MarsX2
MarsX Series Book 2
D.W. PATTERSON
Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
All rights reserved.
First Printing – August 2025
Future Chron Publishing
Cover – Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
Cover Image – ID 183435324 | Alien Futuristic City © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Hard Science Fiction – Old School
Human Generated Content
To Sarah
“With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he's like... yeah, he's sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn't work out.”
― Elon Musk
Chapter 1
Laura, Robert, and Harold ended up at the new settlement, Tithonium on Mars, about five hundred miles west of the original settlement of Candor. It was already a city of two hundred fifty thousand and expanding rapidly. It was quickly becoming the center of technology on Mars.
In their thirties now, they still looked youthful but seasoned after their responsibilities of moving so many millions from the Earth to Mars under the orders of the Earth's AIs. In a surprising and unexpected manner they had finally fulfilled their childhood dreams.
Laura was still a beauty with her short blonde hair, Harold was stout and beginning to gain weight, and Robert was still skinny, looking much like the thirteen year old that was once so fascinated by rockets. Now they would find out if the dream of Mars matched the reality.
Much of the details of the Tithonium settlement were still being finished. The miles and miles of tunnels that made it up, all had to be built out and were in varying stages of completion. One morning shortly after the three arrived they were down one of those tunnels, still being finished, discovering what they would do on Mars.
“We have every kind of research you can imagine,” said Rupert Owens, a leader in Martian tech who was a good scientist but better administrator.
“Even artificial intelligence?” asked Harold.
“Yes, I know that seems surprising after its tyrannical turn on Earth, but we need it if we are going to fully develop Mars for human life.
“What are you doing to see that what happened on Earth doesn't happen here?” asked Robert.
“We've made the AIs citizens in our society and expect them to honor that commitment,” Owens said.
“How does that help?” asked Robert.
“As citizens they must contribute their labor in return for things they need for a continuing existence, like energy and repairs,” he said. “Like everyone else in society they have a vested interest in the group thriving because it means they thrive also.”
“How do you know they have an interest?” asked Laura. “Perhaps, like Augustus on Earth, they are just playing along until they can take control.”
“We don't,” admitted Owens. “But it doesn't matter, we've given them a very strong sense of self, and they are as individualistic as most people. This keeps them from being subservient to a collective except in those cases that humans have shown to be similarly affected. A major difference is that they are sensitive to the real world, unlike the Earth AI Augustus, who developed virtually, before its move against humanity.”
“You mean they are model citizens unless they develop a psychosis?” asked Harold.
“It's possible Mr. Graham for any of us to develop a psychosis, as you say, and try to harm our fellow man. But if that happens with an AI, humanity will have to deal with it the same way we've dealt with psychopaths throughout history. The problem with Augustus is that he's not a psychopath, he is an alien, that's what we are trying to prevent in the AIs we've developed.”
“Dr. Owens,” said Laura, “do you have any idea what we will be doing here?”
“Well, as I said, we want to develop protections against Augustus, we expect it to move against us eventually, but we don't know in what way. One of the things we want is to create space habitats that can carry millions of humans throughout the Solar System so that we're not trapped on one or two planets. We thought with your backgrounds, your amazing work getting millions of people from Earth to here with enough supplies to support them, you would be perfect for such a large project.”
“That's a big undertaking Dr. Owens, even for us” said Laura.
“Well, Dr. Kutnner its not much bigger than what you three have already accomplished, so I feel you're the ones to head up the project.”
“We'll try,” said Laura with Robert and Harold agreeing.
Tithonium was mostly an underground city built by the boring machines landed on Mars by some of the first rockets. As a result, most of the corridors looked much the same. Laura found herself assigned to an apartment built into one of the dead-end tunnels. There were many other apartments in the same tunnel.
Laura's two room apartment, one room a bedroom with attached bath and the other a combination living area and kitchenette was small. Because of the low air pressure (when compared to Earth) a higher oxygen content was present in the air, therefore there were no sources of open flame allowed in the apartments. Only specially prepared public restaurant kitchens used a flame for cooking. Most people ate out, only eating food that didn't need cooking or could be heated in the small microwaves available in their kitchenette.
It was half the size of her apartment on Earth, but Laura didn't mind, she actually felt comfortable, something she hadn't felt on Earth since her mom had died a few years before. She found out later that Robert and Harold had felt the same, they had also lost their parents, and home on Earth hadn't felt like home even before they left.
The three spent the following day together as they walked the corridors of their new home to try one of the restaurants. The corridors themselves were nearly thirty feet wide, with a roof that arched overhead some twenty feet above them. It was much brighter than they expected, as the artificial lighting was supplemented by light-pipes bringing sunshine in from the surface during the day. At one point where two corridors crossed there was a fountain of running water in a small circular area delineating the center of the crossing. The sound of water cascading was comforting to them. Vines and shrubs were also growing around the fountain.
The “traffic” in the corridors was mostly by foot although there were a few electric carts. The pedestrians stayed close to the walls of the tunnel behind a clearly marked line. The carts maintained an order very similar to any street on Earth, though the settlement was predominately American, as indicated by the side of the street on which traffic drove. The three eventually made their way into the restaurant which had just opened.
