How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Line)
Quote #1
"You can't keep Mars for yourselves, John, it's not a scientific station anymore, and you're not going to get a treaty that makes it one." (1.2.84)
The opening scene hints at the transformations to come. Yes, the technical term for this is foreshadowing.
Quote #2
"We'll change [Mars] just by landing." Russell brushed aside Ann's objections as if they were spiderwebs on his face. "Deciding to go to Mars is like the first phrase of a sentence, and the whole sentence says—"
"Veni, vidi, vici." (2.2.43-44)
Any time you perform an action, you change the world. But don't put too much pressure on yourself—technically, you're changing the world just by breathing, if you think about it.
Quote #3
"It's unscientific! And so I say that among all the many things we transform on Mars, ourselves and our social reality should be among them. We must terraform not only Mars, but ourselves." (2.4.140)
Transformation isn't just something that happens in Red Mars, it can also be a choice. And since it's going to happen anyway, the characters might as well try to choose the transformation.
Quote #4
She hit the ground with both feet solid, nothing tricky about it, the g familiar from nine months in the Ares; and with the suit's weight, not that much different from walking on Earth, as far as she could remember. (3.2.1)
Wow, even memories can't be trusted in this novel. At least, we think…?
Quote #5
Finally a dinner call from the rovers brought them back. And walking down over the contoured terraces of sand, Nadia knew that she had changed—that, or else the planet was getting much more strange and beautiful as they traveled north. Or both. (3.5.49)
Elsewhere in this section, we talk about how people change the world but also how the world changes them. In other words, transformation.
Quote #6
First, because almost every model of the planet's formation indicated that there should have been a lot of water outgassing, and it had to have gone somewhere. And second, John thought, because there were a lot of people who would be comforted if the oceanic model were true; they would feel less uneasy about the morality of terraforming. Opponents to terraforming, therefore… (5.2.82)
Here's an odd thought: people searching for evidence of the transformation of Mars, so they won't feel bad about… transforming Mars. People are odd sometimes.
Quote #7
"It's a kind of gerontological therapy. An experimental procedure. Somewhat like an inoculation, but with a DNA strengthener. Repairs broken strands, and restores cell-division accuracy to a significant degree." (5.6.21)
Here's a question for you: does the gerontological therapy transform what it means to be human or merely strengthen it? Good luck with this one; it's a doozie.
Quote #8
"Maybe that's why things are getting so strange these days, everyone talking about ownership or sovereignty, fighting, making claims. People squabbling like those old gods on Olympus, because nowadays we're just as powerful as they were."
"Or more," Nadia said. (5.8.63-64)
Does humanity become as powerful (or more so) as gods? We're not sure, but we are reasonably sure that the ancient Greeks would find the internet pretty spectacular.
Quote #9
[…] so that it's in the nature of an act of genetic engineering what we do here, we have the DNA pieces of culture all made and broken and mixed by history, and we can choose and cut and clip together from that's best in that gene pool, knit it all together the way the Swiss did their constitution, or the Sufis their worship, or the way the Acheron group made their latest fast lichen […]. (5.10.105)
John suggests a recipe for transforming our society: keep the good stuff, get rid of the rest. Seems to be pretty easy, but as we see, it's not so easy to agree on the good stuff.
Quote #10
To have to be in Burroughs in person—as if one's physical presence made any difference these days! It was an absurd anachronism, but that's the way people were. Another vestige of the savannah. They lived like monkeys still, while their new god powers lay around them in the weeds. (6.4.3)
Everything comes back to that savannah with Frank. He has a point, though—imagine what he'd say if his universe had Facebook.