← Revolutions
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Hello. As I continue to navigate the new world we live in, you may have noticed that I've flipped on programmatic ads. That's the way things have to be for now. But just as a reminder, all episodes of Revolutions Old and New are available ad free by going to patreon.com revolutions if you go to patreon.com revolutions and become a patron, you can get the RSS feed from Patreon and put it directly into whatever podcast app you happen to be using these days and just enjoy the show exactly as you always have. Except no ads. That again, patreon.com revolutions thank you so much for your support. Hello and welcome to revolutions episode 11.13 the next three days okay, so dramatic events have unfolded on and above Mars in very short order. Like, very short order. This is one of those weeks where decades happen, and today we will stay in that week and cover four things happening simultaneously in the three days after the three Days of Red first, the debates back on Earth about how to handle the demands of the Martians. Second, the post insurrectionary restoration of order inside Olympus. Third, the building of the firewall by Martian Systex that would keep Earth from taking control of Martian mainframes, which would allow for the fourth, the Olympians taking over control of Tharsis and Elysium. If you think that keeping all of this straight in your heads is tricky, imagine what it was like to live through. So let's get into it. As we discussed last week, after the Martians took control of the Director's Suite of Mars Division Headquarters in the prime Dome of Olympus, they communicated their demands directly to Timothy Warner. But those time delayed negotiations had been deeply unsatisfying. So much so that the Martians had added to their demands. Timothy Werner must resign because he himself was an impossible obstacle to a just and equitable resolution. So the Martians blasted out Mabel Dorr's first vid address on every communications channel they could think of to tell the whole solar system what had happened, why it had happened, and what the Martians wanted. And this had worked. Mabel Dorf's vid got picked up everywhere on spaceships on Luna and all over Earth. And not just inside Omnicorp channels, but also inside the channels of Omnicorp's rival corporations. The address was the first time many people had gotten any news from Mars since the bloody Sunrise vids had come and gone six months earlier. Now, mostly Earthlings were totally ignorant of events on Mars, and OmniCorps immediate PR response was to so doubt that this transmission was even real. They sent out counter messaging saying, don't believe these lies that have been created by nefarious actors hoping to create panic on Earth. It was, frankly, a disgusting abuse of people's emotions. And whoever perpetrated this hoax should be ashamed of themselves. But in the upper echelons of Omnicorp, it was clear right away this wasn't a hoax. Something had gone terribly wrong on Mars. So since Timothy Werner had first instituted the new protocols, which, remember, only affected Mars division and the spaceshippers, pretty much anything Mars related had run through his office. And we've discussed that. When things started going worse than expected, he cooked the Phos five logs to cover it up. He assumed it was a temporary hiccup that could soon be corrected, and the last thing he needed was people freaking out and messing up his larger plans. So even senior executives at Omnicort didn't know the extent of all the disruptive unrest. Some executives had their own unofficial contacts on Mars and began to piece together a troubling picture. But most of the people on the board of directors had been elected alongside Werner as his allies and supporters. They were all part of a wave of younger executives who had come up with Werner during the 2000-230s and early 2000-2240s. They weren't just passively okay with Werner's plan to overhaul Omnicorp, they actively supported it. And so Werner had been mostly insulated from deep probing questions. Then the vids of Bloody Sunrise hit, which were spread by Society of Martian activists across the comm channels of Earth. Those vids, I should note, were also dismissed as a hoax by Omnicorp's PR team. But they shook people inside the company. Most especially. Those vids gave Warner's critics on the board something tangible they could point to. What the hell is happening on Mars now? The opposition to Werner on the board was led by Jin Wang and Kamal Singh, who you might remember, but probably don't remember. Both ran for CEO and lost in 22:44. Wong and Singh did not agree on much, but they both shared deep skepticism of Warner. And Bloody Sunrise appeared to justify their skepticism in dramatic fashion. But they continued to remain minority voices as Werner assured everyone that things were fine and it was all under control. Despite these assurances, unease began to rise, even among Werner's supporters. That shifted to low grade panic when Mabeledore's address hit the channels here in July of 2247, because now they had a real crisis to deal with. The phos 5 is being threatened by insurrectionary Martians. What is happening? This low grade panic was then exacerbated when Commander Cartwright's declaration of mutiny followed fast on the heels of these Martian demands issued by Mabel Dore. And this kicked up a real debate inside the Board of Directors. And this debate scrambled up the old lines dividing supporters of Warner from his critics. More than a few members of the board looked at the list of Martian demands and said, well, some of this seems pretty easy. Reverse the annulments, end deportations, pay off the spaceshippers, basically just re establish the old status quo. Sure, why not? Let's do it. Warner's critics were especially interested in the demand that Warner resign. If keeping the phosphide flowing meant ditching Warner, by all means, let's ditch Werner. But