Okay, taking suggestions into account, here's pass 2. Comment at will.
~~NOTOC~~
{{ gazetteer![[Image: tongue.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/tongue.gif)
laces:mars.jpg?285 |Mars, photographed by the Mars Global Surveyor (courtesy NASA)}}
^ Mars ^^
^ Orbit | 227,940,000 km from primary (mean) |
^ Diameter | 6,794.4 km (equatorial) |
^ Surface Gravity | 0.33G |
^ Year | 686.98 days |
^ Day | 24.62 hours |
^ Mean temp. | 210K (-63C) |
^ Atmosphere | .010 atm (CO2 95%, N2 3%, Ar 2%) |
^ Water/Ice Index | 0% |
^ Population (2013) | 250,000 |
^ Political Affiliation | [[gazetteer:government:conventions|Fenspace Convention] |
^ Government | Direct Democracy |
^ Capital | Port Lowell |
^ Phobos ^^
^ Orbit | 9,378 km from parent (mean) |
^ Diameter | 27 x 21.6 x 18.8 km |
^ Surface Gravity | negligible |
^ Year | 7.75 hours |
^ Day | 0 hours |
^ Mean temp. | 40K (-233C) |
^ Atmosphere | none |
^ Water/Ice Index | 0% |
^ Population (2013) | 55,000 |
^ Political Affiliation | [[gazetteer:government:conventions|Fenspace Convention] |
^ Government | Direct Democracy |
^ Capital | Port Phobos |
====== Mars ======
Since our first close-up picture of Mars in 1965, spacecraft voyages to the Red Planet have revealed a world strangely familiar, yet different enough to challenge our perceptions of what makes a planet work. Every time we feel close to understanding Mars, new discoveries send us straight back to the drawing board to revise existing theories.
You'd think Mars would be easier to understand. Like Earth, Mars has polar ice caps and clouds in its atmosphere, seasonal weather patterns, volcanoes, canyons and other recognizable features. However, conditions on Mars vary wildly from what we know on our own planet.
Over the past three decades, spacecraft have shown us that Mars is rocky, cold, and sterile beneath its hazy, pink sky. We've discovered that today's Martian wasteland hints at a formerly volatile world where volcanoes once raged, meteors plowed deep craters, and flash floods rushed over the land. And Mars continues to throw out new enticements with each landing or orbital pass made by our spacecraft.
//(Text courtesy NASA's Mars Exploration Program homepage.)//
===== History =====
{{art??mars-large.gif?x200 |Unofficial Martian flag}}(blah history)
===== Places of Interest =====
As the [[mars.google.com/|most thoroughly explored place] in Fenspace pre-wave, Mars has a number of native features that attract interest as well as the settled areas. Most people are familiar with the four giant volcanoes of the **Tharsis Mountains** and the rift valley of **Valles Marineris**. Also of interest is the **Cydonia** region, home of the infamous **[[Face on Mars]**.
Fen settlements are scattered all over the planet. The largest settlement on Mars is the **[[Utopia Planitia Shipyard]** facility in **Utopia Planitia**, not far from the //Viking 2// landing site. The shipyard was designed to be permanent, despite the fact that the terraforming project intends for Utopia to be underwater once the underground aquifers melt. How the [[gazetteer:factions:united federation of planets|Trekkies] intend to deal with this problem is as yet unknown.
**Airy-0 Crater** is host to the second-largest city on Mars, the unaligned town of **[[Port Lowell]**. Port Lowell is the largest fendane settlement outside of Earth cislunar orbit. Populated mainly by members and supporters of the [[www.marssociety.org/|Mars Society] who began migrating to Mars early, almost beating the Trekkies to the surface. Port Lowell is the center for "Martian unification," endlessly pestering the other settlements on uniting as a faction above and beyond their political origins. The city is also considered a major spiritual center in Fenspace, as it hosts **[[St. Liebowitz's Cathedral]**.
The [[gazetteer:factions ulpers|Pulper] city of **[[Helium]** is located on the northern rim of Marineris near **Ophir Labes**. Helium is the most cosmopolitan of the Martian cities, partly because there aren't enough Pulpers to fill an entire city and partly because the Barsoomian subfaction pulled out all the stops in creating //the// ultimate fantasy Martian experience. Helium is a city composed of soaring towers and inhabited by fen who live the crystals-and-togas lifestyle.
