Headscratchers / TerraforMARS

• The Terra Formars are basically human sized cockroaches who based on what is seen so far, have about the technological equivalent of cave men. How the fuck did they suddenly learn how to use genetic manipulation, and from corpses at that.

  • Apparently, aliens caused the sudden evolution
  • It's stated as early as mid-first volume that there's some occult planet that seeded Earth with life, so the idea that evolution is a triggered process is all over this.
  • The martian "virus" does not behave like any type of virus encountered before. The reason Annex I went to mars to collect living samples was because getting virus samples from corpses of victims does not work, and no life-form on earth can handle it. One of the tasks for Annex I group four was to find the machinery that's controlling this "evolution" vector. They found proof that one (or more) of the UNASA founding governments is leaking info to the roaches instead.

• If some bugs are so much stronger than others, why don't the people just spam the strongest animal cells into the people?
  • It was explained that each person is only compatible with a very narrow range of organisms for the hybridization process, so most have no choice but to receive a weaker or outright useless power.
    • That just raises the question of why they send the people with the useless powers instead of digging around till they find the ones you can give the good powers too.
  • There is the fact that what works on the Roaches today, won't likely work tomorrow, thanks to their "enhanced evolution."
    • I think the ones that had less combat oriented abilities were meant to be researchers and scientists, digging up flora and fauna on Mars to study, while the more combat oriented fighters would protect them from the Terraformars. Unfortunately someone threw a Spanner in the Works, and derailed the plan almost right from the start, forcing the non-combatants to have to fight, such as the ones on Adolf's team. Though sadly most of them predictably die instead. Worst case scenario those ones with "worthless" organisms at least had a better chance of survival than a plain ol' human trying to fight off those things.
• One has to wonder why the humans weren't supported by some Terminator -style robots. They wouldn't even have to be humanoid in shape. You could make ones similar to the Sentinels from The Matrix that could have Combat Tentacles and high maneuverability and evasive skills. Sure, that would have taken some of the limelight away from the humans, but considering how important this mission was, they could have given them more support than "one ship with 100 people on it", many of whom die before they even make it onto the surface of Mars. And it's doubtful the Terraformars had hackers that could hijack the robots, which could also have a self-destruct mechanism installed in the event the unit was rendered incapable of further actions due to damage.
  • Robotics and AI technology may not be advanced enough to create effective-enough robots for the mission. The Terraformars are not only incredibly strong and fast, they're also adaptive and very unpredictable. Frankly, robots of the calibre seen in the Terminator franchise would be no match for them.
  • There's also the fact that the Annex I mission was sabotaged, and SOMEBODY didn't want it to succeed. Which brings another headscratcher to the table. What would anybody gain by siding with the Martian roaches? The roaches are inherently and instinctively hostile to humans without exception, their technology is inherently inferior, and even if they somehow develop rocket tech to reach Earth, they're just as likely to brutally kill their benefactors as they are everybody else, and they sure as heck don't communicate. That and the mysterious martian virus with 100% lethality make such a ploy look utterly suicidal.
  • Also you should note that for the Cockroaches learned extremely fast how to use other technology left by the 1st and 2nd crew and even that that they just saw like the escape pods from the Annex. It was explained that nobody except the highest ranking officers was allowed to carry a weapon and even those had to be ones that would not pose a threat if used without the powers of their intended wielders like Adolf's throwing knives. All out of the fear that it could get into the hands of the roaches... now imagine they got their hands onto a terminator style robot... I don't think that would end up well. Even if they don't have hackers AT THAT POINT I'm pretty sure they would adapt pretty quickly as for the self-destruct - I would not under any circumstances give them a chance to get their hands onto something that is effectively a bomb.
  • Chapter 68 has the question asked by China, as a negotiation tactic. China plans to send a "rescue" vehicle with just such equipment. Of course, this is all just a thinly veiled lie. What they're really after is kidnapping Michelle and Akari to reverse engineer/ breed super-soldiers for their own use. They show just how unscrupulous they are in chapter 71 and 72 by revealing they used a biological terror weapon as a "base" for one of their operatives on Annex I, and also apparently gave the roaches a rather detailed idea of who that operative was, and how her powers work. China wasn't just willing to screw over the rest of the planet, they were happily screwing over their own people.
