Wikitravel:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense/Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, and the first body other than Earth to be permanently settled. Mars has one of the most vibrant and thriving economies, peaceful stable society and government, highly diverse in almost every way, ranking high on all human development indices. Immigration to Mars is still high and likely to remain so, this has lead to a very diverse culture across the planet.
Mars, being a planet, is huge (about equal to all land area of Earth), and it is unrealistic to expect to see all of Mars in a short period of time. While being smaller than Earth, the features of the planet tend to dwarf parallels on Earth, with Olympus Mons far taller and larger than any mountain on Earth and the Valles Marinares system far larger than any canyons or mountain valleys on Earth. One of the first things Terrans will notice about Mars (especially if visiting a smaller body for the first time) is the gravity. The gravity on Mars is about 0.3G or about one third that on Earth. Even knowing this, experiencing less than 1G for the first time is quite an experience for all and sometimes even a bit disconcerting for some initially. However most get used to it rather quickly, only a few days at most, and many have commented that Martian G feels like the perfect G for humans, enough pull to keep things securely down, light enough to make movement easy (once one gets used to it). This lower gravity is the reason for the greater height in natives and part of the reason traveling to Earth can be so dangerous for natives. For Terrans planing to return shortly, many cities offer discounted or free gym access and/or weighted suits and boots to simulate a higher G on the body so as to ease their return to Earth; similar to the exoskeleton suits provided to native Martians (or natives of other lower gravity worlds) visiting Earth.
The Martian Dichotomy is the most prominent feature of the planet, with the northern hemisphere mostly below the datum (de facto sea level) and the southern above, with the exceptions of the Elysium bulge forming a small continent-island in the northern Vastitas Ocean and the Hellas Sea and Argyre basin in the south. Both Vastitas and Hellas are home to a number of Townships, self-sufficient free-floating settlements which sail around endlessly making use of and taking care of the water off which they live. Occasionally those small enough will travel from one body to the other via the Grand Canal.
The Tharsis Bulge is the other most prominent feature, being an area of land significantly higher in altitude than the rest of the planet, with the famous volcanos of the Tharsis Montes and Mount Olympus reaching out of the atmosphere even after reaching habitable levels at the lower altitudes. Thus much of the Tharsis region is still close to the aboriginal state of the planet (and thus where most Reds chose to live)
While a contentious issue throughout Martian history, with views varying from worry over lack of assimilation/integration, pushing out natives, to simply more people than the planet could support at the time, immigration to Mars has become a fairly easy and streamlined process. The antagonism toward immigration has largely died down with a culture of actively helping immigrants to settle in and adapt to Martian society, rather than let antagonism push immigrants to withdraw into themselves away from the larger Martian society. The Martian government establishes a quota for immigrants from Earth (planetary basis, not by nation), a figure which it readjusts each M year (Martian year, aprox 2 Earth year), based on estimates of current capacity minus estimates for indigenous population growth (Martian law encourages a policy of one child born to a couple or individual). In interest of keeping on good terms with Earth, Mars tries to keep the quota as open as possible.
Those planing to stay temporarily (non immigrant) apply within a separate quota, the basic process is the same, only different fees and categories. As there are many applying for both temporary and immigrant visas, the government chooses applicants largely by lottery till the quota for the M year is filled (if applying with a group such as a family, the whole group will be added once one application from the group is drawn, so being in a group increases ones chances). To keep from forming a waiting list, all applications are thrown out for the M year after the quotas are filled so those who don't make it thru must reapply for the next M year. If one has applied once before, that information is kept in a database to facilitate reapplication in the following year, the data will be automatically deleted if not reapplied over two concurrent M years. No fees are paid for applying, only if/when ones application is accepted.
To keep as removed from Terran politics as possible, the Martian government primarily deals with Earth thru the UN. Mars keeps an Embassy near the UN headquarters (the only official Martian embassy on Earth) and the UN has an embassy (the Embassy of Earth) in Mangala with a consulate in Sheffield. Many Terran governments in working with the UN have established joint UN-Martian consulates in their capitals and other large cities to facilitate issues and services between Mars and the various Terran governments. All such consulates are connected directly to the embassy at the UN and under its direct jurisdiction, but in practice the Martian foreign office gives much of the work to the outer consulates to better cater to local laws customs issues and such and the Embassy focuses more on coordination of the consulates and larger issues between the planets as wholes.
As it deals with Earth at large (thru the UN) Mars accepts passports from all UN member states. It even recognizes and accepts those from non UN recognized nations on a case by case basis, which for the most part has been any nation which declared independence and has some level of independent organization from its parent nation (namely enough to issue passports). There has occasionally been some complaints as to some of the unrecognized nations accepted by Mars, there have yet to be any official statement or action taken on this (likely to keep their own relation with Mars open). There are also several unofficial Martian embassies around Earth which are not linked in any way to the Martian government. These are independently run by various groups who work to assist those wanting to go to Mars, coming from Mars, or simply want to better understand Mars. These have been referred to as Martian fan clubs to Terrestrial Martians (Terrans who are Martian in spirit)
Mars' primary gateway is the Martian Orbital Elevator, based in orbit at Clarke II and joins the ground socket in Sheffield at the base of Pavonis Mons
Due to the history (an continuing) of high and diverse imigration, every major Terran language is present as are many smaller languages and the prevelence of AI translators facilitates a highly multilingual society without the need of a lingua france. Due to the unique history and culture of Mars, English, Russian, Arabic, and Japanese have become the most promonent with most able to speak at least one. All official documentation is produced in at least these languages, and available in any other by request (mostly made available online by linguistic coops). Many words and phrases of these have entered the everyday lexicon of Martians in whichever language they speak, almost creating Martian varieties of many languages, at least colloquially. Many settlements have established local culturally quasi-official languages as a primary language for aesthetic or cultural reasons, but these are merely superficial making it the nominal default while still making sure to guarantee and promote citizens multilingual rights and resources. Many within cities (especially smaller ones) will learn a/the language of their city as a form of local pride, even while maintaining any other languages they may learn from family or friends for personal pride. Every Martian past early age is at least bilingual, many polyglots, being monoglot is a clear sign that one is foreign or new to Mars. Only a very few who dedicate their lives to a specific lifestyle or tradition will become monoilngual in practice, tho they still will be able to at least understand some other language even if they refuse to speak it. Some settlements attempted (and succeded)to revive some old Terran languages that were dying out or had died out due to cultural political and economic pressures, inculding some Amerindian and Australian Aboriginal languages (tho this practice has been more prominent in the asteroids).
With the population coming from imigrants from all over Earth, the food of Mars is quite diverse. As different populations come across relatively new foods, different foods come in and out of fassion in different areas. All this mixing of different cuisines with different cuisines at different times in different places has led to a great growth in both establishment of traditional cuisines and a large number of widely varied fusion attempts constantly combining and recombining into many new forms, some finding their way back to Earth being known as Martian. There has even been some movement to create indigenous Martian food with plants and animals bread for Mars.