Mars

"I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain."
This article has new content coming soon from The Witch Queen and may not be complete, confirmed, or correct. Please update it as soon as any relevant and accurate material is available. Editors must cite sources for all contributions to this article. Edits that do not follow this standard will be reverted without notice. For more information, see the Citation policy.

There is more information available on this subject at Mars on the English Wikipedia.

“

Home of BrayTech Futurescape and Rasputin. Overrun by the Hive.

”

Mars
Astrographical
Star, position:	Sol, IV
Satellites(s):	Phobos Deimos
Physical
Diameter:	6,792 kilometers
Gravity:	0.376 g
Length of day:	24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds
Orbital period:	687 days
Atmosphere:	Earth-like
Societal
Population:	Cabal Vex Taken Fallen Hive Pyramids

"The wind wiped away our footprints. When the storm had passed, we found something shining beneath the sand..."

— Grimoire description

Mars is the fourth planet in the Sol System, and the third largest terrestrial planet. Since the Collapse, much of Mars has returned to the desolation that came before the Traveler. Like the rest of the planets in the system, the red planet is littered with ruins from the Golden Age. It is home to Rasputin. It is also a living consciousness, and one of the Nine.

Overview

A harsh and deadly environment, Mars is now a desert world frequently plagued by dust storms. The Cabal forces have a presence on the planet in the form of their Exclusion Zone, as do the Vex, who are at odds with the Cabal. An indelible sign of the Cabal presence on Mars is the moon of Phobos, which has had its orbit dramatically altered by Cabal planetary engineering; it now fills a significant part of the sky. Even more disturbing is the discovery of large "planet-cracking" munitions among the Cabal's already devastating arms. There is some degree of conflict as humanity tries to reclaim its former glory.

History

The Ancient Past

Long before the evolution of humanity, Mars and the other planets of the Sol System served as gravitational foci for interstellar streams of dark matter particles. When life evolved elsewhere in the System, the movements of lifeforms created perturbations in these looping streams, which caused the dark matter loops to "awaken" into consciousness. These nascent consciousnesses would one day become known to Humanity as the Nine.

Golden Age

With the coming of the Traveler, rain washed over Mars, and it was here that humans first encountered the spherical entity. Once, populating Mars had been nothing more than a dream for humanity, but after its terraforming, a thriving metropolis named Freehold came to dominate the skyline - a bastion of human life in the red dunes. The Clovis Bray corporation had a major presence in Freehold, in addition to setting up their own private facilities, such as one in the Hellas Basin which acted as a tourist attraction and a site for research into Exo and Warmind technology, as well as the location for the core of the Warmind Rasputin.

The Collapse

With the coming of the Darkness, nearly all of Freehold was "swept away" and the sand claimed what remained. Today, Freehold lies buried beneath a mountain of sand, and its once-soaring skyscrapers are only visible.

City Age

Mars would be subject to incursions from multiple alien races, being the Cabal, the Vex, and the Hive. The former two would find each other at odds in an attrition war in Meridian Bay, the area surrounding Freehold, with the Cabal vying to mine resources and study the Vex artifacts and structures in the area, which include the massive gate to the Black Garden. A Hive sect known as the Grasp of Nokris would attempt to invade the Hellas Basin, only to be frozen in ice by Rasputin's defensive SIBERIAN ENTROPY protocol for the years to come.

Red War

When the Red Legion arrived in Sol, breaking the Cabal-Vex stalemate in Meridian Bay was one of its priorities. The Vex are hard-pressed and have lost multiple gates, including the Black Garden gate. The whole of Meridian Bay is now under total Red Legion control.

With the awakening of the Traveler at the end of the Red War, the ice caps on Mars began to thaw, extending to the iced-over Hellas Basin. This would also thaw the invading Grasp of Nokris, prompting Rasputin's newly-awakened core intelligence to deorbit Warsats as a defensive measure, inadvertently attracting a defeated Red Legion looking to scavenge technology to strike back at the Guardians who denied their victory.

Arrival of the Pyramids

Two years later, a Pyramid would arrive on Mars, mirroring one of its counterparts which arrived on Io a month earlier. There was recently a signal that was coming from a device in the Clovis Bray Facility, Guardians went to investigate to find an individual's journal whose name is Helsom, Ana describes him as a Xenoarchaeologist who believed in possible contact with extrasolar species and humanity, she contemplated on if he ever found what he was looking for, he remained on Mars since the Collapse happened.

