How do you visualize Mars or Venus?

[northtroll]

Without a doubt, Space 1889 and ERB's Barsoom has influenced how I visualize Mars and Venus. But one thing I strive vor in my gaming is a personal and unique vision of what that world might look like. Given that Mars is an ancient world and Venus a relatively young one geologically speaking in VSF, and the former influences, how does one merge this with what we know from real images of Mars? To be honest the concept of a vast canyon much larger than the Grand Canyon on Earth is exciting to me.

I picture this part of Mars as the only really inhabitable area left on the planet. The great canals are no more than small rivers at the very bottom of the might canyons. The Martians long ago dwelt along the upper reaches of the canyon, but as the water descended so did the cities descend downward. Thus the thriving cities are at the bottom of the canyon, and the ruins of the older parts are above. I picture something like Maccu Pichu with its terraced gardens high among the mountains of our own Earth. Water is drawn upwards by way of an Archimedean screw constantly turned by convict labor or beasts. Shadufs transfer water to the fields by way of irrigation ditches. Waste products are used to amend the thin Martian soil, and to keep the cities clean.

But what do the cities look like you ask? Ah to my way of thinking it reminds me of a cross between the ancient city of Petra, and some of the dwellings in Mesa Verde. The famous cliff side Buddhist temple in China is also reminiscent of Martian Architecture as well. Numerouss terraces that are walled  to prevent accidents are common. Long, thin windows, covered with hide blinds provide the light for most dwellings, and help keep out sand storms. The heart of a Martian city is the waterfront, where Barquefolk and merchant do a thriving trade with the city dwellers. Some trade in spices, others gunpowder, pottery, cloth, wine, and exotic foodstuffs.  The most remote place of a city are the ancient spires that line the canyan wall tops. Here guardsmen keep watch for enemies, and sandstorms. They perform their duties in a weekly rotation, and are kept supplied with wll stocked storerooms and ancient cisterns.

But what of the cloudships? Certainly they exist, floating gracefully across the Martian skies, held aloft by their ancient Voleric engines, and propelled by the winds of the Martian skies. To travel any great length is to travel by air. The Martian Desert is a harsh mistress, one whom only the green skinned Wastelanders seem to love. Most cities of the great Martian canyon are self contained, the areas between them intermittent scrub, forest, and marshlands. Martian flora is hardy, holds onto it's water well, and protects itself with thorns, or sharp foliage. Food crops are roots and tubers, some hearty green like kale, nuts, small grapes, and a grain like rye. Martian wine is thin, slighty sweet, and a soft red in color. Martian spirits are like turpentine! Well that's what it tastes to any Earthman at first....

Well that's some of my Mars. What's yours like? I'll get to Venus later.

[Schogun]

Like you, my Mars is ERB's Barsoom. But ERB also wrote a Venus series "Carson of Venus" and 3-4 more books), so again, my vision of Venus is ERB's.

Can't go wrong actually.

[Diplomatist]

A bit like Llanelli on a Wednesday night.

[former user]

something like that?

[Freelancer]

Only with less Tourists

[Momotaro]

I love the ideas that Burroughs explored very briefly in A Princess of Mars, of Mars as an almost-dead world.  I'd tie it in with the Dying Earth books, the Book of the New Sun, the Zothique stories and the hopeless existential nightmare of Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson, all mixed in with the sense of social and moral decay of Against a Dark Background by Iain Banks.

Vast, ruined cities half-buried in the desert.  Ports with their docks teetering precariously on the edge of long dried-up seas.  The inhabitants as brutalised and brutal scavengers or inward-looking and decadent sorcerers, rats in the walls eking out a living from the barely understood detritus of long-forgotten and incomparably mightier civilisations.  Ancient rituals whose purpose is now no longer remembered and powerful and random technologies.  Cyclopean architecture bleached by the light of a cold and bloated sun, unfamiliar stars in the sky and the vast, unbearable weight of history everywhere you look.

Turning that into a tabletop game could be a bit of an undertaking though

[northtroll]

You got it former user! I imagine that the great canyon looks almost carved out of the walls, with numerous passages, galeries, and shafts throughout.