before any of the details of the demands could be debated, Werner and his closest allies cleverly steered the debate away from the particulars and towards a broader principle. Giving in to the demands of a few Martian extremists would set a dangerous precedent for the future. They had to stand firm and force the Martians and the shippers to back down or Omnicorps could be held eternally hostage. This wasn't just about today, it was about every day in the future. And this debate broke the Board of Directors into two blocks that history has cleverly dubbed the negotiators, and you guessed it, the non negotiators. In steering the debate towards the question of negotiation or non negotiation, Werner cleverly insulated himself because now the specific issue of his own resignation was hidden behind an abstraction. In fact, had the Martians and spaceshippers not demanded he resign, it's possible the board would have fired him right then and there. But to do it now would mean they were caving. This frustrated Kamal Singh in particular because he was dying to get rid of Werner, but otherwise was a hard line non negotiator. He did not believe they could give an inch to insurrectionaries and mutineers. Meanwhile, Jinwang corralled a negotiator's block, which now included some longtime Werner loyalists who were like, sir, we have to negotiate. Some of what they're asking isn't even that big of a lift. Let's just do it. The negotiators were also concerned that if the crisis went on too long or got too bad, that it would seriously undermine Omnicorp's preeminent position on Earth. They may be the biggest major corporation, but they were not the only major corporation. If the supply of Phosphi was threatened, that was the concern. Of the whole world and it may prompt aggressive moves by their rivals. While the Earthlings debated what to do, the Martian leaders in Olympus used that time that they were not getting an answer from Earth to solidify their own control of the colony. Of immediate concern was restoring order. There were a lot of people wandering out there with neutron guns in their hands. It was total chaos and no one was really in charge of anything. In at least one incident in Expansion, five angry Martians had summarily executed a group of security personnel who had already surrendered. There were also reports of various little groups running through the sea levels hunting supervisors they didn't like. And this is not to say that it was just some Hobbesian frenzy out there. And other Martians who also acted on their own without clear authority went about liberating the other stockades of Olympus, or securing commissaries and food bars and medbays to ensure basic needs continued to be met. But the general chaos was a state of affairs that could not continue indefinitely. Some kind of organizational order needed to be re established, most especially over all the free floating weapons. The only group that could possibly step into the breach to provide some kind of post insurrection organizational skeleton was the Society of Martians. Even if they had never been a rigidly disciplined, top down organization, they had members of every class, in every level and every department. They had members on the Martian Advisory Council like Mabel Dorr and Kinder James and Omar Ali. And they had members deep in the recesses of the Warrens, like Alexandra Clare. They had a trusted communications network that could relay information up and down and back and forth. And if you were a member, you were already self selected to be committed to working under difficult circumstances for the well being of your fellow Martians. So in the aftermath of the three Days of Red, the Society of Martian Black Channels lit up with suggestions and debates and people volunteering ideas that would steer Olympus back towards peace and order. It was during these days, after the three Days of Red, that Mabel Dorr really put her stamp on the first revolution. Whether implicitly or explicitly, it was generally understood that no one's voice carried as much weight with regular Martians as Mabel Dorr's. She was known, she was liked, and most importantly, she was trusted. People would almost certainly be more willing to listen and respond if she was the one telling them things. So Dorr herself wound up having de facto final say over what would happen next. Because if she didn't like something, she wouldn't lend her name or voice to it. And if she did, she would Now I should say here, Mabel Dorr was not a megalomaniac. She had an ego, no doubt, and was obviously ambitious. But she was not actually trying to become a dictator. That was never her aim. She believed that the Martians deserved a voice, and in the election of 2244 she had put herself forward to play that role on their behalf. But for her, it had always been about listening to what the Martians wanted and then speaking for them. This had never been about supplanting their will, it had been about channeling their will. And so during this period, as she's watching people in the society of Martians turn to her as if she had the deciding vote over everything, she reached out to the Mons Cafe group. Marcus, Leopold, Havana, Darby. They had self declared this thing called the Martian Assembly. Right. Well, Dorr told them, you're right. If Mars is really going to be for the Martians, it needs to be by the Martians. Martians choosing their own leaders, Martians participating in how Mars is administered. Now, in this moment, there are immediate pressing concerns we have to face. But once order is restored, I will endorse the Martian assembly as the forum for all Martians to be heard. But before they could get to that, they did have to restore order. And that brings us to the formation of one of the institutional pillars of the Martian revolution, the Martian Guard. Something needed to be done about all the loose weapons out there, and it couldn't be too complicated. So they honed in on a plan for Society