June 5th 2028
Mars, the red planet, was meant as something of a safe haven. We all saw the writing on the wall on the old world, on Earth. We were not wanted, and so we left. To be sure, we could have tried something back on the home world... but most of us? Well, we sort of internalized what they had been telling us for decades. This was a sort of second chance for a new life, a new way forward and we were going to take it with both hands. Which did lead to the first great debate, as we decided on where and how to settle Mars.
But eventually? It was decided that we would go underground, not least to protect ourselves from the radiation of the cosmos, but also to hide ourselves from the gaze of anyone back home that happened to be looking from the Earth. And so we tunneled deep into the red rock of a new world, into the existing cave systems, establishing great cities in the depths of the world. Jewels in the dark, string out along the links in the deep, reinforced by clever craft to withstand some of the tectonic pressures even as made of our homes gardens and glimpses of what was lost to us.
Year by year those great bastions were made and shaped and filled even as the mechanical wombs were prepared and soon there was the laughter of children echoing out in the deep places. Those first few decades were glorious years of growth, of establishment and innovation. Several holds made breakthroughs they gladly shared with others, as we massively extended and raised the quality of our lives... and as we began the first iterations of the phoenix protocols to restore us even from the final gate of death.
In many ways, as the flames took us at the end of our lives? As nanites and strange technology remade us in our youthful forms once more? There was a sense that things could only ever improve, that a future of bright and golden progress would be ours. It was a time of peace and harmony. And it was shattered, because we had forgotten what we had fled from those long centuries ago, forgotten in your long peace and idyl. But they had not forgotten us, nor had they ever been capable of forgiveness. How could they, when they would have to accept accountability for their own actions?
We tried diplomacy, but... they reacted poorly to it, terror and hate in their eyes, even as we were forced to shatter them, to bring ruin to their works. Still, one of their rockets had fled back to the Earth. And so it is that the drums of war sound in the deep, as we prepare and drill. For the men of the Martian Freeholds would not submit to the demands of the Amazons of Gaia. We have grown apart from our former kinswomen, and have little interest in resuming relations with those that will attack us on sight.
23rd year of Queen Diana X, 8th Ox Moon
The ancient enemy had been discovered among the heavens. A greater and more terrible blasphemy than anything they could have anticipated. Women slashed their faces, smearing ashes into the cuts as they wailed, for some of their people had been killed as they tried to exterminate the sinful beasts. Truthfully, if not for the cost in reaching the lair of the monsters? She would declare a war against them that very moment! A great campaign of extermination, as the beasts of sin had become rare indeed on the holy mother Earth.
No matter that she and her mother had tried to make sure that there were some remaining, that they would be an external foe for her people to unite against under her banner, the true peoples zeal in catching and flaying the White Menace was spiritually and morally correct, but it created the occasional difficult political situation, as she looked at the Priestess of the Iron Flowers. "What is the stockpile of the holy seed?" Because the iron flowers produced the seed that was needed for the true people to swell with new life. "There will need to be many children. Flower wars and Holy Wars approach."
There is a ripple, greedy eyes looking at their rivals, real knives still sheathed even as ceremonial ones are out. Fir now, as they proclaim how their bloodlines deserve the seed, deserve the warrior quality seed to allow for the greatest war-daughters. After all, they needed to wage flower wars to gain enough resources to make new rockets (and captives to sacrifice to the Goddesses), before they returned to the Red World to wage a holy war against the beasts of sin. Already, there were whispers that it was fitting that The White Menace would dwell on the world of blood and strife.
Portents and strategy were discussed, as the priestess considered, looking thoughtful at the scene of carnage, at the brutality of the worst sort of sinful beast, at the monsters whose rapine and oppression forever scarred the world. Monstrous brutes whose legacy was suffering and death, who destroyed the chance of paradise and forced the True People to live in a fallen and degraded world. It was not surprising that they had fled to another after ruining the one that had given birth to them, that they would spread their hate of the true people into the stars.
And so the plans were made, to increase the raids, to break the other queendoms and gather the resources for the Holy War by any means necessary. Command were given to look into the vaults of dark and ancient sorceries, ancient weapons of lost ages taken from storage as speeches were made and war-daughters were born to the true people. To whip up support for the cause, to make morale high? She paid for a small herd of Beasts to be slaughtered and served as a feast each month, the true people relishing in their screams of pain at the slaughter-tables.
Plans were made, as the next time they went to claim Mars, they would make sure to deploy the New Star techno-sorcery. Deadly, powerful... and the only ones to be affected were men, and white men at that, so who cared?