Gamemaster Fourth Orbital Zone: Mars (IF)

Hard Science-Fiction Setting

Mars: An Adventure, Escape Ordinary Life.

— Advertising slogan for Mars tourism.

Mars was an early colonization target, but the lack of unique resources, an atmosphere too thin to use yet too thick to ignore, and no good site for large-scale accelerator launches meant Mars never became a major industrial center. Its surface gravity (~38% of Earth’s) is insufficient for long-term health, so most workers live in nearby rotating habitats that provide full artificial gravity. Terraforming, a vanity project of the Terran golden age, advanced through the 22nd and 23rd centuries, with orbital mirrors boosting temperature and partial polar ice melt. Icarus Fall destroyed most of these systems, halting progress but not reversing it. Mars now lives on borrowed time, seeking to cash in on its partially terraformed environment before it begins to degrade.

Mars is primarily a destination rather than a home — offering exclusive, high-end tourism. Wealthy mobile habitats sometimes park in Mars orbit for a season, but otherwise only a few tens of thousands of affluent visitors and a large number of service personnel are planetside at any given time. Mars sells high-society pleasures with minimal regulation: gambling, personal companionship, extreme sports, mock combat, and wilderness expeditions. Safari domes full of Earth fauna weakened by Mars' gravity and others were you can act as a superhero due to the lighter gravity are all popular. There is even outdoor hunting of breather-equipped animals.

Lack of a strong magnetic field or dense atmosphere, radiation from solar storms and cosmic rays is a constant hazard, but for short stays shielding and shelters keep risks manageable — turning danger itself into an attraction fore daredevil Earthlings wanting to taste space. Medical regulations are lax, you can get many procedures done here that are illegal elsewhere. Long-term habitation depends on advanced medical treatment to repair cell damage. Mars also fuels a lucrative media industry producing shows of high life and sports. The finale in several solar sports leagues are played on Mars. With interplanetary media transfers so expensive, only top-rated productions are worth shipping, and Mars consistently delivers.

The workforce is a mix of young short-term workers, a genetically adapted minority, and Martian natives who cannot survive in full gravity. Most short-term staff commute from orbital habitats, while infrastructure crews live on the surface. This mix adds both vitality and tension to local culture.

The most exclusive business on Mars is diplomacy. The planet offers an opulent neutral ground for high-level talks between wealthy states and corporate powers, with a constant undercurrent of spycraft — where defectors, agents, and dignitaries rub shoulders in gilded halls, socializing and conspiring in equal measure. This is all spiced up by valuable data of all kinds, including research from the nearby orbital universities.

Near Mars Space

Phobos, Mars’ inner moon, is a rugged space rock in a tight orbit. Its borderline gravity — just high enough that only the strongest leaps can escape — makes it a center for daredevil tourism: extreme parkour, strap-on wing flight, trampoline jumps into orbit, and other sports too dangerous for microgravity. Mars’ only orbital magnetic accelerator is here, handling high-value cargo and tourism. Throughput is limited by Phobos’ size and ultra-low gravity and every launch is in full view, making covert shipments impractical.

Deimos, the outer moon, is a small, porous regolith asteroid under Earthforce control. Its surface is enclosed in a thin artificial envelope to stabilize loose material during mining, which reflects light well, making Deimos much brighter than Phobos. Operations supply carbon-rich feedstock for Mars’ biotopes, along with valuable trace metals and industrial lithium deposits — critical for certain high-performance applications. Deep inside, a pre-Fall megaproject still runs, breeding tritium from the moon’s natural lithium reserves. With no accelerator, all output has to be shipped by spacecraft. Earthforce maintains a nearby naval base in forced Mars orbit to guard the site and to stage military exercises, some timed for visibility from Mars to add to its image of excitement and danger.

Mars orbit is crowded with large, slow-rotating cylinder habitats built for comfort and prestige. Several are universities drawing students from across the system, alongside an Earthforce academy. Sports and exchange programs foster cross-cultural rivalries and friendships, with competitions and duels — sometimes fought in Jovian exosuits — staged as spectacles for tourists.

Both civilian and military students often work in the tourism sector as a rite of passage, even if they are financially independent. Many are drawn into Mars’ high-society circuit as exclusive hosts or companions for wealthy visitors. Cadets in parade dress lend glamour to events, prompting civilian universities to also adopt uniforms. Each year, some students get lost in the lifestyle and never return to complete their studies.

Lastly, the biotope habitats — vast orbital stations replicating entire Earth biomes, from savannah to jungle, coral reefs, and primeval forest — offer a different attraction. Founded by the ultra-rich Orchid Crown Foundation as nature preserves, they now admit tourists and big game hunters, a policy introduced by central management to capitalize on Mars’ tourist trade. Many of the on-site caretakers and ecologists view this as a betrayal of the foundation’s original mission. Large vertical terrain features like mountains or deep-sea trenches are rare; with uniform gravity a requirement, such habitats need to be be colossal to accommodate any serious height difference.

Example habitats

A Thousan Nights and Days — this tourist habitat offers perpetual day, twilight, and night zones within a single ring; hour of the day is a matter of location. Directional axial lighting creates exotic districts—sunlit resorts, twilight cafés, and nightlife enclaves—drawing visitors seeking novelty beyond Mars’ harsh surface routines.