Tag Archives: Mars

Life of a Martian terrorist

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Is it just me or is there something about Mars that inspires stories about underground resistances against an oppressive authority? The 1990 film Total Recall starring Arnold Schwarzenegger used this theme and it was a recurrent subplot on J.M. Straczynski’s Babylon 5 television series. Even in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, the story about the establishment of an utopian colony on Mars quickly turned into one about a protracted guerrilla war against Earth.

In any case, Volition’s Red Faction series draws from the same wellspring. Its latest offering, Red Faction: Guerrilla is technically the third in the series. However as the first two were only middling successes I gave them a pass. Red Faction: Guerrilla has become quite a hit, especially in the eyes of game critics, plus it’s now an open world game for the first time, which makes it irresistible to me.

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Recent Interesting Science Articles (July 2008)

I haven’t been as up to date as I should this month, but nonetheless I have three articles. The first and the most exciting one is the announcement by NASA confirming the presence of water on Mars. Now, we’ve had indirect evidence of water for a while now, but this is the first time that a robot, in this case the Phoenix, has actually tasted it by melting a piece of ice. The next step will be to bring it to even higher temperatures to try to find any traces of carbon-based compounds.

Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (July 2008)