of Martian Volunteers to post up at various security stations throughout Olympus. Any Martian currently holding a weapon should bring it to the nearest security station. When they got there, they could either hand it over and go on their way, or they could volunteer for service in a newly organized Martian militia that people started referring to informally as the Martian Guard, which then just became its name. Since this was a plan that made sense to Mabel Dorr, that was the plan they went with. On July 24, 2247, Mabel Dorr issued an address to the Martians. My fellow Martians, she said, this is Mabel Dorr. You know me and I know you. We have taken control of Olympus and we will not be giving it back. No longer will any of us live under the capricious and arbitrary whims of Earthling executives who treat us with such exploitative contempt. We want to tell you that we have demanded the Omnicorps Board of Directors recognize the autonomous self administration of Mars Division and have sworn they will receive no more phos 5 until they recognize Mars is Under Martian control, Mars is now for the Martians, the last few days have been exhilarating and triumphant, but also chaotic and tragic. Many Martians have been injured and killed. Many of you out there are courageous heroes who took weapons away from those who would abuse us and used them to win us this victory. And we know that you hold them still. But now that we have taken control of our own lives and destinies, we must take responsibility for ourselves and we must end the violence and restore peace. Now. I do not say we face no more threats, that we cannot defend ourselves, or that we will hand the tools of violence back to the security services. Absolutely not. But we need to come together to organize ourselves. And that is why I am announcing the formation of the Martian Guard. As we speak, designated Martians are taking control of security service stations. If you hold a weapon, please bring it to the nearest security station. If you would like to join the Martian Guard, we welcome you with open arms. And if not, we ask that you give up your weapon so that it may be redistributed to volunteers who would join this noble work to protect us all. And this announcement basically worked. The chaos of the three days of Red had left most Martians in a state of shock and uncertainty. What are we supposed to do now? What happens next? And this message from Mabeldor offered precisely the right mix of authority and direction. Society of Martian members did indeed fan out to the security service stations and open them up. And then people started coming down, either saying, okay, here's the neutron gun I've got, I actually don't want it anymore, or here I am, my neutron gun in hand, and I am ready to join. It should come as little surprise that among those who joined was Alexandra Clare and many of her fellow detainees from Stockade 7, who were well on their way to becoming the first celebrities of the revolution. And this is how the Martian Guard was born. Meanwhile, there was also the pressing matter of the executive mainframe. When the executive mainframe was muted on the second day of Red, some systems, like the doors and the lift shafts, reverted to localized controls that just stopped hearing override commands from the executive mainframe. But other systems in Olympus were just straight up, run or regulate it through those central controls. Some were like that because that's the way it had always been. But others, because of the recent innovations of the new protocols. So things like temperature controls and water recycling and air scrubbing, important things, really important things, were no longer receiving instructions. For better or for worse, they had to be monitored and controlled by the Executive mainframe, and so the executive mainframe had to be flipped back on soon, or there would likely be severe consequences. But luckily, the Society of Martian Systechs, in professional collaboration with an ample supply of stims, worked round the clock erecting the firewall that would keep Earth from taking over as soon as the executive mainframe was back online. As I said last week, the firewall had been an ongoing hobby project among them for years, and after the three days of red, it was simply a matter of implementing the checklist they had come up with. The Martian systechs organized teams to cover different parts of the architecture, and then organized other teams to double and triple check the work. Now, I don't want to say, though, that this was simply a matter of implementing the checklist like it was easy to do, or easy on the Systechs themselves. In Firewallers, Marigold Beckett tells the sad stories of a few of the systex from these first few days who pushed themselves so hard with stims that they never recovered and became permanent mental casualties of the revolution. On July 25, 2247, the final core pieces of the firewall were put in place, and the Martian systex watched with relief and elation as signals and commands from Earth were successfully blocked. They did not yet recommend flipping the executive mainframe back on, but they were increasingly confident that what they had done was going to work. Now some in the Society of Martians argued they should not be doing this work at all. The systex shouldn't be focusing on this firewall. They should really be spending their precious time and energy going into affected systems and localizing controls to simply make the executive mainframe irrelevant. That would be as good a way as any to keep Earth out. The counter argument was there was simply not enough time to do the work. If we try that, the colony will fall apart right under our feet, damning us just as surely as Earth taking control and deliberately punishing us. By the morning of July 26, 2247, the Martian Systex reported that the firewall was in place and working. They could report they now had 25 consecutive hours of logs showing the Earth