Humans arrived on Mars three years ago to the accolades of those in power. The first to arrive were the Japanese followed closely by the British and then the other powers of note. The opportunities were thought to be endless and an almost gold-rush mentality by governments ensued; each sending as much as they could to the red planet without endangering their holdings on Earth. Aether travel was expensive but it was thought that the riches found on Mars would more than compensate the expenditure.
The first contact between human and Martian was not without it's problems; language being one of them but a professor from Cambridge specialising in anthropology was quick to pick up on the Martian language, noting various similarities between some of the ancient tongues used on earth thousands of years ago. This in itself brought up more questions than answers and there is now a strong scientific population on Mars studying the indigenous population as much as they can (or will be allowed).
One of the other problems was the human trait of greed, which can effect the best man given the right circumstances. Various raw minerals; rare on Earth were to be found with abundance but mining them was to prove difficult. A type of Martian unbeknownst to the humans was incredibly protective of their territory, destructively so. Several mining camps and expeditions have recently fallen to the 'Sky Martians' without the humans finding out much more about them than the scattered eyewitness accounts that tend to be dismissed as the ravings of lunatics.
The Humans have made several beachheads on Mars itself with the largest; New Victoria being almost the size of a small city. The British and Japanese enlisted the help of the 'City Martians' in building the walls of New Victoria and these have now become a wonder of the Victorian age: not only for their size but also the speed in which they were built and their scope. A railway network has also been developed and expanded since the first year of colonisation and it now connects several of the larger human settlements and is continually growing, bringing civilisation to the remotest parts of the human colonies.
The Sky Martian problem is becoming more apparent as more camps and facilities are falling quiet. Even the journalists are taking a heavy toll, some expeditions into the interior not coming back at all.
What will happen when the Earth powers band together and stop their petty squabbles. What will happen when the Sky Martians show their true strength: as it is believed that what has been witnessed so far is but a small taster of what is to come...
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