KimStanleyRobinson.info

The reference site for Kim Stanley Robinson

Category: Mars Trilogy

  • Spencer Jackson

    Spencer Jackson was an American chemist and an important member of the First Hundred.

    Spencer Jackson
    Positions Chemist, aerospace expert
    Affiliations First Hundred, Marsfirst, The demimonde
    Gender Male
    Appearance  
    Birth USA
    Death 2181
    Odessa, Mars
    Ancestors –
    Descendants  ?

    During the Underhill years, he was the lead chemist that designed and jump started Mars’s first industrial effort. Through professional proximity, he developed a lasting friendship with Sax Russell. A man of technique and few words like Sax, Spencer rarely engaged in cosmological discussions and although he was loved his true character was quite an enigma to his peers. He enjoyed drinking alcohol and whiskey.

    In the 2030s-2050s he worked as an aeronautical designer at Elysium using advanced materials and was the creator of the popular 16D airplanes: ultralite delta-winged four-seat turbojets made mostly of areogel and plastics, so light that they were dangerous to fly. During that time he was also a leader of the Marsfirst coalition with Maya Toitovna and Samantha.

    After the revolution of 2061 he changed his identity to George Jackson in order to stay undercover and escape the hunt by UNOMA and transnational forces. He went working in Echus Overlook while keeping contact with the Martian underground, effectively becoming part of the demimonde. His work inside the Kasei Vallis high security compound allowed him and members of the underground to accomplish the rescue of Sax when he was taken there for questioning.

    He joined the underground and worked in developing the aeronautical and aerospace industry at Vishniac Bogdanov. He was one of Sax’s trustees during the lead-up to the Second Martian Revolution; his work resulted in neutralizing UNTA and metanational space weapons platforms, contributing in the revolution’s success.

    He continued working in materials and aerospace in a co-operative in Odessa, where he lived in the apartment next to Michel and Maya’s. He became good friends with Michel and kept his friendship with Sax.

    He died in Odessa in 2181 from the quick decline. His ashes were dispersed in the Martian air in high altitude thanks to a helium balloon.

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  • Peter Clayborne

    Peter Clayborne was the son of areologists Ann Clayborne and Simon Frazier.

    Peter Clayborne
    Positions  
    Affiliations The demimonde
    Gender Male
    Appearance  
    Birth ca.2048
    Mars
    Death –
    –
    Ancestors Ann Clayborne, Simon Frazier
    Descendants  ?
     

    He was born circa 2048 on Mars, making him the 33rd child born on Mars (officially). Like his father, he was relaxed and introverted.

    During the 2061 revolution he was on the space elevator when it was taken down by the rebels. By chance, he was found by a rebel spacecraft and survived. He was interested in space ever since.

    He joined the Martian underground and as part of the demimonde he worked undercover with the Reds in space-related operations. During his stays in Zygote in the 2080s-2090s, Jackie fell for him but he was impassible to her; he was the only person to refuse her, which frustrated Jackie even more.

    After 2107 he assisted Sax Russell in destroying the solar lens and driving Deimos out of its orbit. He “betrayed” the Reds and joined the Green natives during the independence revolution, becoming estranged with his mother at the same time.

    In 2127, he was one of the seven members of the executive council of the first Martian government.

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  • Nadia Cherneshevsky

    Nadezhda Francine Cherneshevsky (“Nadia“) was an important member of the First Hundred. She went through the first and second Martian revolutions as a force of construction instead of destruction and she became the first Martian president.

    Nadia Cherneshevsky
    Positions Engineer, President of Mars
    Affiliations First Hundred, The underground
    Gender Female
    Appearance Short, round, muscular, plain
    Birth 1982
    Siberia, Russia
    Death –
    Ancestors –
    Descendants Nikki
     

    Biography

    Pre-Mars life

    Nadia was born in 1982 in Russia (Siberia). She became an engineer. She developed a love of jazz music.

    The Underhill years

    In Underhill, she became the all-purpose go-to person for the construction effort, expert in technical matters and architecture. She became the lover of Arkady Bogdanov and a friend of Maya Toitovna. In a crane accident in Underhill she lost her little finger.

    Engineering projects

    As colonization progressed, Nadia didn’t lack projects to work on. She worked on many construction projects all over Mars, controlling and programming construction robots and doming craters. She was given by Arkady a transmitter that could remotely control the secret guidance jets on Phobos.