  • As was eventually explained in the series, the Annex I's mission to collect roaches to study on was largely a cover for the real purpose, which was a weapons test/political posturing of the various nations' new genetic sciences. The humans of the Annex were sent up without every advantage they could possibly have, because the nations wanted to field test various possibilities for future genetics development, without risking lesser powers on Earth becoming aware. Now, they definitely did want to take roach samples back to Earth to make a cure, but that was, as far as the political powers acknowledged to each other, secondary. The virus only seems to target people who cannot take the MO organ into their body (it can't be a coincidence that no one on the ship got sick at any point of preparing for the mission), so it can be used as a barometer to see if someone will accept the surgery, drastically increasing the number of augmented soldiers/spies a country can put forth. Also, outside of USA, Japan and Germany, none of the countries are putting forth their best effort to get the cure to the virus. Russia wanted to investigate the pyramids and look for alien technology, China wanted to seize Michelle and Akari if possible in order to work out their 100% success rate the mosaic organ surgery, Roma wanted to capture Michelle as breeding stock, and steal all the genetic tech they can from the other countries. Hell, it's implied that Germany was intentionally trying to get Adolf to fall in love and impregnate one of his subordinates, since the only hint towards Michelle's unique nature is that her parents loved each other, and that USA and Japan were trying to manipulate things to get Michelle and Akari to hook up and produce a super baby. So basically, no one was doing what they said they were doing, at least half of them were making things more dangerous for the official mission so they could carry out their own objectives and basically everyone sent a second ship after the Annex launched so they could skim the cream as quickly as possible.
• If the Earth has the capability to produce multiple ships, why not field an entire army, instead of just increasingly larger expeditions? Give people Railguns, which would have enough velocity and kinetic energy to pierce through the Terra Formars' armor. Field armored drones controlled safely from orbiting platforms that could be used as support vehicles for ground forces. Deploy entire contingents of special operations troopers equipped with the genetic modification drug, this time in special subdermal autoinjection systems implanted within them for maximum efficiency.
  • Because despite the fact that UNASA is an international organization, the various founding governments DO NOT want to work together. Period. With the exceptions of Japan and the US, every governing body is purely acting in its own interests, regardless of the cost to everyone else. China especially. It is even implied that the reason the Annex II did not launch on time is that Chinese agents sabotaged it. In fact, due to extreme resource shortages, like wheat, the entire Earth is in a state of Cold War and rather than concentrate on the Martian roaches, the world governments are keeping guns pointed at each other.
    • The roaches found a way into low Mars orbit. Their initial attack of Annex I was on final approach, in orbit. Nobody, in universe, knows how they pulled it off, but they did. We do not want them getting their hands on killer satellites and learning how to use them.
  • Short version, they are way too interested in treating Mars as a proxy war between terrestrial powers than in actually trying to remove the existential threat to human life that the roaches present. You can see what the human war machine is capable of as the series progresses, China doing quite a lot in that direction, but no one REALLY seems to care enough to clean off the red planet. Probably putting that off for "when things are settled at home," right up until the Roaches show up in mecha armor with beam cannons or something.
  • Chapter 198 makes this worse than anyone could have imagined. Some countries have found a way to ally themselves with the Terraformars. And they've openly declared war on the rest of the world.
• What reasons (aside from instinctual disgust that's been postulated, but honestly sounds like bullcrap)could the roaches possibly have for killing humans? I've thought about it up and down, but cannot honestly figure it out. Roaches are not inherently hostile creatures in the first place. They're more skittish if anything. And, as far as I can tell, humans never really gave them a reason to want to kill them unless they somehow became super territorial when becoming humanoid.
  • This is actually addressed in Chapter 31. Sylvester Asimov starts talking about how the cockroaches' abrupt mutation into humanoid brutes, absurd learning capacity, and ludicrous hostility toward humans makes it obvious that some third party was involved. A party that made all these things happen artificially, and in fact preceded the Terraforming Project.