Mikhail Yangel, a convinced anarchist and Russian national, was one of the earliest issei colonists of Mars.

Very early on, he became a Bogdanovist and during the 2061 revolution he joined the rebellion. He was one of Arkady Bogdanov’s closest associates. He had proposed the idea of changing the orbit of the asteroid Nemesis and sending it towards the Earth in order to disperse Earth’s resources and insure the success of the rebellion; the majority voted for the idea and an off-Mars group based on the asteroids carried it out. Nemesis was destroyed by missiles launched from a lunar base, resulting in the loss of many lives and a change of tactics by the Bogdanovists towards a more defensive stance.

After 2061 he joined the Martian underground and lived in Bogdanov Vishniac. Despite his trademark radical anarchist positions, he took part and contributed greatly in both the Dorsa Brevia Conference and the Pavonis Mons Congress. He participated in the revolution of 2127 and following Martian independence he became a member of the executive council of the first Martian government under his friend Nadia Cherneshevsky.

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Maya Katarina Toitovna was an important member of the First Hundred with a long political career on Mars.

Pre-Mars life

Maya was born on August 5th 1984 (perhaps 1985?) in Russia, of a Georgian father. She grew up living in a one-room apartment with her mother, who was a doctor involved in space medical research. She planted the idea in Maya’s head that cosmonautics was going to need an influx of women, even if only to provide female data in medical experiments. Thus Maya studied aeronautical engineering at Moscow University and was accepted to the cosmonaut program at Baikonur, where she began to build a reputation. She was repeatedly a cosmonaut aboard the Novy Mir space station, during which time she met with Nadia Cherneshevsky and Yeli Zudov, two future First Hundred members. She eventually became the commander of Novy Mir. Having climbed her way to administrative positions, Maya began to use her sexuality to enhance her leadership abilities in penetrating the Glavkosmos power strucuture. She worked in the administration in Baikonur and Moscow rising in rank, manipulating men in powerful positions and strategically playing them against each other, a method she would continue to employ later on Mars. In the process, she married once and divorced soon after.

The Underhill years

She was the Russian contingent coordinator for the First Hundred. Aboard the Ares, she was first the lover of Frank Chalmers, American contingent coordinator, and then the lover of John Boone. The love triangle went through many phases of love and hate throughout the years.

Political career

Maya became a leader of Marsfirst with Spencer Jackson and Samantha. After John’s death, she became again the lover of Frank, though fighting was frequent.

The First Revolution and the Underground

After the first revolution she joined the Martian underground, eternally mourning the death of both John and Frank. Her relationship with Hiroko Ai was tense. She and Michel Duval became lovers. Michel helped her deal with her frequent mood changes, Maya became his life’s project. She killed Phyllis Boyle while rescuing Sax Russell in Kasei Vallis, something for which Sax held a grudge against her for a long time.

Preparation of the Second Revolution

She returned to the surface world undercover in Odessa, where she became a major player in preparing the second revolution, and restraining the natives from a move that would come too early.

Ambassadorship to Terra and later life

She was one of the Martian ambassadors to Terra. Back on Mars, she moved to Odessa with Michel and bought a position in a credit co-op bank. A result of her unnaturally long life, her memory losses were very frequent and deliberately sought by Maya, who wanted to get rid of the multiple scars of the past. With the death of Michel, she lost her third lover. She attended the meeting of the First Hundred at Underhill organized by Sax, but was the only one not to take the memory treatment there. She lived the last years of her life in Odessa among friends.

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John Boone was the first Man to walk on Mars and an important member of the First Hundred.

Early life: The First Man on Mars

John was born in the United States of America (Minnesota) in 1983. He befriended Frank when they were both astronauts for NASA in 2010, at which time they were alone together in the American space station. As Frank became head of NASA, John became the captain of the space station. With Frank, he presented the “Mars Apollo” project to the government for the first manned expedition to Mars. He was one of the four members of that expedition and became the first man to walk on Mars. His first words on Mars were “Well, here we are”.

The First Hundred and Underhill

Despite his being in the previous expedition and at Frank’s dismay, he successfully joined the First Hundred in 2026. On the voyage out, he first became the lover of Maya Toitovna after Frank. As a result and because of political differences, he became progressively estranged with Frank. This love triangle would endure for the rest of John and Frank’s lives and would have important consequences on Martian history.

