ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

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I upgraded the Starlog article on page 2 of this thread so that each page now has an embedded link to a bigger, sharper version, the way I did with the other magazine articles I've posted.

If you haven't read that article yet, it's much easier to read the text now, using the bigger jpegs.
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I posted the idea below somewhere else on All Sci-Fi (I don't remember where), but I'll add it to this thread too, because it rescues the beloved concept of "Martian invaders" from the death it suffered when modern astronomy showed us just how devoid of life Mars is . . . or even the ruins of a lost civilization!

I suggest we take a closer look at the "proof" of Mars' lifelessness and make sure we didn't miss something.

First of all, how good are the telescopes which first showed us detailed images of a barren and disappointing Red Planet?

Well, this image from the Lowell Observatory was considered the best shot to date, back in 1988.





Obviously we can't really tell from this blurry image whether or not Mars has an advanced civilization. So, based on this kind of "evidence", Mars might actually have canals and vast population centers with millions of strange aliens.

And that's what we want, naturally.

However, THIS image is what you'll find if you Google "best picture of Mars from Earth-based telescopes".





I was really impressed by this one . . . until I discovered that "Earth-based" didn't necessarily mean an observatory on the ground, it also meant pictures from orbiting telescopes. The image above is from the Hubble telescope, not from an observatory.

Still, it does seem to put to rest the idea that Mars has Martians. My goodness, you can't see a single road or city! Obviously the planet has no advanced civilization.

Gee, I guess that settles THAT.

But wait a minute. Let's be fair and scientific about this. How many roads and cities do you see in THIS picture?





Not a single one, right? So, the planet shown above must not have an advanced civilization either!

Clearly we're going to need to take a closer look at Mars. Like, for example, pictures taken on the ground or from unmanned probes. Lots of them, too, just in case we land our probe out in the boondocks and make dumb assumptions based on bad luck.

The first pictures from Mars were acquired in 1976 by the Viking probe. Here's a sample.





Hmmm . . . It certainly doesn't prove that Martian cities DO exists. But it doesn't prove they DON'T, either. The "New York" of Mars could be right over the horizon and we'd never know it!

We'll need more than that to settle this question. So, let's consider the snapshots below from later missions with better cameras and more time to look around.

Okay . . . nobody home here.


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Ah-HA! A Martian ROAD! (No, wait. The Mars' Rover made those tracks. Sorry. )





AH-HA! A BROKEN Martian road!





Oops, wait a second. Wrong again.

Those slabs have been identified as the fragments of an ancient lake bed. (Well, in that case, I guess that's not really an airplane runway in the background, either. Damn.)

Ah-HA! This is obviously modern architecture by the Frank Lloyd Wright of Mars! (No wait . . . it's just a rock group. The Non-Rolling Stones. )





Okay, the pictures from the Mars' rovers are disappointing. But we should also consider the thousands of images sent back by probes that did fly-by's, and the ones which did multiple close-orbit surveys.

Unfortunately they all show the same thing — a planet that's deader than a racoon run over by a Mack truck!

Well, the evidence clearly suggests that Martians are just the stuff of myths and hoaxes. We've proven with our own eyes that they don't exist.

Or . . . have we?

In this marvelous age of digital communications, computer generated images, binary data storage, and security cameras, we've come to rely on electronic eyes to do our seeing for us.

Wow, when you really think about it, the only ACTUAL pictures we have of Mars that weren't beamed to us from outer space are the ones like this!





But just for fun, supposed Mars really looks like THIS. (Click on the image to get the bigger version so you can zoom in and see all the circular swimming pools the rich Martian folks have!)





And suppose there are fabulous Martian cities which look like THIS.





Okay, hold on, I know what you folks are thinking right now!

"Bud, how can Mars look like THAT from space and have futuristic cities on the surface when we've seen pictures that clearly show it does NOT!?"

Yes, we HAVE seen pictures. They were pictures sent to us by radio transmissions from space. But were these transmissions really sent from the Hubble telescope and the space probes and the Martian rovers on the surface?

Or . . . were they really sent to us by the Martians?

If there actually are Martians who live on a beautiful terraformed planet and have a highly advanced technology, and they're aware that their nearest neighbor in space is dangerously hostile — even to each other on Earth — wouldn't these advanced aliens hide there existence from us?

