The Mars Project (novel)

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The Mars Project is a five-part science fiction novel series by Andreas Eschbach . The pentalogy is based on the Martsprojekt novel published in 2001 , which was later rewritten as part of the series under the titles Das ferne Leuchten and The blue towers .

action

The novel begins in the year 2086. The main characters are the Martian children Ariana DeJones , Ronny Penderton , and the siblings Elinn and Carl Faggan . From the second part onwards, Urs Pigrato comes along.

The pentalogy consists of the parts The distant glow , The blue towers , The glass caves , The stone shadows and The sleeping guardians . A short story published in 2009 under the title Is There Life on Mars or The Mars Project - The Whispering Storm complements the series as a prequel .

The whispering storm

About a year before the action of the actual novel series, the burial of an unfortunate Martian explorer takes place on the Martian colony. Since it is feared that this could be used by the earth government as an opportunity to regulate the Martian settlement more closely, the Martian children are forbidden for safety reasons to continue to go outside the station in space suits . In the forced "house arrest", Elinn sees a strange movement outside the station from the observation room, which she interprets as a Martian. With Ronny, she uses the exit hatch of the old station module, which is not controlled by the station computer, for the first time and is in danger from a sandstorm. She can be saved and the observation turns out to be a valuable discovery. The observation represents an old Mars probe that was traveling on Mars for 50 years without contact with Earth and has now revealed valuable findings. Unfortunately, the Earth Government has since decided to send a governor .

The distant glow

Ariana, Ronny, Carl and Elinn were born and raised on Mars. For cost reasons, however, the Mars station is to be closed in 2086 and all Martian settlers will return to Earth. Above all, Elinn is vehemently committed to being able to stay on Mars, as she could not survive on Earth for medical reasons. The supposed solution should be a permanent stay of Elinn on a space station in earth orbit. As the preparations for the decommissioning of the research station are already in full swing, the four children want to start an expedition on their own to a rock formation that Elinn believes to have identified based on artifacts she has repeatedly found . They secretly steal an airplane and fly to this rock formation known as the lion's head, where they accidentally create two blue towers with their artifact, which pop out of the ground. After this mysterious discovery, the station's closure is no longer an issue.

The blue towers

Urs Pigrato, the son of governor Tom Pigrato, comes to Mars with his mother. The previous Martian children avoid him because they fear that he might divulge their secrets to his father. Elinn finds another artifact. Since "Urs" is written on this, she believes it is the will of the Martians that Urs is not further marginalized.

Urs drives with Jurij Glenkow to the fusion reactor south of the Mars station. On the way back, Jurij suddenly passed out. Urs manages to stop the vehicle at the last moment. Using an emergency call system, he reaches Ariana, who is the only one in the infirmary. She brings Urs and Jurij back to the Mars station in another vehicle. It turns out that the diabetic Yuri received an overdose of insulin because someone mixed up a medical device. Since Urs watched the perpetrator entering the infirmary, he is locked behind a wall panel. However, he can make himself felt and is released. The perpetrator is arrested. He is a member of the Homeward Movement that is fighting against colonization of Mars. He contaminated the Asian Alliance station with mold and provided the second fusion reactor to the north with explosives and a time fuse .

At the end, Ariana and Urs also find an artifact. It says "Elinn".

The glass caves

Ariana and Urs fall in love.

A third appears next to the two blue towers. Like the others, it rotates on its own axis. However, the rotation speed decreases and the movement stops the next day. At the same time, the appearance of the tower changes.

Using a satellite, the scientists discovered a system of corridors beneath the surface of Mars that converge in a place known as the mouse's nest. They want to explore this mouse nest with an expedition, the first since Carl's father disappeared. Carl is allowed to accompany the expedition.

Elinn finds another artifact. It says "Curly". There was never anyone with that name on the Mars station. It is found that before each appearance of a new artifact, the power supply in the station fluctuates. Also, some power cables are suddenly surrounded by a layer of blue glass, similar to the one that makes up the blue towers. A piece of this substance is to be examined in the laboratory. There, however, the material begins to glow, eats its way through the ground and disappears in the corridors under the surface of Mars.

