I wanted to use a quote from the first page of text coming after the introduction to the novel. “We came here to make something new, and when we arrived our earthly differences fell away, irrelevant in this new world” (4). This seems to be a sort of declaration of intent as to what the group going to mars intends to accomplish with their journey. I believe that this passage is far too idealistic and that it could never actually work out the way that they are describing. Specifically, I think that this description attributes the problems on earth to an environment issue where, in reality, people are the issue. I think that people on Mars will be just as bad as people on Earth. I’ve obviously only read a small section of this novel so far, but I think this is going to be a sort of ironic foreshadowing for the rest of the novel. I do not think there is any way that the group traveling to Mars will somehow leave behind the problems that they created on earth. I think that humans interacting with other humans always cause a number of problems that are natural to the human condition. Mars will come to be a new location for these conflicts, but I think the group will still recreate these issues afresh on Mars. I think this is alluded to by how the mission is proceeded by race riots on earth. I think this is a symbol for how people create factions amongst themselves and then hurt others whom they perceive to be their adversaries. Potential issues that the Mars crew will face might be cliques forming in the crew (which we have already begun to see(, issues regarding who makes decisions or who is the leader of the group, how they interact with the land (i.e., natural disasters and unplanned events that not only put the crew at risk but force more tension on the group’s relationships) and potentially ruining Mars via pollution and other effects that humans have on land. This would draw a lot of parallels on the imperialism themes we have discussed with other novels. I think that Mars will be more of a colony of earth than a real, fresh start. The crew might take resources from Mars until the planet is uninhabitable. They might also do something terrible to the water supply to make it useless. I think there are a lot of different ties to imperialism that could potentially play out thus far with the plot I’m aware of.