Hello and welcome to revolutions.

Episode 11.16, Mars Autonomous

The agreement of 2244 seemed to close the book on what people were now already calling

the Martian Revolution. The Martians and spaceshipers saw the agreement as a great victory,

and indeed it was. When the first anniversary of the Three Days of Red came along in July 2248,

the celebrations were joyous, rapturous, and pretty continuously intoxicating.

Five years ago, this would have been unimaginable. Five years ago, Vernon Bird was still alive.

Five years ago, change, any change at all seemed impossible. Things would just stay the same forever.

It had always been thus, and would always be thus. And now,

here they stood, no longer under the thumb of the earthlings. They were free and autonomous.

After the celebrations wound down, however, one thing remained in front of their faces that

was totally unchanged, the unavoidable fact of their lives,

Phosphive. The Martians still needed to extract phosphive and ship it back to Earth,

and that meant going back to work. During the long months of the mutual blockade,

the extraction work had basically ground to a halt. After the holding stations were filled

to capacity, there was nowhere

to put anything new anyway. A minimal line was kept active to cover Mars' own FOS 5 needs, but that was a

tiny amount compared to what Earth demanded. And now they had to go back to meeting Earth demands.

The good news for Earth was that deliveries of FOS 5 could resume immediately. Because all those

holding stations were filled to the brim, the Martians could start sending loads up into orbit as

soon as the agreement was signed. Commander Cartwright's Convoy Group 9, meanwhile, was already

fully loaded with FOS 5 when they mutinied in July 2247, so all they had to do was plot a course for Earth.

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