what kind of Argonaughts? Why are they on Mars? Motivations? Off the top of my head: Ecology; 1. The characters hear a rumor from a trusted source that a huge iceteroid on it's way to mars orbit scheduled to be broken an dropped in 48 separate 6 ton strikes in the northern lowlands actually contains a heavy percentage of elements (chlorine maybe) that would be extremely harmful the the microfauna (waterbears and lichen) that have been planted by the barsoomians. This would destroy a huge part of the work they've done over the last several decades. {Edit}I RawK! I almost wrote that whole paragraph with only one sentence :D {/edit} 2. The Tharsis league has declared (some independent scientist's) genegineered super black lichen to be illegal, confiscated all of his work, revoked his copyright, and is preventing him from practicing his trade by all means. This lichen is so perfectly engineered for Mars that it would pretty much propagate itself anywhere with an atmospheric density of .1 bar or more. (any place below mean elevation) It would have the dual benefit of processing CO2 for oxygen as well as increasing heating by lowering albedo (as well as any other awesome thing that lichen could possibly do). It looks like they're withholding the tech because the scientist is independent and not working within the Tharsis league's guidelines and plans. Everyone, including the character's is quite angry about this. The characters need to help the scientist continue his work and seed the planet with the super plant. [if you want to be evil, once the character's are heavily involved they find out that there actually is a good reason for killing this guy's project. Something like, this lichen is poisonous to all coniferous trees. Not only would it kill all the trees currently growing but you could never grow a pine tree on Mars if it got a wide spread foothold.] TITANS 1. Titan eggs. The character's find out that the fractal barrows, termite mounds and Disassembler aoleans found in the TQZ are all produce by the activities one Nanite Hive. This advanced generalize hive contains all the prints necessary to build a huge, [War machine factory, space port with colony ship launching capability, massive phased array laser with interplanetary strike capability... pick one or maybe hint that there are multiple types of Eggs] The egg contains everything from the nanites needed to build the stuff to the AI's needed to run it as well as prints for building more Eggs. If the character's find an egg they need to realize that they can hold data equivalent to a TITAN city in the palm of their hand. The only thing stopping the egg from "hatching" completely is it's stuck on step 1; "Gather Raw Materials", while waiting for a command, "procede to step 2" to be issued from the main base in Quirain. (basically this is just a grey-goo scenario but instead of goo you get something more interesting and pointy) {edit} also don't forget to use all the horrible stuff that can happen to characters if they touch TITAN poop.{/edit} FACTORS Someone hires the characters to do some pretty intricate research on Mars. [could be planetology, history, sociology... as long as it's something that the characters would be hired to research based on thier skills and its about Mars. It should also have a kind of Xenoarcheology thred] The character's get paid as much as they could imagine to ask but the work is difficult and often involves data that others are trying to keep secret. Eventually the characters find out that their patron is a proxy for the Factors. They should be asking why the Factors are interested in Mars. Why are they trying to keep their interest a secret. OTHER STUFF Someone is selling black market morphs with preconditioned mental flaws and programming that make people; (Insert bad thing here). Treating these psycholocial conditions begins a trail of clues leading to the culprits. Martian Rangers have been cracking down on unlicensed fabbers with uncanny accuracy lately. It's been a cross faction crackdown they've been hitting the Barsoomian, Guanxi, even the nomads. This indicates that it's not just someone on the inside dropping dime. How are they able to find all the fabbers no matter how well hidden or discretely used? Who, at the top, has instigated this hardcore purge? And, how are the character's going to protect their own CM machine???