Southeast of Helium in **Argyre Planitia** is the [[gazetteer:factions:galactic republic|Warsie] outpost of **[[Mos Eisley]**. Mos Eisley exists mostly as a way for the Republic to keep an official presence on Mars. However, the town does provide a good stop-off point for scientists working in the southern hemisphere, terraformers and other Martian nomads.
The enigmatic **[[Castle Heterodyne]**, home base for a Pulper splinter group known as the [[gazetteer:factions:Foglios], exists in an undisclosed location somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Most people figure the castle is located in the highlands around **Hellas Planitia**. Others contend that Castle Heterodyne lurks near the polar ice cap. A handful of conspiracy theorists have suggested that the castle is //mobile//, moving randomly from point to point across the surface.
Construction on the **Grand Canal** project, a plan to run an aqueduct from Hellas to Port Lowell, can be seen in the highlands between the two sites. Whether or not Mars will have sufficient water to fill the canal as planned remains to be seen.
In orbit, most of the action is at **[[Port Phobos]**. Port Phobos began as a freight waystation for material headed to Helium and Port Lowell, but rapidly mutated into the single largest port facility in Fenspace, outstripping //[[ships:Stellvia]// and [[gazetteer laces:venus:Crystal Tokyo] in terms of cargo and passengers moved. This rapid growth has turned Port Phobos into a free-floating version of Manhattan, with almost as high a population density. The internal habitat is slowly hollowing out the entire moon, using the mined material to build ever more elaborate networks of docks and skyscrapers on the outer surface.
The other major station in Martian orbit is **[[ships:Starbase 1]**, the first fen space station (built by the Trekkies in late 2007) and moved to its current location in areosynchronous orbit over Utopia Planitia Yards' meridian when the surface facility was built. Starbase 1 is the heart of the Martian shipbuilding industry and the heart of the Federation Starfleet, meaning that hundreds of ships in various stages of completion are gathered around the station at any given point.
Also in orbit is the headquarters of the [[gazetteer:companies:Mars Terraforming Project], located on Deimos. The terraforming base is much less populated than Port Phobos, but has almost the same inhabitable volume. Most of this volume is used by the terraformers to run test farms, growing plants in Martian soil and mid-terraforming atmospheric conditions.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
~~NOTOC~~
{{ gazetteer
laces:mars.jpg?285 |Mars, photographed by the Mars Global Surveyor (courtesy NASA)}}^ Mars ^^
^ Orbit | 227,940,000 km from primary (mean) |
^ Diameter | 6,794.4 km (equatorial) |
^ Surface Gravity | 0.33G |
^ Year | 686.98 days |
^ Day | 24.62 hours |
^ Mean temp. | 210K (-63C) |
^ Atmosphere | .010 atm (CO2 95%, N2 3%, Ar 2%) |
^ Water/Ice Index | 0% |
^ Population (2013) | 250,000 |
^ Political Affiliation | [[gazetteer:government:conventions|Fenspace Convention] |
^ Government | Direct Democracy |
^ Capital | Port Lowell |
^ Phobos ^^
^ Orbit | 9,378 km from parent (mean) |
^ Diameter | 27 x 21.6 x 18.8 km |
^ Surface Gravity | negligible |
^ Year | 7.75 hours |
^ Day | 0 hours |
^ Mean temp. | 40K (-233C) |
^ Atmosphere | none |
^ Water/Ice Index | 0% |
^ Population (2013) | 55,000 |
^ Political Affiliation | [[gazetteer:government:conventions|Fenspace Convention] |
^ Government | Direct Democracy |
^ Capital | Port Phobos |
====== Mars ======
Since our first close-up picture of Mars in 1965, spacecraft voyages to the Red Planet have revealed a world strangely familiar, yet different enough to challenge our perceptions of what makes a planet work. Every time we feel close to understanding Mars, new discoveries send us straight back to the drawing board to revise existing theories.
You'd think Mars would be easier to understand. Like Earth, Mars has polar ice caps and clouds in its atmosphere, seasonal weather patterns, volcanoes, canyons and other recognizable features. However, conditions on Mars vary wildly from what we know on our own planet.
Over the past three decades, spacecraft have shown us that Mars is rocky, cold, and sterile beneath its hazy, pink sky. We've discovered that today's Martian wasteland hints at a formerly volatile world where volcanoes once raged, meteors plowed deep craters, and flash floods rushed over the land. And Mars continues to throw out new enticements with each landing or orbital pass made by our spacecraft.
