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Part 1 of a two disc concept album of a future civilization on Mars.

MARSTROPOLIS
CD Liner Notes

This double CD came about in a highly unusual way. I was browsing the Internet one night looking for video game cheat codes and ran across a site where a group of people are making another version of this game. Soon, I discovered they were looking for people to work on it; everyone from graphics to sound, design to testing, and music.
At that moment in time, the Muses sprinkled their magic gold dust over me. This is the only way I know how to describe it. I was instantly inspired and began writing and recording.
The result of this massive infusion of inspiration is the album MARSTROPOLIS, which took one month to the day for me to complete. The CDs are packed full of tunes ranging through a wide variety of styles. You will find New Age, Trance, Dance, Techno, World, Jazz Fusion, Rock & Roll, and combinations of all the mentioned styles. Even though the music is instrumental, there’s something here for everyone.
Below is a fictional look at a story of Mars, set in the future, with each track representing a part of the story. While you listen to the tracks, immerse yourself in this virtual, future world. Take in the sights and the sounds. Be sure to visit often. Once will never be enough.

Welcome To MARSTROPOLIS
You have stepped into the future, a future where the planet Mars has not only been colonized, but has become an independent society. As you step off the landing platform of your transport shuttle, you find yourself inside a busy spaceport connected to cities under protective domes. The surface of Mars is spotted with many a sprawling megalopolis, thriving and flourishing. Gleaming buildings a kilometer tall stretch into the sky. Lanes of traffic float over streets. Even though this isn’t Earth, or it’s moon, the feel is the same. People hurry off to jobs, they shop, eat, visit parks and beaches, or head home to houses constructed of geodesic domes; everything people normally do, simply set on another planet.
The music you will find in this collection was inspired by an idea for a video game. Allow yourself to be transported to a world much like home and feel your way through many styles and rhythms. Use your imagination to unlock the many awaiting pleasures. Enjoy your stay in MARSTROPOLIS.

Rob Astor

MARSTROPOLIS
Š 2005 By Rob Astor
All tracks composed, arranged, performed, recorded, and produced by Rob Astor.

CD Number 1

Red City Beat
Your journey within MARSTROPOLIS begins here. After leaving the spaceport, you will find yourself in a bustling city, sometimes larger than New York City, Los Angeles, and Tokyo combined. All around you, there is routine activity; passing hovercars, delivery trucks, pedestrians with jetpacks, launching and landing transport ships. You will find commercial districts, tall buildings, superhighways, hotels, restaurants, parks, beaches; anything you can possibly imagine or need. Mars enjoys prosperous times, having been independent from Earth for several decades. Much like any major city on Earth, it’s a busy place!

Quasi-Satellites
Sometimes, a comet or an asteroid strays to close to a larger body, causing it to take up an interacting orbit. The object will waltz around the larger body for a period of time before returning to its path around the sun. Years later, the object will draw near once again and stay for just a little while, repeating this process. Earth has one known such quasi-satellite, a part of an Apollo mission, man-made space debris wrenched into an orbit around the sun, returning every twenty-one years or so to interact with Earth. With travel from Earth between Mars and Jupiter commonplace, there are many stray pieces of machinery trapped in interacting orbits. Jupiter has also captured a number of small asteroids, some of them caught in these wildly tumbling circuits.

Techno Industry
Mars is home to a powerful and growing industry. The electronics boom has reached into every facet of daily life. From helmet-like headsets used to browse the Hypernet and view programming from the Holo-Entertainment Network, to portable music players and computers, to the robots manufactured to tend to homes, to the navigational devices used in all forms of transportation. Mars is to civilization what Silicon Valley once was to the computer industry.

5 Radons Please
No, no, no. Gibberish isn’t the second language on Mars. A Radon, the standard form of currency on the red planet, is the equivalent of the Japanese Yen, the Russian Ruble, the European Union’s Euro, and the American Dollar. The cost of catching an Air Bus, taking a Hover-Ferry, or parking your vehicle is often five Radons in MARSTROPOLIS. So, the first time you hear someone say, “Five Radons, please,” you’ll know they aren’t speaking nonsense.

