11.16-Mars Autonomous

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 space shippers 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 Byrd 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. Phos five. The Martians still needed to extract Phos five 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 Phos five 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 Phos five 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 nine, meanwhile, was already fully loaded with Boss five when they mutinied in July 2247. So all they had to do was plot a course for Earth. Now a lot of nervous tension surrounded the initial resumption of these deliveries. What would actually happen when convoy group nine reached Earth? Would the earthlings really just let them deliver the load and then go back to Mars to get more? Or would there be surprise shenanigans? And on the other side, any one of the ships now arriving at Mars could turn out to be some kind of counter revolutionary Trojan horse. But these moments of possible early derailment of the agreement of 2248 never materialized. Mostly because in the wake of signing the agreement and the forced resignation of Timothy Warner, the Omnicorp board of directors voted for Jin Wong to succeed him as CEO. The tides had now shifted, and Wong had been among those early to the notion that Warner was a problem, not a solution, even when that was an unpopular and unwelcome opinion. She grew her support and influence leading the negotiator faction on the board of directors after the Martians and space shippers rebelled, and though initially defeated, her support only grew as defiantly not negotiating didn't …