A magnifying device constructed in space for the purpose of amplifying the solar radiation received by the surface of Mars, in order to aid in the process of Terraforming. Put into place by the transnationals in the start of the 22nd century.

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“Well, and now with this soletta pouring sunlight onto the surface!” Jessica exclaimed. She shook her head, as if disapproving. “Natural insolation averaged forty-five percent of Earth’s, and with the soletta it’s supposed to be up to fifty-four.”

“Tell me more about this soletta,” Sax said carefully.

They told him in a kind of round. A group of transnationals, led by Subarashii, had built a circular slatted array of solar sail mirrors, placed between the sun and Mars and aligned to focus inward sunlight that would have just missed the planet. An annular support mirror, rotating in a polar orbit, reflected light back to the soletta to counterbalance the pressure of the sunlight, and that light was bounced back onto Mars as well. Both these mirror systems were truly huge compared to the early freighter sails Sax had enlisted to reflect light onto the surface, and the reflected light they were adding to the system was really significant. “It must have cost a fortune to build them,” Sax murmured.

“Oh, it did. The big transnats are investing like you can’t believe.”

“And they’re not done yet,” Berkina said. “They’re planning to fly an aerial lens just a few hundred kilometers above the surface, and this lens will focus some of the incoming light from the soletta, until it heats the surface up to fantastic temperatures, like five thousand degrees—”

“Five thousand!”

“Yes, I think that’s what I heard. They plan to melt the sand and the regolith underneath, which will release all the volatiles into the atmosphere.”

“But what about the surface?”

“They plan to do it in remote areas.”

“In lines,” Claire said. “So that they end up with ditches?”

“Canals,” Sax said.

“Yes, that’s right.” They laughed.

“Glass-sided canals,” Sax said, troubled by the thought of all those volatiles. Carbon dioxide would be prominent among them, perhaps chief among them.

Green Mars, p. 177 (Bantam Spectra June 1995 Paperback edition)

Praxis was a very successful private corporation founded by William Fort on Earth. It was co-managed by Fort’s close associates, the so-called Eighteen Immortals. It was a transnational and a metanational. It successfully survived the Great Flood by investing heavily in infrastructure reconstruction.

Subsidiaries

• Dumpmines: resources recovery, Terra. Originally founded by Art Randolph.
• Ouroboros: resources recovery, Mars.
• Biotique: biotechnologies, Mars. Sax Russell worked there, undercover as Stephen Lindholm

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The Martian constitution is the basis of the Martian government.

It was drafted following the Second Martian Revolution which had resulted in the independence of Mars from Terran rule. It was based on elements discussed and agreed upon by the Martian underground in the Dorsa Brevia Conference of 2107. The constitution was written in the Pavonis Mons Congress in 2128 and put to vote to the Martian population on February 27, 2128 (M-52); it was passed with 78%, with 95% of the voting Martian population participating to the vote.

Following the ratification, Charlotte Dorsa Brevia, who had participated to its drafting, published some notes and commentary.

The constitution consists of eight articles.

• Article 1: Legislative Department
• Article 2: Executive Department
• Article 3: Judicial Department
• Article 4: The Global Government and the Towns and Settlements
• Article 5: Individual Rights And Obligations
• Article 6: The Land
• Article 7: Amendments to the Constitution
• Article 8: Ratification of the Constitution

The Browns is a loose name for a Martian ideological movement that appeared during the 22nd century as a synthesis of the initially opposed Green and Red views. Their name and position is less well defined that these two (other suggested names or colors are the burnt umbers, siennas, madder alizarins, Indian reds or khakis).

With Mars in a quite advanced stage of terraforming, the native Martian population embraced the concept of areophany and ecopoesis. The general opinion was no longer to create a replica of Terra, but instead to stabilize terraforming in a way that would be a compromise between Green, in that a fully working biosphere would exist in low altitudes, and Red, in that the higher altitudes would be conserved as close to their initial state as possible.

The relationship that Sax Russell and Ann Clayborne developed in their later lives is highly symbolic of this union of opposites that the Martian crucible culture was able to reach.

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