors in ''Green Mars'' spend a lot of time attempting to avert this trope for the next time by laying the groundwork for the government they want to create, as well as planning a revolution that has as much head as it does heart.]]
115	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: [[spoiler: The series has two 'Martian revolutions'. The first one, in 2061, was not only a complete failure but a horrifying bloodbath. Transnational forces sought out and killed dozens of the first hundred, even if they weren't combatants, simply to get them out of the way while they had the chance. They also attacked and captured a neutral city that was offering shelter to refugees by popping its pressure dome, resulting in heavy civilian casualties...and then there's the revolutionary town where they hacked the life support computers, cranked up the oxygen levels in the air, and blew it up, burning the entire settlement alive. The second revolution isn't much better: there is less carnage due to the revolution being better organized, but a fight between rebels and transnational forces results in a major dam being destroyed, flooding and submerging the city of Burroughs (at the time, Mars's largest city). If not for Sax Russell having thousands of [=CO2=] filter masks on hand to evacuate the population, the death toll would have been extreme.]]
116	* SceneryPorn: Lots of descriptions of the different Martian landscapes.
117	* SettlingTheFrontier: The core of the series.
118	* ShownTheirWork: And how! You wouldn't believe the author is not actually a scientist (although his wife is one).
119	* ShroudedInMyth: One of the short, italicized segments between sections shows this happening to John Boone after his death.
120	* SpaceElevator: Mars gets one first, and it's promptly destroyed in the revolution less than a year after starting operations. It later gets a second one which stays intact. By the end of the trilogy, Earth also has at least ten.
121	* StalkerWithATestTube: Queen Hiroko has several children, most notably John's son, Kasei, who were created by impregnating herself with DNA samples from unwitting males of the First Hundred.
122	* SuddenlySignificantCity: The humble city of Sabishii established by Japanese colonists during the events of Red Mars is introduced in Green Mars as the capital of the Martian underground.
123	* SugarAndIcePersonality: Ann Clayborne, who struggles with clinical depression for much of the story.
124	* TallTale:
125	** People on Mars still tell stories of Myth/PaulBunyan, but they make him out as a TricksterArchetype creator figure, not unlike Raven in Native American mythology. This is an InUniverse illustration of how tall tales can evolve into mythology.
126	** Two of the main mythologies that develop are that of Big Man (similar to Paul Bunyan, they even meet in one tale), and the little red men. Often times real people like John Boone (first man on Mars) also get inserted into such tales.
127	** In the first book "the Coyote" as well: someone who inexplicably appears to help people who get into trouble then disappears just as fast. [[spoiler: Turns out Coyote is real, and was a stowaway on the ''Ares'']].
128	* TerraDeforming: The central conflict of the series is between the "Reds" who believe Mars should be lightly settled and maintained in its pristine state as much as possible, and the "Greens" who don't. Both are opposed to metanational efforts to heat the planet as fast as possible, often doing things that will make it ''less'' habitable.
129	** On the other hand, it's implied in ''The Martians'' that the metanats were ''right'', at least if you happen to be a Green; without their heavy industrial efforts pumping heat into the planet, temperatures eventually crash and most of the biosphere dies off, leaving a planet which is neither pristine nor capable of supporting human life.
130	* {{Terraform}}ing: The central focus of the trilogy. The series is considered a realistic portrayal of what terraforming Mars would take (albeit extremely optimistic and in a short period of time, relatively speaking).
131	* ThereAreNoTherapists: Played with; there is a therapist, but he [[CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure ends up being the one who needs therapy]]. Apparently they should've sent ''two'' therapists.
132	* TookALevelInBadass: Saxifrage Russell goes from a meek and apolitical scientist at the beginning of the series to the most realistic sort of MadScientist you can imagine after being abducted and interrogated by the SecretPolice. He plays a significant role in the second revolution, occasionally referred to as "General Sax".
133	* {{Tsundere}}: Maya, who at least has the excuse that she actually is bipolar.
134	* UnreliableNarrator: The books are written from over a dozen different viewpoints, each character with their own opinions and interpretations of events.
135	* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: On the way to Mars, they do a lot of training runs of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocapture aerocapture]] maneuver. They go all the way from “mantra runs”, everything works fine, through difficult but possible (not all of it mechanical faults: “‘Arkady (who thinks up the scenarios) has gone mad!’ ‘He has ''simulated'' going mad.’”) to absurdly unlikely and impossible to survive. (“(T)he screens register(ed) a hit by a small asteroid, which sheared through the hub and killed them all.”)
136	* UsedToBeASweetKid: As a young man, Frank was an idealistic public servant, working for a very effective government agency to relieve poverty in the Southern [=US=]... until it was shut down by a politician for no more reason than his corporate campaign backers didn't like it, which badly impacted all the people it was helping. Maya speculates that this might have been what turned Frank into the man she knew.
137	* VelvetRevolution: [[spoiler:The outcome of the Third Martian Revolution precipitated by Martian immigration restrictions is peaceful integration of the newcomers.]]
138	* TheWarOfEarthlyAggression: ''Red Mars'' leads up to a failed rebellion against Earth; ''Green Mars'' is about a successful one. ''Blue Mars'' features a war that, while brief, is [[spoiler:primarily resolved through what amounts to hugging]].
139	* WeaponOfMassDestruction: Numerous during the revolutions:
140	** There are basic orbital lasers, which punch holes in tent cities (or ignite hyper-oxygenated ones).
141	** In ''Green Mars'' it is mentioned there are super-plagues that the transnationals threaten each other with from time to time, but none are ever deployed.
142	** An unusual example (also from ''Red Mars'') is [[spoiler:the orbital elevator. When the counterweight is cut off, it wraps around the planet twice, causing a huge amount of destruction.]] By the end, it was going several kilometers a ''second'' and embedded deeply into the surface.
143	** An attempt to launch an asteroid at Earth is stopped by a nuke-launching railgun on the Moon, both pretty terrifying prospects.
144	* WeAreStrugglingTogether: A big problem, especially in ''Green Mars''. Since the metanats are too big and powerful to fight, the various rebel groups start sniping at each ''other'', especially since "anti-metanat" is the only thing that some of them have in common. Radical Reds want Mars to be a big preserve, which clashes with the Bogdanovists' desire to rebuild humanity there, etc.
145	* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: Multiple characters have moments of awe and wonder over the landscape of Mars, space, and eventually other planets over the course of the series.
146	* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: Airships are the main form of air travel on Mars, right from the beginning.
147	* ZeroGSpot: This happens frequently on the initial voyage to Mars. One of the Russian characters also apparently experimented with many forms of zero-G sex while on ''Novy Mir''.

Context Literature / RedMarsTrilogy