The Mud Map

Standalone · its own universe

Trials

Mars, colonized — and a colony that must choose who gets to found it will discover that the choosing is the catastrophe, not the scarcity that forced it.

Mars Penal Colony: Cross-Section Survey

Charted by Expeditionary Surveyor J. Shepherd for Unicore, v1.0. Trials moves down rather than across, so its chart is a cutaway — and safety runs deeper until the exact depth where it stops.

Mars Penal Colony: Cross-Section Survey — the chart for Trials, showing Landing field & comms mast, Colony facility zone, Fractured half — Malek's guards, Stable half — miners' quarters and other locations.

Where this is

The fourth planet of a system the space opera on the next shelf has been flying through the whole time — because Hestos is Sol.

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Drag to pan · scroll to zoom · click a star to fall into it

Open the whole chart — one sky, three shelves.

  • Landing field & comms mast
  • Colony facility zone
  • Fractured half — Malek's guards
  • Stable half — miners' quarters
  • The barred threshold
  • Agricultural cavern — GM crop rows
  • Algae growth trays
  • Natural void

Trials is charted at two scales, and the other one is a whole planet: Earth — a factbook for a world that lost.

The closed loop

Jillian Jaspers presents a sealed Martian ecosystem in four organisms. It genuinely closes — which is exactly what makes it horrifying.

The farms — The sealed caverns. The crop is the light source — bioluminescent bacteria living on the leaves — and the shallow trays between the rows are the iron-eating algae drinking that light. Nothing here comes from the sun.
The sealed caverns. The crop is the light source — bioluminescent bacteria living on the leaves — and the shallow trays between the rows are the iron-eating algae drinking that light. Nothing here comes from the sun.
Bioluminescent bacteria symbiotic on the leaf → green light Iron-eating algae red & green, engineered → oxygen Engineered earthworm aerates, fertilises → living soil The grootslang the worm, scaled → not controllable light feeds photosynthesis O₂ fills the cavern soil grows the plants "a few too many genes" SEALED FROM THE SURFACE the loop that feeds you is the loop that eats you
The ecosystem as presented — and as it actually ran

The crop is the light source. Bioluminescent bacteria live symbiotically on the leaves and glow; the algae has no light of its own and absorbs what the plants give off to run photosynthesis. Nothing in the cavern comes from the sun.

Mars is the feedstock. The algae is engineered to eat iron — on the one planet famous for being made of rust — and its byproduct is the oxygen pumped through sealed caverns. An engineered earthworm aerates and fertilises the soil beneath it all. A complete ecosystem, as Jaspers puts it.

And the failure is the same design, scaled. In the attempt to terraform a planet for life they experimented, in the words of the book, with a few too many genes and a few too many combinations.

Drawn from the final manuscript — the conference presentation by Jaspers, and the descent to the farms.

The game

Each teaches the one mechanism its book is actually about, and ends by saying what the model simplified.

  • Trials

    The Deep

    In a closed ecosystem the light is alive. Darkness is not the absence of a lamp — it is the absence of something living, so every dark stretch is a place the system already failed. The thing that failed it breathes what the plants do not.

    Play it

The cast

Where a reference sheet exists, the name shows the face.

  • Reference sheet for Jonah Shepherd See the sheet Jonah Shepherd Retired, tormented soldier. Secretly gene-enhanced. Exiled.
  • Evie Shepherd His wife, on Earth. Three children. Ends up inside a rebellion.
  • Reference sheet for Zoe See the sheet Zoe The girl Jonah protects underground. The first born of a new race.
  • Reference sheet for Jillian Jaspers See the sheet Jillian Jaspers The scientist. Presents at conferences. Funded by Unicore.
  • Reference sheet for Malek See the sheet Malek Self-crowned king of the convict camp. Collects useful minds.
  • Gov. John Wilkes Evie's ally on Earth, and her best hope of bringing Jonah home.
  • Reference sheet for Unicore See the sheet Unicore Mining and technology company. Funds the research. Asks few questions.

