Some Notes on Hill Martians

The Hill Martian tribes that surround the city state of Mylarkt fall into two broad categories.

Those of the Nilosyrtis Hills and Neith Steppes are fully nomadic, dependent upon their gashants to move the vast distances between suitable grazing and only occasionally involved in some temporary agriculture. Most of their needs are met from their herds of gashants and the occasional stand of fnuuk. Water and other liquids tend to be derived from plants which absorb and store the limited moisture available from the air and subsoil.

Those of the Meroe Badlands are largely sedentary and live in villages, raising crops and trading (and sometimes raiding) between communities. Their pastoralism is still semi-nomadic, with youths moving the herds between the limited pasturage in the badlands, similar to seasonal transhumance movements on Earth.

Their agriculture uses some very water-efficient techniques, with much of their water coming from condensation on natural features. These “Wind Bounty” sites are features that channel the humid wind coming up from the grand canal through gorges or tunnels that widen suddenly causing the air to chill and the water vapour to condense into small droplets that gather on the surface of cavern walls. This water gradually filters into underground cisterns that in turn feed irrigation and drinking water networks (the two are typically kept separate) via various natural filtration systems. Most of the sites look to be quite natural, but this seems unlikely given the very similar arrangements of underground cisterns and filtration ponds at different sites. Several Terran scientists are very keen to study these wonders of water collection, but the custodians are understandably reluctant to allow strangers to poke around in their life-supporting water and so their exact provenance and the detail of their design remain mysteries.

Both types of nomad herd gashants as their principal source of meat and transport, with wocnid and wild gashants being hunted. Ganz willoi are typically hunted by children, although some sedentary tribes have been able to domesticate them to some extent. Bush Monkeys are looked on as a nuisance due to their tendency to enter settlements at night, and they driven off or killed where possible. Their meat is taboo, being seen as distant relatives of Hill Martians cursed by the gods for some misdeed in the past (the Nepenthi name for them translates as “unfinished”), but their spikes are often used when making weapons and armour. Teshuwaan are usually attacked on sight due to the threat they present to the gashant herds, and their meat is prized twice over as it both saves the life of a herd animal and delays the need to slaughter one for food.

 

 

As in Space:1889 canon, the models for these societies are North American natives. My ideas for the steppe-dwellers are based on Souian cultures, while those for those of the Meroe Badlands come from the Pueblo Indians and others from the South West. In both cases they are derivatives, and are certainly not intended to be direct copies.

Martian Vehicles, or Do Martians Dream of Reliant Robins?

Another of my long-term projects has been to work out how Martians get around the place.

Walking is an option, naturally, as is riding the ubiquitous gashant or in a ruumet brehr howdah. I could also see sedan chairs and palanquins being good for those who could afford it.

There's liftwood for cloudships and screw galleys obviously - where would Space:1889 be without it? There are boats on the canals, and the large ruumet brehr-drawn wagons of the Wagon Masters of Meroe are legendary.

But how are the bulk of people and goods transported? Ruumet brehr wagons are (I'd guess) too big to get through most city streets. Your average rich merchant might be happy to ride in a howdah on his ruumet brehr, but he won't get astride a gashant to cross the city for a meeting - it's just so barbaric and last millenium, don't you know. Palanquins might be good for carrying ostentatious princelings (and rich merchants), but they're not much use for moving goods.

For smaller items handcarts, wheelbarrows and carry poles would work fine. But what about larger loads?

Some form of gashant-drawn carriage or cart makes sense, but how would they work? OK, confession time: I'm no expert on hitching horses, far less gashants. My experience of horse-drawn transport is pretty much limited to being driven round tourist locations at eye-watering expense.

But if I was willing to allow such a lack of qualifications stop me, why would I have started a blog in the first place, eh? So here goes!

