subsurface

I was going to do a post on food, but I have to get all of my thoughts out about the state of Eden and the COI beforehand. This one is just about Eden because apparently I had a lot of ideas.

Starting with what we know!

Mars is the first space colony, established in 1992 AD, or 0 EIC.

It surpasses Earth's population 143 years later.

Eden is the main space station orbiting Mars.

By 378 EIC, 21 years after the Quiet Rapture, Eden is known to have a population of 458.

Its inhabitants 'maintain a strong sense of Martian patriotism and independence'.

What was Eden like, before and after the Quiet Rapture?

If assuming Eden was built early during Mars' colonisation, Mars' colonisation needs to be considered first.

What sort of people would leave Earth to be the first colonists of an inhospitable planet?

Mars is independent, not belonging to any country on Earth, and its colonisation marks the start of the Epoch of Interplanetary Colonisation (EIC). Its population, a century and a half later, exceeded that of Earth.

This massive shift in population concentration, and given the fact that the colonisation of Mars was viewed, 350 years later, as the start of a new EPOCH of human history, so completely changing its landscape that every event needs to be placed in the context of interplanetary expansion marked by a new year zero, I can only imagine a major political/social/cultural change occurring around that time. It depends on whether colonisation was driven by governments, companies, or individuals grouping together in the wake of whatever change that would incite mass migration to another planet, and probably other sites around the solar system more gradually.

So, Mars, and Eden by extension, probably was founded by desperate or very determined people, possibly refugees or immigrants who believed they had no future for them on Earth. Some might even have been convicts, which is particularly interesting thematically if you imagine Simon as descended from them. (Something about how the earliest known history of your family is that they were prisoners sent to a place barely anyone from home had ever seen, to ‘conquer’ an ‘inhospitable’ land and never come back, only to find yourself sentenced to the same fate as your ancestors, continuing their legacy even though none of you ever chose it.) 

Eden’s patriotism stems from its role as the station for the first space colony in a period of major social/cultural transformation. The name is a clue; attitudes were probably along the lines of “who needs Earth, we’ve got Eden right here.” So, we’re looking at a strong sense of unity based on a patriotic identity with its foundations as a space colony established 350 years ago, combined with a ‘melting pot’ of cultures from the steady flow of migration to Mars.

People from Eden would be very proud of being Martian, but also maintain a distinct identity as a space station, and a specific Mars culture would naturally arise on-surface. This means that while Simon is part of Eden, he’s not fully from it. It's implied that he moved to Eden as a child, my logical guess is he was born and grew up on Mars and moved to Eden before he was 10-12 years old. So while Eden technically belongs to Mars as a kind of island-state, there are going to be some subtle cultural differences between the two. 

Some Simon-specific ideas I had:

Familiarity around plants: as an agricultural colony with a massive population to support, kids on Mars would be familiar with plants in the practical sense. It depends on whether Simon is from a rural or urban area, but either way he would have more experience being around nature than those born on Eden, ranging from having a strong agrarian background and education in farming to just having a similar attitude to anyone from earth irl. This ties in to where Simon tells David, “it’s not about the tree.” Apart from suggesting the COI doesn’t understand Eden’s beliefs, this indicates that Simon is relatively disillusioned with the symbol of the ‘last tree,’ which makes sense if he grew up viewing trees as important but not necessarily sacred, especially since the last tree is apparently dead. In my opinion Simon having a more complex relationship with plants/trees than worship→servitude→loss of faith matches well with his treatment of the seedling pendant/. It’s a symbol of Eden, yes, and Eden is his home and his brothers, but it also represents life before the Quiet Rapture and the peace and hope that gives him.

Open spaces: even if settlements on Mars are within domes, there would be plenty of 'outdoor' space. There’s a potential motif of confinement/captivity here, between the space on Eden being limited and always closed in with a ceiling, Simon’s imprisonment by the COI since he was likely in a cell for some time, then the claustrophobia of the SM-8. If I grew up on a planet and had to live on space stations/ships the rest of my life, one of the things I would miss most would be running under the open sky.

The sky! The sky on Mars is coloured by the dust, usually appearing red, but the sunsets are blue. Just a cool detail to think about. :)

Alright, what is Eden like?

As the main space station of Mars, it would have acted as a port between the planet and the rest of the solar system. Most goods and people going on and off Mars would have passed through Eden. It’s a port city!

Layout:

Eden had a strong, trade-based economy, a lot of infrastructure to support a mix of travellers and permanent residents. I’m picturing a Murderbot-like aesthetic for the transitory areas, a combination of airport/industrial/touristy areas.

Residential areas were separate, winding much deeper into the station. I’m imagining a horizontal Walled City combined with ISS and sci-fi hallways and tunnels, becoming more run down and scrappy after the Quiet Rapture. @ctrl-shift-alt-9's pinterest board has exactly what I was looking for:

Tiny apartments, alleyways/passages, nooks and crannies like a rabbit warren, then suddenly opening up to large open courtyards and gardens, including the grove of the last tree. Rooms with exterior views would have been limited so these gardens would provide spaces to look into, allowing for more windows and less claustrophobia. I do like the idea of Simon and his mother having a little flat with a cupola-type window looking out into space though.

First image is a window of Apollo 12, the second is the ISS's Cupola module over the Sahara.