While the scientists are examining the mouse's nest, Carl and the journalist Wim Van Leer discover a cave that is closed by a layer of glass. Carl undertakes further explorations on his own. Suddenly there is a sand storm . Carl loses his bearings and threatens to suffocate. He discovers an artifact that says "Carl". With this artefact in hand, he manages to penetrate the glass layer in front of the cave. He can also only pass through glass barriers inside the cave if he holds onto the artifact. He comes into a room in which there are living things that look like three-meter-tall locusts . You seem to be sleeping. Robots appear and pursue Carl. He can escape them and leave the cave. However, it does not emerge from the cave in the mouse's nest, but from the third tower five thousand kilometers away.

Later another tower comes to a standstill. A strange landscape becomes visible in it.

The stone shadows

In order not to provide new arguments for the homeward movement, governor Pigrato decreed that the earth should not be informed of the latest events for the time being.

Elinn secretly goes to the tower, in which the landscape is visible. Thanks to the artifact, it can penetrate the tower wall. On the other hand, it collapses because gravity is much higher there than on Mars. The adults alerted by Carl cannot penetrate the wall. On the other hand, Carl and Urs manage to do this when they hold the artifacts with their names. From the other side you can no longer see the passage. The three children explore the strange planet and after an exhausting search they come across a signpost. They realize they are on earth.

The plane stolen by the children is still near the towers. The adults can only launch it with the help of a catapult at the Asian station. Unlike Ronny, who gained experience on the flight simulator . During the flight he temporarily disappears from the radar, and he himself no longer sees the familiar Martian surface, but an inhabited Martian city that is being destroyed by a spaceship.

Carl tries to contact the Earth Government. Since the home office has been infiltrated by supporters of the homeward movement, his calls are not forwarded. He then turned to Yules Whitehead, a wealthy and space-loving industrialist. The government finally learns from Tom Pigrato that the three children are on earth. The news blackout that Pigrato had ordered up to that point was viewed as a violation of authority. He will be removed from office and replaced by Yin Chi, the former head of the Asian Alliance's Mars station.

Elinn cannot stand the gravity of the earth. Since Mars is too far away from Earth at the moment, she should temporarily live in a space station. On the way to another medical examination by Ellinn, the three children are abducted by the homeward movement. But soon they are freed by Whitehead's bodyguards, driven to the airport, flown to a carrier aircraft and finally brought to Whitehead's space station. Whitehead's company has a prototype of a new, very fast spaceship. With this he wants to fly to Mars immediately to be there when the third tower comes to a standstill. The children are allowed to accompany him.

From the moon, three unknown spaceships are observed, which are also moving towards Mars.

The sleeping guardians

Yules Whitehead keeps the flight to Mars a secret. Therefore, the children have to pretend in the e-mails to their relatives that they are still on the space station.

AI-20, the artificial intelligence of the Mars station, is recalibrated with a program supplied by Earth. Then she changes her behavior. Among other things, she admonishes the children much more strictly than before to catch up on their learning deficit.

On earth, near the star gate through which the children came from Mars to earth, a dead creature is discovered that lived a million years ago and resembles a teddy bear. It is surrounded by the material that makes up the towers on Mars. Previously, in the same area, the equally ancient outlines of one of those locust-like creatures that Carl met.

Christine Faggan, the mother of Carl and Elinn, happens to learn that one of the artifacts says "Curly". This is the nickname she used to address her husband, James Faggan, on occasion. She believes her husband is still alive and wants to draw attention to himself with the artifact.

A human foot can be seen on the enlargement of a photo that Carl took of the room with the locust-like creatures. Then you start a shuttle flight to the caves at the mouse's nest. There Ariana discovers an artifact with her name on it. Together with Christine Faggan she enters the cave and finds James Faggan in a sarcophagus next to the sleeping aliens. He is alive and can be freed from the sarcophagus . The alien robots had saved him from a sandstorm and put him in the life support system that the locusts are also in. While he was half asleep, James Faggan used extraterrestrial technology to produce the artifacts. Mr. Faggan says that the locust creatures freed humans from the teddy bear creatures who were targeting a chemical substance in human brains. In this fight, the locust creatures had to destroy their own Martian city and lost the stargates contact with their homeland. They had withdrawn into the life support system in the hope of being fetched back by their conspecifics at some point.