Areoformation and political career

After the Underhill years, he worked for the terraforming effort under Sax Russell in the 2040s. He led a parallel political career. He envisioned a Martian society where all historical cultures from Earth would merge into something totally new, and he invented the term areoformation to describe the process of Mars changing Man. He was a warm and natural leader, ever cheerful and appreciated by nearly everyone, though he was rumored to be anti-Arab and used the drug omegendorph to a level of addiction. His AI was named Pauline.

The areoformation concept, as opposed to the terraformation ideology, made him popular among the Reds and he often kept in touch with Simon Frazier and Ann Clayborne. John had an on again, off again relationship with Maya, rejoining with her on occasional reunions years apart. They both took the longevity treatment for the first time in Acheron in 2048.

His friendship with Arkady Bogdanov allowed him passage to see the secret preparations of a potential revolution against transnational rule of Mars. He investigated the sabotages in the 2040-2050s and was contacted by the instigators, Kasei and Coyote, who made their demands known. Through DNA tests that were made as part of his investigation, John learned that Kasei was his biological son, created without his knowledge by Hiroko Ai. His investigation proved to be a nuisance for UNOMA, who tried to accuse him of murder.

In ca.2055, he organized a festivity in Crater Zp in Olympus Mons in the occasion of the burning of the Amor 2051B asteroid in Mars’s atmosphere. John succeeded in a unique reunion of sixty of the First Hundred, including an unexpected visit by the Areophany team, their first public appearance since their going into hiding.

Death

In 2056, after making the inauguration speech for the opening of the tented city of Nicosia, the first city of its kind, he was murdered by a group of Arabs, who acted under the instigation of Frank.

Legacy

His death traumatized the Martian society forever and he was remembered fondly. His followers became the Booneans. His grand-daughter Jackie was a convinced Boonean. For a long time after his death, a festivity was held in Crater Zp every M-year in his memory.

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Hiroko Ai was an important member of the First Hundred, the founder of the Areophany movement and a mysterious leader that left none who came into her contact untouched. Genetic mother of Kasei and Nirgal and potentially many others.

Pre-Mars life

Hiroko was born circa 1993 (perhaps after 1994) in Japan and was the youngest of the First Hundred. She studied in Oxford, where she and Desmond Hawkins became close friends. She became a world-renowned biosphere designer. She was able to free Desmond from jail and hide him in the Ares.

The Underhill years and the creation of Areophany

She was the head of the farm team in Underhill. As she developed her worldview and the ideas behind Areophany, she made her team into a very tightly knit group that was separate from the rest of the First Hundred. Areophany was to be based on love of each other and love of anything living, a mystical worshipping of viriditas, the greening power of nature. She had a strong leadership, she exhibited love and was warm with everyone, but not more so with anyone in particular. Hiroko and her team developed in secret in vitro procreation techniques, which led to the birth of the first Martians in secret in the Underhill farms — children made with genetic material of the First Hundred, often without their knowledge (for example, Kasei was the genetic son of Hiroko and John Boone).

She drew the original Areophany team into hiding in Dolmen Tor, from which they built Zygote and moved there. Their disappearance fueled rumors on the surface of the existence of a hidden colony. She kept contact with Sax Russell, whose love of life and terraforming made them allies and friends.

The Underground

After the revolution of 2061 she took many revolutionaries under her wing, in and around Zygote. She became the moral center of the undeground; her sensual and esoteric image propelled her into a mythical status among Martians. She was the genetic mother of Nirgal. In the Dorsa Brevia convention, she supported a non-violent “aerogel revolution”.

Alleged death and sightings

She was said to have been killed with the entire Areophany team during the burning of Sabishii prior to the independence revolution. Ever since then, multiple rumors and alleged “sightings” have entertained the idea that she survived. She would have founded the city of Hiranyagarbha, or kept wandering with the Areophany team, or brought aid back on Terra after the 2127 flood, or settled in another isolated Zygote underground city, or even left for another solar system. Sax kept believing of her survival when everybody else stopped doing so.

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