Mars
Mars is John Evans’ home world. Its day is roughly thirty-nine minutes longer than an Earth day, a difference that shapes shifts, meals, irrigation, and off-world communication.
Port Alpha
John lives in Port Alpha, where air returns, water loops, tram lines, and district scrubbers give daily life its rhythm. A retired pressure door becomes a communal dining table; its inspection stamps remain visible beneath the finish.
Places in the story
- Port Alpha — John’s home and departure point.
- Ring Four — an agricultural ring where plant behaviour challenges a controller’s report.
- Sector Seven: an agricultural setting introduced in Caitlyn’s story.
- The Valles geothermal districts — part of Paul Evans’ engineering work.
- Hellas Basin — Jennifer Evans surveys abandoned industrial sites south of the basin.
In the book
Chapters One–Three establish everyday life on Mars and the first discrepancies.
In The Divide
The Divide focuses on the Valles geothermal plant and the three habitats it serves: Olympus Prime, Renticuluous Alpha and Volallies Beta. Family kitchens, growing spaces, service galleries and control rooms show different parts of the same dependence on working infrastructure.
In The Two-Body Problem
The Two-Body Problem approaches life on Mars through food and cultivation. The Olympus Prime agricultural extension connects greenhouse expertise, family plots and collective dependence on living systems.
A home made by many people
The books approach Mars from different workplaces. John’s neighbourhood shows maintenance handovers and shared meals; Paul’s story follows the heat network; Caitlyn’s begins among growing rows and irrigation lines. Together they show the labour behind a place that its residents can call ordinary.
Children learn the systems too. In The Divide, the household loops become a school assignment, connecting an engineering diagram with the names of people who do the work. See Everyday life for more of this domestic context.