Mars. The “Red Planet” has been a source of imagination since man first looked up at the night sky and wondered if there were others in the galaxy. Since the end of World War II, the rise of the Cold War and atomic research, interest in Mars has grown like never before. In movies, books, television, and (more recently) video games, Mars has been imagined time and time again, as a refuge from a destructive Earth or as a source of our impending doom. It represents our fears and hopes more fully than any other global or galactic icon. In this essay, I will compare two texts, Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" from 1950, and Red Faction: Guerrilla, a video game developed by Volition Inc., published by THQ and released in 2009. Despite their differences both in time and in the form of the media, each text imagines Mars through the vein of the colonizer and the colonized, and explores themes of oppression, culture and control and offers a distinct vision of Mars, years from interval but with much in common. The stories are set in the future of 1999-2026, where Earth is going through great disruption due to the threat of impending atomic war. Faced with this, the United States sends men to Mars to explore the planet in the hope of possible colonization. The book opens with a single-page story titled "JANUARY 1999: Rocket Summer" describing the launch of the first rocket to Mars and its effects on the land around it. “One minute it was Ohio winter, doors closed, windows locked. , the windows were blinded by frost... and then a long heat wave crossed the small town... the icicles fell, broke, to melt... the rocket created the climates, and the summer extended for a brief moment on earth..." The scorching heat of the rocket counterpoints...... middle of paper......t live a new life and hope not to repeat the mistakes of the past. And yet, because they are free, they are the only inhabitants of Mars, because the native Martians have long since died or fled. As the family in the story watches the canal, the father figure tells them that the Martians are in fact still on the planet, while showing the image of the family reflected in the water. It is sobering that their new freedom comes at a high cost. To rule over others, each text seems to suggest that it is not a right but a duty, that we protect our citizens and those of other nations with respect and without cruelty. Freedom is not the preserve of the rich or powerful. By imagining Mars, writers of all times and places can explore these ideas in the hope that humanity can learn to make Earth a more worthy place to call home and a world worthy of be protected..