systems were unable to access Martian systems. Their signals had been blocked and nothing was getting through. Once again, Mabel Dorr wound up steering the course of events. She weighed in to say that in her opinion, everything was risky, but the firewall had as good a chance of success as any, and they needed the executive mainframe back on. Like right now, there were alarms flashing that basic station functions were beginning to Bend and break. Absent coordinating orders from the executive mainframe, there are no good options, she said. Everything is insanely risky, but I say we do it. And DOR made one other point that was true. If we turn the executive mainframe back on and it's under our control, we can use it to assert our control over Tharsis and Elysium. We can liberate those other colony cities. And we need to liberate them. We can't beat the Earthlings by threatening to withhold PhoenixS5 if the other two colonies are happily sending it along. Her opinion galvanized a decisive consensus around the plan to unmute the executive mainframe. With a great deal of breath holding and teams of Martian systechs standing by monitoring the firewall to combat any potential breaches by Earth, they undid the hack from the second day of Red and unmuted the executive mainframe. And guess what? The firewall worked. Earth's attempts to get through and seize control were blocked. Now, this is obviously not a set it and forget it type of job. The Martian systex would have to maintain constant vigil over the firewall. And this was just the beginning of the digital war of independence. But the Martians won the first great battle. Earth was locked out of Mars. Now that the firewall was up, all of Mars could be for all of the Martians, not just Olympus for the Olympians. We don't have time right now to get into the independent social development of the other two colony cities, but if you are eager to know more right now, I encourage you to check out Tharsis Second City of Mars by Faraday Gimmick and Where Life Is A History of Elysium by Torres Visnin. Now, during much of the pre revolutionary period, the three colony cities of Mars developed mostly independently of each other. There was minimal physical intercolony traffic. Each city was served by its own orbital platforms. They ran their own excavation sites and sent up phosphive using their own railguns. But there were social links between them through the comm channels. They all watched the same bright noise, they all played the same arcade games, and they complained about the same problems because they were all basically doing the same work and being treated the same way. You'll be shocked to learn that after taking over, Omnicor Werner's vision for Mars was that the three colony cities stop being distinct entities and instead become one single organism. So of course the new protocols integrated and centralized Martian computer networks. By routing their operations through the Mars division executive mainframe, Werner himself would be able to control all the Martian colonies from his own office, which would obviously make things run smoother and more efficiently. And so the Elysians and Tharsians could add to their own list of grievances that now some very critical systems were being run out of Olympus. But during the pre revolutionary period, the Tharsians and Elysians were in the same boat as the Olympians. They were frustrated and angry, first at the new protocols and then at the annulments and the deportations. Tharsis and Elysium were thus both just as fertile recruiting grounds for the Society of Martians as Olympus was. And though neither colony had anything so dramatic as the Day of Batteries or Bloody Sunrise, they had their own raft of incidents and clashes that built up tensions in the lead up to the three days of Red. When those dramatic revolutionary events broke out in Olympus, Eva Zhang ordered comm censorship in an attempt to hide what was happening from the other colonies. But the Society of Martians had their own ways of communicating among themselves and between colonies. So Martian activists in both of the other colonies knew what was going on. But absent the immediately catalyzing focal point of the standoff at Stockade 7, Security Services in Tharsis and Elysium were both able to take preemptive actions to maintain order and prevent mass congregations. When that anonymous message went out calling for a strike on the beginning of the second day of Red, it hit everyone's inbox and people in Tharsis and Elysium were just as fed up as the Olympians, and many of them refused to show up for work in solidarity. But it did not immediately lead to a riot. With the security services already on high alert and ultimately no critical event like the riot in 5 way 13, neither Tharsis nor Elysium exploded into an armed insurrection. And in fact, the insurrection in Olympus created confusion, because all of a sudden, even reliable comm channels became spotty and contradictory and confused. Even those usually in a position to know did not know what was happening over there. The Tharsians and Elysians didn't even clock right away that the executive mainframe had been muted. It wasn't really until the next day when Mabel Dorr issued her first address announcing that the Martians had taken control of Mars, that people in the other colonies were like, hold up. We did what now? Because security services and the local Mars Division administrators in the other two colonies had a few extra beats to prepare once Olympus exploded. And they of course realized the central controls had been turned off, they were better able to lock Their colonies down, they shut down lift shafts manually and fused shut key doors and passageways to keep their own employees bottled up as tight as possible. Security services were also deployed with a bit more strategic foresight than what had been badly improvised amidst the chaos in Olympus. They also did their best to aggressively shut down