Some say the Martians saved us. But it was a strange sort of salvation: it began with an explosion. Astronomers across Earth were shocked by the sudden red and green plume spouting from the surface of Mars. It had come out of nowhere and proceeded to eat away at the red planet's surface. Puzzled nations came together to unravel the mystery.
Where conflict and strife had once dominated humankind's interactions, now curiosity and fear of mutual annihilation brought our warring tribes together. As the days grew into months, and months into years, the puzzle remained unsolved, though the fires on Mars had died down to an eerie glow. Nevertheless, the urgency brought on by this distant enigma pushed new innovations forward. Breakthroughs in space travel, psychic evolution, and linguistic archaeology, to name a few, reformed our species. In the decades since what was called "the Mars Incident", mankind had learned to fly, if not amongst the stars, at least throughout its local environs, the solar system. And thus, journey we did, finally, to Mars, hoping that beneath the radioactive fallout was a secret worth the peril. However, in the 30 years since the explosion, none had guessed the incredible truth of what was to be found. Amidst shifting sands pushed by radioactive winds, brave scientists trodding the red clay of the surface with their geologic scanners discovered... another world. Or more precisely, a city, a metropolis buried for eons. Seven long years of digging revealed the vast wreckage of not just a single Martian civilization but a galactic hub of many long-dead alien races. A doomed conglomerate whose dreams had disappeared in the flash of a meteor strike. This enormous citadel of peace had been powered at the time by a mighty reactor which the catastrophe had rendered dormant. After thousands of years of decay without repair, the damaged reactor had finally erupted. And so, a Martian apocalypse a long, long time ago brought a new humankind to Mars, where we hover at a crater's edge, wondering at the vast machineries below, which somehow seem both ancient and new, quiet in demise and yet urging us to learn their diverse secrets. Our next evolution awaits in the Ruins of Mars.
Contents:
1 Planet Board4 Player Boards4 Tech Boards1 Oxygen Cost Track1 Language Board5 Character Cards48 Tech Cards12 Solo Tech Cards20 Language Markers4 Scoring Markers16 Resource Markers30 Radiation Tokens20 Hourglass Tokens1 Rover Meeple11 Action Tiles1 Wasteland Die
No. of Players: 1 to 4
Min. Age: 14