They are a biotech and nanomachine company, so are they using the base to do cutting edge research where none can see and steal the tech? or perhaps they needed a location far from them to remain safe from something in development...

or is it just a pet project of one of their board members?

or is it magical research into one of the restriced effects like teleportation?

or did they find remains of a civilisation or perhaps a current civilisation living on the red planet?

Personally I think Buttercup and the rest of the board are puppets of something nefarious possibly a great dragon or a horror. Mars is either being used to make a secret fortress or escape method for when the horrors come (if a great dragon is behind the board) or it is a facility researching something that would bring the horrors faster. Perhaps the research is into magical or scientific methods of teleportation. I think the most likely though is an artificial way of increaseing the background magic levels.

As a GM, my first thought would be terraforming attempts. If they could develop a reliable terraforming process and apply it, then EVO owns Mars and all its natural resources.

so the secretiveness just from them being a russian/japanese company?

There specialties lead me to believe in the Terraforming angle as well. As for a stronghold free of horror influence Buttercup is a powerful free spirit. You really don't need a dragon or other conspiracy behind the operation with Buttercup involved.

Terraforming is noted in canon indeed.

They aren't much more secretive about it than any other AAA about it's pet projects.

Because Dunkelzahn seemed to have no problem controlling Buttercup I would think other great dragons would be similarly more powerful than the free spirit. also, it adds to the levels of intrigue which is the important part.

What aren't they doing? If they're going to dish out the resources required to build a base on Mars I'm sure they are going to use it for a variety of research projects. They are certainly researching teraforming, but probably a number of other technologies as well.

Now if you want a AAA that's into some nefarious space shit, Ares is the way to go.

I think the question shold be "why is Evo the only corp on Mars?". Dragon skeletons and ancient pyramids sure sound like something the other corps might to check out.


<cue in X-Files theme here>
Are they actually the only ones? We know that there already has been one secret manned mission, the first "official" mission disappeared somewhere between Mars and Moon for several days, so who knows what secrets lurk there...

Oh, I already sent runners to a Proteus biodrone research facility under the Mars icecaps… before SR4.
Granted, Proteus doesn't have that facility anymore.

I'm guessing the reverse of terraforming. I think they're making biological organisms which can exist on the harsh environment of Mars.

That's a step of terraforming.

Personally, I toyed with the idea of gene-modified sandworms (rockworm variant) that break down sand to generate oxygen.

Proteus sounds like a good candidate indeed, given their experience with arcologies in hostile environments.

A question to the ED players, is there anything about 4th World activites on Mars?

Of course, those biodrones were aimed at deep sea research on Europa.

The moon?

Sure. There aren't many other (potential) oceans out there.

Additionally, SK might target Mars for mining operations.

I stand corrected.

Well, Jupiter is slightly further away than Mars

Indeed. That makes Mars the midway station.

Asteroids are better for mining because of the cost in fuel.



because of the fuel cost of landing and leaving a mass like mars Phobos and Deimos would be alot better. And only some of the time when earth mars and jupiter are in just the right orbital positions.

that's about what I was thinking with Evo invloved.

That corp is creepy. Ares seems like the quintessential govt contractor, not very nice but not very spooky. Also, Ares supposidly isnt on Mars.

Ares isn't really General Dynamics. Well, it is General Dynamics. And Blackwater. And Lockheed-Martin and Triple Canopy. And also Northrup-Grumman and Intel and Microsoft and Wackenhut and Oracle and Brinks and NASA and Pinkerton's. And also Maersk Line, Goldman Sachs, and Exxon. And Citibank and Berkshire Hathaway.

But other then that, they are just like a quintessential boring govt contractor.

Don't forget that Ares are also the ones doing experiments with opening gates to the invae metaplane on space stations at several La Grange points.

Frank once pointed out they are not so much experiments as negotiations. "You help us with this minor problem we have and we won't set off this here honking big nuke in the middle of your hive." I somehow suspect that none of this stuff is widely known.

Opening gates to send in a strike team and take out their queens, that is.

