In 2086 Earth archeologists unearthed a world-shaking discovery. A set of ancient tablets, coined the Maestran scriptures, described a religion based on the worship of a Mother God. The religion experienced a renaissance, but the rapid growth of its practitioners, the Maestras, caused ripples of conflict with the dominant patriarchal religions of the world. At the height of the conflict, a string of violent altercations—known as the Holy Sieges—broke out across parts of Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The violence escalated, adding to the growing resource shortage that led to the Climate Wars of the late 21st Century.

After Earth spent two decades at war, it was an international coalition of women that came together and put a stop to it. Peace triumphed and an Age of Woman swept through the nations. For a time women ruled over most of the Earth and cleaned house, rebuilding and nurturing the Earth to make it habitable for the four billion humans who survived the wars.

After peace settled in, there was a reckoning. Religion and corporate greed were blamed for humanity’s downfall. The newly formed International Coalition of Earth Nations banned religion globally, triggering an exodus by the followers of several religions to the recently colonized Venus and Mars. At the same time, men started to reassert themselves into government, a change the Maestras would not accept.

While practitioners of most religions moved to the closer Venus, the Maestras fled to Mars, both to establish a colony where they could practice their faith freely, but also to cement a female led civilization. This was an uncomfortable change for the scientists who had originally settled on Mars, but eventually they struck a balance, building a female dominant society while severing all contact with Earth and Venus.

Now Mars is a place of physical beauty and advanced technology, a place where politics separates the sacred theocracies from the secular lands. A place where women rule absolutely through a sovereign class, and men are second class citizens.