After Scout Ellison and his group build a colony on Mars, the colonists arrive. The new society without money is taking shape and rolling along. Then they decide to declare independence from Earth, but the military-industrial complex won't allow that. So the leaders of the Developed Nations of Planet Earth (DeNoPE) decide to take action. They want the colony disbanded and the members arrested. They send a military force to Mars with the intention of retrieving Scout and his group. They don't realize that Mars is defended. The Martians also had freedom. They had freedom, and that's worth all the hardships in the universe.