Which leads us to another SR mystery, the cause of Knight's hatred for insect spirits*. He could just want to save mankind (and reap the profit from it), or it is some sort of vendetta, or there might be arbitrarily sinister motives behind it...for example (as far as I understand it) The Enemy seems to have some professional disagreement with the Invae...


*: At least most of the time he hates them. Ares also have (or at least had) that little program to breed insect guard critters.



@Daylen: Well, if it is possible to travel to Jupiter and back in a reasonable timeframe, the engines are obviously better than what we have today. And selling a bloody dragon skeleton for telesma should cover the fuel costs.

And their excrements would become the most wanted resource in the galaxy?

I was just pointing out that mars is not always going to be found halfway on a trip from earth to jupiter. Sometimes it will be clear on the other side of the sun and thus far out of the way. Also, if you must stop for fuel or something like that (as opposed to stopping as a tourist) then a small moon or asteroid is a better quickie stop than mars. if I knew how to insert a picture I would run up a few sims...

so which one of those exactly is the scary one (not boring I like using ares alot)? they all seem like standard corporate evil.



that, I didnt know, but I like.

That raises an interesting question...

Does magic function identically on, say, Mars, as on Earth?

It's probably answered somewhere, and the answer is probably "yes, of course", but I like the idea that maybe magic functions different the farther away from Earth you get.

There was an idea in Mage: The Ascension, that due to the weakening influence of consensual reality as you left Earth, that magic would become easier and less likely to backfire. Mars was sort of the delineation point where you could start doing *really* wacky magic without worrying about backlashes.

Their bussying digging up a mass effect drive sillys.
Edite: Or opening up a gate to hell.

well its almost impossible to use magic in space. from what I know magic is linked to living things and some rocks maybe. not sure if it works on the moon or mars any easier than deep space though. very interesting question though.

how boring if so...

edit:



me likie.

I recently read an interesting idea on physics and can go into more detail if needed but it occured to me as I read it that it would be a way around one of the great holy grails of SR magic. Teleportation. Like I said I can get more detail if ned be but it talked about what would be needed to xcreate a worm hole, a way to take a side step through space. It would involved setting up the mouths of the worm hole together and then using a gravity well, hauling one end off to somewhere else in space. Once moved it could acts as a tunnel to travel back quickly to the other end of the hole in much less time than it took to haul the end out in the first place.

With that in mind, think how a Mars base could be one end of such a worm hole. They could have started on earth or maybe the moon and hauled it outto a Mars base with the idea of that being a reasonable base to work form. If it worked, it would be a massive stepping stone for anyone looking to move out into the solar system looking for more raw materials. You don't haveto build in Earth's gravitational pull and break out of that just for a long haul to Mars. You can use the worm hole to pop to Mars and us it's position and gravity to go further out. Build another hole, once safe, linking Mars to ,say the moons of Jupiter and you are leap frogging ahead of all the competion.

See:

I'm not going to say that is impossible, but from what we know of physics today, damn unlikely.

That being said, it would be a really cool idea SR wise. You could have runners do jobs on Mars without the long trip through space, if such a conduit was established. And it would be something technology does that magic can't replicate.

On a side note, does anyone know, by the SR canon did they discover high temperature supraconductors, or the Higgs boson? Any details on the CERN supercollider?

OhI know it's out there but what I read was based on theroy and since tech levels are much more advanced in SR's 2070 and also it could be that they are just experimenting with this. They have the same theory we have and wonder if now they could try it.

If this is right it could be a gold mine for runners- the tech, the theory, the materials, the people owrking it out-all a major boost. If they get it right and could then set up another worm hole end going back to another part of earth. Starting to border on the teleporters of the early Ringworld series.

Also like the RL starwars defense projects of the 1980's even if it doesn't work out the developmental issues along the way could lead to major break throughs

For example right now:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=30&porbs=1

But hey, orbital positions at a given date are something I can ignore for gameplay reasons


About magic in space: Ares basically has an orbital greenhouse, which results in an artificial Gaiasphere and allows Firewatch strike teams can go on astral quests to the Hive (the insect metaplane) from there...and if something goes wrong, they can just jettison the whole thing. But the important point is that plants create a suitable manasphere, and Evo is working on greening Mars...