A Clear Night In Star City
Star City is home to Mars’ publishing industry. Easily, this gem of Martian society is one of the best places to advance your education. Romance and creativity breed ideas for a prosperous future. A brand new genre of superhero stories was born here. One such story, recently made into a Holo-Entertainment flick, features a flight sequence through a quiet city night, high over the buildings while the pair of lovers remark of the beauty of the city, and its peacefulness, at this altitude. Take a ride in a hovercar and swoon through majestically glowing hyperscrapers, illuminating Star City in a wash of crystal light. Head out over the harbor and catch the stars reflecting off the water, mixed with the glowing reflection of the city’s structures on gently rippling water.

Gemini Delta
The Gemini Delta was first settled when the Valles Marineris Terraforming Project was launched. Twin deltas at the head of the valley allow the passage of the Mariner River, making this a prime spot for shipping. Old-fashioned riverboats paddle at leisurely speeds, transporting goods to other newly formed settlements. Positioned just south of Rigel Center, Gemini Delta boasts of an ethnic culture similar to New Orleans on Earth. Jazz Fusion is the popular form of music, and Martian Coniac flows as easy as the water in summertime. Many people fondly remember the days when a club called The Monkey Down was the city’s hotspot and where a little know Jazz singer named Janet Jetson got her start.

Falling Up
The world of sleep and dreams has always been a part of human kind. There have always been dreams more common than others. For example, dreaming of flying, or being nude in public are dreams everyone has had at some point in their lives. On Mars, a new class of dreams is emerging, a phenomena accredited to human exploration and expansion into the farther reaches of the solar system. Basically, the dream is of falling up into the sky. Dreamers find themselves laying on their backs looking at stars, or going about daily business only to find themselves drifting upward, floating between the giant hyperscrapers of the cities, until they are far above the planet and flying between stars. Psychologists attribute this to the human desire to continue pushing their limits and to develop distant worlds, and literally reach for the stars as it becomes more and more possible, and likely, mankind will one day touch them.

Copernicus Museum
Nicolaus Copernicus, long considered the father of modern astronomy, is best remembered for his Copernican Theory, placing the Sun at the center of the known universe, as opposed to the Earth. The vast majority of his contemporaries considered Copernicus’ Heliostatic Cosmology implausible, however, his most notable defenders included Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. Isaac Newton’s Theory Of Universal Gravitation provided strong theoretical underpinning for the Copernican Theory. Without a Sun-centered solar system, travel in space would have been impossible as known in modern times. Dedicated to the history of astronomy and space exploration in general, MARSTROPOLIS is home to the complex aviary-like structures that make up the Copernicus Museum. There are giant telescopes on display, and in use, as well as replicas of various space probes and launch vehicles. There is also a haunting tribute to the victims of the Epsilon Queen disaster, created from debris recovered from the asteroid belts. A monolithic metal slab bears the names and faces of those passengers and crew who perished decades ago.

Rigel Center
This is one of MARSTROPOLIS’ major melting pot ethnic centers. You will find people of every nationality and decent, creating a cultural tapestry invaluable to Mars’ future heritage.

Canopusopolis Carina
Welcome to the finest, most posh and luxurious resort getaway destination in MARSTOPOLIS. From its spacious suites, to its glittering pools, casino, and the absolute most delicious food found anywhere in the inhabited solar system, the Canopusopolis Carina will make your visit the most memorable experience imaginable. The staff is ready to serve you any time of the day or night.