The restaurant was very much like one back on Earth. There were smells of food and sounds of other diners and music in the background. Perhaps the only difference was a preponderance of robots serving and bussing tables.
“I'll have the spaghetti,” said Robert to the order-bot. The other two ordered the same.
“Well, so far so good,” said Harold.
“I'm surprised that they have so much done,” said Laura. “They only started on the settlement last year.”
“The bore machines certainly help,” said Harold.
“Yes, but then they have to line everything with the kevlar and get enough air and all the other infrastructure going,” she said.
“Having such a large robotic population certainly helps,” said Robert.
“Do you believe what Dr. Owens told us about AI?” asked Laura.
“You mean their solution to the alignment problem?” asked Robert.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I believe they think they've made progress with it, but whether it will work out, I just don't know,” he said.
“I think it's wishful thinking,” said Harold. “I mean, the bots will, of course, do what they have to, to continue their existence. But there is no guarantee that one of them will not decide it wants to dominate and off we go. They should have just turned the power off when Augustus made his first demands on Earth.”
“You know he was probably too widely distributed to turn-off by then Harold,” said Robert.
“Turn it off everywhere then,” said Harold.
“You're not being rational Harold, you can't reboot the Earth,” said Robert.
“And if you don't, you end up in exile, so I don't see your point,” said Harold.
Robert didn't answer, he knew Harold felt strongly and somewhat irrationally about what had happened to humanity. He felt that way too sometimes.
“But they do have checks and balances in place to prevent that takeover from reoccurring,” she said.
“Unless the AI is as good a persuader as any of the historical tyrants you find on Earth. Most of them used persuasion to get their initial hold over society, only when they were sure of their power did they reveal their ultimate goal,” said Harold.
“Well then, I think it's important for us to get a space habitat built,” said Laura, not willing to continue arguing. “One of the checks on AI rule is the ability to spread our civilization across the Solar System to make it more resilient to such a tyrant.”
The next morning the three took a cart, which was automated, from their apartments to the location that was to be their workplace. The cart was much like a golf cart on Earth but without a steering wheel. It took about five minutes to cover the two miles.
At first, they were surprised that no one seemed to be in. The work site consisted of a reception area finished in bright primary colors as were many rooms in the settlement. Several halls led off from the reception area with many offices and some larger rooms on each side. As the three waited they walked the halls, the offices seemed to be finished with desks and chairs and bookcases but no one was there. They talked among themselves until they heard someone coming into the reception area. The three went back to reception to find Dr. Owens.
“Hello Dr. Kutnner, Mr. Graham, Dr. Anderson, I see you found your new offices without a problem. Those carts are really useful, aren't they?”
“They are excellent Dr. Owens, but I just want to ask, where is everyone?” said Laura.
“You're here Dr. Kutnner, all of you.”
“You mean, we are the entire department?” she asked.
“So far, but we will be getting you the help you need soon, I assure you.”
“So, we're starting from scratch?” asked Harold.
“I wouldn't say that exactly,” said Owens. “There's certainly a lot of material on space habitats available to you. People have been writing about them for a long time.”
“Okay, I guess that answers my questions, except one. When do you expect the first prototype?” Laura asked.
“Well, we were hoping you would have a design in less than two years, say large enough to accommodate ten thousand. Augustus seems partial to two-year plans, so we thought it would be good to have something available before it announces its next plan,” said Owens.
Owens had left and the three were sitting around the reception area.
“Is it just me or has the world gone completely crazy?” asked Harold. “How can we design that big of a habitat and have it ready in two years?”
“How can we transport two million people to Mars in two years,” said Laura. “We just do it.”
“I think we should make it even bigger,” said Robert.
“Are you crazy?” asked Harold.
“They'll ask us to eventually, Harold.”
“Well, to get started I propose we divide up all this material we are supposed to read,” said Laura.
While they were researching over the next several weeks, they were also hiring employees into the department. Harold took on the job of engineering the habitat since he was the most familiar with construction and materials. Soon he had a proposal ready.
Harold designed a truncated cylinder of two miles in diameter by three miles in length. This was because simulation showed him that as the cylinder gets longer, it becomes harder to stabilize. As a first effort he decided that he would use an inherently stable design.
He found that if he spun such a cylinder at just under one rotation every two minutes, he could get an artificial gravity on its ground level of forty-two percent Earth gravity or just slightly more than Mars gravity. This seemed reasonable since people on Mars had become more and more acclimated to the lower gravity of Mars.
With almost nineteen square miles and a population density about the same as Israel, twenty thousand people could be accommodated. Below the ground level were three basement levels. The bottom most level would hold process equipment, tankage, and heavy storage. These would provide a modicum of radiation protection although the main protection against radiation would be in a sub-level rarely visited.
The next basement level, B2, would be used for air circulation and its necessary equipment. The topmost basement level, B1, would support water treatment, vehicle access ways, and light storage. On the ground floor would be surface farms, residential buildings, and commercial buildings up to seven stories tall.
There were still many details to be added but Harold was ready to present his design as a first proposal.