Where on Mars Is ICARUS Set? The Four Settlements on the Real Map
Updated: 2 days ago
ICARUS is fiction. The ground under it is real.
Every settlement in the novel stands at a place you can find on a map of Mars. Three of them sit in or near Valles Marineris, the canyon system that runs for about 4,000 kilometers just south of the equator. The fourth is far to the north.
Here is where they are in Mars Year 73, and why it matters.
Vostok: Hydraotes Chaos
The Russian settlement stands in Hydraotes Chaos, at about 1° south, 40° west. This is the eastern end of the canyon system, where the valleys open toward the plain of Chryse Planitia.
Chaos terrain is what it sounds like: broken blocks and collapsed ground. In the novel it is also a dust corridor. The canyon lets its air out onto the plain here, and the dust goes with it.
Nobody chose this place for the terrain. It was a political decision, made in a year when being on Mars mattered more than being in a good place on Mars.
On Sol 10 a storm comes through the corridor and brings the greenhouse dome down.
Tianyuan: Coprates Chasma
The Chinese city lies in Coprates Chasma, at about 11° south, 58° west, in the eastern part of the main canyon. The walls expose layers of basalt. East of the city a ridge called the Breaker takes the edge off the wind and the dust.
Tianyuan was built for ten thousand people. In Mars Year 73 five or six hundred live there. The corridors are long and quiet.
Minos: Ius Chasma and Noctis Labyrinthus
The American settlement is a corporate mine at the western end of Valles Marineris, at about 8° south, 93° west. Here Ius Chasma runs into the maze of Noctis Labyrinthus. The canyon rim is shallower and the rock lies open.
Minos is a workplace, not a home. The ore will last another two to four years.
Asteria: the edge of Acidalia Planitia
The European settlement is the exception. Asteria lies at about 33° north, 15° west, on the southern edge of Acidalia Planitia. The ground is flat, with ice in the subsoil.
It is the northernmost of the four, and the only one in the northern hemisphere. It has 280 permanent residents, and about 1,500 tourists arrive with each cycle of ships.
The distances
The distances shape the story.
From Tianyuan to Vostok the drivable route is 1,251 kilometers. It crosses the chaos terrain of Eos and Capri Chasma and takes a convoy three days.
From Minos to Tianyuan it is about 2,025 kilometers. The mining trucks were built for short local runs. Their average range is about 150 kilometers, and the limit is the dust, not the battery. So shelters cut into the rock follow the route, one at about every 150 kilometers.
Asteria is the far one: about seven days by caravan from Tianyuan.
Earth is months away, and reachable only once every 26 months. So when a settlement is in trouble, help is a few days away by road, or it does not come.
Start reading: When the Sky Turned Red, Vostok Station
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