The underground inhabitants of Mars. Hostile to human presence.
What is canonical
- The Martians are hostile to human presence on the surface and below it.
- They are the proximate cause of the prior Mars expedition’s loss. Atlas dispatched that expedition in the 2070s, established a base, and lost contact some years before the current mission lifted. The team did not survive the contact.
- By the end of Season 1, the current crew confirms what happened to the prior team the hard way. The Martians’ hostility makes Mars uninhabitable for the human mission.
- The crew’s departure from Mars is the Season 1 to Season 2 hinge, the pivot from emergency-evacuation drama to Federation-sanctioned multi-world exploration.
What is open
The bible commits to the proximate cause and reserves the mechanism. The writers’ room owns the rest.
- Mechanism of the prior expedition’s loss: overrun, taken, transformed, hidden, or some combination. The proximate cause is canonical; the resolution per individual is not.
- Nature, society, technology, and motive of the Martians themselves. Visual register, biology, language, and any cultural form belong to later passes.
- Whether the Galactic Federation and the Watchers knew about the underground Martians when they sanctioned Earth’s provisional Mars-migration permission, or whether the Martians are intel the Federation itself does not have.
- Whether the Martians count as alien, native, or some Federation category the crew has not yet learned.
Atlas’s burden
Atlas dispatched the prior team. He lost them. He sent another crew anyway. Whether he knows the Martians caused the loss or has only inferred it is reserved. The crew does not yet know any of this when they leave Earth.
In the show
Season 1 ends with Mars closed to humanity. Where the crew goes next, and under what sanction, is the load-bearing arc the series will earn.