The three unknown spaceships moving from the moon to Mars are ships that were hijacked by the homeward movement. The terrorists reach Mars and capture the Mars station, supported by the artificial intelligence that has been recalibrated with the smuggled program. Yin Chi and Wim Van Leer manage to send warnings unnoticed by the terrorists to the expedition members around Christine Faggan, Tom Pigrato and Ariana. The shuttle returns to the Mars station, but Tom Pigrato and Ariana leave before the terrorists arrive. The two start the recording of the backup of AI-20, whereupon it is friendly towards the Martian settlers again and locks most of the terrorists in the rooms in which they are currently. Two of them, who want to prevent Pigrato and Ariana from playing, are overwhelmed by Ariana with a jiu-jitsu insert. Other terrorists who were not inside the station can take two hostages, including Christine Faggan, and fly to the towers on the shuttle. They want to blow it up with two stolen atomic bombs .

Whitehead and the three children land on Mars. Elinn succeeds in waking up the aliens with the artifact on which the lion's head is depicted. The terrorists are surprised by the aliens and overwhelmed by Whitehead's people. The leader of the terrorists manages to break free and detonate the atomic bombs. The aliens shield the people present and use the energy of the explosion to activate the stargate and return home. At Ariana's request, they leave the star gate between Mars and Earth open.

The aliens leave behind the great blue towers that act as star gates. They expect that people will research the necessary laws in order to be able to use the star gates in the distant future and thus also realize interstellar journeys, and they look forward to the return visit to their planet.

characters

The Martians (by age)

Carl

Carl Faggan , brother of Elinn and son of James and Christine Faggan , was born on August 4, 2071, the first person on Mars. He is also the oldest of the Martian children, and he feels responsible for his little sister Elinn, especially since the father of the two siblings, James Faggan, disappeared on the Cydonia expedition. He is something like the leader of the Martian children and sees himself threatened in this role with the appearance of Urs Pigrato, who is about the same age, in the second part of the saga. That is why he is initially very cool about the newcomer. In the course of the second volume, however, the relationship between him and Urs improves and Carl can later accept him as a full member of the Martian children . Carl's dream since childhood has been to become a great planetary scientist. In the third volume of Pentalogy, however, this dream is shaken by interviews with the reporter Wim van Leer . He questions his dream critically: Carl won't do anything for it, just leave it to hopes and wishes. Driven by these allegations, Carl decides the scientific head of Areology , Dr. Spencer to ask if he could go on the next expedition. To Carl's surprise, Dr Spencer agrees .

Ariana

Ariana DeJones is the daughter of doctor Dr. DeJones . She is the sportiest of all Martian children and can also do Jiu Jitsu and karate . Since her parents live separately, her mother on earth, her father on Mars, the desire to go to earth grows in her over time. That changes with the appearance of Urs Pigrato . Ariana and the governor's son become a couple in the third volume.

Urs

Urs Pigrato is the son of the governor on Mars and does not move to Mars together with his mother until 2087 (Part 2 The Blue Towers) . He is polyglot : his mother tongue is French , but he also grew up in his family with Italian and German . He learns English at school, but speaks "Globo" there. He can also speak a few words of Russian . He falls in love with Ariana DeJones during the course of the third volume and the two become a couple.

Elinn

Elinn Faggan is the sister of Carl and daughter of James and Christine Faggan.
Due to their premature birth, a disease has developed under the reduced gravitation of Mars, which would soon lead to suffocation under the earth's gravity.
She is always attracted by a glow (title of the first part), which at one point almost kills her, as her oxygen is almost depleted when she moves too far from the Mars station. After each glow she finds artifacts , which the scientists dismiss as naturally formed volcanic ejection with random patterns.

