Mars and Venus

Mars and Martians:

The Red Planet lacks seas and oceans, but is capped at both poles by vast amounts of ice, with water continuously melting at the fringes of the poles to run across the planet in several large rivers that have been formed over the millennia.

Large areas of Mars is located too far away from the rivers to benefit from the water being transported in them, leaving them as nothing more than nearly lifeless red deserts, in stark contrast to the flora and fauna that exists along the banks of the rivers. Now, while the discovery of any form of life on Mars was a sensation in and of its own, the first explorers' stumbling across intelligent forms of it must count as perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of all mankind.

And while Mars seems to be bereft of mammals, all life seems to be developed from lizards, Science has been left to wonder how it is that the Martians are almost exactly similar in their appearance to us humans. While evolutionary scientists and others argue over how the similarities between humanity and a wholly foreign species can be that great, the main thing to remember is that the only thing that the only way in which one can definitely tell a Martian apart from a human is to look for a bellybutton, which the Martians lack, as they were hatched rather than born.

Other than that, the Martians are strikingly similar to humans in their outward appearance, though the lower gravity of Mars means that they are on average a few inches taller than humans.

There have been many reasons given as to why humanity has yet to colonize Mars, but the more cynical of commentators have observed that it might not so much have to do with the logistic challenges of getting people to the Red Planet, particularly now as the means of transportation are rapidly becoming available in greater numbers, nor with the obvious sophistication of Martian society, which consists of dozens of civilized city-states that lay along the banks of the great Martian rivers and which have populations that range from hundreds of thousands up to a few million, but with the fact that the Martians complexion is very similar to that of Caucasians. The Martians' skin however is more bronzed than what is normal for Europeans, though it is unknown if that is inherent or a result of a combination of the climate and one aspect of Martian culture that humans have been particularly intrigued by.

With no large mammals around, fur has never been available to make clothes out of, and nor does there exist any equivalents to materials such as cotton, which in turn has ensured that the Martians have had to depend on two materials from which to make clothes: Martian silk, which is very similar to its Earthen counterpart, and a glossy, stretchable fabric first developed in the great city of L'tex.

With the areas available for cultivation being so restricted in relation to the Martian population, and food being more important than clothes in the warm climate of Mars, the Martians have developed styles of dress that are entirely different from those of Victorian Britain, something which is particularly noticeable when the average Martian woman tends to be substantially more curvaceous than her opposite number back on Earth.

Venus and Venusians:

While the Martians might be a strange species that has left the scientists of Earth confounded as to their exact nature and how exactly that they've evolved as they have, that's nothing in comparison to how those same scientists have reacted to the Venusians.

Venus consists primarily of water, which covers about nine tenths of the planet's surface, while its proximity to the sun has resulted in it having a tropical climate that has spurred the growth of thick jungles that covers much of the planet's sole continent, with the coasts of said continent and islands that litters the planet's vast oceans being slightly less densely covered in plants and trees. Curiously enough, tropical plants identical to those found on Earth have been discovered on Venus.

Unlike what is the case with Mars, there are mammal species on Venus, one of which is the Venusians themselves. And unlike the Martians, who are overwhelmingly similar to humans in their appearance, the Venusians are in fact human, though even they themselves have a hard time explaining how their ancestors managed to reach Venus.

Living in several small republics and kingdoms that are spread out along the coast of the sole continent or located on the islands outside it, the Venusians are divided into various ethnicities that are essentially identical to those that exists on Earth. It might come as a shock though to phrenologists and supporters of theories about the existence of a natural racial hierarchy to learn that this ethnic or racial differences are far less important to Venusians than which nation one belongs to, with there being several instances of Whites being ruled by Black or Asian rulers without them raising any objections about it.

More curious still is that the Venusian lingua franca is Latin, for reasons that remain unknown.

Much like the Martians, the Venusians hold views on how to dress and what's permissible sexual behaviour that are progressive enough that most traditional British gentlemen find them to be downright scandalous. Still, this hasn't stopped many of the younger generation of the Great Powers' upper classes to be inspired by the depictions of these peoples' styles of dress, resulting in a new fashion that emphasises clothing that highlights ones physical attributes and leaves as much skin exposed as possible.

Another Venusian similarity to the Martians is that their women tend to be of a more curvaceous and voluptuous build than those on Earth, while a healthy diet and an insistence on women being active contributors of society has also had an effect on their appearance, leading to an higher average level of fitness than what is the case on Earth.

The Terrestrial presence on Mars and Venus:

As of early summer 1885, the great powers of Earth, minus the United States and Russia, all maintain a diplomatic and military presence on Mars. The presence on Venus is much more tenuous, due to the high risk of disease that faces any Terrans who venture onto the planet. Even along the coastline, staying there for more than a few days is practically a guarantee that a Terran will succumb to the tropical diseases that the Venusians all seem to be immune from.

Unlike what's happening in Africa, this presence has not made itself manifest through direct conquest of any areas, as the logistical challenges involved in getting enough troops to either planet to actually manage to conquer even the lesser of the Venusian and the Martian states are currently too great, while the advanced nature of both civilizations is so self-evident that it makes it very hard, if not impossible, to justify any acts of expansionism with talk of the White Man's Burden and so forth.

Instead, the great powers have put a considerable amount of effort into establishing diplomatic and commercial links with various states, offering manufactured goods and military training and support in return for natural resources and military access.

At the same time, both Britain and Germany have managed to establish orbital stations above both planets, while the French Foreign Legion has erected a large base in the desert separating two of Mars' largest rives from each other, from which they're ready to be rapidly deployed in support of the Third Republic's closest allies.. Up until this point, a few local conflicts have taken place where military advisors and support units from the great powers have found themselves fighting against each other.