Contemporary Mars Flag, digital variant
A HISTORY OF MARS
IN FLAGS AND SYMBOLS Compiled by Danny Kaplowitz, Mars U '47 NB: This entry contains imagery associated with pro-corporatist, anti-Martian social movements. These movements are built on inequality and geocentrism, and reproduction of their symbols should not be taken as any form of endorsement. |
Mars Corporation Flag
CE2054-2192 This flag, officially adopted in CE2054, was used for over one hundred years by the Mars Corporation, then the hegemonic power on the planet. The Mars Corporation held near total control over Martian public life—including an official monopoly on employment—from its grant of power in 2051, until the Martian revolution of the 2190s. While life and culture flourished only on the margins of the Corporation’s dominant control, it did facilitate an unprecedented rate of infrastructural development. This flag, and variants and symbols based upon it, was seen across Terra Meridiani for over a century, and remains a salient symbol for those subversives on Earth and Mars who would have us return to Oligopoly. It was adopted to give the Corporate dominators of Mars a distinct political identity, likely in response to the formation of UNITE MARS, the first organization of Martian laborers and an ideological forerunner of the Martian Revolution. The orange sphere is said to symbolize Mars, with the blue halo standing for the terraforming and human colonization process, on a black field to represent the vastness of space. |
UNITE MARS logo
CE2052-2189 This was the symbol of the UNITE MARS coalition from its founding in CE2054 through its merger with other pro-revolutionary groups in the late 2180s to form the Martian Revolutionary Cooperative. Forced to operate in the underground, this symbol was never used as a union bug, as no goods produced under the rule of the Martian Corporation were made in officially organized workspaces. Still, this logo enjoyed high billing on illicit digital zines distributed by UNITE MARS for several decades in the early 22nd century, and would be recognized by most Martians throughout our history as a symbol of unity, justice, and the dignity of labor. The globe symbol is borrowed from the earth-based International Workers of the World, or Wobblies, of the 20th century. UNITE MARS subscribed to a similar “one big union” ideology, and saw itself as an inheritor of a labor organizing lineage that began on Earth. |
"100 Movement" Logo
CE2192-present This crest is used by members of the “100 Movement.” This subversive coalition was formed almost immediately after the fall of the Corporate government, drawing its members mostly from (formerly) wealthy second-wavers resistant to our revolution’s egalitarian character. Members of the “100 Movement” have been responsible for terrorist attacks on our infrastructure, including a failed plot to wrest control of our superconducting rings in 2199. While membership in the movement is small and dwindling, it is a known symbol on Mars, representing present-day capitalism, and a geocentric worldview. The “100” of the movement’s crest and moniker refer to the so-called “100 Years of Peace.” While this term is commonplace on Mars, it is typically accepted that these decades were marked not only by peace, but also by greed, exploitation, and tremendous inequality. To “100 Movement” subscribers, it is a halcyon time, to which we ought to return. |
MARS 2245 was created by faculty and students in "The Anthropology of Outer Space" taught at Yale University in Spring 2020.
For more information, see About Us
For more information, see About Us