communications both in and out of the colony, which was easier for them to pull off because they weren't in the middle of a war zone. None of this stopped some Tharsians and Elysians from staging localized demonstrations and attempting to gather sufficient numbers to face off against security service units. But they didn't quite take the plunge into violence. And where small clashes did occur, the security services maintained the upper hand. And that's how things stood through most of the three days after the three days of red. That is, until the Olympians flipped back on the executive mainframe, now able to communicate directly over official comm channels. A new vid address from Mabel Dor popped up on everyone's screen. Hello, fellow Martians of Tharsis and Elysium, she said. We have taken over Olympus and controlled the executive mainframe. We call upon the administrators and security services of your cities to stand down immediately. Administration of Tharsis and Elysium will be given to designated Martian representatives. All weapons will be handed over immediately to designated Martian representatives. We are in operational control of both your cities and wield it on behalf of our fellow Martians. There is no need for bloodshed and violence, but Mars is now for the Martians. Before this message hit the com channels, society of Martian members in both colonies were now fully plugged in and prepared to take control. And what they were told is that all of them should fan out through the now unblocked doors and passageways and lift shafts to spread word as widely as possible that they should not confront the security services. In fact, they should back away from them. Because we here in Olympus have a plan. At the moment, the security services of Tharsis and Elysium were either congregated in key junctions or holding down increasingly fortified security service stations, preparing for possible riots. Riots. It took them a while to notice that after Dorr's address they did not face immediate physical confrontations. Instead, people seemed to be pulling away from them, vacating areas around the security services, giving them a very wide berth. At first they breathed a sigh of relief. But then the Olympians dropped the hammer. Wherever armed security personnel were at in their stations, out in corridors or in critical junctions and five ways, doors started closing. Doors started locking. Because back in Olympus they were using their newfound control of the executive mainframe to isolate and trap the security service personnel with Tharsis and Elysium, wherever they happened to be. The personnel looked at each other nervously as they realized what was happening. They thought they were the ones who had been deployed to contain the Martians. And it turned out the Martians were now containing them. Then came another vid address from Mabel Dorr. My fellow Martians of Tharsis and Elysium, she said, walk freely through your cities. We have isolated and contained the security services and will not release them until they hand their arms over to designated Martians. As we speak, those designated Martians are moving to receive the surrender of the security services. Designated Martians are also moving towards your headquarters to take over administration of your city. This requires no violence. This requires no bloodshed. No one is in any danger. Your cities are yours and you are free. To the security services we say, surrender your weapons peacefully and no harm will come to you. We wish for no violence, no injuries and no death. But you are in a hopeless situation. You are all presently contained in closed and sealed environments. We control them. There's no way out. You are trapped and you will remain trapped until you surrender your weapons. This address caused quite a commotion. Tharsians and Elysians both came out into their public spaces to see for themselves if what Dorr said was true. And it was. Doors and lift shafts were open to them and when they investigated security service stations they could see personnel locked inside and unable to get out, no longer in any immediate fear of violence. The version of the three days of Red in the other two colonies had a lot less fighting and a lot more partying. Anyone who wanted to could take lifts all the way to the upper levels and wander around at their leisure. There was no one to stop them. Designated executives who were in the society of Martians then went to the headquarters and said, your situation is hopeless. Olympus has already fallen. There's no need for anyone to die here. All we want you to do is leave now. This required a little bit of back and forth at Tharsis, but at Elysium the headquarters building was already vacated by the time anyone got there to take it over. Then one by one, the security service units started surrendering. They started laying down their guns and putting up their hands. Then they were released from wherever they had been, trapped under the supervision of society of Martian volunteers who went in and picked up the guns. For as bloody as the three days of red had been, the next three days turned out to be a nearly bloodless coup. All three colonies were now under Martian control. Meanwhile, back on Olympus, they finally got a formal answer From Earth on July 26, 2247. The board of directors have decided. By a two vote margin, the non negotiators had won, and Werner himself delivered Earth's response. There will be no negotiations. You cannot possibly hold Mars without supplies and resources from Earth. Our phosphide reserves are fine, but you will receive no further shipments from Earth of anything until you stand down. Mabel Dorr and the Martian leaders in Olympus who received this message recognized that Werner thought he was calling their bluff. But it wasn't a bluff, and they signaled back. Then you will receive no more phos5. Good luck. Those transmissions kicked off the next phase of the Martian revolution, the mutual blockade. SA.