I don't think you could put a single gashant between the shafts of a carriage or cart. Its bipedal gait may make it lurch from side to side, but that could perhaps be ignored - ostriches seem to move pretty smoothly. The bigger problem is probably the tail - think of the beast stretching forward; its tail coming up level behind it as it picks up speed, and whirling around as it changes direction (think of a cheetah cornering in full chase mode). How can it do that between two fixed shafts? Gashants side-by-side in traces might also be a problem as they would have to be a long way ahead of the cart to keep their tails away from the front wheels. Wouldn't that make control and steering a lot more difficult? And how do you stop the traces interfering with the tails?

A two-wheeler like a Hansom cab might be workable, perhaps with a single long shaft curved high over the rump of the Gashant. The wheels are set towards the rear of the passenger compartment, so are out of the way of the tail. I see the shaft as the weakness in this design, needing it to be strong whilst keeping the weight to a minimum. It should still be workable as a light cab, but it's not a means of moving goods around a city due to the difficulty of getting the weight distribution right for a single-axle vehicle.

Maybe a three-wheeler would work? (Yes, gentle blogee, that's where the Reliant Robin comes in, with due posthumous apologies to Philip K. Dick.) The cart would be somewhat boat-shaped, with a solid keel extending between the pair of draught-gashants, with the "hull" curving up sharply from the keel and out over their rears. Presumably the driver's position would be in the "prow".  The single front wheel would be secured to the keel and be somewhere between the pair of gashants - probably at a level just behind their feet - and shrouded to prevent their tails being caught up. The rear wheels would be on a heavy axle towards the rear (stern?) of the vehicle, but not too far back in order to take some of the weight off the front wheel.

In fact five wheels would be better for load distribution, but this would make any cornering much more difficult unless you introduce some steering (and thus complexity) to the forward pair.

Then there's the question of what gashant tack would look like. (I know, I know, I need to get out more.) You probably need something similar to a horse collar, but would it fit round the relatively narrow shoulders of a gashant, or in front of its much heavier hips? The latter would make more sense to me (for all that's worth!), but how would it be secured? Perhaps it's a cushioned inverted U that is permanently fixed to a high central shaft, and is secured below the beast's belly by straps. (And I shall not speculate here on the existence or location of male gashant external reproductive organs.)

Of course it might be easier to posit some form of domesticated quadruped (or hexaped!) that doesn't get a mention in the Space:1889 canon, which can use wagons very similar to those on Earth, but that's no fun at all. (Or did I miss one?)

That's several solutions looking for a problem that exist only in my own imagination, I know, but it's cheaper than therapy any day :-)

Am I talking total nonsense?  Has anyone out there seen or come up with better ideas on how to keep Mars moving?

Green Martians - backstory

Here's a topic that is so far off-canon for Space:1889 that I almost hesitate to mention it.  Almost ...

Black Hat EMP401

The Meandering Intro
The fact is that I love the look of the four-armed giant green martians from Black Hat and I've been looking to find a way to squeeze them into My Mars somehow. I mean, what could be more typically Martian that a big green creature with four arms? No, I never mentioned Barsoom, not me!


But, being a slave to rationality (not to mention one with time on his hands), I needed to have some justification or backstory to have them on my oh-so Chadwickian Mars.

Black Hat Octosaur vs Hexosaur

The solution came to me when I was tinkering with a couple of ocotosaurs (stop sniggering at the back!), basically removing the rear pair of spindly legs and converting them into hexosaurs.  I think it's quite an improvement for a small investment in time. Just my ha'pennyworth.



But I digress.


The said tinkering led me to thinking about the triceratops-like hexosaur which looks like it might worm its way into my collection if I'm not careful. And how the giant martians also have six limbs. And how their mounts have six limbs as well (or they will once I chop the rear ones off like I did with their smaller cousins). Then the thought occurred that this might be a very different branch on the Martian evolutionary tree; one with six-limbed creatures, hexapods if you will, rather than the "normal" four that is seen elsewhere.

So far so good, but how had these escaped the notice of Earth explorers and, more importantly, how are they absent from Martian records?

