Will Wright Shares His Vision for a Colony on Mars

Writing for Air & Space Smithsonian, The Sims creator and “god game” simulation extraordinaire, Will Wright, shared his vision for a relatively near-future Martian colony called Marstown.

In what is essentially a tonally dry short story, Wright envisions the social and political realities of the colony, population 8,000, in the year 2047. Wright concocts an interesting narrative engaging with some of our own current environmental and resource issues, tying it to a political mandate to colonize the Red Planet and make it inhabitable for fear that our beloved Earth becomes barren.

To explore this, Wright tells the tale of Sasha, a third-wave colonist who volunteers out of her own sense of adventure. Wright tells a rather scarily believably story about Sasha, her environment and the Martian colonial culture, writing,

“Sasha would be working in the bota-genetic labs initially. Here, hundreds of strains of Earth plants were being slowly engineered to increase their adaptation to Martian conditions. It had been decided decades earlier that it was more cost-effective to terraform only small areas of Mars at first, while at the same time adapting imported life-forms (first plants, then animals and humans) to the new conditions. Over time, the crops, animals, and people would truly become Martians, fully suited to their new homeworld. That was the plan, at least; the process would take many generations.

The culture of the colony was, on the surface, one of fierce independence. The unspoken truth was that the residents were still dependent on Earth, and far from self-sufficient. The social situation in the colony felt similar to that of any small town on Earth. News traveled fast, gossip was the coin of the realm, and secrets did not stay secret for long.”

Read the rest here.