Martians declare their independance! Now what?

I been thinking about this scenario for a while, what if at some point in the future we do have exploration in Mars, we start to colonize the planet, we start terraforming it and that project is successfull.

Then after decades and centuries people on that planet start feeling that they don't own nothing to their earthlings folks, (note that by that time, they will be completely independent, not needing almost anything from us as they have built and have anything they need to completely sustain themselves).

They have built a society that would not have many of the problems that we have here on Earth, they smart, tolerant, feel a sense of pride of being Martians, not American or british or any other, just Martians. They look at people from Earth with disdain because of the way we function here. (given the case that all the problems that we have here on this planet remain which IMO is more than likely)

After all that they decide to declare their independance, what then? Could the colonization of Mars lead to the first interplanetary war? If so who wins?

We wont see it in our lifetime.

Nice thought though!

By then they will have some type of military system set up to avoid this situation.

reply to post by Keebie


I know we won't see it in our lifetime, I'm just writing Nostradamus mode, lol!

If Mars colonization is undertaken and the planet is terraform we would need to be very careful on how we go about populating it, just to avoid this scenario.

Think about how the Americas was colonized. Sending bunchload of people on what become a one way ticket didn't work, they populated the land with their childrens and their children childrens didn't feel any type of allegiance to their mainland, why would they?

And let's say for the sake of the arguement that Earth becomes dependant on Mars for something critical on this planet. They will have pretty good leverage on us, making the case for a interplanetary war just must likely.

This concept may, however, be something our great, great grandchildren have to contend with, and I think it's not only possible, but given your scenario, quite probable.

If Mars were colonized to the extend you allude to, the Martians would likely seek sovereignty sooner or later. The only real defense against this the powers that be back on earth would have is to maintain a sizable military presence on Mars. But, this military presence would still be on Mars. The earth-bound administrations best defense is also the Martians best defense, as when you're so far away from authority, it's a bit easier to "flip".

Now, as to who would win an interplanetary war between Mars and Earth, I don't even think it's a question. Even conceding that in our scenario, the Martians have evolved their society to the point of self sufficiency, it would be thousands of years before their infrastructure would allow deployment of an effective war machine. If war broke out, I'm afraid Earth would simply crush the Martian rebellion.

However, there's almost too many variables to even ponder this war scenario. By the time this concept becomes a reality, war may be impossible from Earth's perspective as well.

reply to post by Unit541


I think a Martian civilization would be very smart, scientist, space pilots, technology geeks and the like, if and that's the big if, they had access to space vehicles or rockets for that matter, what would prevent them from creating any sort of weapon and start lobbying those at Earth.

Also they could create space based weapons put them in orbit and so.