Ronny

Ronny Penderton (actually Ronald Penderton ) is the youngest of the Martian children and, unlike Ariana, Elinn and Carl, was not born on Mars either. Since his early childhood he has had a particular weakness for flying machines of all kinds. He often neglects his school lessons in order to fly various airplanes in the simulator. In the first volume of the series he kidnapped along with the other Mars children the Mars airplane of the Asian station and flies so that the lion's head formation . In the second volume he is awarded honorary membership in the International Association of Motorized Aviators for this flight , for the first human flight on another planet. However, Ronny sees himself often misunderstood by the other Martian children. His few jokes don't go down well with the others and he usually stays completely out of discussions. He gets along best with Elinn, but more because as the youngest they have to stand up to their elders.

Other characters

AI-20

AI-20 is the artificial intelligence of the Martian settlement. In addition to controlling the ward, she also has to ensure that the children follow their lessons. She has developed a personality that was not intended by the programmers and often takes the side of the children. In the fifth part, it is recalibrated, i.e. reset to its original state. This is a homing maneuver that will make it possible to keep the Martian settlement under control after it has been attacked. The recalibration will be reversed later.

Yuri Glenkov

Jurij Glenkow is responsible for safety in the two fusion reactors . He's a diabetic. In the second part an attack is carried out on him, which he survived thanks to the mutual help of Ariana and Urs.

Tom Pigrato

Tom Pigrato is the governor of the Earth Government on Mars. At the beginning it is generally unpopular because it only does its job and shows no sympathy for the settlement. He is particularly bad at speaking on the subject of "Children on Mars". He keeps making comparisons with the terrestrial research station in Antarctica.
However, his behavior changes over the course of history, triggered by his family moving from Earth.

Wim Van Leer

Wim Van Leer is a reporter who is supposed to report on the discoveries on Mars on behalf of large news networks. He masters a secret code invented by himself and a friend, with which he made a secret plague epidemic in Shanghai public.

Yules Whitehead

As a young physicist, Yules Whitehead solved the problem of nuclear fusion , and the patent made him a multi-billionaire. He is considered the richest man in the world; Among other things, major companies in the space industry belong to his group. Among other things, he lives on the space station "MIR-3".

Dr. Spencer

Dr. Vernon Spencer is the head of areological work at the Mars station. In the third part, he leads an expedition to research the so-called 'mouse passages'.

Dr. DeJones

Dr. DeJones is the head of the medical station. He is Ariana's father and lives separately from his wife, who has returned to earth. He's not divorced from her, though. In the third volume, he begins to approach the governor's secretary, Cory McGee .

Christine and James Faggan

The mother of the two Martian children, Carl and Elinn, is the deputy site manager on Mars and takes care of the plans and the expansion of the settlement. James Faggan , who among other things was a fellow student of Tom Pigratos , was head of Mars research and was also the head of an expedition to explore the Cydonia region . The troop got caught in an electric sandstorm and disappeared. Before he was found by Christine and Ariana in the alien station, he was considered dead for eight years.

Professor Jorge Caphurna

After the appearance of the blue towers and evidence of Martian life, Professor Jorge Immanuel Caphurna is flown in from Earth as an "expert on extraterrestrial life". He always acts unhappy and ineffective. His activity is limited to meticulous measurements, which he carefully records, as well as dubious experiments. In such an experiment, Caphurna destroys one of the valuable artifacts without gaining any usable results. He is never able to draw further correct conclusions from his research or make necessary decisions. He is always skeptical of the ideas of others (especially those of Elinn and Carl) and ultimately hinders their research. With the "lion's head" he recognizes that he is overwhelmed and, despite all his research, has not understood enough about Martian life and its technology to make the right decision in a time-critical situation.

Cultural

Concentro

Concentro is a Martian board game for two to six players, invented in 2055. The game board is inspired by the internal structure of no longer needed fuel caps. The idea of ​​the game is that the game figure is the first to arrive in the center from an outer ring on a starting field via further concentric rings divided into fields. The dice are rolled to determine which ring can be moved how far. With a strategically good choice of the shift according to the rules of the dice, "ladders" can be formed with which the pawn apparently allows several rings to move inwards in one move, whereby one should interrupt such ladders of the other players at the same time.