Hell's bells, of course they would!

And how would they do that? Simple!

They'd just replace all the legitimate signals we think we're getting from space telescopes, spacecraft, and planetary rovers with clever CGI images of a dead world that could never pose a threat to Earth!

The only images of Mars we have that are real are the blurry ones from ground-based telescopes. All the rest are created by the Martians to make us think we're the only intelligent species in the solar system.

Think how easy it would be to simply destroy the approaching probes and start sending back bogus data that mimics what we expect to be getting. And if the probe is supposed to take pictures of Mars from space, they just blow it up and substitute images of a dead world!

On the other hand, if a Mars rover is supposed to land and drive around on the surface, the Martian's simply create a computer program that acts like a video game in which the NASA controller on Earth drives a non-existent rover around on a non-existent dead world and takes pictures of the bogus desert landscape!

Just think about the way our own video games give their users this same ability today and you'll see how easy it would be for the Martian geniuses to trick us into think we have rovers on Mars!

Admit it folks, this is all total possible for an advanced race who wants to fool the silly humans into thinking Mars is desolate and dull so we won't be terrified they'll invade us!

Still think this is impossible? Well then, consider this.

Out of the 47 spacecraft that have been sent to Mars by the U.S. and other nations, 28 of them have failed! Only 19 have "succeeded" (or so we THOUGHT).

What if some of these were just destroyed by the Martians to simplify the hoax they were committing by making us think ANY of them had succeeded?

As for space telescopes like Hubble, an advanced race who has terraform Mars and built fantastic cities would have no trouble placing a few devices in Earth orbit (hidden amidst all our satellites and space junk) to monitor any real incoming data about Mars and replace it with the bogus stuff that keeps us ignorant about the super-race living next door.

Therefore, I respectfully suggest that we've been duped. The real Mars bears no resemblance to anything we've seen in those bogus photos they've tricked us with.

Lastly, there's this to consider.

In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Klaatu said he'd traveled 250 million miles to reach Earth. We've always thought that was a goof up, because it would mean Klaatu came from some planet inside the Solar System. Oops . . .

But wait! What if Klaatu came from that high-tech planet that's been hiding from us since the 1950s — Mars! (He took the long way around, leaving Mars when it was on the other side of the sun — you know, the scenic route).

Klaatu's race is worried about us developing atomic weapons and rockets because we're not that far away from them. After all, rockets and nukes wouldn't be a threat to a race in another star system. Right?

But they WOULD be a threat to a planet located right next door!



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I had breakfast this morning at my favorite local restaurant, Phat Daddy's Cafe, which would be a great place to hang out with a group of sci-fi lovin' friends if I knew any in my area.





Unfortunately I don't. But they do have WiFi, so maybe I'll take my laptop one day and skype with Gord Green.

However, I did chat with a friendly old fellow named Jay who goes there regularly, and I told him about the Great Martian Hoax I described above. He was amused by the idea, and he asked me what would happen when the astronauts on the first Mars mission got close to the Red Planet and saw that it didn't look a bit like it was supposed to.

Presto! A story idea was born!





What would our highly advanced Martians do when faced with the approach of a manned mission from Earth?

Naturally they would jam the spacecraft's radio transmissions so the crew couldn't tell Earth that Mars was the other Big Blue Marble in our solar system, but I'd want the Martians to be a benevolent race who felt morally opposed to destroying the spacecraft, the way they'd done with most of our unmanned probes over the years.

So, what would they do to keep the secret of Mars' true nature?

Well, the kindest way to deal with the situation and still keep the secret would be to send out a few of their hi-tech spacecraft to lock onto the Earth ship and bring it down to a big, impressive Martian spaceport.





The Martians would greet the puzzled astronauts in fluent English and explain the situation to them. They'd apologize for the fact that they couldn't allow the four Earth men to return home now that they knew the secret about Mars.

The Martians would definitely NOT look human, but they wouldn't be so bizarre that the astronauts would fear or distrust them simply because their appearance was hideously alien. They'd look more like one of these guys.


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To provide the obligatory "story conflict", two of the astronauts (a husband and wife team) would understand the need for keeping the secret, for the sake of both Earth and Mars, so they'd be willing to make a new home for themselves in the futuristic Martian city and hope the day would come soon when the Martians would decide to reveal themselves to Earth.