Then ideas fell quickly into place, involving some sophisticated selective breeding, experiments that-are-not-permitted-for-a-very-good-reason, rioting mobs, coverups, evil geniuses (genii?) looking for the Ultimate Weapon, and other pulpy goodness in general. I think there might also have been a "bwahahahaha!" in there for good measure.

The Backstory Bit
The rapid evolution of hexapods was kickstarted millennia ago, as the seas receded and Canal Martian scientists were looking for a way to improve drought resistance in domesticated animals. Their experiments mostly involved selective breeding of a variety of six-legged rodent-sized creatures that already survived well in arid conditions. Some of their work was very successful indeed, enabling them to breed quite large creatures that could be bred for food or used as beasts of burden and yet still survive extremely dry conditions. In fact the experiments were so successful that some scientists strayed across a line-that-should-not-be-crossed, and attempted cross-breeding between Canal Martian and hexapods. Against all the odds they were successful. How it was achieved is not known - those records were destroyed long ago - but they had succeeded in breeding creatures about the size of a roogie that were fertile and even bred true. The creatures had a bipedal stance, and both pairs of upper limbs had the standard Martian hand (three fingers and a thumb). The upper pair were capable of finer manipulation than the more muscled lower pair. Their intelligence was soon bred and trained to the level of a young child. And there the work stopped. The hubris of the scientists knew no bounds, but the religious establishment determined that abominations had been created. Overnight there was a huge backlash against the scientists. Laboratories and breeding centres were attacked and razed. Anything that moved, whether it had four or six limbs, was killed and thrown into cleansing fires. Records were destroyed. It became a taboo topic. It never happened.

Of course not all of the more remote research stations were ever found; stations that became more remote year by year as the waters receded and the lands dried ever more. Some of the breeding stock survived, and even thrived in the dry conditions. They were never huge populations but they were large enough to be self-sustaining and life was challenging enough for the bipedal forms to evolve in size and in intelligence.

Then about two Martian centuries ago (that's about 300 Earth years) the Worm Cult came across some strange writings concerning a time of cleansing, and started to look for remnants from that time. For some years there had been tall stories from Hill Martians about large green devils erupting from the desert. Not unnaturally these had been discounted by civilised types, but the hints were suggestive enough for the Worm cultists to locate a couple of tribes and to nurture them, hoping to develop them into a tool to destroy civilisation and return the planet to the chaotic state they craved.

And what a tool they have found! By dint of further breeding they developed warriors that now stand over three metres tall, and that can tear a man's head off with their bare hands. They are not rocket scientists, but they certainly aren't stupid either. They are hardened desert warriors, with cunning and a natural gift for combat. When they ride to battle, it is on large aggressive war mounts. They can appear from the deep desert, strike hard and then disappear again as if they never existed.

The next step in the appearance of the Giant Martians was when the Worm Cult was able to negotiate agreements (alliances would be too strong a term) with several High Martian clans, and migrated some Giant Martians family groups to live in the rugged canyons of the highlands where they would be difficult for sky navies of civilised states to find. That was the point at which their numbers started to explode - what looks rugged and parched to a Canal Martian is a land of milk and honey to a Giant Martian.


The Wrap
This all explains why the Giant Martians have only been a problem for Canal Martian for the last 40-or-so Martian years, since about a generation before the arrival of the Red Men. Any records that still exist are either buried very deep or phrased in such a way as to mean nothing without knowing a lot about the context. And if anyone does know the context, they aren't about to have their dirty racial laundry washed in public - it would again be a matter of great shame to the Canal Martian psyche. Thus the Giant Martians have, in effect, burst out of nowhere, and they are starting to run amok.

The Worm Cult now works hard to keep them supplied with weapons, ensuring they cause general mayhem and destruction where they will. High Martians recognise that they can get their Giant Martian neighbours to do a lot of hard fighting for them and will often tag along, providing airborne support (an area where Giant Martians are vulnerable). If the Worm Cult have a specific task in mind for their Giant Martian allies (for they are no longer clients) they will deploy small detachments of their robed cultists to maintain focus.

