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
[edit]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
[edit]- 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
[edit]Chapters One–Three establish everyday life on Mars and the first discrepancies.
In The Divide
[edit]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
[edit]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
[edit]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.