[UPRM] The Ringing of Revolution

Sorry, couldn't resist the urge to make another render set in this setting. 😅

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The Jamestown habitat, which was established on Mars in 2052, was the brainchild of the eccentric CEO of Hellas, Sarel Bok. Although he had conceived of it as a stepping stone that would eventually turn humanity into a spacefaring civilization and as a way to tap the wealth of resources on Mars for the benefit of Earth, the endeavor proved to not only be unprofitable, but a drain on the company’s resources. Space travel continued to be expensive, which made the transport of personnel and supplies from Earth to Mars costly, and the transport of minerals from Mars to Earth economically unviable when the same resources could be extracted on Earth through deep core drilling at a lower cost. However, Jamestown’s isolation and unique location made it valuable as a high-security research site and the ultimate tourist attraction and vacation home for the über wealthy.

With the development of synthoids, Jamestown began to produce them in great numbers to serve as a workforce, as well as companions for the few humans living there. This workforce, in turn, massively expanded operations on the planet, allowing Jamestown to become truly self-sufficient.

Although the synthoids were slaves, the situation of the vast majority of the human colonists wasn’t much different. Their expensive education had been paid for by Hellas, and in return they were contractually obligated to work for them as interns to pay off their debts. In theory, these contracts would expire after a few decades, but in practice Hellas held absolute control over these highly skilled human workers.

In order to keep both synthoid slaves and human interns in check, Jamestown created military-grade synthoids to serve as security. While slaves themselves, these synthoids received better treatment compared to their peers. Jamestown management also encouraged its guards to harass as well as push slaves and employees around in order to foster hostility between them in order to ensure that their guards would always side with management.

In 2120, Hellas discovered a design flaw in one fifth of their synthoid guards, and ordered them to be euthanized covertly through a designer plague. The scientist in charge of this effort was killed by Dr. Amanda Haley, the intern working under him, as she saw an opportunity to turn the synthoid guards against their masters. The guards who had been marked for euthanization struck an uneasy alliance with her, whereas the others remained loyal at first. In order to level the playing field, Dr. Haley and her pleasure model synthoid RX-VES-6718, better known as Cleo, as well as the Captain of the rebel guards ZT-YUR-4372, made alliances and riled up the synthoid and intern workforce. Slowly but surely, the rebels turned the tide over the course of five weeks until most of the remaining loyalist guards finally joined them. With nothing more standing in their way, the rebels executed members of management not sympathetic to their cause before they made their Declaration of Independence from Hellas and any Earth authority. Shortly thereafter, the formation of the United Peoples’ Republic of Mars (UPRM) was proclaimed, Cleo was appointed the first Chairperson of the interim government, and Jamestown was renamed Unity City.

Fearing a potential invasion from Earth, the UPRM dedicated themselves to rapid expansion, growth, and militarization. While Hellas had previously limited the growth of its operations so as to prevent its human colonists from being outnumbered by synthoids, the UPRM had no such worries. As such, the new Martian nation took full advantage of automation, nanotechnology, and synthoid production to expand more rapidly than the corporations and governments of Earth could keep up with. In just twenty years, the UPRM expanded by 116,400%, with its synthoid demographic growing from 50% to 94.6% of the total population on Mars.

While the corporations and governments of Earth could’ve eradicated the new Martian nation early on if they had rallied together, the leadership of Hellas was more concerned with the company’s stock price, and instead opted to cover it up while sending mercenaries to covertly deal with the rebellion. The mercenaries failed, and by the time the leadership of Hellas realized the gravity of the situation, the UPRM had grown too powerful to be stopped.