Light Bringer (novel)

Lore & Background

The novel follows the survivors from Mercury as they make their way to Mars and the Solar Republic. Eight months after the Republic loses Mercury to the Society, Darrow and his remaining soldiers hide on the 'trash moon' Marcher-1682. After obtaining fuel, Darrow's soldiers return to Mars while Darrow, Cassius and Aurae sail to rescue Sevro on Venus from Apollonius. However, Sevro has already escaped, and Apollonius captures Darrow and Cassius. Apollonius duels and defeats Darrow, but Sevro bombs the dockyards and rescues Darrow and Cassius. They flee Venus with Aurae, who asks Sevro to lead the Rim's Daughters of Athena, Fitchner's contingency should the Sons of Ares fail.

Reader's Guide

The novel is significant as it advances the conflict between the Solar Republic and the Society, introducing key events such as Lysander's transformation of the Morning Star into the Lightbringer and his defiance of Atalantia. It details the siege of Phobos, the poisoning of Lysander, and the revelation of Quicksilver's interstellar generation ship containing non-Color Homo sapiens children. The story also covers the attack on Jupiter's moons by Volsung Fá's forces, the decimation of the Rim's fleet at Kalyke, and the eventual alliance between the Republic, the Rim Dominion, the Daughters of Athena, and the Volk. The novel concludes with Lysander killing Cassius after Cassius tries to take the biological weapon Eidmi, and Lysander pondering using Eidmi on Red or Gold.

Did You Know?

• The novel features the 'trash moon' Marcher-1682 where Darrow and his soldiers hide.
• Lysander transforms the Morning Star into the Lightbringer.

The August 1877 Discovery

In the summer of 1877, American astronomer Asaph Hall set his sights on a specific goal at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.: determining whether Mars possessed satellites of its own. His patience was tested by fog rolling off the river, thunderstorms, and an atmosphere so turbulent that Mars appeared blazing and unsteady through his 26-inch telescope. He first glimpsed a faint object near the planet on August 10, but adverse weather kept him from confirming it for days. On the night of August 11, he caught a brief sighting before fog shut down the work. After sleeping at the observatory on the 15th to be ready when skies cleared, he tracked the inner satellite more definitively on the 16th. That early morning he confided in his assistant George Anderson, instructing him to stay silent until the matter was beyond doubt. Anderson, however, let the secret slip. By the 17th, Hall had shown his positional measurements to Professor Newcomb, and the outer moon was spotted as well. The discovery was formally announced by Admiral Rodgers. Deimos had been found on August 12; Phobos followed on August 18.

Physical Profile and Orbital Geometry

Phobos and Deimos are irregularly shaped bodies that are dwarfed by Earth's Moon. Phobos, the inner satellite, spans roughly 22.2 kilometers in diameter and carries a mass of approximately 1.08×10¹⁶ kilograms. Its smaller companion Deimos measures about 12.6 kilometers across with a mass near 1.5×10¹⁵ kilograms. Their orbital geometry reflects their relative proximity to Mars: Phobos circles at a semi-major axis of 9,377 kilometers and completes a full revolution in just 7.66 hours. Deimos, by contrast, traces a wider path at 23,460 kilometers and takes 30.35 hours to complete one orbit. Both moons bear names drawn from Greek mythology. Phobos personifies fear and panic, while Deimos embodies terror and dread; together they were the twin sons of Ares, the god of war whose Roman counterpart Mars gives the red planet its name. The pairing captures a fittingly ominous character for these small, lumpy companions.

Competing Origins: Shattered Planet or Captured Wanderers

Where did Phobos and Deimos come from? Two principal hypotheses dominate the discussion, and both remain consistent with the observational data available today. The first proposal holds that the moons are fragments of Mars itself, ejected during a cataclysmic giant impact. Such an event is thought to have shaped the planet's distinctive dichotomy between its northern and southern hemispheres and to have carved the vast Borealis Basin. Under this scenario, the moons would be, in a sense, pieces of their parent world flung into orbit. The second hypothesis takes a different tack: the moons are not native to Mars at all but are captured asteroids that were gravitationally snagged as they passed close enough to the planet. Distinguishing between these two origins remains an open question in planetary science. The irregular shapes of both satellites are compatible with either story. However, upcoming sample-return missions to Mars are expected to collect material that could, through isotopic and compositional analysis, finally tip the balance toward one explanation over the other.

Literary Echoes Before the Telescope

Long before any telescope confirmed their existence, the moons of Mars occupied the imagination of writers and mathematicians. When Galileo encoded his observation of Saturn's rings in an anagram, Johannes Kepler misread it as a greeting to "furious twins, sons of Mars." That slip may have planted a seed. In 1726, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels describes Laputan astronomers discovering two Martian satellites at distances of three and five planetary diameters with periods of ten and twenty-one and a half hours. The real figures—1.4 and 3.5 diameters, 7.66 and 30.35 hours—are not identical but sit in the same neighborhood. Voltaire echoed the idea in his 1752 tale Micromégas. The most plausible explanation is that Swift, possibly aided by his friend the mathematician John Arbuthnot, reasoned by analogy: Venus and Mercury had no known satellites, Earth had one, Jupiter four, so Mars must have two, and they must be small and close. In homage to these literary forerunners, Deimos bears craters named Swift and Voltaire, while Phobos carries the Laputa Regio and Lagado Planitia, drawn from Gulliver's Travels, along with numerous craters named after its characters.