Background 2

" If the people can't leave what they hate, have what they hate leave the people."

Although space travel had become significantly cheaper than it had been before 2083, it was still a bit more than the vast majority of people were willing (or able) to pay. There was little to see in space, few draws for any sort of tourism, and UAC was quickly losing money. It began to occur to the board of directors that perhaps profit would come not from sending people into space, but sending other things into space that these people did not wish to live with. And where else could they pull in such a high profit than in dealing with the radioactive byproducts of other large corporations.
The terraforming process used on Mars had produced a large amount of radioactive material in itself. Even without the added waste coming from Earth, the UAC already had a need for a treatment facility on Mars. The difference now became the scope of this facility. With the aid of military "donations", the largest radioactive waste treatment plant ever conceived began construction in 2104.
Intent on getting the most money they could out of their situation UAC was not content to just store the thousands of gallons of waste that they were taking in. Scientists were hired to study the waste in hopes that some profitable materials could be extracted from what they held. They were successful. Among the newly discovered products of the radioactive waste was a gelatinous substance that, though unsuspecting under most circumstances, would release great amounts of energy when treated with an electric current. Stored in 'cells' (the equivalent of a battery shell), this 'plasma', as it had been named, was soon in high demand in both market and the military.

I hate to be a buzzkill, but plasma in the classic sense isn't electrified radioactive goo, it's matter superheated to such a point that it loses matter characteristics and changes to energy.

Not that you couldn't make that story work. Hollywood's been shafting physics for years.

DC

>> I hate to be a buzzkill, but plasma in the classic sense isn't electrified radioactive goo, it's matter superheated to such a point that it loses matter characteristics and changes to energy. <<

I know. I wasn't trying to say that the new material was plasma in the sense we think of it. The material is simply called plasma. That part is just explaining (minorly) how the plasma based weapons in Doom came to be.