The Martian Hives

Mars. First settled by visionaries in the second and third decade of the twenty-first century, the red planet rapidly grew to a small colony of over one hundred thousand pioneers. There is little information regarding the events of 2047-2049. In a single Martian year substantially the entire colony was lost to a series of disasters, primarily driven by failures in the solar power systems, primitive fission power systems, and a collapse of the hydroponics species resulting in atmosphere fouling. The newly built, and unproven, fusion-powered deep space transit vehicle (DSTV) created by the very young Pleiades Corporation was enlisted to make a high-speed direct-flight transit to Mars from Earth, and succeeded in several trips that delivered desperately needed supplies and recovered almost thirty thousand people from the colony, but that was less than a quarter of the population, nearly all children, the rest simply could not be saved with the resources then available.

Mars was left uninhabited for another decade before a new attempt was made. This time, supported by a small fleet of third generation DSTV capable of carrying over ten thousand tons of cargo or ten thousand colonists, as well as making the trip in only 3-9 days (depending on relative orbits) each way. Over two hundred fifty thousand colonists were delivered in the first year, along with more than enough supplies and equipment to support a year of operation. A massive supply dump was delivered in advance of the human colonists in the year preceding first footfall, and the design of the colony was changed to account for the availability of both onsite fusion power and much heavier equipment. Rather than lightweight surface structures of the original colony, the new effort created the first of the Martian hives. An engineering marvel themselves, each hive is likened to the vast open pit mines of the nineteenth and twentieth century on earth, with a vast open terraced pit burrowed into the martian surface and the habitation bored deep into the rock around the edge. The pit provides exterior views through large reinforced viewing galleries, while the deep caverns throughout the outer regions provide protection from surface dangers and many individual refuge facilities in the event of a systems failure. This design was put to the test less than two years after first footfall when ten separate hydroponics facilities collapsed in an event reminiscent of the original colony failure, but the distributed nature of the hive and abundant extra energy resources, along with resupply less than ten days distant allowed recovery with no fatalities and minimal schedule disruption.

By the late 2070's Mars boasted a population exceeding five hundred million spread across close to a thousand hive communities. The design had proved exceptionally resilient and supported the vast array of industries central to the martian economy. In the caverns of the hive communities one could find deep rock mines, pharmaceutical manufacturing, carbon nanotube weaving operations, large corporations dedicated to technological products such as electronics or software, and even an entire hive fully dedicated to entertainment and holovid productions popular throughout the solar system.

Life In the Hives

A typical hive citizen lives in an apartment well distant from the viewing galleries.  The artificial light is designed to closely simulate Earth sunlight, which contributes to a healthy population, but it is not quite identical, so myopia is fairly common.  Children are educated at home via two-way holovid projectors allowing a teacher (often AI by 2080) to interact directly with the students and providing an experience similar to the in-person schooling common on Earth in the first half of the century, but without the risks and costs of physical schools.  The vast majority of Martian workers work at professional jobs that can be performed remotely, and thus work in a home office adjacent to the main living space.  Many families have two small offices, but some prefer a single larger office.  In a typical week the family will spend the majority of the days in their personal space, with a short trip every few days to walk around the local underground park area, or travel to the nearest viewing gallery to take in the outside view and a bit of light exercise.  Martian vacations are mostly to other locations on Mars, though some families will save up for a much bigger vacation to Earth or Ganymede once in a decade or so.  On Mars the most popular vacation spots are the vast sports-and-entertainment spaces dotted around the slopes of Olympus Mons, and the many tourist traps supported by the entertainment industry centered at Hive Patera built into Orcus Patera in the Amazonia Planetia region.