But one of the four would demand to be sent back to Earth and his family. He would also feel strongly that "mankind needs to know the truth about Mars."

The fourth astronaut would be torn between staying on Mars or going back to Earth, and he would eventually decide to conspire with his fellow crewman to steal a Martian spacecraft and return to Earth so they could warn mankind that the powerful Martians were distrustful of Earth and might decide to conquer it someday if our technology became a threat.

This is starting to sound a little like the situation in The Day the Earth Stood Still

That's all I've got so far, guys, but I think this story idea "has legs" and could be turned into a great book and a terrific movie!

Any suggestions, fellow Earth men?

PS: By the way, breakfast for seniors like me at Phat Daddy's Cafe is just $4.80. It includes eggs, hash browns-or-grits, bacon-or-sausage, toast-or-biscuit, and coffee. And it's all absolutely delicious, I swear to God!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

Might there be a few Martians who sympathized with their detainees, and wanted to reveal Mars to Earth and start cultural and commercial exchanges? And might a second ship from Earth approach the Red Planet at a crucial moment?

I hope Phat Daddy includes a few coffee cup refills in his package deal. There's a local café around here that advertises an "all-day breakfast," but don't believe them, after little more than a couple of hours they asked me to depart...

[Bud Brewster]

[Custer]

So there are some of our intrepid astronauts who want to alert Earth to the danger, or at least the fact that Mars is actually inhabited, complete with a proper network of canals of course - and their number will be boosted when the second Terran ship arrives. Meanwhile, there is a section of the Martian elite that thinks peaceful commerce would benefit them most, and they want to bring those astronauts onto their team. After all, Earth would hardly be worth conquering, as it would seem so hot and wet to its invaders, with all our comparatively drastic weather... having to walk around in big sealed tripod machines is hardly a good way to spend one's time, right?

Let us hope that, despite a strict quarantine, no Terran diseases get out into the Martian population, who are apparently vulnerable to the cold virus, at least. And that the Martians don't under-estimate their visitors' general strength and ability to jump. It may not be Krypton > Earth = Superman, but Earth > Mars, with the lower gravity, does give visitors an advantage, as Mr John Carter demonstrated.

[Bud Brewster]

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You're really getting into the swing of this, Custer!

I not sure how many of your suggestions were simply humorous injections, but I should probably point out that elements of the Martian legend which stem from literature and movies (like tripod war machines, canals, and poor immune systems) don't apply to the "real" Mars, which has an Earth-like atmosphere and large oceans, due to the terraforming the Martians have done to keep Mars healthy.

The appealing thing about this concept (for me at least) is the way we have to throw out all our preconceived notions of Mars and redefine it as a benevolent and highly advanced race, living on a beautiful planet — instead of the hideous aliens whose planet is dying and who want to enslave mankind after conquering Earth.

The only reason they feel they might have to conquer us is to eliminate the threat we might pose at some point in the future when our own obvious war-like nature is combined with a level of technological advancement closer to their own.

But I love your suggestion about how some of the Martians are thinking about the commercial advantages of trade with Earth. That would be a strong argument for the "pro-Earth" faction who want to forge an alliance with Earth.

But the "anti-Earth" faction is quick to point out that the minute they start trading with Earth, we'd start acquiring aspects of their technology, and that would accelerate the time frame for when we'd become a threat to Mars!

The story could have all this laid out for the reader/viewer through debates between the astronauts and some of the Martians, with members of both groups taking either the pro-Earth and anti-Earth side.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

Well, it would be nice, for old time's sake, for Mars to have a canal system... can there have been some sort of interaction in the past with Edgar Rice Burroughs? But if not, fair enough. Tripods are certainly optional.

Well, the first ship's worth of Terran visitors seem not to have been thrown into jail, even if they are being prevented from contacting NASA. They have been shown around, to marvel at the advanced civilization and its wondrous achievements, and some at least can see why the locals might wish not to have to interact with nasty, brutish and comparatively short Terrans.

