Dr. Ryan Dahl
Doctor (PhD.) Ryan Dahl
Doctor Ryan Dahl (PhD.) was the head of the Martian Colony from 2104 to his death in 2124. Dr. Dahl was placed in a uniquely difficult position of managing nearly five hundred Martian Colonists from many nations when World War 3 broke out on Earth. Ryan's leadership united the colonists from nations that had gone to war, convincing potential enemies to put aside their differences in the interest of the future of Mars.
Dahl essentially became the founder of the first independent extraterrestrial nation when he declared that the Mars colony would become its own autonomous nation in order to survive World War 3. Though the Martian Colony would not survive the hardships that followed, it would serve as the framework for the first society of Native Martians.
Folks, there’s no easy way to say this… The rumors you’ve been hearing… are true. Last Sunday at 2410 Hours, we lost all contact with Earth.Dr. Ryan Dahl took his own life in an act of self-sacrifice along with most of the surviving colonists in order to allow the two chosen survivors, Dr. Hana Seung and Dr. Matthieu Renault to carry on the preparations to continue terraforming Mars and birth the first generation of Synthetically Adapted Human Beings who would become the Native Martians.
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The tension that’s been building on Earth and Luna, the military buildup and posturing, the riots and clashes, the destruction of ISS 2 last month… all of that indicates a very real possibility that some or all of our nations have gone to war.
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What matters now is where we go from here. My father taught me to hope for the best case scenario while planning for the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is that this is a short affair like in ‘92... It might blow over in the coming weeks or months and operations will resume. [...] The worst case scenario… the worst possible situation is that Earth has become embroiled in all out war. God, it feels wrong just saying that. We’ve gone more than a century and a half without a major world war… and the nuclear stockpiles that have been building… the devastation could be widespread.
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Whether this is a few months or… the foreseeable future, we need to prepare to be on our own.
On paper we’re self-sufficient, but it’s a delicate balance. Our reliance on regular resupply is a crutch we need to quickly wean off of. We will have to manage resource consumption: budget food, water, fab mats and electricity. It’ll be back to Phase 1 living conditions. I know most of us weren’t even born yet, but we’ve heard the old-timers talk about life back then. If they could do it, we can too.
But if we’re going to be in it for the long haul, conserving our resources won’t be enough. We’ll just be biding time until essential systems break down. I don’t know about you, but that’s not how i want to go out.
[Murmurs of agreement]
We need to move ahead with Terraforming. We need to make this planet liveable. If not for us, then for our children. For the generation on ice down the hall from here, who will inherit Mars from us. For the future of humanity. It’s going to take everything we’ve got. Every ounce of energy and willpower you have, we need it. Mankind needs it. Mars needs it.
Every single one of you has a role here. I need everyone playing on the team, doing their part. That means we can’t let the specter of Terran conflict haunt us here. We can’t let grudges and nationalism divide us, millions of kilometers from any national boundary. [...] Look around you. Look at your fellow Martians. That’s right, Martians. You’ve earned the title. From this day forward, you are not Americans, or Russians, or Koreans, or whatever else. Mars is your home now. You live for Mars, you work for Mars, if necessary you die for Mars.
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Yesterday we were working to build a Mars we can be proud to call home. We were bringing green and blue to the red planet. We were building an atmosphere we might one day be able to walk outside and breathe in without a suit. We’d one day clutch a fistful of fertile Martian soil between our bare fingers, and wash our hands of it in the Mariner Sea... None of that has changed. The only difference is that failure is no longer an option.
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