Mm, not really. The soil wasn't fit for very much of anything besides baking in the sun, but there were some farms that eked what they could out of it. Corn, mostly.

[Corn that wasn't even intended for dinner tables, instead sent onward to be processed into biofuels. Controlling the weather would be interesting, though. Perhaps they could manipulate the elements enough to allow more things to grow. He knows Mika had been experimenting with other plants, trying to get something to survive, but they hadn't been going as well as anyone might have wished.]

There was more mining than farming. [Mars' true wealth was beneath the soil, in the half-metal that could be extracted there. Orga knew exactly how valuable that resource was, after Tekkadan's recent acquisitions. It was the only reason why a backwater colony like Mars even existed on the interplanetary map.

Don't worry, Julius, you're in good company. Orga knows his way around some machinery, sure, but this magic shit is way out of his sphere of comfort.

He scratches at the back of his neck as they continue walking.] Vague. Lovely. [He ruminates a moment longer.] How much the people around here are starting to suspect us isn't going to give us a lot of freedom to look, either.

[What a headache. He's thought that a lot, since showing up here.]