This post is also pretty much what I imagine Eden to look/feel like and shares a lot of my thoughts. Also this is very cool.

Industry/economy:

Again, I’m considering Eden to be both a port city and an island state.

The population count of 468, given by the terminal entry from the game, is probably pretty accurate. This is the population around two decades after the Quiet Rapture, as known by the COI. I think it’s likely they got that number from another Eden prisoner or they have a count that they’ve been updating over the years based on estimates and whatever news passes between the two factions. 

Eden almost certainly has a much higher capacity than 468. Before the Quiet Rapture, my estimate for permanent residents of Eden is one to two thousand, but the infrastructure to hold several times that passing through.

These citizens live there; they have children who grow up on-station, they keep the place running, they have their own industries and communities. They are also economically involved with the spaceport side of things; employed in station upkeep, logistics, and retail, working at the docks, tradies, piloting shuttles between surface and station, or living there between longer, deep-space jobs.

When the Quiet Rapture happened, both residents and travellers would have been stranded on the station. I imagine there was an immediate and sharp population drop as many non-residents fled or set out to look for their families and joined other space stations/the COI. Suicide would have been very common right after the Quiet Rapture, then tapered to a steady rate.

The population would have slowly dwindled, the hallways becoming emptier and emptier, people moving into communal living spaces around the grove of the last tree to conserve resources and condense the community. I like the idea of Simon sleeping in a dorm with other young/child soldiers (his ‘brothers’) after his mother’s death as Eden became more militant and cult-like over time.

Other resources:

Simon was both a soldier and a thief. Eden was absolutely raiding the COI for supplies, including the Filament Station incident. This includes fuel, equipment and technology, possibly food (although that’s a whole other post). At the time of the Quiet Rapture Eden would not have been fully self-sufficient, requiring raw materials, food, and goods to be brought up from Mars. However, I think they have plenty of water, air and a foolproof recycling system for those in place, which you absolutely need for a large scale space station.

Everything is recycled. Anything not in use is repurposed; empty areas of the station are gutted for parts. Surface-to-station shuttles and small spaceships are refitted into raiding vessels, able to travel long distances efficiently and make quick getaways.

Every piece of fabric is precious as it CANNOT be replaced. No wool, no silkworms, no cotton, no flax. The kind of patchwork clothing Simon wears would also keep a lot of memories; he might have sewn it from his mother’s clothes, or those of dead brothers. 

They might be recovering old space junk floating around Mars, or where Earth was. God knows there’s plenty of it out there right now; imagine how much build-up of debris there would be after 300 years of space travel. Space junk could be a source of scrap metal, technology, maybe canvas fabric, leftover fuel (balls of rocket fuel falling from the sky are apparently a thing). This would alleviate the resource crisis, even slightly, and allow Eden the error margin to be as aggressive towards the COI as they are.

Dialect/slang:

I have no idea what languages might be spoken on Eden. I'd assume something descended from a current major language + space-specific terms. The COI might be speaking the same or a similar language, or a variety of others entirely. But Eden would definitely have its own specific terms, accent, and linguistic quirks. Nautical terms in particular have a lot of potential in sci-fi settings, so here's what I have so far.

tinny/tinnie -> a small, metal vessel for travelling short distances through space. not very solidly built but easy to modify and repurpose. as a space station, Eden would have plenty of these to work with. Simon probably had one. might also be called a skiff or skimmer (skimming the atmosphere, not entering it)

skipper -> pilot, captain

shore/offshore -> on-planet, off the planetary surface. I'd imagine this is a Martian quirk.

All of this is speculation and headcanon. Some of it has a solid link to canon, some of it is me spitballing what I think is cool. I have many ideas about the COI and what they're up to, which I can hopefully put to paper sometime within the few weeks (I am so busy right now and I am so locked out. help me)

Link to my post about what would remain and energy/fuel after the Quiet Rapture.

it's one thing to not be able to completely hide your emotions, but to express a need about them, and even to be in touch with oneself to this extent at all (rather than constant callousness and lashing out or total withdrawal, which are pretty typical in male characters especially), says a lot about the strength of his nature. that is, for someone to have a painful life where they aren't well-supported, the ability to still feel and express as deeply and vulnerably as this isn't easy to hold on to.

so in shipping terms, it makes the most sense to believe he would be totally aware of how he feels and both willing and able to openly discuss it, and have a warm attitude toward human connection, without denial or hostility toward (for example) grace.

tbh if you wanted to say one of them would be "better" at this kind of communication, i would pick simon for his emotional honesty.

grace can teach middle schoolers, but struggles to communicate or set boundaries with adults. he gives up or lashes out but doesn't take the risk or make the effort to reveal anything deeper about his feelings, if he doesn't think they will be "acceptable" to others.

simon doesn't hide his feelings to protect himself or to be polite, so everything he shows is just because that's how he really feels. and again and again in the film we see that how he really feels is empathy, compassion, as well as a sense of his own value as a person worthy of survival and respect just like everyone else.

Mark was talking about Frostpunk2 and how the narrator at the beginning of Iron Lung also played a part in the first Frostpunk game, and then brought up theories on Astrophage causing the ice age in the Frostpunk series... leading some in the chat to suggest this as a Bloodymary setting.