It looks like a great place to retire to, for most of them — but there are a few of the crew who are plotting to escape, and while there is a section of the Martian parliament which is in favour of opening up a trading and cultural arrangement, as Mars, while practically perfect, is a bit dull and set in its ways for anyone with ambition, there are extremists who would like to invade, conquer, take all the metals and other goodies, and generally not play nicely.

It is all making things a bit difficult for the Martian ruler, Dejah Thoris, and her advisors . . . .oh wait, sorry, not Dejah Thoris, right . . . ?

[Bud Brewster]

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You certainly have the story-teller's gift, Custer. No doubt about it. Your suggestions are terrific.

We have slightly different interpretations of the concept, but either version would make a great yarn. My slant is to present the polar opposite of Mars' traditional image. The fictional Mars is a place of evil aliens and a dying environment, according to Wells, or a wondrous world of strange creatures and gorgeous women and bare-chested men who fight with swords and have a casual relationship with science (to put it kindly), according to Burroughs.

And one point that seems important to me is that all that we "know" about Mars is total fiction, right down to the canals which turned out to be non-existent, even through telescopes belonging to everybody except Giovanni Schiaparelli.

This is the "shock" the story delivers. Not only is Mars different from what we thought before we got the pictures from the probes and rovers, it's VERY different from the way it would be if the Martians hadn't terraformed it so successfully!





Ya see, the fictional Mars (accord to Wells and popular lore) is a place where bizarre creatures with no soul and no mercy coveted Earth's resources and even wanted to enslave it's population.

The "real" Mars is a place of where noble beings of high intelligence and good character have solved all their problems with advanced science, and now they're venturing out into space in hi-tech ships. (Hey, that's where all the UFOs come from! Cool!) They're mining the asteroids and developing new synthetic materials and producing clean energy in abundance!

But they fear us because they've watched us closely for decades and they know how brutal we can be, squandering our own resources and polluting our planet.

It's the reverse of the "fictional" Mars. They're the ones who fear the greedy, cruel creatures on the third planet . . . the way we used to fear the greedy, cruel creatures we thought lived on the fourth planet!

That's why I'm resisting the urge to let any traditional Martian elements make their way into the way the "real" Mars turns out to be. That would sort of water down the Big Surprise. Mars is completely different than we thought, even in fiction. And all the evidence we have which is supposed to show what Mars is really like is a complete fiction, too — made up by the Martians!

But please understand, Custer, that your suggestions are inspiring all the new thinking I'm doing on my original concept, both the ideas we agree on and the ideas that I have to ponder for a while before deciding just how I feel about them.

In short, keep making suggestions!

PS: How 'bout a scene in which the Martians try to make the astronauts feel at home, so they invite them to watch a movie they recorded from a Dish channel transmission?

"Sure," says one of the astronauts. "What's the movie?"

The Martian smiles and says, "War of the Worlds".
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

With their space abilities and flying saucers, have the Martians been busy on Earth, suitably disguised... maybe buying dvds rather than relying on dish transmissions? Though they could easily record TV broadcasts from orbit. Have they been trying to discourage the space programs of various nations?

That the old-time astronomers said they saw "canals" might be because at that time the Martians hadn't got their camouflage working properly...

Anyway, an advanced, civilized society on Mars seems good — you'll soon have the readers rooting for them rather than their barbarian visitors.

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow, Custer! If you could put all those ideas under a Christmas tree, I'd believe in Santa Claus!

I've already figured out the answers to some of your questions. Here goes nothin'!

[Custer]

Considering how advanced the Martians would be, they may have at least considered making robots or androids that look like Terrans, to operate on Earth, though that would be risky if any were discovered... it would be understandable if any flying saucer 'abductions' that were an attempt to recruit Terran spies didn't work out well, given that the Martians look devilishly like Cthulhu... though a friendly human-type image on a tv screen in the saucer might be more persuasive, along with a few useful gifts.

But now, with some of the Terrans who have landed on Mars being impressed with the Martian society, maybe some of the crew will be returning to Earth... though explaining why not everyone went back might be tricky. Unless the return was clandestine, of course!

I wonder, have the Martians ever tried to make contact with the other relatively intelligent on our world? Whales or dolphins would be less judgemental about their appearance, I'm sure.

[Bud Brewster]

[Bogmeister]

George Pal's War of the Worlds: Music Video (Leith Stevens)


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[Bud Brewster]