Kaffba

Kaffba is a drink that is considered a symbol of the Martian settlement. It has a milky brown color without even a drop of milk in it, since there are no cows on Mars. It is brewed from roasted grain, cocoa and "half a dozen Indian spices". It was said that the taste of kaffba is incomparable and that no earthly kaffba tastes as good as that from Mars.

places

The Mars station

The Mars station is a largely subsurface complex that is supplied with food by greenhouses. The electricity is supplied by two external fusion reactors.

The upper station

The upper station consists of five semicircular modules that are connected by corridors. The upper station was built in a crater into which an entrance was blasted. The Mars rovers are parked on the forecourt (crater). A module has three floors, whereby the lower one is mostly developed into a sluice - modules 1, 3 and 5 each have a sluice (the sluice in module 3 is only a material sluice), while it is planned for modules 2 and 4. The connecting corridors are on the main level. Behind the modules is the so-called rear aisle, which connects all modules with the exception of number two. The Martian children’s classroom is located in Module 2, while Module 3 contains the machine control station and the main antennas. The corridors to the greenhouses, where most of the food is produced, and to the landing gear of the flying boats branch off in module 5 from the rear corridor. In module 3 there is an elevator and stairs to the lower station and in module 1 there is a viewing dome that is rarely used.

The lower station

The central location of the lower station is the plaza, where the Sunday evening parties take place. The elevator and stairs, which connect the upper and lower stations, lead to the plaza. There is a fountain in the middle of the square. Three corridors lead from the plaza: Main Street, a two-story corridor with a gallery that leads to the living and common rooms, a corridor to the workshops and storage rooms and a corridor to the laboratories. The doctor's apartment is halfway up the stairs that lead to the fifth module. This should be a quicker way for the doctor to get to the flying boats, which was a fallacy, because during the day the doctor is usually in the infirmary.

The old station

The old station consists of buried fuel tanks in which the members of the first Martian expedition waited for their return. It was officially destroyed during construction. The Martian children have found out that it still exists and are now using it as a secret hiding place. The old station has its own lock that is not monitored by AI-20. The Martian children use them to carry out unauthorized undertakings.

Point Armstrong

At Point Armstrong, the Martian settlers traditionally celebrate the beginning of a Martian year. Food brought along is consumed in pressure tents and celebrated together. Point Armstrong is about 30-40 km from the Martian settlement, the journey takes a little more than an hour.

Asian Alliance station

The Asian Alliance station consists of two interconnected domes. It has a crew of ten. Since the station does not have greenhouses, all food has to be imported from the earth. The distance from the Mars settlement is around 180 km.

expenditure

Originally, the novel was published in 2001 under the title The Mars Project in the Arena Verlag . The Lübbe-Verlag then brought out the paperback edition in 2004. The novel was completely rewritten and divided into the first two volumes of Pentalogy ( The distant glow and The blue towers ). All five parts have been published in bound form by Arena-Verlag.
Only the first two parts were published as (abridged) audio book editions.

Editions of the novel pentalogy Das Martsprojekt by Andreas Eschbach
title Hardback edition Paperback edition Audio book edition
The Mars Project 2001 ISBN 978-3-401-05111-6 2002 ISBN 978-3-401-02814-9 no
Volume 1: The distant glow 2005 ISBN 978-3-401-05749-1 2004 ISBN 978-3-404-24332-7 2008 ISBN 978-3-7857-3603-6
Volume 2: The Blue Towers 2005 ISBN 978-3-401-05770-5 2010 ISBN 978-3-404-24389-1 2008 ISBN 978-3-7857-3668-5
Volume 3: The glass caves 2006 ISBN 978-3-401-05867-2 2010 ISBN 978-3-404-24391-4 no
Volume 4: The Stone Shadows 2007 ISBN 978-3-401-06060-6 2010 ISBN 978-3-404-24395-2 no
Volume 5: The Sleeping Guardians 2008 ISBN 978-3-401-06061-3 2011 ISBN 978-3-404-20235-5 no
The Whispering Storm (Prequel) no 2009 ISBN 978-3-401-06366-9 no

Trivia

Web links