Mars

Mars (also known as Sol IV) was a planet in the Sol system, inhabited by the Ice Warriors and later by human colonists.

Features
Only Mars and Peladon contained deposits of the valuable ore, trisilicate. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)

Remote past
The Fourth Doctor theorised that, circa 12 million BC, the Fendahl passed from its homeworld to Mars on its way to Earth, fleeing the efforts of the Time Lords to trap it in a time loop. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

The age of the Ice Warriors
The first sentient race on Mars were the Martian civilisation who would later be known as the Ice Warriors. They were originally peaceful, honour bound beings who were artisans as well as builders. They hunted only for food and never fought one another and thus never experienced any form of war. Whilst favouring colder climates, they populated the equator of Mars; their shell-shaped buildings were designed to reflect heat. In this period, their world was vibrant and alive. Water was plentiful and there were canals on the planet. The Martians lived in peace for twelve thousand years. This civilisation was shattered when a segment of the Key to Time was discovered by time travellers. Its removal led to the creation of a gravity well that devastated the planet.

For the next three decades, the civilisation was devastated by climatic changes. Some among the Martians managed to get off world. Those on Mars fought among themselves for food and shelter, becoming a warrior race. After another thirty years, the energies from the stolen piece of the Key to Time were spent and the ground settled. The remaining Martians emerged onto their world to rebuild their civilisation. However, it was the Ice Lord Izdaal who discovered that the damaged atmosphere meant that ultraviolet radiation led to many of their children were sickly. He declared that Mars was no longer capable of supporting life but was ignored. He stood before the "Red Dawn" and was killed by the radiation. This showed that the world was dying. This led both to the salvation of the race as well as their transformation into a conqueror species. (AUDIO: Red Dawn, AUDIO: The Key 2 Time - The Judgement of Isskar)

By human prehistory, the Ice Warriors already possessed spaceflight. With their ecosystem dying and becoming more inhospitable, the Ice Warriors, led by Varga, sent an expedition to Earth, but the ship crashed and was frozen in a glacier where it would remain for millennia. (TV: The Ice Warriors)

The Osirians
Around the 8th Millennium BC, the last flowers on Mars died out. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

Around 5000 BC, the Osirians reached Mars and set up underground bases beneath pyramids that they built. Sutekh was imprisoned in a tomb in Egypt and kept in a state of paralysis by an energy beam transmitted from the main pyramid on Mars itself. A warning message, Beware Sutekh was broadcast continually by radio (TV: Pyramids of Mars).

Early 20th century
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw, among other things, men on Mars. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)

In 1911, Laurence Scarman picked up this signal on his marconiscope. That same year, Sutekh escaped from his ancient bonds. (TV: Pyramids of Mars)

On 30 October 1938, many humans across the United States took Orson Welles's radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds literally, and believed that Martians had really invaded. (AUDIO: Invaders from Mars)

Later 20th century
Mars was a target of a series of British manned space probes overseen by the British Space Centre (a renamed British Rocket Group) and constructed with International Electromatics technology. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) Mars Probe 6 and Mars Probe 7 made contact with a group of peaceful, radioactive humanoids. Another spacecraft, Recovery 7, entered Mars orbit to determine what had happened to earlier probes. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death)

According to one account, an international mission to Mars shortly after led to contact with the Zoltans, which was made public knowledge and led to a media frenzy. (PROSE: Soldiers from Zolta)

In 1977, Britain's Mars Probe 13 astronauts accidentally wandered into the city of the Argyre Clan Ice Warriors and were slaughtered after they spied on a research facility. To appease the Ice Warriors, the British government's representative, Minister Grayhaven, had mission commander Alexander Christian framed for the astronauts' deaths and imprisoned. He agreed to ensure humanity would not return to Mars. For the next two decades, the British secret service spread disinformation that Mars was uninhabitable and sabotaged NASA data in order to discourage Mars missions. In actual fact, Mars' atmosphere was breathable. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

In 1994, Joseph Rennigan, a lone human astronaut marooned on desolate and lifeless Mars, found himself aided by unseen friends, namely the First Doctor and his companions. (PROSE: Rennigan's Record)


 * The Doctor refers to an extinct Martian civilisation whose intelligence and beauty far surpassed that of his own people, which doesn't seem likely to be a reference to either the Ice Warriors or the Osirians.

In 1997, Britain returned to Mars with the Mars 97 mission - a deliberate plan by Grayhaven and Argyre Clan Lord Xznaal to give the Ice Warriors a pretence for a "retaliatory" conquest of the United Kingdom, with Grayhaven placed in power as a Prime Minister. When it turned out the Ice Warriors were using him for a pretext to wipe out and areoform Earth, Greyhaven wiped out the Argyre's nests on Mars with the Mars 97 Orbiter. Xznaal was defeated soon after by UNIT and the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

At some point, a probe found Martian DNA and took it back to Earth. This helped create the hybrid, Tanya Webster. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)

21st century
Circa the dawn of the 21st century, a space expedition funded by Leo Webster arrived on Mars in the Argosy to find an Ice Warrior and use it to create a clone army augmented by Ice Warrior biology and technology. The Argosy crew arrived in the tomb of Izdaal, whose guards were awoken from suspended animation. Paul Webster tried kidnapping Sub Commander Sstast, but the Argosy was shot down by the Ice Warriors. He tried escaping in the Ice Warriors' rocket with the Fifth Doctor and seventeen-year-old Tanya Webster as hostages.

