Where IS the Mars City?

[printz]

Did the Doom 3 writer(s) ever bother to specify where the UAC compound is located on Mars? Because for all the trouble they went to make it realistic, they didn't make me know something very trivial, which is the geographic position. I believe this detail is very relevant when you plan to raise habitable buildings on a foreign, uninhabitable planet. Did they forget to specify this?

[Redstar]

You know, I was just wondering this myself yesterday, though not in the trivial form of "where on the planet is it." It's not relevant at all because this is a videogame, not an actual planned mission that needs to take into account such important details.

However, it would have been nice to have a section exploring the actual "city" with a pool area, indoor park, restaurants, etc. Surely the living quarters of the UAC personnel was invaded as well.

[Gez]

It's on the northern edge of Ovda Regio.



</smartass>

[45th Parrallel]

Gez said:

It's on the northern edge of Ovda Regio.

But that's on Venus

anyway I think it would be in or around a crater

[Gez]

sgt dopey said:

But that's on Venus

Thanks for explaining the joke.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. The only people familiar enough with Martian geography beyond recognizing maybe the names "Olympus Mons" and "Valles Marineris" would be the complete astronomy nerds who would also be the ones able to tell that from the little we can see of the outside, it is absolutely impossible for the game to take place where it's said to take place. I mean, the Phobos base in Doom 1 is actually somewhere in China.

What if I tell you it's in Argyre Planitia? Does that name evoke anything? Are there any meaningful cultural association you can make from it? "Of course! Argyre! It really makes sense, symbolically speaking!" Yeah, no.

[PRIMEVAL]

The marine's mission wasn't exactly about getting to your cabin then going to the pool for some recreation time. Where you had to go apparently didn't include where the people actually lived, just where they worked. At least, that's how I saw it.

[printz]

Gez said:

What if I tell you it's in Argyre Planitia? Does that name evoke anything? Are there any meaningful cultural association you can make from it? "Of course! Argyre! It really makes sense, symbolically speaking!" Yeah, no.

No, but latitude information might help to know if they did settle in that icy polar area or not.

[Redeemer812]

printz said:

No, but latitude information might help to know if they did settle in that icy polar area or not.

That wouldn't make too much of a difference, though. The mean temperature on Mars is about -200 degrees Fahrenheit. With that in mind, it should be pretty clear that Doomguy should not be able to leave the mars base without putting on an insulated suit, no matter where the base really is.

[printz]

I wonder if Mars really has natural caves. It would be awesome if our probes find any, I'd be instantly reminded of Doom 3.

[Marnetmar]

I think it was revealed in ROE. Well, alpha labs' location was anyway which is a part of Mars City.

[DoomUK]

printz said:

Because for all the trouble they went to make it realistic

So it's possible to go for a stroll on the surface of mars with no gravitational differences and only having to walk over an oxygen tank now and again so you can breathe?

[printz]

DoomUK said:

So it's possible to go for a stroll on the surface of mars with no gravitational differences and only having to walk over an oxygen tank now and again so you can breathe?

No, but that was done to make the game behave like a Doom FPS. It would probably still be possible to walk on the Martian surface using a thicker astronaut suit.

But this is not the point. It's typical, someone looks for a counter-argument to throw out by ignoring the context. The point is that unlike Doom 1, they're trying to look as realistic as possible without sacrificing the gaming possibility. No more Chinese mountains or nice cloudy daylight. It tends to look realistic even if it's not completely so.

[printz]

Here's another disturbing observation:

It's known that some mainmenu pictures of Mars show it "burning" on almost a whole hemisphere, likely because of demonic intervention. I pretty much doubt that humans managed to build UAC bases on such a large area. So it means that demons have been spawning all over Mars! and advancing (thru spirit form?) towards the human habitation. I don't know what to say about this... it all brings me to the idea of Fortresses of Mystery coming, spying on the humans and leaving. Or even the "Inferno" episode of classic Doom really taking place on Mars, not in Hell, now.

I wonder if Doom's Mars houses skull-shaped houses of pain because of this...

[Reisal]

On the intro video starting up, it showed the transport descending into the lower half of the planet's surface so that does give clue where it could be.

[Face23785]

Redeemer812 said:

That wouldn't make too much of a difference, though. The mean temperature on Mars is about -200 degrees Fahrenheit. With that in mind, it should be pretty clear that Doomguy should not be able to leave the mars base without putting on an insulated suit, no matter where the base really is.

The mean surface temperature is just that, the mean or average. That doesn't mean it's -200 everywhere on the planet. For example I just looked up Earth's mean surface temperature, 57 degrees. The equatorial regions of Mars, during the summer months, can provide surface temperatures that are at least livable, with highs even reaching the 60s or 70s on rare occasion. If the base was located there and it was summer (the game states that it is late summer, but that's Earth time), running outside for the extremely short periods that you do during the game, temperature wouldn't be the deciding factor. The low pressure is what will get ya.

If all you had on was an oxygen mask, you wouldn't freeze to death. The low pressure would probably cause your blood and other fluids to come out of solution.

One thing to remember about the low temperatures in extraterrestrial environments is that if there's little or no atmosphere, heat can't radiate away from your body. Despite what you see in movies of people freezing instantly when exposed to the vacuum of space, which tends to be below -400, that wouldn't actually happen. Heat dissipates by radiating away to surrounding molecules. If you're in a vacuum, your body heat isn't gonna go anywhere. The pressure, or lack thereof, is what kills you. I recently saw a show where NASA planned to place a probe or have a probe fly through a region in the Sun's atmosphere that's over a million degrees. Your initial reaction is that the probe would be toast, but they're not concerned because the atmosphere is so thin there that it can't transfer the heat.

Edit: Wow that's long-winded. I'm not trying to be patronizing or anything, just thought I'd share that interesting tidbit.