[Sinewgrab]

I combined Wells and Burroughs, myself, and sprinkle it with a touch of Arrakis.  Mars is an old world, with ruined cities, damaged ecosystems, and strange technologies.  Vast deserts sprinkled with ruins of the Martian civilization, the last remnants of both Barsoomians and those who fled into the wastes to become Tuskens, those of the Cephalopod who were left behind in the great invasion of Earth, islands of floating trees, and the small but thriving cities of the younger more vibrant Earth cultures, taking on some of the attributes of those who live here now.

Venus?  I don't consider it at all, or I would end up with a third set of terrain boards.  I already have Mars and the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout.  I don't need to go to Venus.

[Froggy the Great]

Mars is SIMULTANEOUSLY Barsoom, Malacandra, Space: 1889 and Parroom, depending on what shade of reality your heroes inhabit, and because there is a bit of Amberite in everything, certain aspects of one shadow bleed into adjacent shadows.

Venus for me is pretty much straight out of Space:1889 with a little bit of Sparta in the Jungle for the natives.

[Scorpio]

Vast, ruined cities half-buried in the desert.  Ports with their docks teetering precariously on the edge of long dried-up seas.  The inhabitants as brutalised and brutal scavengers or inward-looking and decadent sorcerers, rats in the walls eking out a living from the barely understood detritus of long-forgotten and incomparably mightier civilisations.  Ancient rituals whose purpose is now no longer remembered and powerful and random technologies.  Cyclopean architecture bleached by the light of a cold and bloated sun, unfamiliar stars in the sky and the vast, unbearable weight of history everywhere you look.

Love that description, sir.

[Conquistador]

I combined Wells and Burroughs, myself, and sprinkle it with a touch of Arrakis.  Mars is an old world, with ruined cities, damaged ecosystems, and strange technologies.  Vast deserts sprinkled with ruins of the Martian civilization, the last remnants of both Barsoomians and those who fled into the wastes to become Tuskens, those of the Cephalopod who were left behind in the great invasion of Earth, islands of floating trees, and the small but thriving cities of the younger more vibrant Earth cultures, taking on some of the attributes of those who live here now.

Venus?  I don't consider it at all, or I would end up with a third set of terrain boards.  I already have Mars and the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout.  I don't need to go to Venus.

Opposite for me - I leave Mars to another local VSF'er.

I more or less envision Venus as violating the laws of physics that determined the diversity of Earth's physical terrain/geography.

History of Spanish Venus, Part 1.

The terrain where the valuable resource that drew in the Spanish in the 19th Century to Venus varies from shallow seas to Swamp to Marsh with small islands of sanity (for humans) elevated above the Infierno verde. 

Plant growth is dense (and where it isn't you should be paranoid) and the Lizard men (dominant culture/race/species) thrive in it's dank, heavy air and ever present miasma in the nostrils of corrupting plant life.  The lizard men believe there are two forms of fauna - "The Real People" (themselves) and "the Food People" - everyone else.  The Worm men and the other minor surviving groups live on the edges of Lizard territory, high in the giant trees beyond the usual haunts of the lizard men, or deep in pockets of "un-solid" soil that makes up the Great Goo and smaller similar anti-deserts. 

The fetid air is unhealthy without masks and living without a mask is measured in weeks for Earthlings because the lung tissue becomes infected with several kinds of fungus or microscopic life forms that are fatal in 100% of the cases.  You can eat one of the local flora and the infections in your lungs is prevented but changes begin to occur in your body that are fatal or worse, change your body structure (the Victorians would not know DNA) into something not human and warps your mind irreversibly (slow acting LSD on steroids.)

Nose filters are used in most activities in the thinner "upland" air where human presence is established.  This "upland" environment exists where bedrock "Mesas" has been thrust up through the water, muddy soil,  and floating/rooted flora to elevations where the virulent infecting organism seems to be unable to reproduce/survive and only slow acting (multiple months to manifest themselves) crippling infections that effect the heart, mind, liver, or kidneys exist.  It was on these mesas that the first surviving Spanish landed.  Parties exploring down into the jungles below all died until it was discovered (from recovered bodies) what the deadly plagues were that defeated the first explorers who "went below" and threaten the colonies.

It was breakthrough on the cause of death that almost caused the abandonment of Spanish contact (and the discovery of how to filter the agents out via a highland plant's fibers) followed by the discovery of the resource that financed a resurgent Spain as an economic power that led to Spain's decision to keep its colony on Venus.

Sorry about the cliff hanger - supper needs prepared.  Part 2 later.

Gracias,

Glenn