From Subversion
As you may recall, almost twenty years ago, the Mars Colony started demanding greater independence from costly, lengthy, and slow-arriving aid, rules, and oversights from the government. Most importantly, they objected to the heavy taxation of goods produced on, exported from, and imported to Mars.
Technically, yes, the inhabitants were being given subsidized living, since the government and private industry both had a stake in the planet being colonized. The lower gravity conditions makes certain applications of industry considerably easier to manufacture, not to mention all the minerals waiting to be mined and processed for shipment back home, but…well, when certain branches of government are distanced from the immediate threat of reprisals, corruption sets in…and the local government of Mars was growing quite corrupt.
Unfortunately, because of the slow state of interorbital transit between planets, particularly at certain points in both the Terran and Martian solar years, well…the government officials would always hear about an investigative visit long before the oversight committees for their departments showed up. They’d sweep the evidence under the rug or silence the dissenters, one way or another, hiding it before the official inspectors arrived. Years were passing by, and nothing was getting better. Rather, it was getting worse.
Now, a faction of law-abiding citizens finally banded together and petition the DDC to send someone to Mars to speak on their behalf…which is where I came in. Technically, the opening was going to go to someone else on the five-man team being sent, but I coaxed Joanne, my superior, into sending me along instead. Being single, I offered to go in place of Giorg Kostanikoff, who was a family man. I reasoned that it would be far better to send someone single on a months-long trip than to part a father from his wife and children for that long.
It’s all those interplanetary flights, you know; there’s only so much you can do to exercise in zero gravity, resistance-wise. Particularly when the commissaries on board the interorbital transports have those yummy chocolate fudge tubes available…but I digress. So there I was, on my way to Mars with the other members of my team, Hasfata Umbo, Marti Poulson, Harry Bester, and Ming-Chau Min, to present the case of the People of Mars vs. the UEG.
It is the job of the DDC, after all, to smooth over the differences and untangle the misunderstandings which arise between the disparate cultures of the United Earth regions, nations, and worlds. If cultural and political needs are not being met, if insults are being inadvertently offered, it is the Diplomatic Corps who come in to help make things right again. By that point in time, I had helped to successfully navigate and negotiate half a dozen high-profile hazards. A junior member of those teams, to be sure, but I did my share of the work and then some.
Unfortunately, while this was being perceived as a cultural clash—Terrans believing that Marzies should be grateful for all the advantages they have, so on and so forth—it was very much a case of corruption. So, after a handful of years of going nowhere, by the point where we were called in, the more radical elements on Mars were fomenting an underground rebellion. They were determined to draw attention to the troubles besetting their people…but they were having additional problems getting word out, since the planetary governor and his lieutenant had the media in their back pockets, so to speak. Only approved news got widespread coverage—what?
Well, of course the governor got away with it! Yes, in this day and age it should be hard to suppress any sort of news, what with all the various social media out there, but while it’s cheap to broadcast locally around a planet and its satellites, beaming things from planet to planet is expensive, and thus under the control of the government. Particularly away from Earth.
You can’t just step outside and set up a broadcast antenna on Mars, particularly if every single scrap of supplies is jealously accounted for, and all the pressure suits and oxygen cannisters are secured in their emergency lockers. Not to mention everything’s being beamed digitally these days; acquiring the pieces needed for radio broadcasting might be easier, but honestly, nobody’s been listening for the last two centuries other than some rare few astronomers, and they usually screen out the few local radio waves.
Anyway, the more agitated factions on Mars were getting desperate for real coverage of their situation. Desperate enough that the radicals and the fanatics decided that they had to do something truly outrageous, something which the local government couldn’t keep from the bigger government eyes back home. So, yes, that again is where I come in. Well, myself and the other four from the DDC.