New Pompeii
New Pompeii is a lovely settlement constructed with an Old World Italian flavoring imported from Earth. Sun-bleached buildings and columns surround spacious green parks, grape vineyards and delicate shorelines. Within its dome, citizens of New Pompeii lead simpler lives and lead them in quieter times, by choice and by seclusion from the more massive metropolises. This small city rests at the base of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano known in the solar system. The view is spectacularly breath taking from within the city limits. There are also daily expeditions to the mountain’s summit, as well as specialized mountain climbing groups. New Pompeii is becoming a popular getaway destination where Martian vacationers come to relax and unwind.

Tragedy Of The Epsilon Queen
In MARSTROPOLIS, the name Epsilon Queen is synonymous with the name Titanic. When space tourism was brand new, lanes opened between Mars and the Jupiter Colonies, to promote the expansion of civilization. Travel companies invested in a new breed of luxury starships, not unlike ocean liners back on Earth, and began offering cruises to Jupiter. The Epsilon Queen was the first large vessel to use sub-light pulse-fusion engines, a newer technology allowing ships to reach Jupiter in a fraction of the time it took previous crossings. While making one of it transits, the Epsilon Queen experienced navigational difficulties crossing the main asteroid belt nearest Jupiter. Complicating matters, the pulse-fusion engines were pushed to maximum thrust, compromising the ship’s structural integrity, something that had been a calculated risk when building these large craft. The sub-light thrusters broke free and blasted their way through the interior, disintegrating the Epsilon Queen. When rescuers reached the ship’s last point of contact, all that remained were shredded and pummeled debris. Much like the Titanic, the Epsilon Queen created a demand for higher safety standards, being the single worst space accident in the history of mankind. In the wake of the massive tragedy, hundreds of tests were conducted before sub-light engines were again used to take tourists to the Jupiter Colonies. And, much like the century after the Titanic, a number of highly popular stories were written and produced about the Epsilon Queen. The most enduring of these productions is what can best be described as an Avant Garde Opera continuing to enjoy success in MARSTROPOLIS, playing eight shows in six days at the Grand Metropolitan Opera Theatre. It is a Martial cultural staple every tourist plans for in his or her itinerary.

Walking Winds
Even though Mars’ atmosphere is tenuous compared to Earth’s, there are many weather patterns to contend with, often in the form of sandstorms. Some periodically envelop the entire planet. However, if you take an excursion beyond the cities on a warm clear day, you may find an abundance of Martian Dust Devils.

Pharaoh’s Garden
A few of Mars’ smaller cities were once under the rule of royalty before democracy became the leading form of government. Styling a kingdom like the ancient Egyptians of Earth, one ruler, a Pharaoh, created a sprawling garden next to a popular tourist beach under the constant vigil of a pyramid. The gardens contain the most rare plants bread on Mars, as well as cultivated in the Jupiter Colonies. The Pharaoh also recreated the fabulous hanging gardens of Ancient Babylon. Over one hundred years after its creation, Pharaoh’s Garden remains one of the most visited tourist destinations on Mars.

Dome’ville
“Good morning MARSTROPOLIS! It’s another beautiful day in the city. Plenty of sunshine with temperatures expected to top out in the mid-seventies. There’s a little congestion from the morning rush hour commute out on the Pathfinder Super Expressway heading to Dome’ville, but nothing to worry about. Grab a cup of hot Martian Java and keep it tuned right here on KSIM Radio for the best music to get your busy day underway. Here’s the latest from Janet Jetson.” This is what you might hear listening to the airwaves during a busy workweek some morning as the sun glitters through the city’s protective dome. The first major colonies were often called “Dome’ville”. The archaic slang term is now used to identify some of the more affluent shopping plazas and busy industrial parks, some of which reside in separate, smaller domes placed around the perimeter of the larger city center. Once inside them, you actually feel the heartbeat of Mars’ thriving civilization and seemingly never ending development.

