Mars Inc. (Marte Sociedad Anónima) is a planetary corporation based in a 110-story mirror-glass tower in Financial Heights, New York. Its declared project is to “bring the gods” by controlling the Ambrosia; its arms, aerospace and communications businesses serve that aim.
| Type | Corporation |
| Spanish entry | Marte Sociedad Anónima |
Doctrine and tower
Samuel, a man “with a taste for antiquity,” aims to “attune humanity” and reconnect it with its ancestors. Beside his penthouse office is the chamber called the power suit, from which nanobots emerge. Mid-tower: secured laboratories, rooms with beds, Roman baths using nanotechnology. Below: labyrinthine passages, a spiral staircase descending under Manhattan, and a prison that was also an office.
Sites
Seats in New York, Seattle, Alaska and “Sedencia”; branches in Europe, Asia, Russia and Brazil. The Alaska site, near a supposed meteorite impact, is the concession of an abandoned cinema with excavations or a base, rumored to hold “terrorists or something.” In New York it owns the Flux nightclub (an informants’ haunt). It has interests and allies on the Moon; Mars trips are still official only, not commercial. Other planetary corporations named for Greek or Roman gods — Mercury, Post — divide up zones of the United States; the “night games” belong to the same field.
Access and staff
Entry is by levels: Charlotte Klein reaches floors 1–27. Staff carry a microchip and sometimes a biometric retina mark; door control is strict (no entry with pizza). It employs civilians and cadres, a bodyguard (Gastón) and armed security, and recruits superheroes by job interview. Taki wears the armor of the Alpha Mars Corporation, a technological suit worn like the Nemean lion’s skin, carried toward the Moon.
Operations
Its one documented legal weakness: permits to experiment, not to run a laboratory. It tasked the Wanderers with finding the Ambrosia, controls a talent contest, is involved with a drug, and buries things in places of temporal depth that “have amnesia.” Its expansion is not yet total.
The attack
An attack on its headquarters left 34 dead (“so far”); civilians were evacuated. Its security proved defective: the main commandos turned, shooting one another and the corporation. At least one facility passed to the Foundation.
Conflicting accounts
- The CEO’s surname: Shires, Gires, DeGeyers (Samuel DeGeyers), Giles (Samuel Giles), Shields or Chávez.
- One figure claims, unconfirmed, that Mars invaded the Moon and is breeding a creature to eat the Moon, then the world.
Open questions
- Where “Sedencia” is; who Taki is; what an “Alpha” is.
- Who attacked, and whether the attack and the security collapse were one event.
- Which drug; what was buried, and where; what the nanobots do; its founding date; who ranks above the CEO.