Red
The bottom of the pyramid. Reds live underground on Mars and elsewhere, mining helium-3 under the belief that they are making a world for their descendants. They have copper eyes, rust hair and the shortest of all lives.
Reds believe they're the honoured pioneers of a dying planet. They sing. They dance. Children go into the mines at thirteen. Each quarter one clan wins the Laurel, a promise of extra food.
The lie at the heart of it: the Martian surface was made habitable long ago. Generations have been working underground, for nothing, to fund an empire above that they've never been told about.
Lykos alone holds twenty-four clans competing for one Laurel each quarter. Reds are small, wiry and rust-haired, and they bear the Red Sigil on their hands. Darrow calls highReds distinct: Dancer's hair has swirls of true red rather than rust.
Most Reds on Mars live underground and have never seen the sky. They are told that they're pioneers, the heroic first settlers of a world they are making fit for the rest of humanity. Their culture has its own music, dances and forbidden songs. They tend to die young.
Of this Color
DarrowHelldiver of LambdaPrimus of House Mars, lancer of House AugustusLeader of the RisingArchImperator of the Solar Republic
EoWeaver and singer; Darrow's wife