Linguistic footnote - the Parhooni word for a Giant Martian translates as "man-and-a-half", referring both to their height and to the number of limbs.



This post has rambled  on quite long enough, but I'm quite happy that the general outline will let me add Giant Martians to My Mars without it disrupting the background. In fact I think it makes it a lot richer for the purpose of wargaming, but I'm biased.

If you're unfortunate enough to game the Space:1889 background in 25/28mm, you don't need to feel left out - there are several figure suppliers out there who are ready and willing to help you bust your budget! *evil cackle*


Comments and improvements always welcome!

OK, so when you say "100" ...

Call me a boring old accountant, but when I was thinking about unit sizes, I got to thinking about number systems, time and how your average Martian measures things in general.

Number
As everyone knows(?), Martians have four fingers (or three fingers and an opposable thumb if you want to be pedantic) or toes at the end of each appendage.  So I can't think of any reason why they would have hit upon a decimal system of counting.  As for humans, two handsfull seems to be a good unit of measure (stop sniggering at the back!), so an octal system of numbering would make perfect sense.  To the dyscalculic amongst us, that means that Martians count on their fingers as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, and then 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20 after removing shoes and socks.

I can therefore imagine their military units being based on multiples of 8, giving theoretical values as follows:

	Octal	Decimal	Macedonian title
Squad	20	16	Lochos ("file")
Platoon	100	64	Tetriarchia
Company	200	128	Taxis
(omitted	400	256	Syntagma)
Battalion	1000	512	Pentakosiarchia
Legion	4000	2048	Merarchia
Army	10000	4096	Apotome

Somewhat bizarrely, we end up with the nice octal round numbers used by my Martians being the same as appeared in classical Greek tactical manuals!  Maybe there really was something extraterrestrial about Altantis after all?

OK that worked out pretty well, and gives comparable unit sizes to terran counterparts.


Next stop ... Calendars and Time.  I'm betting the answer is 42, but we'll see.


Real World Footnote:
Apparently the Yuki language in California and the Pamean languages in Mexico use octal number systems because the speakers count using the spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves.  Ain't Wikipedia a wonderful thing?

New Blog!

OK, so here's the new blog - all I need to do is try to work out how to use it and what to put in it!

Basically, I have enjoyed reading so many wargaming blogs over the years, and it's about time that
1) I learned about this technology, and
2) I put something back in to the hobby

It is born out of my interest in colonial warfare of the 19th century, and of my love of Victorian Science Fiction, personified by RPGs like Space:1889.

So what follows will be sporadic posts as I create terrain and build units for warfare on the face of Mars in the twilight years of a fictional Earth's 19th Century.

I collect 15/18mm figures, largely from Black Hat's Martian Empires range, but also from Peter Pig and Old Glory.  These have been collected over the years, and work has been a bit too hectic to do much other that daydream over plans.  I really have to start painting my mountain of lead some time, and with a blog I just may have to bite the bullet!

And then there was a decision about the rules I wanted to use.  Should I write my own, or buy something else; but if so what?  Naturally I have done both.  My collection of rules is ... well-endowed, let us say.  From The Sword and the Flame to Black Powder, via Valor, Steel & Flesh and Martian Empires, not to mention various internet-published ones.  I have tried drafting my own, from a variant of TSATF (15mm Fighting Englishmen if you must know) to a standalone Colonial/VSF set entitled The Modern Major General.  Nothing has really worked for me.

Then, several years ago I came across Eric Burgess's wonderful Din of Battle blog, and have followed it eagerly ever since.   Eric is a Piquet rules system man through-and-through.  It is a system that has always piqued (ha-ha) my interest, and it is one that seems to provokes emotions of love and extreme dislike.  I am still fairly new to them, but I am tending towards the love end of the spectrum.  I do like the feeling of fog of war that they create, and as I do not have any wargaming opponents the card-guided nature of the game gives me the unpredictability that make solo play more satisfying.  And it means that I have a basing system and so I have no further excuses for further prevarication.

OK, enough writing ... on with it, man!
Clive G