Lord Zzaal allowed the Doctor and Tanya to escape Paul while Zzaal sacrificed himself to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. With Zzaal no longer in mortal danger, Sstast fired a sonic charge at Paul, killing him. Tanya stayed behind on Mars to became an ambassador for Earth. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)

On 31 October 2006, the Guinevere One was launched by the British Rocket Group for an intended landing on Christmas Day, but was intercepted by the Sycorax. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

On 31 July 2008, the NASA probe Phoenix confirmed the existence of liquid water on the planet. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

In 2010, a NASA probe landed on Mars. Sarah Jane used Mr Smith to shut it down before it got too close to an Osirian pyramid. (TV: The Vault of Secrets)

In 2041, a three-man mission landed on Mars. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

On July 2058, the first human colony was established, staffed by an international crew under Adelaide Brooke. On the 21st November 2059, the base was overrun by a sentient, water-based lifeform and the base was destroyed to prevent it reaching Earth. Originally, nobody survived; the Tenth Doctor altered time, saving Brooke and two other crew members (though Brooke would kill herself soon after). (TV: The Waters of Mars)

The Ice Warriors had not given up their ambitions to colonise Earth. A strike team was sent to take control of T-Mat, and use it to transport seed pods to Earth that were designed to terraform its environment to an environment more suited to them. (TV: The Seeds of Death)

In the 2080s, the Ice Warriors fought and lost the Thousand Day War with Earth, opening up the planet for human colonisation and exploitation. (PROSE: Transit)

The human colonisation of Mars commenced in 2095. (PROSE: Beige Planet Mars)

Colonisation period
By the early 22nd century, Mars had been partially terraformed into a tourist resort for the wealthy. As the seas and canals were not red enough for the tourists, cranberry juice was poured into them. This human activity led to malevolent, formless entities escaping from the sea's reflective surface; the Ninth Doctor and Rose defeated them. The Doctor believing the threat of the entities returning would force humanity to treat Mars with respect. (COMIC: The Cruel Sea) Later in the 22nd century, Mars had ceased being a pure resort and had residential settlements.

The Seventh Doctor and his companions visited Mars during the period of the Dalek occupation of Earth. (PROSE: GodEngine)



Shortly after the Dalek defeat, Anji Kapoor was stranded on Mars for four years. At this time, Ice Warriors would sometimes stage attacks on human workplaces in an attempt to gain independence from humanity; these attacks largely failed. (PROSE: Fear Itself)

By the 26th century, the time of Bernice Summerfield, scholars like Benny herself devoted themselves to the study of Ice Warrior culture. (PROSE: Transit)

In 2545, during the Dalek War, the Daleks were able to seize control of Mars due to a failure to deploy Mars' nuclear deterrent. They would be eventually driven off-world by Earth and its allies. By 2595, humans celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the start of human colonisation. (PROSE: Beige Planet Mars)

In the 27th century, Mars' President Lithops commissioned the development of a time machine. Alien assassins attempted to use it to erase his timeline; the Tenth Doctor stopped them and destroyed the unsafe machine. (COMIC: Bus Stop)

Further on
Circa the 39th or 40th century, Mars and the Ice Warriors were part of a Galactic Federation that included Earth, Alpha Centauri and Arcturus. The presence of trisilicate made the planet politically important. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)

In the year 4000 Mars was one of the key targets for the Dalek takeover of the Solar System. (TV: Mission to the Unknown)

In the 40th century, Space Security agent Bret Vyon was born in Colony 16 (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)


 * The First Doctor also knew Bret's sister, Sara Kingdom. We do not know if she also grew up on Mars.

In the 82nd century, Mars was privately owned by Josiah W. Dogbolter. (COMIC: The Moderator)

By the year 200,000, Mars was home to a university of questionable reputation. (TV: The Long Game)

One hundred years later, the planet was the subject of a question on the Game Station: it was determined, however, that the dish Gaffbeque originated on Lucifer, and not Mars. (TV: Bad Wolf)

Uncertain dates

 * Varga's frozen ship was discovered near Brittanicus Base by scientists during another Ice Age on Earth, and the thawed crew's attempt to seize the base was also stopped by the Second Doctor. (TV: The Ice Warriors)
 * Under the influence and control of the Usurians, a colony of humans temporarily moved to Mars, then on to Pluto after overpopulation had made Earth unlivable. (TV: The Sun Makers)
 * The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith visited a colonised Mars. (PROSE: Scarab of Death)
 * The Doctor again travelled to the planet with Leela and visited a terraformed, commercialised Mars abundant with commercialised imagery derived from human science fiction. (PROSE: Crimson Dawn)
 * The Seventh Doctor stated that Mars had been terraformed on four different occasions by four different races in a million year time frame. (PROSE: GodEngine)

Other References

 * The Museum of the Last Ones had specimens from Mars. (PROSE: The Last Dodo)

Behind the scenes

 * Though unpublished during his lifetime, David Whitaker's short story Rennigan's Record is the earliest portrayal of Mars in the Doctor Who universe.
 * According to non-narrative information in DWBIT 49, the Daleks invaded Mars while on their way to Earth. Colonists fought back and, with the help of the Ice Warriors, created a virus which ate away at Dalek cable insulation. The Dalek forces were driven away from the colony and decided just to focus on the Earth.