    The First Revolution

    She was repelled by the extensive destruction of infrastructure during the revolution of 2061. She wandered Mars preventing further destruction and gathering survivors around efforts to reconstruct whatever they could. After Arkady’s death, she ignited Phobos’s jets, driving Phobos to crash on Mars. She was rescued by the Areophany and brought to Zygote.

    The Underground and preparation of the Second Revolution

    She joined the Martian underground and lived in Zygote. In those years, she was one of the most conservative over the question of hiding from the surface. She befriended with Art Randolph when he came from Terra and they eventually became lovers. She discovered she was very charismatic in organizing mass conventions and acting as a mediator in debates. She was a key player in the Dorsa Brevia Conference. She was a coordinator of the independence revolution.

    Martian independence and Martian presidency

    After the success of the independence revolution she was the chairman of the Pavonis Mons Congress. Reluctantly at first, she became a member of the global government’s executive council and the president of the first Martian government. A stressful and demanding period at a position of real political power followed.

    Later life

    She had her missing finger re-grown. Following her term, she and Art settled down and started a family; Nikki was their daughter. They moved to Sabishii and then to Odessa in the late 22nd century, where she spent the last years of her life with friends.

    Meta Background

    Nadia’s name, Cherneshevsky, is an homage to Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (the transliteration from Cyrillic and the spelling in latin characters can vary), a 19th century Russian revolutionary and writer. He wrote What Is To Be Done? (which is also a recurring phrase in the Mars trilogy and the title of a section in Green Mars), a materialist and utopian novel tht has also been called overly optimistic and simplistic. It is focused on ordinary people whose actions and efforts to continually improve themselves unconsciously work towards the betterment of society overall. The novel was part of a dialogue between thinkers on this subject, spawning reactions by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky (in Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment) and Lenin; Tolstoy and Lenin both wrote works bearing the same name — an essay and a pamphlet, respectively. Chernyshevsky’s novel became a Soviet classic and proved to be highly influential on Lenin and the Russian revolution (some say as important as Marx’s Kapital). Chernyshevsky also wrote on environmental determinism as an expansion of Marxist economic materialism; environmental determinism theory is a possible inspiration for Robinson, notably in the development of the Martian underground and its gift economy (Mars trilogy) or (the Anarres of Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed is another possible influence).

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  • Michel Duval

    Michel Duval was an important member of the First Hundred, a psychologist and a widely recognized philosopher.

    Michel Duval
    Positions Psychologist
    Affiliations First Hundred, Areophany,The underground
    Gender Male
    Appearance  
    Birth 1986
    France
    Death 2206
    Odessa, Mars
    Ancestors –
    Descendants none
     

    Pre-Mars life

    Michel was born in France in 1986 and grew up in Villefranche-sur-Mer and the Provence region. He lived near Vallabrix, North of Uzès, with a woman named Eve for two or three years. He became a psychologist and was made responsible for choosing the First Hundred among the candidates gathered in the Antarctica selection process. He was the last one to be added to the First Hundred as the psychologist of the group, and the only French.

    Underhill and the Areophany

    In Underhill, he developed the semantic rectangle of classification of characters. Soon enough, he grew homesick and when Hiroko’s Areophany approached him, he joined them in vanishing from the surface. He found consolation with them and the hidden colony became his new family.

    The Underground

    During the first revolution, he helped rescue many of his old friends and bring them to Zygote. Following the demise of John and Frank, he and Maya Toitovna began a relationship that was to last the rest of their lives. Michel dedicated himself to assist Maya in her frequent cyclic moods and mental problems; she essentially became his life project. He helped retrieve Sax Russell from his captivity in Kasei Vallis. He was essential in Sax’s subsequent recovery from brain trauma and aphasia; he and Sax became close friends.

    Life at Odessa

    He moved with Maya in Odessa, from which they prepared the independence revolution. Michel became one of Mars’s (and Mankind’s) greatest thinkers.

    Ambassadorship to Terra and later life

    Following the independence revolution, he was one of the Martian ambassadors to Terra in 2128. He used the opportunity of being back to Earth to visit Provence again; he found it to be extensively different from his memory and he chose to return on Mars.

    He continued living with Maya in Odessa and often visiting Sax in Da Vinci. He planned to visit Provence again but died from the quick decline in 2206 in Odessa.

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