The Lunar United Colony Youth had banked on Mars becoming the next cradle for mankind after the Earth had spontaneously become an asteroid belt. Stealing as many supplies as they could get away with, they had chartered a wealthy aristocrat’s space yacht. Some other ships had opted to join in for the ride.

However, Mars had no magnetic field, and the solar wind was more than able to blast its atmosphere away. The engineers in LUCY began to devise a way to jump-start Mars’ interior dynamo, and to bring gas and water to its surface.

The small flotilla beat a retreat to the asteroid belt, specifically to an abandoned experimental military base called Habitat Six, where they began to prepare themselves. The local belters were wary of their presence at first, but eventually, diplomacy was initiated, and the two decided to join forces in establishing Mars as the new frontier for mankind.