#this is probably the only time i'll post an extensive opion

[manuscript-or]

The humans in The Penumbra Podcast (Junoverse) are not humans

an essay by me

Tl;dr: Juno and everyone else who lives on mars are not actually humans. They are evolved from Ancient Martians which are not actually aliens but are instead humans from Earth initially sent to colonize Mars.

Disclaimers: First of all, suspension of disbelief is 100% a thing, and suspending your disbelief in order to enjoy media is valid. I am directly choosing not to suspend my disbelief in this case because much more interesting conclusions could be drawn. Second of all, the writers of tpp are also valid, but they also chose a planet right next door to us (earth) that we know a lot about**, and then included ‘aliens.’ This is not a critique of their skills or a personal attack of them, however, there are millions of galaxies and even more planets to choose from that we know nothing about where including aliens would make more sense. 

For clarification: when I reference humans from this point onward, I am referring to homo sapiens from Earth. For the sake of this theory, I am posing that Juno and the other citizens of Mars are not strictly homo sapiens, so I will not refer to them as human. 

In Juno Steel and the Angel of Brahma (part 2), the Ancient Martians are described a creatures with multiple limbs similar to “large germs” further described on their wiki page as “. . .a race of sentient, telepathic beings who inhabited Mars long before humanity ever set foot on it. Their species went extinct, leaving behind their ruins and technology.” (x) Tpp says that there are ancient ruins that contain hieroglyphics which prove Martian existence which is how xenoanthropology professors such as Miasma know about them. Ancient Martians are also said to reproduce asexually and are therefore genetic copies of each other and are theorized to have committed mass suicide, leaving Mars vacant for humans to inhabit. Their size is not specified but considering that their structures and technology are able to be handled by relative ease by Juno and others, I would say they are roughly the size of a human, maybe slightly bigger or slightly smaller. We are not given a timeline of how long ago they existed and they seem to be based off octopi.  

This is the information given to us and supplied on the wikipedia pages of Juno Steel. 

However, we as humans right now have no record of such creatures on Mars and since we had relatively good surveillance of our next door planet, we would know if creatures like this existed.** This is me not suspending my belief. And since Juno and other characters seem to have a mixture of both modern new technology and old technology (ie they have blasters that shoot lasers/some other form of energy bolt but still use intercoms instead of phones and also tune into radios) it is safe to place the events of the podcast in the future of our own but not so far in the future that it is out of our reach.

Instead of being “aliens” or another race of creatures, I think that Ancient Martians are humans from Earth, the first colonizers sent to set up livable conditions on Mars before passing away. The tentacled description that is thought to be their form is simply the space suits that humans used while they didn’t have any dome or station to live freely in. Seeing pictures or files of these suits could have confused xenoanthropologists who drew the incorrect conclusion that “Ancient Martians” simply looked like that. Their technology is simply technology from Earth, and is not “alien technology” at all. 

These first humans came to Mars for whatever original reason to set up the bases of stations and other livable shelters. They used tentacled suits as a way to maximize movement and productivity in a zero gravity space. At some point, something happened that cut these humans off from Earth, either a station exploding, their rockets malfunctioning, the station on earth loosing contact with them, or a solar flare destroyed communications (this option is very, very likely considering that it would have effected humans on earth as well and possibly wiped out a lot of that life). This geographical split and new conditions cause these humans to evolve until they became significantly genetically different from homo sapiens to the point where they became a new species. This is the species that we see inhabiting Mars in tpp. 

At some point, history wasn’t recorded or the stories got convoluted so that the idea of earth and homo sapiens were lost to time. Since earth is not often referenced in the series very often, it has either been destroyed to the point where it is uninhabitable (which could be the reason humans left to colonize Mars in the first place), it does not exist anymore, or it is still perfectly fine, they just do not interact (unlikely). This would make the odd mix of new and old technology make more sense when you consider that the humans probably had to rebuild society from the ground up with limited resources. 

So while Juno and other citizens on Mars are described as humans, act similar to humans, and by all intents and purposes are supposed to be humans, they are not. They are a genetically distinct new species that, if they ever did encounter humans, would not be able to breed or produce offspring with them--they have undergone allopatric speciation (x). 

So what did Miasma inject into herself? That “ancient martian DNA” that made her grow tentacles and become super-powered? 

It was actual octopus DNA. The humans from Earth would have brought gene banks of both plants and animals with them if they were going to attempt to make Mars habitable. The DNA was found in the Death Mask of Grimpotheuthis, which might not be a mask at all but possible a storage container for DNA samples or something similar. Miasma’s science was possibly faulty and while the transformation was “successful,” it was simply because of the octopus DNA and not because it was “Ancient Martian.” 

What are the other artifacts that are highly sought after in the series? 

Probably just human technology that is being misused or misunderstood. The actual function has been lost to time and they are probably not mysterious pills or death masks or eggs or keys or thrones. Just how we misinterpret tools and artifacts of other cultures right now, none of these items are what they are described as. It is xenoanthropologists doing their job the best they can but making common mistakes. 

In my opinion, having Ancient Martians be humans is a much more interesting conclusion that simply ~~aliens uwu~~~~ I love aliens, don't get me wrong and I would love for more aliens to be included in tpp. But the writers could have chosen a million other planets and said that there were aliens without any way to disprove them, rather than choose a planet next door to us that we know about.**

Now, I love science fiction and am more than willing to suspend my disbelief in order to enjoy something. However, when a media misses such a great opportunity for world building, I am less motivated to suspend my disbelief. 

Conclusion: Juno and everyone else who lives on Mars aren’t actually human and are instead a genetically distinct species that evolved from humans.

**Okay, I know that we don't know a lot about Mars, not as much as I'm making it sound. Truthfully, we would not know about the existence of anything below the surface of Mars since the rovers that we had up there are not able to dig and are only able to study the surface of Mars. I argue that if creatures the size of humans existed, we would have seen evidence of them by now, especially if they are sentient. However, it is a very valid argument to say that if Ancient Martians lived underground for all of their lives, then we may not see evidence of them.