The book

Jacket copy, the opening pages, and where to buy it.

  1. Front cover of Trials Trials Published

Art

The canon plates. Draw from these and your piece will look like it belongs beside them.

Scenes

The midnight tribunal — Three officers, one man alone at a plain table, and a gallery with nobody in it. The verdict was written before the room was filled — which is why the room was never filled.
The midnight tribunal Three officers, one man alone at a plain table, and a gallery with nobody in it. The verdict was written before the room was filled — which is why the room was never filled.
Two camps, one hall — Orange on one side with the armory they seized, gray on the other behind their own wrecked machinery, and a stretch of floor down the middle that nobody stands in. The green at the back is the farms, still running.
Two camps, one hall Orange on one side with the armory they seized, gray on the other behind their own wrecked machinery, and a stretch of floor down the middle that nobody stands in. The green at the back is the farms, still running.
The fork in the tunnel — Up is lit and worked. Down is dark, barred, and green somewhere far below. Jonah takes the dark route because his training says to hide where nobody would follow — and the bars are spaced wide enough to let him.
The fork in the tunnel Up is lit and worked. Down is dark, barred, and green somewhere far below. Jonah takes the dark route because his training says to hide where nobody would follow — and the bars are spaced wide enough to let him.
The farms — The sealed caverns. The crop is the light source — bioluminescent bacteria living on the leaves — and the shallow trays between the rows are the iron-eating algae drinking that light. Nothing here comes from the sun.
The farms The sealed caverns. The crop is the light source — bioluminescent bacteria living on the leaves — and the shallow trays between the rows are the iron-eating algae drinking that light. Nothing here comes from the sun.
Spoilers for Trials — this is the thing the bars are for. Show it
The feeding ledge — It rises to full height and coils its lower body around a stalactite to extend its reach. The narrow shelf below is the feeding tray. The woman is not afraid of it.
The feeding ledge It rises to full height and coils its lower body around a stalactite to extend its reach. The narrow shelf below is the feeding tray. The woman is not afraid of it.

Documents

Unicore ecosystem schematic — The closed loop as its owners drew it: crop to algae bioreactor to earthworm to sealed cavern and back to crop. A proprietary handout, folded and foxed — the same four organisms Jaspers presents to her donors, with none of what they became.
Unicore ecosystem schematic The closed loop as its owners drew it: crop to algae bioreactor to earthworm to sealed cavern and back to crop. A proprietary handout, folded and foxed — the same four organisms Jaspers presents to her donors, with none of what they became.

Characters

Jonah Shepherd — Note the forearms: the scars healed too cleanly and too pale for their size. He was gene-enhanced during the war in Russia without being told, and his body has never stopped giving it away.
Jonah Shepherd Note the forearms: the scars healed too cleanly and too pale for their size. He was gene-enhanced during the war in Russia without being told, and his body has never stopped giving it away.
Jillian Jaspers — Composed, immaculate, entirely at ease on a stage — a conference speaker rather than anything spattered. The green underlight is the only hint of what she stands near.
Jillian Jaspers Composed, immaculate, entirely at ease on a stage — a conference speaker rather than anything spattered. The green underlight is the only hint of what she stands near.
Zoe — The jumpsuit is several sizes too big, and the bandage in the crook of her elbow is from the blood draw every arrival gets. That bandage is the thread tying her to the laboratory, and it belongs in every drawing of her.
Zoe The jumpsuit is several sizes too big, and the bandage in the crook of her elbow is from the blood draw every arrival gets. That bandage is the thread tying her to the laboratory, and it belongs in every drawing of her.
Malek — Convict orange cut and decorated into regalia, and a seat built from crates and machine parts. Self-crowned, and a recruiter rather than a brute — he collects useful minds.
Malek Convict orange cut and decorated into regalia, and a seat built from crates and machine parts. Self-crowned, and a recruiter rather than a brute — he collects useful minds.

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