The Black Ocean

"Water is the source of life, it is what makes possible all that we are. On Mars water was precious, no oceans or lakes upon its surface, it was barren and cold. What we did not know, was what might come of that which gave life, for it changed ours, and we became something more." - Pytor Belacov, Guild Founder

When man came to Mars the most important resource the required was water, and they found some locked beneath its surface and in the ice caps at the poles. It was all they had and they had to make it last. They used it to grow food, and to drink and to bathe sparingly. Some got more exposure to it's unique biological make up, despite filtering the compounds remained, too small to be caught in the filters. These eventually changed some, and the one who got the most was Reginold, at first it brought clarity of the stars beyond, second it brought a desperate urge to stand upon the unprotected surface above them. and third came the gasping need for water, to be submerged in it and drawing oxygen from what was dispersed within it. Reginold was going to die, and quickly on the dry surface of Mars.

But he didn't. He survived, he took a small vessel barely big enough to hold the tank he was bound to. The universe answered when he asked and like a fish in the ocean he moved through liminal space, it was natural, as natural as the water pulsing through gills. And mankind entered a new age, an age of travel beyond our star, where only once had a man mad object left the sun's influence...now men wandered the galaxy. Pilots the guiding light, all thanks to the water beneath the surface of Mars.