Cyberflix
Much like Hollywood, California on Earth, MARSTROPOLIS has a booming entertainment industry. The Holo-Entertainment Network is one of the single largest corporations in the solar system, offering domestic programming, music, games, and movies, all in three-dimensional holograms. Earth produces a large share while Mars is easily surpassing with their output. Newest to the entertainment scene are the Jupiter Colonies. With technology making the process of creating quality material simple and much more inexpensive to produce than in decades past, the single largest share of the industry is now ruled by independent filmmakers. It’s easy to see your favorite actor or actress in a Hollywood style flick, and then catch them in a popular flick produced by someone relatively unknown to the industry proper. The same is true for music. Where once unknowns had no chance of exposure and success, now there is an outlet available to everyone.

Galaxy Groove
The newest dance craze to sweep through Martian nightclubs is as easy to learn as “The Twist” was a few hundred years ago on Earth. Spin around with your arms placed like the spiral arms of a galaxy and, at the right time, thrust your hips from side-to-side. See, wasn’t that easy? It’s the latest rave. All the young people are doing it!

Holographic Nightclub (Dance Of The Boytaurs)
Put on your finest neon, as in lights, and visit one of the most popular nightspots MARSTROPOLIS has to offer, the Holographic Nightclub. Here you will find people dancing to percussion heavy music all night long. Some patrons take the extra expense to have holographic projections added to their bodies, to transform them in some unique way. You might find yourself dancing or drinking with a small dinosaur, or someone with an extra set of arms or legs. At first, the experience is completely bizarre. Once you get used to it, and once you realize the imagination is limitless, all of the strangeness around you will ease into second nature.
(There is a private joke that goes with this track I want to share with you. I was writing a science fiction short story at the time I was recording MARSTROPOLIS where there is such a place as the Holographic Nightclub existing in the world of dreams. In one scene, there’s a male character with an extra set of legs; a “Boytaur”, like a Centaur from Greek Mythology; who does a dance. After I finished this track, and every time I listened to it, I kept thinking of the scene in this story. It would crack me up. Adding “Dance Of The Boytaurs” to the title felt natural, and quirky. Chalk it up to good imagination.)

Trans Polaris
Trade between Earth, the Jupiter Colonies, and MARSTROPOLIS wouldn’t be possible to a large extent without the enormous contributions of Mars’ premier delivery company, Trans Polaris. Whether it’s food, textiles, or building materials, Trans Polaris lives up to its slogan to, “Take your world to the stars.” In fact, a long running commercial on domestic channels of the Holo-Entertainment Network contains one of those advertising jingles almost impossible to get out of your head once you’ve heard it. “Waiting for my love, oh where can she be? She left home yesterday to come be with me. Waiting for my love, oh where can she be? I’m counting on Trans Polaris to make a delivery.” At the end of the commercial, a young lady pops up out of a box with a dozen fresh red roses and wraps her arms around her man, who smiles and gives a thumbs-up to the Trans Polaris delivery person. You’ve seen it? Now that you’ve been reminded, you’ll probably have that song stuck in your head all day long!

Race To Northpoint Station
At the height of the Martian summer, there is an exciting race born of Mars. Beginning in MARSTROPOLIS, competitors fly electromagnetically charged hyperpulsion hover vehicles across open plains, through rift valleys and craters, and across the frozen carbon dioxide northern polar cap to Northpoint Station, an isolated military outpost and target destination of the event. Fans who flock from all across civilized space are as rabid as Earth-based NASCAR fans in their loyal following. Merchandisers make a decade’s wages during this weeklong gathering. However, the race isn’t for the faint of heart or the inexperienced. Situations get dicey real quick when you run out of space and face crashing into a jagged canyon wall. It’s a dangerous competition where many brave men and women have lost their lives for the thrill. The most seasoned of veteran racers have nothing but the utmost respect for fellow racers. This year’s circuit has been extended to include a leg through Valles Marineris, adding five thousand kilometers and two days to the statistical tally. Sponsors are eagerly making preparations for a similar race across the icy crust of Jupiter’s Galilean Satellite, Europa. As a special treat and added bonus this year, the Martian National Anthem will be performed by none other than Miss Janet Jetson.