The city of Olympia was unlike anything Melbourne had ever seen before. Towers rose high into the night sky around the airship as it floated through aerial paths filled with flying cars. Wheeled cars and trucks filled the congested roads below them barely visible to the naked eye at this altitude. Sidewalks and bridges were suspended at many levels above the ground filled with pedestrians and market stalls. Courtyards and parks were suspended high in the air anchored between towers.
"How incredible." thought Melbourne, whistling in awe as he observed a particularly large aerial park suspended within a particularly spacious region of the city above some of the shorter skyscrapers beneath. The circular park must have been at least two kilometer in diameter. It was filled with grass and hosted a small artificially forested region and a smooth grassy field that was obviously used as a golf course. Tall net walls ensured that no golfer would strike a ball off of the park into the skies below.
As the airship approached the center of the city, the towers became more dense and the aerial traffic more congested. A particularly imposing black pyramid building rose above all other towers, becoming a prominent feature in the distance.
"You know what that building is?" asked a woman who had sneaked up on Melbourne when his thoughts were on the sights of the city.
"The pyramid?" asked Melbourne, coming out of his stupor to find a dark skinned woman with red hair standing right next to him. "Of course. I've seen it in news articles and historical documents all over the exonet. That is the House of the Republic where the Chancellor and Senate do all their business."
"The seat of inner Sol, they call it." mused the woman. "No place compares, not even the Imperial Palace of Ganymede. What do you think of the Martian Republic, Melbourne?"
Melbourne considered for a moment. What did he think of it? Democracy was an ideal he definitely supported. He had always thought of himself as patriotic, but was that really how he felt? About a week ago he would have repeated the typical patriotic support that a Martian citizen would normally speak, but recent events had made him question blatantly supporting the same governments that would have him executed if they knew about his new anatomy. It wasn't that Sol offered any better alternatives. The monarchies of the outer planets such as the Ganymedian Kingdom and the recently formed Kingdom of Rhea around Saturn honored the Artilect Protocol just as much as the Martian Republic and they were arguably far more oppressive to their people.
"I'd say it's not perfect, but it is still one of the best governments in Sol. It is at the very least the greatest superpower to live in if any of the other minor republics existing on the frontiers have superior laws towards civil liberties." Melbourne answered as honestly as he could while carefully avoiding any conversations about the international law that wanted him dead or about his own cybernetics.
"Interesting." said the woman, nodding almost as if she were impressed. "You know, I agree with your point completely. I saw your fight earlier, by the way. That's how I knew your name, in case you were wondering. It was nice to talk with you.
Melbourne absorbed the comment for about five seconds before turning to ask the beautiful woman her own name, but she was already gone. She had left just as quietly as she had crept up. Why did he get the odd feeling he hadn't seen the last of her?
"That lady has some seriously amazing stealth in her step." thought Melbourne as he turned back to the sights and began meditating more deeply on how he really felt about the nation he had been raised within.
The Martian Republic claimed to be the bastion of freedom in Sol and took after the Constitution of an old Earth republic called the United States that had existed before the great war of the twenty-first century. In fact, most of the original colonists on Mars had come from that country when they first landed upon the barren soil although some individuals had claimed other nationalities. Mars had indeed helped preserve the idea of democracy while the original Ganymedian colony of Jovania devolved into a feudal monarchic system as it expanded its own influence across the Jovian Moons. Technically, the early colonization of the Fourth Planet before the Artilect War had been a private endeavor sponsored by an ancient industry called Red Horizons. The opportunity to colonize early Olympia wasn't dependent upon national origin when the city was nothing more than a few huddled colonies learning to survive an a non-terraformed, barren wasteland. The national identity of Mars hadn't even been established until 2072, shortly after the war on Earth resulted in its annihilation and it was finally accepted that no more supply ships would ever arrive from the home world again. They would have to fend for themselves and indeed they did. They not only survived without help from Earth, but they began to thrive.
Colonies spread over the Martian surface through the first century as domed settlements that would expand and tunnel underground while terraforming projects lifted water from deep beneath the surface to fill the Utopian and Amazonis Planitias with water to reform the ancient seas from its ancient primordial state many billions of years ago. Plants were grown in the fledgling seas as carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Meteors with special magnetic properties were strategically crashed into to select locations across the planet to create a rough magnetosphere to prevent the CO2 released from the ground from being stripped apart by the ferocious solar winds. The first land plant was eventually grown outside of the domed sanctuaries humanity called home as the atmosphere thickened and the sky color began to change from pink into a more Earthly blue. Grasses spread rapidly across the surface in the latter half of the twenty second century and forests biomes began to appear as insects began to crawl openly across the surface. People evolved from walking outside in fully pressurized suits to using only oxygen masks similar to scuba gear when walking outside. At last, in 2200, the first human breathed the new Martian air. Millions of people who had never walked under an open sky and had only read about such things in historical documents or seen them in ancient movies did what their fathers and grandfathers never had the opportunity to do. They walked outside among plants not of underground parks protected by skylight glass roofs or artificially illuminated biomes kept alive through geothermally powered full spectrum LED lamps, but under the open sky of Mars itself. While civilization thrived on the Jovian moons as well as on Mars, Jupiter would never know this level of success. Even today, the ancient colony of Jovania existed under the protection of ancient domes and most of the inhabitants lived underground, seeing the sky through glass domes and protective windows only.
As Melbourne looked at the sight of the grand metropolis of Olympia, he found it difficult to believe that it had once been a mere grouping of space habitat modules founded by a group of settlers who had sold their homes and cars on Earth to go live in a spaceship they assengers." boomed a loud voice over an intercom, causing Melbourne to jump once more out of his thoughts. "Attention all passengers. We are approaching the Olympian Interplanetary Airport. Please proceed to your rooms and grab all your things to prepare to unboard. I repeat, please prepare to disembark. This will be the final stop for this airship. I hope you have enjoyed your flight. Have a good evening, ladies and gentlemen."got from Red Horizons Inc. in exchange like a twenty-first century Oregon Trail system.
"Attention, all passengers." boomed a loud voice over an intercom, causing Melbourne to jump once more out of his thoughts. "Attention all passengers. We are approaching the Olympian Interplanetary Airport. Please proceed to your rooms and grab all your things to prepare to unboard. I repeat, please prepare to disembark. This will be the final stop for this airship. I hope you have enjoyed your flight. Have a good evening, ladies and gentlemen."