Several months after the arrival of the Black Fleet, they caused the planet along with Io, Titan, and Mercury to mysteriously disappear, just as the Traveler healed itself. Mars' two moons Phobos and Deimos, however, survived and orbit the maw of the void planet.

Shortly after the disappearances, Emperor Calus attempted to speak to the unknown entity behind the gravitational anomaly of Darkness left where Mars used to be. He experimented with Scorn and the Crown of Sorrow aboard a carrier to ultimately succeed, with Calus disappearing afterwards.

Return from Darkness

Over a year after its disappearance, Mars would be returned with temporal rifts to Golden Age Mars. Baffled by Mars' return, Ikora Rey along with her Hidden set up the Enclave in Agrisector 24-A, Freehold due to the appearance of the Relic, a mysterious structure left behind by the Black Fleet.

Not long after their investigation into the Relic, the Cabal of Caiatl's Imperial Cabal of the Cabal Ascendancy began constructing outposts and cannons around the Martian Cradle, wishing to retake Mars as Cabal territory. Although Ikora Rey and Eris Morn were concerned, they realised that the Cabal were not aiming at them, but instead aiming at Savathûn's ship, The Lure. The Guardian would then arrive at the scene and would be instructed by Ikora and Eris to investigate further since they are pinned down. The Guardian was then engaged by Cabal forces and boarded Savathûn's ship by shooting themselves out of a nearby Cabal cannon.

The Guardian explored the depths of the ship, finding Hive forces of the Lucent Brood, a relic made from Pyramid tech and Hive with new powers. After investigating further, the Guardian was tossed off the ship, landing on the Martian surface and eventually travelled to Ikora for debriefing.

While the Imperial Cabal/Vanguard alliance was battling the Lucent Hive, Cabal Deserters set up a base of operations in The Barrens, with the backing of Emperor Calus, and began broadcasting anti-Imperial propaganda. The area was stormed by the Guardians multiple times to shut down the transmission.

Locations

• Athabasca
• Clovis Bray Special Projects
  • Meltdown (Crucible map)
• Eos Chasma
  • Firebase Delphi (Crucible map)
• Meridian Bay (Destination)
  • Bastion (Crucible map)
  • Campus Martius (Sparrow Racing League map)
  • The Timekeeper (Crucible map)
  • Freehold
    • Blind Watch (Crucible map)
    • The Hollows
    • Dust Palace
      • Overwatch
      • The Cortex
    • The Buried City
      • Freehold Station
      • Tharsis Junction
      • Skyline (Crucible map)
    • The Drift
  • Rubicon Wastes
    • Iron Line
      • The Legion's Keep
      • Trenchworks
  • Scablands
  • Firebase Rubicon
  • The Barrens
  • Valley of the Kings
    • Giants' Pass
    • Cerberus Vae III
• Black Garden
  • Pantheon (Crucible map)
• The Lost Oasis
  • Crossroads (Crucible map)
• Upper Stratosphere
  • Retribution (Crucible map)
• Hellas Basin (Destination)
  • New Arcadia (Gambit map)
    • Arcadia Circle
  • Glacial Drift
    • Dynamo Approach
    • Olympus Descent
      • Penumbral Depths
    • Ma'adim Subterrane (Lost Sector)
  • BrayTech Futurescape
    • Alton Dynamo
      • Hellas View
    • Aurora Reach
      • Mindlab: Rasputin
    • Core Terminus (Lost Sector)
• Warmind Facility Hellas
  • Solitude (Crucible map)
• The Enclave (Destination)
  • Relic
• Agrisector 24-A, Freehold
  • The Lure
  • The Martian Cradle

Gallery

• 

  The surface of Mars as it appears on Bungie.net

• 

  Phobos in near orbit to Mars

• 

  Concept art of Freehold.

• 

  A Cabal Fortification on Mars.

• 

  The Exclusion Zone guarded by Cabal.

• 

  A Cabal Colossus on Mars.

• 

  Three Guardians on Mars.

• 

  A Firefight on Mars.

• 

  The Clovis Bray Tower.

• 

  A postcard of Freehold during the Golden Age.

• 

  A Map of The Valley of Kings.

• 

Triva

• Acording to the description of the Long Tomorrow 9G chestpiece, Mars was once ruled by the Awoken.

List of appearances

• The Law Of The Jungle (First appearance)
• Destiny
  • The Taken King
  • Rise of Iron
• Destiny 2
  • Warmind
  • Forsaken
    • Black Armory
    • Joker's Wild
    • Season of Opulence
  • Shadowkeep
    • Season of Dawn
    • Season of the Worthy
    • Season of Arrivals
  • The Witch Queen