Arkady Nikelyovich Bogdanov was an important member of the First Hundred.

Pre-Mars life

Arkady was born in Russia (Ugoly) and sported a characteristic red beard throughout his life. From old, he was a devoted revolutionary. He managed to lie in the tests to get admitted into the First Hundred.

The Ares voyage

During the Ares journey, he was responsible for running the simulations for landing and other manoeuvres the First Hundred were expected to excel at. Through endless repetition and simulating multiple systems failure, he was harsh in their training and did not attempt to make the experience pleasant.

He announced to the rest of the First Hundred that they no longer had to follow instructions from Terra, that they were free to build their own agenda. His leadership abilities became evident and he acquired a following. In the terraforming debate that ideologically divided the colony between Reds and Greens, Arkady's position was that they would simply do as they liked, not as the Terran authorities decided to do. His open and direct speech was not appreciated by all, and he was accused by some of the colonists as being the cause for the rising tensions within the group.

Phobos base and Underhill

With his team he was assigned the task to build the first base on Phobos. He secretly put in place a remote-controlled guidance system that would be able to put Phobos out of its orbit. During those first years he and Nadia Cherneshevsky communicated through radio when he was on Phobos and she was at Underhill, and eventually they became lovers.

They both manned the dirigible Arrowhead on a mission to spread the windmills designed by Sax Russell's team. When he discovered the windmills were illegally and secretly carrying genetically engineered algae created by Sax and Vlad Taneev, he was confused that he was not made aware of that secret plan before and realized that other Terra-defying agendas were at work besides his own.

Political career

Arkady had a vision for a revolutionary new Mars society based on anarchy. In the decades that followed he prepared a revolution in secret, allying many of the freshly arrived immigrants to his cause. He urged his followers to stash weaponry and infrastructure and to go into hiding, to disappear from under the radar and to be ready for the day. One of his close associates was Mikhail Yangel. He was a friend of John Boone with whom he discussed his ideas.

The First Revolution and death

He was a leader of the 2061 revolution. He believed in its success until his last breath, when he was killed in the destruction of Carr by UNOMA forces.

Legacy

His ideas had a lasting influence on the Martian underground. His followers were the Bogdanovists. The underground city of Bogdanov Vishniac was built around Bogdanovist concepts of architecture.

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