If you’ve seen the cover of “The Bride from Dairapaska,” you’ll see a mother running through a field with her children. An image designed to entice you to read the book (I hope), but one that also raises a question:
What’s with the green skin?
Normal Olde Earthe humans have skin in shades of, as Boris Slanz (you will meet him later) would tell you, every possible variety of dirt from palest sand to the richest loam.
There are a couple of reasons. Some are beneficial. One in particular was not, but not surprising if you know human nature.
Here’s what happened.
People on Mars have green skins for reasons decided by their Olde Earthe overlords. The settlers (both voluntary and involuntary) had no say in the matter. By the time Mars was ready for human inhabitants — after the terraforming by the seeding of lichens, molds, fungi, algae, and moss had been under way for generations — Olde Earthe had mastered genetic manipulation.
But there was a problem to solve before the settlers could settle. Space travelers suffered from vitamin deficiencies; specifically, vitamins C and D. Both are vital for human health.
Vitamin D can be synthesized within the body when the person regularly receives sunshine on the skin. Mars is much, much farther away from the sun than Olde Earthe, so the corresponding amount of sunshine is much less. It was relatively easy for scientists to reengineer human genetics to better use sunshine to produce vitamin D.
Getting enough vitamin C posed a more difficult problem. The body can’t manufacture it, nor can we store it, and we have to get vitamin C every day. Vitamin C deficiencies are nasty, leading to scurvy. Literally, the body falls apart. The teeth loosen and old wounds reopen.
Colorful fruits and vegetables are the usual source of vitamin C, and we’ve known this for a long time. Many peasant cultures, for example, celebrate the first days of spring by brewing tonics with the earliest growth. Those tonics were full of vitamin C and the people who drank them restored their health.
Again, the answer was found in genetic engineering. Chlorophyll was spliced into the gene pool.
Surprising Side-Effects
The earliest colonists and settlers knew they would undergo the reengineering process, that it would be permanent and their descendants would retain this ability.
What they weren’t told was that it would change their skin color.
To their shock, consternation, fear, panic, and anger, they developed green skin, and so would their descendants. The wealthiest families settling Mars, the families who purchased and founded demesnes and became Mars own, home-grown aristocracy also weren’t told.
The new skin color took time to develop, allowing the treatment to be done on Olde Earthe (where the advanced medical facilities were available) but with the results showing up several years later. Your starting skin color, whatever shade from sand to loam it was, didn’t have any effect on what shade of green you developed. They discovered that people turned into a variety of shades of green, ranging from almost yellow to a very dark hunter-green to green that shaded strongly into blue.
Cultural Changes
There were interesting side-effects from this process. Art, design, cosmetics and clothing styles adopted to green skin. Martians learned to feel pride in their color. They embraced their green skin as a way to distinguish them from Olde Earthe residents.
Spoken less often was the realization that green symbolized how Olde Earthe regarded them: a resource to be used.
As on Olde Earthe, people developed prejudices based on the color of your skin. The “best,” most aristocratic shade of green was a true, grassy emerald. Coincidentally, this was the color frequently sported by the paying colonists who founded the demesnes. Their skins were green tending towards gold and yellow.
While the genetic engineering left you with green skin, it did not pass true through the generations. Your kids and grandkids wouldn’t necessarily sport the same color you had. They could have a wildly different shade of green while still being completely yours genetically.
Another side effect was the unevenness of the skin color. Many people were born with “yellows”. Their skin tone was blotchy with light-yellow patches, ranging from freckles to hand-size or bigger.
It didn’t harm your health, but it did affect your standing in society. Evenness became a standard for beauty. The more even the tone, the more beautiful you were. It became so important that a person with an uneven emerald color was consider less beautiful / handsome than someone with a “lesser” but even color.
There was a gender difference as well. Yellows in a woman was considered more of a flaw than in a man. Most men didn’t care as much about their skin tone. Most women did, especially if their yellows showed up on their face.
The Meaning of the Greening
But there was one secret that, when it came out, sealed the Martian settlers resentment toward their Olde Earth overlords:
The greening didn’t have to happen.
The same genetic engineering was performed on the colonists settling Mercury, the LaGrange points, the cloud cities on Venus, on Luna, the asteroid belts, the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, even at the bases on faraway Pluto.
But those colonists did not get the green skin. Only the Martians.
The reason why was insidious. First, Mars was the only planet other than Olde Earthe that could sustain life outside. Every other colony, including those developed on Jupiter’s moons, required pressure suits and domes to keep out the vacuum of space and keep in air. Mars was unique.
Terraforming Mars came at a great cost. Olde Earthe was pouring immense quantities of money and resources into making it habitable. Olde Earthe leaders expected a return on their investment. They wanted a second earth. When the terraforming was complete, the plan called for select residents of Olde Earthe — only the best people, don’t you know — would move to Mars, take control of their estates, and assume their rightful place as rulers.
This meant they had to clearly distinguish who was who; who mattered and who did not. Who was a slave and born to serve and who was born to rule.
The green skin was a deliberate marker so that everyone knew at a glance who were the peasants. The future slaves and peasants, even those currently on top of the heap as Mars’ home-grown aristocracy, were permanently classed by their skin color. Even the children born of liaisons between an Olde Earther and a Martian settler would bear the green skin as a marker.
There is still a long-lasting suspicion that Olde Earthe scientists did other kinds of genetic meddling as well. They know of some that worked, and some that failed. They suspect that there are experiments that have yet to come to fruition or be triggered, and that attitude is a factor in all their dealings with Olde Earthe.