Ann Clayborne
Ann Clayborne was an important member of the First Hundred. As a geologist, she was opposed to terraforming from the beginning and became the ideological founder of the Red movement. As terraforming progressed she became ever more moody and silent; she was the eternal opponent of Sax Russell until they reconciled towards the end of their lives.
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Positions | Head areologist | |
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Affiliations | First Hundred, Reds | |
Gender | Female | |
Appearance | ||
Birth | ca.1980 USA |
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Death | - - |
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Ancestors | - | |
Descendants | Peter Clayborne |
Early life
Ann was born in the early 1980s (perhaps in the year 1980) in the United States of America. She studied geology.
Selection of the First Hundred
In the training of the First Hundred in Antarctica, she and Sax became close. Out of misunderstandings and their ideological differences regarding terraforming in particular, their potentially romantic relationship turned into hate, with great consequences for the rest of their lives.
The Underhill years
She became Mars's first and foremost areologist. She led the first exploratory expeditions on Mars's surface. She had numerous public debates with Sax on the question of terraforming. She cherished Mars's pristine environment, unsoiled by Man's activity. Maintaining the planet in its primary form, as a "geology park", is all she cared about.
The loss of Red Mars
She became the lover of fellow areologist Simon Frazier with whom she had a son, Peter. After terraforming became officially sanctioned, the effect on Mars's environment became progressively obvious. Ann grew sour and even more introverted as a result.
The Underground and loneliness
After the revolution of 2061, she was rescued by the Areophany and hid in Zygote. She joined the underground, though she still spent a lot of time doing areology outdoors. She lost Simon from leukemia. With water and ice and vegetation in the open surface, seeing her red Mars disappearing forever, she oftentimes wandered alone in the surface and refused to carry tracking devices. After a real experience, for years she had a fear of being caught up in a lethal landslide. She refused to take the longevity treatment, which was considered as a suicidal move. She was assisted by Michel and Sax and escaped death. She participated in the Dorsa Brevia Conference where she defended Red views. She was recognized by her peers as a Red leader but did not actively take part in the violence caused by many Reds.
The Second Revolution and later life
During the independence revolution, she acted as a liaison between the Reds#Kakaze and the rest of the Martian rebels. After the failure of conservative Red views in the second revolution, she supported a more moderate, non-violent stance for the Red movement: to occupy high-altitude areas in order to keep them untouched and convince the population of the rightfulness of their cause through open debate.
In the long decades that followed, her moods became more extreme and schizophrenic-like until she developed what she called three personalities: the old Ann, an emotional "counter-Ann" and a third, new Ann born out of forgetting the scars of the past. Taking the memory treatment in Underhill, both she and Sax realized their mistakes and their mutual love. They spent together the last years of their lives.
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