//(Text courtesy NASA's Mars Exploration Program homepage.)//
===== History =====
{{art??mars-large.gif?x200 |Unofficial Martian flag}}(blah history)
===== Places of Interest =====
As the [[mars.google.com/|most thoroughly explored place] in Fenspace pre-wave, Mars has a number of native features that attract interest as well as the settled areas. Most people are familiar with the four giant volcanoes of the **Tharsis Mountains** and the rift valley of **Valles Marineris**. Also of interest is the **Cydonia** region, home of the infamous **[[Face on Mars]**.
Fen settlements are scattered all over the planet. The largest settlement on Mars is the **[[Utopia Planitia Shipyard]** facility in **Utopia Planitia**, not far from the //Viking 2// landing site. The shipyard was designed to be permanent, despite the fact that the terraforming project intends for Utopia to be underwater once the underground aquifers melt. How the [[gazetteer:factions:united federation of planets|Trekkies] intend to deal with this problem is as yet unknown.
**Airy-0 Crater** is host to the second-largest city on Mars, the unaligned town of **[[Port Lowell]**. Port Lowell is the largest fendane settlement outside of Earth cislunar orbit. Populated mainly by members and supporters of the [[www.marssociety.org/|Mars Society] who began migrating to Mars early, almost beating the Trekkies to the surface. Port Lowell is the center for "Martian unification," endlessly pestering the other settlements on uniting as a faction above and beyond their political origins. The city is also considered a major spiritual center in Fenspace, as it hosts **[[St. Liebowitz's Cathedral]**.
The [[gazetteer:factions
ulpers|Pulper] city of **[[Helium]** is located on the northern rim of Marineris near **Ophir Labes**. Helium is the most cosmopolitan of the Martian cities, partly because there aren't enough Pulpers to fill an entire city and partly because the Barsoomian subfaction pulled out all the stops in creating //the// ultimate fantasy Martian experience. Helium is a city composed of soaring towers and inhabited by fen who live the crystals-and-togas lifestyle.Southeast of Helium in **Argyre Planitia** is the [[gazetteer:factions:galactic republic|Warsie] outpost of **[[Mos Eisley]**. Mos Eisley exists mostly as a way for the Republic to keep an official presence on Mars. However, the town does provide a good stop-off point for scientists working in the southern hemisphere, terraformers and other Martian nomads.
The enigmatic **[[Castle Heterodyne]**, home base for a Pulper splinter group known as the [[gazetteer:factions:Foglios], exists in an undisclosed location somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Most people figure the castle is located in the highlands around **Hellas Planitia**. Others contend that Castle Heterodyne lurks near the polar ice cap. A handful of conspiracy theorists have suggested that the castle is //mobile//, moving randomly from point to point across the surface.
Construction on the **Grand Canal** project, a plan to run an aqueduct from Hellas to Port Lowell, can be seen in the highlands between the two sites. Whether or not Mars will have sufficient water to fill the canal as planned remains to be seen.
In orbit, most of the action is at **[[Port Phobos]**. Port Phobos began as a freight waystation for material headed to Helium and Port Lowell, but rapidly mutated into the single largest port facility in Fenspace, outstripping //[[ships:Stellvia]// and [[gazetteer
laces:venus:Crystal Tokyo] in terms of cargo and passengers moved. This rapid growth has turned Port Phobos into a free-floating version of Manhattan, with almost as high a population density. The internal habitat is slowly hollowing out the entire moon, using the mined material to build ever more elaborate networks of docks and skyscrapers on the outer surface.The other major station in Martian orbit is **[[ships:Starbase 1]**, the first fen space station (built by the Trekkies in late 2007) and moved to its current location in areosynchronous orbit over Utopia Planitia Yards' meridian when the surface facility was built. Starbase 1 is the heart of the Martian shipbuilding industry and the heart of the Federation Starfleet, meaning that hundreds of ships in various stages of completion are gathered around the station at any given point.
Also in orbit is the headquarters of the [[gazetteer:companies:Mars Terraforming Project], located on Deimos. The terraforming base is much less populated than Port Phobos, but has almost the same inhabitable volume. Most of this volume is used by the terraformers to run test farms, growing plants in Martian soil and mid-terraforming atmospheric conditions.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"