The BMs were fashioned after the Lunar system, and are being threatened to be toppled out of power by Statists, people who want a unified Mars under a centralized government.

She does not necessarily regret her actions in the attempted revolution, but continues to be haunted by their consequences, especially her love affair with fellow student Charles Franklin.

Meanwhile, Charles, her one-time lover, along with a team of super-geniuses called the Olympians, discovers a radical new technology that has the potential to turn the tables on the conflict.

One method of coercion that the Martians fear is "evolvons", or small undetectable computer viruses implanted during manufacture into all Thinkers.

They double their efforts to duplicate the technology and eventually activate the evolvons, creating chaos on Mars but also uniting it against the Earth.

Martians retaliate by moving the moon Phobos into Earth orbit to demonstrate their ability to respond, but this only escalates the conflict.

Shortly after the planetary system visit, Earth invades Mars with nanotech robots that kill the Martian President, leaving Casseia as the one in charge.

Under attack and with no hope of fighting back, she makes the decision to go along with Charles Franklin's desperate plan to completely remove Mars from the solar system and place it in orbit around a star 10,000 light-years away.