Microstory 508: Landslide Vote in Favor of Rename to ‘Martian’

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A few standard decades ago, Mascoli visitors to Earth were completing their regular rounds when they learned that our planet had been discovered by the humans. A little disclaimer ahead of time, astronomical observations were completed entirely by the Earthan humans. They received no help from the Arsenic suiters. Secrecy protection protocols have, in no way, been violated. Since that time, the word Mars has been established as the conventional name for our planet on Earth, and recently, it was determined by the Masco network government that this convention was unlikely to change. Because of this, it was proposed that we change our naming conventions in order to match Earth’s perceptions of us. Should we one day connect with our brethren on the third planet, many believe they would be more comfortable using their own terms. Indeed, the Earthan language of Latin is already being learned in schools across the Masco network for similar reasons. Not everyone believes this to be the best course of action, however, and their arguments are not without their merits. Some think this plan could have negative effects following first contact. If we already speak Latin, and we already know what they named our planet, they will know that we’ve been able to reach out to them for however long before. Others refuted this position, saying that admitting our practice of secretly visiting Earth is something that we’ll have to do anyway, so we might as well tell them this truth in their language.

Even amidst the protests, a vote was held network-wide, asking one simple question: should we, or should we not, alter our planet’s name to Mars and our people’s name to Martian. As you may have gathered from the headline, the vote was a landslide. A higher percentage of now-Martians agreed to change our name than have agreed on any vote in history. Exact number of votes are still being verified, but present figures put the vote at around 94.87%. For our Amaigaben readers, that’s the equivalent of 114.7927 perunviginticenti. The vote itself is impressive on its own, but even more impressive is the hope it presents the Martian network. This indicates that Martians can agree on something, and even though most of us no longer live on our homeworld, we have something that really brings us together. It’s one thing to call yourself a Masco because that’s what millions of years of history tells us, it’s another thing to call yourself Martian even though you don’t have to. The network government does not see this as an opportunity to bring back our colonists, but as a chance to solidify our unity, and repair any hostile relationships amongst factions. In fact, it is becoming more and more likely that our home planet will be abandoned almost completely, in order to further protect Earthans once they inevitably invent observational technology capable of reading Martian surface details. Such a vote would still be centuries off, however, so don’t pack your bags just yet. This article will be updated with the exact vote count, broken down by colony.