The Martian Maphunter

I ran some Spaceship Zero at the HPL Birthday Party gaming convention this past weekend and now I’m making an effort to write the scenario up all nice-nice. It happens on Mars, so I’m trying to figure out exactly where on Mars. The secret human base needs to be in a deep cavern, and I’ve learned that Valles Marineris is a canyon similar to our own Grand Canyon, but ten times as long and seven times as deep and wide. Neat. Then I read about Noctis Labyrinthus, which apart from having a cool sounding name that literally means ‘the labyrinth of night’ looks fantastic.

Here’s a big shot of Mars showing Valles Marineris, which as you can see is ginormous. At the far left of the rift is Noctis Labyrinthus

This is not a photograph. I’m assuming it’s a digital image or a painting or some kind of combo (by Arnaud and Florent Creux of http://marsrender.site.voila.fr/) :

But here’s an actual photo from the Viking orbiter

And a fancy artistic rendition by Fahad Sulehria of novacelestia.com