M A R S | 002 | Terraforming (Ambience + Ambient Spacewave)

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INSPIRATION: Dune, The Martian, NASA, SpaceX
AMBIENCE: sand wind, mars rover, various machines
MUSIC: ambient synthwave
IMAGE: AI generated using midjourney
VFX: AfterEffects
AUDIO SOFTWARE: Reaper, Omnisphere 2 (Synth), Various Kontakt Libraries, Valhalla Reverb

Bandcamp – https://armchairambience.bandcamp.com/
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/ArmchairAmbience

All sound effects and music are original works created by Armchair Ambience

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14 thoughts on “M A R S | 002 | Terraforming (Ambience + Ambient Spacewave)”

  2. Hi, just wanted to ask you what is your RPM (revenue per mile) in your channel if you don't mind ?. I have a youtube channel where I post ambience videos and I hope to monetize it soon so it would be so cool if you reply 😊

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  10. I looked down at the headless body still in its EV suit, lying on the table. One of my side jobs on Mars was as a coroner. Since the original surveys had all concluded that the planet was uninhabited by anything bigger than bacteria, no one had thought a coroner was a necessity rather than a luxury. Until now. This was the fourth body found in this condition. Where was the head? I wasn't sure that I really wanted to know. Maybe better that I didn't. Martian terraforming was moving along, if not exactly fast-paced. Maybe that was a good thing. Hansen, a physicist, was all but certain that atmospheric pressure or gravity had nothing to do with the removal of the head. Why, then, I wondered, had the head been taken and the rest of the body left behind? "Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid, reading the Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs," Hansen said. "In the fifth book there were these things that had separate heads and bodies. The heads could climb up onto the shoulders of the bodies and take control of them." "If only that weren't science fiction, we'd have an answer to this mystery," I said. "But for a planet with bacteria as its only native fauna, you'd need something quite a bit larger to rip a head off of a body. Maybe a bear. Except there aren't any on Mars." "There is a difference, Mack, between uninhabited and dormant or hybernating," Hansen said. "What if something woke it up? Like those quakes in and around Olympus Mons that the Garrett, the vulcanologist, has been reporting?" "We were harvesting natural gas from underground pockets," I said. "What harm could that do?" "Plenty," Hansen said. "Ask people on Earth who live in areas where natural gas is being harvested. They're probably long since sick and tired of the quakes. Quakes nowhere near any known fault lines." "Okay, so now you're implying there's a Martian Godzilla?" I asked. She shrugged and said, "I've ceased to be surprised by what we're finding here on Mars. Maybe it was a stable ecology before we started tampering with it." She turned to go. "Wait," I said. She stopped, but didn't turn to face me. "Where was this headless body found?" I asked. "Same location as the others?" "Close enough," she said. "Why? You want to play Martian Sherlock Holmes?" "Not just me," I said. "Both of us. You just volunteered to join me." "I'll get a skimmer," she said. "Find two guns for us," I said. "You think we might need them?" she asked. "I hope we won't," I said, "but better to be safe than sorry." Minutes later, Hansen was guiding the skimmer across the Martian landscape, with me sitting behind her and facing rearward (just in case). Whatever the attacker was, by now any paw marks were probably long since wiped away by the Martian winds. Which meant that this was just a foolish mission bound to end in failure. Something had attacked those dead people. One might seem odd, two might seem like an uneasy coincidence, but three or more was anything but accidental. We could've sent a probe to search for us, but I was old-fashioned. I wanted to see, hear, and touch with my own eyes, ears, and hands. The skimmer came to a stop on the top of a sand dune. Up ahead of us, the horizon was dark with flashes of lightning. "Sandstorm coming,' Hansen said. "Promises to be a big one by the looks of it. Won't have much time to search for anything. If there's anything to find, that is." "Aren't you the one who complains I'm not optimistic enough?" I asked. She nodded. "Heed your own words," I said. We dismounted and turned on our flashlights. We'd better be quick or there might be nothing left to say we were here but our bones. Nothing. Maybe this had been a waste of time, after all. But then Hansen pointed and shined her flashlight beam. It looked like hair sticking out of the sand. We knelt and dug quickly with our hands. The hair was attached to a battered head. That was the good news. The bad news — never mind the oncoming sandstorm — was the eyes were missing. Someone or something needed those eyes or they wouldn't have taken them. The sandstorm howled more and more loudly. The sky darkened even faster than Martian twilight did. I grabbed the head and we ran for the skimmer. We almost didn't find it. It started up and we raced back to the colony at the skimmer's fastest speed, the sandstorm roaring like a thousand angry lions. We almost arrived safe and sound when the skimmer flipped up, over, and onto its side. We got up and did our best to reach the nearest dome's doorway. It slid open, we rushed in, and it slid closed just barely in time. "I hope all that effort was worth it," Hansen told me. "Suicide missions don't interest me." "Come on," I said and we hurried to the tunnel that connected to the the dome where my laboratory was. The sound of breaking glass was all around us. Sand grains pounding away at the dome. Power was out, but the backup generators were working … most of them, anyway. "So now we have a headless body and an eyeless head," Hansen said. "I do hope you have an answer or at least a theory about it?" "It wasn't an animal that tore this head off," I said and pointed at the shallow red indentations near the ripped-off edge. "Human fingers made these." "But what good are the eyes without the head and/or the body?" Hansen asked. "Even quantum mechanics makes more sense than this does." "You take the eyes because you have something that needs eyes," I said. "Someone like Dr. Frankenstein?" she wondered. "The bodies weren't killed randomly," I said. "They were killed and parts of them were harvested." Hansen stared at me. "Then the rest of us are at risk?" she asked. "So it appears," I said. "At least until the harvesting is completed." Lightning flashed outside the dome, blindingly bright for several moments. Just before the normal light level returned, we both saw the shape of what looked like a human being. With large fists, it pounded on the dome. Over and over again. Its mouth opened and I could almost hear its howl or roar. What it wanted with us, I could only guess. Was it doing the harvesting for its creator? Then we both heard a crack. The impervious dome wasn't as impervious as its designers and builders had promised. Another crack. Lines like jagged lightning bolts raced across the dome. A piece about the size of my head fell inward. The dome's attacker grabbed onto the edges of the opening and tore outward. At first nothing happened, but then pieces began to break off and fly outward, away from the dome. "Grab your gun," I told Hansen, "and I'll grab mine." "What guns?" she asked. "They were on the skimmer when it flipped. I didn't have time to pick them up." The dome's attacker had room now and jumped down. When it looked up at us, I saw that it had human eyes. The missing eyes. It crouched, ready to leap. As it did so, I grabbed a nearby table, the one with the headless body on it, and shoved it in our attacker's direction. It swept the table aside easily and leapt at us.

    (Sorry for the cliffhanger. I couldn't think of what to write next. Maybe someone else can continue it?)

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