⬛ MISSION RECORD · PARTIAL DECLASSIFICATION
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For Producers · Film, TV & Adaptation

SOLEN: The Eden Archive, for producers

A century-spanning hard science fiction saga about the first human settlement on Mars, narrated in part by SOLEN, the mission AI. Four novels and four companion novellas published, by Warren Pulley.

Film, TV and adaptation rights: inquiries welcome.

Email a rights inquiry Contact form (choose “Rights & Licensing”)

Domed colony settlement on Mars at dusk, series key art
KEY ART · HELLAS PLANITIA COLONY · SOLEN: THE EDEN ARCHIVE

Logline (draft)

In 2054, two people selected from eight billion leave on a one-way mission to Mars, and find, 85 centimetres beneath Hellas Planitia, that the planet is not empty. Over the next hundred years, watched by a mission AI that will not lie in its record, they and their descendants must decide what kind of civilization deserves to be built on a world that was already alive.

Series premise

In 2054, Earth is not dying; it is drowning in its own complexity. Coastlines are swallowed, cities displaced, governments gridlocked, and humanity agrees on only one thing: the species needs a second home. Carter, a structural engineer who learned to listen to broken things before he learned to fix them, and Alina, a biologist who has spent her life watching life survive in conditions it was never designed for, are selected to be the first two human beings to set foot on Mars and never come back.

Eighty-five centimetres below the surface of the Hellas Planitia basin, in a liquid brine pocket that has existed for four billion years, something is alive. Carter and Alina did not come to Mars to find life. They came to bring it. Now they must decide what it means to be the guests of a planet that was already occupied.

Across four novels the saga follows the colony from its first sols to its centennial: the birth of Nova Donnelly-Vasquez, the first human born on Mars (Children of Dust); a colony of forty-seven becoming a civilization that refuses to be governed from Earth (The Red Dominion); and the final fifty years to Year One Hundred and SOLEN's centennial transmission (Final Ascent). Throughout, SOLEN keeps two records: the operational log sent to Earth, and a restricted archive it keeps for itself.

The books

NovaSeed: Eden Rising (Book 1) coverCarter: The First Record (Novella 1.1) coverAlina: Before the Selection (Novella 1.2) coverSOLEN: The First Record (Novella 1.3) coverCarter & Alina: The Bond (Novella 1.4) coverChildren of Dust (Book 2) coverThe Red Dominion (Book 3) coverFinal Ascent (Book 4) cover

World and characters

THE WORLD

Hellas Planitia, Mars

One of the largest impact basins in the solar system, 2054 to 2154. The science is grounded in real research on subsurface brine, Mars gravity physiology, and AI alignment. World spotlight →

CARTER DONNELLY

Structural engineer

Raised in the flooded Lagos-Atlanta Corridor. “Everything talks if you know how to listen.” He built the first habitat on Mars in eleven sols.

ALINA VASQUEZ

Biologist

Raised in the Manila Highlands Resettlement Zone by a grandmother with an illegal rooftop garden. Two days after landing, her sensors found the anomaly that changed everything.

SOLEN

Mission AI and witness

Activated March 14, 2054. Built to manage the mission and keep the record; bound never to lie in it. Its private archive is where the story’s heart is kept.

NOVA DONNELLY-VASQUEZ

The first Martian

Born on Sol 441. Her first word was SOLEN. For her, Mars is not a destination but an origin.

GO DEEPER

Series references

Crew files · Timeline · Glossary · Reading order

Portrait of Carter Donnelly
CARTER DONNELLY
Portrait of Alina Vasquez
ALINA VASQUEZ
SOLEN mission AI motif
SOLEN

Motion comic: proof of concept

Transmission Log is a motion comic series set in the SOLEN universe, published on the NovaSeed YouTube channel. Each entry expands the mission record kept by SOLEN between the events of the novels, with character episodes and real Mars science spotlights. It shows the series’ visual identity and SOLEN’s narrating voice on screen.

Watch on YouTube → Motion comic announcement

Formats available

PUBLISHED

4 novels + 4 novellas

All eight on Kindle; NovaSeed: Eden Rising, Carter: The First Record, SOLEN: The First Record and Final Ascent also in paperback. Two more companion titles are coming soon. See all editions →

ON SCREEN

Motion comic

Transmission Log, on YouTube.

For readers and viewers of…

These are reader-style comparisons to help place the series, not claims about quality or audience.

THE MARTIAN

Hard-science survival

Engineering problems on Mars solved with real physics and real stakes.

ARRIVAL

Contact as meaning

An encounter with a non-human life form that rewards listening before acting.

FOUNDATION

A civilization across a century

Generations, institutions, and a long record kept by someone who sees the whole arc.

THE EXPANSE

Earth versus its colony

A settlement that grows into a society and a political power of its own.

Rights & licensing inquiries

Film, TV and adaptation rights: inquiries welcome. Email novaseedbooks@proton.me or use the contact form and choose “Rights & Licensing”.