What to do with Mars

[phoenix240]

One PC group in our collective campaign will soon have access to the means to reach Mars. Being player characters I expect that they'll haul off and go there for some unknown reason at some point. So far we haven't developed much beyond the Earth (which is a homebrew based strongly on Champions: The new Millennium). What might be some interesting and novel approaches to the Red Planet. Currently nothing is known or has happened in Mars that hasn't in our world, at nothing that's common knowledge.

[Hermit]

Why not have a retired supervillain or superhero living there? Maybe he's a superscientist with a dome, or maybe he has the necessary life support. He could be trying to terraform it, or he (or she) could just want to be left alone. Steal a bit from Champions Beyond and Watchmen

[McCoy]

Mars 1, a postapooctolyptic world where telepathic shapesifters (who can turn invisible) battle for survival in the war-ravged remains of their world. (Both the Mars of J'on J'onzz and Uncle Martin).

Mars B, a world wracked by climate change, the last civilized city-state fighting againt barbarian pilliage as they try to keep the air breathable. (The Mars of Captain John Carter)

Mars W, tool using ceplopods devote their remaining resources to escaping their (all together now) "dying planet" to colonize the place they call "the big wet one closer to the sun" (the mars of H G Wells)

For fun, not only do all three coexist (and everyone desperate for a working space ship), but it is the Air Factory on Mars B that sustains all three!

[Beazulbob]

Have a ongoing war between 2 groups that are forced to live underground due to the damage their war has wrought. No contact for a month or two, then they find out. For fun, perhaps a war like that from a star trek episode, where the war is run by computer w/ groups reporting to murder/suicide chambers (blast from the past reference).

The natives attempt to draft the PCs into the war, or perhaps they both attack, thinking the PCs work for the other side.

[Greywind]

Take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way we can be sure.

[Ravor]

Personally I think I'd do the Mars from the newest version of Doom, a planet of ancient ruins and molding tech that if poked at will tear open the fabric of time/space straight into whatever hellish realm of your choice.

[Drhoz]

Mars 1, a postapooctolyptic world where telepathic shapesifters (who can turn invisible) battle for survival in the war-ravged remains of their world. (Both the Mars of J'on J'onzz and Uncle Martin).

Mars B, a world wracked by climate change, the last civilized city-state fighting againt barbarian pilliage as they try to keep the air breathable. (The Mars of Captain John Carter)

Mars W, tool using ceplopods devote their remaining resources to escaping their (all together now) "dying planet" to colonize the place they call "the big wet one closer to the sun" (the mars of H G Wells)

For fun, not only do all three coexist (and everyone desperate for a working space ship), but it is the Air Factory on Mars B that sustains all three!

I refer you to Niven's Svetz novel Rainbow Mars

[Drhoz]

Rob the Doctor Who mythos regarding Mars - It's been sterilized by the Fendahl, used as part of the prison system keeping Sutekh the Destroyer bound inside the Black Pyramid on Earth, colonised disastrously by the Ice Warriors, visited by lethally radioactive aliens, etc.

[Arkham]

In my campaign world, Mars is the base of operations for the remanants of the 3rd Reich led by the Council of Hitler, a 13-man council consisting of clones of Adolf, the oldest clone being just a head-in-a-jar.

[Major Tom 2009]

Regardless of which Mars you use, you could have your PCs find themselves lost
somewhere on it. And just imagine the "oh, s***" looks on their faces the first
time that they try to use a compass to find out which direction they need to go
(Mars has no magnetic field; therefore no magnetic North or South).

Now, if they've taken the time to find out stuff like this and gotten hold of an
inertial guidance system, that won't pose much of a problem (unless those
annoying gremlins known as GM Fiat and Murphy put in an appearance).


Major Tom 2009

[AmadanNaBriona]

I'm kinda fond of the idea that the Barsoomian Martians are the descendants of Lemurian test subjects taken by the cephalopod martians (who themselves could be a technician species of the Great Old Ones), who are also responsible for importing or creating most of the other martian lifeforms. They were driven uinderground and into near extinction by ancient enemies, and they slept in stasis for many long years. The after effects of the war destroyed the climate of the world, and the test subjects came to rule the land.
When the martians rewoke, they unleashed weapons that destroyed all life on the surface of the planet, then launched their attack on Earth.
Those Barsoomians, like the Lemurians, now only exist in survivor settlements. Underground. Mostly at the poles.
And if Carter survived... well, he is immortal...

Edit: Oh, yeah, now I remember what I'd planned for my campaign backstory.
Just as above, except the martians didn't burn Mars... the Barsoomian's were beating the Martians (ala LXG 2) when the Mi-go decided that Mars needed to be sterilized and bombarded it with meteors from Yuggoth, containing many, many, many Devourer seeds (Such as were described in the story The Colour Out of Space)

[Balabanto]

In my game, Mars was populated by the Atlantean resistance to their alien creators. They turned Olympus Mons into a cannon powered by the entire planet's core, and blew up their base on the fourth belt, turning it into a ring of shattered asteroids. The leadership escaped to earth, where after a hard battle, their bodies were imprisoned in stone capsules and their minds imprisoned in the psychic field that surrounds the world.

Yes. Superheroes got to have a battle in the cannon control room.

[phoenix240]

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Cygnia]

Rob the Doctor Who mythos regarding Mars - It's been sterilized by the Fendahl, used as part of the prison system keeping Sutekh the Destroyer bound inside the Black Pyramid on Earth, colonised disastrously by the Ice Warriors, visited by lethally radioactive aliens, etc.

Don't forget the water-loving zombie virus dwelling in its ice fields...